#265: Beyond the SaaS Playbook: How Non-SaaS Teams Drive Pipeline with Sandra Rand

#265 Non-SaaS Marketing | In this episode, Matt sits down with Sandra Rand, a fractional head of marketing who works with early-stage, non-SaaS B2B companies. She’s led marketing for PE-backed, self-funded, and services-based businesses, where big budgets and SaaS-style playbooks aren’t the norm. She’s also building the Non-SaaS Marketers subgroup inside Exit Five to support others facing the same challenges.

Matt and Sandra cover:

• How non-SaaS teams drive growth without demos, PLG, or huge lead volume
• Why events, word of mouth, and referrals often outperform funnels in these orgs
• Tactical ideas for gifting, partnerships, and pipeline-building on a lean budget

Whether you work in SaaS or not, you’ll walk away with creative, scrappy strategies to build trust and drive results in B2B.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - – Intro
  
• (03:04) - – Why Exit Five launched the Non-SaaS group
  
• (08:24) - – What makes non-SaaS marketing different
  
• (11:44) - – Budgets, sales cycles, and team structure
  
• (16:34) - – Why brand and trust matter more
  
• (18:44) - – Events > funnels in non-SaaS
  
• (28:40) - – How to build brand on a budget
  
• (34:10) - – Word-of-mouth and referral tactics
  
• (38:50) - – Gifting and relationship-driven growth
  
• (44:50) - – Scrappy, creative plays that actually work
  
• (50:20) - – What’s next for the Non-SaaS community

Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.com
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Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership

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Dave Gerhardt [00:00:00]:
You're listening to B2B marketing with me, Dave Gerhardt.

Matt Carnevale [00:00:17]:
On this episode of the Exit Five podcast. I'm speaking with Sandra Rand. Sandra is a fractional marketing leader who typically works with Companies anywhere from 0 to 20 million who are really trying to get their marketing function off the ground and typically works with companies who are not SaaS companies, which is the topic of this episode. We are talking about the biggest differences between SaaS and non SaaS marketing. Sandra has recently become an ambassador of Exit Five, specifically in our non SaaS subgroup, and she's hosting these meetups every single month with members, and she's talking about some of the biggest things that she's learned from these non SaaS marketers meetup. So we're going to talk about them and demystify some of the things in this episode. So hope you enjoy. I'm here with Sandra.

Matt Carnevale [00:01:04]:
Sandra, how's it going?

Sandra Rand [00:01:05]:
Hey, doing well. How are you?

Matt Carnevale [00:01:06]:
Good, good. So I want to set the stage for this episode and then I'll let you talk about a bit about who you are and what you do. I've noticed that, you know, over the years with Exit Five, we have unintentionally talked about B2B marketing, typically from a SaaS perspective. We haven't come out and said it, but, you know, a lot of our background, like myself, Dave, Dan, the rest of the team is in SaaS. So, you know, a lot of the connections we've built are in SaaS, and a lot of the things we know are related to SaaS. And, you know, we've had a lot of, like, guests at our events and stuff that have come from the SaaS world. And I think that when it comes to, like, LinkedIn building audiences online, it's a lot of the people who are in B2B SaaS that are doing that. So it's really easy to pick them out and say, oh, I want you to speak at my event, or I want you to my podcast, because they're the loudest in the B2B marketing room.

Matt Carnevale [00:02:01]:
But then I noticed, maybe this was a couple months ago now, there was a small little portion of our community meeting once a month calling themselves non SaaS, the Non SaaS Marketers. And it was a meetup that was happening on the last Friday of every month, and it was being hosted by you. And I was like, oh, shit. We're kind of ignoring unintentionally this part of our community. So, you know, you and I had talked and we decided, hey, why don't we create A space in the community. Why don't we make this an Exit Five thing instead of making you go outside of the platform and we'll have this thing every month called the Non SaaS Marketers Meetup. And you know, it's something you still host and you're doing a great job at it. Anyways, I wanted to take the time today to kind of talk about the differences between non SaaS and SaaS, what you're seeing in some of your own work and maybe we can talk about some of the things that, you know, you've learned from the monthly meetups that we've done so far with members.

Sandra Rand [00:03:01]:
Yeah, sounds good. And I'll just start by saying like we did not feel slighted by Exit Five by the way. Like we didn't just sort of come together and be like, man, there's no space for us. Truly, honestly, like even before this started coming together at the beginning of the year, it's something that I, as a sort of more traditionally non SaaS B2B market marketer have felt for years. Right. I think you hit the nail on the head where some of the, the well known playbooks, the louder voices tend to come from that segment. And that's okay. I have always felt for the last, especially the last several years, as you know, posting on LinkedIn, people building their personal brand.

Sandra Rand [00:03:38]:
More and more of those voices were coming into sort of the ecosystem and I kept looking around like, where are my people? Like where are the people that are coming from the sort of non traditional B2B backgrounds that are not, you know, tech and not SaaS? And I'll just sort of aside by say like there are plenty of tech companies that are not SaaS. So those are a little bit, there's a delineation there. And so it was really lovely to come across a post or two from a bunch of other voices in Exit Five to say like anyone else kind of in this, in this boat. And I sort of knew like, hey, we're going to have to carve out this space for ourselves because there isn't like a thought leader that's like know, running the charge for non SaaS voices. The reality is though, it's really, there isn't one, you know, there isn't like a SaaS playbook as far as marketing goes and then a non SaaS playbook like non SaaS that covers a whole. That's the long tail of B2B marketing. So there's a whole lot of different playbooks and different approaches. Definitely not one size fits all and so I think what we're trying to get out of this space in chatting with each other is just folks that are like minded because we have different challenges.

