The Marketing Growth Formula, with Heidi Hattendorf

In the 2009 movie Up, there's a golden retriever whose collar can translate his thoughts to speech. When Dug the dog first starts speaking, the main characters marvel at how smart he is. But expectations drop a moment later when he snaps his head around and halts mid-sentence when he hears a squirrel. We marketers are prone to squirrel chasing.

Let's be honest and admit that we get caught on a treadmill of activity without stopping to ask ourselves if it's having any impact. We make things worse when we look to AI for our content because it will pump out more and more when what our audience actually needs is less. Hey, Glenn here. Welcome to Funnel Reboot, the show for data-based marketers.

How do we break this habit? This month's book says it's by creating a go-to-market plan with detailed tactics. A plan reminds us why we're sticking with those tactics, so we don't get distracted by any tactic that comes along. Our guest has an MBA and twenty-five years of experience in marketing leadership in the US and Europe.

Her consultancy, Transformation Insights, offers fractional CMO services, helping companies grow by building go-to-market strategies that are consistent and effective. She is also a speaker and the author of The Marketing Growth Formula, which came out in late 2025. So now let's go to the Miami area to speak with Heidi Hattendorf. Heidi Hattendorf, welcome to Funnel Reboot.

Thanks so much, Glenn. Thanks for having me on. Heidi, you wrote a book. Can you please tell us what the name of the book is?

The Marketing Growth Formula. I wanna begin with talking about how folks who may not be familiar with all branches of marketing are, sometimes going to imagine that it's very mystical and that there's, some secret, incantations and burning of incense and things like that that you have to do to understand what marketing is. And you make it very clear up front that this book doesn't do that. Instead, you begin with a very simple three-step framework for how we're gonna get into a better form of marketing.

Take us through what those three steps are, the three pillars. Yeah, and I really wanted to create... The whole essence of the book was to create something that is familiar and doesn't require knowing a special vocabulary. And so that was the essence of it.

So to that basis, I really try to think in threes and break it down so that business leaders, founders, executives can think about what's at the core, the foundation, and that's really the essence of the formula, if you will. So I said, really you have to have a strategic plan. So what is it? Are we trying to grow the market?

Are we trying to add a new line? Is it a brand-new business? What's the strategic plan? Then there's activating the plan, so bringing it to life.

That looks like very actionable, choosing your go-to-market channels, choosing the way in how you're gonna show up, who you're actually meeting, which customers or ideal customers would be interested. And then the third one, just as important, is measuring it because now we have to see, are we getting the outcomes? What adjustments are we going to make? And that can even look like testing out different headlines or copy or taglines, all the way to, you know, going to an event versus, you know, let's say, doing webinars or doing other forms of marketing, papers, et cetera.

So again, strategy, activate the strategy, measure the results, make adjustments as you go, and we're always making adjustments. And it has a, a, a nice ring to it. There are aspects of it that, especially the notion of three parts, you know, like a lean startup kind of idea. You know, build, learn, measure.

The thing that I enjoy about it staying containable with three is you brought up something that can happen if we junk it up with more processes, and that is that we see squirrels and we start chasing them. And what I enjoy is that, if I'm going to go from designing a plan to activating it, and I have to keep those two things connected, I have to make sure that the tactics that I'm going to activate have a reason to exist in my strategy, right? And then when I go from activating to measure, I can't activate things like, "I wanna drop everything I'm doing and w- write a bunch of social posts."

Well, if my measurement didn't call for me to look at how many engagements and possibly conversions I'm getting, then that tactic has no right to be there. It's deceptively clever ... that this, three-part action plan is going to keep me on track, and I suppose that's something that we all fall prey to is getting off track. I think it's human nature.

We're all pulled in different directions, and I love the squirrel, that's why I have this jumping squirrel in the book because it's easy, right? It's easy to get distracted, and then on top of it, because of just being able to get so much more access, we're all being pinged with, "Oh, I can redo your website. I can... You know, let's run some ads.

Let's go over here." There- there's so many opportunities, and it's always the magic answer. But if you have that plan and you really focus on that step one, then you can have a lens for will, will these other activations, will these channels help me to reach the goal that I'm trying to get? And that lens is gonna help you to stop overspending.

