The Transaction

TT - 078 - Jen Igartua - Full Episode
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Jen Igartua: [00:00:00] The Really great stuff doesn't scale. Like stop trying to scale it.

Jen Igartua: You gotta make the stuff you [00:00:05] love. Like why are you creating something that you are not into?

Jen Igartua: Somebody said to us that it didn't feel like a [00:00:10] conference. It felt like a show.

Jen Igartua: We're done with random acts of AI

Jen Igartua: So I think sometimes people are using the word [00:00:15] AI, like we need to get AI implemented. And it's like, well, what the hell does it do? Where does it fit in the workflow?

Jen Igartua: The [00:00:20] mindset that I want people to have is this, jobs to do. What are you orchestrating? What are you productizing? What are you [00:00:25] building? And AI is a a piece of that, but I don't want you to be like, Ooh, I did this cool AI email.

Jen Igartua: [00:00:30] If it's slop,

Jen Igartua: We're all gonna reject it really quickly. Even good slop. Even if I watch a [00:00:35] really cool video, the moment I realize it's AI, I am, I'm Xing out.

Craig Rosenberg: by the way, Jen's [00:00:40] background really artistic, really brooklyny, um, I love it. [00:00:45] Yeah. I'm gonna rank backgrounds. Matt's is the

Jen Igartua: Zero, for sure. Yeah. [00:00:50] Not even on the board.

Craig Rosenberg: is the second worst. Mine's

Jen Igartua: At least Sam's is [00:00:55] moody.

Craig Rosenberg: orchid. Yeah,

Craig Rosenberg: that's about it.

Craig Rosenberg: [00:01:00] Yeah,

Sam Guertin: awful, uh, seventies wood paneling. I was I,

Jen Igartua: No, that sounds

Craig Rosenberg: [00:01:05] I would say, oh, what? Yeah, bring it out. What's, what's the [00:01:10] matter with you?

Matt Amundson: Yeah. Well, you got a filter on there? Come on.

Craig Rosenberg: Christ.

Sam Guertin: No, I've got a [00:01:15] big sheet up.

Matt Amundson: A sheet.

Jen Igartua: your paneling. Paneling is cool. Now, if [00:01:20] I could wood panel my house, I would.

Matt Amundson: I could.

Craig Rosenberg: Oh,

Craig Rosenberg: look at that. [00:01:25] panels, but.

Jen Igartua: Send them to me.

Craig Rosenberg: me.

Matt Amundson: to me.

Craig Rosenberg: [00:01:30] Um, I would say so ranking wise, let's see, who else had good backgrounds? [00:01:35] Sloane, she had good, she has

Matt Amundson: Oh, Sydney's got a great, yeah, she's got a great background. Um, [00:01:40] Adam Robinson's background, 'cause I mean, he basically operates out of a studio, so [00:01:45] that's, it's like a set, he's on a set, I don't know.

Craig Rosenberg: We, maybe we should have more like, [00:01:50] yeah. But, but like, this is how Jen's

Jen Igartua: Yeah.

Matt Amundson: Correct. Yeah. [00:01:55] This is just

Craig Rosenberg: keeping it real.

Jen Igartua: just who I am.

Jen Igartua: You don't see all of my [00:02:00] garbage or,

Craig Rosenberg: that a nude?

Matt Amundson: She's got, I was gonna say she's, she's got artistic [00:02:05] rendering of, of plants. She's got plants. She's got a tasteful, nude.

Jen Igartua: yes. Tasteful, nude.

Matt Amundson: [00:02:10] Nude.

Craig Rosenberg: nude.

Jen Igartua: And then a

Craig Rosenberg: What is the The black and gr. Oh, it's a

Jen Igartua: Little ghost Boy,

Craig Rosenberg: [00:02:15] What?

Matt Amundson: We love it.

Jen Igartua: just, uh, it's only green 'cause it's the reflection That's a [00:02:20] mirror.

Craig Rosenberg: oh. Oh, Lord. All right. I like it. [00:02:25] I'm gonna, it's definitely up there as, as a top notch.

​

[00:02:30] [00:02:35] [00:02:40] [00:02:45] [00:02:50]

Introducing Jen Igartua, CEO of Go Nimbly
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Craig Rosenberg: All right, so Jen is now a multi-time

Jen Igartua: [00:02:55] Oh my gosh. It's true.

Craig Rosenberg: is just awesome. Yeah. [00:03:00] Um, and, uh, let's see. It hasn't been that, well, I guess it was last year, [00:03:05] right? But like, um, so, you know, we made this call where we're like. [00:03:10] Um, you know, if we have a great guest, uh, what stops us from [00:03:15] bringing 'em back anytime we want.

Matt Amundson: let's run it back.

Craig Rosenberg: know? Yeah. And so [00:03:20] that's why we're like, Jen, come back. She's like, yep. Alright. Yeah. And it would've been earlier had I not, [00:03:25] I think I canceled All right.

Jen Igartua: You canceled the one. I canceled the one. And here we are.

Matt Amundson: And here we.

Craig Rosenberg: [00:03:30] Yeah. Well, we like, at least we're even, all right, so, um. Format. [00:03:35] Let's, let's talk about, so well f first of all, it's funny, we're, [00:03:40] I'm just assuming everyone knows Jen 'cause you're on the show before, but she is the [00:03:45] OG of Rev Ops,

Matt Amundson: right.

Craig Rosenberg: Isn't that what you

Jen Igartua: the, [00:03:50] uh, well go nimbly is the OG Rev Ops agency. I guess I could be OG rev ops, I [00:03:55] suppose.

Matt Amundson: I suppose.

Craig Rosenberg: Well, I, you know, it was the first time I had heard the story [00:04:00] was at your amazing event. So first of all, let's just say one of the [00:04:05] best Go-To-Market events I've ever been to

Matt Amundson: We [00:04:10] gotta Go we gotta dig into it. We gotta dig

Craig Rosenberg: You want to dig in because it [00:04:15] was actually, you know what? That, that marketers need to hear this. Because that was [00:04:20] amazing.

Craig Rosenberg: I'll set that up. Um, but, but just really quick. So she was going through the story, she's like, yeah. And I went [00:04:25] to the Topo summit. Thank you. And, um, you know, [00:04:30] uh, we, the sort of, it was the first time I was introduced to rev ops and I said, we're gonna be [00:04:35] the. Rev Ops agency of record and now she is the og [00:04:40] Rev Ops Agency.

Craig Rosenberg: Um, but definitely one of the best in business, some of the best [00:04:45] clients a go-to. For me, it's really easy for me 'cause I'll just text [00:04:50] her and she'll give an answer.

Matt Amundson: I like it when you say she has the best clients, because not [00:04:55] only am I a host of the show, I'm also a

Craig Rosenberg: Oh

Jen Igartua: And a multi-time client.

Jen Igartua: [00:05:00] Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: Is that wait a

Jen Igartua: This, uh.

Matt Amundson: yeah,

Craig Rosenberg: boomerang my man. [00:05:05] All

Jen Igartua: Yeah, the, uh, um, yeah, it's, uh, it's funny, Craig, I'm, I'm, [00:05:10] I'm glad that I answer your texts. Uh, I also answer your calls [00:05:15] and your phone calls are some of my favorite phone calls in the world. Uh, Craig picks up the phone and he'll [00:05:20] be like, Hey, got a question for you.

Jen Igartua: He'll ask his question. He doesn't say goodbye after he is, [00:05:25] had his question

Matt Amundson: No, he doesn't say, he doesn't and then you just hang up.

Matt Amundson: he just [00:05:30] ends. The conversation just ends. It's hilarious.

Jen Igartua: Very

Craig Rosenberg: we talk about that? That has been a problem [00:05:35] for a long time with me and see it as a problem. [00:05:40] I pulled my twins aside and said, look guys, I know you guys don't do phone much, but when you're [00:05:45] done with a call, you have to tell us, say goodbye. You can say later. And, and one of my [00:05:50] sons pono, who's, you know, madism and um, says, but Dad, I learned it [00:05:55] from you dad.

Matt Amundson: I learned it by was like, oh

Jen Igartua: A [00:06:00] hundred percent. That's so funny.

Craig Rosenberg: but uh, but [00:06:05] definitely the one of the best in the business we have to do with one of, we have [00:06:10] lots of guests on the show and then, um, and content right now on LinkedIn [00:06:15] is amazing 'cause you are also a, uh, [00:06:20] comedian and your partner is a

Jen Igartua: I'm not an official comedian, but I appreciate [00:06:25] that.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, well that's okay.

