Ashley Faus

Speaker A: M. Welcome to the Sour go to market SaaS takes podcast where all your favorite SaaS leaders spill their controversial opinions while testing their taste buds. Get ready for sour candy with even sweeter insights.

Speaker B: What's up, everyone? I'm Jason Hassenberg, and you're tuning into the Sour Go to Market SAS Takes podcast. It's the show with sour candies and even sour takes. Today I'm joined by Ashley Foss, head of lifestyle marketing at Adolesian. Ashley is a marketer, writer, and speaker by day, singer, actor, fitness fiend by night. Ashley, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. How are you doing?

Speaker C: Uh, the. The back of my throat is already doing the, like, weird, tingly thing just looking at the sour candies. So I feel like this is going to be. I think I'm. I'm doing ready. Let's go. That's the answer.

Speaker B: I love to hear that. We'll dive right into our first sour sour take. Let's do it. Number one, stop mapping content to linear funnel stages. Use content, depths, and intents instead. Ashley, tell me why this is your first sour take.

Speaker C: So my quippy phrase of this is the funnel is dead. Use a playground instead. And I tend to get a lot of pushback on that. People are like, what do you mean, a playground? Well, well, fine. Everybody keeps declaring the funnel dead. How do you actually do it? And so I decided to tweak it a little bit for this, to say that, um, fundamentally, this, um, this is kind of an underpinning of all of the rest of my sour takes. And, you know, we all know that the buyer's journey has never actually been linear. We all know that. Trying to map everything to awareness, consideration, decision, and then, you know, retention or upsell, cross sell, expansion. We know that's simplified.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And yet we're still doing it. That's how we're all, like, tagging all of our content with. Is this awareness? Is this top of funnel? Is this middle of funnel? And the problem is that at the end of the day, we are trying to win hearts, minds and wallets of our audience, and particularly, particularly for SaaS marketers. We have to keep winning and re winning those hearts and minds. And so this simplified model means that we're putting people who may already know us, who may have been using the products for years, we're just popping them back into this awareness phase because we as marketers don't have a smarter way to address their journey. So I don't want to just call out a problem. I do Want to call out a solution. So two solutions that I like to call out. One is content, depths, the other is intent. And this is really thinking about the next action that the audience will take.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: So for intent we have conceptual, strategic and tactical. And you might be thinking, k, isn't that just the same as awareness, consideration and decision? It is not. Um, so the example that I love to give for this is fitness. I put that in my bio that I'm a fitness fiend. So at the conceptual level, this is really addressing the what and the why of the idea and it's thinking about the problem space. At the strategic level, you have the key knowledge components, tools, um, and processes that must be in place place to make that conceptual idea reality. And this is helping equip your audience to think about the solution space and do their own research. And then at the tactical level, this is where you've got, you know, the nitty gritty super prescriptive rubber meets the road. Daily habits, um, daily tasks that have to happen to implement that strategy to make the conceptual idea reality. So from a fitness perspective, if you ask people what does it mean to be healthy and fit? Most people agree it's some combination of diet and exercise. Yes. Uh, but you're going to answer that question very differently if you're runner's world versus yoga journal versus muscle and fitness. And so again, if we think about this with content, depths versus awareness, consideration and decision, even just that question of like, how do you answer this from a conceptual perspective versus an uh, awareness perspective like Jason, do you, do you know what it means to be healthy and fit? And you're going to be like, I

Speaker B: mean, yes, right, like yeah, no, exactly. But you'll get so many different answers depending, like you said, on who the person is, what they like to do, what their goal is. And so you can't put everyone into this square peg when they're circular or triangular.

Speaker C: Right, exactly.

Speaker B: That's a really, really great take.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So, and then if we apply that right into the intent. Yeah, cool. So you're, let's say from a, ah, I like to do like bodybuilder style stuff. So at the conceptual level you would say that you're healthy and fit if you have big strong muscles and you eat a high protein diet. At the strategic level, you might learn about different sources of protein and how to have good form when you're lifting weights. And then at the tactical level, this is 10 tips to build bigger biceps or 5 chicken dinner recipes to try this week. Right?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: And again, we see how that's very different than awareness, consideration, and decision. There is zero. So buying, purchasing, like, all of those things exist whether you make a purchase or not. So then if we layer on the intent of each of those things, you can start to layer in buying signals, like, or buying CTAs, like, you know, supplements or training packages or meal planning templates, Right?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: So when you think about it from an intent perspective, you're like, oh, I see. At a conceptual level. Yes, you need to eat a lot of protein. I can slot in a CTA for you to buy a protein supplement. Um, and then if we drop all the way down to the tactical level for chicken dinner recipes, maybe you're reading a blog and it says, you know, protein is key to building muscle, and it's linked, and you're like, wait, why do I care about protein? You can then jump all the way back up to conceptual to learn about the importance of protein, right?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: Um, you can also. Then let's say you agree. You're already like, yep, I'm going to eat a lot of protein. This is why I'm looking at chicken dinner recipes. I can put in more CTA to buy a meal planning template, to buy a meal delivery kit, um, to buy a personal training session if it's, like, ready to build more muscles.

