Positioning Needs to Underpin Every Part of Your Brand Strategy with Stacey Epstein, CEO of Structured - Ep 74

TT - 074 - Stacey Epstein - Full Episode 1.2 === Stacey Epstein: Brand is the feeling that the audience gets when they learn about the product or the company. Stacey Epstein: without a great story that is anchored in a solid positioning framework, it's just so hard to do that well Stacey Epstein: The sooner companies document that positioning and that narrative, the more powerful their message is going to be in the market. Stacey Epstein: So many companies still just do what I call random acts of marketing.

Stacey Epstein: AI lets you completely reimagine new processes. Stacey Epstein: Not every CEO is gonna be a great storyteller. Not every CEO is gonna be your spokesperson. Stacey Epstein: I learned more from the two hours of interviewing their customers on camera than I learned from any demo or talking to anybody on the team.

Craig Rosenberg: so when I was having my twins, um, I, you know, they came early and I, I had to let a guy go that day, at that time. I'm walking down the hallway to the conference room to go talk to him. Wendy calls and she's like, you have to get to Stanford. Now I'm having the twins and I'm just going, Wendy, I have to go Craig Rosenberg: let this poor guy go.

She's like, I don't give a sh you know, get down here right now. So I walk in, the guy had only worked there a week and I had to go in there and I tell him, and he just flips out, right? He throwing everything everywhere. Like he's pissed.

He's like, no way. No way. Nope. No way.

And I just go, dude, I know this sucks. Craig Rosenberg: You're, I just have to tell you. I'll talk to you about it another time. But I gotta go.

'cause my wife's having kids and he, I mean, it was so bad, so brutal. And he kept going, no, stay in here. You have to stay in here. And I said, I gotta go.

So I literally had to, while he's wigging out, just leave the HR guy. Craig Rosenberg: And there was like some, uh, I mean, I, he was a young, like he was a finance guy, masquerading as an HR guy. I had to leave him in the room and just go. And then he calls me, he's like, yeah, the guy wants, you know, whatever severance.

And I'm like, just fricking give it to him. I can't. He's like, wait, he's asking for like four x what we're doing? Craig Rosenberg: I'm like, I don't give a shit.

Just give it to him. So anyway, there you go. That's a let per people go story and a birth. So it was, uh, bad and good at the same time.

Craig Rosenberg: How's that? and end. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. In many ways great stories have that.

​ Introducing Stacey Epstein, CEO of Structured - Craig Rosenberg: Stacy, welcome aboard. I just wanna say that you are are pretty famous. Matt Amundson: Yeah. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah.

Stacey Epstein: I Craig Rosenberg: you know that? Craig Rosenberg: I knew you wouldn't know that. Stacey Epstein: Stacey Epstein and yes, I know my last name is extremely problematic these days, but it must be someone else. Craig Rosenberg: I did not get them confused, but that's a good, you probably get, you probably have a lot of, you get to do a lot of those jokes these days.

No. Stacey Epstein: Well it's funny 'cause um, I started my career at Oracle and I don't know if you remember but. The CEO or one of the top guys at Oracle at Sybase was named Bob Epstein, and my dad's name is Bob Epstein, and I was this like young whipper snapper at Oracle. And people would say, are you related to Bob Epstein?

Stacey Epstein: And I'm like, yeah, he's my dad. And they're like, why are you working at Oracle then? And now, of course, my dad's brother is named Jeff, Jeff Epstein. And so wait, are you related to Jeff Epstein?

That's not the same, Jeff Epstein. But yes, my uncle. Is named Jeff Epstein, so I am related, but not to that. Stacey Epstein: Jeff Epstein.

Craig Rosenberg: dare? I say, that was a twist. Stacey Epstein: A Twist, Craig Rosenberg: Oh Matt Amundson: it had rising action. It had Matt Amundson: a a, it had a cliffhanger, Craig Rosenberg: Yeah.

maybe I'll be famous someday if I keep doing that. Craig Rosenberg: oh my God. Well, you are Matt Amundson: Shalon film. Sam Guertin: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: on. Let's go through the, the, the big hits, success, success factors, Stacey Epstein: Yep. Craig Rosenberg: ServiceMax, uh, CEO of your own company, then. Bought back to Service Max, Another twist.

an a, an acquisition Boomerang, CMO of FreshWorks. Another, uh, big hit, CMO Aveva, another big hit like, uh, what are we doing here and now? Craig Rosenberg: Your recruiter. Matt Amundson: your recruiter and can I have their direct line?

Craig Rosenberg: exactly. Jesus Christ. Stacey Epstein: I think, uh, I think when you're as old as I am, you have time to do lots of different interesting things, so there you go. Craig Rosenberg: Oh my God.

Well, speaking of interesting things also, uh, you've got a, um, an AI podcast, right? That you um, uh, I believe I remember the name. Ai. I've got questions, which is, Craig Rosenberg: that is such a marketer name now Sam Guertin: That's wonderful.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. It's such a good name. Damnit. Um, so so that transaction, Matt Amundson: Jesus.

Craig Rosenberg: talking about ours is hardcore. Craig Rosenberg: It's a Matt Amundson: no. Ours is good, but it's not, Sam Guertin: it's an SEO Yeah. AI have questions.

I know it is. Yeah. Ai I have questions. Is, is really good.

Um, so anyway, Stacey, that is why we welcome Stacey Epstein to the show. And yes indeed you are famous. 'cause that's like. You played for the La Yankees, Lakers, uh, Alabama during the heyday.

Craig Rosenberg: The next, I mean like the, those are, those are incredible companies that you've, uh, that you've done amazing work for. And now you're, uh, diving deep into a IC you're the perfect guest for the show, so welcome aboard. Stacey Epstein: It's great to be here. Thank you so much.

I prefer warriors to Lakers, but whatever. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, that's Matt Amundson: well, not everybody can be perfect, but. Stacey Epstein: That's true. Yeah.

