The Transaction

TT - 035 - Mini Peiris
Matt Amundson: [00:00:00] We are live. Coming at you
Craig Rosenberg: I hope that made it. That was great. You can imagine the lead in and then Minnie comes on and is like, Are we officially recording?
Matt Amundson: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Craig Rosenberg: By the way,
I uh, just before we get started, Um, Dreamforce, like, is it back? How was it for you?
Mini Peiris: It was great for us. We, we hustled at the last minute to get a bunch of prebooked meetings and we had a separate meeting space that I think everybody appreciated, like, like scaled it as well. Um, in terms of. Not in the, in the Moscone vortex, but just some place to come chill. We ran an ice cream social impromptu because one of our customers really wanted to have ice cream and we were jammed for two days solid.
So I do think it is back to a certain extent. Haven't seen the final total numbers. I don't know if you guys have, [00:01:00] um, because they were, they were running promos hard going into it. That you, they were giving all kinds of discounts on passes. Um, but it felt, the crowds felt real, the boots, the, the whole trade show floor was also hopping.
Craig Rosenberg: Oh, it was. Okay, that's
Craig Rosenberg: all right. Well, um, I'm going to actually start the intro process here by saying, you know, there's some people where you've gotten accustomed to know. I've known many for a long time. And the other day I brought up her name and someone's like, is that how you pronounce her last [00:02:00] name? So I've been calling you mini Pyrrha's for a long time. Is that correct?
Mini Peiris: You are on the money, my man. So
Craig Rosenberg: Okay. So,
Mini Peiris: it, well, it's, it's close. It's P. Riss is the official way to say it. So ignore the EI,
Craig Rosenberg: Ooh, I kind of like that better. Cause like if you had a social handle, it'd be P dash risks.
Mini Peiris: right? Exactly.
Craig Rosenberg: And I like that. Look at
Mini Peiris: Actually, my social handle is miniature cause
Matt Amundson: Yeah.
Mini Peiris: mini, miniature.
Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, you're right. That's better.
Matt Amundson: Yeah, that is much better.
Craig Rosenberg: So, uh, so, you know, we, we, the, on the show, we just actually had this thing where we're talking about why did we name it the transaction is like, because we want to cover all these things that happen in the go to market that lead ultimately to the transaction. And, um, And so we've tried to have this mix of folks from thought leaders to operators and across different disciplines.
And so, [00:03:00] um, you know, today we have an operator who I met when she was running marketing at NetSuite, which, you know, looking back, by the way, I don't know if we'll spend time on this today. That's one of the most, that is an iconic, epic run of Silicon Valley company, right? I mean, that was pretty amazing what you guys did there.
Um, and then over multiple companies after that, doing work for many and just watching her do her thing. And then she, like Matt, was at EIR, uh, here with us at Scale Venture Partners, which was really fun. So much fun. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I wish I could pay more. I mean, you got, people have so much fun doing this and like, um,
Mini Peiris: We'll both be back. You know that, right?
Craig Rosenberg: oh, Boomerang's accepted, Boomerang's accepted, uh, actually encouraged and, um, but, but over that time, and I don't know if Matt knew her, but like, you could, you, you just have to watch many operate and then, you [00:04:00] know.
How amazing she is as an effectuator of transactions. As I was thinking about, um, you know, leading into today, because you're very, by the way, many,
What Makes A Great CMO
Craig Rosenberg: I don't know if you notice by you're very strategic and capable of tying the tactics back to the strategy. And like, that is a real CMO. That's what they do. And like, so.
Um, it's, it's just, honestly, it's awesome to have you on the show. We have a ton of respect for you. Matt picked you up late, but he was very excited to have you on as well. Thank you. We'll make sure, uh, we note that we received a heart from many, please, for those listening on the audio only version. Um, so Mini P Riz
Mini Peiris: P Risk. Yeah.
Craig Rosenberg: is here with us today.
Welcome to the transaction. How you doing?
Mini Peiris: Thank you. Thank you. Happy to be here. Um, I'll add on to what makes a great CMO is the, the last part is you got to make sales think like it was their, all their idea. That's the other secret to CMO [00:05:00] success.
Craig Rosenberg: You know what? I totally agree with that. I have an anecdote and then I'll bring up the key question to get this started. So when we were first evangelizing account based at Topo, um, You know, the, one of the key elements, which now I feel like we're all, as an industry, we're just doing much better was this idea of the ICP and the target account list.
The issue was in the initial stage, one of the reasons why we didn't want to use ABM, because we just didn't want marketers to do this on their own. They were getting caught with this all the time. And, um, they were even in meetings, they'd say, okay, here's the target account list and sales half paying attention would say.
Okay, we're in. And then I always said, no, in three months you're going to get caught. So what we told them, I learned this, I was doing a council and this CMO brings up this thing, he called it the leave it on the desk play. And he's like, here's what you do. You create the target [00:06:00] account list and you walk into the CRO or VP of sales office and you go, Hey, listen, team put together, um, an initial take using, you know, a lot of the data we captured from you on what could be a target account list, I'll just leave it.
I'll just leave it with you, your call. And, um, he's, he's like, the key is if in the ELT in the next month or so, that CRO VP of sales comes back and says, you guys have a great idea. This is what we should use for our target account list. And he's like, then I was golden, but we, it's exactly into what Mitty just brought up.
Mini Peiris: it. Harder to do in our virtual world these days, but love it.
Craig Rosenberg: Really leave things on people's desks and there's really no access to that.
Mini Peiris: Leave it in your Slack with a share link.
Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. If you haven't
Mini Peiris: you
Craig Rosenberg: worked from home CRO and you want to leave it on their desk. All right. So here's how we start the show mini. And we just kind of go from there, which is, um, [00:07:00] we asked the big question. Is, you know, what's something that the market is doing today? It could be anything, best practices, approaches, tactics, et cetera.
Um, where they think it's right, but it's actually wrong and they should be doing Something different. And, and so what do you think the, those things are and then what should they do differently about them? Go. Silence.
Mini Peiris: Okay,
Don't Forget That People Buy Software
Mini Peiris: so I'm going to put it, phrase it as a, as a big theme, but then I have like a couple specific examples under that. I think the big theme, and this is particularly for B2B marketers, they continue to forget that it's still people who buy software. Okay, so they're we're all out there like you just mentioned it's a target account list But when you peel that back and you look at okay, who are the ideal customer profiles and frankly, what are the?
psychographics of [00:08:00] Those companies that make them attractive to you. It's about the people so two ways this shows up one is Like everybody right now is trying to use different channels, different tactics, trying to get their message out there, but they've forgotten the importance of brand strategy. As you bring that to life, you got to tell a story.
You got to give people. a why to care about. Like, why are they going to pick you over somebody else? Why should they pay attention? Why should they even take your phone call, right? Because that's hard these days. Continue. The struggle is real on that. Running the BDR team, I can appreciate that. Um, and uh, so this is how you have to be able to communicate and like create that momentum for yourself.
So the anchor up behind, you know, people by software is very much about You got to start there. If you don't have your story, right. If you're, and that goes all the way to sales, right? So this is about the transaction. How do [00:09:00] winning sales reps do it is they tell a story. It's like, you're the director for a Pixar movie.
And actually, Craig, I gotta, this is anecdotally shout out. I think the most impactful session I have ever sat through in my life was. When you brought in the guy from Pixar into the CMO council that Topo ran before you were at school. I loved what he said about that, the story arc. This is how you tell a case study story, a customer story.
This is how you run a sales meeting, right? These are all good things to make sure you have a protagonist because it's about the person. People have to buy into their struggle and then you have to, Take them down at the depths of despair. Uh, and then you talk about how, Hey, we can build you up and get you to the happy place.
And so that storytelling muscle is one I think we've lost. And so brand strategy, starting there, anchoring there really comes back to because people buy software. And the other thing [00:10:00] I will say I'm seeing as a trend right now, which, you know, everybody jumped so hard onto the AI bandwagon. And you go out there and you talk to customers and, and they're like, I don't know.
I, I've been told I need to do something. My investors, my board, all of my leadership, everyone's telling me I need to do something. I have no idea how this applies to my day to day and how to leverage it. Right. So, um, I think that's marketers have fallen into that trap of, okay, shiny new object. I have to run over here.
But if you stay true to your core and remember that people buy software, You have to be able to thread that needle and come back to, um, really being able to articulate how that's going to impact the person's day to day. I'll pause there.
Craig Rosenberg: Okay, I start going. I'm trying to find the name of the dude that we had it. I'm sorry. I, you know, me,
Matt Amundson: You do your, you
Mini Peiris: The Pixar dude? Yeah.
Craig Rosenberg: was amazing. I got to go get him again.
Mini Peiris: I could probably go find my notebook because [00:11:00] I'm, I'm old school. I take notes on paper. I save my notebooks. I could probably go find it in 15 minutes or so, but I won't leave you hanging for that.
Craig Rosenberg: By the way, I just, uh, thing on the topo. So it's incredible. There's all these posts about the topo summit still on Google.
Matt Amundson: love that.
Craig Rosenberg: Yeah.
Mini Peiris: The internet doesn't forget. This is why you tell your teenagers, be careful what you post, right?
Craig Rosenberg: Very true.
Matt Amundson: So that, so to, just to anchor on what Minnie was talking about, I talk about this a lot, people, when they're putting together their messaging frameworks, they focus a lot, uh, on the is and the does. And almost everybody is leaving out the means part. And I think like, or people are conflating what means, means, right?
So if you're, if you know, if I use Marketo as an example, you know, we, we talked about what Marketo is. Marketo is a marketing automation platform. What does it do is it automates the, [00:12:00] you know, the, the, the silly And simple parts, uh, of marketing and allows you to get more programs out the door. What it means.
People would say, Oh, what it means is, uh, I can do twice as much work. No, what it means is you become a marketing rockstar. you get promoted. You go from being an IC to a manager, a manager, to a director, a director, to a VP, a VP, to a CMO.
And what we you get home in time to see, you know, go to your kids baseball game.
That's right. That's right. So you make more money and you spend more time with your family.
That's what it means, right? And I think people are conflating what means means, or they're just leaving it out completely and just saying, Hey, we are this thing and this is what it does. So hopefully you care, right? Hopefully that that's enough to get you excited. And the reality is it's not enough to get you excited. And that's why there's so much bland marketing today. uh, we talked, uh, to, to another CMO. earlier this week, uh, [00:13:00] one who was working at a brand in a, or working at a company that utilized brand as its key differentiator in a very, very crowded space. And, you know, they were able to cultivate like true differentiators because people were just like, yeah, I'm aware of that company and that company's cool.
Uh, and I understand what they're trying to do. And I understand The impact that it makes on me. Not just me, The professional, or not just me, The business, but actually me as a human being. Um, and I think that that is something that is totally lost in marketing right now.
Mini Peiris: Agreed. And I think, so reflecting on where I've, you know, I think
Building a Customer Community with Dounts
Mini Peiris: Ombra was a teeny tiny startup that I was at, um, because it was a bit of a passion project, digital health, we were moving medical imaging to the cloud.
Matt Amundson: Mm hmm.