Speaker B: Yeah, great.

Speaker C: Go over here. Right. So from an intent perspective, this is really about what is the next action the audience is going to take? So I'll pause there because I have some sour takes that dovetail really nicely with this foundational sour take. Unless you want to dive in more on this one.

Speaker B: Well, first off, let's try the sour candy first, because we.

Speaker C: All right, I think I'm gonna go. I think I'm gonna go with, uh, this sour punch. Little straw. I feel like it seems reasonable.

Speaker B: Okay. I also have a sour, uh, punch, but it's like popping candy, so.

Speaker C: Okay. Okay, okay. So this one's not too bad. No, it's got, like, a little tingles, but it's not too bad.

Speaker B: Let's dive a little deeper then into that. So let's, let's, um, let's talk about how, you know, how do you stand this up? Right. Let's just say you come on, you're brought onto a new team, and this is the goal here. It's like, hey, I'm bringing this to motion. How. How do you get the executives on board? How do you start to roadmap that out?

Speaker C: Yeah. So the biggest thing is to actually do a proper narratives Workshop that is not just based on your features or your product launches. So this is how most marketing campaigns get done. There's one of two ways. It's, uh, people whip out their editorial calendar and they just generally say, I'm going to write, you know, three pieces of content and awareness, two pieces of content in consideration, one piece and decision. Publish once per month. I now have 6 months of content strategy. And you're like, that is clearly not at all how you should do content strategy. Right? So, um, stepping back to say, you know, do you know your audience? What are their core pain points? Again, regardless of how your product solves those pain points, just generally what are their, their pain points, what are they trying to achieve? Looking at your business goals, um, and what you're trying to drive, and then obviously starting to match the business goals, the audience goals and their pain points with proof points that are in your product. So we'll assume that you've already kind of got a decent content strategy. Yeah, diving down then, in terms of having those narratives, um, again, a lot of the ways the narratives come to life is it's like we've released a new feature, we have a feature launch coming up, so we need to write a blog post about the feature, we need to send an email about the feature, we need to make a webinar about the feature. Nobody cares about your freaking features. They just don't.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker C: Even your users who have been asking for this feature, they really don't care. They are trying to solve a problem, right? And they're humans. They're not just trying to solve a problem with your product and your features. They're generally trying to grow the business, get promoted, whatever the thing is, right? Not bang their head against the wall as they try to do whatever it is that they're doing in their job. Um, so when we zoom out and we say at a high level, what is this problem space? So, uh, that's, that's the first thing. And I actually think it is useful to do a brainstorm where it's like, everybody put everything on there. What are you hearing questions from the audience, what trends are you seeing in the industry or the space that we play in? Um, and this can be a mix of just a high level trend. It could be literal, verbatim questions that you've heard on customer calls or user interviews. It could be headlines that have come out. It could be competitive research. It could be angles of past content that has performed really well on a variety of different metrics. Throw all that into, you know, kind Of a mind map whiteboard. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, and then you can start to group those by narrative themes. One pitfall that I see a lot is, um, people, their, their depth of narrative is too shallow again, because they're trying to shoehorn into everything. They're trying to shoehorn everything towards a feature instead of trying to pop up and say, okay, at a big conceptual level, what are we trying to solve here? Um, and this is where the intent then starts to get layered on. As marketers, we frequently want to create buy intent content. And that's great, we should do that. But particularly for SaaS where it's a software as a service, the use intent, content also matters a lot.

Speaker B: If people really does.

Speaker C: Yeah. If they can't get value out of the product, they're not going to buy it again. So we have to care about that retention, that onboarding journey, that use intent journey. Um, one thing that's interesting from a narrative's perspective, the shift to cloud. So this was, this was huge, especially 10 years ago where like cloud products were the big new thing. We've been hearing the cloud is eating the world for a decade at this point. Right. The trust piece of that and feeling like I'm going to give you my control. Can I trust you as a company and not just show me your very specific data controls and your security controls? Right. Not just at that. That's tactical trust, right?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: But the trust and affinity in. Is this source reputable? Is this company reputable? Are the people reputable? Right.

Speaker B: Like you're blowing my mind because this is exactly what I'm thinking about when I'm at Sales intel. If I'm being completely honest, this is my focus right now is honing in on what's the problem we're solving. At the end of the day, it's not about us, it's about who we're helping. So I just think, ah, you're just, I love what you're. You're diving into here, Ashley. I, uh, think it's at the top of minds of many marketers and a lot of teams. And if it's not, um, the markets change so much that you have to, you have to keep reflecting and looking back at what is the problem in my solving. Has it evolved over the course of the years? Is this is. Have you in your time at adolescent, you've been there for now seven years. Um, has that evolved? Has that problem evolved? And how have you changed the content to evolve with that problem?

