Sarah-Beth Anders, SVP Marketing at Guild Education

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1, 2, 34 Exit Exit.

My guest on this episode is Sarah Beth Anders.

She's SVP of Marketing at Guild.

Hi, what's up? How are you?

I'm doing okay. I'm doing okay. Okay, look, can you give a quick background on like on your history to where you're at and kind of your path to marketing leadership? How did you navigate it and what did you focus on?

Yeah, definitely. I just had a conversation with BDR that is interested in marketing the other day and so I think I have kind of a non conventional path to get here in some ways and very conventional in others. I started my career in comms and PR at that time just wasn't really the strategic function that it is today. Like it kind of was an SDR type of role. That's where I started my career actually. Even before that I started in crisis communications which was a whole whirlwind and when I went through that I started working with politicians and corporations and eventually I did not want to do crisis anymore. I did not love answering the phone and every call being a crisis and wanted to get into tech and didn't really know how to do that. So parlayed my PR experience into tech and did that for a few years and then started to realize that I was writing a lot, I was doing a lot of what was content marketing but wasn't coined content marketing at the time and so started to take on more responsibility with content marketing and then realized actually what I was doing was really product marketing and started to take on more product marketing responsibilities and then from there my career kind of like you kind of hit a fork in the road where you're like, am I going to keep doing marketing? Like, I've been doing it for a while. I've done demand gen, I've started to run all the facets. But when you're in product marketing, you're like, do I do product? It is tempting for every product marketer.

Yeah, I remember like I had a job not even like in a senior role, but I was like a junior product marketing person and I was like, I care more about the product, I need to be a product manager. And I would have been a terrible product manager. Yeah.

And I did like the cracking the PM interview book and like I just was really gung ho that that was what I was going to do. And then at one point I was like, what about sales? Like you see your sales counterparts and you're like, I could do that. And I'm sure they're saying the same thing to us, but you know, I could do that. And so then I obviously thought about that as well. And so you kind of hit this fork in the road where you're like, am I going all in on marketing? And I think you had it on your LinkedIn not too long ago where it's like, if you can't handle criticism, like you shouldn't be in market marketing. Yeah, and I can and I like it. And I actually love the cross functional nature of marketing and I love the creation and there are so many parts of marketing that I love that I wasn't willing to do anything else because I knew I would have missed the marketing stuff so much.

When you look back at your career, where were you at before LinkedIn?

Again, I was at Greenhouse.

Okay, greenhouse. Right, right, right. Okay. So you're at Greenhouse, you're at LinkedIn before you became actually leading and running a team, what was kind of like the inflection point between I'm marketer Sarah Beth versus I'm going to become team manager marketing leader. Because I don't think a lot of people talk about that and I wish that I had had a harder conversation with myself. Like, are you sure you want to do this? And do you know what this entails? But what was the shift for you from individual person to team leader? What was the mindset shift?

So I think that there is a disproportionate idea that you have to be in management to be successful and to move up in the ranks. And it's just like not true. There are a lot of principles or ICs that are very successful. But I believed that. And so I think for me, I knew I wanted to increase my velocity through others. I knew that I wanted to lead. I loved coaching, I loved mentorship. I also am really ambitious and I thought that that was like the fastest Pat. So for me, it was lucky happenstance that management. That's how I got into management and I really loved it. But I want to be very clear and I'm very clear with my team that it is not necessary and you could be an excellent individual contributor and not be a great manager. We see it all the time, particularly in sales, where you take the highest achieving salespeople, you make them managers, and now you've lost your best salesperson and you have a bad manager. And I think it's the same in marketing and product, whatever you name it. So the decision I made was due to my ambition. And again, it was just lucky happenstance that it ended up being a huge career accelerator for me and really fulfilling for me. Like, the coaching part of my job is by far my favorite part.

I think you have to know that for people listening, I think you have to know that there's a difference between being the marketer and the marketing leader. And those are very different jobs. Because at some point it becomes like it's a straight up people management job. Your job is to recruit, your job is to hire, your job is to train, your job is to.

Doesn't it just end there? I feel like that's where it ends.

Yeah, kind of. But for real, everybody always has told me, like, oh, you know, 90% of it is the team. And I had kind of just like repeated that. Cause that's what people said. But then I went to a different company and I was forced to like rebuild a team from scratch. And you're like, oh, wow. Kind of is the obstacle is the way, like the team is the solution. Right. And I think even for me it was like shifting from your job is to do the marketing from. To like your job is to lead the marketing and like different jobs too.

