Kathleen Booth

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

Hey, what's going on, everyone? I'm Jason Hassenberg, and you're tuning into the Sour Go to Market SAS Takes Podcast, the show with sour candies and. And even sourer takes. Today I'm joined by Kathleen Booth, the SVP of marketing and growth at Pavilion. Pavilion. You don't know them. They're a staple in the SaaS and B2B. B2C movement. They're a community that you can join. They host events in person. They host learnings and trainings all around the country. If you don't know about them, you're probably living under a rock because Pavilion is the biggest community in the tech space. Kathleen, thank you so much for joining me today. Are you ready for this challenge?

I mean, ready as I'll ever be.

Jason.

I don't know. I'm very intimidated by these candy names. Things like toxic waste. We'll see.

Oh, I. I'm sure you'll be able to handle it. You have a water next to you. Right? So we're all.

I have, like, the world's most giant go cup.

Is that a Stanley?

That is not a Stanley.

I like the color of it, though. That's nice. We'll dive deep into our first sour take. Now we're doing five sour candies. We're going to start off with sour Skittles. That's a level nine on the pucker index. Then we're going to do sour popping candy by warheads. A level 23. Then we're going to do Crybaby Tears. A level 34. We're going to get into Barnett's Mega Sour Candy. That's the candy that everyone's been making funny faces from. It's a level 40. And then we're going to do toxic waste, nuclear fusion, and that's a level 43. Kathleen, let's dive in deep and start by trying out our Sour Skittles.

All right, Ready? Do we do all of them?

You can do whatever you want. The traditional approach to organic SEO isn't going to work in the future.

No, it's not. And this is a big deal coming from me because I. My whole background is in, like, content driven, inbound demand generation.

Yeah.

So maybe it's sacrilegious, but I just think with AI, anybody can now go into chat, GPT or Bard or really any free tool. And I mean, I've done this. The prompt is like, write me an outline for a page that will rank first in Google 4. Put in your term, right?

Yep.

Writes you the outline. Then you take each element of that outline and you plug it in and you say, write me a page. It'll rank first for this. So if everybody can do that, that kind of content is not going to be a differentiator anymore and the Internet is going to be littered with it and people are going to get really tired of it and it's going to be hard for users to sort through all the noise and figure out what they can trust and what they can't. And so I do think that content is still going to be important, but just writing like hyper keyword optimized blogs or ebooks or pieces of pillar content ain't going to work anymore. So my opinion is that what everybody needs to be thinking about is how do I incorporate something that people can't get anywhere else, which is in my mind that means original research and data. That's number one, like authenticity, meaning like the human factor. So how do you include people in your, in your content and your marketing? That's number two. And number three is unique points of view or strong points of view. Like people will come back to you if you have a strong point of view and they want to know what you're going to say next. So those three things I think data, research, the human element and the strong points of view are what are really going to drive results in the future, not like pure keyword optimization so badly.

What are some tips for, you know, marketers and, and go to market teams for them to actually start to build out content that way.

Yeah, I mean, I think you have to figure out like what your superpower is. And so not every company is going to do all three of the things I just mentioned. So I think the first question is really like, do you have access to an interesting data set? So a Pavilion, for example? We, we definitely do. We have like 10,000 members around the world and so we have a lot of opportunity to extract data from our audience in an opt in way. Great example is like we just finished a big survey that's going to, we're going to use the data to produce an executive compensation study because we can go to all these people and say, how much money are you making? You know, what stage is your company, where is it based? What level of seniority are you? So that puts us in a position to kind of like check that first box of original research and data. The second category, we're also actually doing something. So we have a podcast called Top Line, which our founder, Sam Jacobs is in along with two of our members. They all co hosted together. And some people follow that podcast for the information they share, and some just follow it for the banter because they feel like they know these three guys. And so not every company is going to have people who are willing to do podcasts or, you know, be on video. And so if that's something that your team is deeply uncomfortable with, maybe that's not for you. But if you have people who are excited about that and find that format to be something that they're comfortable with, then I would say run with it. And the last one is, like, strong points of view. And this is a tricky one, because I think some marketers get nervous about it. It's like, people don't want to offend anybody. And I'm not saying be offensive, but I'm saying, like, plant your flag in the sand and have an opinion on things. And if you do that right, not everybody's going to agree with you. And that's actually a good thing because nobody wants to, like, follow somebody who's saying things that everyone already knows and agrees with. Right. You got to stir things up a little bit. And, you know, I think there's lots of examples out there of people who've done this well and built brands on LinkedIn and elsewhere, because they have a perspective and people want to know what they're going to say next. So you just have to figure out which of those, like, feels most natural to you and kind of go from there.

It's. It's a. There's a great example where I was hosting an event in New York and Ran Fishkin was one of the speakers, and there were two sessions before him, one that was ran by Dream Data and one by Hockey Stack, and they were like, attributions alive, and it's healthy and you can be able to track all these things. And then Ran came on, which was like a half hour later, and he's like, attribution's dead. Everything is dying. And the reaction there, like, it was such a polar opinion, but it actually drove a lot of. A lot of interesting conversations after that session. And so I think you're gonna feel a little bit uncomfortable going against the grain, but when you're. When you feel strong about something and you believe in something, it's easier to write about.

Absolutely. And. And it, like, it just pours out of you when you have strong feelings.

What. And And Sam Jacobs, I, I've met him, he's such a unbelievable leader. And to have someone like that who's leading the charge, who I think people gravitate to very easily, is that giving you an advantage? Pavilion and Advantage, when you're thinking about rolling out your strategy for 2024, hugely.

I mean, it's. I feel really lucky as a marketing leader because, look, I believe in this, like, founder brand approach and I've tried to get other CEOs that I've worked for to, to do what Sam is doing and have met with a lot of resistance and discomfort. And when I came to Pavilion, Sam was already doing it. So I take no credit for what he's built, but he recognized early on that there's power in, in the CEO getting out and being a public presence for the company. And so early on, he hired a LinkedIn coach to learn how to post and what to say. And like, I mean, he has all the opinions and the ideas and he does his own posting, but to have somebody who's like, no, you should break it up in, in these smaller sentences and maybe add some bullets and maybe lead with this, like, he just learned how to be a good poster on LinkedIn and then committed to. I think for the first year or two, he posted twice a day, like seven days a week, which is unbelievable. And it's compounded. And he has a massive following. And I think we get something like, I'm actually doing a talk on this later this spring. We get something like 30% of our new members come from organic LinkedIn, so we don't spend anything on paid ads. And we, for I think six months this past year, we didn't even post to our corporate account really, almost at all. It was all people within the company posting. Sam, myself, a few other of the people on the team. And he just, he drives a lot of interest. So. And imagine, like, I think he's made this point, imagine how much you would have to spend in LinkedIn ads to get that same result. It's something like, I think he calculated it was something like 2.5 million doll would have had to spend this year to get this the same end result.

