Building a Movement Through B2B Marketing with Kacie Jenkins, Head of Marketing for Claude Code at Anthropic - Ep 76

TT - 076 - Kacie Jenkins - Full Episode === Kacie Jenkins: The key to winning is real, true, authentic differentiation. Kacie Jenkins: As you're coming into a crowded category, you have to seize the story and own the narrative in order for anyone to remember you. The best way to do that is with the person with the highest conviction Kacie Jenkins: which is your founder. Kacie Jenkins: There's this whole lore that founders need to build around what they stand for Kacie Jenkins: It's the art of building a movement around yourself that people can relate to.

Kacie Jenkins: I've worked across B2B and B2C, so I think I have a unique slightly, weird point of view on what bold means. Kacie Jenkins: How do you become unforgettable, how do you become the brand that people can't stop thinking about? Kacie Jenkins: Brand's making a comeback, Kacie Jenkins: It's a force multiplier. I don't know why everyone isn't doing this but I think it's one of the best places to start when you're early stage.

Craig Rosenberg: By the way, fun fact, I am going to Las Vegas with my 10-year-old son today, and, um, I, I think I told Kate it's, Kacie Jenkins: It is a baseball tournament. Craig Rosenberg: It's a baseball tournament, but it's on Halloween. I'm just like, you guys, uh, yeah. No, I'm basically gonna have to tell coa uh, the flight, I have my thing down.

Craig Rosenberg: Hey, you're about to see things that I need you to unsee by the end of the trip. I mean, I'm like, guys, it's not like the people there are dressed as Freddy Krueger. Like this is good that outfits are gonna be just, I don't know, man. He's gonna see some shit, but Kacie Jenkins: gonna be intense.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. But they are trick or treating in Henderson. Kacie Jenkins: Oh, well that's cute. Craig Rosenberg: They have, the whole team has like outfits and so they all have nicknames.

Did you know they all did like, you know, hardcore, you know, og, gangster, like all these things. And my son chose his nickname. You know what he chose, Matt Amundson: What? Kacie Jenkins: What Craig Rosenberg: Larry?

Matt Amundson: Oh, Craig Rosenberg: I give him so much credit for that. I mean, think about that. It's funny. Matt Amundson: it is funny.

​ Craig Rosenberg: Okay. Craig Rosenberg: Do you guys know each other by the way? Matt Amundson: Sort Kacie Jenkins: Now we do. Craig Rosenberg: Okay, because Kacie Jenkins: share the same prison cell.

Craig Rosenberg: ca that's in many places. That's not good. Um, so, uh, by the way, Kacie is awesome, dude. Matt Amundson: Go.

I know Craig Rosenberg: I've known her now. Matt Amundson: seen her speak many times. She's very Craig Rosenberg: Right, right. And I knew her stuff from before just 'cause of the amazing LinkedIn work, but like dude, now I've been hanging out with her.

She's amazing. Craig Rosenberg: This is a great guest for the show. Kacie Jenkins: I appreciate it. Craig Rosenberg: we got to do this LinkedIn road show together and we've been hanging out and she's brilliant.

Kacie Jenkins: It's been so fun. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, and so I was Craig Rosenberg: like, we gotta have her on the show. so here's the deal. Um, so Kacie is a, uh, amazing, uh, CMO.

For anybody. But what I've really loved was watching the work at Sendososo, the way they tackled social LinkedIn, uh, frankly, everything, they were everywhere, right? And then, and they did eat the market by the way. Too over that course of time while Kacie was there, right there, there just, there were other people in the market, and I think they all are now under the umbrella of Sendososo because these guys, uh, basically just took over the market and Mindshare and brand was a major part of it.

Craig Rosenberg: So like Kacie's not just about the, you know, social megaphone, but about brand. She al, she created a category at Fastly that. I've been reading, I read about on LinkedIn where she was like, her basically laid it all on the line for this category, faced a lot of resistance and, and built it. I don't know what it was, sorry, Kacie, I'm not a techno, I'm not that technical, but like, that's the kind of person that should be on this show.

Craig Rosenberg: Not just 'cause of your personality, but because, uh, you are a person that can, uh, build. Corporate brand, personal brand, and put those two things together and build companies and that's why you're here. So everyone, Kacie Jenkins Kacie Jenkins: Wow. Thank you, Craig.

Craig Rosenberg: It's true, by the way. I don't write any of that doubt. That is like my true feelings. Craig Rosenberg: And now we're been hanging out.

We did a call last week. Matt, you didn't, are you jealous? Matt Amundson: Yeah, of course. Craig Rosenberg: Okay, cool.

That's good. Alright, so there's two parts to the show. So one, so number one is we ask every guest to tell us, uh, um, uh, a story that means something to them. It could be funny, it could be heroic or whatever, ABX about B2B, but if not, we did have, our most famous story was about Brent.

Craig Rosenberg: Adamson and about maggots on a plane flight he had, and that was very popular. We're okay with that. We like to laugh. We like to cry.

You, you, you do what you do. And then the second part Kacie Jenkins: stories. Craig Rosenberg: No, please. We, well, we don't need another one.

Yeah, we, yes. Yet, yet. Um, and then the second one is we want to hear, um, you know, we built the show based on this idea that, uh, the, it's, it's different now. Craig Rosenberg: Extremely different trying to B2B Go-To-Market these days.

And so we'd like to hear sort of your sort of one to three things you would say, work in today's world, and then that's the show. We just kind of take it from there. Accidentally Hosting a Spooky Customer Advisory Board Retreat - Craig Rosenberg: So Kacie, tell us a story. Kacie Jenkins: I have a couple.

Uh, the, the most, um, uh, halloweeny interesting, um, is that we, uh, Fastly had a, um, a very luxurious customer advisory board trip that we would do, um, annually. And my team kind of handcrafted this every year with boutique hotels and we partnered with our hospitality friends and, um, and one year we decided to do it in Aspen. Kacie Jenkins: Um, and I was lucky to work for A CEO who was. Just as in hinges as I am.

