The New Rules to Sustainable Growth

Speaker A: M foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome to the C Suite Sales and Marketing Perspectives podcast. I'm Steve McDonald, your host and today we have an incredible conversation and I don't know, Julie, it's with Julie Swissler. And Julie, I hope you're okay with me saying this. You and I geeked out. The last time we got together we just, we had so much that we were passionate about that we shared in our beliefs and we're going to talk about the new roles of sustainable growth. What does it mean with all the changes, the AI changes coming in, the B2B buyer journey, buyers not wanting to talk to us until the very end of the journey, how they form shortlists on day one, how trust is a key ingredient within that. There's so much we're going to unpack here today, but you are a, ah, CMO at Office Beacon. You've been doing this for around 20 years or so. You're writing on a number of really interesting, interesting topics that you call the Connector economy and trust. And what I'd love to do is just turn it over to you and if you could expand a little bit more on your background before we dive right in.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Thanks for having me on your show, first of all. And yeah, it was super fun to meet you and geek out. And I think as you mentioned, we, the biggest challenge might be to try and keep the topics on, um, point and not go too deep off the rails. So I will work really hard. So my background is actually mostly in entertainment marketing, primarily sports television, digital platforms. And I recently came to Office Beacon about, I guess, a year and a half ago. And coincidentally I knew Pranav from one of my first jobs out of college. We stayed friends. Pranav is the CEO of uh and founder of Office Beacon and staying friends, he asked me to come in and lead up his global marketing. And so, so it was just like stepping back into an old relationship. And I think that kind of reflects back on the importance of keeping your network warm, trusted, with people that really have meaningful connections. And with that, we started working on this idea of the Connector economy and how you can build a trusted ecosystem. What your business partnerships or associations that you belong to, the network that your company or yourself is part of is a really important part of how we do business now. I think with the increase of AI research, the noise out there, it's really hard to vet out who you want to do business with. There's a lot of options. Right. And so I have noticed more and more, uh, even myself and my business associates, we're turning to people that we trust. And so I've really started focusing on what a trusted ecosystem looks like, what the economy, the connector economy can bring together, and how we can build this in a. In the business world so that you can help grow and scale your business in a way that's meaningful. With trusted partners and relationships, I create warm prospects and warm leads and stop doing cold calling and cold outreach.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, the day and age of a cold call. How many emails do we still get that comes up and says, quick question for you, Steve. I'm like, please. Is going to delete that right away. So here's what I would love to do. What do you. I'd love to explore a little bit more about the connector economy. You started into that there, right? But we all know B2B is all about relationships. Relationships are all founded on trust. Even my wife and I, right. When we first got married, we said the most important thing in our marriage is trust. So we. We had a mission in our marriage. Right. And relationships are formed by what we each get out of it, what we each put into it. So I'm really interested in exploring more on this connector economy and how does it work for us as B2B, C suite executives?

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I think we're moving into a really interesting era for a while. Uh, and I would say that with social media and everything just coming right at us, we became a very transactional society. And it was, what's the best offer? What are we going to click through next? And who's going to give me the best discount? Right. And there's terms like clickbait. And I think people have now since become savvy, and we're just fed up. We're, like, sick of Instagram ads that are trying to put us into a monthly subscription model that's just going to spam us over and over. And with that, I think this new generation is starting to really wise up and really scrutinize who you're having relationships with. Even when you look at. I'm just going to take it to a very rudimentary level. When you talk to kids in college and high school, they have all these private group. They have the main ones, but then now they have this smaller vetted group of who they want to share their posts mostly with. Right. So you're seeing the paradigm shift go back towards really a, uh, connected, trusted ecosystem of people that you value, that you have a relationship with, that. Hey, I know Steve has an amazing network of C suite executives. He has a reputable podcast, I think If I wanted to start a, uh, podcast series or create a content series or even ask who I could interview, you'd be an amazing resource. Because I've watched your podcast, I've seen the credible guests you have, I know you personally. And so therefore I look at this connected economy as people who you have in your trusted ecosystem. And for me, that is partly the associations you join. So you join different associations. Office Beacon is a national proud sponsor of Vistage. Vistage is very strict about who joins. You have to go through an interview process. You, they have strict rules of how you connect with each other. They have people who they call chairs that champion each of your groups. And there's a, there's a guarded gateway to who can interact with this community. So, you know, that's a trusted vetted community. And so the vendors that they even bring as like, even when we became national sponsors, we had to be interviewed and vetted to know that we bring qualified staffing solutions for their community and that we deliver on our promises, right? So they don't want to put sponsors just to get money in front of them. And I look at the different associations that Office Beacon partners with, and those are the associations that I want to build deeper relationships with. That's where my business network comes from. That's where a lot of my referrals come from. And so one of the things that I want to build, we want to build out with the connector economy is how could you build out this trusted ecosystem so that you can easily know that it's sort of like a daisy chain, right? You're going to refer me to someone else and I'm going to now build and trust a relationship with them. With that trusted relationship, I can meet five more people. So how do you build that ecosystem? And one of the things that we've been working on is a platform that helps. It's called Prospectly. And it's a platform that actually similarly vets out, brings in trusted networks. There's a trust score so that you can see the value of the person that's being referred. And, um, we're building this because the important importance of LinkedIn has been a great resource and everyone is on it, right? But I can tell you I have over 3,000 connections on LinkedIn that name half of the people in my LinkedIn connection. So instead of going wider, how do you go deeper? How do you create more connected relationships? And I think that's what the connector economy is about. And that's why we say it's not just about the connector economy, but it's this trust ecosystem that's going to be keep building on top of each other. The better experience you have with a person and the better referrals or introductions or recommendations, advice you get, the more you're going to go back to that resource. Right? And so I think that's what the basis of this trusted economy is about.

