Interesting B2B Marketers
Interesting B2B Marketers
Episode 54: Strategic Insights from B2B Marketing Veterans: Lessons from the Trenches | Julie Knight
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Steve Goldhaber: Hey everybody. Welcome back to Studio 26 in the interesting B2B Marketers podcast. I'm excited to have Julie Knight on the show today. Julie, welcome.
Julie Knight: Oh, hey Steve. Thanks so much and thanks for inviting me to be part of your podcast. And hey, everybody out there in podcast land.
Steve Goldhaber: Alright, cool. Before we jump into the case studies, give us a little bit of an understanding of your background. So take it away.
Julie Knight: Yeah, so I've been in B2B marketing for. Probably more years than I can count, but let's call it, you know, 20 plus years I have done everything from partner marketing to demand gen to product management.
And now for the past couple of stints, I have been chief marketing officer. It has been a really. Exciting ride and have met some of the best people across the business. I was at Cisco where I was in partner marketing. I was then over at S A P SuccessFactors, where I started in field marketing and worked my way up into running marketing for factors.
From there, I got to go to a little company, which many of you may know called Zendesk, where I ran enterprise marketing, did two stints at startups where I was their chief marketing officer, and now I am a chief marketing officer at Unit4, a global e r t provider for the mid-market. And that's my journey and that's where I am today.
Steve Goldhaber: Awesome. Thank you for, the context there. So let's jump into case study number one. Probably my favorite thing that I like to talk about as a marketer, is rebranding. It's the ongoing debate, house of brands, branded house hybrid. It's just such a, it's a fun process for me because it's just, I. So connected to business decisions and market decisions.
So time like marketers are sometimes in all these campaign-level things and tactical things, but when you start talking about go-to-market approaches, that's exciting for me. So go ahead, take it away. Case study number one.
Julie Knight: Yeah, so case study number one is a company in mid-size B2B company.
In the enterprise software space, it's a global provider, and I came into the company really to do a couple of things. First, it was to build or rebuild the marketing organization. It's a company that has gone through a lot of change and I. In terms of the investment of, and the design and, and, you know, sort of the marketing as we know it, it, that didn't exist.
The other thing is that it was a company that was a house of brands and the house of brands was tied to the markets that it served. But if you took a step back, and that was as a customer, an employee, a potential investor, or a partner, It was very hard to understand what this company did, and the only way that maybe you had context or a relationship is you worked specifically with people in a given market and with those product sets.
But if you, you know, pulled the lens back a bit, you didn't have context for much else. So, We started on a journey that said, what do we wanna be known for? What are the key products that apply to a global set of customers, and which ones truly were? Local products.
And we went through a process. We worked with, a great firm based out of New York to help us in the process. And it wasn't just rebranding, it was also repositioning. And finally, it was product rationalization. And, you know, the steps that we took are very typical. You know, we looked at it. We looked at the market, we looked at our position in the market, we talked to analysts, we talked to customers.
And you know, through this process we concluded, you know, do we change the name of the company or do we keep the name of the company? And the decision was, you know, the company name. It was kind of an empty vessel. It. It didn't have a lot of meaning except for perhaps a local market. So there was a lot that we could do with that.
And so we stuck with that, but we built off of what was our, our strapline and or our tagline, and we centered on global products, so they were gonna be applicable in all markets that we served in. The segment and we served in the verticals that we served. And through that process, we went through a brand redesign, a visual redesign.
We redesigned the web website. We completely changed the messaging and positioning and tried to tie these things together so that they were. They were relevant at a global level and contemplated not only the verticals that we serve but also the personas where we were trying to build relationships, ultimately working, to sell products and services.
Steve Goldhaber: So, all right, here's my first question on this one. 'cause this, this is tricky. You've got global, regional, and local layers to figure out Yeah. How it all ties together. Then you've got your industries or verticals. When I've done similar rebrands at that scale, you're just trying to figure out common thread lines.
Yeah, exactly. How long did it take you, to get to that thing where, all right, this is a really good idea, but it's also vetted as it relates to all these different scenarios that you have to account for as a, as a C M O.
