GTM After Hours

BONUS: Closing Time Sales and Marketing Convo with Nicole Stasiak and Doug Roberson

• Mark Bliss • Season 1 • Episode 9

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In this special bonus episode of Go To Market After Hours called Closing Time, Mark Bliss is joined by growth sales executive Doug Roberson, and event marketing guru Nicole Stasiak, to discuss various topics related to sales and marketing in the B2B SaaS industry. They talk about aligning sales and marketing, share their worst boss experiences, discuss their favorite growth hacks for 2024, and highlight outdated practices in sales and marketing. They also discuss what makes a good event and how to approach it from both the marketing and sales perspectives. They emphasize the need to think outside the box and avoid generic swag and alcohol-centric experiences. They also highlight the significance of collaboration between sales and marketing teams in event planning and budgeting.

Takeaways

  • Aligning sales and marketing is crucial for success in the B2B SaaS industry. Communication, defining a North Star, and collaboration are key.
  • Trusting your expertise and being confident in your knowledge is important in overcoming imposter syndrome.
  • AI is a powerful tool that can revolutionize sales and marketing. It can enhance efficiency, provide valuable insights, and improve customer experiences.
  • Outdated practices in sales and marketing, such as event passports, should be replaced with more creative and experiential approaches.
  • A good event requires buy-in from both the leadership team and the sales team. It should focus on engaging attendees, understanding their needs, and providing personalized experiences.
  • Hack the human by appealing to the interests and needs of potential customers to attract them to your booth and start meaningful conversations.
  • Understand the target audience and create unique and engaging experiences at events.
  • Collaboration between sales and marketing teams is crucial in event planning and budgeting.
  • Make a positive impression at events and avoid underperforming.
  • Measure event success and adjust strategies accordingly.
  • Hope for the future lies in the accessibility of resources and technology.

Sound Bites

"Aligning sales and marketing is more of a partnership in the startup environment."
"Gen AI has been a fun and valuable growth hack in 2024."
"Letting go of imposter syndrome has been a personal growth hack in 2024."
"What would make me walk by and be like, 'oh I'm going over there, you know, it's not a generic water bottle. It's not a stress ball. It's not all this stupid swag, right?'"
"How lazy it is for marketers in general to go all in on just an alcohol-centric experience."
"The venue needs to be unusual or really upscale or hard to get in or something that people can be like, 'wow, look where I got to go tonight.'"






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hi, welcome to Go To Market After Hours. This is a safe space for marketers, for AEs, for CSMs, and really everyone else in the B2B SaaS Growth Hamster Wheel. So grab a comfy blanket, your emotional support animal, your go -to beverage of choice. and then join me for another exciting go-to -market conversation. Today, we're doing something really fun. It is a very special bonus episode. There's gonna be a new format we'll do every so often called Closing Time. Yes, after the song, but no, I can't sing the song because I don't have the rights to it. So apologies for that. But the idea is we're gonna More guests than normal. We're gonna have more real talk than normal is just like closing time at the bar where we want to have a Real conversation kind of at the end of a long day week month year, etc And so I've got a couple incredible guests joining me tonight and since intros are the most skipped part of any podcast I'm gonna shake it up We'll go round robin and I want you to tell the listeners your name your expertise and your favorite childhood toy and we'll start with you Doug Robertson, early stage growth sales and my favorite toy as a child was absolutely TPH Mutant Ninja Turtles. You can see a few of them up there, no doubt Turtle power. Matter of fact, you mentioned safe space. actually have a sweatshirt that talks about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's Doug's happy sweatshirt. Anyway, don't mean to slow this down, but it has the turtles on it too. So I should have worn my happy space sweatshirt with the turtles. thought this was gonna get weird for a second. Needs I mean it needs to I mean, I I feel like I feel like you need to do a LinkedIn post just with that Like yeah, you got you got to rock that out. mean ninja turtles are Still incredibly legit and relevant today at least in my Yeah. I have a very narrow circle we're gonna say All right, Nicole, let's pass it over to Thanks. I'm happy to be here. My name's Nicole Stasiak. I'm the Senior Marketing Event Manager at NAC. I have about 13 years of experience in event land, planning all different types of events from trade shows to presidents clubs to large scale conferences, anything you can do event wise. I've done it. So I've got obviously some more stories. Maybe we'll get to those. Yeah, my favorite. childhood toy was, I can remember those cabbage patch dolls where you would like put the diaper in water and it would like reveal if it was a girl or boy in its name or whatnot. Those were so awesome. I loved those, but that's the only one I can remember. I did not have a deprived childhood, I promise. I had that right next to my Power Rangers. I promise you. Awesome. Well, in this one, normally, normally the podcast, you know, we do kind of a one on one interview and everything. This time I want to do a head to head, we'll say competition. The points don't matter, but I will declare a winner at the end. And so we're to take each segment and then I will reward points based on how fun and awesome. The commentary is and at the end of this we will award a closing time champion And today is it's really interesting because we've got we've got representation from sales and marketing so I suppose we we should start with that civil war that everybody has and It's like sales versus marketing and I will ask each of you the pro tips on actually aligning sales and marketing We'll start with Nicole this Yeah, so actually, I want a little bit of a different take is that in the last couple of years, and in the startup environment, particularly, I do feel like marketing and sales have been a lot more aligned than they were in the past. I think that there it's more of a partnership in the last two experiences I've had. And I don't know, I'm not sure why that is. Maybe everyone's finally gotten over it. We've all grown up, we're not fighting anymore, I'm not sure. But maybe it's just the smaller environment, the more agile creative environment where we do have the creative license and the freedom to kind of determine what that relationship is going to be. But I think Having conversations with sales before you're building out your annual calendar for the year is a really a big piece of it, right? They feel like they have a say in what's being done. And not only that, but a lot of them are the experts on, you know, where are their ICP and their prospects are, what events they're going to and which ones, you know, they're having the most fruitful conversations with or the most networking with. And you'll have different degrees of sales folks, right? Like some of them they're not really involved in any of like the regional communities or the events and things like that and they'll look completely to you for that. But other ones are really involved and they have their own relationships within those events and it's really important that you allow them to engage and include those in your calendar. Love it. What's a you from the sales side, Doug? Yeah, on the other side of it, Nicole's exactly right. It's about great communication. And so what I've seen that allows for great communication is when the North Star is really well defined. And so that way, when marketing's having their own meetings and sales having their own meetings, those meetings are heading in the same general direction. So when everybody gets together, it's much easier to