Speaker C: Yeah. So one thing that's interesting, if we take for example search. Um, so we have a microsite, um, around Git, the source control. You know, it's a coding repo. Um, we have a product that does, that is a repo, um, called BitBucket. Eight to ten years ago, when Git was first coming online and people didn't really know about it as kind um, of a version controlled code mechanism, um, people had a lot of questions about it. And so basic queries and tutorials around what is Git, what is a pull request, how to implement a pull request, um, merge requests, like some of the basic commands of Git. Yeah, that was a huge source of source of search traffic and it dovetailed very nicely with BitBucket. It's like you can use Git in BitBucket. So if you need a repo to practice, here you go. Right, so, so we, um, one of our very smart marketers turned that into a whole website. It got a ton of traffic. It converted really well into BitBucket. Fast forward 8, 10 years, Git is like well known, everybody uses it and so it's converting less because the audience has matured.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And so as we think about that from, you know, a search engine standpoint, when we think about that in terms of quality of traffic, quality, quality of conversions, and also as we think about from a marketing standpoint, we um, have matured in our product offerings. BitBucket is now an enterprise grade, you know, repository solution. It's got all sorts of different, um, continuous integration tools, it's got um, integrations with other products. The competitive market is much more mature. And so we've had to rethink how we think about not only that site but also the overall marketing motion for that product. And it was very successful. It continues to drive a lot of traffic. But we do have to look at the quality of that traffic and the types of people that would be asking these queries at this point. It has evolved from when it first started.

Speaker B: That's a really, really good example there, Ashley. Thank you so much for that. We're going to dive into our second sour take now. Now before I say it, let's take the candy out. Um, I am going to do the sour baby tears. Which one are you going to be doing here?

Speaker C: I'm going to do this Airheads extreme.

Speaker B: Let's go. All right, now, are you a sour person?

Speaker C: I'm not a sour person. I'm a sweet person. So I. Some people, they taste something that's like basically straight sugar and they're like, oh, it's too Sweet. And I'm like, oh, no, I'll just literally eat it with a spoon. Sour, um, stuff. I have zero tolerance. Like, I eat, like, the baby stuff, and I'm like, oh, it's like, right there

Speaker B: now. It's funny you say that. I feel like, what's so weird? I'll go to the movie theater. I have to have something sweet, and I have to have something sour. And then I, uh, even it out with popcorn.

Speaker C: There you go.

Speaker B: With the salty with all. All around. What's your favorite dessert or sweet. Then you were to.

Speaker C: I love. I mean, I love ice cream, but I got into cake decorating during COVID Yeah. So of course I'm, like, very into decorating cakes and cupcakes. And then clearly I have to eat them. And, like, I'm not gonna have to taste test it.

Speaker B: Like. Yes.

Speaker C: I can't serve this stuff without making sure it's good.

Speaker B: So that's the best part about it.

Speaker C: Exactly, exactly. And, like, you can't beat homemade chocolate chip cookies. Oh.

Speaker B: Uh, I don't know.

Speaker C: Like, at this point, I think I. I just don't really discriminate against delicious, nutty, like, vanilla, hazelnut, macadamia nut, you know, brown sugar desserts.

Speaker B: That's something that me and you have in common. I love baking, and that's something that, like, I find that the best recipes I've had are ones where I'm like, I totally mess it up. And somehow it just turned out to be great. I'm like, what is this? Like, Oreos, brownies, caramel? I'm like, what? So that's cool. Ashley, let's move in. Now the sour. Take number two.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: Clear. CTAs. Stop using learn more. When I read this, I did laugh to myself because I. I have used Learn more, uh, in the past. So I thought I didn't feel attacked, but I was like, wow, I need to do better. So, Ashley, I would love to hear why this is your second sour take.

Speaker C: So this actually dovetails with the first sour take of not mapping your content to the linear funnel, um, and using intent. So the Learn More CTA tells you absolutely nothing. Right. Um, we've gotten into this mindset that educational or learning content is the best content. And so we keep trying to say that everything is learn intent content. Like, well, it's going to teach you about the products. Okay. It's going to tell you why you should buy the products. I'm like, no, it's not teaching you anything. You're not learning anything. Right. It's by intent. Or use intent, right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So this learn more. If I just read a blog post that is truly learning content, uh, I just learned. So if I hit learn more, what am I going to learn? I just did the learning, right? And usually that learn more button like goes to a product tour.

Speaker B: It's a book demo.

