Pipeline Visionaries

This episode features an interview with Ed McDonnell, CRO at Asana, a software company that helps teams orchestrate their work, from small projects to strategic initiatives.In this episode, Ed shares with us Asana’s vision for tackling work automation, insight into their Work Innovation Lab, and why attribution for attribution's sake is meaningless. Ed also talks about the importance of treating pipeline like a team sport and how to effectively run a “Pipe Council”. Key Takeaways:Get focused on your ICP. Partner with your product teams to develop your ICP so you can define use cases and show the productivity you can gain from those use cases. Tell your story through the lens of your customers. Your customers are the inside players of how your product works and what it’s doing in a real way on a daily basis out in the world.Pipeline is a team sport. All of your business channels should be involved when it comes to pipeline generation. Pipeline is not one person or function, and in order to succeed, it has to be the highest-performing team in your organization at cross-functional scale. Quote:“Pipeline to me is a team sport. It is not one person. It is not one function. It is such a, it is, it, it has to be.  The highest performing team in your organization at cross functional scale, because nobody works for each other. Everybody's in their own worlds, but they have to come together as a team and solve the, you know, a problem that every B2B enterprise software company faces. Which is, do we have enough pipeline to go into the market to be successful? Because every organization is a little bit different as to how much they want each of those. stakeholders to develop into their pipeline. If you're not producing at the right scale or the right coverage model, Why? Like, interrogating the why is equally as important as getting all hopped up as to why not. And too many companies and too many people I have found spend time on, well, why isn't something happening? Like, versus going in and saying, okay, it's not happening. What can we do differently to actually produce a different result? Because you get caught up on poking on sales leaders and saying, hey, you're not hitting your pipeline metrics, like, why, what's wrong, and  that friction, while good and has to happen, you also have to be really open to interrogating so to me the interrogation of it in a healthy way with everybody having a seat at the table and being a team sport is Is the way that I, I have found to be very successful running a Pipe Council.” Episode Timestamps:*(03:44) - The Trust Tree: Go to market strategy when you solve lots of problems for lots of people*(15:32) - The Playbook: Running a Pipe Council*(37:53) - Quick Hits: Ed’s Quick Hits Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more. Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Ed on LinkedInLearn more about AsanaLearn more about Caspian StudiosFrom zero to ten podcasts: How Caspian Studios produces B2B podcasts with Asana

This episode features an interview with Justin Anovick, Former CPO/CMO at Syndigo.In this episode, Justin gives us a masterclass in operationalizing ICPs (Ideal Customer Profiles) by providing us with tangible strategies for defining ICPs, tips for how to approach fringe use cases, and the reason why it’s so important to have alignment with the executive level. Key Takeaways: How to define your ICP: 1. Accounts 2. Size 3. Region 4. MarketAlignment with the executive team is essential. When the board asks “Who is our customer?” “Where are we seeing success?” you better have answers. Beyond marketing, teams need to work together cross-functionally so everyone is in the know and leadership understands where the company is at any given moment.The entire organization needs to own the ICP. When product, marketing, finance, and leadership teams understand the ICP and do their jobs well, company success is inevitable. Quote:“So I think that a lot of organizations I see they just haven't put the time, effort, money, manpower behind it in order to actually define and understand the ICP. And so certainly each of those three times, one of the hardest things to operationalize it was to explain to the organization, starting with marketing, what actually ICP meant, what target adjustable market meant, but what service obtainable market meant and what you needed to do, and it was eye opening to realize how, to your point, most even marketers didn't really… they understood the concept, but they hadn't actually operationalized it or used it before.”Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links: Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Justin on LinkedInLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Sarah Cascone, VP of Marketing at Bluecore, a retail marketing platform that enables marketers to turn data into revenue-generating campaigns, in minutes.In this episode, Sarah educates us on what her team calls the Relationship Demand Gen Chain, how to foster a meaningful customer community, and how ruthless prioritization is a super power. Sarah also shares with us why she believes traditional outbound is fading away and that now, marketing is all about curating hyper-personalized content.Key Takeaways:Building out the Relationship Demand Gen Chain: Turning overall demand generation into pipeline. Sarah’s four points of focus are: points of view - educating the market on your points of view; points of entry - how you’re engaging with your target audience; points of leverage, where you can organically access your personas; and points of conversion - where your prospects have meetings with your sales team.People buy from people, not companies. When you build a community around what you stand for, it’s a lot harder for prospects to walk away from that community anchored with your  service or product offering.Always have something to drive your target market to. When your prospects are ready to buy, they’ll enter into that conversation with your sales team. So before that point, it’s imperative to be connecting with your prospects and community at large organically and often.Quote: “ I think traditional outbound is fading away. That is why we've kind of pivoted our entire SDR team into this ABX account based experiences role. This goes back to in enterprise, where tech solutions are oversaturated, most prospects are not buying from just like a cold call or a cold email. So, the way we kind of integrate the SDRs and the ABX team, really is what they are, into that relationship demand gen chain totally elevates their value because we're becoming known and respected in all of the activities we're doing between thought leadership, events, and community, which gives them the ability and the time to curate their outreach based on the very specific research they're doing on the specific company so that they can speak to exactly what the person that they're going to email is feeling the pain that they're feeling, who, if we're doing our job right, has heard our point of view all along, has been part of our community, now they want to take a call with us…So goodbye, like cold calling and blast emails from the SDR. Hello, hyper-personalized curated that's built right into the marketing engine.”Episode Timestamps:*(03:25) - The Trust Tree: The Relationship Demand Gen Chain*(09:06) - The Playbook: Building a community around what you stand for*(36:14) - The Dust Up: You can take the girl out of NY but you can’t take NY out of the girl*(40:33) - Quick Hits: Sarah’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Sarah on LinkedInLearn more about BluecoreLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Jacqueline Woods, CMO at Teradata, the connected multi-cloud data platform for enterprise analytics, solving data challenges from start to scale.In this episode, Jacqueline talks about the new age of personalization, why AI should not be held accountable, and reminds us that data in technology is only as good as the data put into it. Jacqueline also shares how data is like water and paints a picture of her vision for a unified, frictionless customer experience. Key Takeaways: Personalization is key. One size does not fit all, so dimensional personalization has become so much more important in recent years. There are greater expectations amongst customers when it comes to their digital experiences and how they engage with companies, and it’s important to be aware of these changes and leverage them in marketing strategies.AI isn’t responsible. When we talk about “responsible AI” we have to remember that it cannot be responsible - it’s a technology. So, AI can be trusted, but people need to be responsible. And when people are responsible, they can begin to create an environment of trust for users.Prepare for the AI driven enterprise. Teradata’s estimate is that AI will drive most of our experiences by 2030 and a lot of companies feel disorganized in this area. Data is currently extremely siloed, so the first step is to cultivate a connected enterprise.Quote: “How do you know you're moving the needle? I mean, when we started this conversation with Forbes, it literally was around the same time last year, and my pitch to them was the following: There are a lot of people that say data is the new oil, data is gold, data is this, and I said, you know, my own belief is that data is like water is because this planet is over 72% water. That is what the earth is comprised of. The usable water that you can use on this planet is 2.5%. Most of that is in glaciers, which means that the real usable fresh water is 3 tenths of 1%. And so when you think about data, and all the data that's out there in the world, about 90% of the data is like data that's duplicated or replicated and how much of the core data is new data and information that you can use? And when you distill it down, it probably is very similar to water where the usable data that you can use, once you filtered it, cleaned it, harmonized it, associated it with the right things is probably less than 2 or 3% and that takes a lot of work. And at the end of the day, our thematic or our core belief is that we believe that people thrive when