Matt. Matt is, um, a Laker a Laker fan so you guys can discuss. Stacey Epstein: Well, my husband is a huge Yankees fan, so when he hears this, he's gonna be very happy that you actually put me on that team. Craig Rosenberg: oh.

Craig Rosenberg: Well see, I did something good. I mean, okay. All right. So Stacey, I don't know, um, uh, if you're ready for us, but like, we are kind of crazy and fun as telling stories about some guy who definitely didn't listen to the, doesn't listen to the podcast, the guy let go while my wife was having twins.

But, um, the, uh, we basically, you know, the show is. Craig Rosenberg: Uh, broken into two, but they often meld together. One, we just like to hear stories from folks and on the Go-To-Market side, their favorite stories. Uh, you know, one, one usually leads into the, the rest, and then two, like this will be really interesting, like you're an.

You're a famous OG digging into ai. Craig Rosenberg: We'd love to find out like what are the one to three things you're seeing working today in the market? It's a, it's a different world out there. So those are the two questions, but Accidentally Sending an Embarassing Email to Every Co-Worker in an Entire Region - Craig Rosenberg: we like to start with a story.

Could be fun, could be horrifying, could be, um, you know, Matt Amundson: is a new, A heroic. Craig Rosenberg: Well, have a, I have a story that's borderline horrifying. Craig Rosenberg: we love that. See, Matt, what Matt Amundson: the, is this gonna air on Matt Amundson: Halloween?

Here we go. it Sam Guertin: we will make it. Stacey Epstein: to me. I have gotten over it, but I mentioned I started my career at Oracle in Craig Rosenberg: Oh, there's Craig Rosenberg: lots of horrifying stories there.

Stacey Epstein: the whole DMD, like inside sales. I was on the channel side. Um, and I, my very best friend was this woman slash girl. I mean, we were like 23 named Diane Christophe.

And she was my very, very closest friend. She then got married and changed her name, but whatever. Um, and you know how it was back in those days, like you, your, your colleagues were your best friends and your boyfriends and who you spent the weekend with and whatever. Stacey Epstein: So there was a lot of extracurricular things that went on, and this was like in the beginning of F email and that's how I'm dating myself.

But it wasn't like you had a Gmail and then you also had your Oracle email. Right? You everyone just had their Oracle email and we used that to, to, you know, do work. Stacey Epstein: And we used that to figure out what we were gonna do on the weekend.

And you would create these little aliases for all of your friends. And I did it all based on initials and so my alias for Diane Christophe was DC so I sent an email to DC and the title was something like Jason. Because at the time there was make, I don't know, something going Matt Amundson: There's always Matt Amundson: a Jason. There's Stacey Epstein: there was a, an extensive email to Diane about Jason Stacey Epstein: and my thoughts on Jason and what was going on with Jason and questions, and you know, this was.

What we did when we were 23. Well, what I didn't realize in my youth was that there were already aliases created for every office, And I had sent my email to the entire Washington dc, Oracle, every single person in the DC area got my email about Jason in depth. Craig Rosenberg: What? Stacey Epstein: Horrifying, but was even more horrifying, was that if you wanna talk about being famous.

Uh, that is what made me famous because everybody wanted to know what ha what was gonna happen next. I got emails from like VPs that, I mean, I worked in California. I did not work in dc I did not know any of these people, but I got. Stacey Epstein: Hundreds of emails of people like, I need to know, did you talk to him?

What happened next? And I would continue to get emails. I eventually moved up into a global role and for years people would remember that extensive email that I had sent. So, yes, horrifying.

Even as I retell it, I get a little bit of a pit in my stomach of when I realized what I had done. Stacey Epstein: I wanted to quit. Craig Rosenberg: Oh my God, that was a great story. Your guys thoughts?

Matt Amundson: My thoughts are as you moved into the global role, when you sent it to dc did it go to the Democratic Republic of Congo? Stacey Epstein: Oh, good Sam Guertin: That's the DRC? Matt Amundson: DRC? My Matt Amundson: bad.

Yeah. Stacey Epstein: No, it did not. It was, uh, I, I did change my aliases going forward, my full strategy for alias, and I, I, I can't say I've ever sent an email to the wrong person again because I am. So, I like read it 10 times before I send it.

I'm still friends with Jason, by the way, and Diane. It's all a good, good Stacey Epstein: laugh. Craig Rosenberg: well, it all worked out. I have 2, 2, 2 things I'll take from that story.

You guys ready? That the, the very straight, like, straight man comments. One is, um, no, that, that was not the phrase I meant to use there. I just meant like I'm being very, just normal comments.

So one is, you know, like on the. For SDRs, like, um, in inside sales, that is why you want them to go to the office together. Craig Rosenberg: It everyone thinks of it as like this, the mandate you have no dude, that's where you figure out what you're doing. On Friday night, they become your best friends.

35% will get married and like. It's not fun doing s ding or inside sales in your apartment Craig Rosenberg: like a, you know, your 600 square foot apartment in whatever city you're in. Craig Rosenberg: You want to go and be with a crew. And by the way, Oracle was in Redwood Shores.

I worked at Pure Atrio. We were driving to Sunnyvale, but we would go gladly 'cause we couldn't wait to hang out with everyone. And it was like. That that piece is the missing piece that we don't talk about.

Instead, it's like, oh God, these kids, they don't want to come in the office. Craig Rosenberg: Jesus, well, we're gonna mandate it, you know? Or we're gonna do some trick or gimmick. It's like, no, dude.

Like have 'em come in because it's fun. Matt Amundson: Yeah, I mean, I think we're at a tipping point there. I actually not Craig Rosenberg: oh, tipping point. Look at this guy.

Alright, sorry. Go ahead. Yeah, Matt Amundson: Not at my current company, but at a previous employer. I actually had BDRs leave the company to go work at companies that had offices.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. Matt Amundson: They were, they were successful and they liked the work, but they were just like, dude, I can't sit in my apartment, Matt Amundson: you know, 10 hours a day just dialing for dollars. Matt Amundson: Like, I wanna be around other people. I wanna go to happy hours.