Dave, like sometimes you just like miss the work. Like you want to get your hand. And I do, I get it a lot because I love the work. That's why I'm in marketing. But you do you crave it.

Yeah, well, I think. But also you have to be real about like what happens as a people manager. Your time is less spent on the creative ideas and execution as it is. Like someone on your team is upset and someone on your team is not working well with the. This person and this Person on the product team, you know, missed this deadline and this thing in the sales happened. Like that's the reality of what the job is. Or a CEO needs something last minute or, you know, the board doesn't, you know, wants to learn more about this funnel. Like it's very. The marketing leadership job is very rarely like, you know, you just walk in a room and just spit out an idea and the team, and the team does it. It's very much a people management job. And to you, but you said that's something that you wanted. You enjoy that part of it. And so for me, I'm more on the opposite end of like the reason I am not at a company anymore is because I'm the opposite of. I think I'm the marketer who had to go and build a team, but I think like, I'm not the greatest, like 30, 50 person team, you know, performance review cycle, career growth person. And I think that's the conversation you have to have with yourself or that I wish I had earlier on was like, are you sure you really know what, what, what?

This is the question that people are going to have on that though, Dave, is like, would you be where you are if you hadn't had that job?

No, definitely not. And also I get to like talk about it now and be like, you know, I really found myself, I'm enlightened now. Yeah, like, no, I just reflect on what I did with a different light.

I think, you know, it's interesting. So I had this conversation with this woman last week and she said I got career advice that I should be thinking about my next next role. And I said to her, if I was thinking about my next next role, I wouldn't be in the role that I'm in today.

For sure, for sure.

You know, and I think that just blends beautifully with what you just said. Like, you kind of just, you take it, you get the learnings and then you make new mistakes the next time and you keep going.

Well, and like I had like at least a four year stretch where like I really didn't do any. When I was like, there was like a stretch of four years when I was at Drift and more specifically probably like two and a half to three years where like my life was that job. And so you commit to that at that level. And so you're like, I'm taking this bet. And I think, yeah, that is the thing that helped, you know, allow me to do this in the future. Okay, let's go to some questions and we'll keep Talking. This question is from Chris. For members of a team who didn't come from a marketing background, what are the top resources you'd recommend for people who need to get up to speed on modern marketing fundamentals other than joining being a part of dgmg?

Yeah, you definitely need to be part of dgmg. So, like, I don't really know what a traditional, like, marketing background is because you don't learn this in school. And I know that that is, like, your biggest takeaway. Dave, is like, you just. You don'. And so I definitely am not, like, a classically trained marketer. I also am one of the few marketing executives that don't have their MBAs. Do you have your MBA?

No.

Okay, we could probably do a whole podcast on that now.

Let's do it. That could be our podcast. I like.

So for me, it was, like, really learning on the job because the DGMG resources didn't exist then. You know, I've read Crossing the Chasm, and I've read Starting with why and Play Bigger. Those are all really good books to get started, I think.

Like, for me, it honestly was like, like, so this advice is tough because people want, like, a book, but for me, it was like just having one or two other people that I got to know and be friends with that were doing my job. Because it's like the sanity checks, like, to be able to, like, you know, now you and I have connected. It's like if I was marketing somewhere, like, to be able to email you and be like, hey, what's your ratio of sales reps to marketing people? Like, or, you know, what's your budget? Or do you have a benchmark on this? I found that, like, the more it's, you know, get on the videos, get on the podc, be in something like DGMG or Peak Community or Pavilion or whatever. But I think it's about finding one or two peers that are doing your job. Because what's amazing now is I get to see the world from, like, five, six different companies that I work with. And that's already made me way smarter as a marketer, only because I just have more samples to look at. Right. Like, how important was it for you to have, like, one or two other people in your careers?

Yeah. So, I mean, I pinged you yesterday asking you a question, because I don't have the answer. And, like, actually, I think that was the second time I've done that with you. So, yes, peers for sure. And then I would say mentors. Like, someone that's willing to teach you.

How do you get a mentor?

Yeah, you know, it's a really good question. So I mentor people both at Guild and outside of Guild. And how do you get a mentor? You ask? So this is going to, like, light up Pandora's box, but sometimes I listen to podcasts and like, those become my mentors. And really, like, a good mentor will have three to four mentees in a year that they really focus on. And it's really up to the mentee to bring the agenda and really what they want to learn from their mentor. And so whether it's about funnel optimization or about product marketing or what it is that you want to learn. Also, I will say about the other thing about finding a mentor is it's good to have a board of directors, not just one mentor. You want to have multiple people that are helping you with multiple facets that are experts in their field. And so I have my own board of directors. Dave, I'm sure you have your own. And you really just gotta ask and you won't get it if you don't ask your ideal board of directors to be on your board.