Craig Rosenberg: Anybody who can do anything remotely [00:06:30] close is, has, uh, gets points in my book. So, um, [00:06:35] let's talk, let's actually lead. So normally as you know, we do a story and then we do the two or three things that are working. But [00:06:40] since we want to talk about the event, let's set that up, especially 'cause I said [00:06:45] comedian, so I'm gonna start the conversation.

Craig Rosenberg: So [00:06:50] one

What Made Go Nimbly's RevFest One of The Best Go-To-Markets Events
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Craig Rosenberg: is everyone wants to do events. 70% of the people [00:06:55] don't understand that you can't do the same event. It's the same thing with [00:07:00] everything right now in marketing and sales. If you. Do what everyone else does, then [00:07:05] it's all the same. And so Jen and I talked to her throughout like the, [00:07:10] you know, she was going, I'm gonna make this the coolest event.

Craig Rosenberg: And [00:07:15] by the way, potentially one of the coolest events in all of B2B type stuff. And [00:07:20] so, um, let's lead with that. So, Jen, tell us, like, give us the whole. [00:07:25] So lead up and all the things you thought about and then what you put in place and what worked [00:07:30] and what didn't work. Just it is amazing. I, I, we we're breaking pattern here 'cause it is a [00:07:35] great

Jen Igartua: I love it. I would love to talk about that. I'm really passionate about it. I think if, uh, [00:07:40] um, like points I would definitely hit, like we can talk about like [00:07:45] inspiration and, and whatever. I have like a little point, which is like, hey, the, the really great stuff doesn't scale. Like stop [00:07:50] trying to scale it. So I think there's like a, a little bit there that I wanna talk about because like you, there's a lot of stuff [00:07:55] around Rev Fest that's scaled, but there's a lot of stuff that isn't.

Jen Igartua: And then the other event that's really working for me, if [00:08:00] we wanna just talk about like an event motion. Is our supper club and it's getting copied [00:08:05] now, which is like. Really annoying to me. I'm seeing it like pop up. Um, but [00:08:10] like that's another thing that doesn't scale, but works really well for us. Uh, and we do [00:08:15] ancillary events like webinars and stuff to like support those in-person ones, those scale much better.

Jen Igartua: [00:08:20] But I do think that that's, you know, one thing I'm also happy to, depending on where the conversation goes, to talk about like. [00:08:25] My viewpoint on making content and like, yes, I do use comedians and IDIY [00:08:30] it and it is a little machine, so any of that, I'm like, I'm an open book and it's also very [00:08:35] fun. Like I'm having a lot of fun with, uh, with like just marketing and events and content [00:08:40] right now.

Craig Rosenberg: you are amazing at it. So, um. So [00:08:45] tell us you have the comedic background, but that [00:08:50] was epic. So, and that made it fun, but like, could [00:08:55] I do that?

Jen Igartua: Hmm. Could you pull off an

Craig Rosenberg: unique to [00:09:00] you?

Jen Igartua: Um, yes and no. What? I think because it's unique to [00:09:05] me, it's, it's why it's fun. This is something that my boyfriend, who's a standup comic taught me, [00:09:10] and, uh, it was, I actually made a podcast like three years ago. This might feel like a roundabout way of [00:09:15] answering you, but I think it's, it's a, it's a good one.

Jen Igartua: About three years ago, I, I made a [00:09:20] podcast. I recorded 10 episodes. I owe apologies to those people that I had on the episodes 'cause I [00:09:25] never launched it. And the reason why is 'cause it just felt like I was [00:09:30] following someone else's formula. So I would have a guest, how are you, tell me about your career, [00:09:35] what's your hot take?

Jen Igartua: And recommend me a book that everybody, all our listeners should li should [00:09:40] read. And it just, I remember one, I wasn't enjoying doing it. And then [00:09:45] two, I didn't wanna listen to it. And I was having a, a conversation with my boyfriend [00:09:50] who's a standup comedian, and he's like. You gotta make the stuff you love.

Jen Igartua: Like why are you [00:09:55] creating something that you are not into? Like what do you like? And that's when I was like, well, I like John [00:10:00] Stewart and I like Tina Fey and I like, you know, comedic news stories. And he is like, well make [00:10:05] that like that's what you like. And that's how this week SaaS was born. And that's similar to the [00:10:10] event.

Jen Igartua: So like can everybody pull off an event like mine will? My event is my pa [00:10:15] like it was my passions. I had comedians on stage 'cause I really love comedy and I have a huge [00:10:20] network. And I had my friend do a podcast stage that was kind of unique 'cause she has a, a podcast thing [00:10:25] and I had tattoos 'cause I love tattoos.

Jen Igartua: And I think if I had done all those same [00:10:30] things, but it wasn't me and it wasn't passionate, I was just like. Some dude in a suit, uh, who [00:10:35] was just like, I'd love to talk to you about pipeline, then it wouldn't have felt, you know, the way that it, [00:10:40] that it felt. And so I do think people need to lean into their own, you know, the things that they're passionate about.

Jen Igartua: [00:10:45] Lucky for me, I am my own target market. Like I've been an operator and I love rev [00:10:50] ops and I love B2B Tech. And so like I am. Bringing people together that are [00:10:55] just like me. Of course, if your target market is so different from you, that's really hard to do. But for the next Rev [00:11:00] Fest, I'm thinking about doing stuff.

Jen Igartua: Uh, like I really love games and game shows, and [00:11:05] man, this is a little bit of a spoiler, but, um, instead of a, a panels [00:11:10] or fireside chats, I'm gonna rebuild a Tonight Show stage and I'm gonna [00:11:15] have. Like panels like you do on a talk show and have like the [00:11:20] CRO of a company come and sit down and I'll interview them and then I'm gonna have their rev ops person come [00:11:25] and like, we're gonna hear from them and I'm gonna make them do a little game.

Jen Igartua: That's just something that I really [00:11:30] love and I'm, I'm digging in. I also, I'm from Spain. I wanna go get, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to pull this off, but I want [00:11:35] ham legs. I'm trying to get some people cutting

Matt Amundson: cutting

Jen Igartua: like ham [00:11:40] legs and I'm gonna have my friend that that sings flamenco do a thing That's just 'cause I love [00:11:45] it.

Jen Igartua: And that passion shows through. So can you do it? Yeah. But it's gotta be the things you [00:11:50] love.

Craig Rosenberg: Okay. That was for, well,

Ham Legs & Foreign Film Appreciation 302
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Craig Rosenberg: hold on. Can we dig it on the ham leg? [00:11:55] So what's with the ham legs? I love the Yeah. That's [00:12:00] amazing.

Jen Igartua: rules. isn't it taken off here?

Jen Igartua: Oh, well, it kind of ha Well, ham legs are incredibly [00:12:05] expensive in the us. They're like, for the nice ones, they're like 1500 a pop. [00:12:10] Um, so you know, this time I get too expensive. Which is pretty great. And if there's leftover, it's [00:12:15] coming home with me. But I grew up in, in Spain and my dad is like a very like big ham [00:12:20] snob for his 70th birthday.

Jen Igartua: I bought him like a super nice, you know, leg of ham. But I [00:12:25] grew up with a leg of ham on your kitchen counter. Uh, always, you know, my boyfriend ha is [00:12:30] like so sick of ham. He's like, why is it in Spain that like, there's ham everywhere? And he is got a [00:12:35] joke where he's like, it's not a delicacy if you can buy it on a train.

Jen Igartua: Like you guys are just [00:12:40] like.

Craig Rosenberg: I got, I, I, so, [00:12:45] so, uh, so first of all, I do love ham.

Jen Igartua: Great.

Matt Amundson: [00:12:50] Oh

Craig Rosenberg: and I in Spain, I, the ham leg and the abi, the [00:12:55] amount of different ham things that you would eat, there were the greatest thing that's ever been invented. [00:13:00] Fun fact. Are you guys ready for this? A little spicy, fun fact [00:13:05] is that, so when I left, you know, at u at UCLA, I thought I was gonna go into film [00:13:10] and so I would try to watch all this stuff.

Craig Rosenberg: Then I moved to Spain after school and then. [00:13:15] So I tried to combine both. So I was like gonna watch any sort of, uh, [00:13:20] movies coming outta Spain. And one of the first ones that did did was, [00:13:25] uh, Hamon Hamon. Did you ever watch that movie with Penelope Cruz and [00:13:30] Javier Barde,

Matt Amundson: I've seen it.