It's gonna help actually meet the right customers in the right channels and get the results, or be able to adjust if you're not getting the results. But it's really having that centered strategy and that lens, and then knowing which ones, yeah, this is something new and this is something interesting that makes sense, because at some level it lines up. The other thing, too, and I always, I always put this into plans, what else can you let go of? Just because something worked even two years ago, it may not even be relevant now.

A really good example is around events, right? Like we saw through the pandemic, you know, we had to survive off digital events, and then there was going back to events, and now companies are reassessing. And I'm seeing a lot of hybrid, especially in B2B, that, yeah- Yeah ... we'll go to a couple of face-to-face events, shake some hands, influence, meet customers there, but then we're still gonna continue on with digital.

So there's s- still some experimentation going on and honing in on what is that right formula, and then which events. Yeah. Y- you point out, and I know that you work with companies of all sizes, so larger ones might say, "Yeah, we've got all these events going on. Heck, we've got tons of business activities going on all the time, and we're so busy in the business that we don't really need to, like, revisit these first principles that you're trying to urge."

But I think you successfully argue, you point out, and I can vouch for what you said here, was if you're e- especially in a larger company, the folks around you are so busy in the business that you might not even find a sheet of paper lying around or something on a whiteboard in a boardroom that actually s- crystallizes who we are- what we're trying to do, what value we offer to the customer and a very clear delineation of those things. And so if somebody's listening to this and they can't put their hands on something like that, Heidi's guide is a great way for you to revisit, and I like how you said maybe what to drop, audit what you're doing.

Yeah. We- we're always ready for a refresh. We need to kind of imagine that we're a brand-new company that's starting today, even if we're a multi-million dollar company. And the, the whole premise of the book was that even though things are changing quickly, they're always going to be changing, they're changing at a much faster pace, but there's still these core principles.

What problems do we solve? Who, who needs to have those problems solved? What are the nuances of some of those issues, and what type of solutions are, are going to solve those? And then how do we do that better than others in the market or differently or in a way that really, captures what they need?

And so those principles will stay the same, but then it's a matter of the how we get there, and what's that right mix for a company between the people they have, the technology, the frameworks and playbooks, the way that they're reaching the market, so those processes and systems. And you're right, that has to be revisited because of all of the change. And yeah, too often it seems obvious to a company like, "Well, of course we do this. Of course we solve this," right?

I think we've all, we've all done that ourselves, too. But until you really write it down, but there's a certain methodology and way to go about that, and that's what I aim to help clients with, is to draw it out in a way that's really powerful, lets them tell their story in a unique way, stand apart, but also build relationships with their customers. It's, it's not transactional though, otherwise everybody would be on Shopify, right? It's, it's- Right ...

building a relationship, it's in it for the long term, and it's continuously adding value, not just selling something. That's, that's the key difference. And I think B- B2B is the best place to showcase that. First off, you're absolutely right.

People inside of businesses want to buy from other people. They, they may in the final committee meeting where they're making their internal pitch say, "This is a well-established brand," but we know that what they're actually thinking is, "I have cemented a relationship with the vendor over there with specific people." they're not gonna let me down. They've got my back."

Yeah. You, you delve into why, a particular product or service is going to work for that B2B customer. And- Mm-hmm ... one thing that I think is an important nuance is you say we have to go farther- Then just understanding what that B2B buyer wants, we have to understand that their business also has a client.

And so we not only need to understand our customer's needs, we need to understand our customer's customer's needs. I feel like it's not talked about enough in B2B and in, in marketing and go-to-market. But yeah, if you can solve your customer's customer's problems, that's really the ultimate, right? You're not just trying to supply something or be a vendor, you're really trying to be that problem solver, and then look to s- to solve those bigger issues, right?

And the companies that understand that, and then they know the nuances of the problems, they're, they're the ones that are able to really, capture the market and, continue to get the referrals and continue to build longer term relationships. I think this is a hard thing for people who have, worked in marketing to maybe relate to their peers or to their seniors in the C-suite. But I think you made some points that draw it out very cleanly. If we don't make it clear what customer's need we are trying to solve, and flipping that around, who we don't think we're a particularly good fit for, what we're left with is competing on price.

Oh, yeah. Competing on price- argue against that even someone like Costco, right? Where it's, it's price, but it, but the, but it, it's more than that. They've created a, a community, a brand, a feeling.

I- so I would argue they're not only competing on price, it's something bigger than that. Yeah. But yeah, you don't wanna compete on price. And then the next step up is you don't wanna compete on features either, because a competitor can just add another feature.