It's like going back to SEO and it lives on your site, right? And it helps you search the end and make sure that you're popping up. It almost feels like there's some sort of SEO in play. But in the community space, right, in the LinkedIn space, when you're, when you're going out to a party or a dinner and you're thinking, okay, who should I call on my cell phone? Who wants. There's like, four or five people that come up, right. And I almost think that's what's going on now in the community space. When people are in the tech, they're looking for new tech or they're looking for a new community to join. And they're thinking off the top of that, who. Who is on, like, who's on my list? Instead of just looking at the search engine right away, let's look at LinkedIn. Let's who's coming to mind right away? And because SaaS and tech is such a small industry compared to the rest of the world, it feels like that's where everything's headed.

I totally agree. And I think it's not just, you know, it's not just brand awareness in general. It's like the people who are active on LinkedIn are getting speaking engagements and, you know, other opportunities, podcast interviews. I think you and I met through LinkedIn, so it has a lot of, like, downstream effects that are tremendously valuable for anybody who's willing to, like, put the time into it.

I love it. That's a great way to end the first sour take. Kathleen, thank you so much again for joining. Let's dive into our second sour take now. We're going to try the Warhead popping candy. Let's see if.

All right.

Able to open it while we try it. I'm just going to read out your second sour take. AI is going to make outbound less effective.

Oh, that is really popping.

I haven't had forever.

My tongue is blue.

Yep, mine's red.

AI is definitely going to make the outbound less effective. It's kind of like what I just described with content in the sense that, like, marketers and salespeople, we tend to ruin everything, right? Like, and so with AI, you know, everybody's always talked about with outbound personalization, personalization being the holy grail. And AI is going to make that possible. I mean, it already is possible to an incredible extent. And again, when that is in everyone's hand, the problem is that personalization isn't going to feel special anymore. You know what I mean? Like, oh, I've gotten emails, for example. I can't remember the name of the tool, but there is a tool out there that will enable you to programmatically do outbound outreach to somebody, and it looks at where they're located, and I think it has to do with the city on their LinkedIn profile. And it finds, like, a coffee shop near them. And it mentions the name of the coffee shop in the email. Like, hey, you know, if I'm ever in town, would be great to grab a coffee at X. And it just like when I remember when I first got it, this was like a year or two ago, I was like, oh my God, that's crazy. How do they know about that coffee shop? Yeah, these days you see something like that and you're like, ugh. Another email where they're just popping in like random coffee shop names and like mentioning my alma mater and you know it. It's. How is any rep supposed to cut through the noise when AI knows more about people than you do? I think for a little while it's going to work, but then people are going to become super, super jaded. And to the extent that like even with video, it used to be that you could cut through by sending a personalized video of you talking and like holding up a whiteboard with the person's name. And now deep fake videos are everywhere. Like I, I just saw somebody in pavilion who posted they've been playing with a tool and he made a two minute video of himself talking, only he didn't really make it. Like it wasn't him, it was the AI. And it's crazy. So I don't even know the answer here of like, I, I think, well, that's not true. I do think the answer with Outbound is going to be less about like purely cold outreach. I think that's going to just really work less and less. And, and I think there is this new like suite of tools that is popping up in the world like around relationships. And there's a lot of them. I advise this one company, Small World, they're a great example where you know what they do. And again, there's other tools. Like this is they ingest all of your contacts from LinkedIn and from your Gmail contact list or whatever. And they then have you rate the strength of those contacts. And like you can, you can then ask your board or your colleagues or your partners to do it. And it like, basically it's like six degrees of Kevin Bacon at scale where if I know I want to reach out to you instead of sending you a cold email with some creepy AI personalization, I will use a tool like this and it'll be like, oh, you don't need to cold email him because that other person you know knows Jason. And so you're way better off contacting person person X and saying, can you make a warm intro for me? Because everybody knows like, then that it's not AI. Like, if you're friends with Sally and I'm friends with Sally and she knows you, and all of a sudden Sally emails you and says, kathleen really wants to meet you, I think she could add value. You're not only are you going to know it's a real thing, but you're way more likely to actually take the call because it's come in through somebody you trust. So I think that's like, that's how Albon's going to work in the future. Not spammy emails that make it seem like somebody really knows you.

Yeah. And it's almost like that slow down to speed up. Right. And I feel like when you have a tool like that in place and you're able to actually get data around, oh, my. You know, Sam Jacobs knows this guy very well, but I didn't know him. Why would I reach out? And I've done in Slack Channel, I've reached out to my CEO or whoever it is and say, hey, I really want to get this person on the podcast, or I want to get this person at this event or in a deal. I see that you, you're connected with them. And it's funny that they're coming up with tools like that because that's actually going to help. It's not going to damage, you know, your domain because you're not sending it from a cold email point. Right. And that's a whole nother topic we can get into. But diving back into what you were saying before, where it's like you're getting these creepy emails. Right? I've also gotten creepy LinkedIn messages, right. And it's like, what the heck is going on? And I think people are starting to treat LinkedIn the same, are treating email, which is totally. But now it's almost like back in the day when you would host an event, there's still people that do this. They go to the event and they have like, just, you know, business cards and they're handing out business cards left and right and they're, oh, my product is this, this and this. And it's. It almost feels like that there's not a need for that anymore. In this, the tech community, I just

can't imagine that it works because I get a ton of LinkedIn spam. And what shocks me is the number of people who literally, the second I accept their connection request, the very first thing they write to me is, I see that you're head of marketing at Pavilion. I'd like to do X for you. Can we set up a time to talk? Here's my meeting link. And I'm like, does, does anybody click that link and set up a meeting? Like, is that actually working for anyone? I can't imagine it is. No. I just think it's so ridiculous. Oh.

And I, that's why I think community has become such a. More such an important thing in the, in the world in general, because why would you rather entertain and these, these different types of people that are emailing you just to set up a meeting and that meeting's actually them selling you a product, not teaching you anything. And while, and vice versa, you could actually, when you're not attending an event, put your head down, work on the goals you need to achieve. And when you're actually thinking of new solutions or need help, you go to an in person event. Right. Or you go to a digital event or you go into a slack community and you actually ask questions there where you know people aren't selling you.