Julie Knight: It didn't take as long as you might think. We put ourselves on a tight deadline.
So by mid-summer, we were there. We knew what sat at that global level. We had gone through the product rationalization. We understood what sat at the local level and how we were gonna approach that. We had worked and developed a strong. One. Oh on the messaging and positioning, we had completely solved that and just made it Sesame Street Supple on the product naming, which was just to use industry names because we knew that we weren't necessarily known to all of our buyers.
So if people are searching for things, we want to make it, make it as easy as possible versus using them. Product names or names that had been made up, you know, maybe 15 years ago that only somebody who had local understanding would really, would know. So from there, I mean it was, I'm not gonna say it was easy, but we had ourselves on a pretty, on a pretty tight timeline.
And then from there, we went very quickly and into design. We didn't try to do it too much in the sense that we didn't redo the website and the website wasn't redone until the following spring. But we did, you know, a homepage with a couple of pages behind it to make sure that. What we rolled out to the market, you know, what people were seeing in terms of presentations and other assets, what people were seeing.
The medium media tip would tick and tie to what at least that top-level website experience would be. Yeah.
Steve Goldhaber: Okay. Tell me about like how you got alignment on everything. 'cause you, your job is you have to connect to, to the leadership of the company. Yeah. You then have to say, all right, is sales.
On board with this. And then also the most important thing is as a customer, do they, is it resonating with them? So how long did that process take to juggle those different audiences?
Julie Knight: Well, we did that in parallel and the move or the decision to move forward with a rebrand started when I started and it was something that the c e o and in fact, The board supported and we at that time were owned by private equity and they believed that there was a lot of benefit in going through this rationalization and rebrand process.
And then from there, we had different departments, you know, clearly product engineering, sales. Finance was even involved. I mean, we had all human resources. Everybody that needed to be involved was involved. The other thing that we did, and I thought this was, a bright idea, and it wasn't my idea actually, it was the idea of others to bring in our high potentials, our young talent.
To make sure that what we were doing could resonate to really all age groups, because we know that within the buying centers that we serve, that we're dealing with people that are just coming into, into roles on maybe just a couple of years out of university through to new people, managers, and senior leaders who had been in the business for quite some time.
Yeah. So we knew we needed to tackle a couple of different generations and we couldn't limit it to our own bias.
Steve Goldhaber: Yeah, I think that's great. I've, I don't hear that a lot, but it, it makes sense. The challenge usually is the people in organizations who are running them have been doing this for a long time.
Maybe they're only gonna be around for 5, 10, 15 years. Right. So the fact that you did go to, to younger folks to, to make sure it resonated with them, I think that's, I think that's a good move. So what was the outcome of all this? You know, you, you, you mentioned that it rolled out in different phases.
The web launched afterward, but. What was it like collectively looking back at it? How did everything work?
Julie Knight: You know, we rolled, we did an official launch at an event that was held, actually it was a trade show that was in one of our target markets, and it tied very well with the strapline and sort of the key themes that resonated and were woven throughout the messaging and positioning.
So it tied very well. You know, there was, as you might expect, A full-on media plan, and we also spent a lot of time on internal communications. So what did it mean for our employees? Why was this important? What would it mean and how did it, you know, how would that thread work through with what we were doing for people's experience through HR and other meetings?
We also took him as an opportunity to start to accelerate. Our internal communications, that's something that was sort of, it hadn't taken off. And it was a focus for our CEO. So we use that, as a launch point to build that out and I think codify those channels and begin using them in a much more structured way.
So you, you think about the internal and you think about with customers through partners. Ultimately with our investors. So there were a couple of different, different stages and then it was continuing, continuing the drum beat, building upon that. And then obviously we had the rollout of in the following spring of the website.
Yeah. Which I think, you know, it gave people a way to engage more deeply and with a lot of content then. That is very much tied to what we were doing across the brand cross-product.
Steve Goldhaber: Yep. It's funny, I, Mike, I'm, by the way, I'm in the 20-plus year club too, so we have that in common. But I started in b d C marketing right outta college, and I just always remember the luxury of like, well, you just do a rebrand.
