Episode Notes

TheNextCMO’s latest podcast is Steve Baines and Molly McGee from Forcivity. Steve is a serial entrepreneur in the Technology sector and his most recent role is the CEO and Founder of Forcivity. Molly has a passion for Marketing and is currently the Director of Marketing at Forcivity. In this podcast we discuss some of the biggest challenges customers have with managing their MarTech stack, the importance of using infinite data effectively to reach your target audience, and AI being a major trend for the future of marketing. 

Useful Links

Steve Baines - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaines/
Molly McGee - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mollymmcgee/
Forcivity - https://forcivity.com

Interested in being on The Next CMO podcast? - https://info.plannuh.com/the-next-cmo-podcast

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Full Transcript

Kelsey Krapf 0:00
Welcome to the official podcast of the next cmo hosted by planner, makers of the first AI driven marketing leadership platform for quickly and easily creating winning marketing plans, maximizing budget impact and proving ROI. The next cmo is a thought leadership podcast for those that are CMOS or want to become one. My name is Kelsey craft and I am the senior marketing manager.

Peter Mahoney 0:25
And I'm Peter Mahoney. I'm the founder and CEO of planner and welcome to the next cmo podcast.

Kelsey Krapf 0:44
For this week, we have Steve Baynes, the CEO and founder of force tivity. And Molly McGee, the Director of Marketing at 470. Thanks for coming on the show Steven. Molly.

Steve Baines 0:55
Thanks, Kelsey. Great to be here.

Molly McGee 0:57
Thanks for having us.

Peter Mahoney 0:58
Yeah, it's great to have you Steve. And and for those of you who are playing along at home, Stephen, I go back 50 or 60 years, I think, at least at least. And in fact, a little known fact, I unsuccessfully at least once tried to hire Steve. Did I did Yes. It was unsuccessful and

Steve Baines 1:20
disappoint. Yeah, that's

Peter Mahoney 1:21
okay. And in Steve is one of those guys who who I look at as when when you think you need a marketing technology expert, I always think of Steve Daines. So you're sort of that that icon in my mind that comes up whenever whenever that happens. And it was super exciting when I heard back several years ago now, four years ago, you started 470.

Steve Baines 1:47
Coming up on five end of the year will be our fifth birthday

Peter Mahoney 1:49
Tempest forget, as they said. So almost five years ago, you started 470, which is super exciting. And in you've had a ton of success, which is really great. So anyway, to set the table, why don't you just tell tell us and in our listeners a little bit about about your background, and a little bit about 470.

Steve Baines 2:13
I always describe myself as an accidental technologist. I actually didn't intend on being in technology. For years, I wanted to be a doctor and actually went to school for medical related pre med. And when I got out of the military and realized that I wanted to see my kids growing up, I just kind of found and started working in technology, the technology sector kind of stumbled into a job and 20 plus years later, here I am, I worked for a company that was implementing salesforce.com. I didn't even know what salesforce.com was at the time. And Google was I'm not even sure Google existed back then. But so there wasn't any really any resources, I could go and look it up.

Peter Mahoney 2:58
So what year was that? This is interesting, what year was it that you first encountered Salesforce?

Steve Baines 3:02
That was 2004.

Peter Mahoney 3:05
That is so funny, Steve, because my first my first interaction with Salesforce was in 2003. I think it was very early on, you know, back then Salesforce was really a super small company kind of kind of platform. I was doing a startup and and we were implementing this new ish kind of thing at the time. So I mean, the world has changed a lot. But anyway, I've interrupted your flow, what?

Steve Baines 3:36
Tell us tell us more. So like, I just kind of fell into it. And this company I was working for eventually got acquired by Dell computer. And at the time of that that acquisition happened, where it was in my career with my family, I actually parlayed that into a consulting gig. And that was in 2008. And that's the type of work I've been doing ever since all focused on sales and marketing technology, typically with salesforce.com at the center, other systems like Eloqua, so a little history lesson for your listeners. That's where Peter and I first met Peter was CMO of Nuance Communications. And I don't even know how it happened. But somehow they became a client of mine and Peter and I got to know each other really well. And we did a lot of really cool things with that company with marketing tech and salesforce.com at the center of it all. And so it's just been a 12 year string of doing the same type of work. And here I am today still.

Peter Mahoney 4:38
Yeah, you you were pretty amazing, Steve because you were able to take the most complicated messed up implementation of Salesforce ever. So for those of you who don't know what's nuance nuance, it's a decent sized company was at the time about a $2 billion company. And we had grown a lot via acquisition in fact We had done in my 10 years there for 13 years. And we had done 100 acquisitions in that time frame. And you can imagine from a systems integration, data integration perspective, it was an unholy nightmare. And Steve was somehow able to help us navigate that mess in, in make everything actually work, which, which was incredible. So I'm sure you learned a lot in the process.