Yeah, 100%. And I might scoop myself on my next hot take. But like, absolutely. Why? Like, you've approached me out of nowhere. You have no indication that I need the thing that you're peddling like you know, graphic design services randomly. I get those in my inbox or I want to produce your podcast and I'm like, I don't even have a podcast. I have people who hit me up to become a franchise owner and I'm like, what led you to think that I wanted to start a franchise business? Like, it's just highly unqualified, highly untargeted and interruptive and, and they're persistent, like they're running sequences in LinkedIn to people who have, have no intent. It, it's just ridiculous.

Burning a bridge. I'd love to hear your opinion on like outsourcing sale, like to that just like sets up sequences, sequences for you and they're not really in house. Is that something that you've done in the past or had experience with?

Yeah, so I actually we're, we're using somebody now to help with that, but it's on like a hyper individualized curated basis. And so it's literally looking at people who've been highly engaged with like posts that Sam or I or other pavilion people have made on LinkedIn and who've like commented and gone back and forth with us and they're helping us to identify those people and then reach out to them in DMS and just be like, what, what was interesting to you? Like, you know, I'd love to learn more It's a, it's a soft approach, but it's like a really highly qualified, warm audience. And I think just having somebody out there who's like helping us, they're more helping us to identify them as opposed to like doing the conversations. Because I think that's the other thing. Like if you're going to take approach and you're purporting to be you, like you kind of need to be you.

Yeah, I, I've had people who, and, and I'm not calling anybody out, but I've had CEOs I've talked to and they're like, I have an intern who runs my entire social media plan. And, and they post and I almost. And I, like you said, Sam makes his own posts and he, and maybe he's, maybe you guys are having help identifying, but it's your team who's actually, and it's yourself who's actually going out and sending that message, who's actually carrying that conversation. And so, you know, there's a sort of way to be able to get help with being able to target who, who do we actually want to have conversations with. But it's a sec. It's another thing to have some random person who's messaging in the chat for you. Right. And I think a lot of companies now are, are steering towards and a lot of CEOs don't want to put in that work or effort.

Yeah. Which is crazy because like, I do the math and I think I already said, you know, Sam's LinkedIn has driven something like $2.5 million worth of business or no, not $2.5 million worth of Business. It would have cost us $2.5 million to get those results with LinkedIn ads. It's our second best performing channel after word of mouth. And so word of mouth is like referrals from existing members. So like, why would you not put the time in to work your second best performing channel? I don't think there's anything really as, as a set it and forget it marketing approach. Even paid ads, like, you have to be on top of it, tweaking and like adjusting your messaging and all of that. And so, you know, it's unfortunate that people don't see the value in it, but I think those might be the same people who, who do think that there are like true easy buttons in marketing, which unfortunately there are not.

No, there are not. And I think we'll take that and carry into our sour. Take number three. We're going to be trying our crybaby tears. Now I'm gonna, I'm gonna have all four, but you can have as many as you want.

I mean, I like a sour candy, I'll be honest. So I'm going for all four.

All right, Number three, most companies, just

to prove I ate them all.

Most companies don't invest enough in events or community. Now, I'm a big believer in investing in community. Maybe I'm biased because I came from a third party event company, but I want to understand why is this a sour take? Why did you choose to include this?

I mean, I'm definitely biased. I work at a community.

Yeah.

And we throw events. But I really do believe this and I've seen firsthand amongst our members, like the results that they get. But even literally just Yesterday, very famous LinkedIn personality who I probably will not name, did a LinkedIn post about all the different ways that most go to market leaders waste money and their marketing budgets. And one of his big things was LinkedIn or sorry, was events. And I call BS on that. Yeah, I actually think, like now more than ever, people are just so hungry for in person connection. So hungry. And it's this like boomerang effect from the pandemic when we couldn't see people in person for so long. And I think a lot of people spent the last few years forming all these virtual connections which are great and everybody has bigger networks as a result of it. But until you walk into a room with that person and shake their hand or give them a hug, like that is the thing that really cements the relationship. And there's something just unbelievably powerful about that moment. And we see it all the time at Pavilion events because we have all these people who are in the community. They feel like they know each other and they feel like they're best friends and they've literally never met in person and they get in a room and the first time they see this person, they're giving them a hug. And it's just like a beautiful, beautiful thing. So, you know, I think what I'm talking about here is like actually participating in events as a company, not just like attending a conference and similarly participating in communities and having these two things be a part of your go to market strategy. Because if individuals are getting so much fulfillment at that, at their own personal level from these two things, there is an opportunity there for companies. So, for example, with events, you know, I, there are certainly good ways and bad ways to do events, and I think my next hot take has to do with that. But I But I think like if you are willing to go in and invest in an event's presence in a way that adds value, that is not spammy and that's smart in terms of how you're getting your brand out there. There's real ROI in it and I've seen it as a head of marketing, you know I in many jobs. Like a couple of jobs ago I worked for a company that was an e Commerce SaaS and we had a big 20 by 20 booth at Shop Talk, which is a huge trade show and we, we had a great activation at our booth and we met a ton of people and it wasn't about the hard sell, it was about, you know, making connections and building relationships and like going from there. And that was really effective. Same with community. I mean I always describe community as a cheat code and you described, you kind of like touched on this earlier where if somebody these days, if you need to like buy new software for something, you're not probably not going to Google first anymore. You're probably going to whatever community you're in. And that community by the way might be LinkedIn, could be Pavilion, but you're going in and you're saying hey friends, I need to buy this type of software. Maybe it's like data enrichment. What are you using? Why do you love it or why do you hate it? And you're getting all these answers and, and you're shortlisting probably a couple of companies and, and then you might go to Google but you're not doing a general search. You're like typing in the company name and going straight to their website. So if you think about what that means for you as a company and you as like a marketer or a go to market executive, it means that if you're not present or being mentioned in those communities, you're not even getting the at bat because somebody isn't doing that broad based Google search. In most cases they're just getting your name from a peer and going straight to your site. So like having a strategy for how you're going to show up in those conversations is crucial these days. And I see it all the time in the virtual halls of Pavilion, like who's using, you know, software for sales enablement? What do you recommend? So those conversations happen like multiple times a day. And there are a couple of companies, like for example in the revops space there are a bunch of rev ops agencies that are members and one or two of them have really committed themselves to participating in the community in a way that like is A value add. And they get mentioned all the time when that question comes up and they get a ton of business from it. We have one has a case study on our site of all the pipeline they've gotten just from participating in Pavilion. So the thing is, if you're not investing in events and community, your competitors absolutely are and they are just grabbing up all that business and not seeing any competition for it. So get in there and, and put your, put your hat in the ring

for companies and go to market leaders who maybe they just got budget this year and are actually able to spend some money sponsoring events. Let's just say, you know, $250,000 budget where, you know, where are you allocating that in 2024? What types of ways are you allocating? And let's just say it's for a sales enablement company.