You buy a bunch of media and you're done. And jumping into B2B a long time ago, it was just like, it's way more complex like the customer-facing thing, even though that's the most important. It's often the least effort to get there, right? It's the internal and the partners and the employees that are.
Julie Knight: It is. And you know, you have to bring people along in, in the journey. The employee piece may end up being the most important one because they are going to be people that are your tra are your connection points and are going be talking about the reasons why. What does it mean?
What does it mean to them? What does it mean to whatever audience they're they're speaking to? So that became a big focus. At the time, we also launched a social. Advocacy tools so people could begin to use social again in a more structured way, in a way that made it easy for them. And it wasn't just, you know, corporate propaganda.
Certainly, there was, you know, information, there was customer stories and press releases and other things that they could share, but equally, they could promote, you know, those topics that were important to them through those channels. So that became a key tool for them as part of this, this larger effort.
Steve Goldhaber: I love social advocacy, and I think what you said is important is that anyone in charge of a program like that has quickly learned, oh my God, I cannot turn this into propaganda, because people won't share it. So it's, I think it's, it's a great challenge to any marketer to truly say if the content isn't interesting, it will not be shared.
And you have no reach through your, through your employees who share it. So it's always fun too. To create a win-win. All right. Anything else you wanna share about the first case study?
Julie Knight: You know, I would, I would just say that you know, most of your audience is going to know this, but I would say for those, you know, coming into marketing or maybe being swayed to.
You know, we need to just change the color palette and, and, and throw up a new logo and a few other things that, you know, take a step back and start to map out all of the different touchpoints and, you know, why is it important to them? What you're doing is the message authentic to your audience, to your employees, and potentially to your investors.
Your partners do take the time to do that homework. Do speak to customers, do speak to your, to, to other people that you know that who have been through the process. There's a lot of learning out there. And also take the time to check, you know, what others are doing. Not always necessarily competitors, but who's doing it well in the market?
And I think that there are a lot of things that that one can take, and start to put in, I'll call it the salad bowl of idea to help you shape out what your plan is and a regular pressure test. Don't be afraid to have people challenge your ideas, but once you make a decision, you do have to go because there's a lot of work that's got to come with bringing this to life.
Steve Goldhaber: Yeah., I love that you just said kind, let's look outside the competitive set., I was working on a brand once that just was not known. The whole category was just non-innovative. And we were like, well, we're just looking at the competitive set. My whole point was, There is no innovation in this category.
Julie Knight: Why would we not look, why would we do that?
Steve Goldhaber: Yeah. So other categories are more innovative. Yeah. So yeah, don't, don't get lost in the sea of our competitive set because that's, that's the old classic limiting belief. You've just, you've just put a cap on creativity or innovation. All right, cool. Let's jump into case study number two.
This one's gonna be focused on account-based marketing.
Julie Knight: Yeah. So much like the first mid-size B2B Tech, this. Was going through, I think kind of like that go-to-market identity crisis. You know, what do we wanna do? Who do we wanna talk to? Wow. A lot of people should be interested, in what we do.
So we're just gonna throw a big net and see what we get. And you know, what you soon find out is that's not the case. I mean, you as a buyer, I don't wanna be treated that way. And there's, you know, certain things that, you know, categories of products or products that I wouldn't be interested in.
So I. Probably not gonna respond to that. But at the same time, in the world that this company was in, you know, the idea of focus was, was even more critical because there was a lot of money that was being spent. It was being spent unnecessarily and equally people's time, especially those on, the sales side, whether it was a sales development rep, an account manager, or a solution consultant, a lot of time wasted on opportunities that would never see the light of day.
And so, yep. We decided that it was time to get focused. But you know, the first lesson was it couldn't just be a marketing-driven initiative. It needed to be embraced across the go-to-market. And so it had to be an account base go to market, and people got behind that.