I think one cool thing you could also do is, Chris, like, what if you just like LinkedIn. What if you found like four or five people on LinkedIn with a similar job title and similar company to you and messaged each one of them? It was like, you know, hey, it looks like we're both director of marketing at kind of like Series A SaaS companies. I'm starting a weekly thing where I just have like a open Zoom call for 30 minutes with a couple other people. You know, would you want to be part of that? I bet you could get one or two other people. And then the learnings become, you know, hey, who should we hire? Which agency should we work with? And that was something that's really helpful.

That's really good.

I like your advice. Board of directors too.

Yeah, it's like leverage LinkedIn. I think that's. As an ex employee, I'll still say it. Leverage it as much as you can. Because I talk to people who I've never met at conferences or who I've never met in person, or we haven't even zoomed where we go back and forth on things like, our business is unique because it is super, super enterprise. And so finding people in our network is tough. And so you kind of just gotta make it happen.

And like, most people are just used to, like, being sold to. And like, I get a message that's like, hey, I'm also a CMO at a SaaS company. Like, that's how you and I connected. Like, you know, want to just be connected and chat and like, it's, you know, I have like now a handful of people that I don't ever do calls with. But over LinkedIn DMs, I can just be like, hey, Alison, what do you think of this? Or do you know this person? Hugely valuable.

Okay.

Kayleigh, what's up? Kaylee, good to see you. What are some ways to make mentors meaningful? What do you prioritize during those chats with a mentor? Great question, because I think a lot of people mess this up, right?

Totally. I messed it up when I was younger too. Like, I didn't know what I was supposed to get out. I knew I needed a mentor. Sheryl Sandberg told me I needed a mentor, but I didn't know what it really meant to have a mentor. And so like I said earlier, I think that being really thoughtful and you owning the agenda and really being intentional about what you want to learn from your mentor is really important. And knowing that the mentorship isn't lifetime like it is for the amount of time that you need it to be and where they're getting learning from you and you're learning from them. And so I would prioritize what you want to learn and be very clear with those expectations with your mentor up front so that they can be thoughtful and how they help teach you and guide you and give you the support that you need at that point in your career.

Yeah. And when you talk about that scenario, have you had an official schedule with somebody when you say set the agenda, how often are you meeting with this mentor? What's been the arrangement you've had?

So I have a mentor right now. We've been working together for almost a year and we meet on a monthly basis. We met in person last month, which was such a treat. I'll take any in person meetings right now. We just had our sales kickoff and it brought me back to life.

Nice. That's awesome.

But yeah, we meet on a monthly basis and she never cancels. And I think that that is also huge. Like, we stick to it regardless of how busy either of us are. And I'm a big fan of pads of paper. I write down all the things that I need to get from her and we go through the list.

I think having the regular cadence is ideal because it's almost like a one on one then, which is like, if I know that I'm meeting with my mentor once a month, I Had someone when I was at Drift and when I met with them once a month, I just had like an Evernote file. I had a running list of things that I in the moment. And I actually read this in Andy Grove's book, High Output Management. He used to have something called the Icebox, which is basically or like your one on one file, which is like, if I meet with SB regularly, I put, put things in a file and I keep notes because it also just kind of frees your brain of like, instead of having to hold onto it, I'm going to make a running list. Like, you know, I got to ask him about how he calculated budget. I got to ask her about how she, you know, hired. Those are not urgent things that are going to distract me from my job. But I file them away. Then, okay, I see that my meeting with SB is coming up next week. I might go revisit that. So I'm a little bit more prepared. But then I also end up kind of like I go and delete 20 of the bullets that I had put three weeks ago because like, things just change. And actually the one thing that I know that I really need to talk to her about and this meeting is budget. I'm really stuck on this budget problem. I want to know how she worked through budget, get some benchmarks, whatever. It's like running a one on one with your boss you're going to get. Because to me, the mentorship thing is like selfish. Like, I need your help. I don't know how to do this. And so then I come back and I get unstuck on this work problem. So I try to make it like exactly what you said. Like it's got to be super tactical. I'm trying to get very specific things out.