empowered with the right information. People don't always necessarily use the right information when they get it. But if they had it, and they were able to use it, they would actually be better off.”Episode Timestamps: *(05:06) - The Trust Tree: The cloud has changed marketing forever*(30:05) - The Playbook: AI needs to be trusted and people need to be responsible*(46:57) - The Dust Up:*(49:54) - Quick Hits: Jacqueline’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Jacqueline on LinkedInRead: Enterprise 2030: Building the AI-powered company of the futureLearn more about TeradataLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Jessica Shapiro, CMO at LiveRamp, the data collaboration platform for the world’s most innovative companies.In this episode, Jessica shares with us how brand and demand go hand in hand, why everything you do should be measured, and the importance of avoiding building up silos within your marketing team. Jessica also talks about how she and her team are combating stagnation through producing simple content and fostering a strong brand strategy. Key Takeaways:Everything has to be measured. Even the “unmeasurable” aspects of your business needs proxies that can be measured by effectiveness, but everything you do needs to be monitored and appraised in some way to better understand effectiveness.A strong brand strategy is not stagnant. If you’re looking to run a differentiated brand, which you should be, you need a strong brand strategy. Your brand cannot live in PowerPoint; it needs to have room to breathe and grow, and teams need to be constantly evaluating alignment cross-functionally within the company.Interdependencies are key. Making sure you don’t build up silos within your marketing team leads to the best marketing. We all have the same goals. The way relationships become strong isn’t simply through human nature, it’s data driven, so when any and all information is shared across teams, success abounds.Quote:“I started with a differentiated brand and understanding that buyer's journey. It's not a channel or a tactic, but it is everything. If you do not get the whole company singing off the same page, it's very hard to make a difference. So, for me coming in, it was taking that time to do the rigorous research, talk to customers, get alignment with our leadership, get a strong brand story, train our marketing, build the marketing materials, and then train our sellers to use those same stories as they are talking to their customers. So having the whole organization moving together, we revealed our brand platform at our major customer event, Ramp Up…and it was this incredible organizing principle around data collaboration and so my “not cut” is strong brand strategy and I believe a strong brand strategy is not stagnant. It has to live and breathe and grow and everyone has to continue to be aligned.”Episode Timestamps: *(06:07) - The Trust Tree: Bringing companies together to exchange first-party data in a privacy-safe way*(22:29) - The Playbook: Your whole company should be singing off of the same page *(35:30) - The Dust Up: The most effective marketing is through layering your messaging in every channel*(37:40) - Quick Hits: Jessica’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links: Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Jessica on LinkedInLearn more about LiveRampLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Andy Nester, CMO at Firstup, the world’s first intelligent communication platform.In this episode, Andy gives us the scoop on why Firstup is the best in the business at delivering information to individual workers, how he and his team help large organizations personalize experiences for their workers, and his approach to in-depth problem solving for customers. Andy also shares about his work breaking down organizational silos and how that helps scale success for businesses.  Key TakeawaysBuild communities based on who you’re specifically trying to serve. The more you attempt to attract and engage a community of multiple roles and various functions, you inadvertently water down the value you offer. Identify your persona’s shared purpose and get laser focused on how they are collectively marching toward the same objective.Large companies need a platform where they can communicate with every single worker. Utilizing a platform that automates communication at scale with individual employees is key in successfully understanding your workforce and making data driven decisions.If you want to scale, you need to identify and break down organizational silos. Whether it’s sales, marketing, or otherwise, when teams work individually, they risk losing knowledge and insights that could help the company grow as a whole.Quote: “Most companies when they think about communicating to the workforce, it's a lot of knowledge workers, desk workers, people who sit behind a laptop like this. But in reality, 70% of the world's workforce doesn't have an email address. They don't sit behind a desk. So being able to communicate with them and understand how those employees are either engaged or disengaged is really, really difficult if you don't have a platform that can automate this type of communication at scale and in a personalized way to capture all those insights that can exist. When you keep that connection with the workforce and use those insights to really identify where there is potential challenges with retention, where there are productivity issues, where there are opportunities for advancement for people, where you should deliver more L&D, for example, there's lots and lots of great things that come out of really understanding the workforce down to an individual level.”Episode Timestamps: *(04:27) - The Trust Tree: Being the best in the market at delivering information at the right time, in the right place to every individual worker.