Steve Baines 5:29
I did. I always joke that acquisitions are a nightmare for employees, but there are opportunities for consultants. And there were there were plenty of them that nuance and, you know, we had a, we had some pretty big challenges that we had to overcome. To get that to a point where it was, you know, humming like a well oiled machine. Not that it wasn't already. But you know, we did some pretty incredible things with, with Eloqua. You know, that was, when I laid eyes on that instance of elico. I was like, well, boy, we got our work cut out for us here. So it took a lot of heavy lifting. And I made a lot of great connections, people I still speak to, to this day, and I'm not even sure if Molly knows that there's some folks that have worked with us at facility that I've met through nuance. So it's a really small network. Well, that's great. And for the nerds out there, there may be one or two. So we implemented Oracle first in 2004, to the excuse me, aliqua, which was bought by Oracle, in back in 2004 2005. So we're very early customer of aliqua. And in went through sort of the, the pain and suffering of a very early platform through the days. And so I'm sure you inherited the message. So tell us now you've you've now moved on from from being a highly desired, independent kind of consultant. And you've, you've built an amazing company. So tell us a little bit about 470. So we focus on salesforce.com implementations, whether it's new implementations or re implementations, we describe ourselves as enterprise level boutique consulting, because many folks like myself have come from industry, they worked for larger companies, or have worked in really complex or messy environments. So that's actually an area that we're most comfortable in. So we kind of have this unique position as being somebody described us as this, and I've stolen it ever since we were a small but mighty group. So we're able to bring the full spectrum of skill sets that are needed for these enterprise level projects. Ironically, you know, Peter, if, if a project like nuance came to us today, I would look at and be like, Oh, this is, this is so fundamental, it's so rudimentary compared to the some of the projects we've had the opportunity to work on. So it's been great, because we've been able to really build the company around these types of projects and these types of clients who, you know, we done such a great job of establishing these really trusted relationships that were never done with them. They're like, okay, what's next? What's next? What's next. So the team has done an absolutely incredible job of just reinforcing our values and doing such great work that our customers just keep coming back. So it's a recipe for building a great company. So it's, it's, it's fantastic. It's been great to see.

Kelsey Krapf 8:20
I want to take a step back here. And Molly, tell me a little bit about, you know, your background, obviously, you have a passion for marketing, you're a director of marketing, how did you, you know, get into this, this world of marketing? Yes. So I actually became interested in marketing in high school. I went, I'm from New Hampshire, I went to Manchester Central High School, and there was a actually a pretty big business department there. So you could take lots of business classes, and kind of get your feet wet. And I was part of the deca program, which is a club for business students, where you kind of do these, you know, mock business plans and campaigns and things like that. It was really interesting to me. And so I knew basically at 15 that I wanted to major in marketing. And I went on to get my degree at Loyola, Chicago, and started my, I guess, training and career out there in Chicago. And really, once I graduated, I learned how many different pieces of marketing there actually are, you know, I kind of had this one idea of what I was going to do, and you know, you graduate and then it's like, well, you're going to do what job you can find when it's time to make some money. So I've done you know, event planning and management. And then Steven, I actually met at my first, like, real job after college at a web development agency here in Manchester and I was a project manager. And that was, you know, kind of a tangential marketing job. Like I wasn't really doing anything tactical. I was managing these large marketing projects and really discovered that was not for me. It all worked out for the best cuz that's where I met Steve. But then I moved on to do some more in house marketing in the educational travel industry and was in that for a while. And last summer, actually, I decided that I was ready for a change. And I just messaged Steven was like, Hey, I'm gonna start looking for jobs. Would you be a reference for me? And he was like, yeah, let's let's catch up. And then there was like, the easiest job interview I've ever had. And he was like, you know, we really need some marketing help. But for 70 don't you join the team, and it's been a year now. So getting back into the technology, space has been like a whirlwind. Really, it was so different from the education industry that I was in before. But the company has grown and changed and shifted so much in the last year, it's been really kind of exciting to have a front row seat to that. And I like working with Steve. So