And I think, you know, that came out of the fact that. The product, the products demanded it. The customers demanded it. Because there was a vertical play, there was a segment play. Regionality came into focus. I. That an account-based go-to-market was, was necessary. So they had seen and had lived through the net phishing exercise, and everybody pretty much realized that didn't, didn't work.
Of course, there are a couple of iterations about what is the true, ideal customer profile or I c P. But in large measure, you know, people got, got around or got, got to an agreement, and then it was just a matter of starting to pull together the list of accounts. You know, some of those were, you know, accounts that already had existed in, in the TAM that we had, but, I think more broadly it was, what is this account-based go-to-market going to look like?
How are we going to self-organize? So how do you structure the sales organization or the go-to-market organization? And then as we, you know, pull in the aperture a bit. We started to look at marketing and the thing that I, and the reason why I think this worked well is that both marketing and business development were very joined up.
Making this a success and making it a reality could benefit the go-to-market organization or the go go-to-market organization as a whole. And so we had started with your traditional static A D M. Let's get those lists. Let's start to prioritize. Let's start to do some marketing and what you quickly reg realize, and in part in particular, In the product category in which this company was in a buying cycle or, or customers aren't hanging out those solutions on a, on a three-year basis, it's maybe 10 years, it could be 12 years.
Other products within that organization could have, you know, a faster. You know, faster or maybe a shorter life shelf life. But generally speaking, these all have long shelf lives. And so with that, the idea of bringing intent, bringing knowledge, of the personas, understanding more about the persona, really having marketing, taking the lead in.
Bringing in accounts, and moving them from a team into a B M where we knew that they were active, we could see those signals using various toolsets. And then from there it would be it, we would see a higher degree of engagement and conversion once it hit the BDRs. And then from there, Turn it over to sales.
And then the other piece that was super beneficial is that all of that could be seen within the C R M, so that. Instead of, you know, taking the word of the marketer or taking the word of the business development or just having that qualitative understanding of what was going, which is still really important, let's not negate the importance of a qualitative understanding of, of the readiness of a particular buyer within an account, but also what is the, what is the data telling you?
What is the engagement rate telling you? How is it scoring? And then even after, An account may have turned into an opportunity how engaged are your primary contact, but also all of the others that may be part of a buying committee? So it was, it was a powerful shift. It provided insight.
It offered avenues for our sellers to broker those relationships and help 'em as they were working those opportunities, you know, hopefully, Yes. Into a closed one. And I think the other thing is it was faster time to insight. So it wasn't a lot of spending, whether it was the business development rep, the marketer, or the seller doing a lot of, you know, Their research, though, that remains important using a variety of tools.
You know, it could be LinkedIn, you know, searches on websites, whatever, you know, whatever platforms and sites that you might use, to understand websites and so on. But it's, you know, what we had, you know, resident in our stack that could help, you know, find a couple of those nuggets. That allows them to have more meaningful conversations.
So I think, you know, that was an important component. And then the other component, which we started to use on the existing business side was, if your client is coming up for renewal, what's happening out there? You know? Yeah. In the world of search, right? Or what have you, what, what signals are there? Could they potentially be looking equally opportunistically?
What could they be looking for? Other products or solution sets that you might have. So there were a lot of benefits. Some may not have originally intended 'cause it was very much for the new, new logo or new business motion that could help us in other areas of the business. Yeah. So, yeah,
Steve Goldhaber: I'm glad you mentioned that because some people look at account-based marketing purely as a prospecting strategy.
What you're describing, which is what I love, are you gotta take it all the way through, so to how you manage your existing customers. And I was working with a company, that embraced both of those approaches. What was fascinating was we would analyze the content consumption of their accounts and you could directly correlate that to the likelihood of renewing.
Yeah. And you know, marketers often look at like, well, our role is to put messages out in the world and help people think differently. The power of all that content production that we were doing was in the. Flagging to sales, you've got a problem here because this customer who should be engaging is not, that means there's a relationship issue or they're looking at competitors.
So I've seen content programs still, you know, with good intent, help shape opinion and, and help people solve problems with content. But, The value is really, is just it. It's a great flag for are you gonna retain this customer well?