One other thing that I really want to reinforce that I learned at LinkedIn is there's mentors and there's executive sponsors. And so I do, I do believe at your organization it's important to find that executive sponsor. Like someone who's going to advocate for you when you're not in the room, someone who's going to help you through Org dynamics, someone that's going to help you be better at your company because they have the context of your company. And so the mentorship really then becomes in context, which is pretty magical.

And frankly, someone who you can vent to about your boss. Right? You need to have that like, you know, you need to have like the fact finding thing. And so Kaylee, like, yes, you should 100%. I know you. I know in your role in your company. Right. Like, you should 100% go find a mentor, if only for the sole purpose of just like relieving your stress and it acts as therapy. Like, and then the bonus of that is like, you can, you know, find. But I think the other thing is like, find someone who has done the thing you did before. And so for me it was Mike Volpe, who was a CMO at HubSpot, was my mentor. And the HubSpot journey was so similar to Drift that like, he was a lifesaver to me as a person running marketing because I'm like, hey, did you ever have like website traffic, like stall for three months? And he's like, yep. It's usually one of these three reasons, like he could just help me get unstuck on anything. And I think it's also the other thing is talk to the founders, talk to the CEO, say I want to bring a mentor on. Could we do something like offer equity and advisory shares? And oftentimes like, I found that, that they will say a hundred percent yes. Especially if you're the one that like sought that out. You weren't told to go do it. You're like, I want to go find this person as my mentor. You know, she was the CMO of this company. They took that company public. She's agreed to meet with me. Here's what like, I would say most CEOs and founders would be like, yes, go, please have that mentor. It's why companies build boards. It's why companies have advisorships for the same reason.

Yeah. You know, between us, we have a great network of people and I'm always happy to help. If I can't do it myself, I'm happy to help. Nicola asked a really good question.

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Yeah, I was hoping we were going to get there. Go ahead.

Yeah. As an introvert, she finds finding a mentor, networking, building relationships really difficult. So this is like the worst kept secret that people know about me, but I'm actually a huge introvert posing as an extrovert, which is exhausting. But I am also an introvert. And really what I have found is it just takes reps. It just takes reps of like reaching out, feeling comfortable, being confident to get there. And what Dave said earlier with LinkedIn and being able to reach out to people in that way also helps build that confidence. But I wouldn't mask introversion for confidence, which I think I did early in my career. I just felt like I was really shy to ask for the things that I wanted to and Blamed it on my introversion. But I would start slow with LinkedIn. And then from there, once you hear a lot of yeses, you will start to feel a lot better, and it won't be so hard to network. But you'll find me at sales kickoff or parties or whatever with, like, a smaller group of people and within the really big, because that's my natural state.

It's also all kind of, like, related too, which is like, the more so you can be introvert, you don't have to be extroverted to do it, because you're just sending messages on LinkedIn, you know, to start at least. And I'm like you. I'm actually introverted in, like, most things. But what I found is, like, I hate, like, small talk, and I know some people really hate, you know, and I just can't do it. But what I found is, like, what's nice is, like, what you actually. It might be a stranger, but you're not here to talk about, you know, life and family and that stuff can come up. But really, why do you have a mentor? Because you're here. They have some experience that you want. And so you're both here to talk about marketing. I found that even if you're introverted, it kind of shrinks down. Like, you kind of each have a sheet of music or that's what you're playing off of. And it makes the conversation, like, really easy. There's not like, you know, awkward silences or like, oh, my God, was that a silly question? Because you're not just like, it's not like a date, and you're just trying to, like, think of things to say to, like, impress this person or whatever. You're here to ask questions and to talk specifically about marketing. So I think that makes it easier.

My last mentor was introverted. Way more introverted than me on the introversion spectrum. And so that was really awesome because she had a lot of great tips on, you know, you would never have guessed, too, that she was introverted. And she had a lot of great tips. I learned a lot from her as a fellow introvert.

Nice. And also, like, it kind of like, the connection is like, not anybody can have a mentor because, like, why would someone, out of a hundred messages they get in the day be like, sure, you know What? I'll take 30 minutes out of my month to meet with this person. And so I think a lot of it is like, start by building up your company, building up your brand, having success, be starting to become known in your industry, and that could just be like, you know, your competitors and other companies observe cool things that you're doing, or customers are talking about you or analysts or press or whatever. The more credibility your company builds, the more likely someone is going to be like, sure, I'll mentor this person. And so I think part of it is, like, it's kind of like chicken and the egg thing. The more you can deliver on that. It's like, okay, well, now I connect with this person, and I see that she's also at a SaaS company. Oh, I've heard of that company. They're doing really well. Okay, great. Yeah, this would be great. This would be beneficial.

