#301: Why Marketing Is Back In The Driver Seat (with Maura Rivera, CMO at Qualified)

#301 Leadership & Strategy | I sat down with Maura Rivera, CMO at Qualified, to talk about what it’s like leading marketing at one company for six years (and why most of her team has been there just as long). We got into how product launches are the glue that hold their marketing together, what agentic marketing really means for the future, why outbound is actually working for them right now, and how events have become a huge part of their strategy. Plus, plenty of good banter along the way.

Watch this episode on YouTube on my channel: https://youtu.be/4tew-Q89Fms

Timestamps

• (00:00) - — Intro & setup: Marketing’s back in the driver seat
  
• (03:32) - — Work, life, and moving from Boston to Vermont
  
• (07:07) - — Competitors, community, and the small-world CMO circle
  
• (12:37) - — How Maura’s Salesforce roots shaped Qualified
  
• (15:07) - — Working for a CEO who actually gets marketing
  
• (19:07) - — Lessons from startup life & learning every part of marketing
  
• (22:07) - — Building the right team and hiring people smarter than you
  
• (29:07) - — Why product launches are the heartbeat of marketing
  
• (43:53) - — Agentic marketing, events, and AI at Qualified
  
• (55:53) - — The future of marketing and why it’s back on top

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Dave [0:00:00]: You're listening to B2B marketing with me, Dave Gerhardt.

Dave [0:00:03]: My guess on this episode is Maura Rivera.

Dave [0:00:19]: She's the Cmo at Qualified, they're leading a movement in agent marketing, the future they've been saying.

Dave [0:00:24]: People have been telling me is all about Ai.

Dave [0:00:26]: And Qualifies right at the forefront of this, but Had a great conversation about Maura.

Dave [0:00:30]: We didn't talk entirely about Ai.

Dave [0:00:32]: We talked about her career at Qualified.

Dave [0:00:34]: In a world where, most Cmos are trading jobs every one to two years.

Dave [0:00:39]: She's been at this company for six years and of the team of thirty marketing people, twenty five marketing people they have.

Dave [0:00:44]: Half of them have been there as long.

Dave [0:00:46]: And so I want understand why?

Dave [0:00:48]: What's going on over there?

Dave [0:00:49]: What do they have in the water over there at Qualified that has all these people staying for so long.

Dave [0:00:53]: And it turns out the connection is the product vision, the alignment between the product team and the mark team.

Dave [0:00:58]: And so we talked about how important that is at your company, how product launches the product roadmap are the best thing and the best partner for marketing.

Dave [0:01:06]: We talked about the team, Ai, how outbound is not dead It's certainly working, and and here's why getting We talked about why events are back.

Dave [0:01:13]: And I love this.

Dave [0:01:14]: We talked about why marketing is back in the driver's seat.

Dave [0:01:18]: That's because of Ai.

Dave [0:01:19]: It's a positive thing.

Dave [0:01:20]: Not a negative thing.

Dave [0:01:21]: We're gonna brain you into thinking that, enjoy my conversation with Maura Rivera.

Dave [0:01:26]: She's a Cmo at Qualified.

Dave [0:01:27]: We're were just talking about our our workout habits and and tendencies, and you mentioned that you're a big runner and trail running.

Dave [0:01:35]: I hated running my whole life I always worked out, but then a couple years ago.

Dave [0:01:41]: Was like, you know what?

Dave [0:01:41]: You can't...

Dave [0:01:42]: I can't really call myself an Athlete, like if I can't run.

Dave [0:01:44]: And so I don't run long distances, but, like, three to five miles is like, is the perfect sweet spot for me?

Maura [0:01:52]: Hey.

Maura [0:01:52]: That's good.

Maura [0:01:52]: Calling myself a big runner is a stretch.

Maura [0:01:55]: I'd I would say I'm a...

Maura [0:01:56]: I'm a like jog.

Dave [0:01:58]: I said that.

Dave [0:01:58]: I...

Dave [0:01:58]: You don't have to take credit for that.

Dave [0:02:00]: I said that.

Dave [0:02:00]: For me, though, also, I don't know if it's, like, because of kids are because of, like, working indoors.

Dave [0:02:06]: Like, the two for one has...

Dave [0:02:07]: Like, any workout that happens outside is is...

Dave [0:02:10]: I will rank it higher than, like an inside When.

Dave [0:02:12]: I just...

Dave [0:02:12]: I need to be outside.

Dave [0:02:13]: So you and Were talking about your Peloton.

Dave [0:02:14]: It's, like, I totally get it.

Dave [0:02:16]: If I'm gonna work out, like, and I can be outside, it's gonna be outside.

Maura [0:02:19]: Yeah.

Maura [0:02:19]: And especially just, like, being on Zoom all day, and then you and I were talking, we both have young kids, I'm, like, if I can even just get twenty five minutes of alone time when I listen to, like, a a a funny podcast, and I just run even if it's just for two miles.

Dave [0:02:34]: Yes.

Maura [0:02:35]: It's, like the the time that I get dedicated just to clear my head a little bit.

Maura [0:02:38]: I don't do it as much as I should, though.

Maura [0:02:40]: And it's starting to get a little cold, so I'm nervous my habits it's gonna weigh even more about?

Dave [0:02:44]: Oh, give me a break.

Dave [0:02:45]: You live in Like, what are we talking about?

Dave [0:02:48]: I'll show you cold?

Dave [0:02:48]: Like...

Dave [0:02:49]: On the other side.

Dave [0:02:50]: Get playing complain.

Maura [0:02:53]: I'm a self.

Dave [0:02:53]: Ever...

Dave [0:02:53]: There's no there's no bad weather actually a friend of mine who is a an actual big runner.

Dave [0:02:58]: He's like, dude, I would always rather run.

Dave [0:03:00]: He's, like, I...

Dave [0:03:01]: When it's ninety degrees out, I'm not gonna, like, running as impossible.

Dave [0:03:04]: But if it's cold, Once you get going, your body temperature gets up so much.

Dave [0:03:08]: And so even out here in Vermont.

Dave [0:03:09]: Like, if it's zero degrees out, I will still be sweaty, you just have to have, you know, the proper...

Dave [0:03:13]: Yeah.

Dave [0:03:14]: Proper layering.

Maura [0:03:15]: Have you always been in Vermont?

Dave [0:03:17]: No.

Dave [0:03:17]: We moved here in...

Dave [0:03:18]: So I was a Cmo at P at the time it was like April twenty twenty.

Maura [0:03:24]: Okay.

Dave [0:03:24]: We were living in Boston.

Maura [0:03:25]: Oh yeah.

Maura [0:03:25]: That makes

Dave [0:03:26]: sense three year old, one year old.

Dave [0:03:27]: That's where, like, my whole life was.

Dave [0:03:29]: And then I I know, Covid happened and everything went remote and just blew up, and I think, like I was having this, like, wait a second Like, come my...

Dave [0:03:35]: I've not no.

Dave [0:03:36]: I'm a knowledge worker.

Dave [0:03:37]: Like, I work on the computer.

Dave [0:03:39]: Like...

Dave [0:03:39]: And...

Dave [0:03:39]: But I always thought, like, if I wanna be a Sim and I wanna work.

Dave [0:03:42]: And I wanna be in marketing like I gotta be in the city.

Dave [0:03:44]: And so Mh.

Dave [0:03:44]: My wife's from Vermont, and I just I was...

Dave [0:03:47]: Like, I think, a lot as a lot of us were at that time of life just having a, like, it wasn't...

Dave [0:03:52]: I was probably, I don't know my low thirty.

Dave [0:03:55]: So it wasn't a mid midlife...

Dave [0:03:56]: Mid midlife crisis.

Dave [0:03:57]: But Was, we we gotta do something different.

Dave [0:03:58]: I'm ready to Yeah...

Dave [0:03:59]: Let's move Vermont.

Dave [0:04:00]: Did you say pretty serious.

Dave [0:04:01]: Are you serious?

Maura [0:04:02]: Having Well, it's so cool because you might not have ever done that move, you know?

Dave [0:04:06]: And We talk about it all time night.

Dave [0:04:08]: We'll be watching Tv at night.

Dave [0:04:10]: Won't be like.

Dave [0:04:10]: You think about what we would...

Dave [0:04:11]: Like, where we would be living what

Maura [0:04:13]: we doing.

Maura [0:04:14]: What your life would look like.

Maura [0:04:15]: It's beautiful out there.

Maura [0:04:16]: My brother went to dartmouth myth.

Maura [0:04:17]: So we went...

Maura [0:04:19]: We went up to Vermont once when we visited.

Maura [0:04:21]: And I was like it's a whole different world.

Maura [0:04:22]: The the changing leaves and the the cheese.

Maura [0:04:25]: It was...

Dave [0:04:26]: The cheese.

Dave [0:04:27]: Yeah.

Dave [0:04:27]: It's great.

Dave [0:04:28]: Well, it's good to talk to you It's always fine.

Dave [0:04:30]: Can always...

Dave [0:04:30]: Tells like, right away when I talk to someone, You know, sometimes I get messages from, like, P r teams in there, like, you know, they'll have some super impressive Cmo on there and it's, like, the chemistry with someone is not always good.

Dave [0:04:42]: And so you were like, hi I feel like I know you and I already feel that already.

Dave [0:04:45]: So...

Maura [0:04:45]: Well what's awesome.

Maura [0:04:46]: Well thank you for having me.

Dave [0:04:47]: I don't have as much existential dread and, like, what the heck am I gonna talk to this woman about?

Maura [0:04:52]: All, day.

Maura [0:04:52]: We have a lot in common.

Maura [0:04:53]: So I know we've Do

Dave [0:04:55]: we what do we

Maura [0:04:56]: I feel like we've worked for competitors before, which is funny, which is the small, the small Cmo world is, like, a lot of times friends become competitors and then become friends, You know, it's also...

Maura [0:05:05]: There's so much overlap.

Dave [0:05:07]: Totally.

Maura [0:05:08]: But I've always watched you from a afar.

Maura [0:05:09]: Love your love your content.

Maura [0:05:11]: So it's fun.

Dave [0:05:12]: Thank you.

Maura [0:05:12]: It's fun to be in in circle with you.

Dave [0:05:14]: It's That's cool.

Dave [0:05:14]: It's...

Dave [0:05:15]: You know, it's so funny.

Dave [0:05:15]: It's, like, when you're in a company, it's like competitors.

Dave [0:05:17]: They're evil.

Dave [0:05:18]: The Qualified sucks,

Maura [0:05:20]: you know, like...

Maura [0:05:20]: But yeah.

Dave [0:05:21]: And it's so funny.

Dave [0:05:22]: But then once I left drift, like, the my world opened up to me in so many different ways like, our biggest probably rival at the time.

Dave [0:05:29]: Qualified was, like, coming up and new.

Dave [0:05:31]: And so...

Maura [0:05:31]: Yeah.

Maura [0:05:31]: We were small.

Dave [0:05:33]: Super easy to position against, like a startup up, not just Qualified, but, like, you know, and I'm not think this is right wrong, but, like, marketing tactics would be, like, oh, Okay.