Yeah, I think it like it depends on who your audience is and where they're hanging out and how they buy. But I can walk you through kind of how I thought about events in the past. Sometimes I've had larger budgets, sometimes they've been smaller. And I always sort of like to figure out first of all, where is my audience hanging out? Like what are the big conferences they go to, the big ones and the small ones. Like sometimes there are real niche events in your in industries and those can present very interesting opportunities for you to come in and like be a big fish in a small pond, which I love personally. I love kind of taking over something and making a big splash. From a brand standpoint, like a brand awareness standpoint, that's super, super effective. And so I always look for some smaller events to invest in where I can have a bigger presence. And then at the large events I think it's really about how do you stand out from a very noisy environment. And so like Shop Talk was a great example we had. The company I was at at the time was like a series a company and to do a 20 by 20 booth at Shop Talk is a big investment. And so it, we couldn't like just do the booth and by the way it had to be a gorgeous booth. So if you're going to like make these investments, you really need to show up and, and look good and in order to stand out against the companies that have more money. So invest in a great presence and then it's about the activation and like how are you going to start conversations? Because if you're, if you're going in just to sell, you're probably not going to get results as good as if you're finding ways to engage people that are fun and meaningful. And so I would say, you know, first it's about identifying the right events. Then it's also about determining do I want to have a formal presence at this event or do I want to kind of like go a little bit gorilla. And there are definitely great ways to go gorilla, you know, where for example, you might do something adjacent to the event like down the street and invite people who are coming. I love that approach. I have a great story about back when I used to own an agency and we didn't have almost any budget and we were targeting HubSpot customers. And so we wanted to do something at Inbound and there was no way we could afford to sponsor Inbound. So that for anybody who hasn't been. That's at the Boston Convention center and are the. We had the startup at the time called the Inbound Sales Academy. And we, what we did was we made urinal screens and they said, are you pissed at the quality of your inbound leads? And then they had our URL and we hired the concierge at the Westin, which is attached to the Boston Convention center to go around to every men's bathroom in the entire BCEC and put these urinal screens in the urinals. And it was so effective that like we had speakers talking about it from the stage and we paid $0 for that.

What a smart idea.

You know, there's a lot of fun ways you could do it. Like I've always wanted to do an activation with an out of home company where we have like mobile billboards circling a convention center or light art where you like project a company's logo onto the side of like the Moscone Center. I personally really like those approaches, but they're, they don't, they're not good for everything. They're just interesting things to layer on to broader event strategies.

Yeah, it's. That brings me to an example of like Laura Artem, you know, head of sales at Dream Data. She was, we were hosting a niche event, like you said in New York for CROs and CMOs. And on the side she had a billboard and it was in Times Square. She rented out a billboard and it was like a funny joke aimed at her cmo. Basically how he wants to, instead of spending the money on this billboard, he wants to spend it on some other initiative. And it got such a great response and people were talking about it the entire day like, did you see that? Did you see that? Did you see that? And it was like, they didn't pay to sponsor. They didn't.

Right.

They, they just got all that benefit out of thinking outside the box. And I think what you're saying here is just, it takes a little bit of time to actually think about it. But when you're working out or when you're in the sauna, those are usually when those ideas come to you.

I love, I love a good shower thought.

Yep. And I kind of want to now dig into. So you pick the events that you're going to go to, how are you rallying the troops and who you're sending, what's the message you're laying out to them so that when they do go to the event, they don't just, you know, let's say you're sending AES, which I'm more. I, I believe you should be sending more of the directors and up to represent your brand. But what message are you laying out to them so that you're able to actually get more budget and get leads from the event?

So I've always approached it like I would any other marketing initiative where it's like, we're going in with really, really clear goals. And for example, at Pavilion, before any member of my team can go to an event, especially if they're the one requesting to go, I always ask them, like, lay out the ROI case for me. Show me all the costs that are going to be involved with you attending. And it's not just the ticket, it's like your travel and your hotel and your meals and incidentals and your Ubers. And then I want you to tell me what, like, what are your objectives to come out of this with, like, how many meetings are you going to have? What from, you know, based on our conversion rates, how many of those are going to turn into business? What's the dollar value of the business you project coming out of this? And, you know, it needs to, like, exceed what we're going to spend. And then, you know, so you have to, like, set that expectation up front. And then I think it's important to work with anybody who's going to ensure they have a plan to, like, it's not just show up on site and wander around, although that can produce some good connections and it's worth doing. But, like, I'm a big believer in, you know, there are many ways to, to, like, suss out who's going to be attending certain events. Being in a community is one of them. You know, you ask in a community who's going to be there, and then setting up as Many appointments in advance as you can. Getting invited to parties like that's, it's a kind of a funny one that people don't think about. But like being in the conversation and knowing well these vendors are all having happy hours afterwards and getting on those lists so that you're in the room to have the conversations is really important. And then after the event like logging all of this in a CRM and having a follow up cadence of like how often are we checking back in on, you know, did we get the ROI out of that? Was it really worth it? You know, when what did what you forecasted actually happen so that you get smarter over time about what you can expect from events?

I love the fact that you're having whoever you're sending layout like actually write up. You know, the costs are associated because a lot of the times when like and I've seen all the time with like events that I, I've hosted and there'll be sponsors and they'll send like an AE and that looks like that AE is actually there just for vacation purposes. Right. And like but when you have them write out what they're actually what the expenses are going into this, it starts to hit them like, oh, this isn't a vacation. Like I'm here to actually do business, to actually provide value to my company and they're sending me here because they believe that I'm a great communicator and I have high EQ and, and I'm able to actually present the value prop and talk to people in a way that makes the company look good as well as themselves. Right. And so yeah, I'll also lead into. Go ahead. Where you trying to.

I was gonna say the other fun thing by the way is if you have a larger team going, one of the things I've done is you, you can have like a shared Google spreadsheet or something that you, during the event, like you ask every time your team has a conversation that's going to lead to like a demo or an opportunity, they have to log it in the sheet and put their name next to it. And I personally really like to gamify that and be like all right, whoever hits X target or the people who get the two most like and there's some kind of a prize involved. I think just like with any other revenue oriented team like putting a little bit of healthy competition in can really help to drive performance.

So such a smart idea there because I think us sales people and even marketers and I think everybody in, in the tech world is Very competitive. And so when you lay out those guidelines and you have that transparency between members and, and you look on your sheet and you see, oh, you know, falling behind.