What makes you take 30 minutes in the sea of messages that you get for people requesting to be your mentor?

Well, I've real. Now I do, now I don't. The honest answer is I. I haven't done much of that in the last year or so. And that's just because I either go, like, way off the deep end and, like, I say yes to everything, and then, like, I always. I get in this cycle of, like. Like, I'm trying to really just grow as an individual, and I get in this cycle of, like, I say yes to everything, and then I'm really stressed out and really miserable, and I've just had three weeks of, like, I said yes to everything, and I'm mad at myself for doing it. And so in the last year or so, I've been much more conscious about, like, trying to peel back. However, I would say that for me, it has to be, like, somebody who knows who's reaching out to me, because it's not a blind. Like, I'm just going to shotgun a bunch of marketing people and hope that someone mentors me. They're like, Like, I've been following your stuff. I've been reading this thing. You said this. I'm in this position. Here's this scenario, because it doesn't work unless somebody like, no, no, I gotta know you specifically. Like, I've been following SB for a while. I know that I want her to be my mentor because of this thing that she did. And so I think you gotta have that relationship. I also have been, like, just trying to just do a better job of, like, helping to level the playing field in marketing. And so candidly, I've kind of just been only saying, like, if you're like, me, just like the average white guy reaching out for mentorship, I haven't been saying yes to any of that. And so I'm trying to, like, be more. If I'M going to use my time. I want to make sure it's like used in a meaningful way to help like level the playing field of marketing. So I've been also using that as a criteria.

Yeah, I love that. And we need more of that for sure. The majority of marketers are women, so.

I know that is true. However like the natural bias is for me to like go do six podcasts in a row subconsciously with six dudes. Right. Or whatever. And so I think like it's just like a force thought.

Okay, that's a really interesting question. I'd love to hear what you think.

Wait, let's read it for people. Okay. I see in a few months ago experience a new CMO joining our team. I tried setting up a zoom to meet her and she denied it. And I tried emailing her and she just not replied. And she has just not replied. I'm wondering if I am just an IC in her eyes and it's discouraging. How do you suggest getting in front of executives within your company who put up walls like that? That is some deep.

Okay, there's a lot to unpack here.

Yeah, I have a couple of opinions. I would say that is one possibility for sure. I would also say a lot of it. To me there's depends on the team size because I have worked for bosses that I don't ever talk to or meet with and that's because of the size of of the team. And that CMO can't possibly have one on ones and regular meetings with everyone. That's like a very sterile answer.

That's assuming positive intent for sure.

Okay, so the team is now like 15 to 20 people. So okay, if I'm the CMO of a 20 person marketing org, you need to meet with everybody. However that doesn't need to be weekly. And so maybe that CMO has four or five direct reports and she meets with that team weekly. But like the managers that I've had and then what I've done is I've always had on a team size of that size or smaller skip levels where you meet with every single person because that's an amazing source of information and actually get the pulse on the company. And so and also I would say what's very fishy to me on this is that maybe she doesn't want to have regular meetings with skip levels. And I could understand that. I wouldn't do it, but that's. I can understand why somebody might not. But if you're coming in as the new CMO and you haven't met all 20 people and had one on one with all 20 people. That to me is like, something smells funny.

Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts here. My first is like, if I'm going to assume positive intent, it's that she has an EA and her EA is declining meetings and she probably doesn't know that her EA is declining meetings. That does happen. So that's where I will assume positive intent. And if she's new, she's probably an email hell and could be like me sometimes where I'm like irresponsible about my inbox. But I agree with you, dg, it is. Something definitely smells fishy. When I started at Guild, there were four and we knew that we had to build the team. The teams around the team of the CMO has. And so I obviously couldn't spend 45 minutes weekly with the team as the team scaled and got bigger. I have three leads that I meet with weekly, but it turns out to be like two or three times a week with impromptu conversations. And then I meet with everyone on the team on a quarterly basis. And then mostly it's for a lot of the team because I'm involved in their projects. It could be monthly. And I think it's really important as a CMO because you need to have a pulse on the team on what the work is that they're doing and also being able to provide that coaching and being able to just understand the work. And so I'm disappointed to see that.

You also learn about your direct reports. Like, for me it was like, oh, I don't ever hear the other side. I'm like, so how is Dan as a manager? You know, like, you get both sides.