Dave [0:05:41]: What ingredients you have well?

Dave [0:05:42]: They're new.

Dave [0:05:42]: Like, and and that's exactly what we use.

Dave [0:05:44]: We were coming up.

Dave [0:05:45]: We, like, went after intercom It was, like, where the ups starts at intercom could be like, they they have no credibility.

Dave [0:05:50]: Right?

Dave [0:05:50]: And so it's, like, that's the whole angle.

Dave [0:05:52]: But I left drift, like, shortly after that, this guy who ran finance an intercom messaged me and this guy Bobby who started a new company Like, can you be my adviser?

Dave [0:05:59]: I was like, you know me.

Dave [0:06:01]: I thought you guys all hated me.

Dave [0:06:03]: And he's like, no, Dude we look...

Dave [0:06:04]: We thought we were like, inquiring what you're doing.

Dave [0:06:05]: And so it's like, totally, When gotta get outside of the.

Dave [0:06:08]: I I will say that there's always, like, one some guy from Linkedin who's, like, if I have, like, a form on our website because we had this, like, no forms, you know, App, like, use chap.

Dave [0:06:16]: Some guy will, like, chart me be like, oh, look at this, mister no forms has a form on his website, like, Dude.

Maura [0:06:22]: You're, like, get over it.

Dave [0:06:23]: Like, that was eight years ago, and I was like, I was for a company.

Dave [0:06:26]: That was literally...

Dave [0:06:27]: My job was to be their marketing person.

Dave [0:06:29]: So, obviously, I'm gonna say, like, yeah.

Maura [0:06:32]: Well, it's fun too.

Maura [0:06:33]: I was just talking with...

Maura [0:06:34]: I won't, like, talk about the companies, but I was just at this Cmo thing last week.

Maura [0:06:37]: And they were talking about how they had recruited product marketing from their competition because they always looked up to what the competition was doing.

Maura [0:06:46]: So I feel like it competitive spirits good because you're looking at what the other team's doing, you're getting inspiration from them.

Maura [0:06:51]: You're trying to figure out how you differentiate.

Maura [0:06:53]: And then I think there's always respect at the end of the day for, like, how other teams are winning in different ways.

Maura [0:06:59]: So you guys kind of wrote a great playbook just for content creation at drift that we always looked up to a lot.

Dave [0:07:05]: Yeah.

Dave [0:07:05]: Well...

Dave [0:07:05]: But, I mean that that's what's fun Like, Those are...

Dave [0:07:07]: That's actually, like, it's it's so...

Dave [0:07:08]: One of the coolest parts about building Exit Five that I didn't expect was...

Dave [0:07:12]: People just, like, wanna have friends that work in marketing.

Maura [0:07:16]: Totally totally.

Dave [0:07:18]: That can't be the leading value prop.

Dave [0:07:19]: So it's, like, you know, we need to, like, lead with education and, like, we need to help educate marketers, but we're finding that, like, our like, Aha Moment is, like, there's a story of...

Dave [0:07:27]: I tell this all the time.

Dave [0:07:28]: And I've never told on the podcast, but there's two members of ours, and, two heads of marketing.

Dave [0:07:33]: Two moms.

Dave [0:07:34]: They live in a town in Pennsylvania.

Dave [0:07:35]: Mh.

Dave [0:07:36]: The kids are in the same...

Dave [0:07:37]: School in the same grade and play soccer together.

Maura [0:07:40]: Oh, no way.

Dave [0:07:41]: They didn't know about it until they, like, met through Exit Five.

Dave [0:07:43]: And now they're friends They over walks together.

Dave [0:07:46]: They drove up to our New York event.

Dave [0:07:48]: And so it's, like, the same thing.

Dave [0:07:49]: The the line that I say sail at the time, is, like, most people in my personal life, like, I have no idea what I do for work.

Dave [0:07:55]: I can't

Maura [0:07:56]: hundred percent.

Dave [0:07:57]: You know, Yeah.

Dave [0:07:57]: I can't talk them about marketing.

Dave [0:07:58]: And so, actually, if you think about it, your competitors, if you all could like, hang out, like, have a beer and have dinner together, that actually probably be like, the best.

Dave [0:08:05]: Conversation.

Maura [0:08:06]: Totally, totally, I I feel the same way where I I have three young kids.

Maura [0:08:10]: I'm at school.

Maura [0:08:10]: I'm like, I think people think I work in tech.

Maura [0:08:12]: And I kinda like it sometimes because I get just be a mom and not talk about work.

Maura [0:08:16]: But then when you do get to connect with other Cmos, other marketing leaders, you just have so much in common you can talk about.

Maura [0:08:24]: Your relationship with sales and your campaigns or something that didn't work or how you're thinking about spend for next year and you can kind of just, like...

Maura [0:08:31]: Also bitch to each other about stuff you're struggling with, it feels like this, like, safe space.

Maura [0:08:37]: So...

Maura [0:08:37]: Yeah.

Dave [0:08:38]: And, like, are you...

Dave [0:08:38]: Did you go to disaster this?

Dave [0:08:40]: Yeah...

Dave [0:08:40]: A, like, you know.

Dave [0:08:41]: It's Yeah.

Maura [0:08:42]: Totally totally.

Maura [0:08:43]: And then once you find those people, you end up seeing them in all the same events and pockets and circles, and you kinda can't avoid each other once you form those connections.

Dave [0:08:52]: It's like, I don't know.

Dave [0:08:53]: And maybe maybe Frank Lu would disagree with this, but it's like, it's not life or death.

Dave [0:08:57]: Like, we're just we're selling software together.

Dave [0:08:59]: Okay.

Dave [0:08:59]: Competitive.

Dave [0:09:00]: Yeah.

Dave [0:09:00]: Competition is good though.

Dave [0:09:01]: It also forces you to be creative.

Dave [0:09:03]: It's, like, I think

Maura [0:09:04]: early.

Dave [0:09:04]: You know, there's a...

Dave [0:09:05]: There's, like, one up one ups ship, and, like, I think, I remember being a drift, and I think, I saw an early thing that you all did that was super interesting to me was, like, my perception of it was is you did we did product launches, and then, like, I saw Qualified.

Dave [0:09:20]: You all did these like, high end.

Dave [0:09:22]: Like, you'd film what's your Ceo's name?

Maura [0:09:25]: Craig?

Maura [0:09:25]: Craig?

Maura [0:09:26]: Yeah.

Maura [0:09:26]: Alright.

Maura [0:09:27]: Sun.

Maura [0:09:27]: Yeah.

Dave [0:09:28]: You'd be, like...

Dave [0:09:28]: And then M and Craig and, like, you'd be, like, dressed nicely and it'd be, like, cut to you and like, you'd walk through the stuff, and I was like, oh, there's a...

Dave [0:09:36]: In...

Dave [0:09:36]: Like, these people know what they're doing.

Dave [0:09:38]: Like, you're doing, like, these high end, like, making these feel like moments, and then, like, we take a little greeting for that, and then, like, intercom did this kinda like, world tour thing, and we took some of that.

Maura [0:09:47]: Good at events.

Maura [0:09:47]: Yeah.

Dave [0:09:48]: But But I think that is what marketing is.

Dave [0:09:50]: It's, like, I say all the time that, like, my experience has been in B2B marketing, but I think one of my strength is, like, the ability to, like, see marketing and everything.

Dave [0:09:59]: I'll get an idea from the, like, local sandwich shop down the street and there's, like, old man who has, like, the this creative, like, hilarious sign out front and Like, be like, how can we take that and, like, use that in our company.

Dave [0:10:11]: I think that is what's fun about marketing.

Maura [0:10:13]: Yeah.

Maura [0:10:13]: And it's it's good to kinda stay on your toes.

Maura [0:10:15]: Right?

Maura [0:10:16]: You can't get too comfortable in marketing, and you have to stay relevant, you have to keep innovating.

Maura [0:10:21]: And so when there's competition, it kind of lights a fire under you in a good way that makes you think like, okay.

Maura [0:10:26]: What's...

Maura [0:10:27]: As soon as one launch is over, like, hey, what are we gonna do next?

Maura [0:10:30]: How do we keep that momentum?

Maura [0:10:31]: Because if you don't maintain it, it dies.

Dave [0:10:34]: Yeah.

Dave [0:10:34]: Did you work with Craig at Salesforce?

Maura [0:10:37]: Yes.

Dave [0:10:37]: Like, that was my understanding like this?

Dave [0:10:39]: This kinda company spun out of kinda, like, a mini, you know, there's a lots of Salesforce Mafia, but it was, like, you all had some connections over there?

Maura [0:10:46]: Yeah.

Maura [0:10:46]: Yeah.

Maura [0:10:46]: So, my...

Maura [0:10:47]: It's actually...

Maura [0:10:48]: The story goes way back, but my first job out of college was at Salesforce.

Maura [0:10:52]: And Craig at the time was the Sv of product marketing.

Maura [0:10:57]: And I landed in marketing and I worked for Craig, and then he became the Cmo.

Maura [0:11:01]: And then most of our executive team was all at Salesforce at that time.

Maura [0:11:05]: It was kind of like, two thousand ten to two thousand fifteen.

Maura [0:11:08]: So Sean White, our cofounder, Bing, Gop paul Patel, all of our c cofounder and Tan.

Maura [0:11:13]: They were all kind of at Salesforce in that era.

Maura [0:11:15]: They then left and started the company get feedback a survey platform, which was acquired by survey my E.

Dave [0:11:22]: Oh, yeah.

Maura [0:11:23]: I led product marketing at get feedback.

Maura [0:11:25]: So I kind of left the mothers ship went to get feedback was excited to be at a smaller company.

Maura [0:11:30]: And then when they left get feedback, Craig pitched me on.

Maura [0:11:34]: They they kinda went into the labs, I would say in like, September of twenty eighteen, and we're starting to cook up some ideas, and then I joined in May twenty nineteen.

Maura [0:11:45]: So I've worked for Craig my whole career, probably the last sixteen years.

Maura [0:11:50]: And it's really cool because I think we just have a lot of trust amongst our team and, like, amongst our executive team because we've all worked together for so long.

Maura [0:12:00]: And with that comes healthy challenges and debates and all of that great stuff, but there's a lot of trust at the end of the day, and Craig a marketer.

Maura [0:12:09]: So he's always, like, pushing me.

Maura [0:12:11]: He doesn't let me just get stagnant her lazy.

Maura [0:12:14]: He's always pushing us to be relevant and have momentum, which is cool though.

Dave [0:12:19]: That's how it was at Drift with with David likes...

Dave [0:12:21]: Totally He was a founder.

Dave [0:12:22]: He he was never, like, Cmo at Salesforce wherever Yeah.

Dave [0:12:25]: He he loved marketing marketing was this thing.

Dave [0:12:27]: Yeah.

Dave [0:12:28]: And so he got to, like, basically mold me.

Dave [0:12:30]: Mold me in his image, you know, and I was, like, twenty years younger whatever a different point in my career, and that was really cool.

Dave [0:12:36]: And I think that we're...

