The Transaction

TT - 056 - Amy Holtzman
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Amy Holtzman: [00:00:00] We as marketers need to keep up with how fast things are moving.

Events are still working for us. It's not every single one under the sun. We're really, , strategic about what we participate in. Nobody wants to walk up to like 15, 20, a hundred different vendor booths and find out about every single one they want to engage in a really human way and they wanna have, natural interactions and conversations.

They want a reason to engage.

We got some of our best leads and demos in the last 40 minutes of the show 'cause no one else was even there.

In marketing you can never do all of the things ever, you have to make your bets and do those exceptionally well.

Craig Rosenberg: I

don't have a hat. Damn it.

disrespect.

Amy Holtzman: brought one for you just in case.

Sam Guertin: God.

Craig Rosenberg: Oh,

Matt Amundson: Oh

Craig Rosenberg: alright.

Amy Holtzman: My favorite. Oh. Oh

wait,

Craig Rosenberg: it off?

Amy Holtzman: are we, we are recording, huh?

Craig Rosenberg: do you mind, like, what the hell was that? You put the hat on for less than a

Amy Holtzman: Uh, well, okay,

Matt Amundson: It. I don't even think it was on, it

just hovered above.

Amy Holtzman: been

Craig Rosenberg: it was like a faux hat where.

Amy Holtzman: I was watching the transaction and you always have a [00:01:00] hat, so I thought I would bring a hat and today's like the only day you're not wearing a hat and I thought you would like my hat. It's my party hat.

Matt Amundson: Oh, uh,

Craig Rosenberg: That's the greatest hat of all

Amy Holtzman: Right.

Craig Rosenberg: kidding?

Amy Holtzman: I know,

Craig Rosenberg: do I, I don't even need a hat. You delivered

Amy Holtzman: know.

Craig Rosenberg: as much hat as this show can even handle.

Amy Holtzman: I'm not really a hat person though, so, you know.

Craig Rosenberg: you can take it off now, but tell me more about, tell me, tell us more about the hat

Amy Holtzman: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: party hat. I love that. Do you wear it out?

Amy Holtzman: Uh, actually I'm going to, but I just got that. Actually, yeah. Yeah. That's where, that's where I'll be wearing it. Um, uh, I just got the hat 'cause I thought it was hilarious, but it, uh, was a part of the Target Kate Spade collection limited edition. And I was like,

Craig Rosenberg: Oh, well there

Amy Holtzman: I have to have this. I'm not really a hat person, but I have to have it.

It's hilarious. And then I saw that you always wear a hat on the transaction. I was like, well what a, the perfect place to like. [00:02:00] Roll it out, debut it, and then you didn't wear a hat.

Craig Rosenberg: I know that's,

Amy Holtzman: A bummer.

Craig Rosenberg: very disappointing. Yeah. I'm note, note itself. Can we talk about something that you weren't expecting to talk about,

Amy Holtzman: Oh God.

Craig Rosenberg: to do,

Amy Holtzman: Uh,

Craig Rosenberg: to do this

Amy Holtzman: I.

Craig Rosenberg: my next event in new. A dark, dark place. So, um, I have to sell my team on this. So we're gonna record this on the transaction, you guys,

Matt Amundson: Okay.

Craig Rosenberg: then we're gonna do it.​

So, as anybody knows, first, this is not the intro, but just a pre intro to the intro,

Matt Amundson: Nice.

Craig Rosenberg: [00:03:00] Amy is the most fun person I hang out with. no. offense, Matt and Sam. Uh,

Matt Amundson: I agree. I'm

Craig Rosenberg: yeah.

Matt Amundson: to hang out with as Amy,

Craig Rosenberg: I literally have to schedule my New York trips, around Amy's because if she's not going, I'm out. Right.

Matt Amundson: what's, and so, going to New York if she's not yeah. be there?

Amy Holtzman: I am on it.

Craig Rosenberg: Right? but one time you were telling me where you guys did a like bar hop through all the cheesy restaurants

Amy Holtzman: my gosh.

Craig Rosenberg: Square. Can you

Amy Holtzman: Remember that?

Craig Rosenberg: that?

'cause I really, I think that would be amazing for my next scale event. For fun.

Amy Holtzman: Uh, I've got some good ones for your next scale event, but, um, I don't know, if anybody else wants to do this except for me. Uh, when you live in New York, uh, one of the great things about New York is the food, um, and the fact that there are not chain restaurants. But I grew up in the middle of nowhere, Florida, [00:04:00] where every Florida man is from, and all we had is chain restaurants.

And I worked at Ruby Tuesdays and Bennigans all through college. I'm a very big fan of the chain restaurant. Love some unlimited breadsticks at Olive Garden. And I like, sometimes you just miss your roots, right? Uh, and I have, I actually have a lot of friends like this that moved to New York a long time ago, but like.

Sometimes miss a good chain restaurant. So one day we did a chain restaurant pub crawl. and all of the chain restaurants shockingly are in Times Square. because tourists want to come to New York for some reason and go to the same restaurants they could go to back home. Uh, and so we had a great day slash night long night.

Um.

Matt Amundson: Slash next morning.

Amy Holtzman: Slash next morning at lots of chain restaurants. I think we got Red Lobster. Ruby Tuesday, olive Garden, Applebee's. I think we ended the night at Dave and [00:05:00] Buster's. It was wonderful.

Craig Rosenberg: Okay, hold on.

Amy Holtzman: You don't wanna do that for

Craig Rosenberg: Why not? I think that'd be amazing. Okay. Wait, hold on. So what do people get at Red Lobster?

Amy Holtzman: uh oh. Oh. I know. what you get. This is what we ordered, uh, the, um, cheddar Bay biscuits and they have mini bottles of champagne, so you could just put a straw in champagne. What? Stop. It's something wrong with you.

Craig Rosenberg: There's no red lobsters here. Is there?

Matt Amundson: I don't know. There's gotta be one somewhere in the bay.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah.

Amy Holtzman: a, what A privileged, like, you know, childhood adulthood that you've. Part and Red Lobster and had better food.

Craig Rosenberg: I, I, yeah. I need to that. I've never been to a Red Lobster.

Amy Holtzman: Well, I.

