#100: Dave and Friends (feat. Kaylee Edmondson, Lashay Lewis, Tas Bober, Tim Davidson)

This episode is brought to you by Zttle. We're halfway through 2025 and one thing's clear. We've been feeling this firsthand for sure. Events continue to be one of the highest performing marketing channels. Niche meetups, conferences, curated dinners, networking, breakfasts. Everyone's all in. Everyone's leaning into in person events have become a core part of our playbook here at Exit 5. So far we've hosted two virtual sessions. We do them twice a month. We do one large virtual event, sometimes two a year. One in person meetup. And we're deep in the trenches right now planning drive our annual conference coming back to Vermont in September. We use Zuttle to help us run a smarter event strategy. They help us with driving registrations, managing invites, automating, communications, reminders, analytics, tracking. They do it all. They have a salesforce integration that also makes it easy and simple to report on pipeline and revenue from events without having to pull an op so you'd know exactly how your events performed. On top of that, the differentiator with ZTTL is how their team is insanely good at supporting us. They always go above and beyond for us and that's how we've been able to keep the momentum going with 12 events this year already and just a small little team here at exit 5. So if events are a part of your marketing strategy like they are ours, you should check out Zuttle to see how Companies like Zillow, CrowdStrike and Iterable are using the top event platform for business events in 2025. Head over to zuttle.com exit5 that's z-u- dash dash-l.com exit5 to learn more.

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All right, so I just started recording. We're 30 seconds in, and I'm already being roasted. Because here's what happened. Last week I uploaded episode number 99 and I was like, wow, that next week is episode 100. That's a great hook to do something interesting. I was like, I didn't really plan this or think through this at all. And I was going to do an ama, but they get lonely and sometimes they're hard to do because as you all know, so many of the questions about marketing, like, there's so much nuance. And so someone would be like, what would you do in this situation? And I'm like, well, it depends. Next question. And then I was going to do members only, and I was like, actually, you know what? I'd rather just like invite like three, four interesting people on and we'll just see where it goes. That's what we're doing. This is episode 100. We should just go around and. Because sometimes it's confusing when you listen to podcasts and you hear someone's voice and name. So we'll get into it in a second, but let's just go really quickly and just say your name, what you do, and then people can hear your voice so they can associate it. Start with you, Kayleigh.

Beautiful. Okay. I hope all of us have very distinct voices too, so that it's not confusing. But I guess we'll find out.

I think you do. That's why I invited you for. Specifically, I was looking for uniqueness in voice.

Of course, 100%. Um, so, hey, my name's Kailey Edmondson. I have been in demand gen B2B SaaS world for the last 10 years or so and this will be the first time, I think, introducing, like, what I am doing now. So let's do it in real time. I have recently left Refine Labs and I am now off solopreneur ing on my own. I've started a brand called Demand Loops and I'm doing marketing consulting for different growth stage startups. So hopefully I have the unique Southern voice. If you hear Southern charm, hopefully, that's me.

Love that. All right, we're going to come back to that. Congratulations, by the way. All right, Tas.

All right. My name is Tass. Like SaaS. You might know me from two episodes ago and I've been in B2B digital marketing for like 15 years. SaaS specifically for the last half of my career. And Dave loved me so much, he's invited me to be co host. So that's my announcement today.

Hold on, hold on. Pump the brakes. Look, you've now been on two out of the last four episodes. Like, just take that and be happy about it.

Never.

All right, we'll get to you in a minute. Lachey's here also.

Yes, everybody, My name is Lachey and I consult for B2B SaaS companies. I've been doing content strategy for maybe about 14 years now. Everybody knows me because of my quote unquote cult like following. So hopefully you guys will come out and show me some love.

Is that true that people say you have a cult like following?

Very true. Very, very true.

Well, I love that. That's great.

I'll show you after this.

All right. And then last but certainly not least, the man I've wanted to have on a podcast for a while. We'll have to get our own dedicated hour away from some of these crazy people on this podcast. Tim. But Tim Davidson is here. He's not cutting fruit. He's just going to hang out for an hour and chat with us.

Maybe. Maybe, yeah. Tim Davidson. During the day I am the director of marketing for a company called directive. But also during the day I create semi funny b2b sales and marketing content. I've also been called the fruit guy, signed like cardboard sign guy and weirdo, but that's about it.

Are you home right now? Have you been. Seems like you've been at every. From dreamforce to Saster to something else. What have you been doing and what's the state of just some. Since you've been doing a lot of traveling, like, what are events? Back in full force. B2B marketers and companies love events. As a guy who's just been hitting the road, what's your point of view?

Yeah, so I did just come for the last two months. I went to about five. Most of the bigger ones, you know, inbound, Saster, Dreamforce. Just got back from SAS doc in Dublin. This is my purge. I guess I've never been to any of them before. So I kind of went on just like a two month stint and I'm planning for 2024, so it's going to be even more fun. It's a mess. I will say that in terms of like the booths and just people. From my point of view, it looked like there was a lot of people, but everyone I talked to that's been to them said like it's died down a little bit. Like there's just less people. I think that's, you know, obviously because of the market and things like that, but there's still been a lot of people. Like Dreamforce had like 100,000 people is chaos. But it's been very interesting to see what's going on there.

You getting asked to put the sign away by the security guy at Dreamforce is like arguably the best outcome that you could have had. I think it worked out.