And, um, he was a downhill skier, kind of a, a, um, adrenaline junkie. So he, he loved to race, he loved to ski anything fast, and he, um. He, he, he and I decided we wanted to take all of our customer adv, advisory board members, skiing, um, which somehow we convinced our legal team to let us do, and we booked out this whole hotel in Aspen and flew everyone in and, um, and realized that quite a few of these people didn't know how to ski. Kacie Jenkins: So we were actually teaching them to ski.

Um. One. And uh, you know, this was like the CTOs, the heads of engineering at like JP Morgan Chase, like New York Times Target. Um, and uh, and then two, we realized the hotel has neglected to tell us it's haunted.

And there's pictures of this like small child that haunts it all over the hotel. Craig Rosenberg: what? Kacie Jenkins: And so people are coming in like walking down the hall to their room going. What's this, what, what is this about?

And the staff's just like, oh yeah, it's haunted. If you're on this floor in the old wing, he might visit you. And so we kind of had to be like, okay, we're gonna, we have to make this a, a stick. Kacie Jenkins: It's like part of the thing, like we knew it was haunted.

Um, so we played it. Uh, and no one, no one said that they got visited, but apparently this ghost would like take things, you know, like if things went missing out of your room, it was the ghost. Um, so that's the first part of the story is that we had a haunted cab, which is I think on brand for me. Kacie Jenkins: But the, the second is, um, that.

Our CEO was like an expert downhill skier, like really, really good, you know, like double black. And he got impatient with teaching the people who didn't know how to ski. And he was like, you're good, you got this. And took all the advanced people and I end, I am not a great skier and I ended up like trying to backwards ski, teach these people to ski down this hill, which was terrifying.

Kacie Jenkins: Um, and you know, they're like pizza eyeing with their skis down. Um, and, and we made it. And, uh, but I think at least three of those people ended up working for us, like coming over to work with Fastly because it was such like deep bonding Yeah. Yeah.

that's Kacie Jenkins: to Kacie Jenkins: get down the mountain together. Uh, and uh, so I recommend. Kacie Jenkins: You know, slightly harrowing types of experiences. They bond you together in a more human way than just like, let's go have some cocktails.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. You know, I got a comment on that. Well, first of all, the, the haunted hotel was a twist. I was not Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Didn't see that coming. Craig Rosenberg: that. Kacie Jenkins: pictures were so weird too. It was Kacie Jenkins: apparently this child drowned.

So when some of Kacie Jenkins: these pictures, it's like this ghostly, wet child like dripping. Craig Rosenberg: Oh God. Oh it's very, it's not funny, but I, yeah, I don't know how real any of this is either, but it's a legend, Craig Rosenberg: But, but it is interesting because what you said at the end brings it all back, which is like, this is much better than just having your cab show up. Feed them a nice dinner in San Francisco and get 'em drinks.

Yeah. Yeah. Unforgettable. And your personal experience of training these folks, that was really human.

Craig Rosenberg: It is. The whole thing for you is very on brand 'cause you're not playing standard and so like, uh, so that was a great story. The haunted, twisting, I'm still. I'm not sure I could stay.

I stayed at the Driscoll and that's haunted, right. And uh, but they didn't tell me till after. So I was great. And then I was going back out there, I was ringing my kids.

Craig Rosenberg: I said, I, I made the mistake. I told them, well, we could stay at the really classic hotel. It's the Driscoll, it is haunted. And of course they stayed.

No. So I had to stay at the loft or whatever, but, um, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Very typical. But I got my Marriott points.

So the, so that was a great, so I love that. Craig Rosenberg: And there's a really. Good lesson there, which is 'cause everyone's trying to do these, um, events and whatnot, but like doing something really special, memorable that forces you to interact with, you know, in this case of this, your customers and everyone interacting together. Uh, that I think that's really cool.

Craig Rosenberg: I do hope nobody was haunted by this little kid, but you know, on the other hand, that could have been a funny story too. So. Alright, good. That's my Craig Rosenberg: reaction.

Oh wait, Matt's got a reaction. fact. Craig Rosenberg: Oh Kacie Jenkins: Tell Matt Amundson: don't believe in ghosts. Kacie Jenkins: you No, Matt Amundson: I don't believe.

Kacie Jenkins: Well, you've just never been properly haunted. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. Let's take a poll. Hold on a Kacie, do you believe in ghosts?

Kacie Jenkins: I do. Matt Amundson: Craig. Craig Rosenberg: Here's my deal. My feeling on ghosts is that I want to convince myself that ghosts don't exist.

So I'm not scared, but I do. But I, so I am afraid of ghosts. That doesn't mean, so I'm not sure that was the same answer, but like if I was in that hotel, my mind would go and I would feel like. Everything I heard was the ghost, so I'm not sure.

Craig Rosenberg: I think I do then believe in Craig Rosenberg: ghosts. 'cause I, yeah. You're just not afraid of it. No, I am, but I convinced myself there's no such thing as ghost.

It's just, you know, it's the same thing you tell your kids. It's like, oh no, you know, my fricking the, the 11-year-old I was just talking about. So this dad comes up to me at basketball practice. Craig Rosenberg: He's like, Hey, listen, um, your son told my son that the best movie of all time is black phone.

Okay? Now I was like, wait. And so I, so my son watched it. I watched him.

It was really scary. So I go to my son. I said, dude, have you seen black phone? He's like, no.

So he told the kid and the kid and his dad. I'm like, thank God. Craig Rosenberg: 'cause it seems, it looks scary. Kacie Jenkins: Oh, that's so Craig Rosenberg: yeah.

Anyway. All right, back to you Kacie. Craig Rosenberg: You have another story. Kacie Jenkins: Um, I mean, I have many stories.

Uh, Food Poisoning - Kacie Jenkins: the other story that I was gonna tell is the time that, uh, this is just a, you know, things are always gonna go in a direction that you don't anticipate sometimes story, um, at our, uh. Annual conference, um, that my team put on regionally. This, this one was the San Francisco one, which was like the flagship, um, conference. Kacie Jenkins: We, um, we would take our speakers out, you know, for the night before, for like a fancy speaker dinner and have everyone get to know each other.