Mini Peiris: We used to get inbound around sort of acquisition interest, and they thought we were way bigger than we actually were from a revenue perspective, from a Why?
Because we created this [00:14:00] Ethos and culture and image. We, you know, so there were a few things that went with that. Um, we did create a brand that was associated with innovation and obviously in, you know, in healthcare, particularly in imaging, like radiologists just weren't used to being talked to that way.
So we had that going for us as one of our pillars and then we invested in them. So this is like the most
Craig Rosenberg: 4,
Mini Peiris: offshoot of creating customer culture that I've done, but we. We founded a women in radiology leadership forum. Um, and we started it with like 20 people, but that thing grew to become the anchor event at pretty much the biggest conferences and trade shows that we've had, it was called RadXSX at the time, it's now called RadEqual.
But it had this massive, like, rising tide effect that we could never have anticipated. Now, if you're going to run that sort of play, like, you got to pick your [00:15:00] people. And we, we did very well in picking out of our current customers who were leaning in on innovation and had some cachet themselves. So this is where personal brand of the individuals that you're cultivating and investing in, you can make that work in your favor.
If, like you said, like you're highlighting their career path, you're helping them get noticed. Um, and it was a, it was a massive unlock. So
Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, but are so, um, well, first of all, that when we were talking to the, you know, the, in the other conversation that where the brand outran the, the product in like, in, I don't think many, I'm not typing in many of these case on the product, but like, they look like they were the key. Queens of the ball.
Right in that. And, and so the, and by the way, I just, in that, I was just thinking about all these scenarios where the brand far [00:16:00] outstripped the value of the product. It's, it's pretty amazing what marketing can do. I won't bring up examples because some of them are our friends
Mini Peiris: you might be calling people out. Yeah.
Matt Amundson: Mm hmm.
Craig Rosenberg: but yeah, that that's amazing, but I do.
So, but the, the community that you built or the, but so that were you, that was, that was incredible. And, but that's part of this idea that we want to sort of insert ourselves into the people that buy this software and get close to them. Is that kind of,
Mini Peiris: Exactly. Exactly. Because it was the individual. So basically how I sourced our like founding team. First off with fantastic woman lean in with us from Weill Cornell, Geraldine McGinty. We're still friends. Um, And she was our anchor who then we helped leverage to go recruit people. And we [00:17:00] picked folks, the thing we looked for, and this is how it ties back to, how do you create your ICP?
We looked for people who had leaned in on social media. So were they active on Twitter? Were they active on LinkedIn? Cause we could tell they had an innovation mindset. And so we, and frankly, this was best use of donuts I've ever done at a conference. We were in Portland. Uh, and we were at an imaging trade show and they had this one session on social media insert it in, like, how can radiologists leverage this?
And so we decided, and you know, Portland has good donut games. So, you know, voodoo daddies or, um, uh, anyway, so we went, we started this whole thing around, like, who had the best donuts. And we said, we will bring donuts to that social media session. Uh, based on what people voted for. So it was like, and this was all happening real time while we were at the conference.
Uh, and [00:18:00] that was how we recruited basically our anchor set of folks that founded, uh, the, the RADx X council, if you will.
Craig Rosenberg: I love the use of signals. Like he used data to figure out the best people to go after. That's like original signal selling kind of action.
Mini Peiris: Yeah. You can still do it today at scale. Like we were brute forcing that stuff back in the day, but.
Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, I know. It's amazing. By the way, on the donut thing, um, Speaking of branding, so, you know, I took my kid. My favorite place is Randy's Donuts. And so I had my kids down there for basketball tournament. Like I got to take this donut place and we pull in and it's Randy's. I mean, they're like, oh, yeah, we know this place because Iron Man sat on that donut.
Yeah. And it's like, and I was like, yeah, you know, you see it in all the movies, by the way, that they have the best apple fritter in the United States. Randy's done. It's part of it. All right. How many people know that? All right. Let's, let's keep going. So, but
Developing Your Brand's Core Identity
Craig Rosenberg: I love this because, [00:19:00] um, I mean, do we feel like it gets lost?
Just this idea of the core brand. And then let me ask that first. And then one of the things that I always appreciate about Minnie, when she brought this to the table and working with some of the portfolio companies, frankly, was she like, Okay, we're going to take a step back and she could lead them.
Through something credible, at least to have an idea of their identity in what? Two hours, three. I mean, like there was a lot of discovery to understand what they were doing and she had her own theories, but like, you know, I'm trying to remember all the elements, but like, why, why do we exist? And like some of these things, so like, I want to do two things.
One is we feel like it's missing too. It doesn't, it is hard, but it doesn't sound like at least getting started is
Mini Peiris: Yeah, I think people shy away from it. It's hard work. And frankly, this is sort of like, you know, personal mantra, like, you have to know yourself [00:20:00] before you can go tell others your story. So it is a lot of soul searching that you have to do as a company ties into your mission and your vision. And why are we here?
Why did we start doing this in the first place? Um, And you have to stop thinking about it from a tech perspective. So that's the other thing we always fall into the trap of like, the technology is the last thing you get to. It's more of what are we here to help people do,
Matt Amundson: Mm.
Mini Peiris: right? And that's hard. So you have to cut through all the layers and I, but, but look for founders and founding teams that really know why they got started in the first place.
It's a lot easier if you sort of like grew your way to it, or you've You started with an original premise and you've had to make so many pivots along the way because of market pressures. And now you've like forgotten your identity. That's when it gets harder and maybe takes a few more [00:21:00] turns and takes prompting.
Um, it is also very data intensive. Like you gotta go talk to your customers. Gotta have that input. Gotta go look at the market. You have to go, you know, look at the competitors. Um, but then it does come back to like knowing yourself at a, at a deeply fundamental level.
Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. And then what do you guys do, both of you guys here, what about Um, and not, this is a terrible word. Just use the word cause it's the one that comes to mind and I'm, I don't have enough brain power to pivot it, but like, you'll get the idea. It doesn't mean, but like enforcement or internal amplification, like, and then keeping that up.
Right. So, I mean, you did NetSuite at scale. We were probably adding new employees every. Uh, so tell me, tell us about that. You guys, like I, it's one thing to go build it. I've seen many marketers that pull out this off the shelf, well, digital shelf. Hey, no, we've done all that. And then, but nobody, it's not.
Mini Peiris: [00:22:00] Yeah,
The CEO’s Influence on Brand & Culture
Mini Peiris: look, we had Ed and Ed's Suite, I'll tell you. I was fortunate to work for a CEO who was an ex marketing badass. Um, so, uh, and continues to be. Uh, but, uh, so we had this simple, like three light bulbs slide that was in everything we did. First light bulb was, you know, it's the cloud. So that was a rock that we were pushing uphill at the time, but got easier.
Uh, second light bulb was it's the suite. So for us, that was. a very simple way to articulate how are we different than just your accounting system, right? We have more that we can offer businesses. That one did, as we went more up market, we did morph that a little bit, but it was still about more than just, you know, accounting would be the way I would phrase it, right?
And then the third one did vary for us a little bit. At the start it was, we're about SMBs, then it became for us about [00:23:00] verticals and industries. So, you know, we really understood how your unique business runs. So that was, those three light bulbs were sort of what made, we made sure every new person rolling on.
As we grew, as I said, we did make some adjustments when we started going into more mid market, but that is to this day still true for what NetSuite is.
Matt Amundson: so I use, uh, we talked, uh, influencers, right? I use The most important influencer for this within an organization. And that's The CEO. And, you know, a lot of times I've worked, uh, at early stage companies, uh, with CMOs that were developers and engineers. And the first thing, the first conversation that I have with them, you know, usually during the interview process is, are you comfortable saying the same thing for the next 10 years? Because that really flies in the face of most engineers brains, right? Like They, want to develop new stuff all the time. Oh, but we're going to be developing new stuff. [00:24:00] You know, I totally understand that, but we're going to serve our core audience and we're going to have a core message that will always be at the center of everything that we do.
And if every feature or subsequent product that we release cannot speak to that core message, then we're. Either need to pivot dramatically, or we need to probably rebrand the company, getting the CEO to be comfortable saying the same thing over and over again is really important because every time you do an all hands, every time you do uh, Annual reviews.
Every time, you know, the, we do internal communications that comes from the CEO, it's got to say the same. thing over and over again. And if you can convince your CEO to say, the same thing over and over again, the other executives will. And if the other executives will, Well, now this is, uh, it's not a one size fits all, but this is a great way to sort of start the strategy of getting everybody on the same page, having it start specifically with the CEO, and having the conversation with that [00:25:00] person that they have got to They've got to be on board with that process because if they are, everyone else will.
The thing that I always say is like, the culture of every company is always the culture of the CEO. You can try to change things around here and there, but like the way the CEO behaves, the way they talk about the product is going to be the way that everybody else talks about the product as well. So that's really critical, number one.
Number two, like, I think the thing is, is you have to, you have to sort of bring these things down from, from, from the mountain, right? So you've got to immortalize them in places and those places need to be very prominent, whether they exist in physical spaces on the walls of your office, whether they exist in your Slack channels, they just need to be.
places where people can feel comfortable and see them.
And then you also have to just reinforce it. Every time that you get together publicly, whether that's your company values or whether that's the customers that you serve. Look [00:26:00] at
Mini Peiris: 100 percent on all that. Yeah, I mean, I think we made this point in when we ran the product launch workshop at the last Gale Summit. You cannot repeat yourself enough. Customers are going to forget, your own people are going to forget. So belligerent repetition all in on that one, Maddie.
Matt Amundson: Yep. Yep.
Craig Rosenberg: All right. I got a surprise question then we'll let,
Matt Amundson: Oh, I love surprises.
Craig Rosenberg: yeah, uh, well, I, first I just,
Mini Peiris: Does it come with balloons? Can we do that thing?
Craig Rosenberg: well, one is it, the guy's name is Matthew Luhn, who was the Pixar storyteller,
Mini Peiris: nice.
Craig Rosenberg: speaking fees have increased significantly since I hired him at Sova Summit in 2017.
Mini Peiris: you boosted his career, just like we were just talking about. You know,
Craig Rosenberg: The guy was amazing. He came and did the executive one at the Battery, and then he's like, Uh, you know, when we were talking to him three days before, he's like, well, I'll, you got me [00:27:00] like, what do you want to do? We're like, well, will you also go back to the main event? Do it? He's like, yeah, no problem. And so, oh, no, no, it's the other way around.
He was doing the main event. He's like, well, look, I mean, do you have anybody else? We're like, all right, we'll come to the exact event. Guy was amazing. Now he's, that was, I, Thank you for that note. Okay.
Examples of Great B2B Brands
Craig Rosenberg: Here's what I want you guys to do. I want you to think for a sec I want you to come up with an example of a b2b tech company that has built an exceptional Brand that sort of fits what you guys just have been talking about for the last couple minutes But you got to try to surprise us That's
Mini Peiris: Wow. Okay. That's
It's hard to find the surprise factor, jeez.
Craig Rosenberg: okay don't you okay give us what your first instinct was and then let's let's go with that
Mini Peiris: So I had two that popped into my head pretty quickly, which was, uh, [00:28:00] Hubspot and Zendesk. Um, they both had sort of this hero, like, you, you know, you're the, The persona that comes out from them is like, you want to just get things done. You want to get it done quickly and simply. And they elevated and highlighted their customers in a strong way.