You know, I, I wanna make friends. So it just makes sense. Stacey Epstein: Also, I think the modeling after like the top person in your group and you're near them and you see them and you see what, and it was cool to be the top person in the group. So you aspire, you know, and you had the role models of the, of the higher ups in the organization that maybe you would see, maybe you would get to be in a meeting with them.

Stacey Epstein: There's, there's that aspirational aspect that I think you completely lose if you're just on the phone doing your calls all day. So I, I totally agree. I think being, working from home, I mean, I love working from home now, but I, I wouldn't trade those years I had in the office being on a big team where we're like working hard together, playing hard together, and, and getting better. Stacey Epstein: I mean, there's some talk about famous, I mean, people on my team were, Brian Milam from Salesforce was on that team.

Carl Schachter, who's done a bunch of great stuff. Um, I mean, we had some really stellar people that we were all just learning and growing together. Um, and like, and like I said, really cool to be successful. Stacey Epstein: So you were, it was almost like a competition, so I, I totally agree.

Craig Rosenberg: So I'm gonna piggyback that because also part of the story that goes with going to the office is you could probably do a podcast or a blog on just. Stories from Oracle DMD. Stacey Epstein: Oh yeah. Craig Rosenberg: Horrifying, horrifying hair raising.

Craig Rosenberg: Uh, often like scandalous, well, primarily scandalous. Like that is a but, but those things go together. Like that company was rocking and rolling. 'cause these, these young folks are going in Oracle, DMD and.

You know, animal house going crazy in there and just fricking selling shit and having fun together and meeting their friends and like, remember what was the Neil Diamond cover band? Craig Rosenberg: You'd go, uh, super Diamond, you go to a super diamond con, uh, concert, and 75% of the people there were Oracle DMD. Every time I'd just be like, you know what, this is just ridiculous. Right?

Because everyone was trading like that. Yeah. So those two things go together. But, um, anyway, great job on the story.

That was great. Craig Rosenberg: I I was you. Why I didn't m warn her. So I was a little worried.

Um, and so that, that you delivered. Interestingly, Stacy, one of our issues is some people dunno how to tell stories. Matt Amundson: don't, Yeah. And so that story thing is, is like, really we hold our breath.

And that was good. Okay. So the big one. So, um, with your incredible experience plus your just deep dive into things and working now as an advisor, like what are the, uh, we wanna figure out what's working.

Craig Rosenberg: So like Why Your Positioning is The Foundation of Your Brand - Craig Rosenberg: what are the one to three things that you're seeing out there that are working in today's environment? Um, and, uh, we'll just go from there. We'll ask questions and dive Stacey Epstein: well, let's transition because that's what we do from a story. Um.

Stacey Epstein: I still think that there are so many companies that can't tell their story and, and, um, you know, and I, I do wanna talk about AI and I love AI and I'm, you know, doing my best to learn where we're headed with ai. But I still see company after company that does not have a strong positioning framework of. Stacey Epstein: Uh, Stacey Epstein: sure what they do. Everybody talks about what they do.

Everybody talks about their features. People are pretty good at that. Companies are pretty good at that. But the why does it matter?

Who is my buyer? Where is my buyer hanging out? What do they care about? Uh, why does it matter to them?

What makes it different? Stacey Epstein: And that's a big one. What makes it different? Uh, so many companies still just do what I call random acts of marketing.

They're like, this is what our product does now. Go market IT team. Go sell it team, and just say whatever you think, uh, is, are the value props. And so every campaign is different from what the website says, and there's blogs and content left and right, but none of them are anchored on this core positioning framework.

Stacey Epstein: That is their story. I, we talked so much about brand, like brand is having. Uh, a rebirth, which I love. Um, but to me, brand is.

Uh, sure. It's a tagline. It's colors, it's it's visual, but the brand is the feeling that the audience gets when they learn about the product or the company. And without a great story that is anchored in a solid positioning framework, it's just so hard to do that well and so hard to do that consistently.

Stacey Epstein: And, um, that's where I'm focusing my work right now. I mean, I'm doing. I'm doing some fractional, some advising, but what I really love to do is like, let's get to the heart of your positioning. What makes you different?

Why are you important and what is your story? Um, 'cause I think there's just companies aren't doing that well of that these days. Craig Rosenberg: Well, I think thematically, by the way, there is two types of guests on the show, those that sort of bite on the new shiny object thing. And that's really interesting for us.

But the other is that like, uh, this sort of uh, the need to go back to just fundamental Go-To-Market stuff and, um, and so that is a good one. Craig Rosenberg: I feel like it's never been good though. Is that a. Weird statement, like there's always been a market for helping people with positioning.

'cause they just kind of, we're in tech, we're in tech, and they just build the product and then they go and then it's like, yeah, I'm, Matt Amundson: think 'cause there's been so many successful companies that didn't do that piece. Right. Right. And I think like the one thing that's always true about the Valley is there are these.

Edge case companies who defy basically every rule that exists. Just because they're at the right, they're the right product at the right time, and they just achieve PMF so quickly. Matt Amundson: They don't really do those things. But I think the other thing that people forget is, you know, these companies might go zero to, you know, 500 million fast IPO.

Then they have to still do all that work, right? Because now they have to sustain that, and that's when it matters. So whether the work gets done in the early part of your journey. Matt Amundson: Which I think for most successful companies it does or happens later for the few Edge case companies where they're just so wildly successful.

That work always has to get done. Matt Amundson: It always has to I think the edge case companies that are wildly successful, the story is so evident. That it doesn't need to be crafted, you know, it's just like, let's take Slack. I, I don't think anybody ever, I don't think Stewart sat down and said, let's put our positioning framework.

It just, it took off. People were using it. Stacey Epstein: The use case was so evident I didn't have to, you didn't have to really craft a story. Now, over time, they had to craft a story.