Peter Mahoney 10:57
well, that's I think I had the exact opposite approach to you to 15 years old, I had no idea what marketing was, by the way, I'm still trying to figure it out. So it's interesting, Molly, that you, you had that sense there. In fact, I was just telling someone earlier, I was on someone else's podcast as a guest, believe it or not about two hours ago. And that the I've, in my entire career, never taken a marketing class. In maybe it shows, but but I actually had no idea what's going on. So I'm impressed that you have a foundation in you knew so early, what you wanted to do, which is, which is pretty interesting. And the one thing I was going to say, though, is that that what you're doing now is in for those people who are a little bit earlier in your career, finding an opportunity where you're in a high growth environment, is incredibly valuable for a marketing career. Because you get to do a little bit of everything, you get to try a little bit of everything. And then you grow with the company. And I found in in my career, the the times where where I grew the most was when someone gave me a shot. And it sounds just like your experience with Steve, where Steve had some experience with you said, well, Molly seems really smart, I need someone who can do this kind of stuff, I'm going to give her a shot. Because as a CEO of a relatively small company, the most important thing is finding people who are willing to just kind of get it done. So that mixture of things can be really compelling. That's, that's, that's a, that's a great way to, to get into things.

Kelsey Krapf 12:36
Yeah, and I would add to that, that being in a high growth position, a small company is so valuable, because we're seeing I met, it was probably a mid mid sized company that was growing a lot. And then I moved into a huge company that had been acquired by an even bigger company. And so it was kind of like, you know, there's 60% marketing department. And you have all of these resources and all these, you know, things that people working around you. But you can't really accomplish as much when you're in that kind of environment when you and now working at a smaller firm, where it's you know, Steve, and I have this direct relationship, you can just do a lot more, and you might not have all the bells and whistles that that big company has. But you don't really need them if you have like a tight vision that you're that you're chasing.

Peter Mahoney 13:24
Well, that's great. So now, obviously, something's working. Because you guys have been going through just crazy growth right now. I saw an article earlier today when I was looking at buying, because I knew I remembered seen Steve, that you shared something about being one of the top if not the top fastest growing companies in New Hampshire on the Inc 5000 list. But I saw the stat there that said in the last few years you've grown 20 500% Did I get that right? In? Yeah. And in what drove that? So what's what's been driving the growth?

Steve Baines 13:58
Well, I always use the phrase, if you want to see far you stand on the shoulder of giants. And in this case, we're standing on the shoulders of salesforce.com. I mean, they are leading a movement, you know, they they refer to it as the fourth industrial revolution, and putting, you know, sales and marketing technology at the center of everything that they do. And you know, creating that ideal customer experience. So the demand for their software is just absolutely astronomical. I mean, they're they're, they're setting record growth. I think they're targeting $21 billion in revenue for this current fiscal. So obviously, the more software they sell, the more the higher the demand is for companies like us to actually implement it and make it work and maximize their investments. So it's really it's been it's been great because we're in a very dense area of Salesforce users in the world, the Northeast United States has got 10s of thousands of Salesforce customers. So there's a lot of market opportunity for companies like us, especially with the type of service Is that we offer. So it's actually been hard to keep up with the demand, believe it or not, I mean, our growth would even be higher if we have the ability to meet the demand. Because of course, we're still dealing with the scarce job market. So, you know, we have to be very careful about the projects that we that we take so that we can actually deliver on them.

Peter Mahoney 15:16
Yeah, I can certainly see that Steve, and knowing especially that you guys come at this with a very strong reputation. So I suspect this pretty high demand for, for for you within an area of high demand, you're, you're probably at the high demand side of the high demand. So that's, that certainly would help drive a fair amount of growth. So tell us I love to try to give our listeners some really useful, practical, tactical kinds of things. Please, tell me in your mind, are there one or two things that that marketers who are deploying Salesforce should do or should know about, that people just aren't doing enough of?

Steve Baines 16:01
Well, you know, obviously, marketers want to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. That's, that's the Holy Grail. And there is this notion that marketing is really it in disguise. So they really have to be willing to embrace the technology and the use of the technology. I think, if there's any dynamic that's been pretty consistent throughout the years is not really an unwillingness, but not recognizing the fact that a CRM such as Salesforce is really pivotal to making your marketing data work correctly, as it should. So the combination of that marketing automation system, like an Eloqua, or pardot, coupled with the CRM, such as Salesforce are in a dynamic mean, pun intended, that's a dynamic duo that you need. So it's really hard to be an effective marketer. Without having a really powerful CRM, it's really hard to be an effective salesperson or sales team without having an effective marketing automation system. So the two types of applications have to go hand in hand.