Dave [0:12:38]: I know, not everybody that listens to this is lucky enough to work for a Ceo who who gets marketing?

Dave [0:12:43]: Yeah.

Dave [0:12:44]: But, man, don't you feel like if that's something that can interview and find out on the way in, like, just makes your life so much easier.

Maura [0:12:51]: A, a hundred percent.

Maura [0:12:52]: I think it...

Maura [0:12:53]: I mean, there's a lot of pressure when the Ceo gets marketing because you can't just, like...

Maura [0:12:59]: Throw jargon at them and and go spend a ton of money and they'll be like, yeah, Go for it, like, they...

Maura [0:13:04]: They're gonna press you, but I would much prefer a Ceo who gets it.

Maura [0:13:08]: And also, like, Craig willing to take bets on brand because he knows that we can't quantify it, but it's gonna help with our...

Maura [0:13:15]: With how people are paying attention to us.

Maura [0:13:17]: He's really invested in product launches.

Maura [0:13:19]: He's always pushing us.

Maura [0:13:21]: So I think it's a good thing.

Maura [0:13:22]: I talked to so many marketers who are, like, you know, my Ceo just doesn't get it or After...

Maura [0:13:26]: They think everything...

Maura [0:13:27]: They think all we need to do is, like, issue a press release for everything and we'll get coverage in Forbes and, like, that would be really...

Maura [0:13:33]: That would make your job really, really hard.

Dave [0:13:36]: Yeah.

Maura [0:13:37]: So I'm I'm grateful.

Maura [0:13:37]: But in our our other cofounder, Sean, he used to be a product marketing leader at Salesforce.

Maura [0:13:41]: He's a product mark at hard.

Maura [0:13:43]: So sometimes there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen, but I'd prefer that because there's a lot of good ideas than...

Maura [0:13:48]: Yeah.

Dave [0:13:49]: Not...

Dave [0:13:49]: Better will be It's like better to have not knowledgeable cooks than like, someone who's never cooked before.

Maura [0:13:54]: Yes.

Maura [0:13:54]: Exactly.

Maura [0:13:55]: It's not like those good food network shows that's, like, the world's worst cooks, you know, trying to make something.

Maura [0:14:00]: It's like, it's more like top chef?

Dave [0:14:01]: Yeah.

Dave [0:14:01]: Yeah.

Maura [0:14:02]: So, did you and Dave work together or David before drift?

Maura [0:14:07]: Or was that your first time working with?

Dave [0:14:09]: No.

Dave [0:14:09]: That was our first time.

Dave [0:14:11]: So the way that I got my job there was my first big break in marketing was, like, I was working at this startup up, and I was...

Dave [0:14:19]: I I worked at a company called constant contact, and they were email software company.

Maura [0:14:23]: Because I worked for a campaign monitor because Yeah got acquired by Campaign...

Dave [0:14:27]: I'm gonna fly to the bay.

Dave [0:14:28]: We need to...

Maura [0:14:28]: Yes.

Maura [0:14:28]: Yeah.

Maura [0:14:29]: We got.

Maura [0:14:29]: We got a hang.

Maura [0:14:29]: We actually have a lot in comment.

Dave [0:14:31]: Yeah.

Dave [0:14:31]: Yeah.

Dave [0:14:32]: And so that's where I started my career.

Dave [0:14:34]: Like, I I was at a...

Dave [0:14:35]: I started in P r.

Dave [0:14:36]: I was a P at a P agency then I wanted to go in house and I went to constant contact, which was like, really cool tech company at the time and I did P r.

Dave [0:14:43]: That company is cool, but I...

Dave [0:14:45]: I really like startups at the time.

Dave [0:14:46]: My job was I was a P manager for, like, constant contact social media product.

Maura [0:14:51]: Okay.

Dave [0:14:51]: And so I was, like, going to stop myself.

Dave [0:14:53]: Was I'm reading Tech crunch every day when Tech crunch is big.

Dave [0:14:55]: I knew all the companies, all the apps, you know?

Dave [0:14:57]: And I was like I think I wanna get into startups.

Dave [0:14:59]: And so I found a startup up in Boston, they didn't have a marketing job for me so I joined as customer success manager.

Maura [0:15:06]: Okay.

Dave [0:15:06]: World's worst customer success manager for for sure.

Maura [0:15:09]: But the good role to have as a marketer to have that point of view of the customer facing team.

Maura [0:15:13]: I'm sure.

Dave [0:15:14]: Oh, yeah.

Dave [0:15:15]: Oh, yeah.

Dave [0:15:15]: It was it was brutal though.

Dave [0:15:16]: It was more just like, my job to demo the product the things never worked and Yeah.

Maura [0:15:21]: That's not.

Maura [0:15:21]: That's not good.

Maura [0:15:22]: Yeah.

Maura [0:15:22]: It's not bigger Yes.

Dave [0:15:24]: That's for

Maura [0:15:24]: a for a bad products.

Dave [0:15:25]: It was like, pools was like, we had, like, you know, pre million dollars in revenue was just very very early.

Dave [0:15:30]: Anyway, while I was there, I started get into startups, and I listened to this podcast called this weekend startups by Jason Cal.

Dave [0:15:36]: And I'm listening this podcast.

Dave [0:15:38]: I'm like, man, All these companies are like, Uber Insta car.

Dave [0:15:41]: All these San Francisco based companies.

Dave [0:15:42]: I'm like, I'm in Boston.

Dave [0:15:44]: There's an amazing start seen here.

Dave [0:15:45]: Like, somebody should start a podcast but Boston startups and Ben who is the founder of the company is at Privy He was like, You should start it.

Dave [0:15:53]: And he gave me the free pass, like, go build this side project.

Maura [0:15:56]: Cool.

Dave [0:15:57]: And so I did that, and it was through that podcast that I actually met met David because he was a guest on my podcast.

Dave [0:16:03]: I got him was like, a big get, like a founder, and I did an interview with him.

Dave [0:16:06]: And I'm writing up the show notes it's the next day, and I was like, man, that conversation was amazing, like, that dude, like, talk...

Dave [0:16:11]: Like, I learned a bunch from that.

Dave [0:16:12]: Usually, sometimes I'm talking, like, a boring Vc or whatever and no disrespect This is just one in particular I can think of.

Dave [0:16:19]: Yeah.

Dave [0:16:20]: I looked at the website and they were hiring a marketing person.

Dave [0:16:22]: And so I was like, oh, interesting.

Dave [0:16:24]: And I was not happy my job.

Dave [0:16:25]: I was working a hubspot at the time, and I send him a note.

Dave [0:16:28]: Oh, yeah And I get a...

Dave [0:16:29]: So I applied for the job, and I get an automated message, like, twelve...

Dave [0:16:33]: Hours later That's, like, thank you so much.

Dave [0:16:35]: We've reviewed your application, unfortunately, Like, we've already filled this role, like, appreciate it.

Dave [0:16:39]: I was like, bummer, back to work, whatever.

Dave [0:16:41]: That morning, I get an email from the recruiter.

Dave [0:16:45]: He's like, hey, actually, never mind, David saw your email, and he wants you to come in and interview.

Dave [0:16:50]: And I was like, heck yeah.

Dave [0:16:51]: And I went in and and interviewed him and interview with him Was like, yeah, like, we wanna open up a job for you.

Dave [0:16:57]: Like, we think it you we you would be great.

Maura [0:16:59]: That's awesome.

Dave [0:17:00]: That was the turning point of my career it was, like, to go to a place for where I got to do a lot of the doing for the first time.

Dave [0:17:05]: The website P our social strategy, like, and I can't think that experience enough for, like, I think it's great to go to a big company, and, you know, you're at Salesforce as an example.

Dave [0:17:13]: But I think I'd learned the most.

Dave [0:17:15]: Like, there's something to, like, go to a big company where you can learn a bunch and, then, like, get to go and do something, you know?

Maura [0:17:21]: Yes.

Maura [0:17:21]: I'm so grateful for my trajectory and I'll just kind of, you know, you don't know it when you're in it that that that it's working out the right way.

Maura [0:17:28]: But...

Maura [0:17:29]: Salesforce, I gotta see how is the machine, how does it operate?

Maura [0:17:33]: How does, like, one of the world's best B companies operate?

Maura [0:17:36]: I was inspired by their events, Their product launches, etcetera.

Maura [0:17:40]: And then to be able to take that playbook and then be like, okay, How do we apply this playbook at a start up where we can move much much faster.

Maura [0:17:48]: I'm more of a product marketer and customer marketing and that's more of my background.

Maura [0:17:52]: So it also pushed me at the beginning?

Maura [0:17:55]: Like, I had to learn so much about because I was marketer one.

Maura [0:17:58]: I to learn, like, demand gen, how to...

Maura [0:18:01]: I remember Googling, like, how to I set up Sem campaigns, how to build dashboards in Salesforce because I was used to having counterparts I was at some smaller companies like in between Salesforce as I mentioned with get feedback in campaign monitor, but it taught me how to do everything and now that my team is bigger and we're a more mature company.

Maura [0:18:20]: I'm grateful for that experience.

Maura [0:18:21]: Because I can see what everybody's doing throughout the day.

Maura [0:18:25]: It's like, I'm not blind.

Maura [0:18:26]: I know what it looks like to upload a press release or work with our P agency.

Maura [0:18:30]: I know what it looks like too...

Maura [0:18:32]: And there's a lot of new stuff, like Ae and all this stuff that I don't know because it wasn't around when I was when we were starting the marketing function.

Maura [0:18:39]: But I feel like it gives me empathy for my team.

Maura [0:18:41]: I understand the lift that it takes.

Maura [0:18:43]: I'm not an expert in a lot of the things, and I think I learned the importance of hiring people who are smarter than you, and especially in, like, in those functions where you're not strong, like, I had have a really strong Vp of command gen and marketing ops.

Maura [0:18:56]: But it's...

Maura [0:18:57]: If you could have that experience at a small company, and it's a ton of hard work in, like, late nights doing God knows what?

Maura [0:19:05]: Not not fancy work, but it...

Maura [0:19:07]: You learned so so much.

Maura [0:19:09]: I'm really thankful for it.

Dave [0:19:11]: Everybody that's listening to this right now.

Dave [0:19:12]: Can you just hear Maura is a super accomplished Cmo.

Dave [0:19:15]: And a marketing leader in the space that you care about, and she is on our podcast right now.

Dave [0:19:19]: Twenty thousand people listen this a month that she's saying.

Dave [0:19:21]: I don't know everything.

Maura [0:19:23]: Yeah.

Maura [0:19:23]: Yeah.

Maura [0:19:24]: I don't.

Maura [0:19:24]: I don't...

Dave [0:19:25]: And I'm I'm calling this out because I think one of the number one questions we see in Exit Five.

Dave [0:19:29]: I see in my inbox is like, people that wanna get to the Cmo level, but they're like, hey, I wanna be a Cmo, but like, my experience is only in P, and I'm like, great.

Dave [0:19:39]: I've been doing this Maura for, like, since probably since the drift dates for, like, seven years now interviewing Cmos, And every one of you has come up from a different area.