have this collaborative conversation that's Nicole's talking about. And I think that's really powerful. I think that's important. And then when you roll up your sleeves, you really do have to be a partner with your teammates on the marketing side when you start talking about local events. Nicole's right, we know that area better. And we have some specific things that we want to accomplish. The local marketing from a sales perspective is a small piece of the business as we as the CEOs of our territory. It's a big piece, it's an important piece, but it's not the only piece, to my point. We're aligning those local events to be complimentary to some of the other things that we are doing that might fall outside of that and not necessarily be part of those conversations that marketing is having specific. But if we all have that same North Star, then we're having those conversations. And when we come together, I think the collaboration is much easier and it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun to bring those ideas together because as marketing folks think of the world a little bit different than I do. And I really enjoy kind of being challenged and, or, Or like we're just doing now, know, kind of flipping it around and hearing the other perspective and really, you know, challenging or, yeah, challenging the way that I'm thinking about it, making sure I'm approaching it the correct way. I love that you said North Star, so you get an extra hundred points for that. So we'll go 200 Doug, 100 Nicole. But, you know, for me, it's like, if you don't have that North Star, then all of the rest of the communication, I think, falls to the wayside. You know, or if your North Star changes every six weeks because somebody reads a blog or sees a LinkedIn post and That is the most like chaotic environment that you can live in, right? Where you don't have a North star. And so all of your communication just in has a ton of additional and unnecessary friction in it, Yeah, makes sense. a lot of people just, a lot of really smart, hardworking people doing the best they can, going in directions that aren't all pulled in the same way. So it's ultimately not as effective, even though I can say it's not that the people aren't smart and it's not that they're not working hard. It's just, unfortunately, they're not So I'm going to I'm going to go to what your worst boss ever told you one thing that was said by your worst boss ever I'll go first, I guess. I'll be careful here to be as general as I can. I did have a boss one time who thought it would be a good idea just to ship a contract over in the middle of a competitive POC with a project manager, timelines, established success criteria. And this contract would have been about six weeks ahead of schedule. And I did appreciate the... the idea of pushing and trying to impart our professionalism onto the sales cycle, but the idea of simply shipping someone a contract because their boss told them that that might be a good idea. Yeah, that was, I wish I had taken a screenshot of my face on that Zoom Well, it lives perpetually in your mind. All right, Nicole, worst advice that your boss ever gave Gosh, the worst advice. I can't really think of the worst advice I've ever gotten, but I can think of the worst experience I've ever had. How about that? Okay, so I think we've all had our share of unsavory bosses, right? I think at this point in our career, I definitely am interviewing my manager as much as they're interviewing me so that I don't get put in that position again. We've learned our lessons there, but I was on a call once with my boss and it was not going well and I was flustered and you know, they were also flustered I think and when we hung up the call, her screen was still sharing and she hadn't hung up yet and she was pulling up my resume and like going through it after she thought we had hung up the call and I was What does she think? Like, I don't know what I'm doing or I don't know how to do it. It was bizarre. That was just the first of many experiences with that one. But we'll keep it PG for the LinkedIn. You get you get a thousand points for having to live through that. The like that's wow. Like, you know, screen shares go in and she's pulling up your resume to double Yeah, I was just like, what? What's happening? You know what could be worse is if she was pulling up somebody else's resume during the screen share. For the same job. Yeah, exactly. So it could be worse. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's all it's all perspective. It's perspective, right? Doug will throw will throw you an extra 50 points on that one. So. think I've tanked you already, Ben Doug. This game over. No, no, I give out points like Halloween candy at the end of Halloween. It's like, oh, you have a pulse and you're wearing a costume. You get all the candy. It's cool. I'm a very generous candy giver and point giver in this case. All right. Tell me your best 2024 growth Say it again. best growth hack in 2024. Personal, professional, you have a specific care there? Anything. This is, this is a very flexible podcast. Yeah, if you want me to go Nicole, you want to go first? I don't doesn't matter. Or sorry, Mark, you're the host. I'm looking at the names. I'm just an early stage growth sales. You're your title says folks. You just you just you just jump in think think like a game show like who buzzes in first. We'll do OK, so my favorite thing that I've had the most fun with in 2024 for sure is is Gen.ai and learning to take Gen .ai as a play a website that nobody really is going to go to and understanding how to take the value of and kind of pull it out of that and make it easier, whether that's through automations, no code automations for somebody like myself that's not a programmer, but technically you can set up some zaps and some things like to pull the right information in, enrich some data, fun stuff like that. To me, it's been a lot of fun. And it's really really valuable because I'm excited about it. So I ended up talking to some folks about it. And then they literally tell me, I have no idea how to do what you just said, but it sounds really cool. I was showing somebody something I set up for myself. And he said, I've had 10 companies in the past month demo their product. And it looked nothing like what you just showed me in three minutes. You know, so it's kind of neat. It's kind of neat to kind of get that feedback and then to start to build a community. Some of my LinkedIn posts recently are more geared towards AI just because to me from a conversation and learning, it's a place that I've enjoyed spending my own spare time. yeah, I think actually crosses line. I think the AI is kind of a personal and a professional kind of growth hack for me. It's been Do you think that it changes the perspective of what a professional sales rep does every day? Like, do you think that there's gonna be a haves and have nots situation where, you you've got your AI sellers that are using gen AI to maximize efficiency and then you've got more of your traditional sellers and there's a gap between the two? So there's definitely going to be a gap between the two, but it doesn't mean that one is going to be better than the other for every scenario. So in other words, there's going to be the traditional market. So let's look at where the channel is very successful. You know, the channel is that's not necessarily going to benefit AI. Don't get me wrong. There's places they can use it and things like that, but that's very much relationship. It's very much outside of what AI is going to provide for you. Now, if you talk about more of an early stage growth hunter who's trying to get to the right people with a company that nobody's ever heard of. Now you're talking about having to be creative and you're going to have to do things. Now where that group of people is your haves and have nots. There's going to be a group of people that's successful and that redefine exactly how early stage companies approach sales. And there's going to be people that never do it again because it doesn't work in 24 months. with that said, it's not just going to Chad GPT specifically. It's going to be the innovators that chat to BT away again from their website and build it into the things we do every day. So a great example