Um, so those are my two that like came to mind as we were thinking through that. Uh, but Matt, I'm sure you probably got some examples too. Yeah,
Matt Amundson: one I thought about, but, uh, this may, may surprise you may not is Rippling. Uh, Rippling does a great job with, you know, both their customers understand the value. I think their employees understand the value. I think people who are consumers of the product and not the customers are, I guess, the end customer, right?
Like the customer of HR, uh, they really understand the value. Uh, and I think that they are absolutely nailing it. Um, you know. Not a surprise before, like, you know, whatever you consider happened at Zenefits, happened at [00:29:00] Zenefits, they were also nailing it at Zenefits before. Uh, so they've, they've built like a really, you know, that team has built like a really good way of sort of coming to market and sort of, uh, building a brand around the problems that they solve, but also getting their customers into that brand really, really effectively.
Uh, so, so that's, that's the one that comes to mind. I think. I think the other one that I think about maybe that might be more surprising. Um, it's more B2C though. Um,
Mini Peiris: what the people who do this well are B to C because they know the C is a person.
Uh,
Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, because of that, yeah, that is, uh, not an advantage, but that's what makes them so good at this.
Matt Amundson: Yeah, I know they, I mean, they have some B2B component to their, to their business, but it is by and large B2C is lifetime fitness. Um, what they are doing with their marketing nowadays where they're talking about, like, it's like a, it's not a gym, it's a [00:30:00] country club and sort of the visual story that they're creating, like on their, on their digital properties is amazing.
It makes me wish there was a lifetime in San Mateo. I think the closest ones in Walnut Creek and I am not driving to Walnut Creek to work out. So,
Craig Rosenberg: But so, God, I, all right, cool. All right. Those are good. Um, I, uh, I,
Mini Peiris: And I make one other point since it's the transaction, but this brand piece that we're talking about You can't forget the post transaction part.
Craig Rosenberg: Oh, you know what? Really good. So let's go there. Can I give you guys one? I thought of as you were talking, though,
Mini Peiris: yeah,
Matt Amundson: you can.
Craig Rosenberg: because I, I was nervous that I couldn't come up with some, I wanted surprising, by the way, I think we've.
Mini Peiris: dump the chump. All right,
Craig Rosenberg: I think that HubSpot is an example of the brand way outrunning the product.
Mini Peiris: Mm
Craig Rosenberg: Like, they were [00:31:00] way more famous than they were in terms of people.
Like, I remember talking to the Marketo guys. They'd be like, well, we don't really compete with them. It didn't look like that to the market because they just went out and did it. Okay. So one is, this one is an all time, Qualtrics. Like, think about how big they got. That was a survey. A web based survey instrument.
Those guys, they created the category customer experience management or platforms right off of essentially a survey instrument, and that made them way more famous, like that was an example of if you create the category and define the category, you went like that is crazy because I remember going, ah, I got to try this Qualtrics thing.
I'm like, this is SurveyMonkey.
Mini Peiris: Right. You're right that mean they kind of tied it to the whole NPS piece and it's a great Yeah,
Craig Rosenberg: That was amazing here. I'll give you another one that I [00:32:00] really struck in that. But Maria's work at Aptis,
Matt Amundson: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Craig Rosenberg: like that was a consulting product. I mean, there was no like, I mean, and they were like, they won. They were like the biggest in that category. And, um. It was, it was a mess, you know? And like, she just, I mean, that was just epic work there, man. I mean, honestly, if you think about what was, I mean, we all know the kind of inside baseball there, but like that was, uh, that was epic work.
Okay. Uh,
The CMO’s Role in The Post-Transaction Customer Experience
Craig Rosenberg: I want you to go back to this. This is important. The post transaction. Um, and are you, I don't know, were you bringing up in the context of brand or in how we need to, something more,
Mini Peiris: I was bringing up in the contents of the people piece because you know It's a, it's a feedback loop, right? Like you can't make people the center of what you do if you don't have the success stories to feed [00:33:00] that, and you're not going to get the success stories unless you're, you know, what you've delivered is actually giving value to the people and helping them get promoted, get home in time to be with their kids, or get on the golf course, or, you know, buy the Ferrari.
Like that, there's a whole Circle that has to happen and one fuels the other. So that's the context I was bringing up in.
Craig Rosenberg: but what do you do as it relates to post transaction in terms of the role of the CMO, um, like how do you facilitate things there?
Mini Peiris: So the, the CMO has to have equal share on the customer part of it, right? So it is, how are you, a lot of times the CMO is owning that customer reference program, they should be involved in how, Services and CS engage with those customers. We should, this is, you know, [00:34:00] I've, I've, I'm hopeful that we will get to that with my current gig, but I've always said like, start with the report that you want to get out of, uh, a deployment, right?
So. You got to do the baseline before you start services engagement so that we can have a from too. This is always the piece that kills you when you go to do case studies. You don't have the before picture because they never bothered to document it. And then we've got what their metrics look like now, because you've helped put that in place, but there's a magic unlock that, that can happen there if you're really tight and you're coming at it from the why, like, why, why are we here?
What are we here to help you with? And it all has to tie full circle to the, to the story that you're, um, trying to make sure articulates with lands with the customer.
Matt Amundson: Yeah.
Craig Rosenberg: But does that require, so that requires the documentation of the from.
Mini Peiris: Yes, that's definitely a must have. [00:35:00] I mean, you can do it. You can sort of cobble your way there. And that's how we all do success stories and customer videos and you can get them, but they've forgotten a lot of times and they don't have the old data. So if you have a, uh, you, you get in with the services team early enough to set that motion in place.