Dave [0:19:49]: I would say the common thread though is, like, everyone has one core area that that they're good at.

Dave [0:19:55]: And so for you, you're saying, like, it's product marketing.

Dave [0:19:57]: And then they've all...

Dave [0:19:59]: And maybe there's three things.

Dave [0:20:00]: They they have one core area, like product marketing that that's their core skill set.

Dave [0:20:04]: Number two, they've probably worked somewhere else where they able to observe.

Dave [0:20:08]: So, like, you're at Salesforce.

Dave [0:20:09]: And so maybe you've never run demand gen, but you've probably worked at some...

Dave [0:20:12]: With some super legit people at Salesforce.

Dave [0:20:15]: Right?

Dave [0:20:15]: Mh.

Dave [0:20:15]: And then you go and you have to build a team around that.

Dave [0:20:19]: Can you just build on that because I want people to hear it from you about, like, how do you...

Dave [0:20:23]: It is an impossible task to know everything in marketing.

Dave [0:20:26]: Mh.

Dave [0:20:26]: Right now.

Dave [0:20:27]: It's changing fast than whatever.

Dave [0:20:28]: That how could you possibly be an expert in ads Seo p product marketing, analyst relations events, the direct mail?

Dave [0:20:34]: Like...

Dave [0:20:35]: So how do you how do you take that...

Dave [0:20:37]: How have you taken that into your job as a as a Cmo?

Maura [0:20:40]: Yeah.

Maura [0:20:40]: I would say as an early, when I first was Cmo at Qualified.

Maura [0:20:44]: Product I kind of had impostor syndrome and I thought I had to be the expert at everything.

Maura [0:20:48]: I've learned over the years because I've been in this role for about seven years, like, what you need to do is hire really, really smart people around you who can...

Maura [0:20:58]: Teach you and guide you.

Maura [0:20:59]: My Vp of marketing operations, his name's Chris Ba.

Maura [0:21:03]: We've worked together for ten to fifteen years.

Maura [0:21:05]: He runs laps around me with, like, Mart tech and report building and analytics and insights my Vp of Demand Jen who's, like, his, you know, kind of partner in crime, Sarah Mcconnell.

Maura [0:21:18]: She knows way more about me about than I do about, like, thought leadership and content and buyer journey.

Maura [0:21:24]: But I've...

Maura [0:21:25]: It's...

Maura [0:21:25]: What's the phrase about rising tides.

Maura [0:21:28]: What what is that?

Maura [0:21:30]: In blanket you.

Dave [0:21:31]: Lift all boats rising tides lift all boats.

Dave [0:21:33]: Yeah.

Maura [0:21:33]: Lift all boats.

Maura [0:21:34]: Like, I just feel like, if you can hire the a team.

Maura [0:21:37]: I think it's a good thing if they're smarter than you or especially in certain areas, like, then you guys are gonna come across, like this, like, totally stellar marketing organization.

Dave [0:21:48]: Yeah.

Maura [0:21:49]: If you're a Cmo, which it's easy to have impostor syndrome sometime time and be like, I need to know everything, and you try and hire people to junior so that you can be the star and you can be all knowing and they can do all the groundwork.

Maura [0:22:00]: You're gonna fail.

Maura [0:22:01]: So I think you need you need both right, and especially at a small company, those really smart people they have to have grit.

Maura [0:22:08]: They have to be willing to roll up their sleeves.

Maura [0:22:10]: You can't come in as a Vp and think you're gonna boss people around when you're a small company.

Maura [0:22:15]: You have to do the work too.

Maura [0:22:16]: Yeah.

Maura [0:22:17]: But I just think looking, for great talent who can teach you something is, like what you should really be looking for when you're building out the team.

Maura [0:22:26]: And then being okay admitting, like, I just asked yesterday to Sarah and a woman on our team who's owning our Ae strategy.

Maura [0:22:33]: I was like, I don't feel like an expert here.

Maura [0:22:35]: I feel like I have a lot to learn.

Maura [0:22:37]: I was talking with the zero of web flow two days ago, and he was, like, dropping all this knowledge on me about website behavior and the L and traffic benchmarks and what they should be.

Maura [0:22:46]: And it was really informative and enlighten, and I went to Sarah and Sarah after and I was like, can you give me a master class on Ae.

Maura [0:22:52]: I just, like, I need to just, like, go into profound, show me all of our data.

Maura [0:22:56]: I need to get, like, really close to it.

Maura [0:22:58]: And it would be easy for me to...

Maura [0:23:00]: Leave that call and be like, oh, I'm all knowing.

Maura [0:23:02]: I just talked to this guy.

Maura [0:23:03]: I have all these stats, but I'm...

Maura [0:23:05]: I think it...

Maura [0:23:06]: It's okay to be a little vulnerable and say where you need to learn more.

Dave [0:23:11]: Yeah.

Maura [0:23:11]: So I'm...

Maura [0:23:12]: I don't know.

Maura [0:23:12]: I'm rambling a bit, but not build the team, call out when you Yeah.

Maura [0:23:16]: When you need to learn more when...

Maura [0:23:18]: And always be curious, Like, I think that's what makes a great marketing leader somebody who's always...

Maura [0:23:22]: Because the landscape is shifting so quickly right now, so that curiosity I think is what's gonna...

Maura [0:23:28]: Yeah propel certain marketing leaders forward.

Dave [0:23:31]: Yeah.

Dave [0:23:31]: No.

Dave [0:23:31]: Your...

Dave [0:23:31]: Rambling is good.

Dave [0:23:32]: I would...

Dave [0:23:32]: I love this style of, I love when a guest that actually talks to me.

Dave [0:23:36]: It makes meet money.

Dave [0:23:37]: It's so much more fun.

Dave [0:23:38]: It's so much less pressure than, like, next question, Dave, and I'm like, well, I don't have a next question.

Dave [0:23:43]: I'm having an conversation.

Dave [0:23:44]: Like, didn't think of what I was gonna ask you.

Dave [0:23:46]: Yeah.

Dave [0:23:47]: Couple things that may that made me think of number one on the, like, not knowing everything.

Dave [0:23:51]: I don't know if this is because I think it's probably because I'm just older than I was, and I...

Dave [0:23:56]: I'm at a different point of my life and family and maturity.

Dave [0:23:59]: And you just...

Dave [0:23:59]: You just changed.

Dave [0:24:00]: Like, a lot of things, you know, I'm thirty eight when I was at Drift.

Dave [0:24:03]: I start I was twenty eight.

Dave [0:24:04]: That's a that's a long time.

Maura [0:24:06]: Yeah.

Maura [0:24:06]: You're a different person.

Dave [0:24:07]: You're a different person.

Dave [0:24:08]: Yeah.

Dave [0:24:08]: And, you know, life humble.

Dave [0:24:10]: You just learn stuff.

Dave [0:24:11]: Right?

Dave [0:24:11]: And I think one thing that I'm super okay with now is maybe an out, maybe it's because my company or whatever.

Dave [0:24:17]: It's my company.

Dave [0:24:18]: I'm totally okay with my team seeing me, like, not know the

Maura [0:24:22]: answer.

Maura [0:24:22]: Mh.

Dave [0:24:24]: And I have tried to get better at being, like, I don't know the answer, but, like, Yeah.

Dave [0:24:27]: It's your job to figure it out.

Dave [0:24:29]: So you go tell me.

Dave [0:24:30]: I'm happy to help you, and you can pick my brain on this, but, like, you should go figure it out.

Dave [0:24:34]: That's...

Dave [0:24:34]: Yeah.

Dave [0:24:34]: Where I used to always be like, I'll do it.

Dave [0:24:36]: I'll do it.

Dave [0:24:37]: I'll do.

Dave [0:24:37]: I can do it.

Dave [0:24:37]: I can do it.

Dave [0:24:38]: And that's...

Dave [0:24:38]: That doesn't help.

Dave [0:24:39]: That doesn't help you in the long run.

Dave [0:24:41]: It's like, you never learned to past the ball and then eventually, like, one day you're out sick or whatever, and you need to you need to be able to do that.

Maura [0:24:48]: Yeah.

Maura [0:24:48]: That's been a big learning for me as well because I think early on, It was easy to be like, I'll do it.

Maura [0:24:54]: I'll do.

Maura [0:24:54]: I'll scoop it up.

Maura [0:24:55]: I've done this before.

Maura [0:24:55]: It'll just be faster if I do it.

Maura [0:24:57]: Yeah.

Maura [0:24:57]: And when you can learn to, like, let go and folks rise to the occasion when they're in a challenge.

Maura [0:25:03]: And if you're always just saving them, then they won't have to learn the hard way.

Maura [0:25:08]: Yeah.

Maura [0:25:08]: So I think that's the sign of a great leader when you're just, like, here's a challenge.

Maura [0:25:12]: Can you go, like, dig into this, come back with a recommendation.

Maura [0:25:16]: Let's work on it together we'll work workshop it, but I'm not gonna have all the answers.

Maura [0:25:21]: Like, go do some research and come back and we'll formulate our strategy.

Maura [0:25:24]: I also think that's all of this is just...

Maura [0:25:26]: And I'm not perfect.

Maura [0:25:28]: I'm still learning, but a lot of it is just like, it's confidence.

Maura [0:25:31]: It's confidence that be okay not knowing the answer.

Maura [0:25:34]: It's having confidence in your team that they're gonna figure it out.

Maura [0:25:36]: It's having confidence that, like, I don't know in all of in all of those things.

Maura [0:25:40]: I think I think it's important.

Dave [0:25:44]: I had something else that I wanted to ask you built on that and I...

Dave [0:25:46]: Usually Am paying at thousand notes, but I'm actually having conversation.

Dave [0:25:49]: So this is...

Dave [0:25:49]: This is enjoyable.

Dave [0:25:50]: One of my questions that I had in my head when I was thinking about what I wanna talk to you about.

Dave [0:25:54]: You've been at Qualified for six years.

Dave [0:25:56]: Yeah.

Dave [0:25:57]: That's a long time in our,

Maura [0:25:59]: I long...

Maura [0:26:00]: Oh, my god.

Maura [0:26:00]: I feel like it's like,

Dave [0:26:02]: in this world

Maura [0:26:03]: it's a long time.

Maura [0:26:04]: Yeah.

Maura [0:26:04]: Six six and a half.

Dave [0:26:06]: But it's not.

Dave [0:26:06]: In in reality, it's not, like, my my mom was a teacher.

Dave [0:26:11]: My wife's mom was a teacher.

Dave [0:26:12]: They both worked at the same school in the same role for forty years, but there's, you know, in our world of ten.

Dave [0:26:17]: It's, like, two months and you go somewhere else.

Maura [0:26:21]: Yeah.

Maura [0:26:21]: It's a revolving old funny My husband's, he works for Williams Sonoma Pottery Barn, and he's in finance and he's been there for Nineteen years.

Dave [0:26:30]: Okay and I just love stability over there.

Maura [0:26:32]: Love rivera.

Maura [0:26:32]: Yeah.

Maura [0:26:34]: But, like, and so he's like, and I'm, like, in...