Yeah. I'm just glad the recording actually recorded. I've had a couple where I did not. The audio just did not work. But it worked out so well.

And are you going to these events, like on your own dime? Are companies. Is your company sending you out? Like, what's the mission?

Yeah, companies send me out. It was under 20,000 for all of it. Like, you know, accommodation, all that stuff, markers. But it was, yeah, companies sending it to me. But the idea came from an event I went to on my dime. That was my testing grounds to get this approved.

And so basically you're kind of like shopping this, like B2B brands want to work with you in like an influencer marketing type of role and you're like creating content and stuff for them at events.

Oh, oh, no. So directive. The company I work for full time where I'm direct to marketing, they're sending me to all these events.

Got it. Okay, that makes sense. All right. Just from all the people in this room, I have a question about events in general. Have you. Would you, Kaylie? Maybe you can. This might be closest to your realm. Tim, obviously you just did it. Lachey is more on the content side and TAS is more on the digital website side. As somebody running marketing, would you spend fifty to a hundred grand on. On. On a booth? Like, how would you think about going to Saster, going to Dreamforce? I'll ask you with the. I always felt the pull of like, if we're not there, if we're like when I was at Drift, for example, like, we wanted to like very much do our own thing and like, stand out. But there was also some level of like, well, if all these other companies here that have, have all this money and they have a booth and we don't, like, I never knew the right way to approach that. What's your perspective on like spending? It's just a line item that. And like analyst relations, a line item in the budget that I was never really sure on how to treat it. I'm curious to hear your opinion on that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think it's interesting and I think Tim's face maybe is like a. Also my gut reaction where I'm like oh like 50k on a booth is steep. And like you had mentioned earlier, like it depends. But here come like the guardrails that I think about when I am thinking about events. One, a couple of the companies that I have stepped into consulting for in the last couple of weeks also had a pretty large event playbook for 2023. So in preps for 2024 we're going in and doing proper postmortems to understand what they did, how they used so many dollars towards these events and then ultimately like what do they have to show for it? Which to be frank, isn't a lot for most of the companies that I'm doing audits for right now, they don't have a good playbook and I think that kind of speaks to what Tim was opening with. Like maybe foot traffic has died down. I think activation at the events isn't very strong. Most people prioritize buying a 10 by 10 slot of carpet, stand up a booth and then send a couple reps and that is their activation and I don't think that cuts it. Today the top companies, the top brands, the top individuals that are going solo like Tim, are doing some type of disruptive activation either during the day or in like a micro event that's hosted outside of conference hours. And that's where you're picking up leads and having good conversations and shaking hands. There's just like not a lot of people volunteer to walk through the booth floor. So like if you're going to go and stick your reps at the booth and that's your plan, then you're probably not going to walk away with positive roi. I hear your tug and pull for like FOMO of competitive draw. If my competitors are there, I have to be there. I think back to last year. Lavender did such a good job at Saster and had no booth. So last year, 2022, they had six employees, I think total. They showed up decked in lavender, purple everything, purple swag, purple suitcases, no booth. And they were the talk of the town for the event. That's successful in my mind. Right. They walked away with opportunities and they didn't pay 50k for a 10 by 10 spot. So there are ways to do it and to do it effectively without having to buy a booth. Not to say that's always the move, but I do think that there are different playbooks, and right now, everybody's running the same one.

And by the way, any of you today, in order to make this episode great, grab the microphone, interrupt, say whatever, take us in a different direction. I need your help to do that. I can host an emcee this until, you know, midnight tonight, but I. I want to hear what you. What. What. What's going on in your mind. So you mentioned lavender. Okay. And I. I think that's a great example, and I'm not knocking that example. However, based on my experience and that it's almost easier to be creative and to do that stuff when there is only six of you. When the company is smaller, I think where this gets harder is, like, now we got 30 sales reps and we got 120 people at the company. And then, like, what do we do? And I think that for me, it comes back to anything in marketing, which is, like, I actually think any of the channels can work. Events, webinar content, podcast, whatever. It's like. And this is what's fun about. About marketing for me. And, like, tasks, like, we give each other a hard time about the differences in our. In our backgrounds and how we do marketing, but for me, it's like, that's the first questions, like, well, what's the hook? It's the same reason why, like, webinars are not bad. It's the hook. It's the what is the content? And so, like, what are we going to do there? And then how can we justify the spend? And it's easier to do it. It's easier to be the six small people and decked out in purple and everyone's going to know them. It's much harder. And then of running this game with, like, the marketing team has 20 people. And then, like, why did Lea get to go? But, like, we didn't fly Tim out. Tass wants to be there because she's got something involved. There's just a lot of internal politics and. And nonsense that get there. Like, I've had a lot of success in the earlier days of going, doing a bunch of podcast interviews at the event, getting lunch with people, And I found a lot of the value comes, like, off of that, off of the trade show. But you can also make a case for, like, being there and seeing all the pictures and videos and stuff from. From social media. But it is interesting if you go and run the actual report at the end of the day, the way most companies are going to measure their success in an event is going to be how many meetings did we book at Saster and what closed and so mistake I've made in the past is like you can do all the cool brand, everyone's talking about you, but like that's cool in the moment. But six months later the CFO is going to be like, wait, we spent 125 grand to get, get buzz.