Okay, so we didn't answer the question. So how do you suggest getting in front of executives?

Yeah, have you sent a steaming pile of dog poop to her house yet? No.

That could work.

Let's get. What could you actually do?

Yeah, so I would start sending updates. Like, I don't know if you have a team or if it's just you, but I would just start sending.

Love that.

Hey, like, thought you might be interested in this. Or holler if you have any questions or like, hey, saw this. If she doesn't write back, that's fine, but she will. And I think it is differentiating for the other 15 to 20 people on your team. And I think that it's a really good way for her to understand the work that you're doing and hopefully will be a lead in for you guys to have a conversation.

That's great advice. Great advice because you're basically saying like, okay, cool, you know what? You haven't reached out to meet with me. That's not going to stop me from showing you all the awesome stuff that we're doing. And so whether it's once a week, once a month, hey, here's a recap I've had people send me. Like, like, since you're new, I want to give you kind of the lay of the land of content marketing here. Bullet one, bullet two, bullet three. That's great advice. You win. You're the best panelist on this session today. Great, Great job. Okay, let's go to this one. In the Q and A, I have a two part question. What advice would you give to early mid career marketers working at companies that do not have a cmo? Also, what would you say to decision makers that don't believe a CMO is necessary?

I'm assuming it's the wild west and that there is like a head of marketing there. Right?

Let's answer the first one. What advice would you give to early mid career marketers working at a company that do not have a cmo? It's almost too much nuance in this to like give an actual helpful answer because like, do they not have a cmo because like just they have a weird company structure and like are they gonna hire or like and they just don't think they need one and they just kind of run the company based on all was like everyone's a director and there's not really a sea of whatever or does it mean like they're waiting for one and they haven't communicated that to you or is there an opportunity to like step up and be that person? It's very challenging.

Or my fear in this is that the founder doesn't believe in marketing or so I want to understand it more.

Okay.

But it sounds like we're going to get more information.

Can you raise your hand and then you can actually check chat? Let's do that. It's an old large company that's an industry leader. Here we go. Check this out. Hey Morgan, check this technology out.

Hi. Are you able to hear me?

Yes, go ahead. You're live.

Yes. Well, hi everyone.

Yes. Like a radio show.

Well, yeah, like I said in my reply to the chat just now, I work at a fairly large like almost 150-year-old company and it's an industry leader in like, you know, innovations. It's like kind of cornered the market in a lot of places and so hasn't really had to market itself in a whole way outside of like face to face marketing, trade shows and that sort of thing. But you know, and content marketing is totally new territory and I the first person with content marketing as a title for the company and its history and there is no top level CMO function and really there's not a traditional like marketing leader for the company. It's kind of a more of a. But why we always like to joke that it's a bunch of companies in a trench coat because it's been like through acquisitions and things.

Who do you take like marketing orders from? Like who do you get goals from? Because you don't just kind of like show up and do random things at work. Is there someone that. Where does that stuff come from?

Well honestly a lot of it is my own making when it comes to content marketing at this time. Like the things that I'm seeing trends and what I think is the direction to grow. I report to like the director of web development for our company, if that makes sense. So I'm working on a digital marketing team with a team of developers, designers, that sort of stuff. But the only person in a content marketing function anywhere got it.

And do all those people like the head of web development or whatever, does that person report to some? Like is there someone that all of marketing like rolls up to? Is it a COO or anybody? Like what's that look like?

Yeah, it's just like a VP of shared services sort of position. Yeah, it's not explicitly like they are the VP of our. Technically it's a. Was a creative services department that's kind of started to expand into marketing. So it was really focused specifically on execution basically. But yeah, so it's more of a shared service and like in the history so far it's been very execution based like coming from sales mostly and there hasn't been that sort of figurehead in the marketing spot if that makes sense.

Yeah, I mean I think, I think just calling it shared services tells you enough about like the view.

Sentiment.

The sentiment and the company's view on marketing and it's very much a service agency to the other parts of the company. And so the reason why there's not a CMO is because probably they don't see marketing which there's a hundred year old company, fine. They just don't see marketing and like digital marketing and more modern marketing tactics as a revenue driver. And so there doesn't seem to be a real strategy around it. What were you going to say? SP Sorry about that.

No, that's exactly what I was going to say. The sentiment is very clear. And Morgan, it's one of those, I mean, it's really hard to teach an old dog new tricks, especially someone, I have two new puppies right now, so that really resonates with me. And so, Morgan, you need to decide, is this the type of organization that you want to be at? And I know that's a hot take, but it doesn't sound like there's going to be a lot of changes with a legacy organization.