And then also like look, customer success is, you know, I know there's, when do you deploy customer success and where, like which segment of customers, that's a debate at the moment because everyone's looking at how is my end to end customer profitability look, right? But those folks are usually the keepers of all of the anecdotes about the customer and they can make the story real.
And so that's a, that's a big, important piece. I think a lot of, you know, CMOs forget to do is engage with the post sale teams and then support too. Um, so I'm actually SelfishBlog, I'm recruiting for a VP of product marketing at the moment. [00:36:00] Uh, and so I've been interviewing some folks and someone I spoke to the other day reminded me of a practice that we used, we did once upon a time at NetSuite.
Um, but like folks like Intel are, uh, not Intel, Intuit are obsessive about this. Everybody goes and does a day. On the phones in support, which is like this amazing way. Cause if, you know, if you've read, this is my one pet peeve when you brought up Qualtrics, it reminded me like my one pet peeve about the whole NPS landscape is like the way that you move your needle is not through serving your customers to death.
And if you read the book, the nugget is you have to ask the ultimate question and follow up with the call where you have a real person to person conversation. Cause again, it comes back to like, people are buying software, people are using software. If you don't talk to those people and if you just kill them with automation and services, like, and, and surveys [00:37:00] where they can't really tell you what's bugging them in honest, plain English, then you have failed.
Matt Amundson: Yeah. And I always say the best time to start a relationship with a customer is the second that they become a customer, especially as a marketer, right? The reason for that is, you know, your, your sales team has just rolled out a red carpet for them over the course of however long that sales cycle was, made them feel incredible.
You know, if you can double down on that energy in the first, you know, couple of days after they become a customer, whether that's you doing it directly or whether that's somebody in your team or whether that's a program that you've built, uh, to sort of, to, to capitalize on the momentum and the excitement of becoming a new customer, it's just such a great way to start.
a 12 month relationship that you want to turn into a 24, 36, 48 month relationship. It's also the best time to get the wheels turning on doing a case study, because to your point, it's not only just, hey, you know, uh, we need to get where you're coming [00:38:00] from and then ultimately what this, what our product has led you to, but it's also like, You know, Hey, you're such a great company.
We'd love to do a story about you guys someday. People are like, Oh yeah, great. They're all excited. Um, you know, hopefully we all get the opportunity to market and sell great products, but sometimes we don't, right. Sometimes we don't, sometimes we're making up, uh, for, for, for some shortcomings, but like, you know, If you can, uh, if you can impress upon them how valued they are as a customer, not just for the fact that they signed, but, uh, for, for what they can mean to, to growing your brand, this is such a great opportunity to start that process because they're primed for it.
You know, they go through an enablement, maybe something goes wrong. Uh, it takes an extra week, two weeks, like their affinity for your brand starts to wane, right? So you, you, you've got to strike while the, while the, the, the, the sort of iron's hot there.
Mini Peiris: So I'll actually go a little bit further and tack on to what you said. So we actually measured this stuff at NetSuite of when [00:39:00] to ask for, what's the optimal time to ask them for referrals to. And like, basically we were trying to gauge when are they at that emotional high that you mentioned?
It is not at signing.
It's when they pick you as solution of choice.
Because by the time you get to signing, legal and procurement have beaten each other up till they're like, oh my god, okay, now we got to go start this implementation thing. Like it is, it is actually more of a low point than you would think. Um, so you got to hit them when they say like, okay, yeah, we love you guys.
We're kicking these other people out. Like you're in. And it's that, okay, now we'll, let's go get the contract done. That's when you got to catch them. Um, and, uh, so at NetSuite, we got really good at using that moment to not just like tee up the case study, but also ask for the referral of like, Hey, do you know, you know, Two, three other people that you can think of in your network who would want to have the same benefits or struggling with the same [00:40:00] challenges of why we make sense for you.
Um, and that was referral was our number one lead source for sure. For all the way to closed transaction, because again, it's about people. Nobody buys anything these days without calling up three of their friends. So if a friend's already making the intro, cause they took the leap, you have a better shot.
completion,
Matt Amundson: is,
How Execs Buy Software Today: Friends over Funnels
Matt Amundson: this is a topic that's been coming up here on the show lately. And also Craig and I have been chatting about this outside of the show a little bit, which is,
and I want to gauge how you feel about this. At this very moment, in this very climate that we're all sort of working in right now
now people just buying stuff to repeat their, what their peers say about it? Like, are you ever like, Hey, you know what? I'm curious about buying this solution. I'm going to go this way and I don't mean to shit on marketing as a marketer, but like, are you going to their website and are you going to read their? [00:41:00] Uh, ebook. And are you going to read a bunch of their blog posts? And are you going to go to their YouTube channel and watch their videos?
Or are you just going to be like, Hey, I know Sidney Sloan, Maria Pergolino, and,
and a bunch of I'm going to hit them up on text. Like, Hey, I have this problem. What are you all doing?
Right.
Mini Peiris: That, yes. So I think you bring it up like that should have been one of my answers like this whole idea of we used to talk about how, you know, you need to make sure that you are nurturing people and educating them on on your particular space that you're in, um, and that they're going to do research.
before they come knock on your door.
Craig Rosenberg: Twelve.
Mini Peiris: do think that is a bit of a fallacy these days. So, uh, this is something like I'm talking through with my team as we're going, we're going to be unveiling some new brand strategy here. So, cause this is, you know, it's been one year in the making. I'm one year in, uh, we started the work as soon as I got here, but [00:42:00] certainly if you go to our website today, it does not reflect the, the new Nintex, uh, that'll be coming.