Speaker B: So much I want to dig into there. So I had plenty in my head. I was just looking through the other day, the Sixth Sense B2B buyers journey report, and they talked about how the day one shortlist less than I think it was, 7% of the companies got onto that short list that weren't previously known and trusted. There wasn't a previous relationship there. So the big takeaway was you got to create these connections, right? You've got to create a relationship based on trust. If you're not, you're out. So that's how important it is, what you're talking about here. And I had a call about a year ago and stuck. It was on a podcast, had stuck so well with me. This gentleman, he was a chief customer officer, he was talking to one of his customers who was a chief. A ciso, right? Chief Information Security Officer. And that gentleman had just gone through a big RFP to add something to their tech stack. He said, we evaluated 14 different companies and he said every single one of them checked every box in our rfp. Right. He says it was this amazing sea of sameness. He said, all I wanted to know was this, what's it going to be like to work with you after I hire you? That's trust in the relationship. It's why you are now here at Office Beacon, right? Because your CEO knew, I know what it's going to be like to work with Julie if we come and we work together. He had a trust in you that had been built up over years. That's what I'm taking away from what you're saying is this isn't just. This isn't just networking, right? This isn't just to develop more prospects. This is to develop relationships, because those are the relationships that are going to turn into the kind of pipeline that we have to have today, right?