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, it was, it was hella sexy.

Craig Rosenberg: [00:13:35] And, um, well, no, because you know, the,

Matt Amundson: No, I know they've

Craig Rosenberg: a Mold Devar [00:13:40] movies are Yeah. And those two man, they're just like, and you're like, what the hell? And then Cruz [00:13:45] came out here and so did bar. I mean, it was like, uh, so Jamon Jamon. But I always think of [00:13:50] whenever someone brings up Spain and Ham, I think

Jen Igartua: Come on. Come on. Hamon if you love [00:13:55] Spanish, yeah, go ahead.

Matt Amundson: Go. I was just gonna say fun fact. Uh, I [00:14:00] actually worked at a video store as a teenager

Jen Igartua: You the

Craig Rosenberg: Of course you did. [00:14:05] Clerks,

Matt Amundson: guy. I was, I did not work at a blockbuster. I worked at like an independent, [00:14:10] it was called Wendy Kimber video 'cause it was on the corner of Wendy and Kimber. And, [00:14:15] uh, my, like my coworker, who is also one of my close friends was [00:14:20] like, dude, we gotta pop in Harmon.

Matt Amundson: Harmon. We just gotta do it. We gotta do it. And [00:14:25] I was, and like I'd never seen it before. And we were both teenagers we're like sophomores in high school. [00:14:30] So like the whole point is like, you're running movies while you're working in there. And we turned that on and [00:14:35] Yeah. That, that might've been a mistake.

Matt Amundson: It was, it was a very family friendly [00:14:40] video

Jen Igartua: not that day.

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Sam Guertin: But that coworker's name, Quentin [00:14:45] Tarantino.

Matt Amundson: yeah. Well, Dave Martin, but close.

Sam Guertin: Ah.

Craig Rosenberg: yeah. Dave Martin Quinn [00:14:50] Tarantino.

Jen Igartua: Well, you should, uh, watch some, uh, uh, Spanish movies by a, uh, [00:14:55] director. Um, his name is Javier Feer, F-E-S-S-E-R. [00:15:00] Uh, and he's my cousin and he's a very famous Spanish movie director. Uh, [00:15:05] and he is got a, if you guys saw the movie in the US called Champions, um, which is like [00:15:10] about a special needs basketball team that was here,

Matt Amundson: yeah, yeah,

Craig Rosenberg: Woody Harrelson.

Jen Igartua: my [00:15:15] uncle's movie in Spain.

Jen Igartua: Es that got rebated here.

Craig Rosenberg: What is [00:15:20] happening right now? You know you gotta go down a a little rabbit hole. He is got really beautiful [00:15:25] films.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. That is amazing. Okay, so, uh, other, I wanna [00:15:30] point out some other things I'd love you to comment on as I go through them. So one was, [00:15:35] uh, what I called the content beat down as part of your [00:15:40] event. You guys were gonna,

Marker
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Craig Rosenberg: this was a production and you treated it as such.

Craig Rosenberg: And so you [00:15:45] had Doug Landis. He was literally like in the movies, the, [00:15:50] the, the direct, the theater director walking around pointing his fingers and telling you you were [00:15:55] terrible in his own way. 'cause he's a lovable guy. You know what I mean? Nobody was mad at him. [00:16:00] Um, and, but you gave a, you gave structure. So we did like a session [00:16:05] where it was like, here's how you wanna structure things.

Craig Rosenberg: Um, and then a [00:16:10] pretty, uh. I'd say rigorous content production schedule for each [00:16:15] speaker and then you had to practice. Um, that, that was one thing I think [00:16:20] made for, uh, great content.

Jen Igartua: Something I felt very [00:16:25] proud of, um, is that somebody said to us that it didn't feel like a conference. It felt like a show.

Matt Amundson: [00:16:30] the show. Mm.

Jen Igartua: And I think that really encompassed like how we wanted it to feel. And I, the formula I think [00:16:35] that worked was a couple of things. My sister used to run a version of TED Talks in Spain and it was [00:16:40] called

Matt Amundson: was called

Jen Igartua: es Congress, the Brilliant Mind.

Jen Igartua: So I learned from her, uh, a couple things, [00:16:45] which is they max out the time that a person's allowed on stage to 21 minutes. [00:16:50] Because that's how long a human brain, they said due to whatever research could really focus on [00:16:55] one topic. And you know, maybe it's less, but we, we maxed out at 20 minutes. [00:17:00] You, Craig ran the light.

Jen Igartua: Uh, but other than you,

Craig Rosenberg: but other than,

Matt Amundson: oh no,

Craig Rosenberg: oh [00:17:05] God,

Jen Igartua: but we, we were trying to say like, look, get to your point. Snippy people [00:17:10] just wanna learn the thing, show them what it's like and get off stage. Uh, and so we hired a, a [00:17:15] coach, like, uh, Craig said, Doug Landis, shout out. He was incredible. We also [00:17:20] spent, you know, an extra $6,000 to open up the venue the day before.

Jen Igartua: And we had all speakers [00:17:25] come the day before. We did a training with them, we did a training before we went through content. The day of they [00:17:30] ran through and we did like a physical training on like, alright, when you do numbers, put 'em [00:17:35] out. Like, make sure that people see them. How's your energy? Don't cross your legs.

Jen Igartua: Don't like, be [00:17:40] awkward. Use the stage. How do you look at the audience and, and give everybody that, that, um, [00:17:45] ability to kind of be on stage and feel comfortable and that we didn't have that annoying thing when like a speaker comes [00:17:50] on and gets a clicker and doesn't know how the clicker works, [00:17:55] and then you spend the first three minutes being like.

Jen Igartua: Is it okay? Yeah, I'm [00:18:00] Jen. Uh, and we also, you know, did things that were like, um, uh, pretty [00:18:05] specific, like we had the mc introduce the person. So up next on [00:18:10] Craig, you know, on stage is Craig. He loves ai. You know, he's the founder of [00:18:15] Topo that was later sold by Gartner. He's now at Scale Ventures. He is gonna tell you X, Y, Z.

Jen Igartua: He just had [00:18:20] his car stolen, whatever, like a, a fun little story about him so that when Craig comes on [00:18:25] stage, he just goes right into his content. He doesn't have to go, hi everybody, I'm Craig. He's a little bit about me. [00:18:30] Uh, and I think that just made it feel like, again, like high energy, a good show. [00:18:35] And the other thing is like, man, I've been to some conferences where like clearly that content was done [00:18:40] last night and also.

Jen Igartua: Why are the, like the next three speakers, you guys [00:18:45] just either said the same thing over and over, or opposite things. Like, did anybody think [00:18:50] about, you know, that, that every topic should have been unique and interesting. Um, so I, I think [00:18:55] we did a, like, we're gonna use that same formula. We, we really loved it.

Craig Rosenberg: God. [00:19:00] Okay, let's keep going. Sorry Matt. I just, this was the greatest event of all

Matt Amundson: No, [00:19:05] I mean this was, I wanted to talk about this because to your point earlier, Craig, like [00:19:10] everyone's saying, Hey, you need to do events. But people are just, in a lot of cases, they're [00:19:15] doing the same old event and they're like, I'm doing events. Why is it not working? And [00:19:20] I think, I think this was a clear example of not necessarily like a [00:19:25] formula to follow, but I think the way you structured it, conceptualized it and brought it to [00:19:30] life.

Matt Amundson: There's elements that people can take away and recreate in a way that feels [00:19:35] authentic to either their brand or to their person.

Craig Rosenberg: Yep, that is [00:19:40] right. So the mo, all of this, are you ready? Matt is going to, well, I've already called, so you [00:19:45] think, uh, so I call you, I also call Matt. I get fined by his wife for calling too [00:19:50] early. I didn't realize, I also hang up on him at the end of calls too, but that's okay. Okay. [00:19:55] So, uh, so, you know, but, but as per your personality in creating, so it was in

Craig Rosenberg: [00:20:00] Bushwick, um.

Craig Rosenberg: And, um, [00:20:05] so like I just did my event out there. I said nothing in Midtown. You went [00:20:10] next level on that and put it in Bushwick, which was amazing. It [00:20:15] was so edgy. Um, but, um, you wanted something real [00:20:20] Brooklyn, right. And like, you know, and, um, what was the, the name of the club was

Jen Igartua: [00:20:25] say Yes.