Hopefully end of November, depending on when this airs. Um, and so we are going through like prioritizing what it is we really need to do, and I'm pushing back because there's, unless you're like reaching out, so you need, you need assets in order to run campaigns that has not changed, but are people really going to go to like the blogs and SEO and try to make sure that you have content to like move them through this buyer journey?
Is I think where things maybe break down a little
Matt Amundson: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I just think
in a, in a time period that like, like right now where budgets are tight and it's really, really hard to get CFO approval for new things, regardless of what department you operate in, like, you're just going to start with, Hey, I, know four or five people who are really smart and they do this really well.
So I'm just going to ask them like, what is this, what, what are they [00:43:00] using as a solution for this? uh, is it software? Is it a services team? and you know, you just kind of cut through. Well, the smartest people are using this and that's a good enough answer for me. Doesn't necessarily mean you're going to go and buy it, but those are the vendors that you're probably going to, pick and they'll probably be like, Yeah, we use this one, but you should check out these other two, but like your mind's made up before you even start, even if you select three vendors to see a Yeah,
Mini Peiris: the tires on. Yeah, a hundred percent. And look, this is not necessarily a new phenomenon. I mean, so going back to NetSuite days, like we were selling to the CFO, most skeptical buyer there is, right? And we definitely saw that. Network effect, if I can speak today, uh, which is why a referral, like, it makes sense why that was our biggest, uh, way to move the target on Pipeline was, um, move the needle, I should say, on Pipeline was because they all talk to each other and they don't trust [00:44:00] anything that their peers aren't also in on.
So getting them, you know, they are usually laggards and so part of what you have to create is this. FOMO effect, which is frankly, that is how I would describe marketing's job, right? We're there to create FOMO, fear of missing out so that people want to come be part of what you're building. Um, and you can't do that without, without having that sort of referral effect.
Doesn't matter how good your marketing materials are if you can't get someone to take that call.
Matt Amundson: Craig, your thoughts?
Mini Peiris: He looks very deep in thought.
Matt Amundson: Yeah.
Mini Peiris: We're waiting for it. What's the boom? Drop the mic.
Craig Rosenberg: there's no boom, honestly, I, I agree. I agree. You know, I just, um, I don't know. I was just thinking through all these use cases in my head. So I don't, I honestly, I'm very disappointed in myself. I thought I could do that. Okay. I'll make two other points here, [00:45:00] but I don't have anything.
Matt Amundson: Yeah. I think that, I think that, you know, there's this, you know, brands today that are doing this. Well, like I don't really know what the secret sauce to it is. I think it's a little bit of. It's, you've got a great product, you've got great marketing and those two things come together and they sort of naturally create this effect where, Hey, like I'm intrigued by this company.
And, uh, and then I use the product or I can see the product directly from the website or through some sort of, uh, interactive demo. I don't, I don't, I don't have to go under, you know, I don't have to give them my, my phone number or my email address. I can just, I can go experience it for myself. I think there's this combination that exists between those two things where, where this stuff works really, really well.
Um, you know, we, we talked a little bit about, you know, uh, about Aptos, which was, you know, just great marketing and not great product. But like today, I think it's very hard to achieve the types of results that Maria had there, or, or, or, or David and David [00:46:00] had at Drift. Uh, like the product is so much more forward today than it used to be. Your like your, your, your, your, your constituents, your customers, your prospects, they're the people that are going to like the, you know, they, they get attracted by the brand, but if they come and see the product and the product is shit, you know, they, they see through it very, very quickly. So I think it's, you know, back in the day, you know, you could do these MVP products and you could get by on the idea that like, this was going to be really good, or you could have, you know, what most people would consider to be a beta product out in the market.
But you've just got to be able to hit the ground running. You have to have an awesome product right off the bat if you're going to start promoting it heavily with marketing. And, you know, the three of us are very aware of, uh, somebody who is building a company right now, and that's the strategy that, that he's going with is he wants to come to market with like a very mature product.
And I think that that is what it takes today, especially, Martech, [00:47:00] because we've all been. Uh, maybe not fooled by product, but like definitely fooled by marketing to believe that like, we're going to, we're going to have something that really rocks.
Craig Rosenberg: Strength,
Mini Peiris: you're hitting a nerve here. Cause like, so the reason I took my current gig, we're in, you know, process automation space. The reason I took it is because I think today everybody, technology was invented to make us more, um, efficient and more productive.
Craig Rosenberg: God,
Mini Peiris: much fricking tech that we don't know what to do with it and it frankly gets in the way of us actually getting work done.
So then this is Frank. Okay. So this ties into the trend we're seeing today. Like everybody, every CFO, CEO, CIO are being asked to reduce their tech stack. And so there's kind of, yes, you have to have a great product that you're coming to market with, but you also, I think we all need to, you know, Subtract to complete, right?
Uh, I say that in about copy to my entire team all the [00:48:00] time, like take words out, don't add more, uh, which is a really hard skill to recruit for and, and to be good at, um, but that applies to our tech world as well. Right. And so if you're not showing up in a way that helps people to actually get more work done at the end of the day, and is.
Automating that process for people, then it's, it's pretty hard out there. So, um, I don't know that we need more tech.
Craig Rosenberg: wait, wait, hold on. I now forgot Matt's, what was the original question,
Matt Amundson: Uh, my original question, uh, going back to do people even go through funnels anymore? Did they just ask their friends?
Craig Rosenberg: That was actually very, very succinct and, and to the point, I will say this though, is that, well, one is on the paring down of the tech stack, it actually. That it was good, I mean, I, that process started when I was still at Gartner and you sort of see today, which [00:49:00] was people looked at their text and there was a whole bunch of stuff that wasn't great. So, like, that actually was a healthy exercise. The, but I will say, I don't think we can say yet. I think it's coming. I think me. Uh, well, we, we do have examples of where there are different reasons why someone bought a product and I don't, I can't name names, but there are an example where the FOMO comes from the community of people.