Sandra Rand [00:04:45]:
Right. So for example, the volume of deals that we need, historically in my career I have not needed to seek hundreds of conversions per month. I think my sales team wouldn't know what to do with thousands of leads in a month. Like that's just not a world that I come from. And when I started to say that out loud in certain rooms, at events and in certain forums, there were other people sort of nodding me like oh same like we, we need eight good deals this year to, to meet our revenue goals. So, so that felt nice to start, start to like find my peers and find those folks in the space. I'm also noticing that as this, there's a lot of voices coming to the table with this sort of brand versus performance or brand versus demand. Like you know, long term brand building versus immediate, like quarterly pipeline go.

Sandra Rand [00:05:39]:
Like that discussion is happening a lot right now. And I'm finding that it's more of the non SaaS pedigreed folks that are fighting this like brand point of view versus like operating off of this quarterly demand playbook that our SaaS peers have been operating against. So that's been nice. It's been easier to find those folks and those hand raisers. So yeah, but, but thank you. Like it's, it's been great to recognize that we are a small but growing segment and to give us a place to come together and, and just sort of operate like we're all B2B marketers and that's the ethos of Exit Five. We just need to sort of flex our non SaaS muscle a little bit more and find others. So, so thanks.

Matt Carnevale [00:06:21]:
Yeah, it's funny like non SaaS is not actually a thing because there are more things that are not SaaS than are.

Sandra Rand [00:06:28]:
Totally. I would agree with that statement. Yeah, yep. It's funny. But, but like you, you sit there and like if honestly. And again like going back the last three or four years, it's like, well this isn't my playbook, but I guess I'll take what I can get from it and reinterpret it that. And so it's nice to be able to recognize one like thank God for SaaS B2B thought leaders because you're giving us sort of a North Star to, to pull from. But also like, yeah, it's a little bit trickier for those of us that are not in that, that ecosystem.

Sandra Rand [00:06:57]:
Because we, it's not like an A to A or apples to apples application of the same kind of tools and goals and things of that nature.

Matt Carnevale [00:07:05]:
For sure. Yeah. And I agree, like the crazy part Too about non SaaS is like if you shake the non SaaS tree there's probably another like 20 industries that come out of it.

Sandra Rand [00:07:15]:
Totally. Yes.

Matt Carnevale [00:07:16]:
Yeah, like that's something too that I'm excited to uncover more of throughout all this. Like I'm sure we can go list 20 tomorrow. But it's like there's more groups within non SaaS that eventually are going to start spinning out and within those groups like people running, you know, marketing for massive companies that you've never heard of. And that's typically the difference is like we hear of the SaaS companies because a lot of people are talking about what they're doing online but there's other companies like you never heard of them, but they're doing like 300 million a year.

Sandra Rand [00:07:49]:
Right. Massive healthcare brands or manufacturing companies or. Oh yeah, there's a ton enterprise tech, you know, that isn't sort of a plug and play. You need long implementation like all of that. There's a ton that are really operating in their own world and with a different, different approach for sure.

Matt Carnevale [00:08:06]:
Yeah. Cool, cool. All right, so before we get into it, we've kind of got into it. But just a little aside, I want you to tell us just a bit about yourself, maybe your background and what you're working on right now.

Sandra Rand [00:08:16]:
Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Sandra Rand. I am a newly fractional head of marketing for earlier stage organizations. I tend to work with companies that sell into the E commerce ver vertical or into consumer brands. But I'm on the B2B side. I tend to work with a lot of companies that are PE backed or self funded. So not a ton of vc, which actually is probably is another common thread Amongst these non SaaS, these organizations. Right.

Sandra Rand [00:08:43]:
Not a ton of VC money pouring into services businesses. So yeah, I started my career on the communication side, did a lot of PR events and an early sort of brand marketing. And the common thread amongst every company that I've been going into was there was either tech enabled services or pure play services or marketplaces, things of that nature. But the tech always took a backseat to the value. Right. It was tech, internal tech that you would use. So nothing that I would put product marketing against or anything of that nature because it was behind the scenes. So that's what my background has been in.

Sandra Rand [00:09:23]:
So right now I'm working with A couple companies that are largely non SaaS and they're early stage 0 to 20 million, just trying to get off the page with marketing. They've established some level of product market fit and they're trying to figure out what their playbook is. So I love a blank slate. I love that stuff. Getting in and throwing a bunch of ideas at the wall and figuring out what that strategy is and how to move forward. So it's exciting.

Matt Carnevale [00:09:48]:
Cool. Love it. Awesome. Great background. I want to touch on one thing that you said in that intro is talking about, you know, these companies typically don't have VC money pouring in. So do you see that they usually have smaller budgets or is it just different overall? What does that look like usually?

Sandra Rand [00:10:08]:
Yeah, I mean, I think it's different. I can only speak for, like we said, this is the long tail. Right. Of B2B companies that, that aren't SaaS. But I think as far as my experience goes, there are smaller budgets that we're working with and there's smaller margins if we're not operating with a SaaS background or offering that to the market. Our human capital is what we're offering as far as value goes in a lot of ways, right? Not always. And so that's. Humans are expensive and so our margins are different than our SaaS peers.

Sandra Rand [00:10:40]:
And because of that, I do think that the marketing budgets that I've worked with have. I've had a large range of marketing budgets into the millions as well, but they. Those are tougher to come by, but more so. It's just a range. You know, you can go into a non SaaS environment and likely you'll find that the budgets are a little bit more conservative and you sort of have to earn that buffer as you grow and as you scale and as your brand grows. So, yeah, I mean, it always pays to be scrappy, but I think especially so in the non SaaS environment. Environment, you're gonna have to do a lot with a little. I think in this environment, in this economy right now, everyone's kind of holding their feet to the, to that fire, unfortunately.

Sandra Rand [00:11:19]:
But I think that's not something. Anything. I don't think that's anything new for those of us that have not been in a SaaS environment.