from the sales perspective is Gong. Salespeople used to dislike Gong. didn't want to have ourselves recorded. Somebody's going to judge me. They're going to tell me I'm no good. I have to hear my own voice, all these things. But ultimately now that they're starting to, and we say as we're doing a podcast, but now they're starting to bring all this value from the AI perspective to you. So it's really helping you, know, quick summaries, understanding bullet points, follow -up items, just to make sure that while you were trying really hard to listen and be a and be an empathetic listener, you know what I'm saying? And do your job well. You didn't miss some things through that process. yeah, I think that it's gonna be a haves and has nots, Mark, but good innovative companies are going to put AI so subtly in front of the users and the UI that they're already used to that they're gonna adopt it without realizing that they've docked it, if that makes Love it. Nicole, what's your 2024 growth hack? I think mine is more on the personal side of things. And I think what it is is that I have completely let go of the imposter syndrome, like phenomenon. kudos to you. Don't mean to be a little brown noser, but kudos to you, Mark. But part of that was, you know, having you as a direct manager for the last, you know, 10 months before we weren't working together anymore. was that, you know, a lot of times, you know, your leadership team will ask you for things and you're not 100 % sure what the answer is or how to do that, or you've never done it before. And I, you know, I just would think like, well, this is what I think it should be. This is what makes sense. And this is what I know my experience is telling me based on the 1 million events that I've done and the strategies I've put together, right? And then I would, you as I just started leaning in on my own expertise and knowledge and being confident in that, you're turning things into leadership and they're like, this is amazing, thank you, this is exactly what I needed. And you're like, good. And that's been happening so much within the past couple of years that I've really gotten to the point where that's not something that bothers me on a daily basis anymore or an insecurity that I have, which feels really good in my career at this point. There's a lot to be said about trusting your expertise You know, especially when you're dealing with the leadership team that has never done what you do You know, they might have seen it executed they they might have awareness around it. They might have been to Events or been around like a website refresh or any of these big projects, but they've never done And if they haven't done it, then it really helps to be able to trust your expertise because you are the expert in the room and it's your job to then educate Right. And that's actually a big, and I would think almost all event managers would agree with us here that this is a, a, a huge like roadblock in the career of event managers. You know, most of the time leadership has no idea or concept of what this type of stuff is going to cost. how involved it is, how much bandwidth from your event manager is needed and your marketing team. you A lot of times people think, oh, we're going to book a hotel for an event when we're going to have 200 people stay. And they think you just call the hotel. And you're like, hey, are you free? That's not how it goes. it definitely takes a lot of confidence in relying on what you know is to be true. I kind of love that though. I would typically get like a screenshot. Somebody would send my way from like Expedia or something. Like see, it's only $74 a night. I don't know what you're talking about. And you're like, yeah, yeah, that hotel had bed bugs last week. my gosh, I have some meeting broker, a meeting broker company that I am very close with a couple of the folks and it's called meeting me meetings made easy. I'll give them a little plug. but they would die to hear that. Yeah. Just look on Expedia. I'm so funny. All right, I will give Nicole, you get 300 points for that. love your trusting your expertise. And Doug, think you are spot on. I will give you 500 points because I think AI and being able to truly leverage and use AI is just going to change the game for all of the sales reps who are the CEO of their own territory. As you said earlier in the call, I think that Not using it is going to be such a huge huge mistake huge mistake so it's an important tool in the belt. Gotta use it. So we talked about a hack for this year, but tell me something that people are still doing in sales and marketing that they're partying like it's 1999. Tell me something completely outdated that that that is still being done today and it just makes you cringe every time somebody does Guys, we don't want to do passports at trade shows anymore. got it. We got to put it to bed. Okay. Your passport is expired. We can't be doing that anymore. Like, no, no. is expired no more no more stamps ever ever more stamps, no more around the world passwords. We got to come up with something more creative. Another way to get all the attendees around to your booth. I'm not saying I have all the answers, but we got to we have to do better. And so what is so 1999 about that? What about that makes you think, oh, well, Justin and Britney at the MTV Awards and their denim? Don't forget the hats. Yeah, so I think that that was probably a really cool experiential idea when it first came out. I'm sure it was and it was because it's been working all of these years. But then I think people get complacent like, that's the tool we use to get everybody to go to all the sponsors booths. So we'll just do a passport. And I think that that's a little lazy. Sorry if you've done a passport in the last year. but I think, you know, our sponsors expect more, attendees expect more. And, know, there's no reason why we can't be more creative, more experiential. I personally, experiential marketing is my jam. I love coming up with, you know, ideas to make this something that like surprises and delights. And it's, it's more of an experience than just like, let's go to the trade show floor and get our passports stamped. Like I Ha ha Well, we have we have we have a representative of the sales team on the call with us here today. Tell me, Doug, before you give your answer on parting like it's 1999. How much do you love working the leads that are coming up for their passport Hahaha! Oh yeah, like if you can tag that you were sophisticated now. So let's have a tag for leads that were from a passport stamp and so that way we can we can sort those quickly. We know exactly what to do with the 538 PM cocktail in one hand bag full of other bags and other stuff in that hand and the and the paper in that hand getting it stamped. Yeah, yeah, we can out that lead straight to nowhere. I mean, we're at the point where we don't even scan at that point. It's like... yeah. Yeah, but you want to make them feel important. like you fake scan. like, you know, they were don't you want to scan me? And I'm like, yeah, definitely. And you fake scan them and then they feel good about it. And they got stamped and fake scanned and we all feel We're in the business of making people feel Inspire and delight, that's what you said, right? Inspire and delight It's it's like those speed limit signs that you see driving down the road where it like tells you your speed But you're not getting a ticket from that sign So it's more like a recommendation Yeah, it's just, yeah. it makes you feel like somebody's monitoring everybody's speeds, but it's not happening. It's best practices. It's not mandatory, just best practices. All right, Doug. Well, what best practice from 1999 is making you cringe whenever some salesperson does it So it's the most timely, and it's not just 1999. It's historic. It's for all time. But it's the beaten CrowdStrike up already. mean, give them a minute. Let's let all the computers reboot. OK, please? Can all the blue screens go away, and then we can put the memes up about CrowdStrike? Although I will tell you the best one by far was CrowdStrike accomplished what Y2K couldn't, and that's impressive. Nicole hasn't seen that one yet. Clearly Nicole hasn't seen that one yet. So while it was excellent on all levels, like I said, let's