They had Yep. They needed to, you know, have an acquisition or go public. They there, there's a reason for that, but. As you mentioned, I was at SuccessFactors, which I took public.

Stacey Epstein: I, I was at FreshWorks, which I took public. The first thing you do when you go public in the preparation is you write an S one. An S one is the story of the company. It's a book about the company, and it's exactly that.

It's the why do we exist. What does our product do? Why are we great? What is the competitive landscape?

Stacey Epstein: What are we gonna do in the future? That is the story of the company. By the time you get to IPO, you should have that, and I just urge all companies do it now. I mean, when we took SuccessFactors Public, I, I was the first marketer at SuccessFactors, so.

The, the positioning had kind of always been there, and it was like we sat down with the bankers and we said, yeah, this is our positioning. Stacey Epstein: This is what we've been using. FreshWorks was a little different. FreshWorks was more like an edge case where it was PLG growth super fast.

Um, it just, it was easy to use. It was relatively inexpensive compared to other tools, and the growth was just organic. But when it came time to go public and write the S one, the story had never really been crafted. Stacey Epstein: And we had to spend a lot of time on like, wow, what a crowded market.

And we're in multiple markets. And I just think the sooner companies document that positioning and that narrative, the more powerful their message is going to be in the market. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. Matt Amundson: I've got a, I've got a quick follow up question because oftentimes.

Marketers who, you know, maybe they join at the Series B or they, you know, they're, they're not a founder of the company and they're like, Hey, I wanna put this together, uh, because this is an important part of our marketing, right? Like, we want this on the website, we want this, you know, to, uh, maybe kick off our sales deck or be interwoven into our sales deck. Matt Amundson: We want to be a part. Craig Rosenberg: sorry.

I Matt Amundson: Yeah, Go ahead. Craig Rosenberg: As you were, as you were, as Matt Amundson: They want to be maybe a part of, you know, uh, email campaigns, et cetera. Oftentimes it's really challenging to work with a CEO, especially CEOs that can be like technical founders that, you know, they're just like, Hey, I wanna write code all day and I wanna build the thing and I want a project management. Matt Amundson: We get the next set of, of products and features out the door.

How have you found success, especially like, we'll stay on FreshWorks because that was, that was an edge case. How did you find success working with the founder in order to bring that to life? Stacey Epstein: Yeah, I think, You know, I. came into FreshWorks pretty late in the game.

I came in literally six months before the IPO. In fact, my second day on the job, we were in the S one meeting, um, which I didn't, I knew That it was coming. I didn't really know it was gonna be my second day on the job. Um, and I was like, okay, where is all this stuff?

and It didn't exist. Now, they also hadn't had a CMO in a year and a half. Um, and. He wanted to hit the IPO date and so, and he had bankers saying, we gotta write this story.

So he, and I think, gee, who garish, who is the, was the CEO at the time was so, he was just fully on board, let's go. And, um, yeah, highly motivated. I mean, it was a little hard for me being new because I was like, I gotta herd a bunch of cats and we can't slow down and I'm gonna have to like, you know. Bust some balls to do this, which is not really how I wanted.

My first few months on the job to be, um, but everyone was kind of pretty much on board that we we had to do it. Stacey Epstein: Um, I have worked with plenty of CEOs and you're right, it's typically the ones that are more of a technical background that are just like, I don't wanna waste my time doing some positioning framework. Can we please just do some great marketing? and you know, sometimes I have to like quiet myself from, um.

Stacey Epstein: From disagreeing vehemently, but I, where I usually can have success is, is like just, chunking off the, the tip of the iceberg for them and doing the bulk of the work myself or with the marketing team because we need a lot more of a framework to execute campaigns and to be consistent, like what the marketing team needs is fairly extensive to use as their anchor. what the CEO needs to see And agree on is. Really just the tip of the iceberg. And a, a great way to go about it is, okay, what do you want the homepage of your website to say?

Because if you don't want to talk about benefits or value props or differentiators, but let me show you the website today. It's really not that compelling. Stacey Epstein: And I don't think your buyer is gonna take action. And let's remember the website is for the uninitiated.

People that know you aren't gonna go to your website. It's the people that don't know you and you wanna immediately grab them with why you're different and why they should pick you and why they should have a call. Stacey Epstein: And so there are some tricks of the trade to, to get the CEO to at least agree to the top level stuff. And then do what needs to be done with the marketing team.

They don't need to be involved in that. Excuse I love that. You know, because like I, my experience like with. Fundamental things that need to get done don't get done.

And it's because you can't, you have to find that thing that they actually care about. So like ICP work so necessary, I'm working like really early stage, right? These guys are off to the races and probably in the wrong way. Craig Rosenberg: But if you go to 'em and say, well, you need an ICP, they'll say yes.

But when you want to go through the process of putting it together, they don't. They don't jump on board. What in Yeah, what instead you want to do, and we learned this at Topo, like at Topo, we, we, we had, that was like the core product. If you asked like 40% of the customers, they'd be like, God, they just helped with the ICP.

Craig Rosenberg: We never pitched it because we would go in and they'd say, our SDRs are not doing well. We'd be like, great. Well look at it and we just go, well, first of all, you don't have an ICP, and so we gotta go. So we took that thing that they cared about, which was conversion of SDRs, and then we're able to weave in those fundamental things that they need to go do.

Craig Rosenberg: Had we pitched just the fundamental things that we go do. Not everyone would a bid, but when we focused on like one thing, it's like the website. I love what you just said that they can relate to. It's like, you know, your website's not converting.

Okay, great. So to do that, we gotta go through this positioning exercise. Craig Rosenberg: So you, the chipping off the pieces of the iceberg, particularly the ones that they care about, is brilliant. I get it.

Well, you gotta live you, you're living it, so you gotta Craig Rosenberg: go figure this things out. But Stacey Epstein: no, I live it and I, I think that the other tip in there is do as much of the work. As you possibly can without needing the approval and involvement of the CEO, um, because. Having been a CEO, you're doing a million things and I, I do think marketers sometimes tend to get a little bit miffed if they're not getting the constant interaction and the approvals and the feedback.