Maura [0:26:37]: But in tech, usually, it's like, you know, two years shelf life for Cfo.

Dave [0:26:41]: Yeah.

Maura [0:26:41]: And it's fun because people are always bop around.

Maura [0:26:43]: But I...

Maura [0:26:44]: For me, I...

Maura [0:26:47]: It's...

Maura [0:26:47]: It goes back to the team that we have.

Maura [0:26:49]: Like, it's that trust that I talked about.

Maura [0:26:51]: It's that comfort that I've talked about.

Maura [0:26:53]: So that's what that's what keeps me here and then the product we're innovating.

Maura [0:26:56]: Really really quickly and so that keeps it exciting.

Maura [0:27:00]: But, yeah, it's a long time.

Maura [0:27:01]: Most Cmo so I meet, I just met the Cmo, who was it.

Maura [0:27:04]: She was at a clue.

Maura [0:27:05]: And she's been there for seven years, and we were at a breakfast.

Maura [0:27:09]: And I was...

Maura [0:27:10]: We basically had a very similar story and we're like, we gotta catch up.

Maura [0:27:14]: We gotta go get wine next time and talk about this.

Maura [0:27:16]: Because it is it is rare to have that much history with the company.

Maura [0:27:20]: But it's been fun.

Maura [0:27:21]: Each year is different.

Maura [0:27:22]: Right?

Dave [0:27:23]: Yeah.

Dave [0:27:23]: I thought about what I wanted to I'd sad to you on the on the team thing.

Dave [0:27:28]: So I remember Yeah specifically, you just were talking about, like, how how it really is all about the people.

Dave [0:27:33]: And I think this is one of those lessons.

Dave [0:27:34]: It's it's kinda like post kids.

Dave [0:27:36]: It's like, once I have my own kids.

Dave [0:27:37]: I realized a bunch of things that, like, I didn't like that my parents did.

Dave [0:27:41]: I'm doing the same thing to my kids.

Dave [0:27:42]: And I like it why you did this.

Dave [0:27:44]: And Yeah.

Dave [0:27:45]: I worked for Mike Vol, who's a Cmo Hubspot at the time, and they...

Dave [0:27:49]: When I joined Hubspot they had seventy five people in the marketing team, and the very last round of the interview was me was was with him in an hour in person, and I was like, how do you have the time to do this?

Dave [0:28:00]: Like, is is a public company.

Dave [0:28:01]: Like, what you said like what do you mean to dude?

Dave [0:28:03]: This is the job.

Dave [0:28:03]: Mh.

Dave [0:28:04]: I was like, no.

Dave [0:28:05]: That that can't be it.

Dave [0:28:06]: You gotta be, like, you must be, like, coming up with tag lines and billboards and this is, no.

Dave [0:28:10]: This is the job he's like you will learn

Maura [0:28:12]: the team.

Dave [0:28:13]: Ninety percent of the job is building the team and it is the one thing that makes everything else easier.

Dave [0:28:17]: If you get the team right and the people right.

Maura [0:28:19]: Mh.

Dave [0:28:20]: Then you get to do it.

Dave [0:28:20]: And so your thing is it's one of those, like, business pla tubes.

Dave [0:28:24]: Like, it's all about the people.

Dave [0:28:25]: But until you really feel that.

Dave [0:28:27]: Like, wow, my team is awesome and look at all the time I have back enough freedom that I have How much of a source of my stress was because, like, I was a bat...

Dave [0:28:35]: I was bad at hiring and bad at managing and, like, didn't know how to find the right people.

Dave [0:28:38]: That...

Dave [0:28:39]: Mh.

Dave [0:28:39]: That is the job at this level.

Maura [0:28:42]: Mh.

Maura [0:28:42]: Yeah.

Maura [0:28:43]: Team.

Maura [0:28:43]: And I think that's, like, it's easy sometimes to rush hires because you're, like, I've got work I need to take off of someone's plate or I've got a head count to fill and if I don't feel a little disappear, but who you putting as much time as you can into building that a team, it will pay off in spade.

Maura [0:29:00]: That's the thing I'm most proud of that Qualified is is the marketing team that we have built.

Maura [0:29:04]: And everybody knock on what has been around for a really long time, because I'm...

Maura [0:29:08]: I hope they feel the same way.

Maura [0:29:10]: It's chaotic and they work their butts off.

Maura [0:29:12]: But, like, there's a cam.

Dave [0:29:14]: How many how many people are on the team right now?

Maura [0:29:16]: Our teams like twenty five people.

Dave [0:29:18]: Twenty five and you...

Dave [0:29:19]: Give a bunch of them who've been there for more than four years.

Maura [0:29:24]: Oh, yeah.

Maura [0:29:24]: A bunch.

Maura [0:29:25]: How much of the team?

Maura [0:29:26]: I mean, we've probably hired.

Maura [0:29:29]: I bet, like, twelve to fifteen I've been here for over four years.

Maura [0:29:33]: Wow.

Maura [0:29:34]: Don't quote me on that.

Dave [0:29:35]: No.

Dave [0:29:35]: Not.

Dave [0:29:36]: But just just I'm just trying gonna say, like, as a percent...

Dave [0:29:38]: That that feels like a lot of companies that's constant constant turnover constant change, like, it must have given you the ability to, like, operate more long term because you have some history because you can make longer bets, the people that are there to see these things through.

Maura [0:29:55]: Yeah.

Maura [0:29:55]: We have our playbook.

Maura [0:29:56]: We know how to do it.

Maura [0:29:57]: There's a lot of trust.

Maura [0:29:58]: I mean, it's always hard we're a remote team, so that's like, that's the thing I crave the most is just more in person together time with us because that always really fills our cup.

Maura [0:30:08]: But, yeah, knock on wood.

Maura [0:30:10]: Every.

Maura [0:30:10]: And I think there's a lot of pride.

Maura [0:30:11]: Like, a lot of folks we're here when we were smaller.

Maura [0:30:14]: We're about, like, three hundred employees now.

Maura [0:30:16]: And we feel like we're on the map and we're a real company and, like, we're we're thriving, which is great.

Maura [0:30:21]: And people are like, you know, it's all led to this is kind of the feeling that they have.

Maura [0:30:25]: Like, all all those late nights, all those, like, early day launches we are doing?

Maura [0:30:29]: And it's kind of led to this moment.

Maura [0:30:30]: So I think there's a lot of pride from the team, But that trust I think is great.

Maura [0:30:35]: And now we're folding...

Maura [0:30:36]: We're hiring right now.

Maura [0:30:37]: We're bringing new people into the team, and it's like, okay, How do we bring new people who can help us do more and are gonna just, like, be great additions to the team and kind of help us maintain that great comrade we have, because that's what makes it all work.

Maura [0:30:50]: Right?

Maura [0:30:50]: And that's what makes it...

Maura [0:30:51]: You wanna work hard is when you like the people that you're working with.

Dave [0:30:55]: Yeah.

Dave [0:30:55]: Take me into the...

Dave [0:30:56]: As much as you can, like, Yeah.

Dave [0:30:58]: Obviously, six years is a lot, But I I wanna take me into, like, how Qualified does marketing?

Dave [0:31:04]: Like...

Dave [0:31:04]: Yeah.

Dave [0:31:05]: What are some of your rhythms and routines?

Dave [0:31:08]: Like, do you operate, you know, do you do these month, monthly launches, quarterly product launches campaigns, like...

Dave [0:31:13]: Yeah.

Dave [0:31:14]: People love hearing the actual, like, here's how this company played doing well does marketing.

Maura [0:31:19]: So product marketing is a huge focus for us.

Maura [0:31:21]: We do launches probably.

Maura [0:31:23]: Probably do one big launch a quarter, but we try and do a launch every single month.

Maura [0:31:29]: When we do our big launch, our playbook usually revolve around an event, so we can try and build momentum build excitement before it.

Maura [0:31:36]: Do this virtual event.

Maura [0:31:38]: We host them on Gold cast.

Maura [0:31:39]: There what you talked about earlier.

Maura [0:31:41]: It's a keynote.

Maura [0:31:42]: It's a product demo.

Maura [0:31:43]: It's a customer conversation.

Maura [0:31:45]: We try and make a make it feel big.

Maura [0:31:47]: And then as soon as that quarterly big launch drops.

Maura [0:31:50]: It's, like, how can we just promote the heck out of it obviously.

Maura [0:31:53]: So Yeah.

Maura [0:31:54]: That product marketing playbook.

Maura [0:31:55]: And to me, it's important that everything's ladder up to our corporate narrative.

Maura [0:31:58]: We're talking a lot about agent marketing, How is pipe gen changing with an agent at the center of it all.

Maura [0:32:03]: We have our agent piper.

Maura [0:32:05]: So those big quarterly launches, but then every month, we're like, okay, how do we keep that drum beat going.

Maura [0:32:10]: So tomorrow, we're launching, like, agent nurture and this idea that an agent can work the top of funnel and that's more of an on demand launch.

Maura [0:32:18]: So we'll drop a keynote, a demo, a customer story.

Maura [0:32:21]: We'll do all the things, but it's not a big virtual event.

Maura [0:32:24]: So I would say launches are a great way just to showcase innovation, both for new prospects in pipeline, prospects, but also for our customers to feel like these guys are always innovating.

Dave [0:32:36]: Let's pause on this for a second.

Maura [0:32:37]: Oh, yes.

Dave [0:32:38]: This is my favorite thing.

Maura [0:32:39]: Mh.

Dave [0:32:40]: And I don't talk...

Dave [0:32:40]: I don't think about this enough now, be I think because of my job today, but I think that there great companies.

Dave [0:32:46]: There's a strong alignment between the pro product road roadmap and marketing.

Dave [0:32:51]: Mh.

Dave [0:32:51]: And there's a great article, David Sachs wrote back in the day on this about, like, I don't know what it's called, like, the cadence.

Dave [0:32:57]: There's, like, a cadence or something.

Dave [0:32:59]: There's a operating cadence in, like, We did this at Drift not because of that article, but it was like.

Dave [0:33:03]: At the time we wanted to move fast and suck all the oxygen out of the market.

Dave [0:33:07]: And so we we did a product launch every single month.

Maura [0:33:10]: Mh.

Dave [0:33:10]: And why that was amazing is because of everything you just said?

Dave [0:33:13]: It's like, You have to have product and marketing working together to drive the, like, company narrative And so at the time, it was, like, we're trying to, like, create and own this con...

Dave [0:33:22]: This category of conversational marketing.

Dave [0:33:24]: Well, that can't just be the marketing team like, doing a bunch of webinars.

Dave [0:33:27]: We need, like, the drum bead of product stuff, and then it's an amazing way to rally the whole company.

Maura [0:33:34]: Yes.

Dave [0:33:35]: Around this.

Dave [0:33:35]: And then, like, so much of marketing is not about the always on on demand stuff, like ads and Seo.

Dave [0:33:40]: It's about, like, coming creating these reasons to go and tell your story.

Dave [0:33:44]: Yeah.

Dave [0:33:45]: And it's amazing for, like, giving sales reps.

Dave [0:33:47]: Sales reps are gonna do their thing anyway.