Peter Mahoney 17:03
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And what are people? What are people struggling with? When it comes to implementing or managing their CRM, CRM? What are the big challenges that you see most often,

Steve Baines 17:15
we run into, everybody's got, you know, like data, hygiene, and just, you know, dirty data type of issues, that that's pervasive, that's not unique to anybody. That's something that they always deal with. But really, where we are seeing struggles is the ability to leverage both implicit and explicit data. So what do you know about this prospect or this, this customer that's interacting with you, based on what they've told you? But also, what do you know about them based on what they've done? You know, so it's it, you know, it's combining those two things together to really effectively understand the level of quality that that particular prospect is the propensity for them to buy something from you or buy something again, from you. You Salesforce has got a tremendous focus on the 360 degree view of the customer. This is not a new notion, this is something that's been around forever. Even back when we worked together at nuance, we were trying to do that. And and it's really understanding that complete lead to cash cycle. And even that, you know, that lead to order reorder cycle, it's like once they become a customer, how do you get them to be a repeat customer records to keep them as a customer?

Peter Mahoney 18:21
Yeah, and I can see, certainly, we had the issue of data hygiene was right in the middle of what we were dealing with it because of all the acquisitions that we we did. And it was interesting, I actually was reading an email thread just earlier this morning about something related to this, which is about, you know, intent data. So that there's a real drive to try to figure out as marketers, as we try to, you know, get more people out there. There's one. One approach is, of course, to define the people who are already in your universe within Salesforce as an example. So there are prospects that you're dealing with, or there's an existing contact or customer. But the other is sort of mining that data and say, I want to find more people like this, who converted to customers, or I want to find people who sort of matched some of the signals that I know would imply that they're interested in my solution, or they have the problem that I solve. Is that something that you see people looking at more and more, Steve?

Steve Baines 19:23
Yeah, I mean, it's again, it's nothing new. It's I think it's a trend that I've seen for years and years and years, where, you know, they're they're really trying to figure out how to best leverage the data that they have. And when you're in those larger companies that are constantly acquiring additional companies, having that understanding of these folks, even a customer ours if they are, you know, did they own that other product that we just purchased? Or is there a cross sell or an upsell opportunity? At the end of the day, it all centers back to data and how you leverage it most effectively. That has never changed. I don't think that's ever going to go away. It's just a question of, you know, fortunately, we're in a position now where the compute power Now that we have is now catching up with all these sophisticated algorithms that data scientists developed, you know, decades ago, that we can actually start to churn through these massive amounts of data and start, you know, start to actually turn it into actionable data points.

Kelsey Krapf 20:17
What would you say are some of the biggest challenges that your customers have with managing their marketing tech stack? And how do you essentially help them?

Steve Baines 20:27
I think one of the biggest challenges we see continued to see is this concept of shadow IT. Peter, block your ears here, but applications like planning are so easy to purchase and install and implement marketers, you know, there's a tendency for them to just grab something, let me install this, let me use this. And while they're there, great point solutions. And they are there for a very specific purpose and provide a lot of value. It's creating the Data Silo. So understanding how all these tools fit into your overall tech stack, and make them talk to one another. Rather than having duplicate data or siloed data or data that's incorrect, or something happened over here in this application on I need to make this application over here aware of it, how do we do that effectively. So you know, use the phrase that marketing is it in disguise. And I really, I really mean that seriously, because there is a tendency for folks to just go out there, start using one of these SaaS apps use it for the purpose that they purchased it for. But now suddenly, they've got this larger problem that they didn't think about at the time. It's like, Alright, how do I bring this into the fold? You know, the CIOs of the world and the directors of it, look at these, all of these different applications and be like, wow, how, what am I gonna do with all of these? How am I going to manage all of these, and then they end up being the bad guy, because to say, Listen, you got to get rid of that, or you've got to give control of that to us. So we can make it work with everything else here.

Peter Mahoney 21:52
Yeah, you definitely see see those issues where where the tech stack sort of multiplies. And do you know, the the folks that cabinet, em, as an example. So Anita and Cheryl, the two founders are our, our sibling, portfolio companies in one of the portfolios, we sit in one of our investors, and they built a whole business around this around helping people understand and make sense of all of the, all of the technology, and they're in the marketing tech stack. So they can sort of render that and find out things like that, where that how the data fits together, and compatibility and versions and things like that. So it's, it's super valuable for people. But you can see where that is a is, is definitely an issue that people are dealing with. And it's interesting, because the, when, when we work with customers, we're dealing with a slightly different problem in some cases, because, you know, we obviously fit within sort of within their tech stack, but a little bit differently from the other stuff. Because most of the tech stack is really focused on delivering a message to the customer the right way. And in we sit in a place with planet where we're sort of focused on the the leadership of marketing and sort of the the back office side of marketing. So they're, they're definitely data integration points, but they're different. The issue we run into is that existing data is in a bunch of literally a bunch of spreadsheets in most cases. So it's, it's a, it's, it's a, it's a fundamentally different thing. But the same set of problems where you just have data that spreads sort of, sort of all over the place, which, which is interesting. So one of the questions I was going to ask you, Steve, is, is obviously your, your customers look to you for strategic technology advice, but just like, you know, marketing, is it in disguise, or it is marketing disguise? You know, however you want to think about that? How much of what you end up helping with, helping them with is really about sort of an overall marketing strategy question versus just a technology thing, if there is such a thing?