Matt Carnevale [00:11:24]:
Yeah, true. I felt that. So non SaaS versus SaaS, how do you define the difference? How do you think about the difference between those two things from, I guess, a marketing perspective or just overall, you.

Sandra Rand [00:11:39]:
Know, when I come into an organization that I'm working with and like I said, it's a lot of companies that either have dabbled in marketing, random acts of marketing, or really they're just starting from scratch. The one thing that tends to hold true is that sales is going to be my best friend. Now, this is not exclusive to, not to SaaS or sorry, not exclusive to non SaaS. I think in a lot of SaaS environments you're also working really closely with sales, but you need to be embedded in those sales conversations and understand the customer language even more so because it's more manual than maybe a PLG motion and requires much more active and consistent alignment. I think a lot of non SaaS companies are more events forward. I think they're a little bit more ecosystem led or more, you know, we don't have that plg. We don't have demos or freemium models to rely on to funnel traffic to. It really requires being in absolute lockstep with sales, which again, like I said, is not exclusive to non, non SaaS.

Sandra Rand [00:12:40]:
But it's definitely a hallmark that most of us, you know, that's the first order of business, is making those folks your best friend.

Matt Carnevale [00:12:47]:
Right, right. Okay, that makes sense. And, and with that, it's, I'm guessing, a lot of sales enablement, a lot of product marketing overall. Right. Because it's like you need to, it's really about enabling them to go do their job. And like the same is true in B2B marketing overall. But there are different motions where it's like marketing first and sales second.

Sandra Rand [00:13:08]:
Yeah. And I think like to some degree too, yes, there's a lot of sales enablement. Right. And making sure that you're not just seen as the team that makes the case studies and the team that makes the one pagers, but really making sure that just as you, you know, any B2B marketer is responsible for driving pipeline especially, I think that it's, it's really necessary for you to acknowledge that the sales team, those cycles tend to be a little bit longer in a lot of instances. So because of that, like how is marketing continuing to assist in the nurturing of those accounts and of those companies that are in your pipeline? Because those are going to be a little bit of a longer sales cycle. So our handoff might be much earlier in, in terms of that conversion might not come for another nine to 12 months depending on, on what that looks like. And so that's kind of the difference there for me.

Matt Carnevale [00:14:02]:
Makes sense. So one thing I wanted to ask is, you know, I feel like the playbook in B2B marketing is the Same a lot of the time. You know, a handful of years ago, we learned from the same couple of people, like the power of, you know, creating a podcast or some kind of video series and using that content to create a newsletter and then, you know, putting those clips all over social media and kind of using that to build this content engine which helps you build brand and drive inbound. And I've seen a lot of people try and run that playbook and pitch that playbook as a way to do marketing in their company. But I know, again, I know non SaaS is like huge. So it's kind of ridiculous for me to say non SaaS, but from your perspective, like, is it different in non SaaS? Like, are people trying to run this playbook that typically works better in SaaS marketing?

Sandra Rand [00:14:52]:
I think it's an option. I think it's. I think everything's on the table. Right. The difference is one, where are we funneling people towards or where are we trying to nurture them towards? Not funnel them. Right. It's typically at a lower volume. So where are we trying to nurture them towards? But also how do we differentiate when we don't have a product to show when we are? This is one of the topics that we're thinking about, about bringing to the meetup is like, when your credibility is what you're selling, when your relationships and your people and your thought leadership is really the product, right? Like, how do you differentiate that? And so I think the same goes for any organization in B2B right now, which is just highly, highly creative and differentiated approaches to content.

Sandra Rand [00:15:34]:
And it's tenfold for non SaaS because we don't necessarily have demos, you know, freemium, sort of early stage, you know, test test, you know, trial runs. Those types of things are a little less frequent, I think, in a non SaaS environment. And so you really have to go off of how do I build credibility and how do I build trust, so much so that people are going to organizations will convert off of what I've sold them. Right. And so I think there's a world where it actually requires us to be a little bit more creative. And I love that challenge. I think the content, good content, is regardless of whether it's SaaS or non SaaS. But I do think in a world where credibility is a differentiator as the thing that they're buying into, and your ability to provide value and being able to show that and not tell that is trickier when you don't have a product to point towards.

Sandra Rand [00:16:30]:
So, yeah, I Mean, I think like, there's also what I'm seeing and what I've experienced is that it's also very way more events forward. And so again, I don't think that's exclusive to or definitely no, it's not exclusive to non SaaS. But I think there's a world where non SaaS organizations know how to leverage events a little bit better because that's what that's getting in the room with people is half the battle sometimes because they don't. There's only so much of a footprint that they can find online. So I think there's. That there's something to be said for that. There's also the word of mouth piece. I think word of mouth and our topic last month, you know, driving referral programs was such a hot button issue because one, no one has it systematized.

Sandra Rand [00:17:10]:
I think it's a great opportunity for us to, you know, sort of non SaaS folks to say, okay, this is what that playbook is. But again, very different. If you listen to that playback, we had different types of companies all, you know, saying, well, this is my approach and this is my approach, and none were the same. But I do think that things like gifting or doing things a little bit outside of the norm to get in front of our ideal clients, it just gives us a little bit more creative freedom to do things a little bit differently instead of just sort of like the podcast webinar approach. And I also think, like, it's because in a lot of ways, and again, very much depends on what non SaaS organization you're talking about and what vertical they're in. But sometimes because our volume is so much lower, you tend to be looking more towards an ABM play. Even if it's one to many or one to few, it's a little bit more of an EVM play versus a really broad TAM with a lot of demand or a lot of demand that needs to be created. You're working with a smaller frame of reference.

Sandra Rand [00:18:09]:
So, yeah, I definitely think there's challenges there. But. But it gives us a little bit more freedom and flexibility to be super creative.