Speaker A: Absolutely. I. So I, uh. It's funny how certain topics sit with you for a while, right? And a few years back, my, my husband said to me, I was like, everyone, I got frustrated at work one day and I was just like, I don't know, maybe I should just change my whole career path, whatever. And he. One of the things he said was like, what is, what do you want your day to look like on a daily basis? And I think when I think about that and you think about the connector economy, I get so jazzed. At, uh, office weekend, we host these lunch and learns, which Steve, I'd love for you to come and join us one of these days. But I find different partners that can come and co host it with us and they speak on a different topic. So I. It's a trail of different events. So back in March, south by Southwest, I went to this event that one of our partners at Insperity invited us to, right? And so on a whim, I went, met up with them, and then I met this gentleman named Alan and we just got to talking and same thing, the way I met you, we just started geeking out on, um, all these values that we really believe in and, and you're gonna laugh, but he was like, I have this great presentation on the right people in the right seats, right? And you know how much I believe in that. So we started going deep into that and I was like, I am such a big believer in eos. And he's like, I really learned this from Patrick Lencioni. And he's like, we have this sort of belief that right people in the right seats, that you have to have the right people on your bus who are humble, hungry and executive smart, right? This is for your leadership team. And I thought, wow, this is a great person that we can bring in for these lunch and learn. So this random event that I went to for Inc. Founders House, I met this wonderful gentleman. And now we're doing a. Probably a series of what I, uh, what we do at lunch and learns, which are like executive lunch and learns for business people to really come away with some great, meaningful, educational, actionable insights for their business. And Pranav does a wonderful presentation on how to create, how to create scalable and repeatable revenue models, right? And he's done that very well in his 25 years of running Office Beacon. And I thought that partners so well with, like, how do you build your leadership team? You need the right people in the right seats. And so we do these events that, uh, people walk away and there are workbooks and great networking opportunities, but we really handpick the people we invite to these events, right? So we create a room full of business leaders, decision makers, people that are facing the same sort of business pain points, learnings that they want to take away from. And everyone walks out going, wow, I learned so much. But I also met so many great people and then we hear feedback six months, a year later, I met this person at your lunch and learn. And now we're doing business together and they've been a great partner. And so when I think of the connector economy going back to this and that trusted ecosystem, those kind of experiences and those kind of, you have to lean into it, right? You have to want to meet those right people. And then you have to take the initiative to grow those networks. But also, just like anything in business, you have to be the person that also delivers on your promises. You have to bring value to that relationship. Why am I going to be in a relationship with you? And remember, we are all very busy. There's a lot of people vying for your time. So if I'm going to spend an hour of my time with you, it's got to be because now it's meaningful. So when I go back to the how I started, how I want my day to look, I want my day to look and I consider myself what I'm coining right now. And I'm sure other people have already use this term, a super connector. I love meaning and learning about people and seeing how they can fit into my ecosystem of, uh, trusted network, right? And when I find people who are amazing, like this gentleman Alan that I was just talking about, I get so excited because I'm excited to jump on that conversation and I'm excited to learn more about his business and excited to see how I can plug him into my trusted ecosystem. And I'm sure it's the same with you, Steve, because you get to meet. Meet tons of amazing people, right? And that, that's what I get excited about during the day is what am I going to learn that's new. So I always say I like to, I might have 20 years of experience, but I want to constantly be learning and to have that open mindset of the people that you can learn from and then how to embed that into your business network is something I really look forward to. And I think when I started realizing that was something I really wanted to lean in on, my days changed, right? How I spend my day, how I build my day out looks totally different.

Speaker B: You know what I keep thinking? There's, you know, in the past, we've relied on building our business by trying to automate everything, trying to get all these intent signals and put them together and identify who's in the right mode to buy and then reach out and try to create a relationship, right? And everybody was doing that on, on their own, right? But the intense Signals are going away, they're getting hidden, they're coming later and thinner and they're being disguised inside of Ask Engine Optimization now. They're. It's harder and harder, but also it's coming in cold. The relationship was, we hope they downloaded a form, they read something on our website, right? That this, these weren't relationships, right? These were people that were researching. And then we said, okay, good, they're researching, so therefore we have something. But what you're talking about is establishing this is what ABM is all about, right? Is saying, who are the companies that I want to do business with? And then how do I create a relationship with them, right? And that's early on. And it's got to be genuine, it's got to be value driven, it's got to be honest. And that is how we're going to make success, right? I'm talking to CROs now. They're saying, Steve, I'm buying plane tickets like I've never bought before. We're doing dinners, we're doing all kinds of things. And he said, we're not only going out and reaching out to prospects, I'm going out to customers that we actually haven't visited in years.

Speaker A: Years, like customers that you've had for years who are working with you on a daily basis and you haven't connected with.

Speaker B: Unbelievable, right? Because we, in the pursuit of scaling what we do, we tried to take the human element out of almost everything. Uh, we never stated it that way. We never had that as an intent. It was never one of the three big object objectives we had for it, right? But in the end, that's what ended up happening. And as trust went through the toilet, all of a sudden it's. That relationship became really important. So what I love is you and I, part of what we geeked out on was that I asked this question to everybody, every C Suite executive that comes onto the podcast. Now, I've done it about 120 times. I wasn't smart enough to do it at the very beginning, but I asked this question, what are your three greatest challenges to creating long term sustainable growth? And you know what was really interesting about them? Two things. One, none of them were externally focused challenges. They were all internal. Second, not a one had anything to do with product. Now this is not an indictment on product. This is not that product or services don't matter. That is not it at all. But people want to know and trust you before they know, okay, now what it is that, what is it that you can do for us, right? The relationship is more important. The brand, the trust in who you are as an individual and as a business is so much more important. And doing what you're doing. Tell me how important it is to align internally, right? So that your CEO, your cmo, CRO, everybody's in alignment.