Joe, I gotta catch up. I need two more. Exactly.

And you're like, okay, let's, let's get talking. Right? And there's nothing worse than seeing people who come to an event and they're like walking together. I've had to draw up plans where it's like, okay, Joe, you're in section A, this is really where you're going to be walking most of the time. And then Samantha, you're, this is section B and this is where you're going to be at. And let's make sure we're not always walking together because when you're walking with like two people and you're engaging in conversation, it's hard for someone else to walk up and like, hey, excuse me, let's, you know, and it's like it feels, it doesn't feel as inviting. So moving on though, because I want to, I want to dive back into what you just said earlier, which was being able to actually activate your team. So everybody's different. Is there like a, like a one off way that you're telling everyone, you know, like you're identifying who should actually go. Is there a way that you actually identify who to send?

It's a really good question. I mean, it depends on the event. So for us we have a couple different business lines. So we have individual membership, we have corporate membership, and then we actually have sponsorship business where people pay to sponsor our events. So I have sales teams working each of those different business lines. And so I'll look at the event and figure out like, you know, what opportunity does this event really present to us? So like a great example is at Inbound. It's not, it doesn't really make sense for me to send somebody who's going to sell individual memberships because it's just too big. Like we would drown in the noise. And the average contract value isn't like high enough to really justify somebody having boots on the ground for that. But Inbound is great because anybody who's going to sponsor Inbound is a great candidate to sponsor a Pavilion conference. And so I sent my head of sales who deals with our sponsorship business to Inbound because he could literally laser target those companies. They all have booths and the average contract value if he lands a deal or two is high enough to cover the cost of his participation. So, you know, that's a little different than like, for example Saster, where I might send somebody who's, who's more on the individual and the corporate business side because like in that case we're going to host a happy hour and we're going to get our members to come and have them bring non members and that's a really great way for us to get those people in a room and have them experience the value of Pavilion and, and pretty much like sell them on it on site.

That's a very smart way of thinking about who you're going to choose instead of just saying, okay, these three people are always going to our events.

Yeah, no, and you know, we, we send pretty lean teams, I will say so we definitely, whoever get, whoever goes, we have a lot of expectation for the value they're going to deliver from that event.

What's, can you tell me a time when you did send somebody and they didn't deliver the value? What's the conversation there?

Yeah, this is where I think that advanced preparation is really key and having them lay out their goals and, and also agreeing in advance. How are we gonna, like, how are we gonna track your progress? And you know, is it that you're gonna enter this information in the CRM and tag it with the event name? Is it that you're gonna put it in a spreadsheet? And but like I want to know where is the central system of record or the single source of truth for who you spoke to and what the status is of those conversations and afterwards then you know, obviously you need to have the follow up loop and I check in and if, if they did not hit their number of target targets in terms of conversations or meetings or whatever that metric is, then it really, you know, it's not about like throwing somebody under the bus, it's more about like where do you think you fell short? What do you think you could have done differently in order to change that outcome? And I'm a big fan of like after action reports where you like document the learnings from things. And so you know, I, I think it's all about like, hey, could you have maybe done a better job of going into our community and asking who was going to be there and setting up meetings in advance or did you have a plan to your point of like walking the trade show floor and like how much ground were you able to cover and were you invited to the after parties and you know, all of those sorts of things. Did you, did you work the other people there that you knew to get introductions? So I think you got to have that feedback loop and you got to document the learnings in order for the team as a whole to get smarter. That's.

I love that take. That will lead us into our sour take number four. Kathleen, thank you so much for all these answers.

I'm nervous about this one.

This one is the most powerful one. So just be ready for it. It hits right away. Okay, sour take number four. Here we go. And this goes off of sour take number three. So most of those companies who do sponsor events go about events and community the wrong way. Oh, yeah. Oh, this one hits.

That's sour.

Now, we talked about this a little bit before, but let's just, let's just continue the conversation here. Why did you include this as your sour take number four?

Because I think a lot of people go into events and community with a self first mindset. And I see it in pavilion. It's like I'm trying to figure out where to put this in my mouth so that I can talk.

You can always out. Some people have taken it out, so no big worries.

I sucked all the sour off of it.

That's all that matters.

So I'm gonna call that a win.

That's a win.

Now it's just the sweet part. So that was very sour.

Oh, yeah.

After trying, I can feel the lingering taste of it in my mouth.

Yeah. I've had people who've had to stop mid conversation. Like, I have to grab water.

Yeah. It's just, it was just an awkward size. But I would say, like, if you come in and it's. It is the cocktail party analogy. If you walk into the party and you're like, so I'm head of marketing at Pavilion and I live in Annapolis and are, you know, who I sell to is marketers and salespeople and who are you? Like, you know what I mean? It can't be all about you. And it can't. And I can't immediately go to do you want to join? Right. Like, that's ridiculous. If I walked into a party and was just like, do you want to join this company that I work for? That's just like those people that go into LinkedIn and immediately start to pitch. And I think a lot of people do see the opportunity of events and community and they think, oh, I can just go in and work my sales cycle there. And that does not work. It doesn't work in community where you come in. And if you're all about yourself, yourself, most people are gonna call you out for being spammy and self promotional. You might even get kicked out. I know like in pavilion, we are no pitch zone. And so, like, you could easily get removed from the community. But the same with events. Like, if you go to an event and all you're doing is standing at your booth going, hey, do you want to do a demo of our software? You know, like, that's not going to get you results. So no wonder so many people think that there isn't, that these things are not worth investing in. And it's because they do it wrong. They spend a ton of money. They don't get any value out of it. So the way to do this is to think of it like a party where it's like, people are going to want to talk to you if you're interesting and you're inquisitive and you ask about them. Like, it's just a. Just like it is in the rest of the social world. Like, come into a community, introduce yourself and like, seek to help first and to answer questions and make introductions and help people out. And naturally, if you are that person, that is a give before you get person, then when the opportunity comes and somebody's like, hey, does anyone know a company that does X? All those people that you helped are going to be like, yes, Kathleen does X. Go talk to her. And at events, it's a similar principle where, like, whether you're going to have a booth or walk the trade show floor or host a, you know, a party outside of the event, it has to be more about building those relationships first and genuinely looking to, like, entertain people and show them hospitality and offer them something of value. So, like, going back to the trade show booth, what I did at Chop Talk was we had this awesome booth. And yes, we did demos and yes, we had product information, but we had amazing swag. But even more so than that, we did professional headshots. So we had two professional photographers come into the booth and a line out the door of people who wanted to come in and get a headshot for free. And, you know, that might not work as well now because damn, AI has ruined that too. But, you know, I think people always love when you are giving them something of value. So whether it's headshots or I've seen people like bring a animal shelter in and do pets and puppies. Like, whatever it is you're doing at your booth, if you make it more about that person and less about you, it becomes, number one, you'll get the people to come to you. Number two, you have a way to start a conversation that isn't just pitching. And, you know not everybody's going to want to demo your product and that's okay, but at least you've engaged with them in a way that hasn't resulted in any, in any ill will, and you have the start of a relationship that you can build on. So I just think, I think most people enter into it and they're like, I'm going to sell, I'm going to walk in and I'm going to tell them about me. And that does not work.