Julie Knight: And you know, I mean, we do it. We do it in B2B all the time, right? Is that we have kind of these dividing lines between.
New business, an existing business, maybe you have your key accounts. I mean, it just depends on the organization and, and, and the segments that it serves. But generally speaking, there are walls between and and there, you know, and there are teams that are dedicated. I am fully focused on the new logo. I'm fully focused on cross-selling with an existing business.
And sometimes you're so immersed, in the area that you're in and meeting your targets that you don't think more broadly. About the customer, and the customer has different relationships with a vendor. At any given time, you could be an existing business customer, but you're, but you have a department within that account that, in all effect, is a new customer because they're considering a different solution for you.
So you have to understand. All of the different motions, if you will, or activities you grow in journeys that these accounts are on. And then I think if you look at it in that way, again, you can just turn, try it inward, and think of yourself as your own owned buyer. You know you have a computer, but you might buy a phone from this vendor, or you might buy something else from this vendor.
You're on different journeys at different times. And we as marketers, Can use a lot of these tools to that end, and if we think about, you know, joining up between marketing and sales, and customer success and our partners, you realize that there's a lot of people in the mix and that it is a better together strategy and the tooling and the platforms that you have really can, can bring so much to that.
Yeah.
Steve Goldhaber: Yeah. I'm always fascinated with buyer behavior, I think. Even in a scenario where you could look at data to predict if are they gonna renew or you, or can you sell them something else? The one thing that's always like unspoken is, is the buyer leaving their job in the next 12 months? And it's such a funny thing because like you look at.
Julie Knight: You always assume that like everyone's active in their role, they're doing what they should, you know what, what good intent for God being there forever.
Steve Goldhaber: Yeah. Some people are like, look, I'm, I'm round three deep in an interview, so I am not focused on any long-term project or drafting an R F P that's gonna take me three to four months, to execute.
So, no, it's always funny, like the unwritten rules that we learn about buyers, that, of course, the buyer's never gonna reveal that unless you know. You know, you've got to have a pretty strong relationship.
Julie Knight: Oh. Person. Yeah. Absolutely. And then, I think that the flip side of that is you can have somebody that's going through that process and you know, they find, they find the opportunity of a lifetime.
Right. And it, and you know, I. How well, you know, customer experience is often the last thing that you bought or maybe were in the process of buying, and how good was that experience and maybe, oh, I left this role, I left this job, I'm going to this company. Wow. I like that rep. I like what they had to say.
I like the company I'm taking on this thing and, and my part of my, part of my remit is to take some stuff out or find some new technology and, you know, to, yeah, to do some new things. I'm going to give them a call. So it's like that journey again, that journey just doesn't mean. Given an account in a given, in a given company with some, with, with select products, it can, that journey can extend to, I'm moving on to something else and it could be even bigger and better.
Steve Goldhaber: So, yeah, it's funny, you know, the most, the most exciting day, if you're a B2B company and you've got a really good product or service, the most exciting day is when your customer says, I'm leaving the company to take on a new role. Because at that point, You should have already cemented yourself as a provider.
Yeah. So you, they, they're not gonna fire you if you're doing a great job and you just have your number one lead, you know that you've got a relationship with, got to a new company. So it's that always, that's an exciting time for me as like a barometer. Are you effective as a B2B marketer?
'cause it should be an exciting day. But so many times there people are just like, oh my God, oh my gosh. You're gonna start all over again.
Julie Knight: Yeah. And hopefully, that's not the case. And you know, with, if the go to market is joined up, it's, you know, you should, you should have visibility and you should have relationships.
Elsewhere, either within the buying center that you sell to or, more broadly. And I think to your point, be very excited. I think there's a lot of companies who shall go unnamed who have a Rolodex fill, of happy customers that have either gone to other companies or, you know, they've gone on to build a new company.
Yeah. It's an opportunity to restart that relationship and potentially make it a successful one from a, from a monetary perspective.
Steve Goldhaber: All right, thanks for sharing the two cases. We're gonna jump into some, some Q and eight. Tell me about your first job in marketing.