And we went to this pretty well known, like very fancy restaurant in San Francisco. Took everyone there, had this big long table. Um, woke up the next morning and everyone has food poisoning. Kacie Jenkins: Like all of my speakers, all of my most important customers, my executives, um, so sick.

I had to delay the start of the event. We had to go get everyone. Um. Like powerful anti-nausea drugs and like little kits.

Um, and so we, we, the, the event team had to pivot into like, care, um, and somehow we hydrated and, and propped everyone up and, and didn't have to cancel it. Kacie Jenkins: But I basically poisoned my customers and my executive team, um, which was pretty amazing. Craig Rosenberg: Oh my God. Matt Amundson: Jesus That's unbelievable.

Craig Rosenberg: That that. in food poisoning, though Matt Amundson: I do believe in it. Craig Rosenberg: Yes, I, I do Good poisoning is worse than Matt Amundson: Way worse, far worse, far worse. Craig, quick question for you.

Do you like the coffee hold like this? Or is this better for a podcast? Craig Rosenberg: Um, I feel like this looks more official, but. Kacie Jenkins: The handle.

The handle is very important for me on cups, like some of the, this one I don't like the grip Matt Amundson: Hmm. Fair enough. Matt Amundson: Craig, your thoughts? Craig Rosenberg: I am, you know, I, I only do paper.

Even they have to get me paper cups in the office. I, for whatever reason, mugs, I can't drink coffee outta mugs. Kacie Jenkins: is it the thickness of the rim? Craig Rosenberg: That was very thoughtful of you.

I'm not sure I could put a finger on it, actually. Yeah. Uh, so Kacie Jenkins: This mug Craig is from Ruby. Ruby sent me this Craig Rosenberg: she didn't send me or Matt a, you know what, Kacie Jenkins: Yes.

Our friend Ruby at LinkedIn knew, knows that I love tea and sent me a special tea mug. Craig Rosenberg: she's so thoughtful. That, but then what, what about me? I mean, I, well, I guess I don't like She would have to send you a Matt Amundson: paper cup.

Yeah. Craig Rosenberg: so my comment would be, I think, uh, the, this, this angle where you drink, like, that's like very Johnny Carson and so I'm in favor of that. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. There's many people that are listening to this shit.

I have no idea who Johnny Carson is. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, thank you.

Um, that is an incredible, so was the show successful? Kacie Jenkins: It was, it was successful. We had to sub a couple of people, like swap a couple people in. A couple people were, were a bed all day.

Um, but it was a success. Those drove millions of dollars for us 'cause they were deal accelerators, you know, prospect and customer matchmaking. Craig Rosenberg: yeah. No, I bet.

Um, and then just really quick, so the restaurant, what did they say? Kacie Jenkins: They denied. Um, which was really interesting because I had data from a very specific period of time with a group of people who all only did that. Um, and so we actually, we ended up refusing to, to pay, um, and they did not like that, so then we could never host events there again, unfortunately.

But. Um, it seemed pretty obvious that that was the only Craig Rosenberg: yeah. Kacie Jenkins: that could have caused it. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah.

But you know, you're, you're very classy to not name the name of the restaurant. Kacie Jenkins: I, yeah, I mean, I'm sure they were horrified. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. Yeah.

Um, by the way, I was just, you know, yeah. We have a big event next week and I just keep warning the team. This is not to be negative guys. I'm just warning you, a shoe will drop Matt Amundson: yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: five days. It, it, it's like. It is like clockwork, but Kacie's stories involve haunted houses and mass food poisoning issues. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, those are, those are not shoes that I want to drop right now.

Kacie Jenkins: No, I would not wish those upon you. Craig Rosenberg: yeah, so actually I, so I appreciate those stories, Kacie. Those, those were perfect for the show. But you know what, I keep complimenting you.

I, I gotta find something where I. Give you negative feedback. Well, let's, yeah. Yeah.

What a lousy food poisoning story. I've heard better. Craig Rosenberg: Let me give Matt, let me give Matt some Matt Amundson: Yeah. Please do.

Please. Yeah. I'm dressed like a Star Trek agent right now, so Craig Rosenberg: yeah, I, well, I was, thank you for leading me with that. I wasn't sure what to do about that.

Yeah. But, um, you, do you dress cozy for the show. It's interesting. You always do.

What? It's, a sort of, Craig Rosenberg: even in this. Even in the summer though, you'll, you'll dress in like a coat, like I could see, you might want to do a fireplace background. Matt Amundson: Yeah.

I do love a cozy summer sweater. Craig Rosenberg: Oh, a boy. I like it. All right.

I flipped that around. I was trying to make it negative, but I ended up Matt Amundson: A positive. Craig Rosenberg: I'm doing my best. I'm doing my best guys.

All right. So Kacie, let's teach people something. And you have, uh, I've already heard a lot of your stuff. You have incredible ideas.

So let's get, uh, your, you know, it's a tough world. Craig Rosenberg: It's different, but there's a lot of really great stuff you could do. So like, what, you know, How Founders can Seize the Story of Their Category and Own The Narrative - Craig Rosenberg: what are one to three things that you would, uh, that you've seen, work out there, you've done, and, uh, let's, let's teach the audience. Kacie Jenkins: Okay.

Um, so I think this is, uh, this is a hard time for a lot of Go-To-Market folks. Um, but I think. Uh, it's, it's really exciting because, um, in this sea of, of, um, what I'm calling ai go gold panning, it's like, you know, all these little companies popping up and they're like trying to seize the moment. Um, but all of them are crowding every category.

Kacie Jenkins: And so there's like 10 of everything now. Um. It makes marketing so much more fun because the, the key to winning is real, true, authentic differentiation. And that comes back to humanness, uh, and authenticity.

And those are the parts of marketing I love best. So, um, things that I'm seeing working, this should not come as a surprise, but you know, there are a lot of companies who are sort of wearing the whole 9, 9, 6 hustle grind as a brand identity that's. Kacie Jenkins: Super boring. Um, and, and it doesn't actually tell anyone anything about you other than that you, uh, you know, are prioritizing speed over everything else.