Matt Carnevale [00:18:16]:
Yeah, I want to break down the. You said they're more events focused. When you say events focused. I'm sure it varies, but from some of the stories you've heard is that they are more focused on going to conferences, they're more focused on running maybe smaller intimate events or what does that event playbook or what can it look like for those types of companies? And then what, what is the event Actually like, like are they, you know, are they presenting stuff? Are they just having drinks with potential customers? Like what does that look like usually?

Sandra Rand [00:18:49]:
Yeah, I think it's, it's so funny you asked this question because I've been seeing this trend recently again from our very generously sharing SaaS peers and talking about these events that feel more like retreats and they feel more like these like highly curated moments where you're sitting on couches and around fire pits and you're doing excursions and things of that nature. So one of the segments that I've worked in for a long time was targeting E commerce sellers and targeting Amazon sellers and that structure of an event has been done for years by these guys. These guys have been doing sort of the retreat stuff style for a long, long, long time. So it's great to see other, other types of, you know, segments and groups sort of doing those types of events because I think they facilitate a lot of really strong relationship building. But I do think there's also a world, you know, I, for a small stint did some work in the medical and healthcare vertical and those giant expos were still very much something that they would plan their calendar on. Their annual calendar, there's three or four massive expos every year that everyone was seen at and, and how you were creative within those giant conferences was the key. But business was done on an expo hall floor in a booth. And if you turn to a B2B SaaS marketer right now, they'll tell you that's the last thing that they're going to invest in is a booth at an expo.

Sandra Rand [00:20:05]:
Right. And so it really, your mileage may vary depending on the segment that you're in or the vertical. But I think it's all on the table. I do think, though intimate in my, from my perspective, always wins just because it's so much better to be able to have a conversation with someone and get to know them as a human being. Especially if you're talking about, okay, we're going to enter into something where it's a 12 to 18 month sales cycle. You're not going to buy from me tomorrow. So let's start small. There's, I know plenty of organizations that also keep, I've never said this out loud where it sounds creepy but like keep profiles on people where it's like, hey, this person has a family and they vacation here every year and they are interested in these three activities and, and that's really meaningful when four months down the road, you told me to check in next quarter and hey, while, while I'm checking in, I'm going to ask you how the family's doing.

Sandra Rand [00:20:53]:
And did you see that thing that happened up in this location last week? Because I know that you guys go there. Things like that nature are such a game changer. It's tough to scale some of that. But I think when you're at events, you really get the chance to know people. That's just, that's the way to do it. And again, that's not exclusive to non SaaS. But I think that it's definitely a foot forward for us. That's kind of our default approach.

Matt Carnevale [00:21:15]:
Yeah, I totally feel you. The last company I worked at, it was a SaaS company, so I will say that. But it operated like I would guess a not more of the non SaaS folks operate. It was a big older monolithic type industry, commercial real estate. And our team was always so focused on, you know, going to the right conferences because really all of our competitors were there and our customers were there. Even if they're not going up to your booth and saying show me a demo of your product, they're there on the floor somewhere and they're going to local meetups and events and you kind of just had to be there. And it always pissed me off because I was like, I hate, I don't want to spend budget on this stuff. I'm almost, my hand is forced.

Matt Carnevale [00:21:57]:
But it took me a while to realize it's just the way this industry is and the face to face component is such a big part of it. The buyers in those industries were people who are not necessarily going to spend their entire day online on LinkedIn or TikTok or in emails. A lot, a lot of their business is done face to face still.

Sandra Rand [00:22:17]:
So yeah, a lot of field sales.

Matt Carnevale [00:22:19]:
Yeah, a lot of field sales. Yeah, exactly.

Sandra Rand [00:22:21]:
So yeah, it's funny that you. Sorry, just to pull on that for a second. At the Exit Five event in Boston, I believe it was Kate was saying that one of the panelists, she was saying how you really have to speak their language. Your customer. And I think events, there's no better way to do that than to spend time with them at Topgolf at the, you know, getting coffee with them at 8:30 before the session start or at another sort of one off happy hour or something along those lines. But like really using the nomenclature that they are using, the exact phrasing and the words that they are, I think really adds such a level of authenticity and I think we take that for granted. Right. A Lot of marketers are still doing customer research through ChatGPT or they're talking to three customers and saying, okay, I did my research, check that box.

Sandra Rand [00:23:06]:
Like, I think it's just. So I've sent demand gen folks to events, operations folks to events. We've sent other sort of non typical event type marketing team members there because when they can see firsthand how folks are speaking about their business, what their concerns are, what keeps them up at night, what excites them, I think being able to translate that into marketing, messaging and content, there's no better way than to really immerse yourself. And I think events is a, is a really quick and easy way to do that. So anyway, that just reminded me of what Kate was saying and it was like I would. That's a hill I'll die on is getting your entire team at events and not just your events and partnership books there.

Matt Carnevale [00:23:44]:
Yeah, I agree. I love it. Because one thing I like about events too is like, especially if it's a conference, an industry conference, you get to see the landscape as opposed to like, you may play in a very specific type of product that serves this one use case of this customer, but through this event you see like, there's actually like 12 different things, like different companies and spaces that they're thinking of at all times. And it kind of makes you realize, oh, like my company is not the center of the universe, it's just a part of it.

Sandra Rand [00:24:12]:
A hundred percent.

Matt Carnevale [00:24:14]:
We're so guilty of that.

Sandra Rand [00:24:15]:
Yep, yep. And even my, my, our function. Right. Like it, we think that it consumes, consumes the entirety of our client's day, but actually we're one of 20 things that they worry about in any given day. And the better we are at our jobs, the less they have to worry about that. Right. So it completely, it's very humbling to be in those, in those events too. Yeah, I agree.