Speaker A: So when I started with the company, as I mentioned, the CEO founded the company, this is our 25th year, he scaled incredibly fast. He was hands on in a lot of parts of the business, right. And when we came in there was no real operating system. And so one of the things that, uh, not just me, but I think multiple people introduced him to an operating system called eos. And if you're not familiar with it, there's a wonderful book called Traction and it stands for Entrepreneurial Operating system. And EOS has a lot of different frameworks on how you implement the EOS process. But one of the things that you start with is the accountability chart. And your accountability chart is actually who owns what in, in what department and how, what their core deliverables, they call them rocks will be per quarter. Right. And it's incredibly important. So there's people call them goals, some people call them KPIs. People have different types of wording for it. The reason why I think EOS has a little, it adds a little layer to what you're putting in for your accountability is that when you create your rocks, they call them smart rocks. And so let's see if I can remember exactly what smart rocks stand for. It's specific, measurable, actionable. I think it's reachable and timely. Right. So why are those important? You don't want to create goals just for the sake of a goals. Oh, we're going to increase sales by $5 million. Well, is that it's measurable, but is that smart in the way that it's actually attainable? Is that reasonable that you're going to actually increase sales by $5 million? Right. So it makes you think about like within your accountability seat, what are you going to deliver within that quarter that everyone focuses on. And we do it company wide too. Right. So not only does it start with are the right people, um, we already touched upon this a little bit, but the right people in the right seats. I think EOS has a slightly different framework than what I was telling you earlier with Lencioni's, but with eos I believe it's get it, want it capacity to do it. So why is that important for the right person, the right seat. So you, if you're sitting in a CMO seat. I have to get what the role is about, I have to want to be in it, and I have to have the skill and the know how to get it done. Right. So one of the stories was when we were looking at our accountability, we had someone sitting in a CFO role, and he had the capacity to get it done, but what he didn't have is he didn't want it. It was very clear that he didn't want to be in that seat. And what he does is he has a very strategic mind. He has the, uh, ability to really almost look at the management team in a different way and help put in that sort of process and really help drive the accountability for the management team. Right, for the leadership team. So, so we hired someone to come in and replace a CFO role, and we moved him into what we call the integrator role for EOs, and he's, uh, the acting COO, and he gets the role, he really wanted it, and he has the capacity to do it. Right? And so shifting him from that role to another, just because someone has the skills to do one role doesn't necessarily mean they're in the right seat. And. And you funnel that down from your management all the way down to your entire team. And each accountability seat kind of looks at from their team who's in what seat and are they in the right seat. So those kind of aspects really help. And that creates a level of transparency, accountability. They have a, uh, within the frameworks, they also have a section called ids, which is issues. I think it stands for Issues, Determination and Solutions. So you work through the problem and you come up with a solution of what to do next. And so a lot of times you'll have meetings and they don't actually talk about any of the issues that are actually affecting the company. And you do this with your whole entire leadership team and that level. And we do it weekly, and it's always 90 minutes. They're called L10s. And that sort of framework also keeps it so that we're actually dealing with meaningful issues that matter. And we're moving the needle forward, but we're all moving in the same direction. And if there is something within the operating system that's not working, we know the right people to get in and dig in and resolve that. Right? So it's solutioning versus who's to blame. Steve, you did this wrong. And why did this happen? We don't go into that. Right. We try and look at solutions and what are the critical root causes of what's happening. It's a culture shift too, right? It was a, a, it's a pretty big movement. It's not like it happens overnight. We're still in the process of changing over how we operate and how the team comes together. But having a framework and having that transparency and accountability is, uh, an amazing way of really identifying, like you said, most of the issues within a company is not the product, it's not what you're building. Right. And usually internal miscommunication, misunderstanding, alignment in different places, not knowing what your actual clear goals. Goals are. And, and then like sometimes. Listen, everyone. I work with a CEO who is incredibly innovative. He's constantly starting new projects. And it's also up to us saying this isn't aligned with what our quarterly company rocks are. So it gives us a way to actually push back on him and say, this is a great idea. Let's put it into the parking lot and then let's bring it up when the time is right. So when we finished these current rocks or the projects that we've already initiated, then we have the bandwidth to bring something new and having that sort of completion and then the next level, it takes away the distractions and the bright shiny objects, right? It's always fun to kickstart a new project, but you got to take it to the end. You got to take it to the finish line, right? And uh, that's one of my favorite lines in the movie F1, he's, I gotta finish the race. He's never finished the race. So I'm like, I always say that back to my CEO, uh, we're gonna finish the race.