Jen Igartua: Yep. Say Yes is an iconic, like gay nightclub. [00:20:30] So it is a, a kooky place to bring a bunch of, uh, of people to, [00:20:35] but

Craig Rosenberg: It reminded me of in horror movies when they, [00:20:40] when the, a kid and typically an older male or female, the, [00:20:45] they're trying to protect the kid. They're at an old fairgrounds and they enter into a [00:20:50] area where all the old carnival shit is like, dude, it, I, when we [00:20:55] did that pre the, the, the session the day before, I'm like.

Craig Rosenberg: Oh my [00:21:00] god, dude, this is for real. Right? So that's like the venue, [00:21:05] the uniqueness of the venue was a big deal and it didn't deter anybody from coming by the way, [00:21:10] for anybody who thinks that way, um,

Jen Igartua: Or if it did, we didn't hear about it. I'm, I'm sure people [00:21:15] self-selected. Right. But the, the interesting thing that, um, you know, one of the [00:21:20] biggest feedback that we got negative feedback about the event crowded, and Craig, Craig had to come to me and be [00:21:25] like, this is a good problem. Don't worry about it.

Jen Igartua: 'cause I was like freaking out. Um, because we had a [00:21:30] 92% show. That's wild. Everybody told me it was [00:21:35] like 75. Uh, and so I just expected way less people. Uh, and so we were [00:21:40] scrambling for like more coffee, more food, figure it out, like there's more people here than we expected. [00:21:45] Uh, part of that was good promo and following up, we had a wait list.

Jen Igartua: We told people like, cancel. We had maybe like [00:21:50] four or five people pre cancel and we gave those tickets away. Um, but it was, I think we hyped it up and [00:21:55] I, and I think part of it is like, oh shit, it's a house of, yes, I definitely wanna see that. So the funny [00:22:00] thing is, I did get advice for people, are people really gonna go all the way to Bushwick, you know, whatever, whatever.

Jen Igartua: And it turned [00:22:05] out, I think that because it was unique is why people wanted to go.

Craig Rosenberg: [00:22:10] Yeah, I totally agree. And then, so you had this area, so the, you had the stage if you [00:22:15] guys could imagine it, which was literally a classic, right? Um, it's [00:22:20] everything you would imagine and a little bit more, right? Because it was, uh, it just is [00:22:25] a, an icon. It's clearly, I didn't even know about, it's clearly an iconic comedy club.

Craig Rosenberg: [00:22:30] Then we had the out the area, like sort of lobby ish area and then an outdoor, [00:22:35] it was raining. It didn't matter. It did not matter. Okay, so you had a [00:22:40] massage, um, area, which I, I definitely, I hit the best

Jen Igartua: I [00:22:45] did too.

Craig Rosenberg: Tattoo

Jen Igartua: 40 people get [00:22:50] tattoos.

Craig Rosenberg: 40.

Jen Igartua: I did it being like five people will get

Jen Igartua: it. 40. [00:22:55] Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: So I, this year I will get one because I [00:23:00] told, I told my kids if I lost 20 pounds I was getting my, another tattoo. [00:23:05] And uh, yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: And so I've, I'm almost there. Uh, well, I [00:23:10] know where I'm gonna put it 'cause I got, my arms are taken and back, so I'm just gonna go chest. [00:23:15] Yeah. And it'll be something with the

Jen Igartua: So Craig's gonna be short list of my event. [00:23:20] Awesome.

Craig Rosenberg: Well, yeah, that, that's

Matt Amundson: Yeah, you gotta think of the right shirt maybe. Maybe a button up [00:23:25] and just kind of

Matt Amundson: open it.

Craig Rosenberg: Oh

Craig Rosenberg: yeah, that'll be sexy.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, [00:23:30] that, that'll be my LinkedIn profile picture.

Matt Amundson: It'll be your audition tape for Hamon Hummon [00:23:35] part two.

Craig Rosenberg: so yeah, those, those things. I [00:23:40] remember there was, um, people on stilts walking around. [00:23:45] Um, there was, uh. This. Okay, let me just go to the [00:23:50] business. So those things were,

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Craig Rosenberg: but on the business side, how, I don't know how you facilitated this, [00:23:55] but the sponsors had these tables that, um, they [00:24:00] were talking, they were all on the dude, you couldn't get a seat out there.

Craig Rosenberg: And I'm like, oh, it's just everyone [00:24:05] hanging. No man. Like these are. Like legit conversations between rev ops [00:24:10] people and vendors. And so I sat at one table. I [00:24:15] don't remember who it was. Maybe it was Clay guys, I don't remember, but like it was like, I'm just going, [00:24:20] was it, did you facilitate that or was it the [00:24:25] event that made that?

Craig Rosenberg: Because that was nuts. Like there's nobody standing

Jen Igartua: Totally. [00:24:30] Um, no, it was, it was orchestrated.

Craig Rosenberg: Okay. That

Craig Rosenberg: was what we [00:24:35] did is, uh, we just told, we just didn't want booths. We're like, let's just really [00:24:40] force our, our sponsors to get creative and create moments that are really important. And one of the things that [00:24:45] we did was table talks. And actually I'm, uh, the thing I would change from last year is we did them later in the day.

Jen Igartua: I'm, [00:24:50] I'm moving them to the beginning because that's where people meet. It's a chance to like, you know, get your [00:24:55] networking done when you're not tired. So I'm gonna move them to the morning and we, we define the [00:25:00] topics, stuff that we knew people wanted, we collected, you know, topics. And then of course our sponsors are B2B Tech [00:25:05] sponsors that have, you know, depth in those areas.

Jen Igartua: We ask them to bring senior people, [00:25:10] jersey match the people that are there. I don't wanna see an AE managing a round table, like give me your director of rev [00:25:15] ops. And they were able to sort of sit there and do it. And we also did trainings for all of them. They were [00:25:20] all required to come to our table talk training.

Jen Igartua: Yeah. It was a whole production. And [00:25:25] you know, how do you, how do you kick off? How do you make sure everybody's speaking? How do you make sure no one and you [00:25:30] are not coming with content? You're facilitating the conversation. Of course you're gonna have things to say 'cause it's your topic of [00:25:35] expertise. Uh, and we also had a go nimbly note taker.

Jen Igartua: Was there and then [00:25:40] afterwards sent the follow up to everybody with everybody's LinkedIn, encouraged them to, to, you know, connect [00:25:45] afterwards. And of course the sponsor is in that thread if they so want to follow up with anybody. And [00:25:50] so that was like a big sponsor. Like the sponsor gets a lot of value for that, but the attendees don't feel like they're [00:25:55] going to a booth.

Craig Rosenberg: [00:26:00] What can I say? Be, be best event out there. All right. [00:26:05] So, uh, well, Matt, any other, uh. Things you want to dig in on or shall we [00:26:10] start the show? Because that was I.

Matt Amundson: I th was so No, it is. It was [00:26:15] great. That yeah, I mean, I think one, the first thing I told Jen [00:26:20] after the show and I wasn't there was, it has been a [00:26:25] long time since I've seen something just sort of [00:26:30] blackout LinkedIn and the show absolutely blacked out LinkedIn. [00:26:35] Like it was either coming from your team, uh, I mean it really, a [00:26:40] little bit was coming from your team.

Matt Amundson: Quite honestly, most of it was coming from the attendees.

Jen Igartua: totally.

Matt Amundson: [00:26:45] PE and people just sort of fawning over the show saying, Hey, that was unlike anything that I've ever been [00:26:50] to. I loved it. I learned a ton. Why aren't all events [00:26:55] like this? When is the next one? I'm signing up for this for next year, like it was. [00:27:00] You don't see stuff like that.

Matt Amundson: I mean like we have sort of like our traditional shows that [00:27:05] happen once a year, and I think in a lot of cases people sort of begrudgingly drag themselves out to them [00:27:10] because it's where they make their business or where they make a huge portion of their pipeline for the year. [00:27:15] It's been a long time since people have said, this is an event that I just have [00:27:20] to be at, or this was an event that was truly different from anything that I've seen before.

Matt Amundson: [00:27:25] And, uh, I think it's important that we talk about those things. Not just that it happened, that people loved it, [00:27:30] but how did it come together? And it sounds like every single thing that you did [00:27:35] was considered, which like, that's amazing. It's Yeah, [00:27:40] well I just learned about the table

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: direction. That's [00:27:45] incredible. I'm gonna say this one last time and then we gotta move on to next [00:27:50] year. That was an

Craig Rosenberg: amazing event. That was an all time, it's, I [00:27:55] still talk about it on the show quite a bit

Craig Rosenberg: as well. I used it as my reference. I just put on [00:28:00] the Go-To-Market AI summit.