That's why I don't think you need a booth. It's too expensive to do that. You could take, you know, one booth or one event, 60K or you can like send a few people. Yeah, I understand. If you have like a big team and there's like some. I want to go, I want to go. You just can't. I mean you just can't have that, it's too expensive. But if you send two or three out there, that one's going to go out and talk to actually talk to people. Like I'm really bad at talking to people I don't know. But talking to people I do know, I'm good at like finding out ideas like how can we create content, things like that. Luckily, you know, I've been on LinkedIn so I can, I've been lucky to do that. But there's also good people that just go out there and just talk to people. Like nothing. Send those people. Send the people that are creative that can, you know, create content or something like that. That's much less expensive.

And work the floor too. Right. Like we need somebody that's a go getter and that's a huge part of. I think what's not considered when you're doing booth planning is like, oh, we're just going to send this rep, this one and this one and then you get there and they're just like very clammed up, they're very overwhelmed. They're introverts, whatever it is. On the flip side, to poke one hole in Dave's objection, I think that's what we're here for. Right? Hole poking. One of these brands that I'm working with IS Series C.250/employees, somewhat larger sales team, bigger marketing team. The industry is not Martech, so it's a little bit more traditional. Another way to say stuffy but traditional. And they have conferences that are massive. Like one of their prime conferences is the AWS Reinvent conference. That's humongous. Which is a different world than like all of us Martech friends going to Saster and meeting up with each other. It's a different world to try and infiltrate. And this year we just two weeks ago sent one rep, one of the Top reps that had exceeded quota for the quarter before got selected to go and scout an event basically to figure out what our plan should be for next year. Go work the floor, go talk to vendors, go meet actual prospects, have pre planned meetings with them, et cetera, and just see what's the vibe. Do we fit in here? What should our investment levels be? We had a brief that we shared beforehand for things that we asked her to come back with for answers for. She did a great job, came back with tons of actual booked meetings and we only have her costs. So much like Tim's playbook, our overhead is relatively cheap and ROI is already really good. When we had her scout, how much more we think we could invest realistically and who all we could send. Obviously now that will come back to we need to figure out who's eligible to go. What are the requirements for the sales team to be able to go so we can get around some of this. I want to go. Why did you pick such and so et cetera. So we'll build a process for that. But even in a corporate, very large, very archaic industry, boots on ground still works fine as long as you have somebody that's willing to shake hands and meet people.

So this is not my area at all. So this might be a very regular part of the process and I just don't know. But it's good because I'll bring that other perspective. And what my last company did was we didn't spend the money on the booth, which historically we have, but what we did was we would reach out to kind of the key accounts that we wanted to target and say, hey, are you going to be in town? And then have like an intimate dinner or something like that. Like if they're not doing something the first night, I don't know if that's standard playbook, but that seemed to work better for us because then you'd only have the reps who are in charge of those accounts. It was more of like an ABM play and then they would have, you know, intimate conversations and then everyone goes and does karaoke or whatever they do after. But that was more of the like rapport building versus hey, it's our booth. And then someone signs a I visited your booth and then they get the first touch attribution and then I'm fighting with them later because it wasn't a meaningful touch point and all of those things. What about an experience like that?

Dinners is a great one. That's been some of the best money that I've spent from A budgeting standpoint, which is like, I've gone to saster in the past, and while we were there, we would do a dinner and invite 10 or 20 of our top customers and prospects, and we would kind of mix it in. And so we'd have like, five customers, 10 prospects, and just do a really nice dinner because everybody's got to eat. Like, everybody, if you're. If you're there traveling for work, everybody's there. Like, you gotta eat. Lachey traveled out to the west coast. Like, she's gonna want to have a good meal. Okay, fine, I'll go. Like, you're gonna spend, you know, 200, 300 bucks for, like, a nice meal for me, and, like, I'm gonna be around a table of my peers. Like, I think you can set it up the right way. When the dinner goes wrong, when the dinner becomes a sales pitch, we had to be like, no, no, trust us. Like, let's just try this and trust us. Let's get 10 to 20 of, like, our ideal customers in a room. And by the way, these people all, like, work in the same industry, and so there's going to be plenty to chit chat about. And I remember, like, at one point, 20 minutes in the dinner, looking up at the CEO David, and we kind of just looked at each other being like, the room was just like humming. We were not involved at all. You build up this association, people have this great meal, they meet two or three new people, and they're going to have this positive association of your company. It's one of the nuanced parts of marketing where it's harder to measure if you're like, out of how many people of the dinner who became customers, because what it's going to take for them to become a customer, it's not this linear funnel, same way as it's like, well, we're going to give them one point because we scan their badge at our booth, and then we're going to give them, you know, three points for going to dinner. And that's where a lot of this breaks. All right, all right. I'm tired of talking about events. I want to talk about in each one of your lives. And we'll start. I want to get Lachey in here, and we'll go in each one of your areas. You're kind of each doing something different in the last three to six months. What is one of the one or two highest performing activities or things that you're doing? What are you seeing right now? What's working really well? Right. And so I'll give an example. Like, for me doing this podcast to grow, Exit 5 has been an unbelievable channel and I'm going to double down on it. It brings in sponsorships, it brings in new members. I meet with new people every week and build connections and relationships. That's a channel that I'm not going to give up. I'm curious to hear each one of you, like, just, what's a marketer doing, Lachey? What is that thing in your world right now?

Yeah, well, I gotta say, obviously LinkedIn, right? It's just like, it's amazing platform.