Stacey Epstein: And my response to that is it's nothing personal. They're, they're doing, and especially if they are technically oriented, they're doing what they're great at, which is driving product vision and executing on the product side. The last thing I want is to drag them into. To marketing, like that's my expertise.

Stacey Epstein: So just, I'll just do it all and I'm gonna share it. And if you wanna see it and you have thoughts, great. Otherwise I'm just gonna keep executing and you know, I do think there are key, you know, again, like I need you CEO to agree with me that these are the top three. You know, benefit statements.

These are the top three differentiators. Stacey Epstein: And then I'm just gonna go do a whole bunch of shit without you even needing to know. And the next thing you, you know, you've got a great marketing program and you barely lifted a finger. That's a CEO loves that.

Um, so that's, I think the other key tip is just go, just do work. Just do great stuff. Try to get it aligned. Stacey Epstein: You know, if you have that skeletal alignment and then you build great stuff from that, you can do a lot of awesome stuff.

Matt Amundson: Yep. Okay. I got another scenario on this one. The, yeah, sorry to keep harp, but this, you nailed it, right?

Craig Rosenberg: So we gotta talk about it. The other thing is, so let's say. The often the CEO and founder, let's go back to the, the technical founder. They love the product.

So how do we unwind them to a messaging platform? Because when you ask them what's great about what you do, it's often really tactical and, um, like when, when I was a analyst, right? Craig Rosenberg: I was an analyst for a while. Um.

And, uh, you know, we'd say we would, you know, lead with like, you know, tell us your story and like we would ask the questions you are bringing up Stacy. And they would immediately, oftentimes go, well, let me show you the product. Stacey Epstein: Yeah. Craig Rosenberg: Or it'd be something really tactical like Stacey Epstein: yeah, it's hard.

I, I like to go to use cases. Um, I, I just, I took on a new client about a month ago, um, that I'm helping launch out of stealth. It's gonna be super interesting and I'll tell you about it when it comes out next month. But, um, Craig Rosenberg: Oh, Matt Amundson: Oh, maybe Matt Amundson: offline.

Stacey Epstein: I could probably tell you about it. Um, Matt Amundson: Well, you can talk. Tell us Craig Rosenberg: well, you don't have to. Stacy, come on.

Let's not but Stacey Epstein: it's it's a really cool AI company that isn't just automating a process. They're doing, they're like changing the way work is done. Um, and it's actually not very hard to understand, but, um. But the CEO is very technical and, and was talking about the product and I kept saying, give me an example, what would be a use case?

Stacey Epstein: I love coming back to use cases, 'cause use cases come back to the benefit for the the company. So instead of telling me what the product does, tell me how that would be used. Give me an example of how A CEO would use that. Give me an example of how an end user would use that.

And then I can start to get the story. Stacey Epstein: And the other thing here is that. You sometimes you just have to know that not every CEO is gonna be a great storyteller. Not every CEO is gonna be your spokesperson.

It's harder 'cause press only wants to talk to CEOs and you know, when you get to to near liquidity events, bankers only want to talk to CEOs. Stacey Epstein: But you, you know, if you're creating a, a really cool video for your hero, um, on your website, it doesn't have to be narrated by the CEO. You don't, you can. Find other ways to tell the story, but I think to pull the story out of them, again, I go back to use cases.

The other thing is talk to customers. You got you, you absolutely have to talk to customers. Stacey Epstein: This same company that I'm talking about that I'm helping launch out of stealth, um, we filmed some customer testimonials. They have great early customers and.

I learned more from the two hours of interviewing their customers on camera than I learned from any demo or talking to anybody on the team. And I literally just went through the transcript and pulled out 10 quotes and said, this is our video. Stacey Epstein: Like this is just the customers talking about why it's great and there's an art asking the questions. Um, you know, you have to ask questions like define what it means.

To you, like make them define the product, especially when it's sort of an esoteric AI thing that's new, but having customers talking about it is such an awesome way of pulling out all the value, the benefits, what better, what a better way than hearing it from them. Matt Amundson: Mm-hmm. Craig Rosenberg: I like it. Matt Amundson: Love it.

Craig Rosenberg: Yep. Let's, let's chalk that one up for a good one. All right. What else you got?

Any other things you're seeing out there that's, that we should be thinking about that are working? Um, What Stacey's Learned about AI From Hosting her Podcast - Stacey Epstein: Um, I mean, we can evolve to AI a little bit. So we talked about my podcast, ai. I've got questions.

I, I know you love the name. I mean the Stacey Epstein: name, it up just to make Sam's heart Yeah. Yeah. Just to get let's Stacey Epstein: talk about naming.

Um, no, I, I went very literal. Uh, the reason I started the podcast is 'cause I ha, I felt like I'm not in a full-time CMO job right now, and I'm like missing the boat. Stacey Epstein: And I, and I wanna know what's going on out there. And, and honestly, that's why I started.

It was sort of self. Uh, self-interested motivations for starting it. And the season one, which I'm just about to wrap up, was all me interviewing founders of AI for marketing companies. Um, in fact, I interviewed a couple of scale portfolio companies, which was very fun.

Stacey Epstein: Um, thank you Craig, for some of those introductions, but, um. Craig Rosenberg: um, Stacey Epstein: The, as I was asking for feedback on like, what do CMOs wanna hear about, what do marketers wanna hear about? What I kept hearing was, we still need help getting started. It's amazing how many companies I talk to that are like, I'm not at the point where I'm picking three different vendors to do cool AI stuff.

Stacey Epstein: I, I haven't even gotten my team really going, which might be shocking to us, but there are still, especially outside of tech. So many companies that are doing just like barely have ChatGPT going. So season two of my podcast is I'm only interviewing CMOs, uh, and I'm having CMOs tell me what are they doing? Stacey Epstein: And there have been some really interesting things.