*(22:57) - The Playbook: Nothing is uncuttable.*(41:14) - The Dust Up: Stay calm and approach tension thoughtfully*(42:26) - Quick Hits: Andy’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Andy on LinkedInLearn more about FirstupLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Jenny Victor, CMO at Epicor, a company focused on solutions that help their customers with big-picture inventory management, forecasting, and timely delivery.In this episode, Jenny shares with us how compelling content should be at the center of all that you do, how consumability is key when reaching prospective customers, and the unique strategies Epicor is employing to stand out in a crowded marketing landscape. Jenny also shares a new vision for what it means to be a CMO in our modern world and what that looks like when it comes to services and customer success.Key Takeaways:The role of CMO is evolving. Being a CMO isn’t just about the demand side of things anymore; it’s about impact and driving the business. CMOs are now blending more with the services and success side of the house, which gives marketers a more strategic role in a business.Content is king. Content is at the center of everything you do, so it’s something that needs to be constantly invested in. It also needs to be eye catching, compelling, and consumable above anything else.Create space for peer to peer experiences. Marketing and sales go hand in hand, so marketers working directly with sales helps to accelerate the sales part of the funnel. Acceleration events, where prospects are brought together with SMEs so everyone can learn more about each other, what everyone does, as well as use cases for products, provides a space for everyone to get on the same page and visualize the same goals.Quote:“ I think one of my final thoughts for all the marketers that are listening to this, see if you can find the cool stuff and make it work for you. I think we all want the big hype and we all want the cool stuff. We are fortunate enough to sponsor an F1 car, Alpha Tauri. That is so fun with Drive to Survive. We've done a lot of cool, fun things with it, but we've made it meaningful in the story because Alpha Tauri uses our product to make sure that car's ready for every race. Those 14,000 parts are where they need them to be. And I think it's being able to find that cool stuff and make it work for you.”Episode Timestamps:*(05:39) - The Trust Tree: The most essential ERP partner to the most essential businesses*(10:53) - The Playbook: Content is king*(37:02) - Quick Hits: Jenny’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for pipeline pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Jenny on LinkedInLearn more about EpicorLearn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Gabie Boko, CMO at NetApp, a hybrid cloud data services and data management company, offering cloud data services for management of applications and data both online and physically.In this episode, Gabie shares with us why you can’t have brand without demand, her desire for partnerships vs handoffs, and the beauty of marketing agility. Gabie also helps us unpack why running a brand of commas isn’t the goal, but rather how companies can work toward stabilizing the functions and innovations they offer customers through their brand narratives.Key Takeaways:Leverage thought leadership as a market accelerator. Especially with conversations today about AI and cloud, thought leadership gets lost in the mix. If you’re not in the market and seeding the conversation, you’re reactive vs proactive.Stabilize a “brand of commas” through the narrative. Companies are so much more than what’s written on paper. Showcase what you do for your customers and how you’ve made them successful by stabilizing your brand narrative.Sometimes content is less about what you make and more about where you put it. Be strategic in making your content accessible and available anywhere a prospect might consume it.Quote:“We're putting the dollars in on the narrative, not putting the dollars in on a branding campaign. It's taking the strategic dollars and saying, let's go get the basics right and then not spend money over on this so we can go spend money on some other things until we get some of this other stuff right. You don't need to plant the flag and then defend the flag all in the same