And then I know it gets controversial about brand, right? Because brand takes investment and it takes long-term storytelling. All it is a long-term relationship and somebody understanding your values and what you provide at a deeper level, it should resonate. And that's actually a really good test of it is, is getting that feedback.

Does it resonate? And then building it up over time, not trying to do it in one sweep. Really, it's about their trust and their willingness to, to engage. So building all of that up can, it does a lot too to help before in, let's say in B2B, before someone even gets to talk to your sales team.

And we know that 80 to 85% of the buyer's journey now is happening before they even get to the salesperson, because they want an unbiased view, they wanna read the reviews, they wanna talk to others, form their own opinion, and then maybe talk to the salespeople. So it's, the whole pyramid and the entire sales funnel has really flipped from that perspective. Yeah, and then another stat that you gave is that at any particular moment in time, only about 5% of your prospect base will be in market to buy right now.

Buy, yeah. You've gotta have messaging, and positioning that does not have that air of desperation it has to tread water long enough for, you know, when the time comes that they are going to buy. And this is where you argue quite passionately about thought leadership. Yeah, it's such a good point, because th- thought leadership, and I know the term gets thrown around, but really what we're talking about is the story.

And long-form content, video, all lend itself, you know, forums like this, where you can actually tell the story, talk a little bit more about what's the, what's the goal, what's the vision. A, a great example is a tech- a technology company being able to show where they see the technology going over the next year, over the next two years. I love working with companies in this space because their clients are then buying into a vision. So they're not just getting whatever they're getting today, but they're also knowing that there's gonna be refresh, there's gonna be innovation, there's gonna be new things coming in.

It's exciting, right? The trick is being able to do that without, let's say, overselling capabilities today, but being very transparent, you know, about that roadmap. But thought leadership ta- that's one example. Another form is if customers just aren't really understanding what you do, because it's just too tough, right?

It's abstract- Yeah ... or it's transactional. It's like they give a snippet here, a snippet there. So let's say a paper.

So I've done, for companies, I've done these longer, papers where it's a little more than a white paper. It's a little bit more of, like, executive team weighing in. You've usually got some industry stats to back it up. But very clearly defining problem statements- You know, here's why, here's what to look for, and it's not a sales piece at all.

It's really diving in and understanding the nuances and the struggles that companies are going through, and then, you know, usually putting forward different ways of solving it. So examples like that are, are ways to do thought leadership. You're certainly running that too with, you know, podcasts, being able... someone being able to tell their story, describe what's happening.

And that's why there's such a market for this. That's why video's really popular. People wanna be able to consume it and understand the why behind it. Yeah.

And, and, one thing that, I absolutely love is how, yeah, you say things that, like thought leadership shouldn't be gobbledygook. Yeah. It should be actual honesty. One example you gave, which was in the telecom sector, and this is great because it...

if people, I, I'll call it out. I think what happens in thought leadership is that especially if executives are tasked with doing some of this content, they feel like they can't show any vulnerability. They must place themselves on a perch where they are all-knowing. And so the example you gave from telecom was, correct me if I got any of the details wrong, but you, and colleagues wanted to go in and help a telecom company.

And where you thought the need was going to be for improvement was in the front office- Mm-hmm with, you know, using their customer, data to, you know, do more, upselling and the like with clients. But they were actually feeling so much pain from back office functions like being able to invoice or stitch together different, ways of taking payment through banks that this work, while it could've been valuable in the front office, would've actually, you know, ruined more than it helped.

Let's shelf the front office, let's pivot to the back office. Let's help them where they, where they really need help, like first aid help, you know? Urgent care help. And then we can get on with the other stuff.

And I found that that was a great way. it, it sounded very human and genuine to me. And what's ironic with that, Glenn, is you- a great example, that same scenario has been playing out pretty much in every industry, not just telecom, but, you know, fintech, life sciences, manufacturing, where companies want to do a lot more on the front office with the data, and, and they are. But, but s- there were back office realities that are still being solved, and some of it is, various, various, software platforms, again, being stitched together.

But also that whole workflow. And so that's one of the great things with AI coming in, is able to simplify those workflows, human in the loop, but still being able to hand off information. You know, you're also seeing now a lot more with clean data going in, so like how do we get that best data, single source of truth. So there's, there's a lot more focus now on what's the actual problem we're solving.