Um, and I think founder, founder brand to pipeline, like legitimate, authentic. Uh, you know, founders strong narrative, um, willing to be bold and take risks, willing to be vulnerable, um, willing to devote time to, uh, building out a story that no one else could own, because it's uniquely yours and tied to your expertise and experience and point of view and personality. Kacie Jenkins: Um, that's where I'm seeing, uh, some of these new startups start to win. Um, because I think, you know, as you're coming into a crowded category, you have to seize the story and own the narrative, uh, in order for anyone to remember you.

And the best way to do that is with the person with the highest conviction on your team, which is your founder. Kacie Jenkins: Um. And, you know, I, I think what I'm seeing is the, the founders who consider this kind of their number one part of their job besides running the business, um, are the ones that are starting to build, uh, really powerful networks. Um, Archer Fastly was incredible at this.

He spent a lot of time. Um, building up an, uh, digital following, attending events, speaking around the world, speaking to press and analysts, uh, writing long form content. Kacie Jenkins: He was, uh, he had a, um, he swore all the time. Um, so we were selling to enterprise, you know, like very formal situations and he would just come in and just drop f-bombs all over the place.

But he was so compelling as, and charismatic. Smart that everyone would stop to listen to him and no one forgot him. Kacie Jenkins: Um, and, and so, you know, I think this, this founder branded pipeline figuring out, you know, what, what am I really good at? What's unique to unique about me and what is my audience that I'm.

Trying to reach care about and where's the intersection of these things? That beautiful circle in the middle. Um, and how do I get consistent with the way that I'm showing up and, uh, be unforgettable and then turn that into relationships. Kacie Jenkins: Um, so like connecting regularly with the, the audience you're trying to reach and.

And the folks you're gonna be multi-threading with inside of your deals. Um, so that you are the kind of, um, unlocking function inside of your organization and nothing's gonna be blocked or slowed down 'cause you can always text, have someone on text basis that you can unblock with. Kacie Jenkins: Um, and I like, I don't think founders think through this and think they often think about this as like, oh, I just need to post some shit. I just need to throw some shit on the internet, um, regularly.

And the posting is just the beginning of a process. It's like, it's a, it's a flywheel where you're building relationships, you're building momentum, you're building a network, um, that will warm up all of the marketing activities and all of the sales activities that your team eventually, um, rolls out. Kacie Jenkins: It's like a, a force multiplier. Um, and so I don't know why everyone isn't doing this and hiring people to help them.

You get smarter at it, but it's, I think it's one of the, the, the, the best places to start when you're early stage. Craig Rosenberg: Okay. There was a lot there. Can I, I'll try to un unpack Matt.

Uh, is it all right if I just Matt Amundson: Yeah, of course. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, of course. Oh, thanks Matt. Appreciate that.

All right. First one is AI gold panning Incredible. Did you, is that your word phrase? Kacie Jenkins: it?

It is. Craig Rosenberg: It's God. That was great. That was great.

That was Craig Rosenberg: great. Amazing. Craig Rosenberg: There? Matt Amundson: Wanna make sure I Craig Rosenberg: No, make sure, Kacie Jenkins: it's two separate words.

Kacie Jenkins: I don't know. We invented it so we can, Matt Amundson: We you did. I just wanna make sure when just wanna make sure. accurate.

Craig Rosenberg: Oh, I'm going with we, no, no, I'm not going with we. Okay. I, that's incredible. I just want, uh, audience take note.

That was incredible work. All right, so I have a, a couple things. So one, I do want to go back 'cause, uh. You, we don't have to do this yet, like, but let's go back 'cause you killed it with this strategy.

Craig Rosenberg: As recently as months ago. So I want to talk to you about, 'cause you, you have incredible insights on how you made this happen. Um, and I didn't know Fastly was like your test bed and that you had the founder that wanted to go do this. I do want to bring up something you also brought up that I think is really interesting.

Craig Rosenberg: So, Al Bro, uh, Scott Albro, uh, uh, you know, he's also, he's the guy I always quoted my, um, PREAs when we go on the road show. He had this post that I thought was really interesting. That he said another hidden thing about growing a company is that you need your, there's cool, there is a set of cool kids that run categories. Craig Rosenberg: He's like, it's, there's founders in there, there's influencers in there, there's, uh, you know, uh, I forget what else.

You know, like there's this group and you need your founder to get in that group. Right. And like, uh, I was like, that was so, because you sort of said that late was like, by the way, you know, you went through this progression and then you're like, and then you build your story out there. Craig Rosenberg: You actually can't get in that cool kids club unless, well, a, you.

You know, you, you have like human skills, but that you have a story. Oh, not that me and Matt are cool, but like Matt hadn't really met you, but he knew that he really wanted you on the show because you've built Right. You, you, you were like, we're like, oh my God, she's one of us. Craig Rosenberg: We gotta get her on, Kacie Jenkins: I think you're both very cool, Craig Rosenberg: oh Kacie Jenkins: too cool for me.

Kacie Jenkins: Probably Craig Rosenberg: No, Craig Rosenberg: definitely. Yeah. No, that, that's not true. But thank you.

Um, Kacie Jenkins: I. Craig Rosenberg: but what do you, what do you think of that, by the way? That is an, that was a really good Kacie Jenkins: I loved that post. I'm so glad you brought it up.

Um, I could not agree with him more. I think, um, this is sort of, you know, I guess you could circle this in the, the, the dark social, you know, like dark influence, um, piece of marketing. Um, but people don't buy from people they don't trust, like. Respect, admire, um, and especially in, in enterprise selling, when you're trying to, to go up market and crack.

Kacie Jenkins: People who don't have time are inundated, don't care. Um, you know, if you're selling to a technical buyer, it's even harder. They, they really don't. Um.

They, they block all your ads, um, and say they don't want marketing even though they actually enjoy creative, weird, quirky marketing. Um, but I, you know, like, I think this is one of the, um. It's, it's like an unspoken truth that he said out loud, which is there are rooms where decisions get made. There are rooms where, you know, word of mouth recommendations happen.