Julie Knight: So my first job in marketing, I, well, I was going to college, to university.
I worked in engineering, so that's not my first job in marketing. That's how I got started. And I'm not an engineer by trade. I have a degree in history. Don't try to weave that thing together. That's a locker, that's a podcast in and of itself. But I had the opportunity to set up an executive briefing center, and that's how I got my foot in the door.
I knew a lot about our technology. I spent a lot of time with customers and meeting prospective new customers because pretty much at that time, you know, pre-PE people kind of did everything. And so set up the executive briefing center. That was my first step into marketing. And from there, within marketing, there was both product marketing and product management.
And my official first role is as a product manager.
Steve Goldhaber: Nice. Yeah. Very classical role. I like that. I remember after I graduated there, a lot of my friends who were in marketing went, went the C P G route, uhhuh, which was such, such a scientific position. Like Yeah. Which I, I was always like, there's just not enough creativity in that for me.
You know, like maybe you could do like an ad campaign that kind of was interesting, but like they were looking at barcode data and just, it was. They were pushing buttons based on all the data. But it That's a good, it's a good foundation. 'cause again, you start Yeah. With a well-run way to operate, operate a business.
I'm gonna ask you, You've been c m o a couple of different companies and it's a really fun role. It's a demanding role. How would you describe it? What, What are some of the unspoken truths that CMOs have to go through every day? Oh.
Julie Knight: So, I mean, number one, you can't know everything, but you can't shy away from the details.
You can't shy away, from the problem areas. You know, I've always been, and, and it's why I think being a C-M O at two startups as the first step into being a chief marketing offer officer was super helpful because my teams weren't very big, and mm-hmm. And I was very much a. Player, manager. The manager and I did a lot of playing on the ball field.
So everything from working to get systems set up to doing a lot of writing to working on campaigns. I mean, very hands-on, but I. You have to be, you have to understand the business and you have to understand how things get done or had. And also, you know, as you get into larger organizations, you know, you can't be the one always doing the build, but you have to be able to guide and to help so that, You know, things run efficiently.
They run effectively. And also you can help scale, right? Because these organizations need to scale. And in the tech world, they have to scale. They have to scale quickly. They also have to adjust. Adjust. You know, we had the pandemic a couple of years ago, and if you weren't adjusting, then likelihood your, your business, or at least you know, within marketing, you'd be very challenged to keep pace with, with what you needed to deliver.
I. I would say the other thing is when you come in as a C M O and if you have experience in, in particular areas or you're coming into an organization that doesn't necessarily, you know, understand whether it's, you know, vertical marketing or enterprise marketing, I mean, they have strengths in other areas.
Jumping in and just doing and saying how this is how it's gonna be is not a recipe for success. You've got to bring people along the journey, spending time, and educating people on the why and how they can be a part of it. People will tend to be a bit more supportive. When they understand why and maybe how they can participate in whatever change is going on.
If change is just forced on people, usually there's you know, there's pushback, and especially the company has had a lot of success in another ca in another segment or category or whatever, whatever it is. So I think that's it. And, I think the final thing is you're there to lead, but you're also there to serve.
And being a humble leader, being a supportive leader, helping, having, you know, an open door does help. You know, you need to understand, you need to be empathetic, and people like to know that you have their back. If things aren't going well, you sometimes need to have, those tough, candid conversations.
But at the end of it, people at their heart wanna do a good job and they wanna work with a leader that is right there with them.
Steve Goldhaber: Yep. Makes sense. Alright, so my next question, you've had the chance to work with a lot of different CEOs. I will. I will stereotype and put CEOs into two camps. It's a marketing great.
I love marketing. I need marketing. And then the other one is kind of like, sales is where it's at. Yes, marketing has a role, but I'm not gonna embrace it. So I'm gonna focus on, the more challenging c e o who doesn't see as much value in marketing. What are some things that you've done, to build that bridge?
So that you could take a c e o or an executive to kind of say, you know what, you've, you've changed my thought about how marketing can help me grow the business. What are some things that you've been able to do that just are more eye-opening as opposed to the other path, which is like, oh yeah, you, they already get it?