And I think we'll take a wider view because I think community is used so much these days. It's a buzzword. Everyone's trying to start a community. So in, you know, what's your definition of a community?

Oh, that's a good question. I mean, it's sort of interesting because I did a little bit of research on this earlier this year and. Or maybe it was last year, because earlier this year was like three weeks ago. I did this last year and. And I actually started looking back at, like, how community is defined in archaeology because, like, if you think about it, the concept of community is not new. It really isn't. Like, the way we talk about it in tech is really referring to online communities, but community existed in person at the local level. There's all kinds of, like, networking groups at local levels. But it also, it exists in terms of, like, neighborhoods. And what it really boils down to when you kind of like, do this research into archaeology is like, the definition of community hasn't changed. Whether you're talking about Pavilion or like, my local neighborhood, it's like, it's like a common gathering place. And that can be virtual or real, touchable, real life. So common gathering place, a. A shared set of beliefs or values, and then a shared language like that sort of is like the, the very fundamental basis of community, and I think you have to have those. And so, you know, fast forward to the modern era and there are lots of different types of communities. There's like communities of product, communities of practice, communities of interest. I would say Pavilion's a community of practice, but for all of them, you know, I think it's easy to have a shared gathering place. Like, everybody's like, oh, yeah, my computer community lives on Slack, or, oh, it's a Facebook group, or we're on Discord, or we're on LinkedIn. That's the easy part. It's the common values and shared language that I think are trickier. And shared language isn't just like, we all speak English. It's really like we use certain terms we talk about things in a certain way. We have that in common. We understand each other when we're speaking. So, like, in pavilion, there's a certain degree of professional jargon that gets thrown around. Like, on this podcast, I can say acv, and people probably know what I'm talking about. They know it's average contract value or icp, ideal customer profile. Like, that's shared language that we have. And then, you know, this shared belief system. It doesn't mean everybody has to sign up for, like, the cult vision. It just means that, like, there's something about the community that is bigger than the individual people that we're all ascribing to. So, to me, that's what it boils down to. It's a concept as old as time.

That's a great definition. And I'm definitely going to be stealing that from my own playbook.

Yeah.

But I have to dig deeper into this because Jared Robbins on the show, he's talking about companies that are starting to throw their own events and they're starting to try to build their own communities. And his red flag was like, what's the purpose? Like, why are you actually starting a community? And. And I would love to hear your opinion on this. Is there. Is there trouble in the waters here with companies who are actually trying to build out communities for the sake of just getting revenue through the door?

I mean, I. I wouldn't say yes or no, honestly, because there. That's what you're describing is the category that I refer to as communities of product. And there are a ton of them that are extremely successful. And so it goes back to that, like, what's that shared value that we all hold? And if we are using a product and we want to be better at using and extracting value from that product, that product community might be very successful because it's solving a need that I have. And I'm going to go meet other people who are as interested in that product as I am and who can help me. So, like, I actually don't have any problem with that. I think. I think the problem crops up when people go to start communities and they don't understand, number one, that it is a long play. Like, whether your goal is to get revenue by selling product or get revenue by selling membership or get revenue by selling sponsorship. Like, it's usually one of those three things. Right. Those are the three sources of revenue. None of it is going to happen overnight. And a lot of people start communities thinking that, like, they're going to be making money next month or next, the next six months. And truthfully that's not what happens in most cases. And so they don't, they're not generally willing to devote the resources required and to stick with it long enough to make it successful. So I think like what probably happens when you see communities fail or when they're not very good, it's that people think communities are going to build themselves. Right. And the reality is you need dedicated people who are making it a great experience. Experience. And so like my, my involvement in community dates back back way before Pavilion. It was when I was head of marketing at Impact and we had a community called Impact Elite. It was a 5,000 person marketing community and I had a full time person on my team whose title was Director of Audience Engagement and community. And like her job was to go into our community and like engage and make sure people were getting answers to their questions. And she was the one that drove our events strategy and like she was the, the, the beating heart of the community. And that's the thing like you need, you need somebody like that and eventually like the most successful communities, I think to me the marker of the, of the success is when they start to self organize. So for example in Pavilion, you know these days where we've been around for a while, we have members who step up and volunteer to lead. So like before I joined the company, I was a member and I was the co chair of the Washington D.C. chapter. And when you start to see the community begin to run itself, that's when you know you're really onto something special because that's when people, the members feel a sense of ownership over this thing that they've become a part of.

And when you have members that are actually taking action in the community, it makes everyone feel a little bit more safe. Right. And I think there's some sort of oh wow, like they are just a member, just like me. And if they're getting involved like this, why can't I get involved 100%?

It's that peer to peer thing, you know, where people, people are in it because they want their relationships with their peers. And so when their peer is the one leading it, they trust them more, they feel more comfortable. It's just all around going to be more successful. And also like the peer is the customer, right? So when your community members step up to lead the community, you're, you know, I'll put this in marketing terms, you don't need as much voice of the customer because you are the customer. And so you inherently like when I was the co chair of the D.C. chapter. It was an easy job for me because I was also a member and I knew exactly what I was looking for in my membership experience. And I just got to build it, which is great. And I think that's what creates really fantastic experiences for SaaS.

Companies that are trying to build a community. And maybe this is the best example is impact that you build. Right. Their community. How did, how did you start? Can you break down how you built that community from the beginning?

So I full disclosure, the CEO of that company, he actually started the community. I came in when it probably had, I don't know, like 50 or 100 people in it. And he started by just inviting his personal network first. So I think, and I think that's how most communities start. That's how Pavilion started. Sam Jacobs had a bunch of friends who were CROs in New York City and he was like, let's all get together and have dinner. And you know, and it kept growing and growing. And then I think they needed a slack channel. And there comes a point when you, when you bump up against the limits of your personal network and then it's all about word of mouth. And that's why I said earlier, our number one channel is word of mouth. And so to me, the strategy for building a community, it really actually doesn't start with marketing. It starts with customer success. Like if you can solve for the needs of your members and build a great experience, they are naturally going to tell their peers and spread the word and you're going to grow. So if, if I think as a community, if your number one channel is not word of mouth, eventually that's going to catch up with you because you're going to wind up seeing churn. Because if your existing members aren't happy, you might use paid ads and get a ton of new members. But if they don't stay, you don't really have like a scalable community.