Dave [0:33:48]: Right?

Maura [0:33:49]: Yeah.

Dave [0:33:49]: But if you give them, like, a why now thing like, hey.

Dave [0:33:51]: Here's who...

Dave [0:33:52]: We're Qualified, We do x Z, but also we have this new thing, and here's why this is super relevant to you.

Dave [0:33:56]: Plus you can go market to existing customers, like, I just love that as the, like, central, like, the heartbeat of a of a high performing team.

Dave [0:34:05]: Right?

Maura [0:34:06]: Yes.

Maura [0:34:06]: I was gonna say it's the heartbeat, like, and so we have...

Maura [0:34:08]: And, like, the whole marketing teams work you know.

Maura [0:34:10]: Creative working on it.

Maura [0:34:11]: Like, we're working on demand gen working on everybody kinda works towards these launches, and then we'll go on the road at events, and we're bringing that new product in our sessions and at our booths, whatever it may be.

Maura [0:34:21]: But that product marketing cadence is the heartbeat.

Maura [0:34:23]: Into your point, Dave, It's a forcing function for us to keep evolving our narrative.

Maura [0:34:28]: So like, I sit in a room with Craig and with our product marketing team, and we develop these many keynote and it's a chance for us to say, like, here's our vision, Here's how it's evolving.

Maura [0:34:39]: Here's what's new and, like, we're so excited to bring you this value customer.

Maura [0:34:43]: So it's internally, it helps us move forward.

Maura [0:34:46]: Like, we're not a company who sets our corporate narrative at the beginning of the fiscal year and lets it sit in a Google doc, like, It is a living breathing thing for us.

Maura [0:34:56]: We're always adjusting and evolving and these launches help us crystallize it, get it into the market, and then we're working really closely with our product team or a product company.

Maura [0:35:05]: So, like, if our product sucks nothing else matters.

Maura [0:35:08]: So it's, like, how can we bring that innovation to everybody.

Maura [0:35:10]: And one thing that's cool is early days we would, like, go out...

Maura [0:35:15]: We would outsource to video production whatever, but we've built in in house studio.

Maura [0:35:19]: So our our office in San Francisco, We have Qualified studios, We'll go shoot our keynote and our demos there, and we can...

Maura [0:35:26]: We probably do, like, three or four shoots a week, Like, we were in there yesterday with the team from Faster actually because they're are customer of ours, and they're they're shooting some stuff.

Maura [0:35:35]: So, like, doing all of our creative in house has allowed us to move really fast.

Maura [0:35:38]: It's allowed us to do those monthly launches, quarterly launches, whatever it may be.

Dave [0:35:43]: Okay.

Dave [0:35:43]: So that's that's a great perfect answer.

Dave [0:35:45]: That...

Dave [0:35:45]: That's a good that's a good pillar of that.

Dave [0:35:47]: Do you have any you haven't had the lyft.

Dave [0:35:50]: So maybe not.

Dave [0:35:51]: Any any advice for someone who's like, yeah, well, that's just not how my company works?

Dave [0:35:54]: Like, how can you lead that change as a as a marketer and try to get these two things working together.

Maura [0:36:02]: For marketing and product?

Maura [0:36:03]: I mean, I think it's, like, you have to build that relationship with your head of product.

Maura [0:36:08]: That's...

Maura [0:36:08]: It has to come from the top, unfortunately, like...

Maura [0:36:12]: And so I think building...

Maura [0:36:14]: And bing as our one of our c cofounder and chief product.

Maura [0:36:18]: He's our chief officer.

Maura [0:36:19]: So we're lucky because he and I've also worked together for a really long time.

Maura [0:36:22]: But there's always the healthy tension right of, like, marketers, marketing pushing us to launch something in the product, how do we keep getting it as perfect as possible.

Maura [0:36:30]: And so I think bringing the product lead leader into those conversations and mapping out like, hey, here's my recommendation for what our launches look like over the next six months?

Maura [0:36:42]: What's your feedback?

Maura [0:36:44]: Do you think this is too soon?

Maura [0:36:45]: Are you comfortable with this?

Maura [0:36:47]: And, like, bringing them into that marketing machine, like, thing will come and we'll do jam sessions on our keynote or whole whole listening in or Invite him to meetings where we're talking about the press release for launch and I'll say, like, you don't have to come.

Maura [0:37:00]: I'll put you as optional, but I just want you to be in the loop.

Maura [0:37:03]: Want you to know what we're doing.

Maura [0:37:04]: I don't want there to be any surprises from marketing.

Maura [0:37:06]: And so that's, I think helped a lot because is just building that, like, that friendship and relationship.

Maura [0:37:12]: And just like, Cmos, I know U from Gong is always, like, know how your Cro takes your coffee.

Maura [0:37:17]: I think you should also, like, know how your Cp takes their coffee too, so you can do these fantastic launches as a team and as a unit.

Maura [0:37:24]: And then kind of the teams...

Maura [0:37:26]: Your teams underneath you will follow.

Maura [0:37:27]: Then your product marketing team and your product operations team will start to create that rhythm in that cadence.

Dave [0:37:34]: Yeah.

Dave [0:37:34]: I like the coffee thing.

Dave [0:37:35]: I think ultimately, I feel the same way about the coffee as I do as the team?

Dave [0:37:40]: Like I think a lot of times, though, there's, like, surface level kind of be, like, it's great to be friends with your with your product Mh.

Dave [0:37:46]: Leader, but like, are you actually working together?

Dave [0:37:48]: Yeah.

Dave [0:37:48]: And the best I've ever had this was when we were at Adrift Craig he's guy Craig Daniel, who's head of product at the time.

Dave [0:37:55]: Mh.

Dave [0:37:55]: I would just see him storming down the...

Dave [0:37:58]: Storming down the, like, the hallway to, like, my dad.

Dave [0:38:01]: And I'm like, oh.

Dave [0:38:01]: You're like, Out don't.

Dave [0:38:02]: No.

Dave [0:38:03]: I was pumped because I'm like, they just had an idea and, like, they were.

Dave [0:38:06]: They would be, like, he be...

Dave [0:38:07]: Did you come here.

Dave [0:38:08]: You got a sec.

Dave [0:38:08]: You got a second, like, Yeah.

Dave [0:38:09]: They would bring me in the room with, like, you know, five designers and two engineers and they...

Dave [0:38:14]: You think about this.

Dave [0:38:15]: And it's like, yes.

Dave [0:38:16]: Knowing what I know now Like, that was the secret sauce.

Maura [0:38:20]: Yes.

Dave [0:38:20]: Whereas, like, I worked at...

Dave [0:38:21]: And I worked at other companies whereas, like, nope.

Dave [0:38:23]: We're not showing...

Dave [0:38:24]: We're not showing marketing yet.

Dave [0:38:25]: Yeah you can't show you yet.

Dave [0:38:26]: Can't show you.

Dave [0:38:26]: We'll tell you about it when we're ready.

Dave [0:38:27]: Nope Nick, you know, next quarter.

Dave [0:38:28]: Next quarter is like, we worked on that stuff together, and like, the product team had amazing marketing ideas and we had amazing insight into the road roadmap, and it was truly a collaborative thing, and I...

Dave [0:38:38]: Yeah.

Dave [0:38:38]: You know, that was the secret sauce.

Maura [0:38:40]: A totally and, I mean, we're so lucky that, like, we sell to marketers, were...

Maura [0:38:45]: We talk about Qualified and Qualified.

Maura [0:38:47]: Like, all of our inbound pipeline goes through our product through Piper agent.

Maura [0:38:50]: And we...

Maura [0:38:51]: Like, we were leading up to our latest launch, which was Piper x.

Maura [0:38:54]: It was the latest release of Piper.

Maura [0:38:56]: We had daily stand ups for probably six weeks with me with, like, our head of marketing ops who oversees our Qualified implementation with our head of design with our engineers, and we were shaping the product and giving feedback every morning, beginning of day and every day end of day for six weeks.

Maura [0:39:14]: And so one it was time for launch.

Maura [0:39:16]: We were all, like, so pumped because we felt like, we were able to influence the product, they were baking in our feedback, and then I it was...

Maura [0:39:24]: It just felt like this team effort, which is very rare.

Maura [0:39:26]: So building that cadence.

Maura [0:39:27]: You have to do it early though.

Maura [0:39:29]: I think sometimes, if you don't do it when you're new in a marketing role and then, like, Yeah.

Maura [0:39:33]: Eighteen months later, you're like, I get close to my product team is too late.

Maura [0:39:36]: You have to do it early.

Dave [0:39:39]: Okay.

Dave [0:39:39]: That's that's a big one.

Dave [0:39:40]: I want people to, like, it's it's so much of the success I found, like, in talking to so many marketing leaders over the years.

Dave [0:39:45]: It's it's very rarely, like, oh, Qualified is, you know, they have some, like, Seo hack that they figured out.

Dave [0:39:51]: You know?

Dave [0:39:52]: It's like, it's almost always the bigger strategic thing.

Dave [0:39:55]: So that's a good one product launches.

Dave [0:39:56]: What would you well give me, like, numbers two and three on that list.

Maura [0:40:00]: Yeah.

Maura [0:40:00]: I would say, like, owning the bigger narrative, I I mentioned just, like, agent marketing is really what we're pumped about right.

Maura [0:40:07]: Now.

Maura [0:40:07]: And how our agents coming into their marketing team and helping you generate pipeline.

Maura [0:40:10]: For us, that thought leadership, content and playbook is huge.

Maura [0:40:14]: Events also play a big part of it.

Maura [0:40:16]: Like, we're having our marketing summit in a few weeks.

Maura [0:40:18]: We wrote a book on marketing.

Maura [0:40:20]: I mean, you you know this playbook better than any.

Maura [0:40:22]: So I feel like, I I don't have to tell you, but for our listeners like, how can you own not just the product positioning, but try and take ownership of the category and be thought leaders there.

Maura [0:40:33]: That's a huge part.

Maura [0:40:35]: And then I would say, like, a big area of focus for us, and this is kind of it's because of our own product also, but it's just like our website.

Maura [0:40:43]: And how do we make sure our website is beautiful and it's simple and it communicates a message, and then it's optimized for conversion.

Maura [0:40:51]: And I'm adding a fourth, which is we're big on events, and events feel like they're back.

Maura [0:40:55]: Like, in person events are back.

Maura [0:40:57]: I mean, we're just on the heels of events fall madness where we all use, like, a lot of hand sanitizer and shook a million hands.

Maura [0:41:05]: But, like, it does...

Maura [0:41:06]: That's a big of how we get Yeah.

Maura [0:41:09]: Face in the place with marketers who we sell to, owned events on events.

Dave [0:41:13]: My hands.

Dave [0:41:13]: We do our own...

Dave [0:41:14]: We...

Dave [0:41:14]: At our events.

Dave [0:41:15]: Like, I feel like, like, I'm I'm the host.

Dave [0:41:18]: I'm the founder, people come to our events know me.

Dave [0:41:20]: I feel like I'm the bride.

Dave [0:41:22]: And I'll be, like...