Craig Rosenberg: never been Okay.

Matt Amundson: But the cheese, the cheesy bay biscuits are pretty incredible.

Amy Holtzman: they [00:06:00] sell the mix and stuff at Costco. I.

buy it. Um, if you ever come and stay with me in the Poconos, that's what I will serve you. yeah, it's pretty great. Yeah. Uh, did you, do you know like how Red Lobsters went bankrupt now? I think they're out of bankruptcy, but because they had like a unlimited Shrimp

special and people ate way too much of it, bankrupted now I think they're outta bankruptcy, I think. Yeah,

Craig Rosenberg: man, I, that,

Amy Holtzman: Pretty great.

Craig Rosenberg: See, but Matt, hold on before we move on, don't you think I should do a, uh, chain restaurant, uh, pub crawl in like Times Square and just, I gotta include Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory. They got, Yeah, you

Amy Holtzman: they do have that.

Craig Rosenberg: Bubba Gum. I don't know What, a Ruby Tuesday is,

Amy Holtzman: What, that's where I worked for the longest time. Uh, a really long time, in high school and in college, uh, a Ruby Tuesday. Like, I don't know, it's kind of. Yeah, it's similar to the others, but they have like a salad bar that you can get, you know, with your meal. And [00:07:00] most of the others don't have a salad bar there.

There's no Ruby Tuesdays in Times Square anymore. I have a better event for the next time you come to New York. Uh, one of my favorite things to do in New York that no one ever does, uh, 'cause they're, you know, afraid to go past, you know? Midtown, is the Apollo Theater on Wednesday nights, has amateur night, and it is the best thing you've ever seen.

That's what we should do next.

Craig Rosenberg: Done.

Amy Holtzman: Yeah, and there's a great Marcus Hamilton restaurant nearby. you can do that before amateur night at the Apollo. Actually, I think that they have something, that we should adopt at B2B marketing conferences, which is you get a boo and yay sign when you, um, when you walk in and you can Boo. people off the stage if they're not good performers.

I think we should have conferences.

Craig Rosenberg: I, let's discuss this for a moment then we should probably so in high school. Another Rosenberg high school. Fun fact. Okay. We [00:08:00] had a, uh, classmate named John Bailey, loved to do, uh, the Bobby Brown, uh, dances on stage. And remember, like Bobby Brown, he'd come out through the back.

He'd have the, the little headset on, and

Matt Amundson: Sure.

Craig Rosenberg: every little step I take, I believe, was that Bobby Brown. Okay.

Matt Amundson: You'll be there. Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah.

Amy Holtzman: That was great.

Craig Rosenberg: of Matt. I mean no, but, and by, no, No, Hold on by cut that, I mean, give me a literally

Amy Holtzman: Yes.

Craig Rosenberg: video cut

Amy Holtzman: Yes. Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: So he was on Showtime at the poll and the only way you could watch it back then because we just, for kids at home, there was none of this uh, stuff you have now.

You had to. until the time it was on, you could set your VCR, but I could

Amy Holtzman: It was late.

Craig Rosenberg: late. It was 1230 on Saturday night. Harvey, was [00:09:00] he the coast or

Amy Holtzman: How have you never been to? It's fantastic.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. And so Bailey Co. So you gotta wait. And then basically these people go on stage and they you're hoping to survive, what, like 30 seconds before they, and you could be doing great and you make a mistake and they're gonna get you.

Amy Holtzman: So today they don't boo nearly as much, sadly.

Matt Amundson: But Wow.

Craig Rosenberg: Uh, so there's

Amy Holtzman: The, the, the issue is it's, you know, it's not on TV anymore and uh, it's really sad to boo. when like the person's family is sitting next to you.

Craig Rosenberg: Ooh. Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Holtzman: There's definitely been some uncomfortable moments then, but I do think there should be a little more booing,

Craig Rosenberg: yeah. I mean, this, he, he survived it. We were nervous. 'cause you know, like we, you know, you didn't have many choices either. So we used to watch it. I mean, you would get up there. I mean, people sometimes got booed. Five seconds in and thrown off stage. made it for a while.

It was great. He, uh, Yeah,

so that was his claim to [00:10:00] fame and that was the San Mateo High School, uh, tie to the showtime at the Apollo.

Amy Holtzman: so

Craig Rosenberg: piece of wood

Amy Holtzman: all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, at, at, um, intermission. You can go on stage and dance and you can touch the, the tree trunk or whatever it is. So next time you're in town on a Wednesday night, that's where we'll go.

Craig Rosenberg: There's some people that I'd like to invite to go.

on stage like Tom Murtaugh. I would love that. Six, six son of a gun to go on stage and dance. I'm gonna

Amy Holtzman: Let's do it. Let's get everybody to go.

Craig Rosenberg: I love it.

Introducing Amy Holtzman, the Chief Marketing Officer of CHEQ and Go To Market Advisor
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Craig Rosenberg: Alright, so, uh, today's guest is obviously, as you guys could tell from the, uh, the intro to the intro, like one of, um, Matt and I's favorite human beings of all time.

Um, literally every, that. Could be done to hang out with Amy. Gets done. Like we figure it out. Like I said, if I'm doing my New York events, I make Sure. that she's [00:11:00] in town, but also like, uh, in a incredible marketer, incredible go-to-market person. Um, incredibly opinionated, highly energetic. it's like the perfect guest for the transaction.

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Amy Holtzman: Well, thanks.

Craig Rosenberg: there's, yeah, there's, so, there's, there's so many things we could talk about. Even if you talked about something incredibly boring, you would deliver it in a way that was so awesome that it would be the greatest show of all time.

Amy Holtzman: Oh, that's.

Craig Rosenberg: we just wanna Welcome. Yeah. We just wanna welcome to the show, today's guest, Amy Holtzman. Amy, welcome

to

Amy Holtzman: much for having me. So excited to be here. Obviously surrounded by some of my favorite folks too, so super fun.

Matt Amundson: And Sam.

Amy Holtzman: Yes.

Craig Rosenberg: way. Oh yeah. That guy. Oh, oh yeah, that guy. Yeah. So,

Sam Guertin: this, asshole.