So to the, to the example that, that you were just highlighting from the book, the actual problem was not, "Oh, we need to do more on the front office right now," it was, "We need to fix some data issues," which again, not unique to that company, not unique to even to that industry. The, these same issues have been bubbling up across enterprise. And then, you know, there's a lot of fixes for it, with the main fix being transformation, right? Like the right data, single source of truth, the, data analytics being able to pull this out.

But you're right. It- at the essence of it is what's the right timing, and are we solving the right problem at the right time? I love this because you, while this book aims to try and, you know, evangelize maybe some leadership folks on how marketing can help them, and the, the title is, you know, certainly very upbeat about that, you're not afraid of going to the soft underbelly and also calling out the things that can happen. So on AI and automation, I'll just read one thing you wrote.

You were talking about how if you take AI straight out of the box and you try to AI marketing- Mm-hmm ... you're gonna get things like stuff going to the wrong email. And you say, "Don't blame the bots. The true culprit is an unchecked process that leaves too much to automation.

You have to start with a human and use the automation to simplify and speed up what's already there." Oh, absolutely. The technology, and even before AI, technology and automation in general will accent what's there. It'll make things faster, move quicker, you know, more access.

Yeah. If, if it's a bad process- If it's not right, it's- ... it'll make it amplified and even worse. Right.

Exactly. So you, you have to... That's why you have to have that strong foundation. One of the things that comes up, too, that I've, I've written about on, on the messaging side is, you know, you hear a lot now about, "Oh, you could tell that was written by AI," or about AI slop, right?

Yeah. But it makes me laugh because, you know, even before that, there was this corporate jargon which you alluded to. Like, everything has to sound perfect, and it... There were so many keywords in a, in a lot of write-ups that, like, you didn't need AI to make it sound off or like slop, right?

We'd done it to ourselves and- Well, like it, it got so bad There are folks, David Meerman Scott's a marketer, and he actually made up a bingo sheet. And he would take, a new product press release, new product announcement, and he said, "Watch this," and here we go, checking off all of the- Yeah ... nonsense words that they felt they had to stuff in there. And, all that does is it just dilutes the true effectiveness of the messaging.

If you really wanna get it out, go shorter, go to the right person, have the right product and the right value statements. It's, it's less, not more. That's why we have short form content. If you wanna read more, go read this article, watch this video.

And so making sure it's getting to that right person, because the person in finance may just need a summary compared to, the key buyer, that's on the business team will want something more. I've seen this with demos too, with, with technology companies where, they can't wait to do a 45-minute deep dive demo. But here's this poor client that's not even sure exactly what category he fits in. Right.

Maybe won't even give them four minutes, let alone 45. Right. So we're all learning, and we're all adjusting as we go, but these are just some of the things that I've seen and tried to improve myself too as we go. I am hosting a free analytics clinic this June.

I'm looking for up to three volunteers for a special live audit session. All of us will screen share our platforms, playing cards face up, and we'll dig into what the data is and isn't telling us. Guests will get a personalized real-time picture of how to make measurement and marketing better. It'll be released as a public Funnel Reboot episode because there are many marketers who suffer in silence on their, over their analytics, and they deserve to know how these problems can be fixed.

Of course, you get to say what makes it to air. So if you want to have an interactive marketing audit and do a public service to your peers this June, go to the Get In Touch page at funnelreboot.com and scroll down for the form on the clinic episode. I'll be getting the applications in by May 20th, and then I will contact people to record the show.

Thanks very much. Let's get back to the show One thing that I really enjoyed was the notion of- Go to market and how, I, I think for people who, again, want to describe to maybe a colleague or a boss who doesn't know marketing like they do, you talk about GTM motions. Mm-hmm. And I felt that that was a really good lens to try and give folks, like, the whole spectrum of where a message is coming from and how you're pushing it out through channels- Mm-hmm takes you through that.

I'm really glad that you used the term go to market, because when people think of marketing channels, then marketing owns it, right? But go to market is so much more than that. It's really sales. I mean, that's why we're doing this, because we're trying to g- get something into the hands of clients that really resonates, right?

Through sales. So it's marketing sales, but it, there's also a product/service element that it, you know, it's been positioned, it's, it's got the right touch points on that. A- and where, also where the buyers and, and prospects are gonna show up. The, so the right channels can also mean where do they hang out, right?