How do you like when you get into the community and it grows to a certain extent and now you guys have, you know, I don't know how many members, probably 100,000 plus, I don't, I'm not sure, but 10,000.

10,000.

So h, when you get to that level, and I know there's some sort of pain that goes into involved, but how do you dissect the bad apples like from the good, the people who are buying a membership just to sell and pitch, how do you dissect that and then how do you go about like removing them?

Well, I mean, it starts with Making really clear as part of the application process what our community values and rules are, and then reiterating that during onboarding. And then every member of pavilion goes into a chapter, and each chapter. Chapters are usually, like, geographically based, but we also do have, like, a remote chapter for people who aren't in places where there's a physical center of gravity. And so chapter heads who are other members, and this gets back to my earlier point, they enforce it for us. Like, they're. They're the ones who are watching in the discussion groups. But we also have, like, topic channels, and our members police each other. Like, it's very rarely is it us as headquarters having, like, identifying somebody, being too pitchy and saying, don't do that. It's usually a member who will slack me with a screenshot and be like, look what this person did. And then we can take action on it. But. But a lot of times, like, members will just say to other members publicly, like, hey, that's not cool. That's. That's. That's against the rules. So that's, to me, like, that's really how it has to work, is that, you know, you have to get to the point where the members are willing to step up and protect the thing that you've built.

That's just incredible to hear, because when. When you do get that involvement from the community, it. You don't see churn anymore. Right. And you actually see something beautiful start to be created where it's like, okay, we had 50 people that I knew personally, and I was. And I know they're not going to pitch anybody. I know that they're good people. To, like, 10,000, where it's like, okay, now we actually need to make sure the quality of people who are coming and having that application process and being very upfront about the way the community works sets everybody up for success later on.

Yeah. And I mean, you still may see churn, but I think some degree of churn is healthy. You know, there's. There's people who, like, no longer have time or they change careers or, you know, they've gotten what they need out of a community and they're at a different stage in their life, and that's fine. Like, my goal is always to, like, if somebody's going to leave Pavilion, I want them to leave on the best terms and, you know, still have a good feeling about us. And, and if. And when there's a time when they should come back, I want them to feel welcome or if they just know somebody else for whom it could Be a good fit. I want them to spread the word as like an alumni. And so I think, you know, that's what it's all about. It's like deliver a great experience and everything else pretty much takes care of itself.

Yeah. And the premise being lifting each other up. Right. Everybody's there to help each other grow into their next profession or tackle obstacle that's in the way of them being able to succeed in their role. And I think it's a beautiful thing when you do create a community like pavilion. And I have to congratulate you and Sam for being able to and the entire team because I know how hard you guys work for being able to build something that is constantly changing because we know the event space and the community space is always evolving and you have to keep, you know, staying on pace and making sure you're listening to your audience and the, and the people who are in your community. So I, I just want to say thanks for being able to build that and I'm build a safe haven for leaders and, you know, who. Who really need it, because it is.

Thanks, Jason.

Let's move on to sour. Take number five.

Number five.

Rallying up here. Toxic waste. Nutrient level three.

Toxic waste. Here we go.

Go to market. Executives and really anyone in a revenue position are leaving a ton of money on the table if they aren't building a personal brand on social platforms where their are active.

Well, I mean, I told you that story about Sam.

Yeah.

And how the time he's put in on LinkedIn is worth about $2.5 million. It's just crazy that anybody wouldn't do it. But he's a CEO.

Y.

You know, I'm not a CEO or I. I used to be, but I'm not anymore. I'm very invested in LinkedIn. I would say it's. It's opened up so many doors for me. It has meant that for several of my last few jobs, I haven't had to fill out an application or do a resume. I've, you know, I've just been approached or started conversations that way because people knew me from LinkedIn. It has meant that I've gotten opportunities like this one, and it certainly has helped me drive pipeline and revenue for the companies that I work at. It's also opened up partnership doors, which is kind of interesting. So I think with almost every aspect of the job I do, having an active LinkedIn presence is an asset, not a liability. And I kind of look at it these days as it's like part of my job. You Know, I've heard people say, like, oh, all those people that post on LinkedIn, they must not have enough to do at work. And let me just tell you right now, I have a lot to do at work. I, I am like swimming and work, but I still look at this and I'm like, this is part of my job.

Yeah.

So.

Well, and when you're talking to people who are hesitant at first, what are, what are some. And, and maybe those people who are hesitant are just, they're hesitant because they're scared to jump in the water. And so what would. The advice you'd. What, what advice would you give them?

You know, I think it's like anything in life, you know, you, you're never going to feel like the world's foremost expert in something. And if you wait until you feel that way, you're, you will never. So I, I've always looked at it as kind of like learning in public. And so as I problem, problem solve, I share what I'm learning. And it doesn't have to be the world's biggest problems, but I always assume that if I, like, I didn't know the answer to something, there's at least 10, if not a hundred other people out there who also didn't know the answer to it. So I can share these small things or observations and somebody else will benefit. That's, that's the mindset I've gone in with. And I think everyone has something to offer, right? Everyone does. And if you don't, if you don't want to, like, share thought leadership, you can go on and ask questions. You know, like, some of my most, like, engaged posts have been questions like, who are the top women in AI these days? Because I don't have enough of them in my feed. And I think I had like thousands of comments on that post. It's just a question. Or you can shine the spotlight on somebody else. Like yesterday I did a post because it was the end of the month and it was shouting out our growth squad team who was all like, working to hit a target at the end of January. And you can tag those people. Like, there's all different ways you can post. It doesn't always have to be you opining your ex expertise on something. So I'd say find a few people whose LinkedIn presence you really admire. Spend a little time observing it kind of academically and seeing, like, topically, what are they posting, what kinds of, you know, are they asking questions, are they sharing knowledge, are they tagging other people? How long are their Posts, like, how often are they posting? There's a lot to learn from how other people are doing it.