Um, and then everyone in that room goes and takes that out and disseminates it. And if you're not getting yourself in those rooms as a founder, you're putting your company at a huge disadvantage and your competitors probably will. Kacie Jenkins: Um, so it's, it, it is, you know, the way he framed that is exactly right. And I think to do that you have to have a strong point of view.

You have to, um. Make people feel like you belong with them or what you are doing makes them belong with you. It's, you know, it's a, it's the art of, of like building a movement around yourself that people can relate to. Kacie Jenkins: Um, and if they think that person stands for X and so do I, or if, you know, if I hang out with that person, then I will be this type of leader.

You know, it's, there's this whole kind of like. Lore that that founders need to build around what they stand for and what type of person you'll be if you're in the circle with them, Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, because you said is that you have to turn this, your, the narrative associated with you into relationships. That was really cool. And that's, these things all fall in line.

You know, it's interesting too, 'cause I was thinking about how, when you said that, so. I had a guy who, like at Topo, we tried to build out the thought leadership footprint to folks and it was like, you know, you use, you know, you've, you've gotta go and you know, we will allow, you know, we want you to go. Craig Rosenberg: We had this rule at Topo, which was, you have to meet five people a week. Right.

And like, I've, now it's my policy, but we try to do that. Um, you know, and there was this one guy who Matt knows who, I will not name his name out of respect, but like, you know, he just couldn't get. People to meet with. And I was like, and I, I said, dude, this is the problem.

Craig Rosenberg: And I'm just gonna be honest with you, uh, the, the initial remit. Nobody just meets with someone. We don't have time. There's nothing in it for them.

Like you don't have something interesting you like. And so now by the way, he's changed, like he's really active on social and how he's coming back to me going, Hey dude, I just met this so and so. Craig Rosenberg: He's actually brought deals to the thing. But it took him like having that.

His narrative and point of view and unique opinions out into the market for him to change his ability to create relationships. So I thought of that as you were saying that. I love that part. That's a really Kacie Jenkins: good example.

I think, you know, humans respond organically to conviction. Um, so, you know, I mean, we see it all over and people, people who are in, um, you know, positions of power, um, there are very few people in positions of power who aren't. Um. Like high conviction, strong point of view, strong personality and identity, strong narrative and story.

Kacie Jenkins: Um, I, I think, you know, you can have a lot of conviction about your company, but if you don't have anything interesting to say, say, and you don't have a point of view, that could be, you know, potentially debated. It's too safe, it's too passive. Um, people aren't gonna know. Where you stand or you know what they're representing, if they stand with you.

Kacie Jenkins: And so that's boring and and not memorable. And no one cares. Craig Rosenberg: Yep. Matt, your thoughts?

I jumped right in. I want I, yeah, I'm gonna hold Matt Amundson: Yeah, I mean, I think I, I, I, I think people who try to play things both ways, who waffle, whether it's in like business, whether it's on a LinkedIn conversation, never goes anywhere, right? Like the, the things that get the most attention are p are strong opinions, right? Good or bad.

They get the most attention. Matt Amundson: And that can be both positive and negative, right? Like, so here I am waffling on it. I just like people to, to Kacie's point, who come out and take a stand, right?

Like, I think if you rewind the clock to my time at Marketo, like we were very convicted in what we were doing. We built a movement around what we were doing and we said, this is the way it has to be done. Matt Amundson: It wasn't like, well, you could do it this way and that might, you know, improve some of your metrics we're, we were like, this is how you do marketing in the modern era. These are the types of results that you're gonna get.

And that worked really well. And we, we were able to, to Kacie's point, like build a movement. Matt Amundson: We were able to establish this is who we are, and there were a bunch of people that wanted to be a part of that club and it worked. I think the same has been true in, uh, in other categories as well.

You see, you know, for me personally, I see it a lot in GTM categories. I thought. SalesLoft led, like a very strong revolution there. Matt Amundson: Out outreach being the, the sort of counterpart to that.

Like there were, there were people that were building a real movement. I have not really seen it all that much lately, especially on the GTM side, uh, because there's so many different paths that I think you can take at this point. But like I'm telling you, the second somebody is like, this is how you do AI and GTM. And they like get super convicted.

This is how you build it. This is what you do. This is the process. There is such a huge opportunity for someone to step in and grab that and run with it, that they will get everybody behind them.

The problem is that, you know, everything's a little too fragmented right now, but if you could come in and lead that revolution, like you could be every bit as big as some of these hyperscalers right now. Kacie Jenkins: Yeah, I think there's, um, there are a lot of pieces to building a movement. One of them is sort of your founder brand and your positioning. And you know, this, the story of the future that you're seeding.

A little bit early so everyone else can feel like they're part of seeing something before everyone else. Kacie Jenkins: You know, the, the, the layman sees it. Um, and it's this sort of like FOMO or like, I'm part of something special. I'm part of a special group.

Uh, and, and then there's an element of like. Defining the market. So I think that's missing right now. It's like it's so fragmented.

No one really knows like, do I need this tool and this tool? Kacie Jenkins: Do these replace each other? What do I need? You know, like, does this do the same thing as that?

No one's coming out and saying, here is what you need. This is the best in class stack for A-I-G-T-M. Right? Yeah.

Like if you come out and you define that and you say, this is all you need. Right here. And then you bring those people in to partner with you and you say, this is the, you know, the superhero team that you need to take yourself into the future. Kacie Jenkins: That's then, then you have the beginnings of a movement.

Matt Amundson: Yeah, agreed. Craig Rosenberg: That's awesome. Um, okay, so actually I, so I have two things written down and I'm not sure which one to go with first. I'm going to let Matt Craig Rosenberg: vote.

you decide. Craig Rosenberg: Okay. So number one is do we dive in? Do, do we dive into Kacie's, uh, like how you execute on the founder brand?

Or do we do a little more conversation? 'cause one thing she said to me the other day, which like I has never left my brain, is she and she, she threw it in by the way, in her early soliloquy, was bold brand, right? Craig Rosenberg: Bold positioning, bold brand, and that you cannot succeed in this crowded world without. A bold approach to those sort of traditional marketing things.

So what do you wanna do, Matt? Let's talk Let's talk bold Craig Rosenberg: brand Matt Amundson: I think. Craig Rosenberg: I knew you were gonna choose that. That was awesome.

Oh you knew that? Yeah. I mean, the part of the reason is, is like we haven't had a lot of like Craig Rosenberg: we haven't had a lot of Matt Amundson: marketers on, so Matt Amundson: Yeah. Matt Amundson: Let's, let's, let's dive right in.

How to Build Bold Brands for B2B SaaS - Craig Rosenberg: So Kacie. Bold. That is a big word. Tell us why, and then tell us like what, like how, how we should think about it.

I, I love that. I mean, honestly has not left my brain. Kacie Jenkins: Um, I'm, I love that that's not left your, left your brain. Uh, me.

Craig Rosenberg: Sorry, that was earlier. Yeah. Matt Amundson: Least she didn't food Craig Rosenberg: Dad joke. Dad joke.

All right. My bad. All right, go ahead Kacie. Kacie Jenkins: I, um, I've been having a lot of conversations.

I've probably had at least a hundred founder conversations in the last few months, so I've been seeing kind of all these different lenses of, um. You know, here's who we are. Uh, here's the beginnings of a brand, or here's the, you know, highly developed brand that, that we've built over the years. Kacie Jenkins: Um, I've been talking to big and small companies and, uh, I think.

I've worked across B2B and B2C. So I think I have a unique slightly, you know, weird point of view on what bold means. Um, I think in B2B Tech often, um, it's construed as like aggressive or like, you know, coming for your competitors or. Um, punching down or punching up.

Kacie Jenkins: Uh, and you see that a lot in, in some of the founders that have gone viral, uh, in the last year or so. Um, there have been some public battles and also staged, you know, fake, fake battles, almost like wrestling. Um, but, uh, I kind of think there's, uh, another element to it that we can learn from, from B2C, which is like, how do you become, uh. How do you become unforgettable in a way that, like, like you said, like you haven't stopped thinking about that.

How do you become the brand that people can't stop thinking about because they're so weird or so unique or so, um, you know, tied into some sort of human mission, uh, and. When I was at Fastly, we really leaned into the weirdness of engineers. Kacie Jenkins: Like, engineers are fascinating, nerdy, weird people with lots of like inside jokes. Um, they love Easter eggs.

Uh, and, and our founder was extremely bold as a human. He had bright red hair, big red beard, you know, like swirl all the time. Super, super, like. Uh, sure.

Of himself and confident and, and convicted. Kacie Jenkins: And so, you know, when we were designing the brand, it's bright red. Um, it's quirky and funny. Like we didn't take ourselves too seriously.

We were doing serious stuff, delivering, you know, the basically the entire internet. Um, but there are people, you know, that we were selling to who ran the internet and ran their company's network teams. Kacie Jenkins: And so if we had just gone for like. What our competitor was doing, which was very corporate, very bland, uh, very safe, very co compliancy.

Um, we would've lost. And so we had to be the incumbent that was coming in and going like, we're gonna build a better internet. We're gonna rally everyone together with us. Kacie Jenkins: We're, we are gonna choose who we work with, and we are not gonna support violence on our network or hate our competitors.

Took anyone. Um, that would pay them money. We took a stand. Um, so that was kind of the beginning of like, how do, what is our definition of bold?

Our definition of bold is we're gonna define what a better internet looks like and who the people are building it, which open source projects, which engineers, which companies. Kacie Jenkins: Um, and you know, we're gonna s stand against things that we think. Are bad for the future of the internet and the future of humanity. And then we're gonna throw in, um, you know, like things that make us seem more human.

Um, so we're gonna laugh at ourselves. I did a whole video about Fastly and the speed of the internet where we actually brought in pigeons and like filmed ourselves like. Like, you know, launching Messenger pigeons to show, you know, like the difference between us and a competitor. It was ridiculous.

The pigeons got stuck in our office, um, and they were just in there like pooping on people for a long time. Um, but I had a team that was like, let's do it. You know, like, let's take people downhill skiing. Kacie Jenkins: Let's take people racing.

At the BMW track with our CEO, who is like, you know, out of control. Speed, speed racer. Let's like do the pigeons, let's do, you know, ridiculous shit that liquid death would only do. You don's give away weird stuff.

Um. It worked, uh, because people were like, oh, this is memorable. I wanna be a part of this. Kacie Jenkins: Uh, you know, we like that you stand for something.

You, you walk the talk. Um, we built a whole open source program where we gave back millions and multimillions of dollars to open source and nonprofits powering the internet. Um. And so when people looked at us, they were like, we know who you are.

You know, it wasn't just like, oh, this is the back end of the internet. Kacie Jenkins: It was the, the, the humanity, behind the internet. Craig Rosenberg: Dude, Matt Amundson: Amazing. Craig Rosenberg: that is so good.

Oh man. Craig Rosenberg: I Craig Rosenberg: love, Matt Amundson: think the one thing. Craig Rosenberg: that was a great story. Matt Amundson: think the one thing that helps, uh, marketers create a, a, you know, sort of bold marketing and a bold brand is have, you know, bold values as an organization.

I think one of the things that's tricky is when, you know, if you enter a company and you're kind of like, Hey, I wanna do something crazy here, but it doesn't align with the values of the organization, that it always feels a little inauthentic and That's Kacie Jenkins: a really good. Matt Amundson: Yeah, so like when, you know, I, sorry to bring up Marketo again, but like Marketo had like this, you know, one of our company values was that, um, you know, we, we, and I, I always bring this up at every company, is that we had a, a, a, a violent pace of innovation.

So we just always wanted to be innovating. And part of that became, you know, the brand and it became part of why, uh, we did certain things. Matt Amundson: 'cause we wanted to do innovative things, not just in terms of the products that we created, but in terms of the content that we created, in terms of the events that we did, right? Like, and it's, it's, it's values like that, that sort of permeate through an organization.

And I think your example of Fastly is really pertinent because. Matt Amundson: In my experience, and I think most of, most of our listeners, and I'm sure that both of you would agree with me, is like the culture of a company is the culture that the of the CEO. Right. So it makes sense if you've got a bright red hair, a bright big beard, CEO, to have a red brand.