Wait, hold on, hold on. Actually, I think to the four of us, yes, it's like LinkedIn, obviously, right? Still though, 90% of the people that I talk to are like, but what should I say? I don't want to write like, so let's talk about that. But also give some insight into, like, what's working for you specifically. What are you. What are you doing specifically? I think people that listen to this, like, really want to know. And I think for most people, we might say, obviously, LinkedIn, but I think they want to hear, like, the next level.

Totally. So when I first started on LinkedIn, I had a ton of anxiety and I think the way I got around that was just by doing the thing. So I didn't know what to post. I knew I had knowledge in my head, but I didn't know how to extract that knowledge in a fashion where it would make people want to work with me. So the thing I started doing was I started a bunch of commenting around peers and potential clients and things like that. Didn't think too much about it. Just went on a commenting spree and then I seen a visual. Taz, please correct me his last name. Anthony. Anthony. Pierre.

Pierre.

Pierre.

Okay, I'm sorry, Anthony. I've seen a visual from him and I was like, oh, my God. Wow, this is awesome. And it was a visual of him explaining what he did for startup founders and he was just like, breaking down his market segment and I'm like, okay, so first of all, maybe I'm a visual learner. Number one, that's where I learned that. And then number two, let me take this and see if it'll work for me. And then that was like my quote unquote. First, like, not even viral. Maybe I like 45 likes. But for me, that was viral to me. So I was like, okay, I'm going to start doubling down on visuals because people seem to like them, and then the floodgates just open from there. So I think it's really like some data analytics too. And then here's another thing. It's like when you start, if anybody is listening to this and thinking about going out on their own, you're going to learn so much more than you ever thought you would learn going out on your own. I've learned more in the past year than I have probably in the last, like five or six. It's data analytics, it's content marketing, it's content strategy, it's community building. Different facets of marketing. Yeah, it's like all the nuances, you just got to learn how to stick and move. But, but I think if I could give people something tangible, it's try a bunch of different stuff and then pay attention to what's working and what's not. Obviously it's very like cliche, like double down on what's working. You just have to do stuff, execution. So when you have an idea, don't sit on it, actually start to execute. And then again, when you see what's working, double down there. And then maybe like 70% doing what you know works and then 30% just trying new stuff. And then if you see something else that works, start doubling down on two different things. So I think like, yeah, if I had to give anybody advice on LinkedIn, what's been able to help me grow is just pure execution. Starting off with commenting, if you're too afraid to post, trying different posts in the beginning, nobody cares about you. Right. Like, hate to be blunt like that, but nobody really gives a shit about what you're doing. Yeah, you have room to play around a little bit and you'll find your flow. You just have to give it some time.

The hilarious thing is that applies to all marketing. And it's funny because marketers are so afraid to do it for themselves because they're so used to doing it for someone else. And you're putting yourself out there and you're like, okay, well do I have anything valid to say? I mean, when I started posting, I was doing self development stuff. I look back, I'm like, oh my God, so cringy. What are you talking about? What is going on here? And then Anthony was the one who messaged me and he goes, I see all this digital experience, why don't you talk about marketing? I'm like, because I talk about it all day. I'm tired. He's like, how could you be tired about talking about the most interesting subject on earth? And so I always joke that he yells at me and then I change something and it works. And so I started posting about marketing stuff and I would have never gone out on my own had I not started that feedback loop. That was a necessity. I'll add to Lachey's thing, which is I was very buttoned up. Like LinkedIn, we gotta be a professional network or whatever. And it's just you blend in so easily. And if that's what you want to do, that's fine. But I think showcasing a little bit of personality and Tim can attest to this because he's going like 99% personality. But right before you joined too, Dave, when we were all chit chatting, we were talking about how my LinkedIn's like a LinkedIn mullet. Cause it's like, you know, I'm business upfront with my posts and then my comments are just straight up party in the back. And so, you know, even your post today, people are like, wow, interesting insights, Dave. Thanks. And I'm just like, I am dead. This is the best thing ever. Psycho. If you wanted a demo, they'd actually ghost you. So just things like that where people are like, oh, this is an actual person. Like, AI can't replicate that. So that's where it's like, I've let loose a little bit in terms of just not feeling like I have to overanalyze every move that I make. And I'm just like, these are all people. We all have lives, we're all the same. On Sunday morning, why are we trying to be this different person?

On and offline comments are so underrated. I have a strong opinion like just LinkedIn as if I was working on B2B SaaS I would much rather take. Instead of spending 10 to 20 grand on a PR agency, I would much rather figure out how to do LinkedIn. And this is just my bias. People will agree or disagree with this, but like I've figured out LinkedIn and been able to do it at multiple companies and seen like just how much inbound you can get from it, how much of an advantage it can be, how much of a content creation you get so many content ideas from. Like a comment can become a content idea and there's just like so much that you can't understand from that. And all of you are like, you know, vigorously nodding your head. I would be investing my time and efforts into figuring that channel out on LinkedIn as opposed to trying to go and pitch TechCrunch or whatever. I'm not saying don't do those things, but I think figuring out LinkedIn is such an important part of that. What Lachey talked about though, is the great example of like, that's really practical for most people to get started, which is like, I think a lot of people make the mistake of like, which tasks hit on. It's like, oh yeah, here I am, I'm on LinkedIn and I'm like, great post, good thoughts, totally great stuff, Tim. And it's like, no, no, no. The way to do it is like.