Yeah, that's, that's actually how I kind of started was I was an intern still in college. I was doing more of like shadow writing for CEO who was an investment management company. And he's like, hey, I wanna used to be on NBC and abc. And he's like, I wanna get out there. It's been 15 years, I haven't been on the TV, I haven't been posting. How do I even start? And I just went and looked at, you know, five or 10 people who were in the industry who are already posting. And at the, by the time I was done and we were working, he was getting, you know, lots of engagement with people who were in his target icp. And I think that's, there's, there's something to say about actually going in and doing the studying first before you just run in and start making a bunch of chaos. There's another thing too that I'd like to talk about, which is commenting compared to posting. Right? Because I think a lot of people think, oh, I have to be on LinkedIn, I have to post every day. Which I think you should because it does bring open doors. But to start off in the comments section is a really good way. And so I'd love to hear your opinion. You know, when you were first starting, did you start in the comments section? Did you start posting what, you know, and, and, and what types of comments are you leaving when you are commenting?

All right, so this is a true story. This started in about 2018. I had started seeing some people gain traction with like this thought leadership approach on LinkedIn. And I remember at the time being like, it's all white guys. And I was like, and back then they called it bro tree. And it was like white guys using the same formula for posting. And I was like, I am not going to let all the guys just be the only ones to do this. And so I just randomly decided one day I'm like, I'm posting every day and I'm gonna see what happens. So I did jump into posting every day now. I mean, I had been on LinkedIn prior to that. I just hadn't used it that much. So I kind of threw myself in and I made myself a promise for one year straight, every single day. And I did it, and I did it for more than a year. I don't post every day now. I'd probably like to get back into it, but there's just been A lot.

Yeah.

But at the same time, I did a lot of commenting. And by the way, this is the other part that nobody talks about. If you're going to post and you're going to try to, like, do these things, you have to set aside time to engage with the people who comment on your posts. Like, I try really hard on most of my posts to respond to every comment, even if it's just like, thanks for weighing in here. Because if somebody is going to take the time to write me a comment or ask me a question, like, I feel like I owe them the courtesy of a response. But also, if we're being honest, it's really good for the algorithm. Like, when LinkedIn looks at your post, if you have five people comment on it, it sees five comments. If you respond to every one of those comments, it sees 10 comments. If you respond with a question and then they respond again, like all of a sudden you get this compounding effect. And so, like, let's not pretend that people are just responding to comments to be nice. Like, yes, you want to do that, but also it's really great for visibility for your post. So, yeah, like, you, you need to engage with the people who engage with you. And then I think it is really valuable to comment on other people's posts and to like, not just do the short, like write on or whatever, but like to have a meaningful engagement and that's how you build relationships and those people will start to notice your posts more and engage with your posts. And it's, it's a beautiful way of expanding your network.

It's, it's an interesting way because it's like, it brings you back to when you just were starting off and maybe it was school for your first time or sports team, and you're just like, you need to be able to get to know your team and you have to be able to corral the troops and rally everyone towards a common goal and, and be able to actually know, okay, this person actually, they don't like being talked to this way. And this person, they, they like to be talking this way. Right? And so when you're on LinkedIn, I think the primary goal is to really, actually get to know people and, and to build out a community instead of just going on there. Okay, my, my goal is to comment on 20 posts a day. And my goal is to make a, just a regular, a single post. And, and, and I'm going to, you know, it starts to become like a strategy when it, and I fallen into that trap and I, and you quickly get burnt out. Right? It's, it's really hard to do something that you're not actually passionate about.

And so, yeah, 100%. And I would just add, like, what a beautiful opportunity we're given with LinkedIn. Because, look, I live in Annapolis, Maryland, which is not New York, it's not San Francisco, it's not any major city anywhere. We're, you know, we're a really small city that there's not a lot of B2B tech here. But I love where I live. I want to stay here. It's a beautiful place. And I think one of the greatest things about LinkedIn is I can be here in Annapolis, which is not a tech mecca, and yet I can be using LinkedIn as a platform to build relationships with people who are in San Francisco and New York and London. And geography is no longer a barrier for us. And also, it costs me nothing other than time. And so this is like the great equalizer. It's something that everybody can do. No matter where you are, no matter how wealthy you are, what kind of a budget you have, like, to not take advantage of that just seems to be such a shame and such a wasted opportunity.

And to your point, like, there is no better place to go actually find your posse and your crew than LinkedIn because there are people who are actually posting about, you know, things that they care about. And like, maybe what you really love is mental health initiatives and, and work life balance. Well, there's tons of people out there that are actually posting on that topic and buying to go out and comment on them and actually reach out and say, hey, I actually, I love that topic too. I'd love to hop on a call one day and actually talk more about it off, you know, off LinkedIn. That's just an easy way to go about things. And so as we wrap up our journey here, Kathleen, I'd love for you to say just, you know, one or two things that you'd love for the, the viewers on here to walk away with from this show.

Well, I think it's funny, when I look back at my list of hot takes, I'm realizing, or sour takes, I should say, I'm realizing that there is a pattern and that is that it's all about, like, this notion that in a world full of AI and virtual meetings and, and automation, like, the thing that underlies all of that, that has always been true and will always be true is that people want human connection and that most of this world operates on a basis of trust. And so whether we're talking about SEO strategies that shine the spotlight on people and points of view or AI kind of creating a situation where to cut through the noise, you have to reach out through connections or community or events and the opportunity to be in person. Like all of these things boil down to like the best and most effective way to accomplish your objectives, whether it's you building your own network and your own career or you trying to drive business for your company, is to like recognize that people always have and always will want to operate on a basis of trust and connection and emotional bonds. And so no matter what you're working on, no matter the strategy that you're using, if you can tap into that and how you tap into that is going to change. Like, you know, right now it's AI that's changing things. In the future, it'll be something else. But like, if you always keep that at the core and you recognize that that is the thing that is the most effective driver of action on the part of people, I think you, you, you will be successful no matter what you do. But you know, that's a concept as old as time. It's never changed.

A beautiful way to end the show here. Kathleen, I again I just can't thank you enough for joining me today and battling these sour candies while dropping sour bombs. In my opinion, these are just great takes and I think that, you know, anyone watching you can Find Kathleen on LinkedIn. Like she said, she's engaged. So reach out, don't send her some AI machine, don't mention my local coffee

shop and your outreach unless you're actually

local and then maybe it'll make sense. But yeah, I again can't appreciate you enough and I hope you have a great day and thank you so much. Anyone who is wanting to follow the Sour Go to Market Statistics podcast, you can do it through my LinkedIn, you can do it on our homepage. We're on, you know, Spotify and Apple. And so if you're watching and you have someone who comes to mind that you'd like to have on the show, please reach out. Kathleen, thank you so much again. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Thanks Jason. Thanks for having me on the show.

See ya.

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