Dave [0:41:23]: Yeah.

Dave [0:41:23]: I'd be, like, stealing a second to myself, and I'm like, having a sandwich in a corner and it's like, some guy.

Dave [0:41:27]: It's always a guy.

Dave [0:41:28]: Never a woman.

Dave [0:41:29]: Guy comes up to me and he's, like, Dave Gerhardt.

Dave [0:41:31]: Nice to meet you.

Dave [0:41:32]: I'm, dude.

Dave [0:41:32]: I have to touch your hand right now, Like I'm eating.

Dave [0:41:34]: Like...

Dave [0:41:35]: All To sandwich.

Dave [0:41:36]: My hands to my mouth.

Dave [0:41:37]: I don't...

Dave [0:41:38]: You know, I already had...

Dave [0:41:39]: I already had virus last week from the animals that live in my house.

Dave [0:41:43]: Like I don't...

Dave [0:41:43]: Oh.

Dave [0:41:43]: Yeah.

Maura [0:41:44]: Yeah.

Maura [0:41:44]: Okay.

Maura [0:41:45]: Tell me about the event that you do.

Maura [0:41:46]: I've heard how many how many people came to it this year.

Dave [0:41:49]: So

Maura [0:41:50]: it's pretty impressive that you can get such a huge group like, hundreds of people.

Maura [0:41:54]: Right?

Maura [0:41:55]: Up to where you are?

Dave [0:41:56]: Well, have you...

Dave [0:41:57]: I mean, I have a hundred and ninety thousand followers on Linkedin.

Dave [0:41:59]: I'm a thought leader.

Dave [0:42:00]: This is like, you know, the what we just say the events the...

Dave [0:42:04]: We have tickets available and these people show up that it's easy.

Maura [0:42:07]: No or be event app myself.

Maura [0:42:09]: I'm sure.

Dave [0:42:10]: So we had two hundred fifty people in Vermont, and we did it in Vermont, initially because I was being lazy, and we...

Dave [0:42:16]: The business is built built on this, like, amazing online community we have and after years of doing it.

Dave [0:42:21]: App members were, like, when we should do it in person event and I was like, no.

Dave [0:42:24]: I hate events super stressful.

Dave [0:42:25]: I don't wanna it.

Dave [0:42:26]: I don't wanna do it.

Dave [0:42:26]: Mh.

Dave [0:42:27]: But then when I hired a real team and now we have a real company and seven people was like, yeah, We should do events.

Dave [0:42:31]: We decided to do a home game in Vermont because it was like, a fine.

Dave [0:42:34]: We can do an event, but I'm not traveling for it.

Dave [0:42:36]: And it turned out that actually be...

Dave [0:42:39]: That actually ended up being an amazing play and that was not why we did it because there's like, people wanna go to these, like, off market.

Dave [0:42:44]: You know, we all grew up at, like, you know, you and me, we've spent how many of our hours of our life in, like, you know, the Hilton in downtown San Francisco, like, in a Marriott.

Dave [0:42:55]: And Yeah.

Dave [0:42:56]: I think to your point about people wanting to go to events and wanna travel.

Dave [0:42:59]: I think they wanna go do different stuff in different places and then Mh.

Dave [0:43:03]: That they're, you know, connecting the Exit Five brand, which is about Vermont.

Dave [0:43:07]: To Vermont and having the event there ended up being, like, an amazing unintentional marketing play.

Dave [0:43:12]: Mh But the event was amazing and it was amazing because we have this baseline of, like, probably fifty percent of people who are there, already felt like they know each other because of online.

Maura [0:43:21]: Yeah.

Dave [0:43:21]: And so I are...

Dave [0:43:22]: We got a eighty eight N ups in the first year, and then a seventy seven in the second year, and it was, like, I didn't expect it to be, you know, to beat that.

Dave [0:43:30]: But I don't think we have some secret events playbook.

Dave [0:43:32]: I just think it's because the people that are...

Dave [0:43:34]: It's the people that are there and they wanna hang out.

Dave [0:43:36]: Unity.

Dave [0:43:36]: And they wanna be around each other.

Dave [0:43:38]: So we're doing it next year.

Dave [0:43:40]: We're keeping an in Vermont we're getting a bigger...

Dave [0:43:42]: We have a bigger venue, so we'll have four hundred people in Stove Vermont in September.

Maura [0:43:46]: Nice.

Dave [0:43:47]: And then we're also doing an event in March in Arizona that is Focus on a hundred B marketing leaders leader, so you have to be a Vp or Cmo to go to that one.

Maura [0:43:56]: Okay.

Maura [0:43:56]: Very cool.

Dave [0:43:57]: We'll get you there, and and we're doing that.

Dave [0:43:58]: But, you know what?

Dave [0:43:59]: We've had a ton of success with smaller events also like, we...

Dave [0:44:04]: Through our community, we have ten people last weekend in Phoenix went and played Pickle ball.

Maura [0:44:10]: Love it.

Dave [0:44:10]: And, like, that's amazing.

Dave [0:44:11]: Right?

Dave [0:44:12]: There was a barb...

Dave [0:44:12]: People did barbecue.

Dave [0:44:13]: There's a have you seen these break rooms?

Dave [0:44:15]: No.

Dave [0:44:16]: It's kinda like you just...

Dave [0:44:19]: Like, you get ten people in a room and you just, like, smash things.

Maura [0:44:22]: Oh, yes.

Maura [0:44:22]: Yes.

Maura [0:44:23]: I didn't know It's called a break.

Dave [0:44:25]: Yeah.

Dave [0:44:25]: So, like, people are doing that, and I think people just wanna hang out and and connect in person and we felt that way that events are back.

Dave [0:44:31]: And I think So it's interesting because I think, like, both things are true right now, which is, like, I fully believe in where you all are going, like, I do believe in agent marketing and and all that stuff and Ai and that being the future.

Dave [0:44:43]: But there's another end of the Spectrum where I I also will think that, like, the people and humans are gonna matter more than ever, and I think we're all craving for, like, we all spend so much of our time on Zoom calls on video.

Dave [0:44:54]: I spend so much of my time walking around my house talking to, you know, my little...

Dave [0:44:58]: British Ai accented chat Gp.

Dave [0:45:01]: Like, but there's a difference between, like, if I actually see you in person and I look you in the eye and you get a sense for my sense of humor and we have that banter and Nuance.

Dave [0:45:09]: And so I think that's challenge for, like, marketers just to solve both, like, How do you do marketing using Ai to, like, help your business grow, but, like, I think from a brand building standpoint, connecting in person is just gonna be more important than ever.

Dave [0:45:22]: And so we're feeling that and it's kinda changed the trajectory of our business.

Maura [0:45:27]: Yeah.

Maura [0:45:27]: I think especially so many marketers going back to, like, the...

Maura [0:45:30]: That marketers are shifting jobs so so much.

Maura [0:45:33]: Like that networking so key because you can have...

Maura [0:45:35]: It's where you'll end up, like, the fact that you worked for David because you did a podcast interview with him, and that to kind of set the trajectory of your of your career.

Maura [0:45:43]: Like, it's it's good just to keep that network alive and well, and people are craving that that fun right now.

Maura [0:45:49]: I I spent a lot of time with Matt Heinz who's has done a great job c creating community and putting on breakfast and that type of stuff and people show up.

Maura [0:45:56]: People show up when it's training.

Maura [0:45:58]: People show up when it's cold because they kind...

Maura [0:45:59]: They just want to be together.

Dave [0:46:01]: Yeah yeah.

Dave [0:46:02]: Exactly because there's no there's no room for Nuance online.

Dave [0:46:05]: Mh.

Dave [0:46:05]: Mh.

Dave [0:46:06]: But in person there is, and I think there's a huge value in hanging out with people who who do the job.

Dave [0:46:11]: Tell me about what what's working for you all on the, like, Ai side of things?

Dave [0:46:17]: I'm sure you're using your product to run a lot of your marketing, But like, what are the specific plays that you're empowering Ai to to build pipeline for you.

Maura [0:46:26]: Yeah.

Maura [0:46:26]: Yeah.

Maura [0:46:26]: So we're using our inbound agent, our Ais agent piper for all inbound.

Maura [0:46:31]: She works a bunch of channels.

Maura [0:46:32]: She works our website.

Maura [0:46:33]: So, you know, we used to have this world where humans would have conversations with folks on the website.

Maura [0:46:38]: Piper does all of that for us.

Maura [0:46:41]: And we kinda crawl walked run towards that.

Maura [0:46:43]: So I used to have a team of, like, ten inbound Sdr str.

Maura [0:46:45]: Now I have zero.

Maura [0:46:47]: I just have Piper, the agent who does all our inbound.

Maura [0:46:50]: And what's been a big unlock for us from a pipe gen perspective is not just engaging with folks on the website, but also following up with all of our leads.

Maura [0:46:58]: So the fact that she can pre and post event, email folks, get them to book meetings at events, do event follow up She can go through old leads that, like, at one point we're interested or old opportunities that one point we're interested, but we might not have won and try and work those folks.

Maura [0:47:15]: So her kind of working across email and website has been key for us.

Maura [0:47:18]: From an outbound perspective, we're using a platform called relevance, we've built an outbound agent that serves as both a c copilot for our outbound Sdr str because we kinda red all of our inbound Sdr str to outbound when we brought hyper on.

Maura [0:47:33]: We're using relevance for that, and it's been helpful to kind of just do a lot of the research on the buying groups and help tee up emails, but then a lot of times we'll go through the human hit send.

Maura [0:47:45]: That's more of a build story of a building an agent first kind of an out of the box agent, which is what we have.

Maura [0:47:52]: And it's been cool too because when you talk about the importance of people, we've created these new roles on our team.

Maura [0:47:58]: Like, I now have an I know some people are calling them go to market engineers.

Maura [0:48:02]: I have a guy on my team who does, like, Ai marketing operations.

Maura [0:48:05]: His job is to manage Piper and make sure she's coached and she's onboard, and we're giving her feedback and he's sending her after the right leads.

Maura [0:48:12]: And then we have another guy who, used to be a Bd and outbound Sdr, and he's may...

Maura [0:48:18]: He's, like, standing up this whole relevance platform and all the agents that we're building on top of relevance.

Maura [0:48:23]: So that's been cool too and that, like, Our pipelines going up.

Maura [0:48:28]: We're more efficient with how we're creating it, but it's also created these new roles for Ryan and Rich, they used to be some of our best Sdr and now they're like, getting super in the weeds with agents and like, they're developing this new career trajectory.

Maura [0:48:41]: Yeah.

Maura [0:48:42]: The advent of them.

Maura [0:48:43]: So that's been cool too.

Maura [0:48:44]: And then, I mean we have a ton of ton of little things we're using from a...

Maura [0:48:48]: You know, we're we're using Cla for Ai forecasting.

Maura [0:48:51]: We're using, like, all of Gong, bells and whistles for kind of, like, you know, to get a a pulse on what's going on from a deal perspective, but piper and relevance have been our inbound and outbound tools that have helped from a pipe gen perspective.