And if he's a adrenaline junkie, to be called fastly and to do things that push the limits, right? Matt Amundson: Like that, all that all makes sense. And I think certain in, in certain cases, especially in early stage businesses, CEOs are not always aware that like they. Are the catalyst for the brand.

And it's like you have to cultivate that from them. And then that has to be a part of the company culture. It has to be the company values, and then it extends out into the marketing, and you gotta do the work to cultivate that. Matt Amundson: If you're not willing to do the work, then a lot of marketing feels a little scattershot, feels a little inauthentic.

It's like, Ooh, let's try this. Let's try that. If you have like a base to draw off of. You know, the sort of the, the outline for what the company should be and what it should mean and why people should buy our product, and Matt Amundson: then you bring that into the culture of the company.

Matt Amundson: The marketing will reflect that with the right marketing leader on board. Kacie Jenkins: Yes. You cannot do this without the founder. Um, I, I think a lot of people try and it, it falls flat and it's inauthentic, and I think a lot of founders don't, don't take this as seriously as they should.

Uh, and I, and also, um, I think o oftentimes, you know, like when you're early stage, people overthink this, like, it's like sitting in a room with your founder and going, what do you stand for? Kacie Jenkins: What do you hate? You know, like, what do you think is wrong, um, that we're gonna fix in the future? Um, you know, like in a, in a a, a persona like identity archetype wheel, are you the rebel?

Are you the educator? Are you the, you know, like which one of these different types of voices are you? Um, and are we, you know, as a result, because we're gonna mirror that, um, it doesn't have to be like some long, you know, like. Kacie Jenkins: Drawn out templated process.

I think in the beginning it's a lot better if it's organic conversations where your team's coming together going like, what? Who are you? Who are we? What do we stand for?

Where's the, the line where you cross the gray area and we say, that's bad. That's good. We stand for this. Kacie Jenkins: We do not stand for that.

Craig Rosenberg: I love the, the, that, that, you know, how many CMO bodies are buried? From the belief that they could go in with a F founder or CEO, who was not going to be bought in with this, that, you know, I'm gonna go in there, I'm gonna change it. You guys have unlocked a, a reason for constant churn and frankly, a lot of pain in the CMO world because if you don't have what you guys just described, if you don't have someone willing to build. Craig Rosenberg: That sort of value set that will allow you to build the brand on top of, uh, you're not going to be, you're either not gonna be happy or you're not gonna make it.

Kacie Jenkins: It also trickles all the way through to Matt's point, like it's inauthentic if it's not represented in the way you prioritize and interact with your customers. Um, this stuff was written, I, I wrote this stuff into our S one. It said like, we win business because we're good people. We work, we only work with companies with integrity and who are honest and trustworthy and do not.

Kacie Jenkins: Promote violence and hate. That was written in, into our S one. Um, and it was from our customers words. They told us, we buy from you because you're good people.

We had competitors, you know, who would try and undercut and, you know, come in and, and say bad things about us and they would just send us the emails and laugh, you know, 'cause like we were friends. Kacie Jenkins: Um, and the, the. The same aggression and dedication and conviction with, with which, which we like promoted the future that we were building. And the movement, uh, was applied to customer success and customer happiness.

And we tracked our customers being promoted because all of them were promoted repeatedly and celebrated that, and that was part of our brand. Kacie Jenkins: Um, so it has to go all the way through or people will start to pick up that you don't really mean it. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, it's amazing. , there's something, um, that I wanted to bring up.

Uh, so, um, all of these things, you, there was something really early on in this conversation that you had said, uh, Kacie, that I think is really important because when we. Marker - Craig Rosenberg: One of the issues that I know because, you know, I'm on this inside where I see the, how the board interacts with the team is everyone knows that they're gonna care about brand, but there's result pi, you know, if you're taking from a marketing perspective, there's pipeline and there's the effectuation of deals.

Craig Rosenberg: And early, when Kacie was going through her, uh, uh, initial speech, she said, uh. LinkedIn founder brand to pipeline and like, uh, I just wanna make sure, because Kacie saw real results at Send Doso as well, and I, I do wanna make sure we cover that because I think this is. This is so important. Everything that we've talked to up to this point, but then we are gonna have like, a certain part of the audience is like, well, you know, show me the money.

Craig Rosenberg: And in the case of Kacie, like she literally, uh, had, uh, results in deal size right. And a Kacie Jenkins: Deal size, win rate, pipeline, deal acceleration. Um. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah.

I Kacie Jenkins: this is a really good point. I, I feel like brand's making a comeback, but, but there's still a lot of hesitation and kind of fear around being a, a brand to demand or brand focused, CMO, um, because so many of us have been burned, um, uh. Sendoso, I started getting really obsessed with how broken attribution is because I felt like it was holding me back and getting all of my friends fired. Kacie Jenkins: Um, and, you know, all of us ha have, have dealt with sort of this box that we helped build honestly, um, where, you know, we're either measuring first or last touch and, um, you know, trying to fit everything into a, a perfect spreadsheet.

And it's siloed, you know, by. Each tactic or each channel, and it's like dollar in $3 out, make this perfect, which does not align in any way with the way that humans buy things, um, or the way that we think about deal cycles. Kacie Jenkins: Um, and so I kind of came in like a wrecking ball into Sendoso because I could, we were, you know, struggling and we needed to rebuild and rethink. And so it was kind of my favorite type of environment.

And um, and we started looking at. Um, you know, mixed model and multi-touch and correlative and self-reported attribution and melding it all together. Kacie Jenkins: Um, and Ywe still looked at last touch, first touch just for sort of like, you know, um, tracking purposes. Um, but.

I basically came in and said, I will be the owner of all Qualified Pipeline Marketing will be judged on sales qualified pipeline so that we will shake hands on the quality being the most important thing and the conversion rate. Kacie Jenkins: Um. And we are gonna invest heavily in brand because we were struggling. The perception of of Sendoso was not, not what we wanted it to be.