They know. They know the role.
Julie Knight: Yeah, so there's a couple of things. First and foremost, if a marketer, and sometimes it's, you know, the highest level is a director of marketing and you, you do see that a lot where marketing is maybe less appreciated than, than, you know, other aspects of the go-to-market. But joining up with that head of sales, Because that head of sales does need marketing and often, you know, maybe a little more quiet or reserved about, you know, the M word, when they know that the c e o isn't exactly, thinks of it more as a cost center than in what it can bring to the table.
So joining you should, as a matter of course, regardless, join up. But I think that's one way you do a little brand borrowing. You come in with the plan together. The second thing is understanding the key drivers for that CEO. So marketers shouldn't stay just as marketers. They're business people, right?
Just as salespeople are not just sellers with the territory they are, you know, sales executives. That runs a business and we all run a business within the larger organization. So being able to speak to that CEO in business terms and how marketing can help and also understanding, you know, maybe what biases they have.
A C M O should have a good. Open line with c e o and you know, what are the things that got them to that position that they thought marketing couldn't help? Sometimes it's marketers just showed up with, you know, likes and click-throughs and leads. But yeah, they didn't really, they weren't bringing it down to what is the business value.
And then I think that you know, the final saying is, You know, part of marketing, just like we're doing today, is having your c e o or C-suite out there talking about the business, talking about themselves. Why they're passionate about what they do, maybe why they're passionate about, you know, the technology sector that this company is in.
And that's all marketing. It's just a different part of marketing, and you get people kind of hooked on that and hooked on the power of sharing the message. Then the other piece that marketing, you know, ultimately is a steward for, is on, you know, existing customers and, you know, whether it's a reference program or customer marketing or customer events, there are ways to bring people in and you, you start to get them, you know, hooked on it a bit and have them start to see the power.
And even if it's just the power of, wow, I got in a room and talked to customers. And it was an incredible experience. It's all about experiences. Our relationships are about experiences and sometimes if you've had a bad experience with a particular function, you sort of say, ah, no value, and you've gotta bring them back in and, and what are the business drivers?
And ultimately how I, I can benefit, but it's, it's a journey.
Steve Goldhaber: I think I like your answer there. I mean, I, I've always believed in the two hat system where you get to a certain level in marketing, that's one hat you're wearing. You have to wear a business owner hat because that's, that's essentially your passport to the boardroom, right?
If you know how the business runs, then you've got credibility to say she gets it. Now that you're in the circle of people who wanna run and grow this business, tell us how you can help us. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There's a lot of marketers who just had that one hat. They live. They live in the brand world, which is needed, right?
But you can't just live in the brand world. The brand world needs to be one thing.
Julie Knight: Yeah, absolutely not. And, again, you have to understand where the driver is, what the drivers are, the pain points are, you know, also what is the board asking them to do. Like kind of get a, get an insight as to what's going on there.
And, then there are ways that you can figure out, you know, how to help, but bring them in. Maybe easier ways for them to consume marketing and where they can play a role versus maybe areas that they don't understand. It's not something that they wanna get too close to. Like, you know, sometimes this MarTech thing, ah, too much.
But if that's what you focus on, then you're just, you lose 'em from the start. Yep.
Steve Goldhaber: All right. Well, Julie, I enjoyed the conversation today. Thank you for joining us here at Studio 26.
Julie Knight: Oh, it was my pleasure. It was great to share some of the experiences that I just had along the way. It's been a great journey through small companies mid and large, but as I'd like to say, it's, it's been about the people and meeting some fantastic people along the way.
It's, it's been, it's been a great journey and one that I'm excited to continue.
Steve Goldhaber: All right. Awesome. Thank you again and thank you to all the listeners for watching and watching and listening and some of you reading, right? We're, we're multi-channel marketers here at 26 characters, so you can get the content many ways.
But thanks again for listening and we hope to see it next time on interesting B2B marketers. Until then, take care of everyone. Bye-bye.
Julie Knight: Bye-bye.