Craig Rosenberg: Now we went with a, we went with a unique venue, but like, it was a [00:28:05] lot. It, it had to be different. Um, and, uh, but I used [00:28:10] that as my benchmark and so that's pretty cool for your first one, you know, like, I mean, [00:28:15] and the numbers were epic. So, uh, let's just, let's park that until you kill it [00:28:20] next year. the show. We're gonna fit it all in right now. So one is, did you [00:28:25] come with any Go-To-Market storyline that you want to tell the [00:28:30] audience that's well knowing? It'll be funny, but it could be, it could be anything. [00:28:35] But just tell us a story about something in Go-To-Market that is, that, uh, [00:28:40] has a beginning, middle, and end that we can learn from, or is just funny as [00:28:45] shit.

Craig Rosenberg: What do you

Craig Rosenberg: got? was, I was gonna talk a little bit about Rev Fest, um, but with that, [00:28:50] with that prompt,

Jen Igartua: interesting. Um.

Craig Rosenberg: um,

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Jen Igartua: [00:28:55] The topic that I had in mind, I honestly forgot about the story piece. Um, the topic that I [00:29:00] had in mind was like, basically the big idea being that we're we're done with random acts of ai [00:29:05] and it really is kind of an orchestration moment and that we're seeing a lot of like, just [00:29:10] emphasis on that right now.

Craig Rosenberg: Well, that's an amazing topic. So let's [00:29:15] go there and then as you, you can weave in whatever you want if it comes to [00:29:20] you, but that is, this is an important topic. Great.

Jen Igartua: [00:29:25] I actually learned this from the CMO of Gloat, um, and his name's Russ and he, [00:29:30] uh, he's the one that, that talked to me and said, random acts of ai. And it really floored me. [00:29:35] I, I really kind of stopped in my tracks and I was like, yeah, that's exactly what we're doing. We're seeing some successes. [00:29:40] Like we talk about from your report.

Jen Igartua: Marketing is the biggest adopter of ai. [00:29:45] Sure. They had a very real pain point, which is volume of content, but they're still doing it. [00:29:50] In, in little moments, right? Like, okay, great, I have a blog post. Let me make three LinkedIn posts out of [00:29:55] it. Cool. I used ai, but are you really an AI first company? If that's what you're doing, [00:30:00] like, I don't know.

Jen Igartua: It's, it's akin to googling things now. And [00:30:05] so, uh, like there's, there's stuff in every part of the funnel that's like that Great [00:30:10] pre-research for SDRs. That was a, a big play. It works. It's fantastic. [00:30:15] Great. Uh, now how do you actually incorporate this into a [00:30:20] real orchestrated process? And I think that's, that's the year of 2026.

Jen Igartua: And [00:30:25] probably the theme of the conference that we're doing is all around, Hey, how do you get to full [00:30:30] orchestration? And we're seeing some customers start to have success here where they're saying, I have to move [00:30:35] from this moment of experimentation and prototyping. And I got some [00:30:40] cool things to, how do I roll it out to 200 SDRs?

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Jen Igartua: do I make this [00:30:45] actually impactful? And this is not a dig. I think the Versal story that went viral is [00:30:50] really interesting. If you guys kind of saw it on Lenny's podcast, et cetera, you know, they went from 10 [00:30:55] SDRs to one SDR, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I listened to it. It's [00:31:00] cool. I'm seeing the same stuff, but it's not as innovative as like we're all, maybe innovative is not [00:31:05] the right word.

Jen Igartua: It's not as orchestrated as I want it to be because what, what they did from 10 to one is [00:31:10] inbound. They automated some inbound, so like lead comes through, it gets routed. We do the first [00:31:15] touch, tries to book the meeting. And all those 10 SDRs, they didn't get fired. They're doing outbound, [00:31:20] uh, which is like what they should be doing.

Jen Igartua: Uh, and so I'm just trying to, to, um, [00:31:25] really push the envelope right now and, and work with really innovative customers to answer that question. Like [00:31:30] what parts of the process do we really now automate and, and own, and how different [00:31:35] is this than a general mindset of automation that we should have been having all along?

Jen Igartua: And I, [00:31:40] I, we, we keep giving credit to ai. I don't think the credit is to ai. I think the [00:31:45] credit about all this noise about efficiency. Is to money being [00:31:50] expensive. That's when I started feeling it, is when the pressure for profitability came through. We were [00:31:55] already talking about downsizing teams and, and figuring out how to do things with less.

Jen Igartua: And how do we do [00:32:00] this with three SDRs, not five. And so that pressure's been here and AI is now a tool to help us is [00:32:05] now,

Matt Amundson: Yeah. Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: so, but what to define [00:32:10] orchestration in your terms? What? What are you saying when you say that?

Jen Igartua: um, for [00:32:15] me, like an orchestrated workflow. Is not the [00:32:20] like feature specific. So I think sometimes people are using the word ai, like we need to get AI [00:32:25] implemented. And it's like, well, what the hell does it do? Where does it fit in the workflow? Does it need, is human [00:32:30] intervention, does it not need human intervention?

Jen Igartua: Is it completely automated? And it has many pieces. [00:32:35] Like some of it could be just a query, like it doesn't have to all be ai. But [00:32:40] if I look at, I think that top of funnel is pretty primed for ai. So if I think about [00:32:45] Figma is one of our customers, a huge amount. Of inbound, right? Figma is like, [00:32:50] Figma. ISS gonna win.

Jen Igartua: 'cause Figma is an incredible product. Figma is gonna keep winning. Uh, but they have an incredible amount [00:32:55] of free signups and inbound, et cetera, and they just can't get to it. Like there's not enough [00:33:00] SDRs in the world to, to follow up on that. And so how do we orchestrate that? Well, there's a lot of stuff that isn't [00:33:05] ai.

Jen Igartua: Bring all that in. Categorize it. Is it an existing customer? Is it not an existing [00:33:10] customer? Are they using it? How many employees? There's some AI enrichment maybe in there, but it's just like, do you know [00:33:15] who this person is? It's routing. Get it to the right place. And then, sure, we're using AI for the first [00:33:20] touch email, but frankly, a long time ago we would've used variables and we, we [00:33:25] use dynamic content, but we're trying to give them a very like quick, easy first [00:33:30] touch so that we can, you know, work on this lead. That to [00:33:35] me, and maybe I'm a little bit of curmudgeon. I do like ai. I think it's cool. We're gonna do really fun stuff with [00:33:40] it. But the mindset that I want people to have is this, jobs to do. What are you orchestrating? What are [00:33:45] you productizing? What are you building? And AI is a a piece of that, but I don't want you to be [00:33:50] like, Ooh, I did this cool AI email.

Jen Igartua: I wrote, I did an AI email. Awesome. To who [00:33:55] and why, and is it converting and what's going on, and what's the next step after that? So that to me would be, [00:34:00] if you actually nailed that, you would have like an orchestrator workflow.

Craig Rosenberg: Got it. [00:34:05] So I have a fun question for you and Matt.

Matt Amundson: Oh.

Jen Igartua: Nice.

Craig Rosenberg: [00:34:10] Yep. If you could orchestrate [00:34:15] anything right now that's not orchestrated, what would it be? In your org? [00:34:20] Got it. Um, yeah. That's why I didn't ask Sam. [00:34:25] I mean, Sam's got a lot of AI in his process with us already, but, and you can answer [00:34:30] it too, Sam, if you want, but let's, let's, let's have Matt go and have Jen, uh, [00:34:35] grade his answer and then we'll have you go, Jen, Matt.

Matt Amundson: I would try to [00:34:40] orchestrate every interaction to be as uh, sort of [00:34:45] unique or personalized, individualized to the person as possible. And what I mean [00:34:50] by that is like, if I could, I would serve ads on LinkedIn, that's like, [00:34:55] you know, Hey Jen, like here's how go Nimbly can do X, right? Like, [00:35:00] and you know, you go to a landing page and it's like, hi, Jen.