And we were being undercut by competitors. We were not the, you know, the, we had lost our spot as the leader in the category. Um, and so all the signs that you see, you know, like deal sizes going down, sales starting to struggle, customers churning, um. And, and so we, we really heavily started by investing in like, okay, how are we gonna track this?

First, we're gonna track this from an uh, uh. An ecosystem marketing standpoint. So looking at like all of the touch points in, in a deal from an account progression standpoint, like who are the people we're trying, the accounts we're trying to reach, um, and you know, what signals are we using to determine that? Kacie Jenkins: And then how are you gonna track that these deals are accelerating, that we're multithreading through them, that they're engaging with more channels, um, and then that they're, you know, faster, bigger, um.

And, and you know, sales, sales is being more successful and deal sizes are are going up, you know, like over time. Kacie Jenkins: And, um, so I kind of built that foundation before we really heavily started going into brand work. And then we, we built a bench of executives who aligned with the personas we were trying to reach and we held ourselves accountable for consistently, um, you know, going out and representing different. Kacie Jenkins: Angles of our narrative, which was very heavily based in human connect.

This is the era of human connection. Um, we're moving out of the, you know, like Grok growth hacking, you know, like focus on the end of the marketing funnel. This is all this, this era is all about human relationships and connection. Um, and we pushed it really hard and we, because we were direct mail, we could do really cool, weird stuff.

Kacie Jenkins: Um, you know, like launch a whole campaign around the, the TV show severance where you're like severed from your work self. And um, you know, like I targeted all of the marketers that were part of that group that aligned with my ICP on, on LinkedIn. 'cause there was a fake Craig Rosenberg: so cool. Kacie Jenkins: actually advertise to it.

Kacie Jenkins: Um. So I like, we did some weird stuff that people would be like, eh, what's happening? But I, I actually was tracking like over time. Um, who is seeing those ads at our target accounts?

Um, you know, as we started to stack paid on top of organic, is our paid performing more sex successfully? It actually ended up being 10 x more successful. Kacie Jenkins: When we invested in Brand first, our outbound efforts went through the roof. Our team was at 113% of quota like.

Consistently. Um, and that was from like a, the ashes of an outbound team that had been completely decimated and the company had decided outbound doesn't work 'cause they were doing it cold. Um, and, you know, we had, uh, you know, 11% higher win rates, 120% bigger deal sizes, 40% more successful AEs. Kacie Jenkins: Um, like, and I was tracking in Salesforce.

Pipeline directly coming from our executives dms. So I was like throwing off six figures of pipeline meetings booked straight through my dms, just from me posting every month. Um, and our, our, uh, you know, the rest of our executive team. And then we had a bench that included an ae, um, our, our head of BD who was exceptional and actually taught all of us how to do this really well.

Kacie Jenkins: Katie Penner, um, and Chris, our CEO and, um. And yeah, so I mean, we had, I, I was going into our LT meetings and our board meetings going like, look, here's where we started. Here's the force multipliers that are lifting the impact of everything we're doing, and here's the pipeline directly coming from our executives and their organic work. Kacie Jenkins: Here's the ads that we're, you know, like we're slapping paid on top and we're using those as thought leadership ads as document ads.

Um, they're act, our ads actually drove. Qualified pipeline instead of just like, you know, the, the glamor metrics that we were looking at previously when I started. Um, and, and then we, you know, like I would show the full picture of it was like, show and tell enterprise deal. Kacie Jenkins: Here's the last three deals.

Here's what happened, here's what transpired. You can actually see the multi-threading happen. You can see the, the multi-channel engagement. You can see where there's a spike and there's a ton of ad engagement and organic engagement, and then there's like a sales.

Uh, in interaction. Kacie Jenkins: Um, and you know, we obviously threaded direct mail and gifting through all of that in a really thoughtful, um, personalized way, and a lot of that was augmented by ai. Um, and, and so, you know, like if you look, if you, if you end up looking at it full picture, it's a lot easier than if you're just looking at the last touch. Kacie Jenkins: That's like.

All of this came through direct, you know, direct opportunities, which is utterly meaningless. Um, it doesn't show you any of the things that happened before they actually came direct to the website. Craig Rosenberg: that was amazing. How about that, Matt?

Matt Amundson: I mean, Craig Rosenberg: A brand person coming in hot. Oh, what do you, are you poo-pooing it? Matt Amundson: am I on, let's re it? Craig Rosenberg: Kacie, let's watch you went.

Mm, Matt Amundson: Oh, this, this is what Kacie's known for, right? Like this is like, I think, you know, a story like that solidifies the way she talks and the way she builds GTM, and it's, in a lot of cases, people think about brand and they think about how it's like, you know, it's art school and it's, you know, it's this and that. Matt Amundson: But like, when you can tie it into real results like that, it's just. That's how it goes from being something that you sort of pontificate, uh, uh, about like in CMO circles and you take it straight to a board and it makes sense to everybody.

So what a great way Craig Rosenberg: What. Matt Amundson: off the pod Craig Rosenberg: Bam. That's the transaction, man. Let's go.

I'm going to, I'm going to Vegas. Yeah. Craig Rosenberg: And then I'll be going to bed. I'm gonna go to bed tonight at 10:00 PM Um, the M resort, I Craig Rosenberg: don't know what that is.

Matt Amundson: it's nice. Craig Rosenberg: We have to because the, we're not playing on, I mean, yeah. So, uh, we used to stay at somewhere in Henderson and they closed the pool. So we have all these kids, so we needed one that kept the pool open.

So yes. Matt Amundson: in Vegas this time of year. Craig Rosenberg: Oh, I don't want it to be chilly. Matt Amundson: It could be chilly.

Craig Rosenberg: Oh, that's not good. I want to go to one of those restaurants in like the outside the strip, like a famous one that's been around since. Ace Rosenthal was there type of thing. I, I don't know, like red velvet type stuff.

But anyway, um, Kacie, you're the best. Thank you. Great show. Craig Rosenberg: You're coming back.

It was was awesome. Matt Amundson: That was so good. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Transaction, Craig, and I really appreciate the fact that you've listened all the way to the end. What are you actually doing here?

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