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Be very. It's to like almost go hyper narrow. And so like if Lachey is like the queen of bottom of the funnel content, right. Maybe that post is never going to get 450 likes, right? But that's not what you're going for. You're trying to get who are the 30 or 40 people that are interested in this very tactical, like bottom of the funnel framework and like you can build from there. Tim, as somebody who took a different wedge, I'm just curious to hear, like, I'm sure you were active in creating content on LinkedIn before you. You decided to kind of lead with like humor in this world. What was the thing that got you to be like, this is going to be my angle. Because, like, just like, you know, Anthony is the product marketing guy. Lachey, you're really focused on bottom of the funnel content, right. People associate you with making videos. Like, when did that connect? You kind of took that like TikTok style and brought it to LinkedIn and it really worked for you. But I'm curious to like, how did that actually happen?

Yeah. So obviously my personality is more on the humor side. I tend to make jokes even in bad times. Like, I shouldn't be making jokes. Missing your growth goals and it's like, you know. Yeah. So when I started on LinkedIn, I was doing text posts and then I just lost all the creative juices I had, right? And it was just I had some personality in the text post, which is okay. Then I was like, all right, I need to find this next. What's going to keep me going? So I started doing videos and the only option for me was kind of a humorous TikTok style. Because the other option, right, is like the overproduced or the talking head, like just very boring. I don't watch those. I hate those. Those are so boring to me. I just won't sit through them. So if that was the only thing I was seeing in my LinkedIn videos, like, all right, I have to go another route. And 10 videos in, you start to see that traction. You know, it's over from there. Then it's just, like, always trying to innovate on it, and, like, it kind of actually becomes, like, a. It kind of gets annoying because you can't do the same thing over and over again. Right. You have to find the next thing because it kind of gets. But it's also fun. I don't know. It's an interesting thing.

But, like, you must have made a video and gotten, like, two comments on it.

Yeah, from people I knew. Like, I got lucky.

But you weren't, like, done after that point. You know, like, it's very easy to, like, make a video, spend all this time on it, post it, and then it's kind of crickets. And then, like, do you have to commit? Did you set a goal of, like, I'm just gonna do this and make it work, or did you post one and it worked instantly? Like, how did you get past that?

I don't really set goals. Kind of like that. I posted it. I had, like, five comments from people I knew. I knew they were gonna be nice, so that was great. But I also. The video kind of also sucked. And my personality is also all right. I feel like I can. At the same time, I was watching a lot of YouTube videos on how to edit videos on your phone and things like that. So I started to see, like, these different. Oh, you could do this type of editing. And I wanted to keep trying that. So it's more of, like, I wanted to keep trying to make these better. But, like, I also got really lucky in the sense that I think it was my 10th video. Well, it kind of just really did. Had like, 1500 likes. And I was like, oh, all right. Well, this is. My text post. Got maybe 70, tops. And that was, like, a big, big one. So I knew there was something there just from the comments, too. It was just very engaging and things like that. But overall, it's just like that. I saw that little traction, that comment, that DM that. That little thing that kept me going.

Have any of you found a sweet spot for posting? Like, one of the topics is, how often should you post? Do you have a goal of? Are you trying to post every day? Is it three times a week?

Is it.

When you have an idea, can you post multiple times within a day? What are some of the guardrails?

I personally. Now it's like, two a day, if it's possible. I've seen people talk about, oh, you need once a week, or you need. You know, you can't do twice. You can't do four times. Eh, I don't think that's true. I don't think there is a maybe 2 to 3 depending on what you have, and it's usually like one produced and one's like a throwaway. It's like, it's just like a. A reaction to something kind of thing. So it's usually one to two a day. I guess that's where I found the sweet spot.

Tas, what were you nodding about?

Well, first, when Tim was like, oh, I don't really have goals. I think Kaylee and I just got like an instant cortisol hit. But I think with me it's three to four times a week. And the only reason I would do seven days a week, but my kids and I'm trying to do this like business thing and you know, between like texting Lachey all day, it's just a lot of distraction. But sometimes, like, I'll run my posts by people and I'm like, oh my gosh, this would be solid with like a graphic, right? So it's just doubling down on that. I think my focus has been less on how many likes am I going to get, you know, what's the distribution going to be and the algorithm or whatever. And it's, how can I jam pack this with so much value? I know it sounds cliche, but I'm just really focused on what's the problem. I'm reading a lot of content and I'm hearing people talk about stuff differently and I'm like, do I need to unlearn and untrain myself? So that's one of the things that I'm working on right now too. And I like the framework approach that Anthony has and Lachey has. Obviously it's a little bit different. Honestly, I can't do it. I don't even have TikTok, so, like, I can't. I look at all of them like on reels on Instagram, like an adult. Isn't that like a meme? Like, for me, I'm just like, I don't even know how to do that. I would try, but again, it's like the time constraint. But I found like three to four times a week I post. The good thing about LinkedIn compared to like X or something else is that the. The lifespan of a post is pretty long. You know, I still get reactions and feedback on posts I posted like three weeks ago. So sometimes it's just, you know, it can carry you through as long as you're just pumping stuff out on a regular basis. I just tell people, pick a Cadence that works for you and just do it. That's it. Whether it's once a week, twice a week, three times, five times, whatever it is, just do what's manageable.