Speaker B: So what you're talking about heading in the right direction, having internal alignment, but then a framework around that, right? So important. So that's the out of that Top two questions on what are the top two challenges for creating long term sustainable growth? Internal alignment. Over 70% of C Suite executives said that. I've been on, I've had on the podcast many a partner in go to market consulting agencies and they're all, oh, it's at least 70%. Right. We come in and everybody's got their idea, what the problems are and what they start is with an alignment survey. They start out with like, how aligned are you as a team? Because if you're not aligned, the company's not aligned. Right. And I think it was. McKinsey did a whole study on it and well, aligned companies from the C suite level down produce two times the revenue of non aligned teams. This is like basic stuff, but it has Such dramatic impact, right?

Speaker A: I even remember just talking to people who are in startup phases. It's just them and a business partner and you'll talk to both of them. And it's two people, right? You're not even talking about a suite of people and they're not in alignment. So I always tell people like, hey, before you even think about, I used to do a lot of advising, especially for startups. And I say, if you have a partnership, make sure that you guys are in full alignment and that you break down what, saying certain strategic alignment or we have a great vision, it doesn't mean anything, right? And I'm. And I always tell people, read some leadership books on how to get alignment. Whatever the framework is that you want to use, you don't have to use eos. But there are other really great, uh, I don't mean to keep bringing up Patrick Lancini. I sound like a fan girl here, but he does have some great leadership books where he talks about the, the team agreement, right? And having specific norms of how you operate together. That's all it is, right? They're like specific norms of how you're going to operate, how you're going to come together, how you're going to resolve, how you're going to resolve your issues, how you're going to come to solutioning. Having that sort of mindset. That's mainly what it is. And I've even used some m of these kind of skills that I've read in these leadership books in different relationships I have. And, uh, incredibly helpful even with my siblings, right? I bring some of those sort of M techniques in and you know what? They work. They work in relationship management. I 100% agree that you need that internal alignment. It's such an important part of business and once you see it happening, you start seeing the company shift in its direction and productivity. Right? When you have processes in place that actually work, you don't have to keep reinventing the wheel or kickstarting something new and thinking about how we're going to get this project done once that, uh, process is in place and you're able to communicate and there's platforms, uh, that you can go to. Before I started, we, they didn't have any sort of project management tool and we implemented Asana within the whole entire marketing department. And the team was just like, wow, it's so great because now I can see what everyone's working on and I'm not frustrated because we're a remote team. So it's so important to have these processes and these working funnels in place so that, that your team feels productive, they feel empowered, they know what's happening and these platforms will communicate for you. Right? And Asana is an amazing tool. There are, uh, other amazing project management tools. We just happen to be on Asana, and it helps bring that sort of visibility into your team so that the alignment, even in a department wise, is all synced up in place.

Speaker B: I wish we had two more hours because I know we have at least two more hours of conversation, but I want to ask one last question, and that is that we talked about so much, we covered so much here. If there was one takeaway that you wanted, the other C Suite execs that are going to be consuming this podcast to take away from our conversation, the single most important thing, what would that be?

Speaker A: So I just really recently started soapboxing on this, but. And I like to activate on what I recommend. So one of the things as C Suite executives is we are our own personal brand. What is the community that you're building? What is your trusted ecosystem? Who are the people that you want to build into your trusted ecosystem? So as I keep thinking about this and see if you. Yes, I'm becoming a little obsessive over this, but as I think about why it's so important to build this, connect your economy, I think about it's beyond that. Right. Who are the people within your trusted ecosystem? Who are the people that you want to connect with? Right. The, uh, people I want to connect with might be different than the community you want to build. And having that intention and having that clarity for yourself and your personal brand, um, not just for your company, but your personal brand. SC Suite executives. We all have our own personal brand. We all are driving to become known thought leaders or even within your own just company. How do you want to be known? And what is that community of people that you want to pull together? And how can you drive to lead and be the glutes, the connector for that community? And I've been thinking about that a lot lately of the type of people that I want to keep pulling into my connector, my connections and my trusted ecosystem.

Speaker B: I gotta say, the mission of this podcast is to connect the C Suite, right? It is. Right. And for us to share our experiences, our perspectives, our insights, what we've done wrong, what we've done right, what we've learned over our careers. And if we do, that's the rising tide that lifts all boats. And you were an amazing part of the rising tide today. And I just wanted to say thank you for coming on. On.

Speaker A: Oh, thank you for having me. I'm so glad that we connected. And you, um, have invited me on the podcast.