Speaker C: Now it's b it. Right? So tell me what's going to happen? Am I going to watch a video? Am I going to read a blog post? Am I going to download an ebook like registering for a webinar? What am I doing? So that's the first thing. The second thing is, uh, we're not tricking anybody into buying anything. You think, oh, I'll do this Learn more cta. Haha. It directs them to the sales page. I've. I've got them now. No you haven't. I don't. I'm not going to fill out the contact sales page just because you tricked, um, just because I hit the learn more button thinking I was actually going to learn more, uh, I'm not going to suddenly contact sales. Right. So if you actually put buy intent CTA's contact sales, book a demo, view pricing, sign up for a free trial. Now all of a sudden this obvious and this will dovetail with my next sour take. Now all of a sudden you've, because you've given people the option not to buy and you've given them a very clear path that if you, if you hit this button right here, you're going to do buy buy intent things. You're going to contact sales. When that salesperson receives it, they know that nobody accidentally filled out that form thinking they were filing a support ticket or downloading an ebook or registering for a webinar, the button clearly said contact sales. Right? Or book a demo. So when you reach out to say, I hear you want to book a demo in theory, that person should not be surprised because they very clearly had the option to either read, you know, read a blog post about trends or read a report or book this demo with you.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I've like, uh, just the experience I have with. Now that I'm in a position where I am buying things and software. When I go and I'm reading a blog and it says learn more, right? I click it, I don't learn anything. I immediately think, wow, this sucks. Right? They got me. So are they gonna get me if I try to buy, If I buy their product, is this gonna happen the same way? Right. So I have this automatic like trigger in my head where I'm like I. I don't trust them anymore. And I think it's that trust. Right. That happens. And I'm sure this has happened with you in examples that we don't have to call out companies. But how can we as marketers do better? Uh, like, you know, how can we, how can we not. How could we lean into being upfront with what we're doing and not have to use, you know, sneaky tactics? And, and maybe there's a couple tactics that you can call out here instead of having to, to be sneaky.

Speaker C: I think this does go up to that strategy level that we were just talking about, that we have to be clear about what we're trying to do. And we have to recognize that. Yes, while ultimately our goal is to drive revenue.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: There are a lot of ways to exchange value with our audience. That's the first thing. The second thing is because we have to keep winning and rewinning their hearts, minds and wallets, that initial transaction is not the end of the journey.

Speaker B: No.

Speaker C: And so it does still meet our goal of driving revenue to help them onboard, to help them get value from the product, to keep trusting us, to improve their practices and their communication and their process, because a tool alone is not going to solve their issues. So it does behoove us to empower them to do better in their processes, in their communications, um, in their workflows, et cetera. Right. So it's, it's taking that longer time horizon. And so I think that being very clear about the intent of a piece of content.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And having that content mix at different depths, that gives us the freedom as marketers to design this journey that allows people to go up, down and sideways. And then when we put those explicit CTAs in, we've actually given them something else to do. I think this is the other issue. A lot of marketers don't actually have enough touch points at different depths. So the only thing that they can do as a next step to keep the journey from being a dead end is force someone into buying.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And again, this mindset that like, well, the journey ends when they, when they buy.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: No, it doesn't. And so that means we as marketers have to create those smart journeys so that they can just continually go down a learn intent path or a trust intent path, or they can do a use intent path or a buy intent path. Right. So that's the other piece of this is like, there's the time horizon piece of it, there's the continuous motion piece of it, but it does Go back to that strategy. Like, we have to be clear about the intent, the cta, and the wording on that cta. Um, I would just say, as you're looking at your content and your distribution channels, what is the next action you want someone to take? Make that the verb in the cta. Watch, register, sign up, read. That's first thing. And then make it very clear if those actions are taking them towards buy intent, use intent, or, you know, learn intent, trust intent, help. Intent is another piece of this. So, um, like, questions of, like, why can't I log in? Or why isn't this feature working? Right? It's like, oh, you need help. Great. Send them to the documentation. Don't try to send them to, like, a pricing page with FAQs about the product. Like, they already have the product and something's broken. Help them. So, um, really thinking about what the next action they're going to take is, and tailoring that CTA with the verb and the place where they land. Make sure those are matched.

Speaker B: I. That's perfect. And I. And that leads us into our sour take number three. I think that was a great ending there. Ashley, what's your third candy that you're bringing to the table here?

Speaker C: My third candy that I'm bringing to the table is, I think, this Sour Patch Extreme.

Speaker B: Okay. I got extreme as well, so. But I.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: Uh, I have warheads, so.

Speaker C: Oh, man.

Speaker B: All right. Cheers on this one.

Speaker C: Oh, this one is bad. It's, like, right here.

Speaker B: Yeah. When I started doing this, I made the mistake of booking them all, like, day. Like, couple of them in a day, and then, like, every day a week. And I couldn't do the candy because, like, I couldn't even go to the gym. That'd be like. My stomach was killing. So I'm just like, all right, I'm gonna have to cancel some of these and move them back.

Speaker C: Yeah, I'm gonna just pour myself some water on this. That one was. That packs a little punch. It says it's Sour Patch Kids, but I guess I'm just a, uh. I'm just.

Speaker B: No, you're. It's. Let me say you need to. You need a piece of cake after this. Maybe, like the. Calm it down, balance it right out.