year, maybe you just spend some time to getting it right and planting it and getting everybody engaged versus, you know, saying, okay, now we're done! Let's go, let's go out into the market! So, you know, I think it's strategic choices like those two that are the important part of our budget this year, but it's also kind of the like goes back to what I said. I love the agility of marketing to be able to say that's not relevant for me right now. I gotta do this. And I think it's really important to have a good team around you to say, yep. You're right. We support that. You don't have to go do everything.”Episode Timestamps:*(03:36) - The Trust Tree: Brand and demand go hand in hand*(16:28) - The Playbook: Fixing the “brand of commas”  *(37:27) -  The Dust Up: You can’t do your job well without going head to head with others*(39:00) - Quick Hits: Gabie’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInFollow Gabie on LinkedInLearn more about NetAppLearn more about Caspian StudiosEvent: NetApp Insight

This episode features an interview with Orlando Baeza, CRO & CMO at Flock Freight, fixing freight’s biggest weakness by offering a smarter alternative — shared truckload — that moves goods more reliably and with fewer emissions.In this episode, Orlando shares with us his tips for innovating decades old marketing strategies, the benefit of working under dynamic leadership, and why you should always keep your prospects laughing and learning. Orlando also talks about his journey of becoming the active CRO and CMO at a company like Flock Freight and what it takes to reimagine go to market from org structure and design.Key Takeaways:Shared truckload is the key to a cost-saving, efficient trucking future. Most of the trucks you see on the road are half empty, so when we think of the next step forward for cutting costs and getting more commodities to more customers at a faster rate, shared truckload is the answer.Utilizing humor to educate the market. Leveraging humor and wit to grab attention and create care so customers want to engage and learn more about the company 's mission.Reimagine go to market top to bottom. From org structure to design, go to market materials, sales enablement, messaging, inbound vs outbound, and beyond. An organizational shift is necessary at some point in a company's lifecycle for scaling into the future.Quote:“ So one of the big things, we've done is really reimagined our go to market top to bottom from org structure and design, all the way through go to market materials and sales enablement to messaging, right? To even thinking about the inbound versus outbound dynamic and how we prospect.  So  we've done a lot of organizational shifting to create what we believe is a much more dynamic, much more efficient organization that will set us for scale into the future.”Episode Timestamps:*(05:05) - The Trust Tree: A shared truckload future*(14:53) - The Playbook: Build bespoke to reimagine the existing company playbook*(38:46) - Quick Hits: Orlando’s Quick HitsSponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Orlando on LinkedInLearn more about Flock FreightSteve Burns Solves a New Mystery for Flock Freight: 'How Much Is a F**kload?'Learn more about Caspian Studios

This episode features an interview with Andrea Tarrell, CEO of Sercante, making marketing and sales teams wildly successful on the Salesforce platform.In this episode, Andrea shares what organizations should be thinking about in their marketing when it comes to AI, how companies have overused marketing automation, and why the focus of AI should be on process, content, and technology.Key Takeaways:The role of Generative AI: process, content, and technology. AI isn’t going to solve all of our problems or do all of our work for us and it shouldn’t. The human element will always be needed, so marketers should look at how AI can step in to help with the non-value parts of our jobs.Personalization is a frontier we haven’t conquered yet. We see use cases pop up all of the time, and yet we’re still struggling with basic use cases, let alone more sophisticated ones. There’s a lot of untapped potential when it comes to serving up content, offering next best action for prospects as well as related products provides us with lots of room to work with. Marketing automation is overused and sloppy. Be thoughtful about why and how you create content, always be authentic, and think through the natural sequence of information your customers need. Quote:“ I think one continued challenge is training and enablement and getting your teams ready to embrace new technology. And part of the reason why that's top of mind is with all this talk of AI. There's going to be a whole new sector of jobs that are created as a result of that, and getting people comfortable and adopting things that are new is a muscle that I feel like all organizations need to start working out.”Sponsor:Pipeline Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.Links:Connect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Andrea on LinkedInLearn more about SercanteLearn more about Caspian Studios