Matt Amundson: You know, [00:35:05] here's a case study for how Go Nimbly could use our product. And like [00:35:10] I know that you do X, Y, and Z, and here's like the use cases that are [00:35:15] specific to your business. Like maybe you're on AWS, maybe you're on Azure, maybe you're on [00:35:20] GCP. Like some way to create something that feels like it's truly for the [00:35:25] customer at a level of scale that we can't currently achieve, [00:35:30] that to me would be ideal. And that would be everything from like content, like there's been [00:35:35] MarTech that has been built to create landing pages like this to create [00:35:40] con custom content like this to create emails and blah, blah, [00:35:45] blah, all that stuff. But I think for the most part, like people [00:35:50] caught on to the fact that it was like, eh, it's still pretty generic. It was at best giving you high [00:35:55] gen and you work at Go Nimbly or whatever. But like, how do you create something that's truly [00:36:00] crafted for the customer and gives them an experience that actually feels unique to them [00:36:05] that, that, like, I know that's like sort of like a high level answer, but like, I think if the goal is to [00:36:10] create something in that way, then what, what you're going to create is, is something that [00:36:15] people are gonna actually want to engage with.

Craig Rosenberg: What do you think of that one? Jen

Jen Igartua: I will give [00:36:20] it a, I'll give it a B minus. And here's,

Craig Rosenberg: Burn? why, Matt? and here's why. [00:36:25] Here's why. Um, I agree with you. I think personalized content is definitely something that we need to [00:36:30] do. I don't know if buyers want exactly what you're saying.

Matt Amundson: Mm.

Jen Igartua: Like, [00:36:35] I'm not sure that I wanna get to your website and be like, hi Jen, this is how go Nimbly can do it.

Jen Igartua: Like

Jen Igartua: [00:36:40] I, I feel like maybe it's just like a skepticism or we've seen it like, to your point, [00:36:45] not work before. Um, and so I, I would wanna even add sometimes that I see go [00:36:50] nimbly on, I kind of don't like, I'm like, whatever you put my logo on a picture, I don't really like. You're [00:36:55] targeting me almost too hard.

Jen Igartua: It's like sweaty, you know, like from my, from my [00:37:00] perspective now, the, the concept that you're talking about, which is, Hey, I wanna deeply [00:37:05] understand you and help you make a decision, help you with a, a complex problem that you [00:37:10] probably have that I love. Which is, you know, I actually learned this at at [00:37:15] Scale Ventures event, which is um, or I was inspired by deep research being [00:37:20] really cheap.

Jen Igartua: What used to cost $50,000 from an analyst firm is now [00:37:25] $5. So how are we really. Like orchestrating this really deep [00:37:30] research and understanding. I know Matt, like I know not only that you worked at DuploCloud, I [00:37:35] know everything else about you. I know the challenges. I know that industry really deeply. So I know [00:37:40] the challenges that you're going.

Jen Igartua: I can say these are are similar customers that we've solved this before and now, [00:37:45] yes, I want you to, I wanna reach out to you by saying, Hey, you probably don't know these things. [00:37:50] Or This is insight we have that you don't have. And if we think about creating a peak moment for [00:37:55] somebody. Insight, giving them insight they didn't have before is one of the best things that you can do.

Jen Igartua: There's also [00:38:00] connection and surprise and all these other lovely things that you can do to create a peak experience. But one of [00:38:05] the ones that I think is as B2B that we need to use is, how do I make you smarter? [00:38:10] How do I give you something that you didn't know before that you can go bring to your organization and look [00:38:15] real smart?

Jen Igartua: I can make you look good. And I think that is like, um, you know, one of the, the points [00:38:20] again that, that the speaker made was like, sure, we might flood this. It might become easier. [00:38:25] But like hell, I would rather have an internet full of really useful stuff

Matt Amundson: stuff.

Craig Rosenberg: stuff.

Jen Igartua: [00:38:30] than an internet full of not useful stuff. The Internet's always gonna be full.

Jen Igartua: Your eyeballs are [00:38:35] always gonna be scanning. It might as well be really pertinent to me.

Craig Rosenberg: [00:38:40] Matt, your analysis of her Yeah.

Jen Igartua: Can you grade me?

Craig Rosenberg: presentation. [00:38:45] he [00:38:50] blushing? What's happening

Matt Amundson: what, what do you want me to say? Like I just, I mean, I just got bodied [00:38:55] on my own podcast.

Craig Rosenberg: Hey, man, that, that, that was, yeah, [00:39:00] that was that. But I thought it was an and more than an or. That's my [00:39:05] opinion.

Matt Amundson: Yeah, I mean, I think everything that Jen is saying is like, uh, what I failed [00:39:10] to articulate, which is like, it's just how, how do you create an experience that feels truly [00:39:15] unique and is actually valuable? And I think like we're all struggling to figure out at this [00:39:20] point what is valuable and how do we create thought leadership that's compelling, and [00:39:25] how do we bring that into a campaign holistically so someone's like, oh wow, I learned something that I [00:39:30] didn't.

Matt Amundson: No before like that is, I mean, when we talk about, and we reference Gong [00:39:35] quite a bit here when we talk about the content that made them so compelling, you know, in the sort of the [00:39:40] early days with Chris, it was that you could learn something and then like it [00:39:45] was that cool thing that you could then just tell someone,

Jen Igartua: Yeah.

Matt Amundson: did you know that if you [00:39:50] curse on a sales, uh, on like a sales call, you have a 30% increase in win

Matt Amundson: rate? long as [00:39:55] they cursed first.

Matt Amundson: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like that's like that's [00:40:00] cool like that. And it's not just cool because it's like a, I now know [00:40:05] something, but it's cool because it's a cool fact, you it. Yeah. And it's, [00:40:10] that's, that's I think is the thing that like is missing from, it's always been missing from [00:40:15] B2B and one of the things that, that made gong go like it went is like, yeah, you [00:40:20] can learn something.

Matt Amundson: And then you're kinda like, well, I learned something great and I don't care. I don't know. Like, [00:40:25] it's also, they gotta learn something that's meaningful and [00:40:30] interesting and like something that they would like then go run and tell. Hey Craig, like guess what? Like, [00:40:35] have you ever heard about this? Not just like, oh, Hmm.

Matt Amundson: Okay.

Jen Igartua: [00:40:40] Yeah, and it's, um, you know, I think what's happening right now, again, if I, if I talk about [00:40:45] how right now we're in this kind of like random acts space, which is [00:40:50] I can go do that. Research, I can go put a company [00:40:55] in and, and try to get some deep research and understand that person where you worked, what you did, what are you passionate [00:41:00] about?

Jen Igartua: I can kind of get that. But to go from that to saying whenever a, you [00:41:05] know, a, a prospect comes to a landing page, it's customized and I'm [00:41:10] confident that the content is not only relevant to them and, and references the research, but doesn't [00:41:15] look like AI slop. And you know, the moment that I think it's AI written, I'm, I'm [00:41:20] done.

Jen Igartua: Like we're backing out and we're seeing that right now, uh, the, like social [00:41:25] media consumption for the first time ever is down. tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny [00:41:30] percent, but it's down. And I think that the, like, that's one of the things this like, kind [00:41:35] of like, you know, death of the internet thing that, that, you know, folks are talking about.

Jen Igartua: I think we're too [00:41:40] addicted. But, um, there is something like, I deleted Instagram because every [00:41:45] comment is, is this ai? I think it's ai. Is it ai?

Jen Igartua: And so we do also have to be careful as we, [00:41:50] as we do this kind of work. Do you really need it to be individual by individual, by [00:41:55] individual, or can you target me as just like, Hey, a hundred person consulting company is probably dealing with [00:42:00] these things.

Jen Igartua: Here's what everybody else is doing. Here's how you scale. Do you have centralized [00:42:05] staffing, you know already in place? Do you know your billable rate? Here's what the benchmark is, and like [00:42:10] that. I'll, I eat up. I've been reading a lot of, like, how does AI [00:42:15] impact consulting companies? What's the future of, you know, AI agencies?

Jen Igartua: What does, uh, I'm, [00:42:20] I'm reading that very intensely and it's not for go nimbly, but it's like, you know, very much [00:42:25] for me. And so I, I do think that there is also like, we don't have to take it too far to add [00:42:30] value and we have to be really careful not to try to create this whole like, AI machine. If it's [00:42:35] slop, we're all gonna reject it really quickly. Even good [00:42:40] slop. I think even, even if I watch a really cool video, the moment I realize it's ai, I [00:42:45] am, I'm Xing out.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah.

Matt Amundson: I've been making a lot of videos on Sora [00:42:50] and trying to entertain my wife and children with them. What, one of the things I've [00:42:55] realized about Sora is if you put yourself in a Sora video, you [00:43:00] personally will love it and everyone else will think it's [00:43:05] dumb.