Speaker C: All right.

Speaker B: All right. Sour take number three.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: Ungate all content. This is an argument that's been going on for however long.

Speaker C: Yep.

Speaker B: I want to hear your side of it.

Speaker C: Yeah, this is extreme. People are going to come after me and be like, of all the companies you've worked at, you've done gated content and I'm going to be like, well, there's. This is why it's a sour take and this is why, you know what I would do if I was in charge versus what I do in the current landscape? Um, this goes back to. You're not tricking anyone into buying anything. And this idea that like, because somebody wants to get your industry level report, that must mean they want to buy or that they have budget, they have the ability to buy, they're willing to jump through the hue, the hoops to buy any of those things. Sometimes people just want information. Sometimes they're just doing research to be better at their jobs. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: The one example that I give that I always kind of jokingly, I'm like, oh, I feel so bad for the marketers. Um, when I was interviewing for jobs, the first thing I would do is go to their, their resource hub and download all of their content to be like, what are they talking about? What industry are they in? Right? And so you just see in like 30 minutes it's like, we got a hot lead. This girl, she just downloaded 10 of our pieces of content. Right? Like, no, guys, I'm, I'm doing research on an upcoming interview with you as a job candidate. Like, I'm not, I'm not in a buying place, right?

Speaker B: Yes, yes.

Speaker C: Um, kind of again, going back to this, this journey as a playground and this seamless journey. The most recent piece of software that I bought, this company probably can't properly map my journey at all. I've never downloaded anything from them. Um, actually it was a blocker because they didn't have a free trial. And I had someone on my team going through and researching this short list of, um, companies. And I had put this one on the short list because I saw a video that one of their employees posted on LinkedIn. I'd been connected to this person for a very long time. They posted this launch video. I roughly had it in my plan that like, oh, I should, I should solve this with a tool. I think a tool can solve this. I should solve that. But I wasn't at a place, I didn't have budget, I didn't have, uh, the team in place yet. There was a bunch of stuff. So four months later I mentioned, right.

Speaker B: I mean, yeah.

Speaker C: And all of this happened. I didn't write it down anywhere. I didn't go to their website anymore. Like, nothing. And I sent one somebody on my team to go do the research and I gave them, you know, a short list of like, go look at these vendors. Well, this vendor, who I originally thought was my top vendor, didn't have a free trial. And so I was like, great, put them at the bottom of the list and go through the free trial with all these other people. Right. So ultimately, we ended up buying that software because they reached out to me, um, separately on something else to be a guest podcast. And I was like, hey, so funny enough, we're doing research, and I do actually need your tool, but you don't have a free. Free trial. Is there any way that we could get a trial? And they were like, what? We had no idea that, like, this is a block. Right. And so they gave us the free trial, you know, and they meet our needs and we go forward. Right, but where is that going to show up in the attribution? And so this idea that if we ungate our content, how will we track it? How will we know what's working? You already don't know what's working. You're already just struggling, like, struggling to know what's working. You know what I mean? So, yeah, uh, there's an element of it where I understand the need to track. I understand that we have to, you know, know what's working. We can't just start spraying pray our budget and that kind of thing. Yeah, but the. The insistence on putting up blockers for your audience. The other thing that makes no sense to me, um, is like, the hierarchy of things that get gated. Gating your customer case studies of all the things that you should not date. Right. Like, if you want to gate original research.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: That is proprietary information that has insights. Fine, we can. We can have that conversation. But you're telling me you have a company who is willing to say how great you are, how they're using your products, why they purchased you, sing your praises, and you're gonna put that behind a barrier so that your audience, uh, why. Why would you do that? Right? It's, uh.

Speaker B: Oh, man. I. It's funny you say this because, like, what. What you had mentioned before about the free trial, that has been something. Our team has been a B testing. We have free trial. We're like, what? Because our sales team's coming to us and say, hey, a lot of people are coming. They're doing the free trial. Is it qualifying? You know, we're looking at. Is. Is there quality coming through these free trials? Which I love that what you're saying is like, hey, and you're from a big. A big company, right? Like, this is no joke here. Like an enterprise account Looking. And for this to be a blocker, I think calls out a lot and brings at least gives me some insight into what maybe we should be doing. Um, with the end result. I'm excited to see the ab, the uh, a B test, but, you know, I think we're going to see pretty clearly that there it is, a blocker. Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah. Um, so that's, that's why I take such a bold stance on this. Because the reality is I'm not naive to think that all of this content is just going to magically be ungated. But if you don't take a bold stance, you end up with all of your content gated or, you know, only, only blog posts are ungated and you're just going, okay, that's not. You missed the point here. We're not having a strategic conversation. Which again, this leads to my next sour take. Which is.