Yeah. And I'd say that that is not a thought that I haven't had before. But I was curious, especially based on the topic of today, today's webinar, if you know any what advice you would have if you know, for someone who is, I guess, committed to sticking around.

And you know, well, I mean, yeah, it's all about your story and your why. So if you're committed to stick around, then maybe you're like, I don't need to become a marketing leader. We don't need to have a marketing leader. I'm happy kind of finding my own way and creating stuff. And you find your own creativity and you find your own trends and stuff to write about and then that satisfies your like, why for going to work every day, then that might be plenty, you know, like, it doesn't have to be. Or if you're someone like, no, I want to be CMO one day. I want to help the company grow to X million dollars in this. Then like, think that could be a more challenging place to be. But if you're in that first bucket, then that is what you can do for sure.

I'm going to use my advice that I used in the other one and it's there's a really good marketing report that just came out. If you ping me on LinkedIn, I'll send it to you. Which was about marketing trends for 2022. And there's some really good nuggets in there. I am lucky because my boss really believes in marketing, but I forwarded it to her anyways because I thought that there were some interesting nuggets that we can adopt at Guild. And so I would like to send it to you and maybe you can think about how you would send it upwards with your own framing of how it could make an impact at your organization and just see it. Maybe it opens a conversation.

Yeah, that would be great. And thank you so much for volunteering.

To do that SAP you want to just DM Morgan.

You're even email oh, yeah, I'll do that right now.

Cool.

How are you feeling about the book launch? Are you still on a high 105?

I'm over it.

You're not?

No, it's fun. It's cool to see. The part that I'm not over is honestly didn't do a ton to market it. And it's funny because I just, like, I didn't want to do a ton of interviews. I didn't want to do a ton of things I didn't want to do. I felt like I wrote this book based on what I learned through the DGMG community and maybe people that are like, on my email list and in the community will buy. Buy it and. Great. I didn't have a sales goal. I wanted to write a book. I wanted to do it. I wanted to show myself that I could do it and have it and create it and hopefully people got value from it. Didn't have a sales goal, but now that I see it on Twitter and everywhere, I'm like, okay, maybe there's a little bit longer tail and now I think it's cooler. But I was. But yeah, it's fun. It was a good project. Thing that I didn't anticipate, though, was I picked the COVID yellow and it was totally just like an unintentional thing. But it really does kind of stand out.

That's good. I mean, as someone who used to run brand, I feel like, like you should claim that that was intentional.

I think I wanted a non traditional book cover and I looked at books on my shelf and I was like, well, a lot of them are red.

A lot of red.

Yeah, a lot of them are white. How about yellow? And it worked.

You put it beside the Challenger sale and you have McDonald's.

Yeah, that's right. I see right now I'm looking at Annie Duke thinking in bets. That's in red. The effective executive. That's in red. The ultimate salesman machine. That's in red. Anyway, what's going on at your company? Let's talk about for like maybe five minutes and then we'll wrap up. Just like, what's it like being SVP of marketing at a company that's in the cloud? Forbes Cloud 100, you know, hundreds of millions in revenue. Like, what do you do?

Yeah, so it's really interesting, Dave, because, like, I've never been a part of this phase of growth, which is what.

How do you. What is this phase of growth?

Like, how do you like, like series E F, like, where you're like, you know, I've done ABCD, I should say ABC. And I have not done DEF, and I've obviously done LinkedIn. And this phase of growth is very different than the early phase. I always thought, like, 0 to 100 was the hardest and it is really hard. But this next phase is even more difficult as you're trying to get to your high ambitions of the 1 to 500 phase, because you've crossed the chasm. You know that there's product market fit, and now you're really trying to scale, right? And you're really trying to use those early adopters to help. If you use the bowling alley analogy to start to, like, you know, drop some of those pins and it is really, really hard. And you're growing and things that got you there won't get you there. And so it is really tough. But I've been there now for over a year. I think last time we talked, I'd been there just for four months or five months. And there's a couple of really interesting marketing insights that I've learned from building a team to scaling a team, and now to understanding the big bets that we made and how they paid off. A couple of things. Everyone says they're doing abm. A lot of people aren't really doing abm. And this is a whole series all on its own. And I talked to Joe Rowley about this yesterday. But ABM is hard, especially when you do it right. And the one to one, one to few, one to has to be really intentional. And we've had a lot of really amazing success with it because our clients are so large in employee size and in deal size that we've created this really delightful experience from the first interaction. And we're really capitalizing on that through the funnel. And so I've had a lot of fun redefining what ABM really is in the context of enterprise.