Dave [0:49:05]: Outbound is one of those things that, like, everybody tells me it's not working right now, but then it it's working really well for some people, and I Always wanna, like, un unpack that.

Dave [0:49:13]: What have you learned, what are the secrets?

Dave [0:49:16]: Because on one end of the coin, you have, like, ways easier to just, like, do outbound and send people a bunch of irrelevant junk.

Dave [0:49:24]: Yeah.

Dave [0:49:24]: So, like, the bar of, like, what's actually good outreach is is higher, but you can do it through.

Dave [0:49:30]: I'm just...

Dave [0:49:31]: Tell me, outbound is working for you all.

Dave [0:49:33]: So yeah.

Dave [0:49:34]: I'm curious to hear like, how would you handle that objection?

Dave [0:49:37]: And what what must they be doing That's not that that's contributing to not working what could they be doing?

Maura [0:49:43]: Yeah.

Maura [0:49:43]: I mean, for us, like, outbound has always worked pretty well for us.

Maura [0:49:47]: Since day one, it's...

Maura [0:49:49]: I mean, this is sounds like such a lame answer, but it's hyper personalization.

Maura [0:49:53]: It's going deep on the research.

Maura [0:49:55]: Making sure Dave, we know that you're in Vermont that you were in Boston that you...

Maura [0:49:59]: Where you went to college, there's a hook, maybe or your college has, like, had a game that happened that night and we we used to do these things called friendly Wage where we would say if Where did you go to school, by the way.

Dave [0:50:10]: You did

Maura [0:50:10]: you go to...

Maura [0:50:11]: Were you in Boston?

Dave [0:50:12]: Oh, I went to Harvard.

Dave [0:50:13]: Have you heard of it?

Dave [0:50:14]: In go to Harvard.

Dave [0:50:15]: I didn't go to Harvard.

Dave [0:50:16]: I didn't.

Dave [0:50:17]: I he's always...

Dave [0:50:18]: June?

Dave [0:50:19]: I went to Wagner, w a Wagner College in Staten island York.

Maura [0:50:23]: Okay.

Maura [0:50:23]: Yeah.

Maura [0:50:23]: So, you know, maybe there's something about Wagner College whatever it be maybe.

Maura [0:50:26]: That was really funny though I totally believed you.

Maura [0:50:28]: And so, like, when we just had humans doing outbound, they would go deep on personalization, they would do these friendly wage.

Maura [0:50:34]: They would reference all of it.

Maura [0:50:36]: That would go far.

Maura [0:50:37]: Now that we have an agent assisting us outbound.

Maura [0:50:40]: So we basically have an agent who can take, like a patch that our Bd don't own and try and get something from it.

Maura [0:50:46]: What's critical is this guy rich?

Maura [0:50:48]: Because he's in there every day making sure that the agent emails are better than the ones that he would send.

Maura [0:50:55]: They're not a bunch of crap that's gonna land in your inbox.

Maura [0:50:59]: They're really personalized.

Maura [0:51:00]: And so we have a really high bar.

Maura [0:51:02]: So I think it's, like, how can we emulate what the humans were doing because that was always working for us.

Maura [0:51:07]: Rich riches he's like, the hardest working guy.

Maura [0:51:09]: I know.

Maura [0:51:10]: He's the first one in the office, the last one to leave because he's trying to figure...

Maura [0:51:13]: He's trying to crack the outbound agent code.

Maura [0:51:15]: It's much harder to do than inbound.

Maura [0:51:17]: Inbound is like, it's like, they're hand raise.

Maura [0:51:19]: They know your brand.

Maura [0:51:21]: They wanna get to know you have an agent pull the friction out of that buy an experience, like that's a no brainer.

Maura [0:51:25]: Outbound is harder, and I think there are a lot of people who've bought outbound agents and they think it's set it and forget it and their pipeline will grow, and that's simply not true.

Maura [0:51:34]: You need to have somebody who's managing it, somebody who's setting a high bar.

Maura [0:51:38]: And then you have to kind of, like, we have a we have a test going on right now with our leader board of, like, can the agent generate more pipeline than our humans would.

Maura [0:51:46]: So we're kinda trying to create some...

Maura [0:51:48]: I would say, like, healthy competition to make sure that we have a high bar for what they're doing.

Maura [0:51:52]: So I don't think anybody's totally cracked using an agent for outbound.

Dave [0:51:57]: Well, it's it's like anything.

Dave [0:51:57]: There isn't there isn't gonna be some magic recipe.

Dave [0:52:00]: And even if there was, You would share it on this.

Dave [0:52:02]: Everybody would copy it and then would just stop working.

Dave [0:52:04]: So it's...

Dave [0:52:05]: Yeah.

Dave [0:52:05]: Seems to be more about, like constant tinkering and innovating?

Maura [0:52:08]: Yes.

Maura [0:52:08]: Yes.

Dave [0:52:10]: Okay.

Dave [0:52:10]: What has you excited about, like, I guess we...

Dave [0:52:14]: Let's take an optimistic view about where...

Dave [0:52:16]: Marketing is going.

Dave [0:52:17]: You know, there's a lot of, like, Ai is gonna replace all of our jobs?

Dave [0:52:20]: Dah what has you excited about the future and the role of of being a marketer.

Dave [0:52:26]: Like, how do we how do we find our...

Dave [0:52:28]: Where our place in a world of Ai.

Maura [0:52:31]: Yeah.

Maura [0:52:31]: I...

Maura [0:52:32]: This sounds cheesy.

Maura [0:52:33]: I've never been more pumped to be in a marketing role.

Maura [0:52:37]: I feel...

Maura [0:52:38]: The reason I'm excited is I feel like marketing is back in the driver's seat.

Maura [0:52:42]: With how we're moving the business forward because we have all of these agent solutions at our fingertips that we can help control.

Maura [0:52:51]: I think for so long, marketers we're seen from other parts the organization as, like, Those are the guys who spend money.

Maura [0:52:58]: Those are the guys who wanna run billboards, but then we didn't feel like we had control of our funnel, and a lot of times Sdr str who are, like, responsible for converting pipeline report up into sales or Cro.

Maura [0:53:09]: So this idea as Cmos who now have more control of our funnel because we can have agents who are who were deploying throughout it is incredibly exciting.

Maura [0:53:18]: I think it's an exciting time to lead because we can encourage our teams.

Maura [0:53:22]: Like, try new solutions, break the playbook, See what new tech is out there and get your team excited, so they're not feeling like they're doing the same old playbook.

Maura [0:53:31]: And then if you can bring those ideas and be the mover and shaker in your organization and inspire other parts of the company, look how our teams embracing agents.

Maura [0:53:40]: Look how my team structures is evolving and look at this new tech or just trying and, look at our pipeline numbers that are going up because I have twenty four seven coverage.

Maura [0:53:48]: Like, that's...

Maura [0:53:49]: I feel like marketing has the opportunity to look like heroes in their organization right now and kind of lead this movement.

Maura [0:53:54]: And we love being at the forefront of stuff.

Maura [0:53:56]: Like, I think it said fifty four percent, maybe higher of marketers have embraced agents and are are, like, using agents in production.

Maura [0:54:03]: A lot of other teams are not are not that far ahead.

Maura [0:54:06]: So it's like, how can we carve this path and really be seen as folks who can help us hit our numbers and do it more efficiently and and paint the vision.

Maura [0:54:14]: We'll...

Maura [0:54:15]: I think we'll be in a more strategic role than we were three years ago

Dave [0:54:18]: Nice.

Dave [0:54:18]: I like that.

Dave [0:54:19]: I I agree with you.

Dave [0:54:20]: I'm I'm excited it's it's...

Dave [0:54:21]: I don't know if it's because my business is growing.

Dave [0:54:23]: We're having fun, but I think there's a lot of interest in marketing right now.

Dave [0:54:26]: And it's it's really really fun when it kinda felt stale.

Dave [0:54:29]: Yeah a couple years ago.

Dave [0:54:30]: Okay.

Dave [0:54:31]: Maura, thank you so much for hanging out with me.

Dave [0:54:33]: You gotta go.

Dave [0:54:35]: I gotta go.

Dave [0:54:35]: We gotta wrap up.

Dave [0:54:36]: This was an awesome conversation.

Dave [0:54:38]: I would love to...

Dave [0:54:38]: I would love to do it again.

Dave [0:54:39]: In my goal, I wanna do my goal in twenty twenty six is to do more in person, like, interviews and stuff, and I...

Dave [0:54:45]: Yeah.

Dave [0:54:45]: I would shortlist you on the candidates because the vibes...

Dave [0:54:48]: The vibes would be high.

Dave [0:54:49]: I'll come for a I'll come for a trail, a trail on with you and or something like...

Maura [0:54:53]: Come for a trail run into East Bay.

Maura [0:54:54]: Okay.

Maura [0:54:55]: I'll I'll work on my running before you get here.

Maura [0:54:57]: Because I'm lot.

Dave [0:54:58]: Well, Just do two my Two miles is perfect.

Dave [0:55:01]: By the way, if you listen to this and you which I'm sure you did in you're like, Mars sounds great.

Dave [0:55:06]: She sounds confident humble, good leader been there for six years Qualified sounds like a cool company.

Dave [0:55:10]: The best thing that happens to me is when someone tells me, like, all the messages they got after for this podcast.

Dave [0:55:15]: So go find Maura on Linkedin sent her a dm, try to work for her, try to do, you know, don't don't pitch on anything just...

Dave [0:55:21]: Like, if you're a marketer list listen, you wanna go work for a great Cmo, Go send Mo, a note.

Dave [0:55:25]: There's a reason six years at the same company, More than half of the team has also been there for for for four to six years like, I would take that as a as a strong signal that this is a a company that you you might wanna be a part of.

Dave [0:55:35]: So thanks for doing it Maura.

Dave [0:55:37]: I will see you hopefully, in real life soon.

Dave [0:55:39]: Thanks for hanging out with me on my podcast.

Maura [0:55:41]: Well, thank you for having me Dave.

Maura [0:55:42]: It's super fun.

Dave [0:55:47]: Hey.

Dave [0:55:47]: Thanks for listening to this podcast.

Dave [0:55:49]: If you like this episode.

Dave [0:55:50]: You know what?

Dave [0:55:51]: I'm not even gonna ask you to subscribe and leave a review because I don't really care about that.

Dave [0:55:55]: I have something better for you.

Dave [0:55:56]: So We've built the number one private community for B marketers at Exit Five, and you can go and check that out instead of leaving a rating a review, go check it out right now on our website Exit Five dot com.

Dave [0:56:08]: Our mission at Exit Five is to help you grow your career in B2B marketing.

Dave [0:56:11]: And there's no better place to do that than with us at Exit Five.

Dave [0:56:15]: There's nearly five thousand members now in our community, people are in there posting every day asking questions about things like marketing planning, ideas, inspiration asking quest to and getting feedback from your peers, building your own network of marketers who are doing the same thing you are so 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.

Dave [0:56:36]: It's a hundred percent 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 wanna become a member for the year.

Dave [0:56:45]: Go check it out, learn more Exit Five dot com, and I will see you over there in the community.

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