HIGHLIGHTS
- How a business travel company survived COVID-19 lockdowns
- Achieving growth and pivoting in a time of crisis
- Using content to drive brand recognition and revenue on a budget
- Discussions about Product-Led Growth
- Always try to find out how and why your customers are buying
- Biggest challenges over the last two years for a CMO
- We need to create second-line leaders
- Look for problem solvers, not victims
- Donate to Ukraine
QUOTES
Kaplan: "Everybody's boat went down at the same time. Around the world, it's one of those rare times where everybody's boat in the harbor goes down, but not everybody's boat rose at the same time. And I was just really really impressed that the way your answer was, it's now time to get close to our customers."
Meagen: "When there's no wind, you row."
Meagen: "Back then, we were focused. We knew what we had to do. We had to create a sense of urgency. As I said, inbound dried up. Nobody was looking for travel solutions. In fact, the first thing was, are you kidding me we're in a pandemic why are you trying to sell this?"
Meagen: "Originally we were targeting the travel manager, but they all got furloughed. So now we need to switch and which was the smarter thing to do, is target the CFO who manages travel under procurement typically, and finance and accounting."
Meagen: "We need to switch, we need to redefine our ICP, the right customer profile to go after, and I needed product marketers. And I just thought I'm gonna go heavy on product marketer's content, we're gonna build academies. So when the travel manager gets their job back, there's gonna be a new world."
Meagen: "You want the ability to self-serve and get the low end of the market, but you get big money in the mid-market and upper side of it. So don't leave that on the table. Either develop both, and it's going to be a lot easier to sell if it's an amazing product and has product market fit, and you're not going to get product led growth without product market fit."
McMahon: You can't be all things to all people, especially as we talked about how marketing has expanded so much in the last 10 years. You can't be an expert in every different disciplines. You need to hire great leaders underneath you. And that should be a lesson for any leader that's listening on the phone.”
Connect with Meagen and her work with the links below:
Additional Resources:
Connect with Mike with on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemcsally/
Check out John McMahon’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Qualified-Sales-Leader-Proven-Lessons/dp/0578895064