Is it an industry event? Is it an online, industry group? Or is it email? Is it newsletters?

It's usually a combination. And that's the magic here too, coming back to the formula concept, finding that right mix, and also not overspending, 'cause then there's, you've heard the term spread the peanut butter, where it's like it gets spread so thin there's just almost nothing left at the end of the toast, right? Yeah. And so we need to find what's that right mix, do a little bit of experimentation, comparison, data-driven.

But not only data-driven, but just knowing what's actually working by talking to real customers and getting real feedback. So yeah, the channels are really important, and that's part of what I do is I work with clients is, it's one of the first things they do is I, I help assess what channels they're in and, you know, help create that plan for going forward. So once we've done those activities and the data is produced about what they are achieving, you do dwell for a bit on the metrics- Mm-hmm ...

and how we need to slow down, particularly if we are reporting to leadership on what has happened. You've got a couple of helpful hints for how we can avoid fire hosing them- Mm-hmm with all of the metrics that we could, and how we really have to simplify it if we're gonna hold our credibility intact. Yeah. That's so true, and I think a, a lot of it bec- came about because the data's more accessible now.

So just because you can report on something doesn't mean you should, right? Absolutely. And it's layers. Yeah, it's layers.

So, you know, have the big, the big metrics. And common dashboards, I'm a huge fan on- That's gotta be a common metric. So for example, for sales and marketing to have common metrics, it can't be that marketing's only measured on these points, but then sales is measured on these, and they've got sometimes not, not so much competing, but different vantage points. We should all care about are these leads converting, right?

So I've worked with some really great sales teams where we've all been around, let's look again at the ideal customer profile, and let's look at what are our criteria, and then are these, are these potential clients within the right fit? Or is it, for example, will the price be too much, or is this just too much technology for them? You know, are they ready to buy? And then looking at, well, what would we need to do to attract that right group?

And so it's back to what you said, too, about less is more. It's better to have some really good, solid leads that you're working with, nurturing, and then turn those into clients rather than just volume, and then you're just burning through them, because you might not get that second chance- Yeah 'cause you've already made an impression. There's a balance there, too. But yeah, to getting back to the dashboard, it's, it's really getting around some common metrics, knowing which ones are gonna be the most important to move things forward, and then updating, but not getting too caught up in it.

Yeah. And the targets that we set for those metrics, but for a majority of companies, we need to understand the looseness with which some of those targets were created. You point out that sometimes we are setting up things and measuring them to determine if we should even be in that market or not. I find some of the abuses of, different activities result from when people put too much, weight on targets.

And, let's also call a spade a spade, especially when it comes to sales. It's when management has incentivized them too strongly on a particular target. So we can't, allow ourselves to do that, because I've seen sales and marketing departments almost get into fisticuffs when sales has, felt that marketing was trying to do something that would be efficient but was not as effective as sales would like it to be, and sales again is, there's a commission in the balance. So we've gotta remember that sometimes targets are, a way for us to learn what we have done, and we will revise And react accordingly in the next period.

We- we're not there, ... this is not a game of everybody gets a ribbon when the target is hit. This is a constant process. Th- it's well said.

And, really looking at the end game too, is, is our message resonating out there? Are customers buying? That's the ultimate measure too, is adaption and are customers staying, right? If it's a long-term solution.

And then short of that, looking at everything else as a leading indicator, right? Like, the leads coming through, what's converting. And also, does sales have what they need, right? Do they have the right collateral, the right messages, the right talking points?

Do they have the right product understanding? If you just throw a number at sales and think, "If we give them enough money," right? Yeah. It- that's gonna show up in the relationship that they're building with customers versus, you know, building up a great story, building up a great brand, giving them the assets they need, but then still measuring, okay, what's working, what's not.

And yeah, of course you wanna financially incentivize, but y- y- it's gotta be a partnership too between sales, marketing, product, and even customer success to be able to then build those relationships with customers. 'Cause we're not trying to have a transactional business. Trying to have a long-term business, get referred, be seen as a market leader. You know, all of those great things are long plays.

And then, yeah, there's financial realities, but let's, let's build the house so that it's got that strong foundation, increasing the likelihood of success, but also deepening the relationships. That's a winning formula. Yeah. And let's r- remember we're specialized, right?