You gotta find that balance between micro action and macro patience. Like, if you can float in there, you're gonna be okay. And it's funny, cause the whole bottom of funnel methodology that I carry, I carry it with everything that I do. It's the reason that I don't know, I think I have a lot of people come to me with a lot of followers. I'm talking about 20, 30, 40,000 followers. And they're just like, how are you able to make the money that you're able to make with less than. Well, well, when I first got on the pod, I had 1500 followers. So, you know, they come to me and they ask this question. I'm just like, again, I carry that bottom of funnel methodology with everything I do. It's not quantity, it's quality. Right? So you have to think about your intentions when you're coming on the platform too. Now, there is some nuance to this because I wasn't expecting to meet this amazing woman right here, Taz. But I think a part of it is just like knowing your goals when you come into it, what are your intentions? So my intentions were very strong when I started LinkedIn. The goal was to be able to build a consultancy, which I've been able to do. But you also get some other cool things from it as well. But I think knowing what you want is very important. And then knowing why you're doing it is very important. And again, finding that balance between like micro action and macro patience, once you float around in there and then just start to take really just one foot in front of the other. Don't try to overanalyze everything. Everything can't be tracked. And that's okay. But I think once you start at least posting and then like getting in a rhythm. So I post five times a week. I'm not posting seven times a week. I've got four kids, no way. But five times a week does me great, right? Like, it grew the business and it's growing the audience and it got me on Exit 5 and it's done a bunch of stuff. So don't feel compelled to have to keep up in a sense, like, do what's best for you. If you want to post three times a week, just make sure you're kicking ass those three times a week.

I should mention I only post five, usually five times a week. That two a day, it's not like I'm not that crazy. I don't post on the weekends as much.

Don't walk it back. Be confident in what you said first.

Well, I'm walking it back.

Own it, Tim. Own it.

Oh yeah.

Gotta adapt here.

I think having something to say is more important than picking the days that you're going to say it. And so like in pr, we talk about like talk tracks or like swim lanes, like, what are the things? And so like, if your thing is abm, right, and you want to start writing about abm, I would open up a Google Doc and just start writing and think about like, what are the three to five opinions I have about abm and how can I say it different ways? And I would build up my content around like the meat of that. And then you have like the filler is like the cheap dopamine, which is like really easy to fill your schedule with because I do think frequency matters. And so I think that if you're trying to build an audience, build a following, you can't just show up once a week and post something because you need lots of at bats for, you know, for people to kind of catch on. So like, I like the idea of like, you know, you might have three or four meteor in depth takes or your perspective, but then like, yeah, one of your posts on one day could just be a funny meme about this topic, right? And that that's what might take off. Or the other afternoon I just was like kind of feeling in like a silly mood and I posted like, here's the number one tip I have for engagement on LinkedIn. It's like, include typos in your posts. You're welcome. And of course that was like the most engagement on a post in like six weeks that I wrote. And so, but you have to understand that, right? And so like, if you only come with like the nutrition, nutrition, nutrition, nutrition, you know, you, you gotta, people want the donut every now and then and you gotta play that game a little bit. And like, maybe that's you posting a meme or maybe it's like tasks just like, you know, being ratchet in somebody's comments. And that's just what it is. But I think like, that's how you stand out, right? I, I have these three or four people. They're not people because they're not real. But every time I post something now, like within like one minute of posting, there's like a bot that like comments. Exactly what I said. But like in chat, GPT or something like that. And it's like people like don't know that that person's not real. Like I do. Right. So if you're just commenting like, you're absolutely right, Tim. Fantastic. Agree. That might as well just be a bot. But if you come in and you say something silly like Anthony posted something last night and about like, what's the. He wrote this like long in depth post about icps and I just was like, you know, checking my phone on like waiting in the car to pick up my kid or something like that. And I wrote seven. The right number of ICPs is seven. And that's. That just works to like. It's a silly comment. It's a human, it's authentic. You know, you're going to get a bunch of people to see your stuff from that. So you have to be able to play that balance. Okay, we talked about events, we talked about LinkedIn. This is inspiration. Somebody's gonna listen to this podcast on a run, on a walk, hanging out around the house. I just asked my friend Chad, GPT, what are the top B2B marketing trends in 2023? There's personalization, ABM, AI and automation, video marketing, interactive content, voice search optimization, influencer marketing, sustainable marketing. Highlight. This is my favorite one, highlighting a company's commitment to sustainability. So there's a growth hack. There you go, Kaylee, for your series C companies just talk about how they're doing, like zero carbon or something like that. That's the next big announcement to break through the plateau of growth. And then number 10 is social media engagement. But what else do we got? Events, LinkedIn, what are your top producers? Kaylee, you're working with series C late, a little bit later stage companies. What's a tactic or a challenge that you find as a go to right now?

Yeah, so what I have actually been very interested to find, even starting with the basics, which I'm sure won't be like super sexy or appealing to most are that most of these companies are very well sought out in the industry. You get in under the hood, into their CRM, start digging around and actually they still have no idea from a channel perspective, from a content perspective, what's working and what's not working. So for most of these engagements, from the beginning, I spent a lot of time in what I consider infrastructure land, which is just straight up, do your systems talk to each other? What are you sending from who to where, when, how often? What is your actual map look like for the inside of your systems? And it's a mess. So it's not sexy. But the basics are that you need to be able to answer confidently for your company what is working and what is driving impact versus what is not. We can get into like the world of attribution later, but whatever your means of attribution are, you should at least have a clear answer. And not any of these companies that I have found myself with have that answer, which is obviously part of the reason why they hired me. But still, I think it's crazy that you could get to 20, 30, 40 million in ARR and have no idea at its simplest form what's working and what's not. Most of them don't even have a strong gut reaction to the programs that are driving impact, even if it's not directly attributable in a CRM. They don't even have a gut feeling for which way they should be headed and which way is up, which I think is super concerning. So infrastructure, I think is something that needs to be spent more time on in 2023, especially heading into 2024. And then most of them have deep pockets with huge budgets.