Jen Igartua: Send us one. I'll tell you if it's

Jen Igartua: done.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, you know what? [00:43:10] I actually think you should run an end of year campaign where every day you put [00:43:15] one up.

Jen Igartua: Ooh, 12 days of

Craig Rosenberg: how about, yeah.

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Sam Guertin: Oh,

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Craig Rosenberg: So, [00:43:20] Jen, how about you? Like what,

Matt Amundson: you

Craig Rosenberg: you know, you can answer it any [00:43:25] way you'd like

Jen Igartua: I've got a very, like, I know this is very services [00:43:30] specific, um, but I've got like a very real thing like dream right [00:43:35] now, which is, uh, I, I think that when I'm [00:43:40] doing discovery at the beginning of a relationship and, uh, at the beginning of, of trying to sell [00:43:45] somebody, the thing about services, they're usually coming to us with a big hairy problem that they aren't able to [00:43:50] solve or like their team is struggling or it's, it's a pretty emotional buy.[00:43:55]

Jen Igartua: And you know, what they're looking for is clarity and a path, and that's like, it takes a lot of work for [00:44:00] us to put a proposal together, especially if it's, if the customer isn't saying, Hey, I need help [00:44:05] with X, Y, Z, they're going to have a problem. And we have call recordings and we have our own [00:44:10] database of work that we've done before.

Jen Igartua: I have some cleanup to do there. But I would love to get to the point where I'm [00:44:15] going, okay. I just finished all my discovery calls and I do a bunch of deep research about the [00:44:20] industry, and I go and I look at my database of projects that we typically do, and I [00:44:25] get, you know, the AI to do the first draft of my presentation.

Jen Igartua: We're doing pieces of [00:44:30] that again. Uh, and when it's really simple, like we do a lot of gong implementations for [00:44:35] example, we have that. We create our kickoff deck and whatever, and it's fine. But in the case of somebody [00:44:40] coming to me and saying, Hey, I, my rev ops team is struggling. I have a bunch of gaps. [00:44:45] Here they are.

Jen Igartua: I need a team. Who do I need? I think I have enough information. I, [00:44:50] I'm thinking, I also wanna put a step in there where I have the little robot ask me [00:44:55] to just like talk. Um, like, I actually don't like the bunch of questions that I have to [00:45:00] type, but like, let me just give you a voice note of I talked to the customer, they have problems with this.

Jen Igartua: I think this will be [00:45:05] relevant, these five projects, I would definitely do lead routing. They definitely need, you know, [00:45:10] ai, SDR, you know, process. They have a high velocity business, like give it everything and then [00:45:15] let it. Help me with the proposal. Uh, it's very manual right now. [00:45:20] Luckily we do, like, we have big customers, so we might be doing like five a month, [00:45:25] but it's like five at 10 plus hours each.

Jen Igartua: So that's my

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: [00:45:30] That's a good one,

Matt Amundson: like that dream.

Craig Rosenberg: on that one?

Matt Amundson: that dream.

Jen Igartua: [00:45:35] Thank you.

Craig Rosenberg: Why are you calling it a dream?

Craig Rosenberg: You said it twice.

Matt Amundson: She called it a dream.

Jen Igartua: [00:45:40] That's, on me. That's,

Craig Rosenberg: lead.

Jen Igartua: on me.

Matt Amundson: I'm just trying to reflect back. You know [00:45:45] language

Jen Igartua: It's very nice. It's a good sales tactic actually.

Matt Amundson: sales. T. [00:45:50] Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: yeah, that's, uh, I think those are both,

Jen Igartua: Yeah. Why don't you [00:45:55] Why?

Craig Rosenberg: great. Well, I would say, um, [00:46:00] um, well, I think there. I think they're both good, I think. [00:46:05] Um, so I would give you guys both, uh, b plus a [00:46:10] minuses.

Matt Amundson: We'll take the all. She

Craig Rosenberg: Matt? Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: Well, [00:46:15] Matt Wa Yeah, Matt, Matt. Once you sort of, because I put him on the spot and [00:46:20] then you sort of,

Jen Igartua: That's true. it out and figured it out.

Craig Rosenberg: So I gave him, I gave him, [00:46:25] uh, credit. 'cause the idea is the right. Place to go there. [00:46:30] Um, you know, by the way, for me, I, I, so I do believe that, [00:46:35] um, we're entering into the, the next phase of [00:46:40] ai, which will be more impactful, but [00:46:45] I'm also starting to believe that the first part of this phase will be fraught with.[00:46:50]

Craig Rosenberg: Apparel and failure, and it's just because, yeah, it's [00:46:55] because of what Jen keeps saying, which is, uh, we, you [00:47:00] can't just say, let's go do ai. The tenets of being a better business [00:47:05] or implementing technology have never

Craig Rosenberg: changed.

Craig Rosenberg: You, you, [00:47:10] you, you have to take your high level strategy and outcomes and work backwards from [00:47:15] how you work today.

Craig Rosenberg: And then you figure out strategy, people, process, [00:47:20] technology. You know, it's funny that whole phrase technology last [00:47:25] and it every, for the last, I've been alive for a long time, so let's say I've been in tech for 25 [00:47:30] years. Like it's always worked better for the person who did the tech [00:47:35] last, and they are always the most tech forward people.

Jen Igartua: so interesting.

Craig Rosenberg: You know, [00:47:40] it, it's, it's interesting, like, but you're bol sort of, so Matt's saying, look, I want to deliver [00:47:45] a unique experience to the customer. Okay, well let's start there, right? Like David, uh, you [00:47:50] know, Boskovich, you know, he did, he's done the show and it was, it's our, it's the most [00:47:55] popular show. And then we had him keynote and he was talking about it.

Craig Rosenberg: He was like, the first thing he did was [00:48:00] say, you know, why is everyone telling me this is a best practice? Why, why are [00:48:05] these assumptions like, let's just. Let's just break it all down again. And [00:48:10] then if you look, 'cause he's a tech guy, but if you look and you listen to the way he talks about it, [00:48:15] there was so many business decisions first that were supported [00:48:20] by a ai not, and is, you know, like his thing, you know, he, when he [00:48:25] was putting together preso, he is like, I gotta talk about how we hired a magician.

Jen Igartua: Oh right.

Craig Rosenberg: Right. [00:48:30] You know, because, and I was like, oh yeah, you do, because I think everyone's there to be like, [00:48:35] oh, what AI did he use? He said, well, first of all, I want to deliver demos suck, and I wanted to deliver the best [00:48:40] demo possible. And who better than a magician? And they brought a magician in to come train the [00:48:45] team and help sort of figure out how they're gonna demo.

Craig Rosenberg: Um, and that's business first, [00:48:50] AI second, right? And like, or, you know, a lot of things second and, um. [00:48:55] You know, so as you guys were talking, I'm like, you know that, that, that point won't go away. I think [00:49:00] we will still be in trouble. 'cause we still have the, you have to become AI first, which I think is [00:49:05] the right thing to come from the top.

Craig Rosenberg: But you can't translate that into random acts of [00:49:10] AI as you guys put it right. Like that. You, you still want to attack this, [00:49:15] uh, in a meaningful way. And then both of your examples were. [00:49:20] Reasonable. I mean, these are, you can make ground, but if you tackle it in the wrong [00:49:25] way or in a really tactical way or in a feature centric way, then it will be very hard to have an impact.[00:49:30]

Craig Rosenberg: Um, but you can do these things. I think what the, the [00:49:35] one thing I am very intrigued by is. So it's always been [00:49:40] hard in my history of doing sales in MarTech. When it touches the customer, that's when it gets [00:49:45] tricky. It's the, it is the holy grail. It is what we want is to do better [00:49:50] with them. So like, I've always felt like, look like.

Craig Rosenberg: Rev ops where [00:49:55] Jen lives, like, can, can they like re you know, sort of ops [00:50:00] AI is, and that to me is like where orchestration [00:50:05] lives, right? Like, you know, not lives. It, it, it's so meaningful. Like [00:50:10] what, what if we just tackled over the next year what a Rev ops [00:50:15] person

Craig Rosenberg: does? Not just the tech decisions, but I mean like, like Neil [00:50:20] Harrington, like he just sent me screenshots of how, how he's using ai.[00:50:25]

Craig Rosenberg: He's using Claude for doing strategic analysis of what's working and what's not working in the [00:50:30] sales team. He does all his forecasting through that. These are things that need to grab from [00:50:35] multiple sources, right. To me, that's part of

Craig Rosenberg: orchestrating. [00:50:40] Um, and, um. It will save rev ops [00:50:45] who have been, they're fire, they're fire people, right?