Speaker B: Well, it's funny you say that because it leads to just arguments. Right. And like you sit there with your team and instead of realizing we're what are what's best for the customer, what's best for the pro, like the person who's looking, like, what's best for them. Let's forget about what's best for us. Because what's. If we do what's best for them, they're more than likely to hit that. Book a demo button on their own.

Speaker C: Right, exactly. And there are a lot. Your sales cycles are going to be shorter, your conversion is going to be higher. Because these people have actually in, you know, they have learned, they've done their research and they have. They are actually intending to buy.

Speaker B: I love that. All right, sour take number four. Let's get the sour candy out. All right.

Speaker C: This says it's a Mike and Ike Megamix.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker C: Feel like, I wonder if I misjudged my sour, uh, my sour progression.

Speaker B: No worries. I had people calling me out on that too. It's hard.

Speaker C: Like real mild.

Speaker B: It depends. It's hard to tell because everybody's. Everybody's different.

Speaker A: Taste.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker B: Buds are different. So what could be sour to me might not be sour to you?

Speaker C: Mhm. This one? No, this. The, that Sour Patch Kids one was rough. This one is like, I'm hanging in.

Speaker B: You gotta tell me if your husband tried this one.

Speaker C: Which one is that?

Speaker B: This is the like, most sour candy that, that I have. You gotta let me know if he did and then just ask him what if. If he did.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker B: Most people on here were like tearing up from it, so struggling.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker B: All right, sour take number four, your longest sour take here.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: MQL's should only be people who actively reach out for sales contacts. No behaviors or no behavioral MQLs that put you into a nurture. Summarize that for us. Why does that make sense and why is it a sour take?

Speaker C: This dovetails very nicely with the CTAs and with the gated content.

Speaker B: So you did.

Speaker C: The way this works is you're going to go over here and you're going to download 10 ebooks and we're going to give you a score of 100 points and we're going to be like, this is a hot lead. Sales call this girl right now. She's ready to buy. Nowhere in there have I actually indicated that I have any money or any timeline or any desire to buy from you. Like, I have indicated that I'm getting information. That's all I've indicated. Right. Again, I go all the way to the extreme to be like, the only people sales should ever talk to are people who have actively raised their hands and said, please have sales contact me because I know that I'm gonna have to meet in the middle. I get it. Right. But were somehow so confused that deal cycles, especially for SAS, we're at 25,000, 50,000, $500,000. And we're somehow confused that this person that we randomly reached out to and badgered them five times until they got on a call with us is for some reason it's going to take them 6 months, 12 months, 18 months to spend a hundred thousand dollars with us. What if, hear me out. We let them just like make that decision on their own.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And then they come to us and say, hello, I wish to spend a hundred thousand dollars with you.

Speaker B: We like that control, you know, control factor. Yeah, I really do think so.

Speaker C: Yeah. And the other thing, I mean, especially when you start selling to enterprise companies and you have legal involved, procurement involved, security involved, especially if you're talking about selling the SO software globally. Like, it's not just the US legal team that has to be involved. You've also got to talk to Europe and apac. Right?

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker C: Uh, this is not a simple process. And so even if I as a buyer and bought in on the problem and bought in on the solution, that does not mean that I have leadership. Buy in or security buy in, legal buy in, procurement buy in. Right. Like for me to go get this done, I have to. You're telling me I got to run the gauntlet.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And, and, and you think I'm gonna do that off A cold email in my inbox because I downloaded an industry report that's not freaking happening. Not for. And, and even if you do check all the boxes. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: If I find out that you're 10x the budget that I was like, no amount of nurturing me is going to solve a 10x budget gap. Like I, it's just not until I get that budget solved. No amount of you telling me there's all these extra features or you'll give me a 10% discount. Like, we're off. Um, yeah, like this is an element where I think, I think particularly startups and startup sellers don't understand what it truly takes to sell into the enterprise, even if you have a champion. And I've championed several different tools in my time. Um, is not small to overcome procurement, security, legal. Right. And, and the reason is because it's a huge risk if I introduce this risk into the organization. We're not talking about a couple hundred people here. Yeah, it's massive.

Speaker B: So you're talking your own job as well.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And that's, it's, it's great you say this. I had just hosted a webinar with uh, the CFO from Fractal and Seatgeek. And that was what they were saying. They're like, hey, when we're sitting down and we're debating on switching to a new, new tech, like a tool, I think about, okay, it may cost, let's just say 250,000 right now or $500,000 this year. We know that it's so hard to get off these platforms that we're going to be on this platform for at least 10 years, maybe 6 to 10 years. So you take that 500,000 times it by 10, that's a 5 million dollar investment. So that's the way these CFOs are thinking about it. Right. And so you, until you're a buyer and you're in that situation, it's really hard to actually, um, like actually connect and, and make that, like that make that distinction and say, okay, this is going to take a lot longer than we thought.