I haven't launched season two yet, so, so just a couple of spoilers. Like I interviewed A CMO who took away all role definition on our team. Her marketers do everything, and it's a small team. Um, I think she's got like 10 or 12 people, but she doesn't have product marketing, demand, gen brand, everybody does everything because they can, with ai, you can use AI to do positioning.

Stacey Epstein: You don't necessarily need product marketing. You can use AI to segment and create a campaign and distribute, you know, figure out how to run the campaign. So she's like, I don't know if it's gonna work. I'm giving it a try, but it's.

Interesting to see some of these new ways of, not just like what AI tool am I using, but how is it changing the way I'm running my team? Stacey Epstein: Because I can do things so much more effectively with ai. So that's just one example, but again, I'm, I'm trying to learn too. It's, it's changing so fast.

Um, it's, it's really pretty amazing how AI is changing the, the marketing world, maybe more than any other function. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. So, um, by the way, that was amazing. The, uh, all free safetys marketing team.

Matt Amundson: Yeah, Craig Rosenberg: that. Um, that, that, that's definitely new by the way. I this, um, uh. I, I met this woman, Lisa Cole.

Do you guys know her? She's like based in like Detroit. Um, and she runs like a ai, Matt Amundson: a lot of time in Detroit. Not well, she's, anyway, Craig Rosenberg: she's a CMO of two acts, was like a, I think a ai, well, like a, some kind of services firm.

Craig Rosenberg: But I met her because like I was doing a presentation on Go-To-Market AI data and she, her comments were. Amazing. And um, so one thing Stacey, uh, I'm go, I will circle back to Lisa, was I was talking about how uh, we had a guy, David Boskovich, who's like. Uh, on the show.

He is, it's, well, it's the most amazing episode, and like he spoke at, uh, Go-To-Market, uh, summit for us. Craig Rosenberg: Um, and, uh, you know, he is done incredible stuff with ai. And one of the things that he was talking about is like when you hire now. With ai, you're hiring because for taste, it was such a good word, like the pe you know, it's like he was talking about content marketing.

He interviewed like 37 people and the person he hired, like showed him a, didn't bring a book of all the articles that they'd written. Craig Rosenberg: It was like, here's how I use AI to get here. And he or she said, and this is like. An example of, and she was able to present her remarkable taste.

And so, uh, I knew, this is how I knew I liked Lisa. I told that story while doing a presentation and she said, um, right now we only hire for taste and we call them taste makers. Craig Rosenberg: Her marketing team is filled with taste makers. Isn't that great?

Craig Rosenberg: What do you think of that? Name or naming because like when you bring people in and you could do a lot instead, you're sort of moving, you're actually, you're able to, uh, make your team and the people that work for you more strategic because they're not doing all of the like, little things that they used to have to deal with. Craig Rosenberg: Like marketing teams were just always having to, to do all of this, like minutiae work. Um, and the good ones were organized in a way to get it done, but now they can.

Uh, they can, uh, you know, capitalize on being a taste maker and being able to leverage that for some bigger things and bigger ideas and more ideas. Craig Rosenberg: You know, it's kind of, it's really an amazing time. Stacey Epstein: Yeah, I, I, another CMO, um, that I talked to. Did, uh, like an offsite, got her whole team in the room and said, let's make a list of all the things that we hate to do in our jobs.

That was the subject of the offsite, and they made a big list of all the things they hate and they were, all of those things you're talking about, all that minutia, administrative. Stacey Epstein: Dealing with systems and then they, and they have, this is another interesting thing we should talk about, is like who owns AI in the company? But they had a really good, like Mark Ops person on their team that was their AI like czar and the AI czar took the entire list and then spent a week figuring out how to do it all in ai.

Stacey Epstein: So it just basically took away all the painful part of being a marketer. And left me with all the fun, creative, the things that I'm good at, the things that I enjoy. I mean, talk about the future of work. How great is that?

That all I get, I get to only do the things that I love and, and AI is doing all that crappy work that I hate. Stacey Epstein: Like what? What a great world this is gonna be. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah.

I love that. So let's talk about the AI czar, by the way, Matt, you need a czar in your organization. Craig Rosenberg: Do you have anybody with the title Czar? Matt Amundson: No, but we are, we are putting out a wreck for something similar.

Craig Rosenberg: Okay, Matt Amundson: They don't have to be Russian though. Stacey Epstein: And what team, Stacey Epstein: what team what, what team are you putting 'em on? Because Matt Amundson: Uh, it's gonna be a part. Stacey Epstein: the big question.

Is it, is it on ops? Is it in it? Does it Matt Amundson: It's in. Yeah, it's, it's, it's in ops.

It's interesting. Our, my CRO and I are kind of going back and forth in terms of like where it lives. Like is it, like, is it. You know, part of rev ops or like, um, is it a part of it?

I would say like, given the scale of our company today, ops probably makes the most sense 'cause our, IT is still just very focused on product delivery, uh, and doesn't have a lot of time for GTM execution. Matt Amundson: So I, I think it just makes the most sense. Stacey Epstein: Yeah, I think it's fascinating because, you know, FreshWorks when, when I was at FreshWorks, when. ChatGPT came out and I feel like that was just a point in time where every company was like, holy shit, we gotta get on board.

And I remember our CFO saying, you know, basically any AI project will be funded, um, as a way of just getting people going, which was great at the time. Stacey Epstein: But I think now here we are a couple years later and you would never wanna do that 'cause you would just bury yourself in all these like disjointed AI projects. You sort of need that central location. But then there's the whole, you know, it is where projects go to die and you know, not, and I'm not saying that I believe that about, there's a lot of great IT teams, but there, I think there is a little bit of a debate of who is who in the org is the one that's saying, Hey, let's do a bunch of ai, but let's like do it in some sort of an organized way where we aren't just burying ourselves with all these like disjointed AI projects that aren't helping.

Matt Amundson: Yeah, Craig Rosenberg: That, that's a good call. Alright, I'm gonna give you guys some data. Craig Rosenberg: You ready? Matt Amundson: I accept data.