Matt Carnevale [00:24:34]:
Yeah, yeah, totally. And yeah, on the topic of events and conferences, you know, one thing that was always difficult for me in the past was, you know, if I don't have unlimited budget, you know, committing my team to get a booth at a conference sometimes can be really difficult because it's just so damn expensive to go to these big industry events. And I've always been on the side of like on, in the underdog company. I've never been with a company with, you know, the biggest budget and flashiest stuff. So I've always had to figure out like, how do I play it scrappy. And I know a lot of people in Exit Five are in the same boat. I think that's just a part of our culture. And one thing, and I don't know if you've seen this as well, but one thing that I've found that has worked really well is get people to go to the industry conferences, get some, some of your team on the floor.

Matt Carnevale [00:25:26]:
If you don't have the budget for a booth, that's okay. Try hosting like a smaller, more intimate dinner or like you said, like a topgolf evening or bowling night, whatever it is, and invite key customers and really make a splash out of that. I think that's like a really good underrated, low budget play for building those relationships at those big industry conferences without spending money on the booth.

Sandra Rand [00:25:49]:
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with you. I think that's all very fair game. I will be honest. My philosophy on approaching event sponsorships has really changed over the last couple of years. A couple things. So one, yeah, I agree with you. Like, I've come from some of the more underdog companies too, where it's like, we gotta make the most out of being here. Boots on the ground.

Sandra Rand [00:26:08]:
Make sure that your salespeople are trained and they know exactly what they're doing. Their charge is for these, you know, three days that we're together, two days that we're together, and make the most of that. But also, how does marketing make the biggest splash without spending $50,000? And in doing that, I actually think I like a breakfast because the breakfast gets people before their day takes them off course or before they get exhausted at 5pm and you're fighting with the nine other happy hours that are happening. I like a breakfast. I like an off site lunch too. Folks are, you know, no one loves a conference or expo hall lunch. So anyway, I'm talking very tactical, but I definitely think that like, you know, those are very easy and probably less costly activations that you can partner with some folks to get, get folks in the door and have a little bit more of an intimate setting that isn't rushed or, you know, just sort of like crowded with people or things of that nature. But the other thing, the reason why my philosophy has changed a little bit is an organization that I worked with a couple of years ago in the vertical that we were in, they were top dog.

Sandra Rand [00:27:05]:
I'll be honest. I took the job to see what was under the hood. That was part of why I wanted to work there because I really wanted to understand what went behind it. And they were a branding engine. Not a single person left their house without wearing the Polo shirt and the hat. And the repetition of the logo is not something that I necessarily bought into as like, valuable. I always sort of poo pooed the, you know, the logos that were on the lanyard or on a napkin at the lunch or something along those lines. But then when some of this data came to light over the last couple of years, where if you're not on that day one shortlist, you're not likely to win the business, then I started to think a little bit more about touches and I thought a little bit more about the repetition of a logo.

Sandra Rand [00:27:48]:
Now, do you have to do the work to make sure that they know what your company does, why you're a market leader, why you should be considered, what value you drive for your clients? 100%. But it's a heck of a lot easier to do that when you're. It's maybe the fourth or fifth time they've seen your company name and they're like, wait, what? I see, I'm seeing them at all of these events. Why do I know them? What do they do? That's an approach to sponsoring. You know, a lanyard sponsorship is cheaper than a booth often. Or maybe the breakfast sponsor is cheaper than getting your person on stage if you can't afford that. But it does over time compound in that recognition and that recall. And so I definitely think that I'm being a little bit less of a purist about it than I used to be in terms of driving recall.

Sandra Rand [00:28:31]:
I think that there's something to be said for having your logo in a lot of places and in a way that people recognize event after event, you could do these small incremental branding buys that might actually net some really valuable awareness compared to a one time, you know, breakfast at that big event annually. So I don't know, I'm willing to be wrong on that one. And I like how it's changed my thinking a little bit because I've actually seen that company that I worked for people like, oh, yeah, we know them, yeah, we don't use them, but yeah, we know them, or yeah, we've used them and we love them. So that kind of thing I think is definitely worth people reconsidering. And anyway, I wouldn't have recommended that five years ago at all.

Matt Carnevale [00:29:10]:
Yeah, no, I think that's an awesome way to look at brand awareness. We underestimate how much people need to see our name to truly remember who we are and then even like have the energy to go and look at maybe what we do. Like, if you hear a company's name or someone's name like 10 times and you have no clue. You may be more inclined to be like, wait, what? Like what does this person do? Or what does this company do? And then you're like, okay, like they do this thing. But then down the road there's a time when they're like, oh, actually I, I, I need someone who can help with this. And I know like one or two people or one or two companies. Let me go check them out and see if they're a good fit. So I absolutely believe in like, how can I just, it sounds cliche, but how can I just use these events to stay top of mind, to stay in the conversation? Because unfortunately if you don't, if you don't put anything into them, your competitors are, and it kind of sucks that your hand is forced, but your competitors are.

Matt Carnevale [00:30:03]:
And like very quickly people even start to question, or at least from what I've seen, if your company's still in business at all. You know.

Sandra Rand [00:30:13]:
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot of that happening right now. Especially right, there's a lot of, a lot of uncertainty. And so I think it puts people on the defense a little bit of like, you know, I did read or I learned at one of the events last year that people are more afraid to make the wrong decision than no decision at all. So, you know, if that's one of the questions of like, are these guys going to be around in another 24 months as I make this big long term purchase, that's something to be, to be thoughtful about. I think too there's, you know, let's, let's talk about what, what's real in B2B marketing. A lot of people are getting referrals and getting ideas from their peers of like, hey, who do you use for X, Y and Z? If you give me a list of three companies I've never heard of and one company where I keep seeing them at events. Oh, that's what they do. Oh, got it.

Sandra Rand [00:30:58]:
Okay. Yeah, I've heard of them. Heck of a lot more powerful than, hey, you really love company Y. I've never heard of them. What do they do? Like I, you know what I mean? That branding and that like repetition of the, of the awareness I just think is so understated right now.