Steve Baines 24:16
We do a little bit of both. I mean, our primary focus is on process using, you know, using data, leveraging data effectively, you know, how do you actually implement the technology, but what we're finding more and more it's, it's largely dependent on the type of customer we're dealing with and what their selling cycle is, are they a solution they sale or they appoint sale? You know, is I always use the example of Dell I mean, with somebody my mother sits down to buy decides to buy a laptop from Dell on Saturday morning, that sales cycle last all of about 12 minutes. So there's really no need to nurture or messaged in any way to convince her to purchase obviously, she doesn't purchase then she's going to get all kinds of emails that said, Hey, you forgot about us you still want to buy here's a coupon for an additional discount. So it's still I think It all is still coming back to data and really understanding where everybody's at in their journey. And how do you craft the right message around that? And how do you leverage the technology to maximize that? I mean, you know, you know, as a career cmo that you constantly have to justify your existence from a budget perspective, from a, you know, campaign spend perspective, like this is where we should be spending our money. This is where we're getting our return on, that is still very much the holy grail of marketing is really figuring out where should we apply our spend, and how effective has it been. And at the end of the day, it is still all coming back to data. And you know, having data that's decisional.

Peter Mahoney 25:38
And it's interesting, interesting, Steve, because sometimes data is, it feels like you're doing the right thing with data, but it ends up it ends up with an unexpected result. So let me give you an example. probably three or four years ago, my son had a little booboo with his car. And that was an issue for him with a watch for a while. And we're beyond that point. I hope I'm beyond the point paying for it because he's out of the house now. And, and he he scraped something with his front bumper, and I needed to get a new front bumper. So I was going to bring it to the shop. But I said, I'm just going to go on eBay and find that part. And I went, I found the part on eBay. This is three, four years ago, to this day, I get promotions from eBay, about car bumpers, I will never buy another bumper in my life. in there. There's this over personalization that happens sometimes in in sort of understanding how to tease apart it that that signal. Is that particular signal. Am I someone who's just out there buying a lot of car bumpers? Or is this a one time episodic thing? So But that requires a lot of sophistication? And it feels like most marketers are really at this sort of crawl walk across stage where they need to walk and run with their data. It's so how do how should people think about leveraging data for personalization to start? What should that first step be? before they get themselves in trouble?

Steve Baines 27:14
That's a great question. And I have a very, very recent example that I experienced myself, as someone who just moved into a new home. My wife and I are going to be upgrading the appliances in our kitchen here. So we were at Lowe's the other day looking at refrigerators, we looked online, but we're like, Yeah, let's go in want to touch them, feel them, see how big they are? Well, lo and behold, I'm on my I think was on my Facebook feed the other day, or even Instagram and wouldn't know what type of ad pops up in front of me an ad from Lowe's for refrigerators. So, you know, obviously Lowe's multi billion dollar company, but they figured out a way to leverage data to the nth degree with me, because I know that they knew where I was in the store, they knew that they know that I lingered in the appliance area. Because they've got tracking beacons in their store. I had my app open, so we knew exactly where it where I was, and knew how long I stood there. So they're like, Hey, you know, this guy's interested in fridges, we're going to get something in front of him. So, you know, it's really about understanding, first of all, who your customers are, are you b2b or b2c? You know, what type of data is available to you? I mean, it's amazing how much privacy Believe it or not, we give up with our smartphones, even though we don't think that we're doing it. Let's face it, they know where we are. They know what we're looking at, they know how long we're spending in certain areas. So understanding what data is available to you is the first challenge. And then the second challenge is how do you actually make that data actionable? So in this case, they knew that I spent seven minutes in the appliance section. So I'm getting hammered with refrigerator ads now.