Craig Rosenberg: Data challenge accepted. Um. I'll interwove, I will interweave it with other things we've discussed. Matt Amundson: you really liked that word earlier.

Craig Rosenberg: I don't know why it's not that great, but I just Craig Rosenberg: did I lock in? I can't get off it yet. Um, all right, so in our, we did a survey with Be Market on Go-To-Market ai. Um, the data's done.

We're just going through everything, but one of the things we want to dig in on was the Go-To-Market engineer. Okay. So according to the data we did over 200 people, 50% of organizations have hired or considering hiring a go-to-market engineer. Craig Rosenberg: I'd say most of 'em are in considering we didn't break it up.

We, we kind of kept it in the, um, big bucket. We'll break it up in the next survey. One thing you guys brought up that we didn't ask that I need to ask is where do they report? Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: That's interesting. That was a really, when you guys went on that track, I was like, Ooh. Craig Rosenberg: Did not, did not pick that part up. But the key there is like having someone who is, I mean, Go-To-Market engineer is the czar of ai, right?

Especially if they're Russian. They might It's clear. know. Matt Amundson: Yes.

Craig Rosenberg: What's the, A Brief Aside on the Etymology of Czar/Tsar - Craig Rosenberg: by the way, what's the difference between the CZAR and the TSAR is there? They're both czars, right? Craig Rosenberg: It's the same thing. It's just different spelling.

Matt Amundson: Uh, Sam's saying yes, I'm feeling like it's a no, but that's okay. Sam Guertin: I believe so. Uh, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the CZAR is, uh, the etymology, uh, comes from Caesar. Craig Rosenberg: Oh God, Jesus.

All right. Sam Guertin: I'm, that's completely out on a limb. And if that's wrong, I'm gonna edit this entirely out. Craig Rosenberg: This is an AI show.

You should be looking it up on Craig Rosenberg: chat, GPT. a Stacey Epstein: moment. I, Craig Rosenberg: here she goes. Sam Guertin: Oh boy.

Stacey Epstein: I, you know, I am part, well actually not Russian, but now Ukrainian. Hold on. Let's see. Matt Amundson: Oh yeah.

Matt Amundson: Slava, Ukrainian. Stacey Epstein: Oh, I Matt Amundson: Uh oh. I lost a solicit Sam Guertin: Matt, what is the role, um, that you're, you're adding? Is it like exalted one or if it's not czar.

Craig Rosenberg: All right. As she looks it up, here's Craig Rosenberg: the second part you. Craig Rosenberg: Go. Stacey Epstein: SAR and Czar are both English transliterations of the Irish Word Czar, which itself comes from the Latin Caesar.

Caesar. I bet you never Craig Rosenberg: Wow. Look at this guy. Boom.

All means emperor or supreme. Ruler. TSAR is the more common moderate spelling. And CZAR is an older angel anglicized version.

There you go. Stacey Epstein: word comes from Caesar. Now we're Matt Amundson: Yeah. Stacey Epstein: smarter.

Craig Rosenberg: Uh, you know what? You just made us smart. See AI enabling us strategic folks. So now we can think big.

Sam Guertin: Etymology for 800. Craig Rosenberg: yeah, that's right. You would've got that. All right, so the second data point, Why Companies are Hiring GTM Engineers & The Impact They're Having - Craig Rosenberg: so 50% are either hire, have hired or considering hiring, Go-To-Market engineer.

And then the second part is organizations hiring a go-to-market engineer are 30% likelier to be seeing big impact from ai. Craig Rosenberg: So that, that's, uh, that's a good, good, uh, data point for where we are right now. I think, um, as you were, as you guys were, we do need someone. To, to own this process and, and people sort of push back.

It's like, because you know, a lot of really good, um, AI shops that we've seen, like it's so democratic that a lot of people are just building stuff and going, Hey, look what I built. Craig Rosenberg: And it sort of takes off from there. But like, then you end up with. Like massive, uh, just not chaos, but you've got sort of AI everywhere and you need someone to go help sort of get these things going.

And the Go-To-Market engineer role, whether you call it that or not, you can call it a czar or you can call it whatever. Craig Rosenberg: Like that seems to be one of the key, uh, hires you would make or yeah. Hire or hires you would make in order to sort of lead your AI transformation. Stacey Epstein: when I think of a GTM engineer, I think of somebody who's like hacking through that whole.

SDR process that like lead conversion process. Um, and, but there's also so many other ways that you could be using AI in your Go-To-Market function. Stacey Epstein: For creating content for, you know, authoring, executive bylines. Uh, there's like, to me there's like the GTM engineer is one distinct part of like the inbound flow or the funnel, but there are also other AI things going on that marketing and sales and customer success and that are happening in the company that also sort of need a czar.

Stacey Epstein: It's like two levels of AI stuff. Craig Rosenberg: of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point.

Um, I should have led with the, the top part. Let give you guys one more thing. How to Lead AI Implementation in Your Company - Craig Rosenberg: So we asked about AI transformation. So like who in your organization is the primary transformation driver?

So 41% said company leadership. So those at the top and then 34% said functional leadership. Craig Rosenberg: Right. So basically leadership is, is, is driving this and starting this process.

If you combine that with having someone in charge and that's sort of your recipe for success, you're sort of leading from the top. But when we looked at the data, the one, like only 14% said individual team members, but we didn't really see that big of a difference in impact, um, uh, between where it started. Craig Rosenberg: Right. It's just the, the, in my opinion, the main message is you just gotta start doing.

Right, and talking to the machines and then the power can unlock. Um, so anyway, I thought I'd, I, based on what you guys were saying, I thought I would share some data points. Um, I, uh, I think those are, I think that's really interesting as we sort of figure out kind of how we're gonna go do this, like going forward on the. Craig Rosenberg: You know, when I was at Gartner, what I did learn in some of the big mainstream organizations was, you know, even back then there was like, they were trying to sort of, uh, repurpose the IT group, right?

And one of the things they were doing, they would assign, I mean, Matt used to run 'em with, run into them in EverString, right? Craig Rosenberg: They were like. Big centralized groups that would assign like 40 people to go think about transformation of sales or transformation of marketing. It wasn't like what we thought of as traditional in tech.

It's like marketing ops goes figure this out and tells it what they're gonna do. And those organizations, you talk to A CRO, it'd be like, well that's what it it does for me. Craig Rosenberg: Right. Um, and.

And what I found working with them is they were ahead of the game. They were looking at all this stuff, but because they didn't have a Go-To-Market background, they didn't know what to do first, Stacey Epstein: Yeah. Craig Rosenberg: and they had trouble selling their ideas. You know, and so that, that's why, you know, like, it, it, it is kind of, it is important to have that combination of understanding what the Go-To-Market looks like and this level of curiosity and um, and then eventually know how to be really effective in driving AI transformation in the Go-To-Market.

Stacey Epstein: Yeah, I agree. I think it in the past has helped us automate. Our processes and you know, look back at SuccessFactors way back when, one of the first SaaS products was just automating performance reviews, which used to be done in Word documents and now it's done online. And the thing with AI is that AI lets you completely reimagine new processes.

Stacey Epstein: And if you don't understand the function and like what happens in marketing and what happens in sales, then you, you, you can't reimagine. With ai. So it was just like, okay, well let me learn how you did performance reviews and let me go find a, a software program that does that online. Great.

You know, same with ERP. Stacey Epstein: Like pick a product that it has implemented. It's just automating something that we're already doing. But I think AI is doing things in completely new ways, and that's why.

You need somebody who isn't just technical, but also has that functional knowledge and like you said, the curiosity and the willingness to just think of new ideas and, and creativity. Craig Rosenberg: I love it. Hey, can, can I ask you guys a quick question on the way out? Yeah.

Stacey Epstein: Oh, we're just getting started. Craig Rosenberg: I know I mean, have a cup of coffee. Let's go. Craig Rosenberg: What?

Oh. Have a cup of, yeah. Got it. I was I low energy?

Do I need Matt Amundson: No, I'm just saying we're, Craig Rosenberg: oh, okay. Matt Amundson: we're, we're, we're not going anywhere. Stacey Epstein: I was going anywhere. Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. Stacey Epstein: way. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, I remember, uh, yeah. Okay.

I won't tell a story. Craig Rosenberg: I'll go into my thing. Are consumer, are B two, like consumer companies better at positioning and like going gravitating to positioning than our world of B2B in particular tech. Stacey Epstein: I think so, and part of the reason why is that consumer companies don't have sales in between them and the customer.

They, marketing goes straight to the consumer like what I put on my website. If I'm selling, if I'm Nike and I'm putting, just do it. That's going straight to, to the, that has to sell. Right.

Stacey Epstein: If I am, if I'm a, if I'm a B2B company, I'm putting my messages out, but. But I still can rely on a sales person to do a demo and a sales cycle and show you the value prop and it, I can, it's a shared sale, but consumer companies, they have to grab the customer because they're con convert, they're responsible for that conversion. Stacey Epstein: I think it just puts more, more emphasis on the need for that positioning to sell versus create interest. Matt Amundson: I mean, I started my career in, uh, consumer packaged goods, and you can't even launch a product unless you have a positioning statement because you can't get it.

You can't get it into, uh, retail, you know, nobody knows who it's for. You have to, you have to be very definitive. Like, you know, I worked at Red Bull. Matt Amundson: It was like.

This is a functional beverage. We had to just sort of define what a functional beverage was, and then we had to define who was the buyer. Uh, uh, ultimately we wanted more people to buy it than who we started off with, but like, this was for a certain subset of, of the population, and we, we were very clear about that. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, it feels, it feels that way.

Okay. That makes total sense. 'cause it does feel like, well yeah, because I guess also 'cause I'm surrounded by consumer marketing and also the, it's interesting how the sort of stories we tell on brand transformation's gone wrong are like consumer because brand is so important. Craig Rosenberg: Right.

Um, and yeah, it makes total, I remember you talking to a, a brand agency person. They were saying like what Stacy just said, which is like, no, they're, they're looking at the revenue number and what their, you know, campaign and message will do to the bottom line. It feels like we could in B2B do a great campaign, um, and God willing, we're saying it's gonna move the needle, but it feels like the needle's either moving or it's not. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah.

Matt Amundson: Yeah. Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. All right. Sorry, I had to throw that in there.

That was helpful. Um, cool. All right. So Stacy, to the show.

You have now broken the ice. Um, I really want to meet this person that's running the free safety marketing team. I Matt Amundson: Yeah. That's really cool.

I Matt Amundson: like that. can intro you to her for sure. Craig Rosenberg: God, that's great. Um, all right, so Stacey, we hope we can make you more famous.

Craig Rosenberg: Everyone should listen to. Uh, your podcast and, um, if, if you have ideas for her on her podcast and she's learning, I think that could be a good, uh, place to go do that. Um, and, uh, um, I'm really, I'm, I'm just glad we were able to have you on. I'm been, we do the, like I said, we're doing this mix and like last week we, well, it's, we, we released the Tom Murtaugh.

Craig Rosenberg: We had a guy named Tom Murtaugh and he was like, I don't wanna bore you guys with this old school thing, but like, you know, he does sail. But the most important thing you could do right now is deal control. And he's like, sorry, it's old school. We're like, no, not sorry.

It is interesting that like a lot of the fundamental things, once again, are getting lost as we get awash in like Go-To-Market AI in new, right? Craig Rosenberg: Like we can't forget like the most important things you have to do to sell. Sell shit. And market shit.

Yeah. All right. Well sta Stacy, have a great weekend. Thanks for coming on.

Yeah, that was awesome. Appreciate you, Matt. Thank you, Sam. you.

you. Yeah. Sam Guertin: You are welcome. 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.

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