Craig Rosenberg: yeah, it's, it's tough. I'm so hard on Sam. It, you know, I don't [00:12:00] know what happens, but, um, the last, what was that podcast you were on? That was awesome.

Amy Holtzman: Oh, uh, Jess Lynn. Oh, Jess Lynn's, uh, Jessica Lynn. She, uh, is a partner, founder, uh, at Workbench, A very early stage, uh, BC here in New York. Uh, very New York Enterprise Tech focused. Uh, we've been friends for a really long time. She's great. She's awesome.

Craig Rosenberg: They do. great events.

Amy Holtzman: They do. yeah. She's

Craig Rosenberg: do. So

Amy Holtzman: a phenomenal community builder and like networker.

Craig Rosenberg: She That was fun. It was, and, and the, the angle was good. You're sort of sitting in that chair so we could see, physical humor comes into play with both your,

Amy Holtzman: I didn't know this was a thing until she invited me to do her podcast, but in New York, there are these podcasting studios where they're like all in one, and you can pick your set. They have like, you go into the place and there's like six or seven different rooms. You pick your set and everything is there.

I had no idea that.

Craig Rosenberg: we're gonna do A traveling [00:13:00] transaction show. I got two notes. One, Sam, why didn't you know about this? Don't pretend, don't nod your head. You didn't say anything about that. then

Sam Guertin: there's podcast studios all over the place.

Matt Amundson: no,

Craig Rosenberg: uh,

Matt Amundson: have told us.

Craig Rosenberg: you know what? gonna do a podcast pub crawl through all seven of their scenarios. It'll be amazing.

And

Amy Holtzman: Great.

Craig Rosenberg: we should do a traveling transaction podcast that gets topped off. With, um, the, uh, night of Apollo,

Amy Holtzman: Yes.

Craig Rosenberg: Wednesday night. Boom. All right.

Amy Holtzman: Into it.

Craig Rosenberg: solved world hunger too. Okay, before we go, even though we've told a bunch of stories and interesting things that will likely make them their way onto LinkedIn and Twitter and, uh, or X and, um,

Matt Amundson: Spotify.

Craig Rosenberg: and Instagram, et

Amy Holtzman: That

Craig Rosenberg: is, um,

Lessons to Learn from the Worst Sales Experience Ever
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Craig Rosenberg: we have got to hear from you an amazing go-to-market story. Anything

Amy Holtzman: I have a choose your own adventure.

Craig Rosenberg: What?

Amy Holtzman: I.

Craig Rosenberg: Oh

Matt's Matt still has those on his [00:14:00] bookcase at home. He reads them.

Amy Holtzman: Okay. I have a choose your own adventure. Uh, 'cause it, you know, I read it could be heartwarming, funny, uh, just a story. Uh, I have a heartwarming one, uh, a funny one or the worst sales process I've ever been through.

Craig Rosenberg: Matt, your vote Sam, everyone write down their vote. You have to write it down though, so I can trust you. Okay, let's go first with Sam. Go.

Sam Guertin: Worst sales experience.

Craig Rosenberg: Okay, Matt.

Matt Amundson: Funny.

Amy Holtzman: Oh.

Craig Rosenberg: Whoa. I wrote, well, you can't see it. Worst sales process. Um,

Matt Amundson: All right.

Craig Rosenberg: so. No, but let's do what if we did? Well, let's see how long the worst sales process one is and then let's have some fun here. Okay, go. Worst sales process.

Amy Holtzman: Okay.

Craig Rosenberg: is great.

Amy Holtzman: Yeah, so this is a great lesson in what not to do. it's not a B2B sales process, but it is a large consumer sales process, which often mimics B2B. [00:15:00] uh, end of last year, early this year, Hertz Rental car was selling their fleet that they, uh, no longer wanted to rent out, and they were selling like.

Almost brand new cars, for pretty cheap that like, I don't know, I guess just weren't popular a lot were EVs that like they didn't wanna keep up with anymore, whatever. I knew that we wanted a new car at some point this year and the deals were kind of insane. So, uh, so I was like, you know what, why not try to buy a car through Hertz?

And it was, the promise was really. Interesting, right? Like you, I think for less than 200 bucks, you got to pick up your car at a Hertz rental car location. You got to keep it for 72 hours. Um, for a test drive, if you liked it, you could buy it at the end of your test drive. And if you didn't like it, you know you were out 200 bucks.

You just returned it to the rental car place. And I was like, oh, what a great car buying experience. You can drive it for three days and just return it if you don't want it. Not a whole lot to lose. Um. [00:16:00] So in January I pick up this car. Uh, I thought it was great. Um, and. I'd say even before I picked it up, like some stuff was a little strange, right?

Like I start getting someone obviously set up their CRM nurture for, um, for the car buying process, but like none of it was set up correctly. It was like I would get a, Hey, thanks so much for reserving your rent to buy and the. From name in the, you know, like the from name would not match, like who it was signed from.

There would be like images missing, whatever. And I'm like, all right, so like, there's CRMs a mess, but whatever. Fine. Um, and it would have like wrong information, whatever. Uh. I also showed up the day to pick up my car and there was like no record of it. Apparently they said the rental car system didn't talk to the sales system, so they needed to like find the car.

And I was like, alright, how long is this gonna be? They're like, could you come back in two hours? And I [00:17:00] was like, thank goodness. I like didn't have anything else I needed to do that day. But I was like, sure. Um, they had to find the car at a different location. They find it. They bring it to me. Um, and I think I said to them at the time, I was checking it out, I said, okay, so the deal is like, if I like this, what I just like call the number and I say, I'd like to buy this.

And they're like, Yeah. whatever you do, if you like the car, don't return the car because then it just goes back into rental inventory. Uh, and then we might not be able to get it for you again. But like, just call them, tell 'em that you want the car. It doesn't go back into rental inventory. And I was like, okay, great.

probably two days go by. I really like the car. It's a great deal. It's way under, uh, asking like the market value. Um, and I start trying to contact them. Can't contact them. I try to email 'em. Everything bounces. I try like both the guys from name that it's sent from the person in the signature.

None of that works. None of the phone numbers really work. I just like emailed every like rent to buy number, whatever. [00:18:00] Uh, I don't think anybody got back to me for many days, but I was also like, damn, I can't drop this car off because I also want to buy it and I don't want it to go back into rental inventory.

Right. All of my friends were convinced I was gonna get arrested for grand theft

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Amy Holtzman: because, you know, uh, because I have this card that I ended up. Having checked out for an insanely long amount of time, that they like completely lost track of, and I couldn't get in touch with folks. So what ended up happening is, I like, was super panicked, but like, probably at least 10 days, uh, no, probably two or three days after the rental was due, go by.

And then I just like start calling, um, places and I, it was rented from the New York. Whatever Midtown location, but I was gonna have to go to the Smithtown, long Island, um, sales office to eventually like complete the transaction. So I start calling them, they never answer their phone. Then I figure out that, like I do get them to answer the phone occasionally.

It's always after two or 3:00 [00:19:00] PM which I think it's 'cause they were hiring high school students to like. Answer the phones after school. And I finally got in touch with somebody and I was like, Hey, I really wanna buy this car. I don't think that I should have it this long, whatever. Um, and the kid tells me, uh oh.

Um, I was like, I can't get anybody to call me back. Does this sales rep that, like the emails are coming from, he even work there anymore? And he is like, oh yeah, he does work here. He is the only person in all of New York state that can sell you a rent to buy car. And Hertz put all these cars online. Super cheap at the beginning of the year, and now we have 300 other people in New York that want to buy cars that are in the exact same situation as you.

And there's one person that can sell it to them.

Craig Rosenberg: No way.

Amy Holtzman: they were like, so you just have to stay on this list until that guy has a chance to get back to you. And I was like, okay, but I don't have a rental agreement. This car's like [00:20:00] basically stolen and I feel really uncomfortable. And are you sure that person actually works there?

And uh, long story short, it was, I checked it out the very beginning of January. I. I couldn't purchase it until the middle of March. Um, and uh, in the meantime they had completely lost track of my car and I'm sure at least 250 of the other cars that they also checked out in this situation. Um, and at one point I got the funniest voicemail ever, which was like maybe a week or two before March, someone called and was like, Hey.

Uh, we're calling. We wanted to know, did you ever pick up the Rent to buy car in January? And if you did, do you like it? Do you want to buy it? Do you like, I I can send it to you. It's pretty incredible. It's like,

Redacted: Hello, Amy. This is

[Redacted]

from Hertz Rent to Buy. I wanted to know if you picked up the car from Manhattan. It was supposed to be picked up a while ago. I [00:21:00] just wanted to know if you picked it up, what's going on with the buying process? Did you buy it? Do you wanna buy it? Did you return it? Please gimme a call when you can.

Amy Holtzman: Hey, did you pick that up? If so, do you like it? Do you wanna buy it? If not, did you return it anywhere?

And I was like, I, they completely lost track of these cars. Um, so, you know, I don't know. Pro tip, uh, if you want to sell things. Make sure you have enough salespeople, like if demand goes through the roof, make sure you have enough salespeople that can actually execute on it. Also, clean up your fucking CRM.

Don't send all this automated shit. I also, I was like, I've responded to all your emails. I've tried to contact you, and they were like, we don't know where that goes. They clearly set up years ago and nobody has looked at it.

Craig Rosenberg: fucking

Amy Holtzman: To be fair, I got a great deal on the car and I.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. At the end of the day.

Amy Holtzman: I don't know that many people would've tolerated it.

And 50 50 I was getting arrested.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, [00:22:00] that was a great story, Sam. You and I killed it on that choice there. Hey, really quick, but I do have an add-on

Amy Holtzman: Yeah. Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: So I just, after summit. Because all of us have done events maybe, maybe not as much. Sammy's a young man, but you gotta get out of town the minute that thing's done.

'cause you are not right as a human being. Right. Because you, the adrenaline drop like I could, by the way, I, I booked my flight for 9:00 PM the night of, the end of the go-to-market scale, go to market summit. So we went go down to Palm Springs, I rent a truck 'cause the boys we were going to ATVing and all this shit. So we, they get in the truck, it's like. 1130 at night. That's not a, a big factor here, but like, um, I had to go back in and grab something and come back out and they're like, dad, the car smells and, um. I'm like, ah, it'll be fine. And, and pono. The, my older ones goes, dad, it's [00:23:00] weed. Now here's the thing. We got in on Tuesday.

Coachella ended

the day before.

Amy Holtzman: Makes sense.

Craig Rosenberg: I'm like, oh, don't worry about it guys. Like, it'll air out, you know? And Wendy gets in, my wife, she's like, who? And like, so we're like, okay. So we start driving, the windows are down. It's fine with the windows down the next day we get in the car, it still smells, and we're driving out to the Mojave or whatever to go atv and I'm driving along and my little guy 10 years old goes, Hey dad, what's this?

He lifts, there was a Ziploc, like old school style of just pot a bag. He pulls the thing up and shows me in the rear. I'm, oh, like, I'm like, I mean like, whoa.

Amy Holtzman: That somebody.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. My God, man. It, it was in the, the pouch. I mean, it was amazing. So I gave it to

Amy Holtzman: Where was it? Did they, nobody even looked in the car and cleaned it up.

Craig Rosenberg: no they didn't. [00:24:00] It was in that, the pouches out in the back of the seats, and so, yeah, it, yeah.

Anyway, I tipped the valet with that and he's like, I said, Hey man, you better go throw this away. He is like, yeah, throw it away. Yeah. So anyway, um. There you go. Uh, that was a great story. Um, not, not mine, yours.

Amy Holtzman: Yours?

Craig Rosenberg: Let's do some go to market stuff with the time that we have left.

Amy Holtzman: Let's do it.

Craig Rosenberg: so you are ready for this because you're Amy Holtzman. We have changed. Some of the ways that we're, Uh running the show. The way we'd like to try this with you is like, you know, could you teach, teach us, teach the audience and us like one to three things.

Just the things that you are doing today that are working. And tell us about it, like, and how you're doing it and like what you were doing before, how you're doing it now, uh, you know what the results look like.

Amy Holtzman: Um, okay, so today that's working. so a few [00:25:00] things, right? I think stuff is moving really fast, right? And uh, I do think, uh, we as marketers. And just leaders at companies need to keep up with how fast things are moving. It is moving incredibly fast. It is a lot to keep up with. There are a lot of implications for our businesses and on marketing.

Stuff is changing, um, completely. I think in the next. I was gonna say three to five years, but probably faster than that. Right. Um, that said, I would say one thing that was surprising to me about Q1 of this year when everything kind of seemed to completely change is as much as things are changing, and I strongly believe that marketers are not keeping up with it as well as they should, but as much as those things are changing, like you can't abandon all of the old.

Immediately either.

Search is Still Driving A Surprising Amount of Enterprise Deals
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Amy Holtzman: And so one thing incredibly surprising to me about Q1 of this year is we had, even with all of the [00:26:00] changes in, uh, AI driven search and everybody moving to LLMs for how they find information, we had the best quarter ever of enterprise deals sourced and closed in quarter from traditional paid search and.

It is for a few different reasons. I think one, we do focus a lot on long tail, so like specific, pretty specific to our business. We're not gonna win with like, you know, uh, the overarching, um, search terms by any means, nor do we want to, right. We wanna be really specific about the demand we're creating through that.

so I think that was a key, key reason. I think the other thing is like people. Want to move on to shiny new objects or here searches changed forever. Uh, I better not invest there. And I think there is a bit less competition in some of those areas because people are losing a focus, right?

I don't think search is gonna, uh, exist in the same way that it has, [00:27:00] um, you know, since Google, uh, launched. But I do think you can't be so fast to move away from some of those things either, right? Like it. It's insane when we look at our Q1 performance, uh, how many deals, enterprise deals were sourced and closed in quarter?

Craig Rosenberg: Okay. That is interesting and surprising.

Amy Holtzman: I, I know I was shocked.

Craig Rosenberg: The enterprise deal. Yeah. You know, it's kind of funny how you gotta, you gotta keep up, but then could plays that worked in the past that get not abandoned, but are well frankly for many people aren't working. So they're gonna move away from, could that be your niche? You know, in many ways you just, you have to. Watch, like you have to watch your flanks. You have to watch in front. You have to think two weeks ahead, know, like the one, the other thing that I feel like is [00:28:00] part of this is like everyone, marketers, salespeople, we would bury in right on. Even if we, let's say you were, guys changed everything and you created a new playbook that could get disrupted a week later.

And so you just gotta, you know, as marketers, you guys gotta stay on your game, right?

Amy Holtzman: Yeah. I think everything is changing, um, a lot, but you do have to stay on top of it, right? Like, it doesn't necessarily mean I. Those new things are right for your business. It doesn't necessarily mean like the old thing is all the way done yet and doesn't work at all. Also, as people are abandoning it, like, does it work better for you?

'cause there's less competition there. It, I mean, it was shocking to me.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, that is uh, that is really cool. Matt. Does that shock you?

Matt Amundson: Honestly, no. Uh, just because we saw the same thing in our in in Q1 of this year, as well as the biggest deals that we brought in through marketing did come from traditional search.

Amy Holtzman: [00:29:00] Wow.

Matt Amundson: So look like we are experimenting with new stuff and there's great new things that are happening. Um, I did a whole session on some of the new stuff that we're doing at PL cloud at at GTM Summit. Uh, but some of the old stuff works really well and the one thing that. Like, I don't wanna, I don't wanna be the like, jaded Silicon Valley person, but I do think that there is some element of, some folks don't want to do the work, and so they're like, I'm gonna go chase the new shiny because this is really hard work.

And maybe they've done it four or five times in the past that there are other businesses and they're just like, oh man, I really know what I'm in for. If I want to build a great strategy or I want to great. Create a, a great repeatable motion. Uh, uh, through search ads or through LinkedIn ads. And so they're kind of like, well, there's this cool new technology that does all this stuff for you.

And so the, the, they're, they want to go experiment with that. And I'm not trying to tell anybody not to experiment with that, but [00:30:00] I do think that like we're, we're sort of in this, in this zone where you have to do the fundamentals really well. And then you have to find which experiments are the things that take that to the next level, as opposed to saying, Hey, let's draw out the old playbook entirely. And just focus on the new stuff because think, I think that's where you get stuck. Right. And look, I understand for operators there's a lot of pressure from your CEOs. There's a lot of pressure from your board to, to, to work with AI and, and you should. Uh, but you can't lose focus on the things that you know, that, that we know are, are, are sort of the bread and butter of either demand gen or product marketing or, or customer marketing.

Amy Holtzman: A hundred percent.

Craig Rosenberg: Okay, let me show you guys this. Sam, how do I do this?

Sam Guertin: a button at the bottom of the screen. It's got an arrow that points up.

Breaking Down the New G2 Research on B2B Buying Behavior & How AI is Impacting Vendor Shortlists
---

Craig Rosenberg: Okay, cool. Hold on, let's try this. How's that?

Matt Amundson: wow.

Sam Guertin: Nah.

Craig Rosenberg: so this Sydney presented at Summit I thought this was really interesting as you guys were [00:31:00] talking about this.

So this is for, uh, I guess, Sam, if you would like to tell the audience what's being presented.

Sam Guertin: it's a chart from G2. It says, sources that influence vendor shortlisting in 2025.

Craig Rosenberg: So. This isn't exactly what you guys were talking about, but this is, uh, interesting stuff. So she put, uh, Maria had her panel, I think, um, and then, you know, asked them all to bring stuff in. Um, then, um, Sydney's like, oh, I gotta, I have this great charm.

We're like, oh my God, let's put that up there. So you could see that. Um, one of the interesting things is so source, this is sources that influence vendor shortlisting. Number one at 17% is Gen AI chatbots, which was probably zero. Four months ago,

Matt Amundson: Sure.

Craig Rosenberg: Six. months ago. Okay.

Matt Amundson: Six, Six, I'd say. Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: Six. Okay. That's rapid change. reviews websites, so you know, obviously that's her game, but that's [00:32:00] interesting.

You know, they're 15%, so number two. And then the vendor website is third at 13. market research firms like where I used to work, 11%. Interesting peers and colleagues down here at nine, although you could probably group that with. Well, I don't know about that. With software, um, software vendor websites, that's low compared to what everyone tells you. And then also independent forums. Everyone always says that that's the lowest. Right. Except for none of the above. All right. I just had to show you guys, as you guys were talking about this, your reaction to this.

Amy Holtzman: Well, I wanna GenAI chatbots, is that like AI search, it's like using, um, Chat GPT or perplexity like, or is that on someone's site? What, how

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, that would be like, yeah, that would be the,

latter. Yeah. So that would be like going to OpenAI ChatGPT and that to as your search, as your, you [00:33:00] know, figuring out the vendors.

Amy Holtzman: Hmm.

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Amy Holtzman: well I guess it's shortlisting too. It's not necessarily buying, um, uh, I think it. Seems high to be in the number one position right now. But I will say that like we increasingly have, um, uh, prospects that tell us when we get on the first call, we ask, Hey, how did you hear about us?

Um, and we increasingly have folks say, oh, I, I went to ChatGPT, or whatever, and typed in my problem and it was you and three others. So I just contacted all of you.

Matt Amundson: Mm-hmm.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, that's that. when, um, Scott Albro did some research on like, you know, what do you use the market research firms and the vendor review. it's all vendor list. Everyone is like, they just need a vendor list and that's like the, their candy. Um, anyway, yeah.

Matt Amundson: uh, separately I was having this conversation with Sydney as, [00:34:00] uh, as a follow up to the GTM summit. And, you know, one of the things that I was mentioning to her is so much of what powers, like if you go into a GPT and you go, Hey, uh, I'm thinking about buying either Salesforce or HubSpot. Uh, can you gimme the pros and cons of each? Here's a little bit about my business. A lot of the information that gets powered, uh, comes directly from G2. it's a, it's like they live in a sort of an interesting space where like these, you know, the peer review websites, G2 being the largest, uh, ends up powering a lot of that data.

So it's interesting that they're the first two. Because it's like people who are like, well, I'm gonna use a GPT to summarize this for me. And then the other people who are like, ah, I'll go directly to the source and do my own research. But I think in, in both cases, you're getting very, very similar data.

Craig Rosenberg: Awesome. All right, so that was a, I felt like that was a good follow up to Amy's thing. Amy, I'm just gonna tell you this. That was perfect. Perfect. Number one. Thank you.

Amy Holtzman: Go ahead.

Matt Amundson: Yeah. I.

Craig Rosenberg: because what we want is we want to change the format and then have someone set the [00:35:00] standards so that that was perfect. It

Amy Holtzman: Great.

Craig Rosenberg: gave examples, et cetera.

Do you have any others that are working for you?

Matt Amundson: What else?

Amy Holtzman: What else? Uh, I mean, I guess, uh,

How to Get More ROI from your Event Strategy & Field Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
---

Amy Holtzman: so a few things, right? Um. I, I talk a lot about this, uh, in general 'cause I'm passionate about events, but, um, uh, events are still working for us. Um, conferences are still working for us. It's not every single one under the sun. We're really, uh, strategic about what we participate in, um, and what we participate in.

We try to do incredibly well and get every, everything out of it that we possibly can. Uh, those are still working really well for us. And the other thing I would say is that. Uh, I am such a big believer that in marketing you can never do all of the things ever, and you have to like make your bets and do those exceptionally well.

And I think like really strong quality work and great execution never goes outta style no matter like what the trend is and what's [00:36:00] working. Um, so those are kind of the two other things. Um.

Craig Rosenberg: That's perfect. Okay. Let's do events though, because I think execution on events, I think everyone hears events is work, are working, but then they get a booth and they come back and they go, we didn't get ROI. So tell us like how to execute on events or what kind of events or any, any

Amy Holtzman: Yeah. I mean. Uh, I can tell you that I've seen those people at events that tell me that they get no ROI from x, Y, Z booth. And, uh, they've put in no, uh, they've, they've thought about what they want their backdrop to say generally, um, and maybe a little bit about swag and pretty much nothing else.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah,

Amy Holtzman: And they think, I mean, they do think, like, you know, if you show up.

They will come like it, it's enough to be there. They're gonna come. And they don't think about like what makes somebody really want to engage. Nobody wants to walk up to like 15, 20, a hundred different vendor booths and [00:37:00] find out about every single one they want. Um, they want to engage in a really human way and they wanna have, um, just natural like interactions and conversations.

They want a reason to engage. It's awkward as an attendee that might even be interested in your company to walk up to. A booth that you might even be interested in and like start the conversation. It's just a, it's an awkward thing, right? And so you wanna give them like a reason to engage. The other thing is like, I don't think that companies think enough about who they're sending, um, to staff that booth.

I don't think that they think about how much the pre-event matters. They think a little bit about the post event. I don't, um, I don't think they think about enough like. How do you really capture information on site to make it really, um, easy and meaningful when your folks do follow up post-event? I see so many companies that like don't customize the questions and the scanner apps and stuff, and that's your ticket to really personalize follow up post-event.

[00:38:00] Um, but I think there's. Unfortunately, I think there's a lot that, that, um, folks get wrong. They make these big investments and, uh, in the sponsorship fee and they think that's enough. And to be fair, it's not like that's just getting in there and you need to budget a lot more and you need to spend a lot more time, um, thinking about the entire strategy from pre-event to post and, and.

Exactly how you're going to engage folks on site. My other pro tip, I see this so many times, we just did two big conferences in the last, um, two months. Also, if you buy a sponsorship stay until the end at Adobe Summit, the last 40 minutes every other vendor had packed up. We got some of our best leads and demos in the last 40 minutes of the show 'cause no one else was even there.

And

Craig Rosenberg: Right.

Amy Holtzman: same exact thing. Our team was at an event last week in DC. They sent me a picture, I think the conference ended maybe at 3:00 PM They sent me a picture at one 30. I always tell 'em like, you [00:39:00] have to stay until the end. No one books, flights until like at least two hours post event, whatever. Um, and I'm like, we win by staying until the end, just sometimes like being there till the end matters.

Um, but they sent me pictures like one 30 in the afternoon. Everyone around them was packed up, boxes everywhere. Some attendees don't make it to the expo hall until the last 10, 30 minutes, they're like, oh shoot, that's closing now I wanna go and run through. And I think wanting, like one really big thing is if you spend all that money to be there, be there for the entire thing.

Matt Amundson: Yeah. Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: That is a, that's a great program.

Matt Amundson: all the time. I see this all the time. There's a couple things, like now that I'm back to being an operator, there's a couple things where I see people make some pretty big mistakes when it comes to events and you've, you've illuminated quite a few of them to me or to the audience. The,

Sponsoring Niche Events can Pack a Massive Punch for Smaller B2B Brands
---

Matt Amundson: the one thing that I'll say, like what works really, really well, what I've seen so far this year is like niche events. especially if you're a smaller company who, you know, you don't have the budget to be at Dreamforce, [00:40:00] maybe you're not ready to be, you know, if you're in the MarTech space, you're not ready to be at Adobe Summit, you can't really make a big splash. These niche events tend to do really well, typically speaking because you get a much more senior audience. The larger the event that you're gonna go to, the more practitioners are gonna be there. These are not necessarily the types of people that can write checks. You could influence them.

You can do a great job. I'm not saying that they're not worth going to, but I think if you're like a series a company or even a seed company and you're just kinda like, Hey, I want to like be in a place where I can have conversations, it's really hard to make a big splash when you don't have a big budget.

So niche events like tend to work really well. Like we were at an event in uh, uh, Nashville. Called Vive, which was like a, a technology focused healthcare event, and I think maybe there's, you know, a couple thousand people at this show, not a lot, but the folks that were there were like the CTOs and the CEOs of these startups, right?

They were the right people for us. We booked a, a good amount of meeting. It's not a ton, you [00:41:00] know, we're still sort of getting our sea legs under us, but we turn so many of those meetings into opportunities, into close one deals. Then the second thing that I will say, and this is An event tip that I got from, no, mentioned her name, I think two or three times now on this, on this pod.

But, uh, Maria Pergolino, who basically says, look at, at an event. It's your job to be one of the two to three things that people remember about the show.

Amy Holtzman: A hundred percent.

Matt Amundson: gonna compete with Metallica or, Beyonce or whoever's performing, you're probably not gonna compete with like the keynote, but you gotta be that third thing.

So you gotta do something that really stands out. And I think most people don't really think about that. I. Right. It's to your point, it's like what does the messaging on the booth say and like, what are the swag items that we're giving out? So can you throw a big event? Can you have something spectacular at your booth?

Something maybe that's not even spectacular, but it's so differentiated. Nobody can take their eyes off of it. You know, years ago, I remember I was at, prior to their acquisition by Forrester, but like serious [00:42:00] decisions and um, and it was. Drift. Drift had a booth that was entirely pink, like, and I mean, entirely pink like. It was like tone OnOne text was like a slightly darker shade of pink, like the carpet was pink, all the swag giveaways were pink. People were in head to toe pink and like we all know, you go to a trade show and it's usually wall to wall blue and some green, some teal, stuff like that. And it's just this thing where you're scanning this giant exhibition hall. And it doesn't matter that it wasn't the biggest booth, it's the one thing that's just like, whoa, you can't take your eyes off of it. So there, it's not just about like, Hey, you know, I'm gonna rent out the biggest nightclub and have the biggest party in the world. It's these tactical things that you can do that are less expensive, but like really draw people in. How do you do that thing?

Amy Holtzman: Yeah.

Matt Amundson: that's, not something that you and I can sit on this pod and say, it's step one, step two, step three. [00:43:00] Like you have gotta be creative. And you have to remember the fact that we all got into marketing because we wanted to have a career in a creative field.

Amy Holtzman: I agree a hundred percent. One, one of the things that we do, um, is we always ha try to have a booth driver beyond just basic swag. And um, lately what we've been doing is we rent like a carnival or amusement game, and then we, most of the time you can rent those. Locally in almost any region. Uh, and most of the time you can do like custom um, uh, wrapped graphics around them.

Um, and then we do try to tie it back to our brand. Um, and so like Adobe Summit last year, we rented to Whack-a-Mole Machines and we branded them Whacka Bott. Um, and people came up and played Wacka Bott. This year we rented, space Invaders and um. Uh, we called it bot invaders and with AI in the middle, uh, because it's like, you know, remove, like shooting bots.

Um, we were just at a conference last week, uh, where we rented a giant operation [00:44:00] table. Uh, it was a privacy, uh, and compliance conference. And you took out like different. Ailments from the operation body, like privacy concerns and things. Um, and those, listen, they cost money, but uh, I can tell you they're the reason we get the number of leads that we get and that people want to engage with us.

It's such an icebreaker. People walk up and they wanna play and have fun, and you're able to just start a conversation so much more naturally than, you know, just standing there waiting for them to come over to you.

Matt Amundson: Yep.

Craig Rosenberg: All right. Do we? What time? I can't. I don't have my glasses on. Oh, my glasses are right here. Hold on. Lemme see. Yeah. Okay. So I got a couple, things for you. First of all, those were great ideas. and

Thinking Beyond the Booth When Planning out Your Event Strategy
---

Craig Rosenberg: I can't believe you didn't mention the Tonga room, which was old school, that No, that is a place that nobody would think to go to unless you're invited.

And that

Amy Holtzman: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: was oversubscribed. It was,

Amy Holtzman: Yeah,

Craig Rosenberg: late and it was still packed. That was incredible

Amy Holtzman: I mean, to be fair, [00:45:00] like also, uh, I mean listen, it's nice to get people into private clubs and things, um, that are hard to get access to. But sometimes we forget that like, just like a place that is nostalgic and you haven't been to in years or that has really expensive drinks that you don't really wanna pay for yourself is enough to draw folks in, right?

Like the toga room, like. Everybody's had a great night there. Uh, it's not necessarily a place you think to go when you're there, but like sure. If somebody invites you, you'll go, it's great. It rains indoors, there's a lagoon. It's wonderful.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. There's a union band in the middle that

Amy Holtzman: You can only use that band because I learned last year we tried to bring in a different band. No, no luck.

Craig Rosenberg: Okay. But that is, that's a lead into my second question, which I would challenge. You guys spent time talking about the booth, but it feels like most good story don't come from they did in the booth.

Amy Holtzman: I dunno. Uh, I mean, listen, uh, we've had. Uh, incredible success, uh, in the last [00:46:00] year and a half or so with like booth activations and then we do ancillary events around them. Um, but similarly, I've had, uh, a lot of times in my career where we don't take out the booth and you do some ancillary parties. Um, and that's the experience.

I do think, um, I don't know, you have to like. You have to try to understand your audience, right? And, and think about how they want to engage at events. Also, you know, if your audience at the, at the conference is mostly customers already, they don't necessarily need to see you demoing on the show floor. If you're trying to build a market, maybe that's better for you.

Maybe you don't have money for the booth. I do think if it's a huge mega event and it's just really hard to stand out and you can only afford the tiny booth in the back, sometimes it's better to do, other events around it. But I think it just depends what your goal is, right.

Craig Rosenberg: yeah, Yeah,

by the way, I believe Sam is using a dot matrix printer. Who, what was that noise? Yeah, that was, yeah. What, what's the matter? Look at him. He's looking around. He doesn't even know. What was that noise?

Matt Amundson: My

Craig Rosenberg: [00:47:00] Oh, that was that

Amy Holtzman: Oh.

Sam Guertin: yeah, you?

son of a bitch.

Craig Rosenberg: right. So, okay. That, that makes, that, that makes total sense.

You know, the other thing was like, so RSAs this week, right? And, um, believe it or not, I think at least in my LinkedIn feed, Uh.

people brought back the puppies. Remember every time people

Amy Holtzman: Uh.

Craig Rosenberg: puppy adoptions, but it, it hadn't been for a long

Amy Holtzman: Oh, it's been, it's still at every, it's been at every MarTech conference. I've seen it at ev, like the last three or four. MarTech com. I listen, I love it, but like, I think it's, Adobe had it on a day. It's it's great.

I wonder if those puppies ever get adopted too. 'cause none of those people are ever local.

Craig Rosenberg: No. it's true.

Matt Amundson: they all go to a farm where they can run.

Craig Rosenberg: Oh man, that's messed up. pe people adopt the puppies and then have to put 'em up for adoption 'cause they didn't ask. Um, Yeah. I, I think you're, but [00:48:00] on your number two, I see that and hear that more. I mean that more consistently over the last three years than any other channel has been events.

If you do 'em right, 'cause many people do 'em wrong, but you guys all do 'em, right? So it's like that, that was, uh, that's not surprising and important to tell the audience. The other thing though, on events, we have a couple companies that have like a underserved persona. So Chief Accounting Officer, right?

One of 'em. Um, Clarity, I mean, these guys, they're young. They get 200 chief accounting officers from legit companies to go to their private events

Amy Holtzman: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: that's an underserved,

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: you guys often sell to. Overserved folks, you gotta get really creative and crafty. Now, that's not to say they're not creative and crafty, but like if you do have a lock on a persona and you're not gonna be wide ranging, [00:49:00] you're gonna be able to, that's like real community building events. I

don't know what you guys think about that, but that's also been like hugely successful s full.

Amy Holtzman: I think a hundred percent. I also, I liked Matt's tip too of like, um. You don't always have to be at. The biggest thing, like some of our best success too is like smaller regional events, association events. I think, um, associations can be a little bit hit or miss, but sometimes they're the best bargain and they have a, a good network of folks that are at that are consistently there.

Um, but we have great success too, like in, in smaller regions. It doesn't matter your persona, some of those smaller regions are, are really underserved for events. Right. And it'll go to almost anything, um, when they see something that's kind of on target for them.

Matt Amundson: Yeah,

Amy Holtzman: And it's a lot less expensive to host things in those regions.

So much less expensive.

Matt Amundson: Yeah, I told Craig about my bar bill at an event in Redwood City this week. Outrageous.

Amy Holtzman: yeah. We're, uh, we're working on an event. In Aurora, Colorado, uh,

Craig Rosenberg: [00:50:00] Nope.

Amy Holtzman: uh, which turns out is right next to the airport and is not Denver as the conference pitched it. Uh, but it also turns out real cheap to brewery in

Craig Rosenberg: I was gonna, you could rent two, you could rent two. Like,

Amy Holtzman: we have some budget left over to some, uh, party. So, you know, sometimes.

Craig Rosenberg: a good place to do your, uh, your chain restaurant pub crawl as well, just throwing that out

Amy Holtzman: Oh, that is actually true because I was looking for a place to bring people to dinner and it was kind of Ruby Tuesdays or Ted Ted's Montana. So I picked Ted's Montana.

Matt Amundson: I

like

Craig Rosenberg: That's amazing. Uh,

Matt Amundson: any restaurant called Ted's.

Amy Holtzman: It's not, it's Ted Turner's, like all the bison meat comes from his farms and preserves. I love, I.

Craig Rosenberg: wait, I laughed like, because I was worried everyone knew about that. I.

did not.

Amy Holtzman: Okay. ICBS Sunday morning is my favorite show on television, and they had a special on it Also. If they have a [00:51:00] special on anything, I'll learn about it. Uh, but they had a special on it, and ever since then I've been like, oh, that's, that's pretty cool. So that's why I chose Ted's Montana in Aurora, Colorado.

Craig Rosenberg: All right. Well hopefully they'll, uh, sponsor the show now that we've done the shout out for them.

Sam Guertin: I will reach out.

Craig Rosenberg: so I know that this was a tight squeeze for you, so we really appreciate you coming on. 'cause this was, I. Amazing. Um, I think I can truthfully tell you this, I think you should come back

on the show a a lot

Amy Holtzman: Okay, great.

Matt Amundson: of those studios in New York.

Amy Holtzman: Yeah.

Or

Craig Rosenberg: Okay. I.

Amy Holtzman: broadcast live.

Craig Rosenberg: That would be cool. And then I get booed off stage. Matt doesn't, um, but I rub the thing. Yeah.

Um, rub the thing. God dammit. All right, cut that out. All right,

Sam Guertin: Oh,

Craig Rosenberg: get on TikTok.

Sam Guertin: that's staying in.

Craig Rosenberg: Um, yeah, yeah. Well Amy, that, that, that is, uh, this is the first [00:52:00] edition of the new transaction. He did great. So thank you so much for coming on.

Matt Amundson: Yeah. Thank you. You crushed it.

Amy Holtzman: so.