What does infrastructure mean for me, Infrastructure.

Land is like your map and your CRM at its base level. Are they talking to each other? How are they communicating?

What's a marketing automation? Is that map.

You got it.

Taz is like kicking her desk.

Well, it's okay. Maybe somebody else listening also would have had that question. So it's great. Yes. Like, are your mark, whatever you're using for marketing automation and your CRM, are they talking to each other from some of your digital marketing channels? Are you pulling down utms, like at its basic level? Three of these five. No, they were not. I know, like, flip the table.

Oh, this is my nightmare. I'm going to leave this. The rest of you can chat about this.

This is because somebody like Dave at your company launched your digital programs and Dave was like, oh, but the ad looks great. Let's just launch it. Who cares about tracking? And then you're $40 million in the hole later and you're like, well, I don't know, it's working.

40 million. I mean, let's be.

I'm just saying they've got $40 million in the bank, but they don't have UTM set up. So that's the scenario. A lot of companies sadly, are still there. So I think like getting your foundation and what I'm considering, infrastructure set up, is still just as critical today as it was 10 years ago. So I would say start there, then secondarily most of these companies still have really healthy marketing budgets. I know that we went through tough times, but it looks like funding is somewhat returning, at least from my purview and the ability to pattern match that I have right now. Most of them have really healthy spends compared to what their actual goals are, which is nice to hear, but just aren't deploying the dollars effectively. Mostly spray and pray. They're going into whatever digital platforms they can to build audiences that are largely very, very, very broad and blasting ads at them. Low, low, low frequency caps. Right? Because their audience is massive and just praying it's like ABM as that's like time is Taylor's oldest. Time was like very hot a couple of years ago. I think it's returning in terms of relevancy because most people tried it, maybe tried it ineffectively, didn't have measurement or programming in place to support it, ditched it, abandoned at all costs. Oh, this doesn't work. This is a sexy marketing term that doesn't convert revenue efficiently. Now it's coming back. There's definitely been a resurgence for interest for almost everybody that I'm working with in launching abm.

My God, I could hug you right now. I just want to hug you. Virtual hug. Because the first thing when you asked that question, Dave, I wrote down they don't do the fundamentals right? So the number of times I walk in and even just assessing, like, their paid programs, it's just kind of like, oh, we had this white paper that launched two years ago and they're still running the ads for that. And now there's like 600 campaigns for all the 600 resources that they've launched. And then they're like, oh, it doesn't work. Paid is awful, and whatever. And I'm like, well, you're doing too much. You're trying to compete with everybody doing the same exact thing. I think a lot of marketing is looking at it and seeing what the missing components are. What are your competitors not doing? And an example of this was we came in and single image ads on LinkedIn. This is a little more, you know, tactical, but the CPLs are really high right now. Cost per lead, in case anyone is concerned.

I got it. I'm taking notes, I'm taking notes.

Cost per lead, they're high. But then what we discovered was, oh, hey, you know what? We should try a different format because our budgets were cut like 25%. Our growth targets were up 20%. This is just the state of the market right now. And so we're like, okay, let's double down on the three things that work really well for us from a digital standpoint. One, paid search, then paid social, LinkedIn only, and then chat, which worked really well. Which, by the way, two days ago I wrote some comment about how chat was so great and was like a shark attack. Anyway, I said what I said, to quote Doja Cat, okay? And so, like, they're not doing those things. Well, we tried to change the format up, and we used, like, document ads instead of CPLs are like 45 bucks versus 600. We transitioned almost our entire, you know, model to that format. We were paying less. Same quality of leads, same volume of leads, and everybody was happy. But sometimes it's doing that. It's not like, oh, let's do TikTok and let's do Snapchat and let's do whatever it's trying to do. Three very good things. Well. And, you know, I actually think the more with less thing is a blessing because now we're not doing, like, everybody's not coming to you and saying, hey, sales is like, oh, we need to go to this event and we need to have a $50,000 booth. And, you know, we need to go and work with this SEO agency that's promising us X, Y and Z. It's kind of like you gotta place your bets very strategically, and if you can't do something efficiently with $5,000, you have no business running anything for a million plus dollars.

All right, I wanna keep going on. This is great. There's so many things there, and I completely agree with them. And even though we're joking about it, I do say that if I were to go back in, like, as a CMO or something, I would say the number one thing that I would start is I would start with the. The fundamentals first. It's like weightlifting, working out, for example. Right? Like, you will get injured if you just. If you've never deadlift, like, you must master form on, squat on, deadlift on whatever, or you will get hurt. And so you can effectively add weight when you have great form and you can build up. And I've been in a company in the past where we grew really fast. It was all inbound, so it was easy to see and measure. And then it got really hard because we didn't have any of the. Of the tracking. And so I think it makes somebody like me who wants to do the creative stuff and move really fast. If I'm working with Kaylie and Tas as an example, and we have the plumbing, we have the foundations we have, the fundamentals set, then we can sprint on top of that and feel really good about it.

