Leading without authority with Igor Kranjcec

Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Executive Conversations. In this podcast, I talk to marketing leaders about the behind the scenes of marketing. So we're not talking about how do you generate demand, um, what kind of channels are you using, but we're really talking about how do you actually get a seat at the table. And, um, stop complaining that people aren't giving you money to do your job. Um, I'm really excited because today I have Igor Grand Jets.

Speaker B: Perfect.

Speaker A: Said it wrong. I said it well. Okay, um, who is VP of marketing at Farseer, which is a financial planning and analysis software, and also VP of marketing at Sasanak, which is a conference in Shibanik, Croatia. I am obsessed with Croatia. We just Talked for like 30 minutes before we started recording about Croatia. So I'm really excited to have you on Igor. How's it going?

Speaker B: Thank you for having me. Um, and thank you for, uh, explaining what this podcast is about. And as I said, this is the only reason why I accepted to be on because I think we don't have enough behind the scenes conversations and we have too much of the. This is the five channels that I'm using and this is what it taught me about the B2B marketing.

Speaker A: And I was really excited to hear you have actually quite strong opinions and a strong background in building, uh, this kind of buy in. And you, you mentioned that you train your colleagues or you coach your colleagues through this or direct reports through this and that. The moment that you made this shift of, I have to talk about what kind of money I'm bringing to the table, your career completely changed. I know you have a lot of stories about this, so I'm going to let you, like, just start from where you think is appropriate.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I did start in marketing, um, um, 15, 16, 17 years ago. I'm much older than I look. Um, and I was, you know, the usual. I was focusing on visitors, I was focusing on impressions, I was focusing on, um, definitely on leads because, you know, as a marketer, you need to bring leads. But this is where everything would stop. And I was, as I was progressing, uh, in my career, uh, I would always be, um, you know, sad. Why is no one listening at me? Why, why are they not, you know, taking my stuff into consideration? Why am I stopped at this position? Why can I move forward? I have so many good ideas. Um, and, uh, what, what made a shift in my career, what made my career grow exponentially is the day I realized that I need to talk about money and not impressions. That doesn't Mean that I don't follow visitors, that I don't. You know, those are all of the metrics that we need to have because I need to see if we're going in the right direction. Um, but as soon as I connected marketing with revenue, it was the last time I asked for permission to do anything in marketing. Um, it was the last time that I have to ask for budget. Uh, now usually I just come and say, okay, we're going to try this. I think this will bring this amount of money and it usually flies. And that was a turning point. And when I started talking to my colleagues, actually, I, um, realized that not a lot of them do make this kind of shift. And that's the biggest issue. Um, I think that we heard here daily on how no one is listening to me. Uh, marketing does not have a seat at the table. You know, product, uh, get what it wants, uh, sales gets what they want. And marketing is just here to be a service, um, service position. But that's because probably you build the team to be a service position. So, uh, kind of realizing how to connect yourself with revenue is key. And for different companies it's different. Um, it can either be, yes, this is the amount of leads that we actually closed. If it's a self service, then you have the full cycle, let's say. So if some kind of a PLG or self service motion, you have the full cycle with you. But, uh, when it's, when it becomes more, more heavy is in the enterprise space. And I'm in the enterprise space right now. Because you hand over the lead to sales. You either, you generate it either through an event or through inbound, or through any kind of different stuff that you're doing, but then you hand it over to sales. And a lot of my, uh, team members are like, but I don't want to have the number of closed deals and the revenue from closed deals at the KPI because I'm not influencing it. And then I said, but you're thinking wrong. You are influencing it. Have you asked your sales colleague what's happening with this deal? Have you asked him, what else do you need? And then I started to have, then I started having sales and marketing meetings together, which was another turning, uh, point. Um, when they started talking about deals and then suddenly marketing was like, okay, but I can do that presentation for you. And maybe we can switch the wording around to how do you convince your boss to buy this solution? Or okay, maybe we can do an event because you have five stalled leads and let's make A dinner for them in enterprise sales. This stuff works. Um, and then stuff started happening, and that made my job a lot easier on one hand, and that made it a lot easier to get budget and to get really a seat to sit at the table.