Matt Carnevale [00:31:11]:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's like Dave always talks about and, and I'm sure he got it from somewhere. But you know, marketing is very much a game of perception. So when you've seen a company logo or name so many times, especially at like big industry events or conferences, you're, you're more likely to think, okay, like, you know, they're in the mix, they're in the conversation. Like, obviously they're somewhat of a big player and trustworthy if they're always in the mix. Right. Whereas if you've never heard of like company XYZIO, you're like, oh, like who are these guys? Right.

Matt Carnevale [00:31:42]:
Customs.

Sandra Rand [00:31:43]:
So, yeah, Yep. Need a little bit more selling a little bit more credibility before, before you go there.

Matt Carnevale [00:31:48]:
Yeah, exactly. Okay, cool. So you talked a bit about word of mouth and referral programs. I want to dive into that. I know that was like a really big topic in the last meetup that you guys did. So. Yeah, I guess, like at a very high level. What were some things that came out of that meetup that maybe were doubling down on what you already thought or some things that were surprising?

Sandra Rand [00:32:13]:
Yeah. So I mean some of the things that, that we're doubling down on. We talked a lot about gifting. We talked a lot about gifting in a way that wasn't your go to logo T shirt or you know, a gift card. I think when you're talking about the kind of word of mouth marketing that a non SaaS company might look towards, it's not just customers. Right. In a lot of cases, some of these companies don't have hundreds of customers. They might have two dozen, three dozen.

Sandra Rand [00:32:38]:
And so being able to temper your ask for a referral with an ask for a case study and ask for a quote and ask for an upsell, like you kind of have to temper all of that and you can only ask your 24 clients for referrals so many times in a way that doesn't feel like you're really putting a burden on them. At the same time, you, you know, referrals start with white glove service, an exceptional service experience. You really, you're not going to be able to drive a scalable word of mouth program without having a good, without providing good value to your clients and your customers. So, you know, there's something to be said for. Referrals are actually a lagging indicator of great service, which I really liked that, that notion. And they're really, they're fueled by emotion, they're fueled by joy, they're fueled by making your clients look like rock stars and making them look good and helping them achieve their goals. So it all starts. There is.

Sandra Rand [00:33:31]:
Referrals are not a marketing problem exclusively. We are probably the people that come to the table and say, guys, we've got to put some actual process behind this and make it repeatable. But your, your client success, your sales team, everyone, your executive team, everyone has a responsibility for making a word of mouth and referral program successful.

Matt Carnevale [00:33:50]:
Yeah, yeah, that, that, that's such a good point. Like, you know, referral marketing just typically falls on the plate of marketing because it seems like a marketing activity, but at the end of the day there's no amount of marketing that's going to make you recommend a shitty product. Right? It's like if you leave a restaurant and you hated the food, but they gave you, they gave you 200 bucks to go tell a friend. I mean, unless maybe you're somebody with no morals, like you probably don't want to, you're not going to tell anyone, right? Like you're just going to do that for free if you like the food anyway. Just because people like to talk about the things in their life that have helped them or work. Like it's just something humans enjoy doing. Like, you know, you see a friend and one of the first things you might tell them is oh, like I did this really cool activity with my kids or I went to this awesome restaurant with my wife the other night. That's just something that we enjoy doing.

Matt Carnevale [00:34:35]:
So if you provide that good service, it does take care of itself a lot of the time. But you know, you talked about gifting. Is that something that people have used to operationalize their referral programs or is that more of like a top of funnel thing? Like how are people using gifting usually?

Sandra Rand [00:34:51]:
Yeah, I definitely think it's both. I think that it's, it has to be timed really well. I don't know that there were, I don't recall if there was anyone on the call that was using for example, you know, enterprise level platform like a Sendo. So but there are smaller niche sort of apps and platforms that you can use where you're buying into a one off gift. You don't necessarily have to have a monthly spend or anything of that nature. I've used some of those scrappier tools and they just as much get the, get the job done. And I think what people are trying to figure out is how do you, you know, the crux of it is doing something and gifting something that's creative and thoughtful and really shows that you know the person. Again, going back to like keeping a profile of your prospects or your customers.

Sandra Rand [00:35:36]:
If I know, if you know my Prospect has a 5 year old daughter, I'm going to send them a Crayola Crayon set with some coloring. But like, that would go so far for me as a parent and would endear me to that. That company or that brand versus, you know, another yeti mug or something along those lines. So being able to have the utility to send them really thoughtful gifts, whether it's manually done or more likely through some sort of platform. And again, it doesn't have to be like a really big expensive platform, but I think that goes a long way. I also think that really being thoughtful in how you're timing this right, you know, whether it's a prospect and you're just trying to get on their radar, that's definitely. I've seen that as ABM strategies time and time again, where you're just trying to get a response, you're just trying to get some engagement. And that's a good way to do it, is through gifting and doesn't have to be crazy expensive.

Sandra Rand [00:36:26]:
And at that point, you probably don't know a ton about that person. But a lot of us are putting enough of our lives online that, you know, you could probably infer some things and take a shot in the dark. The other thing that I really like about gifting, we talked about this is not attaching your gift to a very typical moment, right? It's not the holidays, it's not a birthday. We even talked about the sensitivity of attaching it to a life moment. Right. If someone's expecting a child and then something happens. But gifting that person, you know, a baby onesie, when something, you know, went wrong like that, there's very sensitive times. And just being thoughtful about the risk of that is important just to keep yourself in an area that's just thoughtful.

Sandra Rand [00:37:07]:
So anyway, like, I think there's a lot to be done on the gifting side, and I do think doing the things that don't scale is worthwhile. Again, especially for those of us that don't have lead lists of that are thousands and thousands of companies long. It's very feasible.