Craig Rosenberg: They, they are [00:50:50] literally, the alarm goes off, they get outta bed and they go create the report for someone. And like, [00:50:55] uh, AI feels like, and the orchestration you guys bring up, [00:51:00] it, it's always worked better back there, right? Because a, these [00:51:05] guys are the guys who know how to buy. Technology, but B, they actually are the people that are [00:51:10] supposed to make everyone else's lives easier and their lives are harder.

Craig Rosenberg: And, um, [00:51:15] and so you would do this sort of, and I, I feel the same way from marketing. I, I [00:51:20] do agree. Like, I think we got marketing, got the bug. I just don't hear enough stories about [00:51:25] how they're changing their workflows

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: with

Craig Rosenberg: ai.

Matt Amundson: I think that [00:51:30] I,

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Matt Amundson: I think that. The best examples of like successful AI [00:51:35] companies and deployments are one where you're using ai, not [00:51:40] necessarily for like creative, but you're using AI to cut out manual [00:51:45] work or repetitive tasks, right? So like, you know, you talk about. Uh, [00:51:50] rev ops and like, Hey, I need a report that looks like this because the board just, or a board member [00:51:55] just asked me for it, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Matt Amundson: Like that should be some, a place where AI can just [00:52:00] spin it up, right? And like nobody needs to lose a year [00:52:05] off the end of their life. Like panicking to try to pull something together from various disparate sources [00:52:10] like that is to me, like, you know, we. Both Jen and I talked about [00:52:15] like, Hey, this is stuff that would impact our business or the way we work.

Matt Amundson: Like, it's great, but like [00:52:20] part of why companies like Cursor and Windsurf were so successful is because it just [00:52:25] applied AI to the worst parts of development, right? Like the, [00:52:30] the shittiest part of being a developer. They were just like, yeah, what if. Eliminated that and people were like, [00:52:35] hell yes, please, please, please, please.

Matt Amundson: Right. And I think like to [00:52:40] truly create like a, you know, like a, a pull, not push model. It's like you have to [00:52:45] just look at something that p people do on a regular basis that's super painful, [00:52:50] that has a big tam, and just go build an AI for that, as opposed to thinking [00:52:55] about like, what is the holy grail of AI where you can just sell like a [00:53:00] marketing department to a CEO in a box.

Matt Amundson: Because I don't think that that's gonna [00:53:05] work.

Matt Amundson: The reason why enrichment is working. Yeah,

Jen Igartua: as ai, right? Because it's been [00:53:10] manual and it's been a pain in the ass, and it's been really hard to upkeep and it [00:53:15] doesn't touch the customer.

Jen Igartua: So speaking of that, and it doesn't even touch the sale seller, so [00:53:20] like I don't need to go enable anybody. They don't have to change their workflow.

Jen Igartua: I'm basically saying, Hey, your data's better now. [00:53:25] Don't worry about it. And I have new data points and now you can do your job better. And I'm, I'm, I'm [00:53:30] removing the, like I don't trust this field. Is this even Right. Skepticism and like, that's a really [00:53:35] good scenario where like end to end, it's working across all of our customers.

Jen Igartua: Go ahead and [00:53:40] get AI enrichment. You know, an automation in place. Uh, and then you get into, you know, [00:53:45] SDR like ai, SDR, fully agentic, and I don't have anybody where it's working. I [00:53:50] have the, I have pieces, I have an AI email and I have routing, and I [00:53:55] have like some recommended next steps, but I don't have it in the background working like a lot of [00:54:00] companies, you know, say

Matt Amundson: Yep. Yep. Agreed.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. I, [00:54:05] I, the, I am thinking this is a really [00:54:10] great conversation that we have to end. Right now, just 'cause we're outta time and I have [00:54:15] to run down. But, um, I, I'm, [00:54:20] I'm kind of, uh, not speechless, but I'm really thinking about what you get. You know, it, there's, [00:54:25] I really need to think through my sort of talk track on phase two

Craig Rosenberg: based on what you [00:54:30] guys

Craig Rosenberg: just said and what we just talked

Craig Rosenberg: about.

Craig Rosenberg: I I'm actually [00:54:35] got.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, we should. we really should. Yeah, we really should. 'cause [00:54:40] I am, I was serious the, this idea of like, I think phase two is here, [00:54:45] but like we are gonna run into the same problems is real more Tati [00:54:50] because you guys are sophisticated. Who's mic?

Craig Rosenberg: Oh, is that you? Jen? Is your mic? [00:54:55] Yeah, yeah. It's okay. It's okay. Normally I'm the one making the weird sounds. [00:55:00] Uh, so yeah, we gotta, we gotta pick this back up. So I want to, I want to do, bring a, [00:55:05] a couple updates. So one is if you want to learn how to run a real event [00:55:10] that, uh, translate into real customer love and prospect love, you should, uh, study [00:55:15] what Jen did for Rev Fest and next year there's Rev Fest.

Craig Rosenberg: Good luck getting in, but you should [00:55:20] try. Um, and then the second thing is the era of [00:55:25] orchestration and what that means. And I think, um, [00:55:30] man, there's a lot to think about and talk about here. I, I, uh, I just think it's, [00:55:35] I actually think it's way more exciting and I [00:55:40] got nervous as you guys were talking, so I, that is a good sign for the market, everyone as the, [00:55:45] uh, resident oracle of these things when you get nervous and excited at the same time.[00:55:50]

Craig Rosenberg: That's a

Craig Rosenberg: good sign, um, because you're about to be really disruptive. Um, [00:55:55] and so one other thing I I would mention here, which is [00:56:00] the, um, the, the, the thing that we sort of all came down to, and you [00:56:05] and I brought up the sophistication of Matt and Jen is. You know, they [00:56:10] do, even when they were talking about ai, they were still talking about it in terms of business problems.

Craig Rosenberg: And that, you know, I [00:56:15] know I mentioned that before, but I do want to close with that, which is, um, that will be the [00:56:20] flaw, is if we keep viewing it as a toy and saying, well, you can AI everything instead of [00:56:25] taking your, you know, your most important initiatives and, and doing that. [00:56:30] Then you'll probably be unsuccessful and then I'll leave.

Craig Rosenberg: One other thing that kept coming up, which is Sidney [00:56:35] Sloan's thing, which is that decision should come from what your customers want. [00:56:40] Now that would, that would be different than what I said, except that's not true. If you can [00:56:45] free up time to figure out how to serve customers, then you will do better as a result.

Craig Rosenberg: Right [00:56:50] now, we still run around. Plugging leaks and creating reports at one in the morning. So, [00:56:55] um, Jen, thank you for coming on again. You'll be back soon. [00:57:00] Um, we want to, maybe we'll do a Spanish

Craig Rosenberg: movie podcast, Matt, think about [00:57:05] that. Maybe something, you know. Hey, can I actually, one more comment before we go.[00:57:10]

Craig Rosenberg: I've been so, I was so excited to stream Spanish TV shows on [00:57:15] Netflix and I've, the algorithm feeds them. I don't like them.

Matt Amundson: Oh, Okay, I'll [00:57:20] send you a list. Please do, because a lot of 'em I watch, first of all, [00:57:25] 40% have the same

Craig Rosenberg: actors. Number two there, there's a little [00:57:30] bit of Soap Opry

Jen Igartua: Sure.

Craig Rosenberg: type of play, and I don't [00:57:35] like that. And I know that Spanish movies are so much more nuanced [00:57:40] that I'm kind of disappointed in the TV show.

Craig Rosenberg: So yes, you have to

Craig Rosenberg: send me

Jen Igartua: Cool. I.

Craig Rosenberg: do it. All right [00:57:45] guys, take the rest of the day off. Let's do it.

Thanks for joining us for another episode of [00:57:50] the Transaction, Craig, and I really appreciate the fact that you've listened all the way to the end. [00:57:55] What are you actually doing here? For show notes and other episodes, please visit [00:58:00] us@thetransactionpod.com, like and subscribe on Spotify, apple Podcast or any other place you get [00:58:05] your podcast from.

Either [00:58:10] you have walked away from your podcast device. Or this is playing somewhere in the [00:58:15] background. Someone in your house would really like for you to shut this off [00:58:20] [00:58:25] now.