Marketing can't do it all. Marketing doesn't have all those, you know, to use your metaphor, all of the trades that it would take to build, and maintain the whole house. it's gonna take a team to do it, and, that's humbling, but at the same point in time, it's gratifying because nobody has to feel like they're taking it all on themselves. I've met a fair number of burnt out marketers who have that air of defeatism because they took it all on.

Yeah. And I think your book is a bit refreshing 'cause it doesn't say that. It says you can, facilitate conversations and you can try to find, like use the common metrics on the dashboard, and let's try to get it all down onto one page or one screen if we can." But let's remember that, marketing is simply a piece of that and can influence the process, but marketing isn't trying to, to do it all.

I think to do it all, we sometimes cloak ourselves in, magic or mysticism. I think that's where marketing actually has sometimes gone, rogue and, and felt that they had to do that- Because they were frustrated when they wanted to help out other departments, and the other departments were like, "Well, what do we need you for?" Yeah. So, you know, w- I think the best way we can show them what we are needed for is to roll up our sleeves and get in and help.

And you're right. I mean, there's- we can all think of examples where y- the marketing wasn't effective or it wasn't helpful, or it was just too much in your face, too transactional. Yep. But the b- but the best way is building that foundation, telling a great story.

Ideally, it's so that by the time sales is with the customer, and, you know, they're doing a part of marketing too, but at least the story's been told. There's a foundation, there's context for the conversation. Imagine if they had to start over every time to even explain who the company is, right? That's just a sign that there's something missing, right?

Right. And so being able to step into it and then start from that str- place of strength. And even for, for newer companies that are still building a brand, they can lean into that. There's ways to, to be able to lean into that.

But, but the point is, an appreciation for what does it mean to tell our story? How are we gonna measure it? How do we know if it's working? What parts are resonating?

I've worked with companies before, they thought that their, their, the key that they were gonna be promoting and, and talking about, it, it turns out that they had completely different angles to what was resonating and why customers were buying from them. So th- those are some of the exercises we go through to draw that. Yeah. I love what you said there because we're kind of back in branding.

One of the things that marketing can do is to remind the institution they're in of why they got into this in the first place. Maybe we're in a, you know, business that's been around generations. Owner and founder's not in the picture anymore, but the vision is. Yeah.

And the reason why the brand stands for something. Yes, it may have blended into the wallpaper and the furniture- Mm-hmm ... but if marketing can evoke that and help sales realize, yeah, if we just drop mentions of that, the customer will immediately focus on what we're doing and- I, as the rep, have a lot less work to do. It's been done, right?

And it's being maintained. It's being maintained, right? But, but, but that often doesn't get written down or, like we said, over generations it gets lost. So marketing kinda has to make sure that it stays at the forefront.

And the point you brought up about burnt-out marketers, because they're trying to do so much and it's become like this hamster wheel. So I also help companies with looking at what's in-house, what could be better partnered, where can technology help, especially with repurposing of content. You don't wanna leave your core message to AI. But at the same time, you don't wanna try to do it all yourself either.

There's ways to get help and partner on this, as well as to leverage technology. You point out between, technology purchases, which, you know, marketing has through the martech stack many, many different, components to, and the number of outsource providers, be it agencies- Mm-hmm ... event managers, graphics, media, y- we can go on. Marketing is one of the widest and most fragmentary fields from a skill and tool perspective.

So, like- Definitely ... let's remember that we aren't, necessarily a unitary function. We aim to do things that unify what the company is doing, but the way in which we do it is very fragmentary. It's becoming more fragmentary, but that's because of the specializations, right?

Within, you know, whether it's social media or if it's the product marketing side, to truly understand, you know, the technology behind it or the product, you know, all the way to the communications and demand gen side. And then behind each of those are, like you said, a raft of tools. But coming back to the essence of what is the company all about, what problem do we solve, what are our customers saying, that's when you can really help to clear all the smoke, stop chasing squirrels, and really get into, "This is why we matter."

And then the how gets updated, you know, and that changes. The stats will tell you what's working. Some things need to get dropped. That can really help with the burnout, is, you know, coming back to what's working, focus, priorities, and then partnering up, right, to help execute, for sure.

Near the end of the book, you, took us through a little bit of a recounting of how a industry over time has changed. And- Mm ... you point out that, you know, AI is simply the latest in a long list of things that have moved us into, a more automated and a faster, type of way of working. And I was interested in hearing, you know, you mentioned that y- you think our ability and the, the business that we are in may be changed yet again by AI.