Matt Carnevale [00:37:21]:
Yeah, I love the point of, you know, just doing those more like customized things, especially if you have a smaller customer base, you know, at that level. Like, just because there are so many tools out there, it doesn't mean that you always need to use them, even if it makes the job easier. At my last company, you know, we had a list of maybe a hundred companies, and again, this was a SaaS company, but I would say we operated more like a non SaaS just based on this conversation. And we had about a hundred potential customers we wanted to Go after. What the sales team was doing was they were automating emails to a bunch of stakeholders in these different companies. And I was like, hey, like, why don't we, why don't we just research each person individually and just send them a customized handwritten email like every time? And you know, obviously there was a ton of pushback from the sales team. It never happened because they didn't want to sink time into it, but we weren't getting any results from the automated messages. So I think it's like, it may seem crazy to, you know, send a hundred personalized emails or even a couple hundred, but if you just do that over a couple of months and you're really intentional about what you're saying and who you're saying it to, I almost guarantee that slight lift you'll see from it not going to be crazy high.

Matt Carnevale [00:38:37]:
But that slight lift will be worth your pipeline. Especially if you only really need, like you said, that extra handful of customers every single year, right? The stuff goes longer.

Sandra Rand [00:38:45]:
Exactly. Yep, yep. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I think it makes a ton of sense. And, and you really have to. This is where it's so, so important to have that alignment with sales and the rest of your go to market sort of team that the things that don't seem to scale, the things that are less able to be automated are really where you're going to differentiate yourself from everyone else. That is spraying and praying and, you know, blasting email cadences and, and sending them the yeti mugs and the things of that nature.

Sandra Rand [00:39:11]:
I really think that it goes, it really goes a long way to take just the extra time and building in that time into your strategy of okay, proper client research. Prospect research is going to take an extra, you know, five business days or something per account or what have you. I don't know, whatever. Like you want to, to build out, but setting that expectation that like this is the worthwhile activity. So when campaigns go live, they're actually, they have that incremental layer of, of thoughtfulness and, and creativity and sort of that unique touch. I think that that goes a long way.

Matt Carnevale [00:39:44]:
Cool. So we talked about gifting was a big thing that came out of that last call. Any other topics that stood out?

Sandra Rand [00:39:51]:
Yeah, I think the other thing too is, is around the idea that it's not just your clients who are referring you. Right. If you're talking about word of mouth and referral person programs, you might have partners you might have. There was one person that spoke last month on the meetup about how her clients are actually Very competitive with one another. And so being a word of mouth engine is kind of a non starter because they want to keep their secret sauce to themselves. And so that was an interesting challenge that we kind of brainstormed with her a little bit on. And you know, something that could come of it was talking to those like peripheral organizations that also market to your, your clients. How can you build relationships with people that are in a position to refer those folks to your tool, your service? And so it could be just well known influencers in the space, it could be partners, it could be other referral sources.

Sandra Rand [00:40:40]:
I've always thought too that the sort of Pareto principle applies. Right. Only 20% of your referral sources are really going to be driving 80% of that referral inbound. And so treating them as top tier white glove with those thoughtful gifts or those thoughtful experiences. Take them to a, take them to a basketball game, take them to, out to an amazing dinner, take them to, you know, doing that as opposed to sending them the same stuff that you send to everybody else. I think treating those, those folks a little extra with a little extra special touch also goes a long way.

Matt Carnevale [00:41:11]:
Love it. Yeah, yeah. I love that point about, you know, finding companies like that are adjacent to what you sell, not competitive, and you know, working with them to see if you can get some referrals that way. And my last company, you know, we had this big industry conference and we did get a booth at it, but we got like the small booth, like super, you know, like super small ones. It's like only one.

Sandra Rand [00:41:32]:
10 by 10.

Matt Carnevale [00:41:33]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, all of our competitors had massive booths. But what we did was before the first night because, you know, the conference started early the next day before on the first night we did a partner event. So we partnered with another company that sell something non competitive but has the same customers. And we threw this really cool rooftop type party in New York City and we Both threw in $7,000, which really is not that much considering booths cost like 5200 grand sometimes. And it was an awesome event. We had like 150 people there and you know, a lot of pictures were taken, a lot of sharing. So that was really successful.

Matt Carnevale [00:42:11]:
And that was something that, you know, I'm not really in a situation to necessarily do it right now at Exit Five, but if I was like, you know, I want a way to get referrals and maybe I don't have a lot of customers who can help with that, you know, can I partner with the company and do these events? Or these activation plays where I can, you know, meet and build relationships like you said, with some of their customers.

Sandra Rand [00:42:32]:
Yep, yep, absolutely. I think, yeah, I have a couple of examples too. It's very similar, right. Where you're doing just these other activations. Maybe you're doing, you know, a cooking class together or we did a retreat once and had these other. They went and did like Baja racing and things of that nature. Like, it just, it's memorable. And to your point, like creating Instagram able moments depending on your segment can be very powerful as well to just drive a little bit more awareness through their own channels because you're doing something really cool.

Sandra Rand [00:42:58]:
I definitely think that there's. That has some likes too. So just being thoughtful and giving people opportunities to do things that they wouldn't have otherwise. Another nice touch. Even if it's a step removed from the nature of the business, just because you sell a certain type of service doesn't mean you can't go and provide them with an experience that has nothing to do with it. It just is all about relationship building. Yes.

Matt Carnevale [00:43:20]:
Yeah. Oh, I love this topic so much. It's, it's funny because at Exit Five, we are thinking a lot about that now, just as a B2B marketing community, it's like, yeah, we, you know, we're a B2B marketing community. We have B2B marketers who want to talk about marketing, but sometimes you just want to like go. I mean, I don't really do ax throwing, but as an example, maybe you want to just go do like ax throwing like with like five people in your city and make some new friends. And these people just so happen to work in the same industry you do. So you have a lot of commonalities with them. And you know, I made the mistake at previous companies and even now thinking like, oh, if we're doing an event or we're like facilitating a meetup of customers, it has to be related to the thing, related to our business.

Matt Carnevale [00:44:01]:
But people really just like to connect over anything. Like they like to just have a good time, even if it's like over a slice of pizza and a beer. So yeah, I think that's a really smart play. Is like, why not just get some people together to do something fun? Like that's also a great idea.

Sandra Rand [00:44:16]:
Yep, yep, Absolutely. And again, it's just it, it cuts through the clutter of the, you know, hotel happy hour that everyone else is throwing. I'm with you. This, these are fun brainstorms and they're fun activations and there's just so much value on the other side of it when people say, man, I had a great time. You know, we threw, I threw a, a dinner slash happy hour party with one of my old organizations and we did. It was in Vegas and we had Cirque du Soleil folks kind of, you know, up on coming out of the ceiling, like doing their own little, their performances and like people still talk about it and that was so worthwhile. So stuff like that, that's just like different is it goes a long way. And I think especially now that we're talking about everyone's doing the same digital playbooks, everyone's doing the, the same kind of unconference conference style.

Sandra Rand [00:45:00]:
Like we're going to have to keep reinventing what it means to be connecting to people. So it's a fun time to be in marketing, to really stretch ourselves creatively.

Matt Carnevale [00:45:08]:
Totally agreed. Yeah. And like on the topic of brand, like just building brand and brand awareness, like when you host and facilitate a cool experience, people associate your company and brand with that. And especially when at that experience you have the ability to meet other people and make new friends. Like that's just another, you know, another drop in the bucket, another positive deposit in the bank of your brand. So those are, those are the small things you could do to build brand.

Sandra Rand [00:45:34]:
Yep. Absolutely.

Matt Carnevale [00:45:36]:
Cool. So anything else from the meetup that stick out to you? Any of the topics?

Sandra Rand [00:45:41]:
Yeah, I think the only other like big takeaway too was in measurement and just making sure that again like some of us get a little bit, you know, we get a little bit nervous about systematizing these programs and thinking that we need these big robust tracking methods, referral platforms, you know, that sort of thing. But, but truly again, at our scale, when the volume is a little bit more manageable, keeping measurement really simple is critical. We, I don't know a single salesperson that loves to spend their time in Salesforce. So as much as you can make it easy on them to be able to track the referral source and track the velocity of those deals coming from certain referral sources, that's really all you need to do. And sometimes you just need a dedicated field in HubSpot or spreadsheet to, to track it, keep it really simple to start before you over index on tracking tools or measurement tools. Um, but it is important to measure obviously and you want to make sure you know who your champions are out in the market that are sending inbounds your way. But just keeping it really simple is the right way to go. I don't Think anyone has to over engineer measuring referral or word of mouth right now.

Matt Carnevale [00:46:41]:
Cool. Love it. Love it. Totally agree. Cool. So we're almost up on time. Really quickly, I want to talk about, you know, maybe the future of, of these meetups. I know you and I are just kind of figuring this out together.

Matt Carnevale [00:46:55]:
You know, right now you're hosting these monthly meetups on the last Friday of every month. Do you know the topic yet for the next one or where are you thinking of going with it?

Sandra Rand [00:47:03]:
Yeah, so one of the topics that keeps coming up is this notion of building your credibility. And I think it dovetails nicely with a brand experience. Right. Your brand is not just something that marketing establishes and puts out into the market. You really need client success, sales, product or whoever, services team, delivery team. Everyone needs to be on the same page as far as what the expectation is for maintaining the company reputation and credibility. And so I think that's what we're going to explore this month.

Matt Carnevale [00:47:31]:
Cool. Sounds awesome. Well, Sandra, this has been awesome. You know, I feel like we've. We've just kind of scratched the surface, if even on this topic. Yeah, you know, just like quickly, like going back to goals for this group. Like, you know, we're taking a one meetup at a time. But for me in Exit Five and for, for you and I together, it's like I want to just keep uncovering like, what this means in the different branches of non SaaS.

Matt Carnevale [00:47:58]:
Like you said, the space is so ripe for maybe not necessarily a thought leader, but just thought leadership and putting that more on a pedestal and just surfacing the right information so we could all become better marketers. There's so many verticals and non SaaS that can be talked about more specifically. Right. It's like someone who's in construction, you know, can we, can we talk to them about marketing and manufacturing? So there's so much to uncover here. I'm excited to just keep uncovering it together and inside the community. Your insight has been really, really great today, and I hope that this encourages some more non SaaS marketers to get involved in the conversation.

Sandra Rand [00:48:34]:
Yeah, absolutely. Come join us. Maybe we'll start getting together more frequently than once a month. But we have our dedicated space in 9 to 5 now, and some of the topics that we have coming up through the rest of the year are, are great. I don't want to wait until, you know, July, August, September to talk about some of these things. So it's great to start to see more of this community come together around the non SaaS segment and I'm excited to be a part of it. So yeah, thanks so much.

Matt Carnevale [00:48:58]:
Awesome. Awesome. Thanks, Sandra. Thanks for helping us make it happen. And yeah, we'll see you around the community.

Sandra Rand [00:49:02]:
Okay, perfect. Sounds good.

Dave Gerhardt [00:49:08]:
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There's nearly 5,000 members now in our community. People are in the posting every day asking questions about things like marketing, planning, ideas, inspiration, asking questions and getting feedback from your peers. Building your own network of marketers who are doing the same thing you are so you can have a peer group or maybe just venting about your boss when you need to get in there and get something off your chest. It's 100% free to join for seven days, so you can go and check it out risk free and then there's a small annual fee to pay if you want to become a member for for the year. Go check it out. Learn more exitfive.com and I will see you over there in the community.

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