get the blue screens back on. Let's do that. Let's reboot the computers and then we can put the memes Sorry, speaking of blue screen, the meme I saw was, know how you have the smart fridges with the computer screens? The smart fridge blew and it says, I can't even open my fridge. I did say that was a good Okay, but we'll be nice to crowd strike. I mean, no, no, no, that was about the right time. I think we're there. think we're I think now is actually about the right time so we can unload on them. It's just those people that did it right before us. That was that was come on people. was too soon. I love your haul. did what Y2K didn't. Everybody who had an AOL disc that they got in the mail literally laughed out loud on that one for sure. Oh no my gosh I can't believe it you said make it 1999 there you go that's how I made it like it was 1999 there we go and I literally said at the beginning I couldn't I said no not exactly but never mind I pulled it around. Well, you each get 300 points for your answer, but Doug, you get an additional 500 for the Y2K reference. Yeah, that was pretty funny. All right. So I want to talk about events. You know, we talked about how terrible the event passport is, but what makes a good event and how do you approach that from the marketing perspective and the sales side? Like, what does that differ and how is it a, you know, high school musical level? all in this together kind of So I think it starts like at conception of whatever event that you're trying to to plan, whether it be, you know, some sort of proprietary conference or, you know, your biggest tier one trade show for the year, you know, your Super Bowl of the trade show. You know, when the ideas start to get rolling and and, you know, things start happening, it's very important that you get the buy from not only your leadership team, but also your sales team. Like, is this a strategy that you think is gonna resonate with the people that you're trying to talk to in the booth or at the event? You know, that type of thing I think is really important for, you know, just making sure that everyone is on the same path, has a full buy -in on the event, and everyone is like singing the same tune. And then from there, obviously, you know, 20 different ways. It can go sideways, but I think that's a good starting point. Love it so much. Doug, what you got from the sales perspective? Are you about to say everything that she said is wrong or no? No, no, no, I'm going to say because you were talking about coming to, you know, how do you come together and, you know, and and make it positive, you know, from these perspectives. So the first thing is. Not all shows are created equal. You know, sometimes Nicole and I got a we got a fig we got to make lemon or lemonade out of it. And so you have to be a little bit of flexible and a little bit agile with your teammates on what can we get out of this show realistically? OK. So now let's focus on the Super Bowl, like Nicole was talking about there. So what good looks like from my side is when I'm able to use my network, my connections, the pipeline and all of that to line up as much as possible. And so what I've done is I've created as much as possible ahead of time so that that way we can fill up all the slots. When Nicole is inspiring, those people didn't see that ahead of time. Don't give me wrong email campaigns, there's other things. But for the most part, what Nicole's kind of describing is that moment when they come down the escalator at some of these shows that we'll name. They make enough money and they see your booth and they're like, ooh, there's 50 of those and that's one of the first ones I'm gonna go to. That's the kind of thing. So that I can't do at all in any way, or form. I just hope to participate a little bit in some of the meetings and give some ideas on how we might be able to, what might work. But for the most part, that's a hundred percent outside of mine. Now where we really come together and this is really fun and this is exciting to me is when it comes around, what are we gonna talk about when somebody walks up to them? Because now we have that perfect combination of where Nicole's done her And then there's a group of folks like myself and maybe SEs and some of our product specialists and all of those folks that then have to take Nicole's hard work and turn that into that same messaging so that that way nothing's lost between the moment that they were on the escalator to the moment where showing a demo with their or hoping a further meeting. So there is a ton of interaction that has to go on. kind of all have our spot. And it comes back to Nicole's, what she said a moment ago, if we define what this is, is this lemonade or is this the Super Bowl? And what can we reasonably get out of this and then understand and kind of reverse engineer it from that to make sure that you're not missing everything because you try to shoot too far, but at the same time at your Super Bowl, you better go big or Yeah, and I think that there's a really important way that you're addressing prospects or attendees when they come up to the booth is not to just, when they say, so, for example, what does NAC do? You don't just go straight in like, NAC, this, that, and the other thing, Tuture Horn, all the things that we do, right? Take a moment and make it about them. Turn it around. Ask them, well, who do you work for and what do you do there? how can as as NAC as a company help solve your problem, make your role easier or you know, and then it opens up the conversation for you to be able to have an in to be like, well, this would you know, this is the exact way we can help you right instead of just glazing over a bunch of jargon that they probably don't understand and then them being like, cool. Can I have a swatter bottle? They're just out of there, you know, so it's sorry, I was gonna say there's no better use of the phrase bullet points than when people typically walk up to a booth and they get hit with bullet. And it's features, it's we do this, this, this, this, this, this, this. You don't even know who I am. You don't know what I do. You can't possibly understand what's important to me. And I know you can't solve my problems because you know, maybe right now my problem is the bag's too heavy and my, you know, kids at home and he's not doing great in school or something, you know. Take a moment Take a moment to acknowledge the human being on the other side of the badge. I think you're exactly right, And another little trick is, you know, if you see the person that's kind of, they haven't quite come in and said, hey, what's NAC, but they're kind of just slowly walking by and you can tell they're interested, they're looking, you know, instead of just saying like, hey, how can we help you? Because they're gonna be like, no, I'm good, you know, is, hey, what, like, what caught your eye? Because you can tell they're looking at something, right? And then they like, they have to answer. I mean, unless they're just gonna... roll their eyes at you and walk away. But I haven't had that happen yet. But it gets them to stop and engage. And then at that point, you can start asking questions about them and just not leading with who you are in your product. Well, and I think that that's probably what a lot of execs maybe get wrong about the importance of experiential marketing. Because if you get that moment where they're interested in anything at the booth, it gives you the opportunity to ask them about what they do and to see if they're a potential prospect and buyer for your solution. And they might not have otherwise come to the booth. I also don't think experiences need to cost a lot of money. I think as long as it's not a path. Well, you could say take that same like what one to five thousand dollars, the same cost of a passport and you could roll it into doing something fun and unique. mean, even down to just having having a funky wardrobe for your team, like anything that's going to catch somebody's eye and stop them, you know, or at least slow them down while they're wandering. It gives you an opportunity to introduce yourself. And I think People often overlook Right, and I like to take an extra step with that and I call it hack the human, where I think, all right, let's look past the fact that this is