Even just like, mechanically, like, that's such a different marketing strategy. It's harder to perfectly measure and articulate, right? Like, if you go from like, early, like series A greenhouse, like, you're looking at website traffic conversion, content marketing, you know, content marketing and like, that stuff is much easier to measure. And so, you know, it's almost like you have to come up with an entirely new playbook. Can you talk more about, like, what does that actually mean? That this, like, delightful experience? Because if you're going after these huge customers, like, how do you actually even get someone interested in Guild in the first place? Like, is there's a strong brand, there's creative, there's ads. Like how does that actually happen? Because people say like, oh, give them a great experience. But what's the actual like marketing thing that you're doing to create that demand in the first place or capture it?

I'm gonna answer it in two ways. So a lot of times, so we have a PR machine that I am so proud of that sits in a different department. And every time a company announces that they're going to offer debt free education to their workforce, they do a huge PR blip.

Is PR like important to your industry? Like your buyer is education.

Sorry if you can hear the vacuum. Yeah, yeah. So our buyer is the Chro. And So they're on LinkedIn, they're on all of the social networking sites that you would expect. And so Herschend, which is Dolly World, launched a couple weeks ago and there was a lot of press with Dolly Parton in it and her face. And obviously everyone loves Dolly. And so things like that or Target announcing that they're going to offer debt free education to their workforce or Walmart or these big brands creates a sense of FOMO with other CHROs or CEOs that you know, want to be able to compete in today's war for talent. And so we see them inbounding because of PR typically, or because they've seen us at an event or they've seen us somewhere where they've seen our ecosystem of innovators, our customers and our advisors and all the people that are in our ecosystem. So that's the first way. Then once we have some sort of inbound or we have some interest or we are targeting our gam, our tam, we call it our guild addressable market. We do micro sites, like I said, we do one to one marketing that basically whether it's through a campaign or through content marketing or through digital ads, we are so thoughtful with our ICP and how we target customers in our total addressable market. And so step one, segmentation. We all know that, but we overlook it. We have amazing segmentation that we work on with our operations team. And so when I say delight from the first interaction, yes, they're seeing the pr, but we've already we're marketing to them before they've even heard about us. To the right buyers at this specific account at the exact right time, with the exact right message.

It's so interesting because it's like what's the most important marketing tactic to do? Enterprise ABM successfully.

Segmentation.

Segmentation, which is so like not the sexy thing, but it's so important because it includes. It's not just a marketing in a vacuum thing. Like you're not just deciding like product sale. Everybody has to be the utmost alignment in order to execute on that. It's cool to hear you talk about this.

Our go to market strategy is pretty incredible. Like we've taken what a normal company would do and defining their TAM and understanding which customers have the highest propensity to buy. And we said, okay, it's these eight things that make them have the highest propensity to buy or six things. Here are the archetypes of the people that buy our solution and then we actually double down on that list. Right. From a marketing perspective, like, I don't make a marketing investment unless it overlays with our total addressable marketing.

That's a good little nugget, by the way, the propensity to buy thing. Like, how many people on this call right now know the five or six, you know, points in that, like, propensity to buy?

That's the difference between revenue marketing.

It's amazing.

Yeah, it is.

And so how should somebody start that? Or like, if I'm like, ooh, I run marketing in a small early stage company and I don't have that, like, what's the first step to going and doing that?

You think looking at your existing customer base and starting to learn the pattern patterns, what size of company are they? What industries are they in? Why did they come to you? What value are they getting from your current solution? I would start to like do some analysis on your existing install base and then start to draw and some inferences and pattern recognition from that.

Awesome.

I mean, this is a whole other topic.

Yeah, this is a whole other topic. This is bonus, people. Appreciate that. Okay, Sarah Beth put her email address in, put in if anybody wants it because it's an intimate crew. And then now the people that showed up will be rewarded. Other than the folks that have listened to this next week in the community. Thanks for doing this. You're awesome. I appreciate you.

I appreciate you and I hope that you get your car sorted out. That's such a bummer.

Oh, yes, it's a. I mean, no problem. I'm going to call him right now and it'll be. I think it's glass. Hopefully it probably broke something else.

But anyway, all good.

All right, I'll see you later.

Okay, bye.

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