Peter Mahoney 28:51
Yeah, it's really interesting, because he's, you see examples like this, and it intimidates marketers a lot. Because I think, Oh, my God, I'm so far away from that being able to understand a linger signal in the aisle in my store. And it's interesting, because I first worked with personalization technology back in 2000, in 2001. And in I remember that we had this I worked for a company called ATG, that is now also part of Oracle, of course, because everything ends up being that. And in at the time, we told this great story about how you could do this really sophisticated personalization into it. And we said it was a business user application. So literally, a business user could write these rules with sort of a visual editor. And the problem is that the business users got so stuck because they didn't even know where to start to start to build these rules. And that's a problem with a lot of the marketing tech today is that it's so powerful, but people don't know where to start. And they don't know how, how should I To take that first step that's going to get me towards incremental improvement. And an example I always use is that is that if you're talking about personalization as an example, the first thing you need to do is do segmentation. So you need to figure out well, if you personalize, you're going to personalize an offer to different segments of your audience. And if you haven't done that, yet, there's nothing to personalize. And and you need to start in a super simplistic way, meaning customers or non customers is a great way to start with that. But it's that kind of thing that how often do you find yourself in that mode, where you're sort of helping people figure out how do I how do I implement this marketing tech in a way that is not only the possible, but the the actual, you know, the practical and achievable?

Steve Baines 30:51
Yeah, the answer to how often is all the time, it's consistent. You know, I had mentioned, you know, talking about, you know, explicit and implicit data earlier, and understanding the quality of your leads, coming up with like a lead scoring model, as an example or list segmentation is, that's a great example of marketers just don't really know where to start, they're overwhelmed about the amount of data that they have at their fingertips. So there's a natural tendency to try to get really sophisticated with it. And think about what what, you know, well, let's, let's account for this scenario, or that scenario, rather than starting simple. I always joke, whenever we're building a lead scoring model, or something like that, I said, Listen, this is gonna change in six months, let's start with something, let's learn from it. And let's evolve, let's adjust it based on the data that we gather, and what we understand from what we put in place. So to what you said earlier, it's like start simple, start with something and then pivot off of that once you have actionable data.

Peter Mahoney 31:47
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. So I'm gonna get myself in trouble. Steve, you're ready.

Steve Baines 31:51
Go ahead. Okay,

Peter Mahoney 31:52
ready for it? marketing, attribution is a bunch of BS fight me?

Steve Baines 31:59
Oh, you're waiting for me to say, Yes.

I'm not gonna fight you on that. It's, it's, the problem has yet been yet to be solved. You know, there's, there's the classic battle between marketing and sales, that they want credit for this like, like we cause that sale to happen. The reality is, is you really can't empirically prove it, it's so difficult to prove it. I had a conversation with a CMO from one of our customers, literally last week about this same exact topic. And he wants to evaluate a year's worth of closed opportunities, and figure out the marketing attribution that's associated with it. And I'm like, you can't, I said, first of all, you need good data, discipline, good data practices in order to even have a good attribution model, which you don't have that takes months and years to build that up. And second of all, it's like, what, what's our basis here? What are those? What are those data points that matter? And oftentimes, they just don't know. They don't even know what to apply. So they can get a little bit of analysis paralysis, or they can simply just say, you know, what, let's just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. And then they end up, you know, focusing on something else, and it kind of falls by the wayside. So, is it a bunch of BS? A little bit? You know, I think it's really it's really difficult to get something meaningful out of that data.

Peter Mahoney 33:15
Yeah, I think probably, I'm sure that was an extreme. I think the the, you know, the The point is, is for most people, it's it's a bridge too far. And they don't as you brought up exactly the point I've as I expected you would is that they just don't have the data. And and the reality is that if you're dealing with a complex sales cycle, you might have thousands of interactions with with a company before you get to the point. So how do you actually decide which one gets credit for which part a, you know, it's, it's, it's really, it's really interesting. But obviously, it's it's something that marketers all want to figure out, right? They want to figure out well, how do I, how do I optimize and improve my mix, the way we tend to think about it is, is, is think at a high enough level so that you can organize into broad campaigns, and then measure the impact the aggregate impact of a broad campaign, not just a bunch of little tactics, and that tends to be a little bit more, more useful and accurate for people as they as they move on.

Steve Baines 34:24
Yeah, it's it really is highly dependent on the type of product or service that they're selling. And this this customer happened to be an enterprise level app that takes months and years to sell. So very different approach then, you know, you know, quick little, you know, 3995 a month type of application where someone can make a decision in a day on.