You mentioned that we are probably going to see personalization even reflected in the products that we're offering. What do you see ahead? What, what, what are the implications of something like that for your average marketer? It's, I wanted to give some context that if you look at the industry 1.

0, 2.0, and all of these massive changes from, when there was steam, all the way to the Industrial Revolution and factories- Yeah. I'll just jump in, that the industrial one, the quintessential example I think of is Henry Ford and his Model T. Yeah.

the story goes that somebody asked him, "What color can I get the Model T in?" And he said, "You can have any color you want as long as it's black." Yeah, so that's how ... And, and we have, we're so accustomed or have grown up in an age where, that was so pervasive that we sometimes didn't even notice things that could be more tailored, customized, until somebody did.

And so the reason I go through those transitions is to be able to show, like, we're in that magnitude of a transformation now. And so, you know, you've talked before about AI and some of the efficiency in back office and, you know, stitching together some of these different apps and, and enterprise platforms, right? And then the better data, those transformations. The way it plays out in marketing and what's ahead is that ultimate- Personalization, so that we're not only able to get to that right person, but the right type of message, the right product.

We're able to fulfill those needs a lot better because of the data that we're able to pull in, and having the tools. So I'll give you a good example. When it was just TV and television advertising, you know, the reason on the consumer side that you hear about these personas of, like, you've got to know what age group and w- you know, what income level and, and what their needs and interests are- is because it was just this huge, broad brush, you know, that was going out and just hoping to capture- You'd, you'd go broke if you tried to buy the media to reach- So you were just trying to align to certain programs.

Then you come to a B2B world, and we're already doing personalization through, you know, social media, through targeted ads, things like that, but it's gonna go next level, you know, down to product personalization of, you know, being able to customize, and dynamic grouping of, of capabilities. And it's already happening, but I see it in two ways. Like, one is reaching that right person because of AI and having the granular data so that it'll filter out a lot more noise, because you shouldn't- have to see ads that don't apply, right?

And it won't even feel like ads. It'll come in as, you know, invitations, right? Like, in, in a marketer's world, we hope that's how it lands. But, but the idea is that you can target it a lot more, with a lot more precision.

But then the other side is the product/service delivery. What they actually experience is going to be a lot more personalized, too, which we're, which we're seeing, because you've got much more data coming in about what's working, what this group wants, what resonates, how they're using it. Some of that is what we call a product-led strategy, where, you know, you use certain apps today, if you want the next level, you would just sign up online. You don't have to talk to someone, right?

So some of that happens within, but some of it still happens talking to sales. But the point is, the platform itself is getting data, or you as a business are getting data about how your customers experience the product and service. You're able to tailor it, provide more offers that are that much more customized. And then customers can even self-select in what capabilities.

AI is just gonna take that to a completely new level. The folks I think that are going to have the soonest chance to take, this opportunity are folks in service industries. And I think, you know, that they will have the opportunity to borrow from some of the efficiencies of scale, or economies of scale- that product folks have always had. And I think we're gonna f- see some really interesting packaged, productized services, where in past they would say, "We couldn't possibly do that," because the cost of a person's time to- tailor that would be prohibitive.

Okay, but just remember, technology is now dropping a zero or maybe more than one zero- off of that cost. So are you still gonna stick to that line, or are you now able to do something you could- couldn't even do before? This whole idea of service being packaged up almost like software, you even hear that term. I would argue, too, that because of AI and because of all the automation, there's even more appetite for better service, somebody to help you navigate through what to buy, you know, trusted referrals- Yes ...

trusted concepts. Y- people don't have time to watch all the videos on the how-to, right? So it's getting with an expert and then just really buying that expertise to get to that right solution. So I, I work with a few clients that that's what they sell, is a service around expertise in the regulatory space, and they're able to help their B2B clients on im- not only implementation, but the best how based on their experience, but also based on what that client needs.

Right back to what you said on personalization, very much tailored to what they need, not, you know, this, "You can have any color as long as it's black," concept. So it's very much, tailored. And yeah, the service, I just see service continuing to go up 'cause it's another way to personalize, right? People wanna talk to a human, or at least they wanna know that their individual business has been considered and that this applies and that they can get unstuck, whether it's a human or a bot, but, but somehow they've got the personalized attention to look at their scenario.