Speaker A: That's quite interesting, actually. I didn't realize when you said revenue is their number the way I was imagining it was, okay, they're working on being more focused on the ICP and what they're doing. Um, but actually they are saying, I'm going to go and organize a dinner for these salespeople.

Speaker B: I mean, what you're saying also is true. This is all the path that they're doing. They need to focus on the ICP more. They need to do all of those stuff. They're not doing marketing anymore, so they're doing all the traditional stuff that we know. But as soon as I get people to have as their kpa. So the bonus and their compensation is based on the amount of closed deals at the end of the year, quarter cycle, whatever you have. And once you start thinking like that, you know, it does make a shift in the whole, you know, in the whole, uh, team, because they do ask sales, what do they need? And then sales finally starts. Okay, I'm going to ask marketing for help. I'm going to, you know, proactively tell them, because now we're on the same page. Because usually what happened is, um, marketing would bring leads. Sales would say leads are not good. Uh, marketing would bring new leads. Sales would say leads are not good. And that's a normal way of, you know, a traditional way of doing stuff. It's. It's not uncommon. It's. It's, you know, but, um, I'm sick of it, if I can speak in that terms, because we are. What has changed? Have we brought new leads that are different? You cannot tell me why they are wrong. You just haven't closed them. And I cannot change anything. And I was thinking a lot, and this wasn't all my idea. I talked. I was lucky to have good mentors. I was lucky to have to be a part of communities where you can talk to people and you can talk to people who have done it. When you listen to podcasts like this, um, and. And I was thinking on it a lot, and I wanted it to change because I want my bonus, because my bonus is dependent on how they perform. Also, um, let's. Let's not be here. Like, I'm not here for the money. Yeah, we all are. Um, but the other. On the other hand, I've seen that there's a lot of frustration in the teams. And when you're managing teams, having a frustrated team is unproductive. It's frustrating for me. And if you're doing the same thing over and over again, it's not going to change. And I really wanted to try new stuff to see what would change. And it's not that something I made up. It's just smarter people than me have done it before. And when I was talking to them, they all had, you know, the same, the same thing that they had that they said was like, okay, we connected ourselves to revenue. And then when it sparked me and, well, that's the only thing you need to do for any department, for any. I mean, if you can. I've led a, uh, customer success team that had support team inside and I've connected them to revenue by, you know, okay, you're, you're on the first line, you're talking to the customers, and you see an opportunity to upsell them, do it. You're going to get money from it, company is going to get money from it, and the customer is going to be happy because you solve their problem. And at that point, you know, also people started looking at support teams differently. So, I mean, it all evolves. Companies are here to make money, you know, in most cases, but they're here to make money. And if you can contribute to that, the owners are going to like you and the C suite is going to like you.

Speaker A: So when, okay, so I feel like a lot of marketers say that connect yourself to revenue. It's not a revolutionary idea, but I'm not sure if everybody still actually like, have made the mindset shift. You know what I mean? They've said it and they're saying, oh, now I'm gonna, um, track conversion rate or, I don't know, something like that. You know what I mean? And I don't know, did you have any kind of journey like that where you're like, oh, I think this is tying myself to revenue. But then of course that. And like, what was that like for you?

Speaker B: It still happens. I mean, it still happens. It's not that it's not an universal answer, but what I saw is, um, having accountability helps. Uh, and that's one of the main things you need to have, um, if you want to do it, I think really successfully. Because, um, having, when I say having accountability, it means, okay, if we are not on the target, uh, as a company for, you know, the sales target, it's not okay to say. But that, that Sales problem, that, that's the first, first shift you need to do. You have to see it as your own also problem. And because I was also the one that said, but we did everything. So my KPI was this amount of leads and this amount and we brought it and nothing happened. And what's going to change and what's going to be different if I just say, you know, I've done my job. Okay, let's congratulate the team and say okay team, you've done a good job because you've done your KPIs, but what can we do differently? So this changes. So the uh, accountability is the first step and then it depends on the company you work for, on the product you sell and uh, your sales motion. Are you very heavily sales led? Are you marketing led, you know, are you product led and so on. Um, and for you to find what's that thing that you can influence beyond bringing, don't stop at we've brought things to the funnel. If you stop there, you're not definitely not tying yourself to the revenue. But when you go down further, of course you're not going to influence, I don't know, um, um, you know, sales trainings, I mean you can with your materials. Maybe it's a wrong example, I was missing an English word for it. But um, sales up skilling. Okay. It's not something that marketing does. You have sales trainers, you have sales leaders for that. Okay, don't focus your time on that. But if you can influence it by I don't know, having 25 interviews with the customers that uh, haven't bought anything and finding out what they did and then coming to sales and say this is what we are going to change so you, so you can close that deal actually. Or if it means ad hoc stuff like organizing something like let's do a dinner for those five leads in that city because you know, and let's bring two happy customers on it, you know, um, try to find one um, thing, then second thing, then third thing that you can actually influence that closes the deal. That's not easy. Um, that's not always self explanatory. That's not always, you know. Oh, I can see that. Which makes it kind of fun also to if you're that kind of person to dig in to find it out. But I think that accountability and finding that one thing is very important. What needs to happen is you need to have a good relationship with your sales leader.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. If they're ever like what are you doing? This is none of your business. Let me, I'm handling it.

Speaker B: It happens. I had that experience, um, and imagine the company didn't grow. I mean, um, that's. That, that happens. Uh, stop messing with my leads. Was something that I heard a lot. That's. That's none of your business. That's. And what I was trying to explain all the time is, but you know, we have the same KPI. You and I have to bring the money in. And I'm going to help you. You help me. M. You know, sometimes those conversations go well, sometimes not. I'm lucky to have in my current role a VP of sales that really understands, um, me. I understand her. And we work well together when it comes to collaboration. And I think it comes from where we both think that sales, um, and marketing need to collaborate well for the company to grow. And that's it. I worked in companies where the leadership was like, yeah, sales and marketing need to fight in order something to happen.

Speaker A: Why?

Speaker B: I don't know. It needs to be some kind of friction there. Like, okay, friction, okay conversations. Okay, we are not agree on everything. And okay, that you defend your side and I defend my side. That's. That's normal. That's life. That's business. But you know, you need to go in the same direction. If you're not going, the sales is selling, um, something here and you're marketing something here. And that never works. And I know that everyone's gonna say it, but I don't think that everyone understands what that means. Yeah, you know, sometimes I, in, in the beginning of the relationship, if I can do work, uh, relationship, um, maybe you don't express immediately what you want just in order to gain their buy in. That doesn't mean you're lying. It only means that you need to show value fast. We always talk about showing value to the customer and that's the only way you can sell stuff. But we forget about showing value internally. And if you don't show value internally, um, you're going to be a support function and that's it. I wasn't thinking about that when I was changing ah, roles before. Um, I wasn't thinking on, okay, I need to do my onboarding. I need to. And now, yes, you need to do an onboarding. You need to be aware of what the product is and everything. But you need to show some kind of value in the first month or two. You need to do something for people to trust you. And when the people trust you, then you have wider and wider area of influence, stuff you can do. That's I think you know. Yes, you said it right. A lot of marketers say that uh, yeah, we need to tie ourselves to revenue, but they don't really understand how to do it. And I think that's also normal. We've been taught completely differently and the whole marketing paradigm was completely different. And you know, the most important thing was, yeah, sessions, you know, and stuff like that. But that, that, that is changing too slow if you ask me. But it will change with time.

Speaker A: You, you mentioned that you mentor. Who do you mentor?

Speaker B: So I uh, as a part of uh, community I was in, I was mentoring either newcomers, uh, um, sorry, newcomers to marketing, newcomers to leadership roles.

Speaker A: To leadership roles.

Speaker B: To leadership roles. Um, and it's something that I really like to do. It's something that I was missing in the very early beginning. I was lucky to have really good mentors later on. Uh, but at the early beginning, uh, it was something that I was missing. But let's, you know, when I was starting, you know, the Internet was um, iPhone wasn't out. So um, let's call it that way. Um, and uh, you had your peers and colleagues, um, and that was it. Um, but on the other hand, uh, I was happy to have really good mentors later on. And sometimes people reach out to me via LinkedIn, sometimes via uh, you know, different second hand acquaintances. And also on the conference that we are organizing on Sastana, I talk to a lot of people and you know, I start. It's sometimes, sometimes I naturally fall into mentoring, mentoring state without um, them even asking which someone takes well, someone doesn't take well. But it's what I fall into really easily. Uh, but yeah, I think that's. I learn a lot from them and I realize a lot of stuff for them from them. And I also see how many mistakes I still do because yes, I now I sound like I have everything figured out. I definitely don't. I do a lot of rookie mistakes still and having those kind of conversations, um, where you know, more junior people challenge you. And when I say junior it doesn't mean they're young. There are also, you know, people older than me that have stepped into their leadership role for the first time. Um, but having, you know, questions from them, questions everything I know and I love it.

Speaker A: What do you think? So when they first step into leadership, is there any discrepancy between what they think they need to learn and what you see? And you're like, this is actually what you need to be thinking about.

Speaker B: Yeah. What's Hard is. So who usually gets promoted in the leadership role, unfortunately, is the best worker. Um, and that, that doesn't always mean that they have the best talent to lead people. And I think you need to have talent to lead people. Um, yeah, I've seen that.

Speaker A: I've also promoted in the past. I had promoted somebody who was my best SEO strategist to head of SEO. And I didn't like the leadership management part. Did not match the.

Speaker B: Yeah, when that happens, they are very focused on the operative task still. And those are the ones that are having the hardest time to let go. Um, and what, what they think. I mean, I've worked with people, um, in where they got promoted, um, and then they were assigned in the company as my mentee and their sole. Um, their sole. Uh, why they wanted to be in the leadership position because they thought they are working, going to. Going to work less. And that's the quite opposite.

Speaker A: People have that perspective of managers. Like, oh, well, they're not doing the work, but it's so much more work.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's different. Um, maybe if you say, yeah, I don't actually execute the campaign anymore, but sometimes I do it, sometimes I fall into it because I just miss it. So I'm going to take a day off and just do the operative stuff. But, um, that's the hardest thing for them, I think, to make that switch. Um, suddenly they need to manage up and manage down. And that's. We can say, yo, yeah, we are no politics company. Yeah, but you're always managing up and managing down. If you're not doing it, you're doing something wrong. That doesn't mean you're manipulating people. And that's. I had a really good conversation with, uh, one of my colleagues, but I don't want to manipulate people. It's not manipulating managing up and managing down. Uh, you need to manage, you know, your, your people in your team, but you need to also manage, manage, uh, people who are your bosses. The C suite, you know, you need to manage them. You need to get them understand what you're doing. You need to get them. That doesn't mean you're manipulating them. I mean, it's quite a senior skill.

Speaker A: I feel like, I feel like juniors don't. It doesn't even occur to them at all to manage up. And then once you start to grow, you're like, oh, this is my responsibility.

Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes. And it's definitely. I mean, it isn't an easy task, but that's one of the things that newcomers, you know, to Leadership roles in marketing especially, um, struggle really, really hard and there's not a single recipe, you know, there's not an advice I can give you. What I realized that that's going to help you. You just need to be aware and you need to understand those are the only two advices that I can give to anyone. Because every company is different, every management board is different. Um, and you need to be aware. Every time I change companies and I come to a new leadership role somewhere, I need to do it over and over again.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Um, and I think that's very important. One of the other things that I try to work on with people, um, is leading, uh, without authority. So it's easy to lead people that are your. I hate that word subordinates. But I don't know. Different, different word in English for it. Direct reports. Thank you. Thank you sounds better. Uh, yeah, because the creation word for it's definitely subordinates and we don't have another word for it. And then it bleh. But um, yeah, definitely leading, uh, without authority is very important because if you can lead people that not your direct reports, you're doing something right, then you're influencing all of the other, you know, uh, everyone in the organization. And that makes your job very, very easy. Because that's the thing with showing value. You need to show value not only to your boss, but to your peers, but also team members from other teams. Because if, you know, if the whole customer success team thinks that, you know, you're doing nothing and you're not contributing anything to the company, you're not going to have a good time because you know they will obstruct you in any way they can. Naturally. Maybe not on purpose naturally, you know, marketing. Send this. They were like, yeah, I'm not going to read it. You know, and if you learn how to do that part, that's, that that will make your job hell of a lot easier. And that part I didn't learn in my leadership position. I think that that, that is the part that nailed my first leadership position.

Speaker A: Leading without authority.

Speaker B: Leading without authority. Because I was just talking to one of the guys that I mentor and he was like, yeah, but he's waiting for his, he's still not, uh, a, uh, team lead. He's waiting for his team leadership position in order to start acting like a team leader. And I was like, that's completely wrong. That does happen sometimes. Okay. Some people do get promoted before, you know, they show they can. But in my experience, what nailed me my first leadership position was actually I was acting like a team lead before taking on responsibilities that I shouldn't have and stuff like that. Before I nailed the first team lead position. And leading without authority was one of the things that I think helped a lot. I was working in product marketing, um, and when you work in product marketing, you work with a lot of people and you're no one's boss and you need to expect a lot of deliverables from a lot of people. And then I started, uh, I had a good mentor then that, that opened the box of leading without authority for me. Um, I started working on it by, you know, it. Some would say it's project management. It definitely is, but you need to add emotional intelligence on it. So it is project management with emotional intelligence. Um, and once I started applying stuff, um, stuff started happening, you know, and that doesn't mean that I was polite to everyone. I had a friend say, but you were just, you know, you're funny and polite to everyone. No, I was expecting stuff from them. Um, I would, you know, when someone would say, okay, what's your deadline? I would just turn things around and say, okay, you tell me when can you do it?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then you make them accountable for it. And then it happens. And when I said deadline is in five days, then nothing happens.

Speaker A: Then they don't do it. Oh, because they didn't decide. Can you tell me. Because this. So this is something, um, I see a lot is people who should be leading without authority or like their jobs would be much. They would be much more effective if they could lead without authority. A big fear of theirs is, I don't. Like I'm not their boss. I don't want people to think I'm telling them what to do. Maybe they have like a bit of people pleasing and they're afraid of how am I going to be perceived if I'm doing this when I'm not their boss and I technically don't have the right to be telling them these kind of things. Like, did you ever experience that? Or how do you coach people out of that?

Speaker B: I mean, I had the similar feelings when I was starting. Um, I was like. When my boss first time asked me why this isn't done and I said, well, you know, Peter didn't, didn't do it. Uh, and he's like, that's, you know, you're accountable for this deliverable. Why wasn't it done? But I'm not his boss. I'm not gonna tell him what to do. Well, you're not, but you need to influence him and then we open the whole box of leading without authority. I think that's the hardest way, hardest thing to ditch, um, those kind of feelings. Um, but try to. I think the conversations and having the conversations is uh, very uh, important. I think it's easier when it's not a remote setting M because you can come to person, sit with that person and it's a lot easier. And I think I was lucky to build that skill before the remote setting, which makes it easier for me now in the remote setting. When I am in remote setting, I think it's a bit harder without the connection you can establish personally. That doesn't mean it's not viable, not doable, but I think it's a lot harder. And putting yourself out there is the hardest part. Let's do this together. Okay, I'm gonna sit with you. Let's do it together. You show that you're there also.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And what needs to be the baseline, it's, you need to deliver on your stuff without error, without being late one single second. And then you can, then you can hold people accountable for their stuff and try to transfer the accountability to other people. Because yes, you are accountable and you are, you know, the top accountability is yours, that the project is done, that the product is out and everything. But transfer it a bit to them. Ask them what's your deadline? When do you think you can do it? Or how would you do it differently? Ask for their opinion. Because we see, if I come and say you need to do this in this time and it needs to look like this, then I am acting like your boss and I'm not. But if I come and say, okay, we have a deadline, this is the end deadline, this is how the product, you know what it should convey the final product. What do you think we should do? What's your opinion on it? People like to be asked their opinion, especially if there's specialists in something. They like to be asked their opinion, they like to have influence, Everyone likes to have influence. And if you ask them and the biggest thing wrong you can do is ask them their opinion. I've seen that, I've done that. Yeah, I'm going to. So if I ask them their opinion, they're going to do it. More likely then they do it, they tell their opinion and I do something completely different that's going to backfire. That's going to. If it needs to go into, sometimes it needs to go into the direction because their suggestion maybe is not good, not in line, they don't have all the information you need to explain it to them. Yeah, you owe them that explanation. Um, but once you loop people in, once you make it a little bit of their accountability also, I think that helps tremendously, tremendously with any level. Either the junior of junior people or directors. Because what was the most scary part for me, at some point in my product marketing career, I had to also work with directors. Heads off. And how do I tell them to do something? I mean, I'm like seven pay grades below them, you know, for them, that was the hardest part for me to understand today. It's easy because I've been in their position and I know what I think, how they think. At that point, it was really hard. But what I just then said, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna try it. Let's see. I prepared everything. I did the whole research, and then. Can I have five minutes of your time? This is what I did. This is what I think. This is what I need. What's your decision? Once I started coming to them in that way, stuff started shifting. Shifting. Because what I didn't realize before when I asked, I didn't ask five minutes of their time. I needed four hours of their time to. For them to do the research, to do the, you know, and that's not going to happen.

Speaker A: No.

Speaker B: But if I prepare everything and, um, I come with, this is two possible solutions that we can do. Or, you know, this is the three directions we can go in. You, you get the, uh, you get, you know, you get the answer, and then people start talking about you. Oh, I like to work with him. He comes with, you know. Yeah, he's ready.

Speaker A: And make me think more things. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And the feedback that I started getting in those kind of situations. Oh, it's so easy to work with him. And sometimes that's important.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It doesn't mean that it's easier for me, but if I, you know, if I'm there just to work and to get my nine to five. Understandable. But I have always been a career person. I've never hidden it. Uh, all of my employers knew that I'm ambitious, that I want to build my career, that I want to progress. And if you're in that mindset, you need to deliver.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You need to give something extra.

Speaker A: I could keep talking to you about this for hours. Um, maybe I got to bring you back on another episode, but we're going to wrap up here because we're already over 30 minutes. Um, Igor, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker B: Thank you. For having me. I haven't realized it's been 30 minutes already, to be honest. I was like, oh, we're going to switch to another topic now because we have some 20 minutes left.

Speaker A: Um, yeah, we definitely could have, uh, for those who are listening, I'm actually not sure that this episode is going to be out on time. I was going to say go to Sastanat Conference May 5 to 7. Possibly this episode is going to be out after.

Speaker B: Yeah, but you can always look for. We are already Preparing for sustenance 2026. How it goes in the event management. You start preparing for the new one even before the. This year's session is on.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's on the Dalmatian coast and it's, uh, a beautiful place. So highly recommend it. Igor, thank you so much.

Speaker B: Thank you for having me. It was a really, really big pleasure. Yeah.

Speaker A: And for those who are listening, remember to follow Igor. Give this episode a, uh, like, share it with a friend and we will see you next time.

Speaker B: Bye.

Speaker A: Bye.