Speaker C: Right, right. Well, and this is why again, the mindset that you just need to convince people that you have the features that might not be the blocker. You're right. You might be the best in the market, you might be the cheapest in the market or the best value in the market. Right. You might be the easiest to implement in the market. You got a whole migration plan and uh, whatever. Right. But maybe the, it turns out that like the premise of the problem is going to get caught up in legal because it turns out that there's some debate happening in another part of the world that like, I'm in the us I don't know what's happening legally in APAC or Europe or Latin America. I don't have to keep track of that. Yeah. Uh, I think I'm going to walk in and like, look, I've already thought of all the security concerns. It's fine. And the lawyers on the public policy team who it is their job to vet this stuff are like, hold on, is this going to Latin America? Because there's actually a law working its way through the courts as we speak that could significantly hinder this. Right. Like, and, and so it's not that you just needed to convince me of your features and that one more email. Right. And this is why I say that for somebody to be willing to raise their hand and like get on a sales call, this is the other thing too. This, um, like incentivized meetings. Right. Like, this is another behavior. Right. I'm, uh, gonna. We'll send you $25 for lunch or will doordash you lunch. I don't think you people understand from a sales perspective, because I know that's not what it is. It's not a, anybody who has the like budget authority to buy a hundred thousand or fifty, one hundred fifty thousand, half a million dollar software doesn't need you to buy them lunch. Like, that's not, that's not a thing. So getting on these meetings, probably not actually the right level of person A B, the solution is the incentive. Like again, this is where that MQL thing comes in. Like, if I actually need what you sell, you don't have to sell me

Speaker B: because I, I need it.

Speaker C: I'm already sold. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So by the time I raise my hand, I'm already sold. The question is, am I buying you or am I buying your competitor? Right. It's not. Do I think this problem is urgent and I need to solve it now? Right. Um, and then the third piece of that is now I know that I'm going to get put into an email nurture. And you're going to email me every freaking month to be like, ashley, did you think about our thing? Ashley, did you do this? I also know that you're probably going to go to my colleagues and you're going to be like, hey, Jason, I was just talking to Ashley. So now Jason's going to slack me and be like, uh, oh, hey Ashley, this sales guy said he was talking to you and I'm like, terrible. No. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, really bad. That's a. That's such a red flag. And I don't think people think it. I don't think people think that the person doing the job is not going to check in with you, Ashley. Right. And be like, hey, Ashley, do you know this person? When it's legitimately. It's a slack message, it takes one second to say, ashley, do you actually know this person? Did you tell them to come to me? So that's just like another sneaky tactic that. And I think we keep going back to. That is like, let's be upfront. Let's let the buyers do the buying and let's let us educate and be there to help and assist when they're ready and they need that.

Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker B: I love it. All right, sour take number five. Last one. We're wrapping it up. What candy did you bring for this one?

Speaker C: So, as we discussed before, we hit record, my husband ate the original candy, so I'm improvising with this other candy and I don't have a fifth candy. So I decided to go full sin.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: Uh, with lime juice. I don't know how this is going to go, Jason. Like, I think we can have a conversation after this, but it's also possible that we can't.

Speaker B: That is. Okay, this one I'm going to say while we do this, I'm going to actually say the hot take and let

Speaker C: you just mute and you can just.

Speaker B: Here we go. Hot take number five. Execs are not the best thought leaders or influencers for your organization. That's what I love about this, um, show. It's fun. You know, people don't get to come out of their shoes a lot. And I know, I love that you're so open on LinkedIn and anybody listening to this, you need to have. You need to follow Ashley on LinkedIn. Not just for informational posts, but she definitely drops knowledge about just living life. And I'm Ashley, I just love that about you, that balance. And I mean, not everybody has good work life balance. You seem to have great work life balance, and I need to learn something from you. But I want to dive in this sour take number five, and then we can talk about that after.

Speaker C: Okay. I think I have recovered. I drank some water, but that was. I'm glad you gave me some extra, extra time to come away from that one. All right, so this sour take.

Speaker B: Um, yeah, let me state it again for. So executives are not the best thought leaders or Influencers for your organization. I love it.

Speaker C: Yeah. So this is not to say that they can't be thought leaders or influencers for the organization, but, um, too many teams default to focusing solely on that executive title.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: For this. And I will note, there is a difference between someone being a spokesperson. Yes. Part of the CEO's job is to deliver the earnings report, talk to the shareholders, deliver all hands, you know, company things. Right. That is different than being a thought leader.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So leaders are really pushing the industry forward. They are sharing, codifying, and sharing insights in a way that enable other people to take action in a new direction. So if you think about the job of an executive, there's a couple of things. One part of their whole job is to show investors and employees and customers that the company is steady, stable, that it's making the right bets for the future, and that it's going in the right direction. That's kind of fundamentally at odds with changing the direction of the industry. Shaping the direction of the industry, like point. It's. It's this, this idea that, like, well, we're innovating, but it tends to be very incremental in innovation, in part because you have to bring your customers along. If you suddenly take a hard right turn, your customers are like, swerving, trying to keep up with you. Right. You have to do this, change management for the employees, the customers, the shareholders. Right. Thought leadership, true thought leadership is kind of. It kind of rocks the boat. Yeah.