That are like there. So like there is marketing tech to a degree where we don't, I'm not sure, Matt, you and I used to talk about where we didn't see the value. We never heard a lot about the value, but people still, they, if they went to their five friends, they would say, well, you go look at this.
Matt Amundson: Oh yeah.
Oh yeah. Um, and [00:50:00] so, but that maybe that's an exception.
Craig Rosenberg: I do look, I, I mean, it's hard, right? Because you're a CMO, you're a CRO, whatever. And like, you know, of course you want to take a product that works. Um, I think what you said is a little different, which is like, it's got to show well out of the gate. Like, and, and that is part of that does help you guys, but I'm, but I'm just Minnie's first point and kind of what we talked about before in a previous call, which is.
The brand, I still think we have examples of the brand outstripping the value. Is that?
Matt Amundson: hmm.
Craig Rosenberg: Maybe not a ton of them, but like, there are examples, I mean, I don't think, well, I, yeah, listen,
Matt Amundson: in the, yeah, big, big
Mini Peiris: You phrased the question originally as who's, who's a surprise one, right? Like, uh, Salesforce for sure.
Matt Amundson: don't, what I, what I [00:51:00] don't think is I don't think that there's going to be another like drift where it's like this brand comes out of nowhere and you start seeing the brand everywhere and you kind of don't even know what the product does, but you're just like, Oh, these people are talking about this thing.
Drifts. It's like, what is this? Isn't it just live person and. Yes. But like, you know, like, no, it's different than live person. It's it's, it's a chat chat bot chat bot. And it goes bing when you go on the website and it gets everyone's attention. Then people start interacting with it and you get leads, but like the marketing is what grew it out of nothing.
And I don't think that like today you can be a series a or series B company and just have super. Perb marketing that outstrips the product because people expect to get to the product so fast. Now, if the marketing is better than the product, people are just like, Oh, well, you know, they got a good marketer, but this product shit, I'm not buying anything.
Mini Peiris: Yeah, definitely agree. I would think we can, [00:52:00] I would debate if we had more time, I would debate the point you made about you have to have it on the website. And people are experiencing the product before they even talk to you. That one, look, good discovery still has to happen because it comes back to like that.
You can't understand someone's business and then go help them and tell them how you're getting value out of it without doing that. So
Matt Amundson: Completely agree. Completely agree. And if, if, if. Yeah. That wasn't the point that I meant to make a more, just, I think the expectation for a lot of people today is that they can see and experience the product prior to speaking to a salesperson. Right. And there's just more and more companies that are going product for forward, whether that's a trial or whether that's a PLG motion or whether it's just, here's the product experience it.
You maybe can't interact with it, but you can watch a video or whatever.
Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. Okay. So yes, we do talk about that a lot, by the way. I know we're at the end of time. I got lost as you guys were talking, just sort of taking it and thinking of all these [00:53:00] examples. This is very helpful for you to reset. Um, many you do as part of the customer experience today. Yes, you do need to do discovery, but do you not agree that like if like a lot of purchasing, they go to their friends, they get the.
The referral, they, they don't look deeply at the product, but they look enough at what it's doing and before, and they sort of gather, like everyone talks about the 80 percent down the buying cycle. In my opinion, it's referral, some look, some looksie, some level of looksie. Then they talk to sales. Um, but like.
Mini Peiris: I think it depends on the product, right? Look, I've, I've generally operated in more like complex. So we, we tested this thing six weeks to Sunday at NetSuite. And frankly, the trial used to do a zero good and deterred. It made the sales cycle longer. Sales hated it. [00:54:00] Um, because ERP, you can't like put your data in ERP or try out ERP.
You're either in or not. So there's also different ways to slice it. Like Matt was kind of highlighting You could do interactive demos. So that we did do like the dashboard was always having all of your, your business metrics in one place was a big unlock. Um, so there's different ways to slice that experience piece and it doesn't always have to look like a free trial or jumping in to it.
So that's what I would encourage marketers to think about is creative ways. To get that experience. It could even be customer videos, right? Like those video snippets of people talking about it. That's enough validation to get a sense for, for, is this real?
Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, that was a good answer. Good answer. Good answer. Alright, so, uh, you know what's happened sometimes, Matt? Is we just start talking to people and then the time flies and we're at the end of time.
Matt Amundson: Well, I knew that would happen with Minnie. I knew that would happen with [00:55:00] Minnie. I was like, I was like, oh God, this is, we should have booked this for three hours.
Mini Peiris: Doesn't this happen with all marketers? This is, this is a truism. We all love to talk.
Craig Rosenberg: Not really. I mean, that's when you're like, Hey, what am I supposed to come with tomorrow? I'm like, just come with something to get us going and then we'll just We'll probably take the, take it home from there because yeah, you know, this, this is going to turn into a conversation, but no, that is not the case.
Many. Yeah, unfortunately.
Mini Peiris: It's always
Craig Rosenberg: So, um, anyway, look, that was perfect. Um, really great conversation. Um, and you know, coming from a real operator perspective. And so, uh, I just want to say. Thank you for coming on the transaction.
Mini Peiris: a pleasure. We can do this anytime you want.
Craig Rosenberg: Well, for our new show post transaction.
Matt Amundson: Yes.
Mini Peiris: go.
Matt Amundson: Co-host.
Craig Rosenberg: Thanks everyone. Appreciate you.
Mini Peiris: Have a great day.
Matt Amundson: Bye.
[00:56:00]