And I feel that marketers have perhaps the, the lexicon and maybe the, breadth of view that makes them ideal to help the company look, maybe horizontally across- Mm-hmm ... or vertically down from, let's say, the type of, you know, large, deep-pocketed customers that they have had. Well, maybe there's a mid-market or even a micro market that- Right Can... Like, we have to be ready to go in all directions here.

Our competitors are certainly thinking about it, too. Yeah. I do think marketers are specially placed for maybe bringing this conversation along, and I think you've challenged us to, you know, definitely get out of our rut of thinking that we just- Make brochures or pump out collateral or push stuff onto social. you've said to us, "Look, you have a lot of things that, can help you make your company more competitive.

Get on with the job of doing it." Yeah, I mean, exactly what you're pointing to, I mean, I, I talk to founders and executives all the time that, of course, they have the business strategy, and that's great. They own the business strategy. What I'm saying with the marketing and the go-to-market strategy is let's now translate that into that next workable plan to be able to realize the business that they deserve.

So to take the company strategy, translate this in a way, let's get the product and solution out to the right people that appreciate that problem being solved, build a relationship, you know, and have that long-term business and, if you will, the flywheel effect from that. I hope folks caught what you just said because if an individual marketer is feeling like they are too low on the totem pole, they don't get the budget that they need or the attention, these meaty issues are being, thought about in the C-suite.

And if a marketer is willing to up their game, be willing to grab these tough challenges, use what they know about marketing to bring some positive ideas and answers, I would say, and I think you'll agree, they will be received well. They will be welcomed into the conversation, their ideas and budget requests for- Seeing how they can push things ahead will be accepted. This, this is the way that marketers can, you know, stop grossing about being at the little kids table and get to- Yeah ...

the grown-ups table. It's such a good analogy, and yeah, new ideas, innovation, a better way to do things always are welcome, the, the new ideas. I think the... to add to that is the trade-offs, right?

I- okay, if you have X amount of budget, here's where we're spending it, here's what I recommend a more effective way, or here's what I'm seeing in the market with either what competitors are doing or what we're hearing from customers, here's why I think we should go this way. I think where marketers sometimes run into problems is just always layering on top of, "I need extra budget for this, and then for this, and then for this," versus- Yeah ... would this be a better spend, or do we need to do this set of, activities anymore, right?

How have things changed? Could we combine a few things? So, you know, there's always... I- you can always do something within the budget that you have.

It's a matter of, of being able to show that vision. Here's what we can do within this current budget. If we directed some of it over here, here's what else we could do. And then always thinking about the customer, right?

I find those are the best plans where you're thinking about how is this gonna resonate in the market, how is it either different or a way that you'll be heard, rather than thinking about, oh, this is only gonna just make the company look good. Yeah, or me look good, right? But that's not why people buy. A- and it's the same thing with social media.

Stop chasing likes and engagement. That's great, but is that really translating? You need to look at what are you doing with that then. How can you reach out to some of the people who have engaged?

So what, what does it actually mean? That's why upfront vanity metrics are, you know, good on paper, but they don't always translate into revenue. So, looking at the big picture, looking at the medium and long term, but then trade-offs. I'm really big on what are those trade-offs and what could the budget look like, and absolutely bring forward those new ideas and innovation.

Just, try to remove your ego from it and look at matters on their face, and have the maturity to say, "I'm willing to part with the past or part with my pet, you know, marketing channel. I want what, I want what's best for the customer." Mm-hmm. I think that comes through very clearly in the book.

If people wanna find out how to get the book, Heidi, or they wanna find out more about you, what you do and where you do it, where would you send them? Oh, sure. Yeah. Thanks, Glenn.

It's pretty simple. Of course follow me on LinkedIn, connect with me on LinkedIn, but then also my website is my name, heidihattendorf.com. And then I do have a dedicated site for the book, themarketinggrowthformula.

com, but otherwise find it on my website. Love to have a conversation- That's great ... for anyone interested to take this further. Perfect.

We'll have links to all that in the show notes. Heidi, thanks again for coming on the show. Thank you, Glenn. You really know your stuff, and, appreciate everything you're doing in the industry.

Until next time, please take Heidi's insights, and I hope that they get even better for you so that you can make your marketing even better.