Speaker B: Interesting.

Speaker C: Most of your executives are not like, that's kind of part of their job is to not rock the boat. Right. That's the first thing. The second thing is they're busy. So they are very good at their jobs. They're running the company. But how much time does that leave them to actually have these new ideas? A, have the ideas, B, test them, um, implement them and actually kind of vet them. Three, sit down and codify those ideas. Like, they're barely able to do it internally. They have to have help doing that internally.

Speaker B: A ghostwriter.

Speaker C: Exactly. And then four, codify those and share those in a way that'll resonate externally without also potentially raining down this negativity or this concern from shareholders, press, you know, customers, etc. Right. Like the. It's not even just the internal sharing, it's the external sharing, too. And so they're too busy to actually do the stuff, to have the depth of ideas and then to, you know, share it, engage on LinkedIn, go speak at conferences, etc. Right. So, um, so that's. That's two pieces where it's like the jobs are not really.

Speaker B: I know this because that's my responsibility. Right. To help our executives get on LinkedIn and. And advocate for us. And I've realized quickly that they don't have to be the influencer. Right. But they do have to be the culture champion. That's what I've realized is important. They have to show who they are. Because at the end of the day, whatever company you're working with, you do want to know the executives. Right. And you want to know that. That you. Not that you agree with them, but that they're good people and that they're doing the right.

Speaker C: Yeah, well, that actually gets at. At, uh, kind of the third piece is, which is the trust piece of this and that there's a reason that. So I do a lot of technical marketing. There's a reason that we don't let the marketers stand on stage at the developer conferences. And it's because the developers don't trust the marketers. Right. It doesn't matter that we're actually really good speakers, that we actually do know the products really well. And at this point, we actually know the audience, the pain points really well.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: The fact that I have a marketing title means fundamentally, like, if you're a developer, you don't trust me. Right. Uh, the same thing is true. People trust people like themselves. They trust people that they can have a peer relationship with that they have that personal relationship with.

Speaker B: So true.

Speaker C: That's really hard to do with a busy executive. Right. Um, or that power dynamic. And because the perception is that a lot of executives are quite far from the craft level problem space, like CMOs do fundamentally different jobs than a senior marketing manager. Like, they're not doing that anymore. Right. A CTO or a CIO does something very different than a technical team lead or a software engineer or even a, you know, a director of it. Right, yes. Uh, so they start to lose credibility with the audience that you might need to influence or who might actually be the ones who are the gatekeepers for the decision. Everybody says, oh, we want to reach the CFO or the cio. The CIO is not vetting most products. Somebody below them is doing that and then giving them a short list or a recommendation, and then they're either saying yes or no. Right. So who below them has that credibility to say, here's the problems I'm solving, Use cases, solutions, kinds of things. Right. Like, they don't have that peer relationship. And so you have to have people who are at that practitioner level across the organization to have that credibility and to have that exchange and that trust in those relationships. So again, uh, not to say that executives can't be, but I would argue that in many cases they are not the best people to put forward. And you should definitely not only look at this. I see this a lot in startups. Oh, we're gonna, we're gonna do thought leadership for our founder. Okay, you don't do thought leadership for anybody. Right. Like, we need, we need to turn our thought leader, uh, our founder into a thought leader. I'm like, do they have thoughts?

Speaker B: That's kind of what my followers so. Right. That's, that's what my post about was the other day. I was like, hey, I've talked to all these VPs. I'm, I'm a manager. I'm not gonna teach them anything. That's revolutionary. What I can do is just show who I am authentically. Right. I love it, Ashley. All right, that's it. We're wrapping it up. All five sour takes. Thank you so much for joining the show today. Ashley, if you had to close this out with one thing that you wanted to say to the audience, what would it be?

Speaker C: The core of all of my sour takes is to fall in love with your audience. Think about the humans behind the screen. At the end of the day, if you serve them, you will ultimately serve the business's goals, your ego's goals, your lead and attribution goals. You know, get the humans behind the screen to really build that trust and affinity with you. That's the core of it.

Speaker B: I appreciate you so much, Ashley, for being on the show today. For everyone listening again, you can find Ashley on LinkedIn now. Ashley, are you on any other, um, platforms besides LinkedIn?

Speaker C: I mean, sometimes I do Twitter. And let's be clear, we're not doing this whole call it X nonsense. We're calling it Twitter so people actually know what I'm talking about. Occasionally I do the Twitter things, but for the most part, um, I'm on LinkedIn.

Speaker B: Awesome. So, yeah, follow Ashley. Um, again, Ashley, thank you so much.

Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the Sour go to market SAS takes podcast sponsored by Sales Intel, TAC, the Juice, RevGenius and Hockey Stack. More bite sized content is available on our LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.