the title you're looking for. This is the company you're looking for. This is a person and they have interests and what's the best way to get them over to your booth and talking to you and spending time in your booth is appeal to their interests, right? So, obviously look Both of y 'all's backgrounds full of toys and you know fandom things and right so it's like what does this group of people and not to like stereotype and put everyone in one block, but I mean, you know, what what would this demographic like what would make them stop and say I want that or and I and I think that about myself I think what would make me walk by and be like, I'm going over there, you know, it's not a Generic water bottle. It's not a stress ball. It's not It's not all this like stupid swag, right? So if you take a moment and just think a little more about it and put yourself in those shoes, you know, you'll come up with better ideas. Love that. I will go 500 points each because honestly, I was so committed and into the conversation that I don't know who won. So we're just going to go 500 points each and we'll call it a day on that. All right. supposed to be counting our own points? Because I don't remember. No, no, no, I've got a I've got a running tally. I don't know if it's fully and, you know, correct, but I do have a running tally right now. Nicole, I have you in the lead with 1900 and I've got Doug. I've got you at 1850. So it is it is a it is a close is a close game with with only two topics left that I want to dig in on. And so, yeah, right. My wine's almost gone, so good thing. That's good. just cracked open another peak, so watch There you go. Well, you got that Ashwagandha going on. Actually, actually, let's let's let's side note and pull out the soapbox. How lazy it is for marketers in general to go all in on just a alcohol centric experience. Like, can we we can we just soapbox that for a minute there? Because I think that is incredibly lazy. I don't mind having alcohol there as an option, but that can't be the center of everything you're doing. Like you don't have anything else. There's just a bar. Right. Yeah. And whether it be a trade show or like a hospitality event where you're trying to get me from my office after work to your event, I'm like, I don't want, I'm most of the time, to be fair, it's like in a ballroom with terrible drinks, you know, and I'm standing there and I'm like talking and I'm like, gosh, like no way I'm doing that. Right. So it's, It's gotta be something that's really going to entice people. The venue needs to be unusual or really upscale or hard to get in or something that people can be like, wow, look where I got to go tonight. There needs to be an activation because again, not everybody drinks. And at the same time, I have nice booze at home. I don't need to be here. I could be in my pajamas. again, the... And our attendees are spoiled these days. You can't just put... bad booze in a ballroom and call it a happy hour. It's not gonna Bad booze in a ballroom and call it a happy hour. Wow. I feel like a lot of people just maybe scratched out a couple of items in their marketing plan right now. But I don't know. always feel like it's lazy. And I think that it discounts a significant portion of their target audience that is looking you know the mocktails and the non-alcoholic options and if it's just centered around a bar it kind of leaves nothing for somebody to do. entertaining to do as well because like networking happens more organically when you're doing an activity, when you're laughing at something or you're engaged with something, not when you're standing there like, what do you do? I'm Nicole. want, you know, like honestly, like that makes me want to poke my own eyes out. and that's the atmosphere. ultimately, I mean, I think that's really what we're talking about is, is when you're creating that great atmosphere that the networking is organically kind of flourishes, then it's good because the alcohol is good. And for a year and a half now at these events, I don't drink and I don't, know, I have, you know, something, a mocktail or water or something, sprite something. And when you have that engaging venue. then it really doesn't matter. It's not even a conversation. I was at one with a bourbon tasting that we had, and it was at a very nice place in Las Vegas, and I didn't drink any of the bourbon, but I multiple prospects and customers that I took around. And it ended out on the patio where you had a wonderful view of the strip, and guess what you could do? Hear each other. You could talk. You could And so that's how it works, you know, and that's, and that's, if you have all those things lined up, if it's too loud, it doesn't work. It's if it's too hot and too crowded, it doesn't work. It's it's it's gotta be able that atmosphere has to be able to create the great opportunity for networking, for people to connect on stuff that really matters, not just the alcohol. And if it doesn't do that, then I miss the mark that period. I don't care how many people showed up. They missed the mark. If you weren't able to, you know, to make genuine connections because the hard work you put into the event. But when a venue's right, it's really fun. And like I say, even for myself, for somebody who's going to be walking around with a sprite so it's bubbly, it's still a lot of fun. And it's a great way to network. And it's great way to know your colleagues and your prospects and your customers. And I look forward to them. I don't shy away from them. I look forward to Yeah, I think some of the pushback and the reason people still are holding on so hard to like, we'll just do a happy hour is because of budget, right? So the unique venues, the unusual venues, the high -end venues, the cool venues that people want to be at, plus bringing in some sort of activation, some sort of activity, some sort of entertainment, some sort of gifting, it's expensive, right? But you get what you're looking for. Yeah, from a budget perspective, you mentioned ballroom with crappy alcohol and I mentioned 56 four of overlooking the strip. Those are there's a pretty big gap between those two budgets. Exactly. Think about when you're in focus for an event. You can't wait to get invited to something exclusive or unique or let me tell you where I got to go last night. Guess who invited me up to like the penthouse suite in the Nobu Hotel or like whatever, you know, Well, and my favorite part of that particular party, you know, for for those who who don't know, we, you know, we all helped to put that party together. But my favorite part about that particular party that's being referenced was actually the jazz band. And I loved watching people come up and take like their 30 second videos of like the saxophone player riffing out and they're either. Hosting that on IG. They're sharing it with their significant other, you know It had a it had a vibe to it like there was an element of that and then you'd leave the loud music and you go onto the the terrorists as Doug mentioned to able to have that conversation but yeah, there were there were options and it wasn't centered around the fact that there was a Whiskey tasting that was one of the things to do which It became complementary to the networking. It became complementary to the networking, not the networking complementary to the bourbon. Exactly. that's when it's done well. From a salesperson's perspective, that's when it's Yeah. Well, and make people comfortable, right? Like we've all been standing all day. We've all been on a trade show floor probably, right? All day. We're all exhausted. We're all, you know, but we're all out because we're trying to, you know, network or be there and be involved in that type of thing. you know, make sure they're seating, make sure there's some food, make sure, you know, that you don't, you're not just trying to pack as many people as you can standing shoulder to shoulder with a, with a cocktail. And that doesn't, like you said, make it, make a successful. So it's like, it's really easy. Just think about what you would want and then do What do your customers want? Them, yeah. What would they want? Maybe ask them. I don't know. We soapbox digress, and I think it was a great one. But I do want to give back. have two topics left to decide the winner in this