Kayla, you mentioned, like, CRMs and then, like, systems not talking to each other. How about people not talking to each other? Right. And it's crazy because I'm working with a series C company right now and the amount of money that they make, you would have thought, like, they had all their ducks in a row, and they do not. They don't even, like, have marketing and sales alignment. And I think that's another part of having a very strong foundation. I mean, obviously, I guess you can make a ton of money without it, because I'm working with a few companies now that are making a ton of money without it. But obviously it comes up later on, which is why they hire me to kind of help regulate that a little bit. But even outside of systems, it's like people don't talk to each other. I've been on strategy calls where it's like the sales, product, CS and marketing are like, all the same call, and they're just talking to amongst each other. And I'm just sitting there like, okay, looking around, and it's like, oh, I didn't know you had that thing. Oh, this piece of thing? Oh, the product does this literally on the call. So I'm just like, the marketing and sales alignment piece is another very important thing to get in place if you want a strong foundation. It's like, stop siloing your communication. Like, start communicating with other teammates. I guess, as it relates to, like, strategy as it come to this, I mean, having like, a single source of truth that everybody can kind of dive into and see. For my case, specifically, it's how the product works, what it does, and who it helps. And then product, marketing, sales, and CS all need to agree on those things. And the problem is when I come in, they don't. Not only do they not agree on these things, they don't even know what the other person is doing. So I think that's a big foundational thing that companies need to definitely get tightened up for.

Sure, you're pattern matching off of. You think that product strategy is not agreed upon by those heads, and that's why they just never talk to each other. I'm actually very curious. I feel like marketing and sales alignment is often how it gets classified as, like, that's the gap. But I actually think it's much greater than that. Like, it wasn't until I was at Chili Piper that I actually had a really brilliant CS leader and had the Most magical marketing, CS alignment. And I was like, oh, actually this is overlooked because I never understood the value of how DemandGen could actually lean across the pond and help with net rate retention and land and expand motion until I was there and then thought, oh, but it's not just a sales and marketing problem. This is like actually just no one talks to each other. I at the time convinced myself that it was because our goals weren't the same. When I was at Chili Piper, I was handed a goal for net rate retention, land and expand, which made me marry myself to the CS leader because we could both drive the charge together. And I feel like most marketing and sales leaders also don't have the same goals, the same metrics, the same end outcome that they're trying to get to, which is why they don't talk to each other. But it's interesting that you're also like, maybe it's also this product strategy drives part of that wedge.

Yeah, totally. And especially when it comes to bottom of funnel content for product led companies, it's like you have to understand at an in depth level how the product works. And it's like that's a big gap with companies. It's like they try to bring in freelancers to, you know, create this bottom of funnel content. But the problem is the freelancer doesn't know the product at an in depth level the way your product team does. So why not reach out to someone from the product team and get all of the features down in a way that makes sense. So if you do want to bring a freelance writer in, they have this single source of truth to be able to capture all of this information and be able to write it in a way that not just makes sense, but in a way that converts in a way that talks to the prospects. So like for example, even when you're writing bottom of funnel content, you have to bake the pain points into the content. Where do you get those pain points from? Well, you get them from the sales team. Right. It's like everything is like interconnected. And then the problem is these companies don't talk to one another. It's like the communication is so siloed that nobody knows what nobody else is doing. And I think that's an important distinction to make too. Yeah, because you mentioned like softwares and things not talking to each other, but like people aren't talking to each other either.

I work for David Cancel at Drift and he used to talk about the people would say this like how do we get people to talk to each other? Inside of the company. And he'd be like, you literally roll over your chair and you say, hello, we need to talk. Or the digital version of that is slack, right? And like you go to many companies and you're like talking to the head of marketing and ask when's the last time how often they spend time with the head of sales. They're often in the same meetings, but they're very rarely just one on one talking about the business. And so I do think a lot of this does come down to when you peel back the curtains. I think incentives matter a lot. And the healthiest teams I've been on have been when all of the functional leaders had shared goals. And so they do want to help each other. Where this breaks down is when the head of marketing is being judged by one set of criteria and the head of sales is another and the head of CS is another. And then the product has no direct tie to revenue or satisfaction or anything. And that's when you kind of get four different teams kind of just like operating. That's. Why would I take an hour meeting with, you know, Lachey if it's just to chit chat and like, I got stuff to do. And so I say that, to say this on this podcast, which is like, I think that if you're in marketing, you have to be the change driver inside of your organization and like, ultimately it's going to be really hard to. We don't own all the pieces, right? And so it's going to be really hard to drive revenue if you're not all aligned on those, those same goals. Okay, we got to wrap up. Unfortunately, I would love to have you all on for hours and, and days, but you all got to get back to work and your lives maybe chopping some, some melons or something, whatever else you're going to do the rest of your day. Kaylee Task. Tim. Tim's eating a. A peach. It looks like a juicy. A plum.

Oh, wow.

Where is stone fruit? Still in season. I don't understand. This guy's got all the tricks. LA thank you all for hopping on for episode 100. The team here at Exit 5 Productions is going to rush really fast and turn this around for episode 100. Send these lovely folks a message. I'm going to post this on LinkedIn later and we'll talk about episode 100. But to you all, even the offline, thank you for coming on and making this an enjoyable hour. I appreciate you all and, and we'll see you soon.

Okay, goodbye.

Hey, thanks for listening to this episode.

Of the Exit 5 podcast.

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