Kelsey Krapf 34:43
Molly, I have a question for you. So we we recently launched our Salesforce integration for planner, and I'd love to hear from you what marketing strategies has worked for you to really reach that Salesforce customer base. Yes, so it's a It's definitely interesting. I saw this question on the list and I was like, oh my goodness that

Peter Mahoney 35:04
you mean, there's a list of questions, I thought this is all completely impromptu. You've outed our level of organization, Molly, but go ahead.

Kelsey Krapf 35:15
I will say with with 470, we have kind of an interesting sales and marketing strategy and that we do a lot of selling with Salesforce. So we have really strong partnerships with our Salesforce reps in the region that helped connect us to customers that they are trying to close, they use us as kind of like a leveraging chip in their deals, and we like to come in and say like, yes, if you do all of these things, we can make it work beautifully for you. I think for for me, as a marketer learning when I started in at first I didn't really know much about Salesforce, I had only really dipped my toe in. And I think that it's just kind of lost my train of thought a little bit. Okay, we we like to just keep things as streamlined and simple as possible, I think,

Peter Mahoney 36:07
yeah, it seems like you found an area of that I love which is mutual self interest. So you you found the points where you deliver value not only to the customer, but to the Salesforce rep, because what you're delivering to the Salesforce rep is a level of confidence that they will have a successful implementation in there for you know, stay as a customer or upgrade or whatever it is based on on that implementation. So I think I think that's key. And it's interesting, because Salesforce, as Steve was saying earlier has become, it's such a giant business $21 billion of revenue going forward. It's just an enormous thing. And it's almost its own economy, in thinking about marketing into that. It is an interesting thing. And I don't know, if you use Steve have had any points of if you think as a technology and services provider, working within this marketplace model, what are some of the things that you've done over time? Has it really been about sort of just developing a relationship over time? Is that the core point,

Steve Baines 37:16
the end of the day, this is a relationship business? And you know, people? Look, there's a lot of people, a lot of companies who offer the same services that we do, of course, but you know, there's the demand, as I said earlier, is tremendous. It sits through the roof. So what are those things that can set us apart and really be differentiators for us. And it's really that that service touch, you know that our commitment to quality, our you know, getting our customers to the point where they realized that we can be those trusted partners, those trusted advisors, or not just after the next project, we're really are seeking relationships. And that is where we've been most successful. Some of our customers have been many of our customers have been with us almost since the beginning. And I have people call me that I did work for years ago. And it's because of those relationships. And those are really what last, you know, people people will even pay a premium for if they have less unknowns, they're they're willing to pay a premium for it. And it's it's been key to our success, for sure.

Kelsey Krapf 38:13
Yeah, it kind of ties back to the personalization, we were just speaking about because when I first entered this industry and for 70, there are so many tools that I have available at my fingertips even just having, you know, the drift chat software. On our website, it's like there are so many marketing plays and toolkits that you can dig into. But when Steve and I talk, it's like, okay, you can go one to many with trying to get the individual businesses to come to you and ask you to do consulting. But these businesses are already spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on this software, and they want to know that they have someone they can trust to implement it. So it's really, it plays better to us to have Salesforce recommend us directly, rather than trying to go out and convince 100,000 people that they should ask us, you know, we have 10 clients that we know are going to do a really complicated build, and they are going to need somebody with Steve's expertise. We don't, we don't want to over personalize to these people that might never come back to us. We want to just get the message right for the people who need us.

Peter Mahoney 39:20
Makes makes a ton of sense. And obviously, building and trading their relationship is an important element of what you have to do. So Steve, I'm gonna ask you to lean back and play Nostradamus for me a little bit. Okay. And obviously there's there's a lot going on in the world of marketing technology. We now have about 1000 vendors who are playing in this space. What are sort of, what are the big things sort of big tectonic shifts you see coming up in the next couple of years in the world of marketing tech, from your perspective?

Steve Baines 39:58
Ai, I don't even have to think about That one, it's definitely AI. There's a huge focus, especially with Salesforce all companies, planner, it's we've talked about data a lot. During this podcast, there's so much data out there that it's just overwhelming to actually get information out of that. You know, Salesforce regularly quotes this fact that 90% of the world's data has been produced in the last 12 months, believe it or not, it's it's an absolutely eye popping stat. So what do we do with all this data? So we need that compute power, we need those AI algorithms to help us get some insights out of that. So ai, ai is obviously here to stay, especially with marketing technology, we know that marketers need that that assist, they need that additional thinking to figure out where should I be spending my money? or What should I be handing to my sales folks, as opposed to keeping for myself to nurture?