make -believe game we're playing with make -believe points. I want to take, I want to take the opportunity here. You know, we, we we've been talking a lot about budget and where you spend budget and how much it costs to do these things. everybody's getting their budgets slashed right now. And so, you know, from, from the sales perspective as a senior event manager, like, how are you approaching budgets today? You know, are you doing cheaper events? Are you doing. less events, but doing them the way you've always done them. Like how, how do you approach that and how do you make the most of the limited at bats you Yeah. So from an event, from an event perspective, you know, when you're building out your budgets for the year, and this is the environment right now that, the budgets are tight, you know, halfway through, they get cut, they were bigger at first, and then halfway through the year, they always get cut. so I, know, what's important to me is that we're not half -assing anything because a lot of these events, especially as a startup are things that you're doing first, right? You're trying to build a brand around yourself as this is what it's like when you come to a NAC event, for example. So it's really important that you're not just doing something to do it and saying, well, we can do it for as cheap as we possibly can. And it's not all about the money. It's just about don't do things that you can't do right. So for me, it's more about doing less and doing it Ooh, that's like. I mean, I'm excited about it too. The dogs excited. Everybody's excited. You know, don't do things that you can't do well, So. So I something from a sales perspective that I see a lot more that you didn't see three or four years ago when maybe budgets and special cybersecurity were a little less tight was now you see sales people getting together to talk about what kind of events can we put together and then pulling in some marketing teammates for some local events and things. So where events kind of happened to salespeople previously when there was a little bit more budget and things were happening. You know, I've seen because there's less teammates to help plan these things and all kinds of things when budgets get to, know, where you really have to of roll up your own sleeves. Find that company, people that you like, not competitive product. Maybe there's a partner that works with both of you. Maybe that works. And now you have three or four budgets. And so now you're able to do some of these events and you're able to do it without competing with the people that are also there. And so, you know, so maybe, like I said, maybe three or four years ago, that's a single company event, two company event, and now maybe it's a three or four company event. And that's one of the ways that I've seen for sure. There's no right or wrong way. It's just, you know, it's people typically just kind of rolling up their sleeves and, you know, kind of doing the best they can with the money time and teammates they have, you Yeah, that's a really good point, Doug. That is something that's definitely happening a lot in event manager world right now is like, who can we partner with on this so that we can make it still great, but none of us have like the budgets that we used to have or whatnot. But that's a really good point that that's definitely a real thing right Well, and I love the idea that before it was marketing bringing these events to sales. And now it's sales saying, I have this audience of five target accounts that I can get to a space in downtown Atlanta. What can we do? And I think that that's a pretty important thing as well, because it's like You can be budget centric because you're maximizing that budget. Those are all potential deals already in the pipeline. Those are ideal clients. Those are people that already have a relationship with your sales team. And so if you drop $5 ,000 on a small mini event to take care of them and anybody else local enough that you can market to, you're going to have your ROI based on your current close rates. So you can maximize your budget that way too, where you don't have to always just get partners. You can go right in and just target those accounts if sales is bringing you that though. The flip side is though, Doug, you'd have to have a commit. You'd be like, I guarantee four of these five are going to be It's like you write the $5 ,000 check, I will guarantee four of these five companies will be Yeah, and as the budgets get squeezed in different pressures get put on, what you also see is where does this event now sit in my pipeline development? In other words, am I pushing partners and other people to bring people that might help me shorten this deal, which is very good, but then the expectations of turnaround for ROI, as you mentioned ROI Let's have realistic ROI is about where we are with the stages of the people we're coming in. And if we're much targeted with that five, because we have a much better understanding of who they are, where they are in a buying process. And hopefully to your point, a conversation cycle, if it's not a sales cycle, it's a conversation cycle with us, then that allows us to be much more targeted and much more intelligent about that spend. yeah, having an agreement and understanding where we are within the pipeline. And is this coming in to drive middle of the funnel down? or is top of the funnel empty and we need to go a little wider and let's find something with seven groups and we can maybe have 25 companies and get a few more new conversations. top of the funnel. So again, how early can we have that collaboration? of like Nicole mentioned, I think it was the very first question, is talking about it at the beginning, having that, when you have events, that understanding. We talked about Northstar later, but ultimately having a bunch of little ones. tied to these events helps make sure that when Nicole and the marketing folks are having their conversation and I'm having conversations with BDRs or other folks on the sales side, then we come together. What we've been doing for the past two weeks pulled us into the same direction. So we didn't show up and we were a mile and a half apart because we were pulled the wrong way for two weeks. And that's key. But I think you're right, This day and age, the events need a faster ROI. And so you need a much targeted and you need a group that's more advanced in the pipeline. And that's where you're gonna make executives happy. That's where you need to be focused these days with budgets and timing. Yeah. And speaking of that fast ROI, that's a tough one too, when you're in a vent world and you're, you know, asking for, you're starting to build your budgets for 2025 when it's only halfway through 2024. And we're all in the enterprise space, right? We know how long these deals take to close and it's really hard to measure was this vent, you know, successful, is it going to turn that ROI to the point where we would do this again, especially when it's one of years where you're doing a whole calendar of experiments, right? So it's important that you do have a leadership team that can recognize that this is not an instantaneous thing. Like we don't know immediately like, this event, you know, was worth the spend. But at the same time, you do have to know and as an event planner, like, ooh, this one probably did not hit the and we need to like cut our losses and probably not move forward with that one again. You know, and so it's really hard, it's between a rock and a hard place to figure out like, at what point do we say this event was not fruitful? Well, there's a lot of factors too. Yep. what worked three years ago might not work now. And so we can't just, we can't be attached to what was good. We have to be kind of open -minded and thoughtful about where the market might be now. cause it's, we've been talking about it for a while. It's different than it was three four years Yep. And also the choices that you made might have doomed the event. You know, maybe you just decided to do a base package and a passport and you doomed your event. Right. And you got a lot of leads from the booth, but nothing actually moved forward. And maybe the event would have been successful if you did it right, but it was your first time doing it. And so you didn't put enough money. into it. I see that time and time again where somebody, you we want to test drive this event. And so we do the minimum required to just be there. And then we wonder why we didn't resonate with the attendees at that conference because they're they're used to a certain like anybody in this level and threshold is worth my time. All the people below it will see how they are next year or the year after. And you're just missing all of that. because you undershot at the beginning. Good point, yeah. Yeah, and that can happen a lot too. same with, know, I've had that experience with let's just go and send some feed on the ground, check it out, see, you know, feel the vibe, see if our audience is there and then you get there and your competitors there and they're killing it and their booth is full and you're like, no, we're just over here with the cocktail. Like, whoops. So, you know, that happens too. It's what is it? Pennywise pound foolish is the old saying. don't my my grandpa always used to tell me like he's like, imagine a jar filled with pennies. And you get to take out as many as you want. The problem is, is everybody tries to reach in. You grab the whole fistful. You can't get your hand out of the jar. You got to let a little bit go, you know? And so I always feel like that way when when I'm having conversations with the executive team over over the marketing budget, because you have to let some of it go in order to get ROI. And so if we're testing this event and we believe in it enough to test it, we're going to spend the time and resources to put somebody boots on the ground. We're going to spend the time and resources to actually do the event. We should do it well. And so instead of asking what's the lowest price package that we can get into this event, you want to ask the show sponsors, what are my competitors doing? What package did they do last year? And try to figure out what is the actual buy -in that you need in order to do the Like how are we going to make the biggest impact? Because that's where you're there. You're not there to stand in a booth in an empty booth all day. Like we, you know, Yeah, I mean nobody invests in a boot to just learn to your point. So I mean you're going to have to. You don't have to be the biggest booth, but you're to have to go there with. A booth that fits your for your message and all of these things, because if all of these things aren't in line, then it's not going to be successful to Mark's point. And then then then it's just the passport or or you know, not quite as bad as passport, but almost. And that's unfortunate. And so and that's what happens when when you do the dip your toe mentality in It's not just say you your toe from where's your booth and it's little bitty and in the corner. So that's bad. But you probably dipped your toe and how hard are you going to push the voice for this? How are you going to incorporate this into events that happened before or after so that that way it's actually a journey that we're taking people on, believe it or not. And not we're just showing up at a road show with a bullhorn screaming at them for two, three days. And then we get back on the plane and go home. Yeah. Let's let's let's you know, let's let's let's have a little bit of a thought and guess what? Just like. Just like. You know, I'll use UFC, that old old old and if I they do really big pay per views and then they do smaller and then they do smaller free shows. Right. Because it takes all kinds. And then they believe it or not, they stagger it right through the year. And then they have, you know, trilogies and then they have rematches. And believe it or not, by the end of the year, a very successful company has had big shows, little shows. They told a story throughout and they made a lot of money doing it. So it doesn't all have to be a Super Bowl. But, you know, let's have a Let's have a thread, let's tell a story. And hopefully we can bring some customers and some prospects along for that story so that that way they can learn a little bit more. And more importantly, if there's a project, let me know. Just give me my shot. That's all I'm looking for. Just give me my shot. Yeah, and like, yeah. the You said it's you know, it's not it doesn't have to be the Super Bowl But I think I think every every player on the field should be a Super Bowl caliber player Like if you're testing that event if you don't know and you're putting and investing money into it You know, you tend to send your least experienced people because we don't know if it's gonna be when you need to send your most experienced people because, know, Doug, you could attest to this, you know, the difference between a veteran experienced seller used to early stage companies versus an inexperienced seller, maybe not used to early stage companies is going to be night and day, you know, as they work the booth and give the pitch. so, you you got to send your A team if you're actually trying and testing Yeah. And also like, don't get us wrong. We are not saying you need to spend a million dollars on every event that you do, right? Even if it's not the Superbowl or, or even break the bank, all we're, we're saying you need to be purposeful about it. Don't say, how can I show up to this event in the cheapest way possible? Because I get that a lot. Like, how can we do this for the, for the cheapest amount? Like cut all the corners and no, why are you even going? Why are you even there then at Right? So that's the point. Yeah, I was I was just just on a call. Yeah, I was consulting with this company and they were evaluating a show to do and they didn't have enough money to do it right. And so it's like, if you're not there, nobody will talk bad about you. You've never been there before. But if you're there and you underperform, everybody will talk bad about you. That is the first impression that you have made into the attendees of that show. Skip it this year. and then do it right next year. Like you should not make a negative impression because it's harder to recover from that than it is to just wait a year or market them differently. Like you can go after those types of attendees differently, those companies, you know, maybe you do an ABM campaign, maybe it's something webinar or digital based, but you can go after them in a different way than actually going to that event. And if you underperform at the event, you're always going to be running an uphill battle because everybody's going to like, remember when ABC company did this? Wasn't it stupid? Yeah. Yep. They had their little wrinkled tablecloth, you know? door with the wrinkled Everybody else has got their like giant giant showbooth Booths and then yeah, there's this like pop -up with a with a wrinkle tablecloth and and in a half a half -eaten seven hours old box of bagels PSA sales teams everywhere that just send a couple of salespeople to put on your event, no marketing person, send them with a steamer, make sure you do not have a wrinkled tablecloth. This is unacceptable. Can I also say what's unacceptable from the sales side is the the event marketers who think it's a great idea to eliminate all the chairs because they don't want people sitting like what are you doing? know, it's eight eight hours of standing and you just know no hard pass plus plus two like that is that is an incredible like ableist kind of thing to do like you don't know what somebody's health is you don't know like they They might need to sit down. I know I would. and I don't have health issues. So I can't even imagine. So yeah, can we can we please just just add chairs and steam the damn tablecloth, please, for the sake of sales and marketing ever in the future. I have to I have to skimp on the points because the math is getting harder Doug Doug we will give you we'll give you 200 points for that and Nicole I will also give you 200 points for that so Going into our last round again made up points and a made -up winner, but Nicole you're winning 2100 to Doug's 2050 it's It's close. It's a close Okay. And the last one I want to be really, I want to be really optimistic. I think we've got like five viewers right now. And, and I don't know how many are going to listen to the podcast once it's posted, but, I want to leave everybody on, on a high. And so the question I want to end on is what makes you hopeful for the And Doug, you're behind, so we will start with Wow, interesting. So hopeful for the future. So to keep it on point. To keep it on point, relative to our go-to -market happy hour, after hours here, I have seen more close collaboration and effective collaboration between marketing and sales in the past couple of years than I had in say the four or five years previous to that. It could be for lots of reasons, because it's good and smart, it's good business, that makes sense. Hopefully that's one of But it's also things because our team, know, when budgets get smaller, our teams get smaller and things like that. And we have to, you know, we have to, we have to, know, we have our group and we, know, when we need to make sure that we're working with them. And we're also, when you have to work on these and you plan and you see a little bit about what your teammates do and you don't just show up, you're a little more empathetic to what they do. I mean, like, it's not easy, you know, what you all do. And it helps, it helps to make sure that when you're there, from sales perspective that you're gonna make sure that you're gonna give it your all and not just there also ahead of time, like we were talking about before that you're preparing, that you're having the meeting set up and that you're doing all the things from a sales perspective that you can in advance to make sure that you can have as good a show as possible. So to me, I get really excited about that because marketing is interesting to me. I'm certainly a kind of a sales nerd. I love the philosophy of it. I can talk about the hows and the whys and the people and the processes, either one. It's all interesting to me. But at the same time, I don't live in a vacuum. I really enjoy kind of watching and seeing what the marketing folks do. I'm still one of those people that kind of likes going to shows. I hate even saying it. I like going and seeing what the other companies are doing. I like seeing what they're doing from a marketing perspective, what they're doing from a messaging perspective, because I want to know what I'm going up against when I'm pitching to folks that are here, me and them, and it helps, it informs me. So there's lots of good reasons to be at these shows. And for me, when sales and marketing works closer and closer, I think you get more out of it and for me that's exciting. But yeah, look forward to more of those shows and groups and teams working closer and closer together. It's more fun Love it. Awesome. What do you got, Nicole? What makes you hopeful for the future? I am hopeful for the future that all of this economy stuff gets turned around. These budgets get restored back to the land of milk and honey so that I can be let loose with an unlimited budget to go nuts with experiential marketing. Like I want to have fun at work and I cannot wait until, you Everyone's making money, everyone's spending money. We're doing so much cool shit that, you know, we can't even, we have to beat the attendees away from our events because we, literally our imaginations are getting to run wild. And that is kind of my dream job. And you know, these budgets are really holding me back, Mark. Peace. Wow, okay. What? You know, Doug's was really like altruistic and it's like sales and marketing alignments at an all time high. And Nicole's just like, give me money to do cool shit. Like that's that's the that's the line right there. My dad would say that pretty much just sums me up just all around. Before I give the final scores, I do want to answer on my perspective. think we talked about it a little bit earlier on kind of this accessibility and the emergence of technology like AI and even just the emergence of linked influencers and how everybody is one now, which Kind of unique. It's a little bit cringe, but also really helpful. And I think it's just the accessibility is making it to where you're able to hear the stories of the people actually doing the work. You know, even like a, like a podcast like this before that would have been, uh, out of reach, but you know, I've got a, I got a $200 microphone and a, uh, uh, $30 a month piece of software or something like that. And And it works and you're able to do that and you're able to tell stories and showcase expertise and be a part of this emerging community that sales and marketing community that Doug was talking about. And so I think what makes me really excited and hopeful for the future is that it's at everybody's fingertips. If you want to learn how to use gen AI, there's a million classes and YouTube videos that you can go and undertake. If you want to learn and understand how to create a better budget or ROI model, you can do that. If you want to know what cool shit people are doing in experiential marketing, you can access what everybody's doing in every industry that's unique and get inspired off of that. I mean, the sky's the limit. And so I love every aspect of that. And I think that the future is really going to go to those who put in the work to earn it. And I love that. I absolutely love that. So we now have a winner. And it's very, very close because I'm not giving many points for the last one. So Doug, you get 52 points for that answer on sales and marketing alignment. Nicole? You get one point, forgive me unlimited budget. Sorry I just lose because of the budget answer. You did. You lost by one point. You lost by one point, but, but it was, it was a good answer. was just like, like Doug's was all like altruistic and like we're all getting along. And then, and then yours was, I need more money to do cool things. And like, after hours. I should have said after hours. You stay true to yourself. Don't put a price on that. Don't put a point total on that. No, no, and honestly, honestly, I loved the answer because I feel the same way. Like, let's let's get back to let's get back to hiring and a rock and economy. Let's let's let's get back to doing things right. But I feel like Doug's was just a better answer because it was positive and uplifting and and my soul just felt a little bit higher on that one. So so props. It was close made up, absolutely made up game. But Doug, you came out the winner. Congratulations. You won our very first GTM after hours closing time battle as bonus episode will launch. We'll launch the formal episode either tomorrow or Thursday. It'll be on any platform that you listen to podcasts, Apple, Spotify, et cetera. And then anybody can go back and watch this video if they want to. You know see us meander through this and in our best efforts But I will give I will give the final the final word to to both of you We'll start with you Nicole and then we'll end with Doug Give one piece of advice that you would give to your like fresh out of college brand new in the workforce Gosh. You know what? think it is, I think it would be, don't lose your confidence. Don't quit because you're going to get there. And I think it would really just be keep at it and work hard because it'll Love it. gotta I gotta raise my Slim Jim mug and in tears. Snap into one. All right, right, Doug. Doug, final final words. You know, count us out here with some some words of wisdom. What would you tell your younger self? What is that advice? Yeah, absolutely. Think big early. I mean, we live in a world right now where gen AI is going to change everything. And there was a similar thing at that point for me. so see something big, believe in something. If it moves you, go big and think huge. Don't, you know, I mean, you know, what is it? Shoot for the sun, hit the moon, know, some phrase along those lines. mean, do it. That's the time to do it. you know, experiment, try some really cool things. And for that person that's there that not me right now, know, GenAI engineered prompts. You can create magic with real letters, like not code. It's nuts. If you know how to engineer a prompt, you can do some miraculous things. Nevermind engineer several prompts in a row to build off of what you're doing. Like go mess with it. It's not coding. It's nothing. I don't care what your background is. Go have some fun. Go try something. If it's interesting to because there's a world there that we just haven't even begun to touch, especially most people. So go experience, figure it out, see if it's for you.