Peter Mahoney 40:55
Yeah, I completely agree with you. You know, not surprisingly, being in a AI driven marketing technology company. It would be weird if I disagreed with you, I guess, on that point. But I mean, we see that all the time, that the idea that, that all this data is out there, but actually being able to do something with it is is really challenging for people. And that that makes a lot of sense. And actually, it, it connects back to some of the earlier discussions we were having about data cleanliness and quality, and sort of the connectedness of all these systems. And one of the things that one of the things that we deal with a lot, by the way in in our systems is, we deal with a lot of messy data. Because if you think about it, we're dealing with prospective data, it's a plan, it's something I'm expecting to do. So it doesn't spit out of some system. And in then there's So for us, we need to take messy data, organize it in a way that it actually maps to both a marketing plan, as well as a set of financial systems. And third, a set of CRM systems so that you can connect the plan what you're trying to do, organized into campaigns, with the financial systems to say, well, am I spending the money in that way? And what did I really spend with the business outcomes, and connecting them all together and delivering delivering result is a complex problem. And you can see where more and more of those application areas where people are dealing with just messy data are going to become I think super important for for people in the long run. And where we see people struggling is if they have sort of very implies, you need a very flexible data model, by the way to to really take advantages this. And I know Salesforce has done a ton in in the last few years around creating a very nimble, flexible graph like data model where you can sort of get anything from anywhere. And and, and that is super important. And the companies that are really going to struggle are the ones who have a very rigid, kind of hierarchical data model that they're stuck in. And so working with that becomes really challenging.

Steve Baines 43:15
And if you haven't if you if you think about the the the challenges you just described with with your very specific situation on planet, Mal apply that to the enterprise as a whole that you know, it just it's it's not even linear, it's exponential, the complexities and challenges that come in when you're looking at the Enterprise's entire pool of data.

Peter Mahoney 43:34
Yep, it's just amazing. So we're running kind of short on time. So I should try and get to the last couple of questions here. First of all, before we do anything else would, you should let our listeners know where they can get more information on 470? How did they go find you? I suspect, Molly, you know a thing or two about that.

Kelsey Krapf 43:55
Yes, of course, you can visit our website at 470 dot com. And we've got information about all the services we offer. And as well as some of our proprietary products that are available in the Salesforce app exchange, which we've developed from, you know, years of experience and implementing all of these projects. And we've created a few tools to make it easier for ourselves and have pass it on to our customers. We also have a lot of really great resources on our blog. And Steve runs his own podcast called CTA office hours where he will do a little q&a on some technical Salesforce questions as well. So it's always a good listen when, when he can make time to do that.

Peter Mahoney 44:34
Yeah, absolutely. And I can certainly personally attest to the, to the depth and credibility and quality of Steve's work and for 70s work, having worked with him for probably a couple of decades now. So really one of the leaders in in the Salesforce world in marketing tech writ large, so really appreciate it, Steve. So I think Kelsey, you've got you one more question that will take us out with

Kelsey Krapf 45:00
Yeah, I'd love to hear from both of you. What advice would you give to those that are currently CMOS or, you know, aspiring to be one?

Steve Baines 45:11
Please go ahead. First, I have an answer, but I'll let you. I'll let you go first.

Kelsey Krapf 45:15
Okay, well, as you introduced me at the beginning, I'm obviously not a CMO. Right now I'm director of marketing. But I think that to be successful in, in this role, and in any industry, you just have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Most of the time, you know, there's going to be a lot of things that you don't really know, if you're doing them, right, if you should be doing them right now. If you're executing correctly, and the only thing that's going to answer those questions is time. So something that I, you know, I have to keep telling myself and coaching myself on is just be patient and be open to what is going to what's going to come and you might you're not going to get everything right, but that's okay. As long as you learn from it.

Steve Baines 45:56
Yeah, my advice would be be ready to move fast and embrace change. You know, the ecosystem is evolving so rapidly, and you can close your eyes and be behind the APL quicker than you think. So be ready for the ride. It's a wild ride, and there's a lot to know. But it's a lot of fun. So it's a no, that would be my advice for everybody.

Peter Mahoney 46:16
be uncomfortable and fast. Sounds like the perfect job. I

Unknown Speaker 46:21
think everyone should want it.

Kelsey Krapf 46:24
Well, thank you so much for your time today, Steven Molly, really appreciate it. This was an excellent conversation about Salesforce data. Make sure to follow the next cmo and plan on Twitter and LinkedIn and if you have any ideas for topics or guests, you can email them to the next cmo@planet.com

Unknown Speaker 46:43
Have a great day, everyone. All right. Thanks,

Unknown Speaker 46:45
everyone. Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai