[00:00:00] Darrell: at some point you mentioned that you don't really love being a marketing leader [00:00:04] Kevin: I like to be hands-on with things I don't like doing board updates. I don't like doing, internal marketing all that much. And so he kind of like designed this super IC role for me where, I'm like kind of working off in my own like growth experiment silos. I'm evangelizing a lot about the products [00:00:19] Phil: a lot of the hype in GTM and AI is around the plays. [00:00:22] Kevin: We have a long way to go there in terms of like how to do the right kind of messaging. Yeah, you could do all the plays and like cool tech that you want, but like if you completely fumble the message, then you're like, why'd, why'd you do that in the first place? [00:00:33] ​ [00:01:00] In This Episode --- [00:01:00] Phil: What's up everyone? Today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Kevin White, head of GTM Strategy at Common Room. Before joining Common Room, Kevin led marketing at companies like Segment, retool, HackerOne, and deep note in this episode, we explore how to design a super IC role for senior marketers, how to leverage niche signals to build micro campaigns. [00:01:21] Why ai, SDR agents still need structured coaching to work and how to future proof your ops skills through challenge driven learning, all that, and a bunch more stuff after a super quick word from one of our awesome partners. [00:01:35] ​ [00:02:42] Phil: Kevin, thank you so much for your time today, man. Really pumped to chat. [00:02:45] Kevin: Yeah, likewise, likewise. I'm in, I'm in full on conference mode right now and I've been chatting, I was chatting all day yesterday, so I'm like in in chat podcast mode, so hopefully you're catching me at a good time. [00:02:56] Darrell: Yeah, so great to have you on and um, so [00:02:59] 1.1 How to Design a Super IC Role for Senior Marketers --- [00:02:59] Darrell: why? Don't we talk about, uh, career design and the sort of super IC path that you have right now? And at some point you mentioned that you don't really love being a marketing leader or, or like the, the leadership track. I, I, I guess you could say, um, and you'd like recently transitioned to a head of GTM strategy role. [00:03:20] Um, what, can you just give like riff on that a little bit? Like what didn't you like about being the head of marketing? What does your new role include now? And like, do you feel like you're even more effective in, in this and why? Like, C Can you riff on that a little bit for us, Kevin? [00:03:36] Kevin: Yeah, for sure. That's a, it's a lot of things. Um, I think, you know, like many marketers, I, I started off in, uh, maybe not many started off in the ops role, but I started off in ops and I was like, work my way to growth and then like leading demand gen and then, oh, like that's a really hot. Title to move into like a head of marketing role. [00:03:55] And so like, again, I just kinda like took that trajectory without like thinking about it much. I was just like, yeah, I just wanna [00:04:00] keep progressing, keep climbing up the ladder. Um, and have been a marketing lead at the last, for the last like five years plus. Um, starting with retool my time at Retool and, you know, I was usually at like, going from like zero to one, which is a fun phase. [00:04:16] 'cause it's like, you know, you're, you're starting, you're the first marketer, there's product market fit, you're hiring a team. Um, and then at, at you, you get to this point where, you know, it becomes like, uh, you know, you're, you are a, just a coach. You're just like, uh, working with all these, um, you know, you're working through a lot of logistics and like work building a team. [00:04:36] Uh, and, uh, you know, I think, I think, um, you know, going through that a couple times I was like, ah, I don't know if this is like the best fit for me. And so, like my, in my recent role now, um, at, at Common Room, I, I did the same kind of thing. I started as like. Pretty much the first like marketing hire. Um, uh. [00:04:53] Built out the team also had to like, let go of some people when I joined, which is a maybe another tangent. Um, and another thing that I don't like [00:05:00] doing, which is, uh, another learning. Um, and you know, I think in, at the beginning point at like the, you know, the early stage where you have like, you know, a handful of employees, you're still doing like player coach role. [00:05:11] I, I like to be hands-on with things and I like to, to my, the employees that I hire is detriment. I like to, uh. Help out in ways that maybe is not so welcome on their end too. But I just found like we got to the point of scale at Common Room, and I saw this at Retool as well. Just like my day to day is doing things that I don't enjoy doing all that much, which is, uh, I mean, I love the people that I've hired. [00:05:36] I mean, I hired them for a reason, but like, I don't love having one-on-ones. I don't li like dealing with the SDR team drama, but s our SDR team is great, but like there is a lot of drama there. And the SER team reports in marketing. I don't like doing board updates. I don't like doing, uh, internal marketing all that much. [00:05:53] I'm just like, Hey, we're putting out all this stuff, like, why are you not remembering it? A sales team. And so I just, I think my [00:06:00] CEO Linda, who's really great to work with, I think she kind of saw all that and was like, Hey, like we should, we should figure this out for you because like, you're doing all this stuff, that's great, but like, I don't think you're, you know, we had to have a leadership kind of conversation. [00:06:12] You know what? You're right. Like I don't want to be in this role. And so he kind of like designed this super IC role for me where, yeah, I do think I'm having more impacts, uh, being a super ic I'm helping out the team. Uh, I'm like kind of working off in my own like growth experiment silos. I'm evangelizing a lot about common room in the products and I feel very like, comfortable because I'm marketing to people like myself. [00:06:37] Um, and you know, that, that built-in empathy like really goes a long way. So I, in the last couple months I've transitioned from that like marketing lead role of, you know, managing like 12 plus people. And now I'm just managing myself and a few, like freelancers and, and people who are helping me do the things that, like, the fun things that I want to do and don't have to worry about the, the marketing things that aren't [00:07:00] super fun to me. [00:07:00] And so, like, I, it. I think that's a good thing to like, for, for people who are in that, you know, climbing the ladder in that mode of like maybe reflect and be like, do you like doing this or not? And if not, can you try and carve out, you know, something else that's different. I feel like it's a luxury, like, not, not everyone has that, that, um, you know, optionality. [00:07:19] And I'm really, really grateful that like, I, I was able to, to do that with Common Room and so far it's going great and I, and I like have a new revived joy for my, my job. So, uh, yeah, it's, it's [00:07:30] Darrell: If I could just say one thing is that I think that I wish more companies operated like that, um, because the way that it's set up right now is such a poor incentive structure for people who wanna grow their careers. Because a lot of times the only way up is through people management. And like you said, there's many skilled marketers, ops per ops professionals that can, that can drive impact, but they don't like to manage people, and they don't like to do updates. [00:07:55] And that's, that does a disservice, I think, not just to the person, but I think to the company too. [00:07:59] Kevin: I [00:08:00] will say that there, there are people who like doing that. I, I, I can't believe it, but they're like the person we hired loves doing it. Like that's, you know, that's great for them. And it's great that there's people who love doing different roles. Like one more thing I would also add to that, um, that kind of mentality which we've seen even more success with, uh, with other, other roles is, uh, we kind of like rethought our, our sales development representative role and like our product like helps out that, that person quite a lot or that role quite a lot. [00:08:27] And so we've started just, well one, we hired a really great manager in, in Florian there, but then also like he's brought on people who are just like the all star talent of. SDR team. So like, there's a person named Harry. He, we pay him a good amount. Like he, he is, uh, you know, we pay him outsized, uh, outsized, uh, salary because he produces outsized results. [00:08:47] And like that playbook is working like super, super well for us. So, um, I really love that we're able to, like, we, we saw that and we're able to adapt to it as a company. 'cause you know, I don't, I don't think that that role sh like. [00:09:00] He's, he's providing, Harry, for example, is providing so much impact. Like he shouldn't be paid like what the base or like decent Sal is. [00:09:06] Like, he should be paid more if, if that's what he is producing, you know? [00:09:09] Phil: It's super cool to hear your, your take on that. [00:09:11] 1.2 How to Get Comfortable With Public Visibility as an Introverted Leader --- [00:09:11] Phil: Do you attribute, like some of the realization that you don't love the people management side because you're a bit more introverted, do you qu qualify yourself as more introverted? [00:09:21] Kevin: Yeah. Uh, I, I am introverted. Like I was at a conference all day yesterday and I have to go to a conference today, and at the end of the day after talking with people, I'm just drained and I'm like working off coffee and I'm, I'm on coffee right now, so I'm like, I'm, I'm up in like, uh, uh, you know, a active and energetic right now. [00:09:38] But, um, it does dream me. But, but I have like, I don't know if this is a. Good takeaway or anything like that. But, but I have learned that, you know, if you put yourself in some uncomfortable situations and like get used to things like it, it becomes less and less of a, of a burden. And like what I mean by that is part of my role is actually what I found we found effective is [00:10:00] me sharing stuff on LinkedIn, doing podcasts, doing video stuff. [00:10:04] I am mortified at myself when I'm recording myself doing things. And, um, but, but I've, you know, gotten this positive feedback loop of like, oh, this is great. Like, you, you, you're like, I've really learned a lot from your demo. I always keep up this kind of content and that, like, positive reinforcement has caused me to be like, you know, step outta my comfort zone a little, but then like, get comfortable with it. [00:10:22] And now it's just like, pretty secondhand and, you know, I still get mortified and I still trip up and do a lot of, like, takes, but, um, it, it's becoming better, easier, faster. So. I know people say like, you know, lean into your strong points, but I dunno, in this case, like leaning into weakness has helped out a bit. [00:10:37] So I [00:10:38] Phil: Super cool. Yeah. [00:10:39] 2. Using Empathy and Product Demos to Build Authentic GTM Strategies --- [00:10:39] Phil: For folks that don't know, uh, Kevin was one of the presenters at the MarTech Spotlight event that we did, uh, at the start of May. And I, I was just doing like clips of that and, and shared that around with folks, um, like individual demos and. One thing that like stands out from yours is that genuine like enthusiasm and excitement in walking through the product. [00:11:01] Like a lot of the other folks like, yeah, they're kind of excited, but it's like they work there. This is just a product that they're like helping sell. I feel like you are like part of common room because of all the posts on LinkedIn and like the genuine excitement you had walking people through it and I'm, I'm sure that like that led you to being excited. [00:11:18] About the super icy role. I don't want to deal with like team management stuff. I just wanna build cool shit and, and like share, share that with people. [00:11:26] Kevin: Yeah, a hundred, a hundred percent. That is definitely my mode of operation. And also, like, I would say, uh, I was kinda reminiscing about this recently is, you know, like 10 years ago or even five years ago, you know, all this stuff was possible, but there was not like a easy platform to, to do it. And so. I think that's where the enthusiasm comes is like, oh, I was doing like, you know, put this into a spreadsheet, use like a Zap to like get this into Salesforce. [00:11:49] Like, you know, send some sort of like automated email, like stitching all this, like Franken stack together to do these like cool signal based growth experiments. And now it's like, now that I can do it all magically, easily, [00:12:00] uh, in a friendly UI with comment room, like that's where the enthusiasm comes from. [00:12:03] I used to do this the hard way, and it's like so much easier this way. And like, I want people to, to know that that's possible because I still feel, feel like people are doing a lot of marketing and uh, just outbound GTM like the wrong way. And so I'm just like, there's a better way of doing this and like, you don't need to go through this like. [00:12:19] MQL hamster wheel or like predictable revenue playbook, like that stuff is dead. Like you gotta go, you gotta do, do things the way that the user wants to receive it. And like, I think that that is part of where my enthusiasm comes towards you say you can do this, you can do it like in a really cool way and at scale and it's not that hard. [00:12:34] So that's kind of my charter [00:12:37] Darrell: it's some, I think it's something around, you know, um, it's kind of like the rise of the subject matter expert se slash you know, power user evangelist where it just comes off. I think when people either watch you or listen to you on a podcast, if it comes across much more authentic than your, the typical marketing that I think you see for most companies. [00:12:57] Um, and then I think that if [00:13:00] you. You know, believe deep down that you're helping people see another way, it, it, it becomes mu much more genuine. And I think that that's ver super compelling. [00:13:10] Kevin: To me, it all comes down to empathy and having empathy for end user. And like I have the ultimate empathy 'cause I like am my own user, whatever. It's like the, the hair club commercial for men or whatever for a long time. I'm partly dating myself here. Um, but be, uh, like I am a user and I'm, I'm sharing about two other people that, that should be using our product and so. [00:13:29] Um, you know, I think that empathy is like just such a, I used to be like, empathy. What is that like as a junior marketer? Like, why does it matter? You're just gonna like, execute and run these things. But like, if you don't understand like, the pain points or like put yourself in the, the, the prospects or the customer's shoes, like, that is like just such a critical component of marketing. [00:13:46] And like, I feel like it doesn't click until you had enough experience to be like, oh, I know what that means now. It's like, you need to like realize their pain and then like show them a, a, a, a path out of like relieving yourself from that pain and like, so I think that just. Such a big element of marketing that get [00:14:00] goes missed a lot of times. [00:14:03] Darrell: And there, there's something too, like I think when you are the user and when you like, know exactly how you're, how you're. How you, how what it feels like to be in the user's shoes or the customer's shoes. It makes marketing a lot easier because naturally you come up with things to say and naturally you come up with like instructional things to do or like, Hey, you know what? [00:14:23] They're having trouble with this. Let's do this. Versus like having to do, you know, with content marketing for example, there's all these like. Ways that you can come up with ideas, you know, like a content matrix or, or you know, just like brainstorming and stuff like that when, when you are in the shoes of your user. [00:14:40] It's, it's all very natural and very quick and, um, I, I found that to be true [00:14:44] Kevin: Yeah, I just, I just soak in our gong calls, I soak in what our, what our customer's pain points are, and like that just becomes like a content engine. It's like, oh, I had this pain point, like I'm gonna, I'm gonna record a demo of, like, show you exactly how to do that with our product. Um, and another thing I'll say on that is like, I kind of saw like this corner.[00:15:00] [00:15:00] Of the like, like opportunity of being able to like actually demo your product. And so many products are like behind a paywall and like people are showing like, like nice beautiful imagery and stuff like that of like the concept of their product, but not actually showing that their product works. And I, I think there's like this thirst in the market to be like. [00:15:18] Okay. I know you, I know you're saying you do these things, but like, can you actually like back it up and like show that your product does that? And so I, I found like, I find demos, especially like actually showing a use case of your product is be like a super effective, um, means to like to, to, you know, prove that your product does what it says it does. [00:15:36] And so luckily I'm at a place where I can do that and like I just keep on cranking out more and more and more demos and showing the product and I, it's a very effective marketing use case. Yeah. [00:15:46] Phil: Yeah, the engagement you get on your posts on LinkedIn are evidence of that and the engagement we got on the, on the spotlight and, and the replay. Like it, it's one of our most popular videos on, on YouTube, so people are hungry for demos and are sick of like landing pages [00:16:00] and product marketing speak and want to see shit in action. [00:16:02] Kevin: I mean, I wish it got more. I hear, I hear people all the time, like this happened to me a lot recently at conferences, is people come up to me and they're like, Hey, I love your content on LinkedIn. It's really great. And I'm like, I've never seen you like any of my posts. Why are you not liking my posts? [00:16:17] Like that helps with amplification, like, what's going on? So like, I think, you know, I'm, it maybe is a good sign that I'm reaching the right level of audience that's like, oh, like I'm, I'm the. You know, in our ICP, which is kind of like more protective and like not super active on LinkedIn. So [00:16:31] Darrell: the lurkers [00:16:32] Kevin: that, like the posts that get the smaller amount of engagements, but is like really hardcore on this topic or this pain point. [00:16:38] Like actually people reference more. So it's interesting. I, I mean, I wish people liked it. 'cause I, you know, I, I, I do have my own ego and vanity metrics that I wanna drive, but like, you know, the, the, the, the hardcore content does convert pretty well too. [00:16:51] Darrell: Yep. Yep. [00:16:52] 3. How to Use Pain Points to Make Personalization Work --- [00:16:52] Darrell: Well, why don't we move into, uh, talking about personalization, uh, relevance and interest. Um, so personalization is [00:17:00] something that a lot of people talk about as, hey, this is the key to boost open rates, um, and drive engagement. But, you know, I, I, and, and look, this is what. Conversions. But I'd love to hear from you and from like common room, like what does that really mean? [00:17:16] Um, what are the signals that indicate pain points? And like how do we know from like a digital perspective? 'cause that's pretty much what we can just check, right? If, if, you know, are they really interested versus are these just things that, you know, we're imagining and like just labeling as, oh, they're probably an interested buyer. [00:17:34] Like what do you think about that? [00:17:36] Kevin: Yeah. Yeah, I, I mean, um. I actually have like a somewhat of a hot take here, I guess, uh, in that personalization is actually not really effective. Um, and I, and I, it comes back to empathy is like, as a, as a receiver of many emails and outbound and even like marketing. I don't know. I'm, I'm aware of all this stuff. [00:17:53] I'm hyper aware of all this stuff, but, um, you know, you could say all the, all you wants, like, hey, I, you know, went to the same high school as you, or [00:18:00] like, we, we both like surfing or whatev whatever. And people often like completely miss the mark on surfing lingo, which is another. Sidebar. Um, but um, that type of personalization, you can just tell it's surface level and it's, it's all what's, what's in it for me? [00:18:15] And not what's in it for you as the recipient of it. And so I, I feel like I feel really strongly, and like this is kind of what we, we coach our internal team on too, is that, you know, without, without a pain, without like understanding like what this person, who you are reaching out to is actually trying to solve. [00:18:31] What's their charter? What's like keeping 'em up at night? I know that's like a cliche to thing, but. Cliche thing to say, but. If you don't have that, if you don't touch on those things, then you're, you're not gonna get a response. Um, you know, I I, I do think the personalization like to counter that, to counter that point, to step on my point, like, does help in some ways in, I've seen it help in ways where it's like, oh, at least your email gets noticed. [00:18:54] It's like a, a line to show that you did. Some homework on the person and that you, you [00:19:00] know, maybe have some sort of like connection. But after that, like if you don't also strike a, a chord on, on a pain point, you're not gonna get a reply and people are gonna be like, you know, whatever, I, I'm just gonna ignore this. [00:19:09] Like, the other hundreds of other emails and outbound LinkedIn messages or whatever that I get. So, um, yeah, that's kinda my take on personalization is just like personalization doesn't matter. Pain and context are what it really matters. [00:19:20] Phil: Yeah, I love it. [00:19:21] 3.2 How to Use Buyer Behavior Signals to Improve Outreach Timing --- [00:19:21] Phil: Pain plus context. I feel like timing is another element in there too that's like a bit more luck based, but that's where the signals kind of come in and, and show you if like the timing is right for, for someone. Like I, I get a lot of emails too on the podcast about people. Wanting to offer help on, on production and editing and clipping, and at some point I'll need it, but like the time it, it just isn't right. [00:19:42] And you can have the best relevant email, most personalized, and it's the relevant pain point, but the timing isn't right. And I'm just like not gonna respond at that point. [00:19:51] Kevin: Yeah. Uh, it's a, it's a thing that marketers have ruined, which is the holy grail of the holy grail of marketing [00:20:00] are like where you want to get to. Is right person, right message, right time. And I feel like we've been promised that for so long and that I'm hesitant to be like, Hey, that's what Common Room does. [00:20:10] But it like, we, we are getting, and we're not perfect, but we are, we are getting there where it's like, you know, these buying signals. You, um, I love the, I love the signals that are like really bespoke and really niche. Like, one really good example of one of those signals is, is one that I like to draw on from retool where. [00:20:26] We saw this kinda like counterintuitive example where someone would sign up for our product, you'd see like a massive spike in usage and then like a massive drop in usage. And we'd be like, what the heck is going on there? And we found out through like uncovering and interviewing people that like, that triggered that signal was actually a sign of an enterprise user. [00:20:44] Sometimes they use a Gmail account or whatever, but an enterprise user is going to test the limits of your system to see how it scales. And then the, they, they check a box and they're like, oh, this is great. Like it can scale with what I need. And then, um, and then they, they scale it back down. And so you see this like weird [00:21:00] usage and you wouldn't have known that unless you like explored. [00:21:02] But then you can identify that signal and then you can, with Common room or with tools like Common Room, you can, you can spot those things and then have a message that hits on exactly that thing, that point, because you know, that's exactly the behavior that's happening. And so that's how I like to go about. [00:21:17] You know, coaching people up on like how to use signals. It's not just like that, someone's visiting your pricing page. It's like, what's the thing behind the thing? What's the thing they're trying to solve? And if you can do interviews, if you can understand, have empathy, again, that word keeps coming up for your end user, then you can understand and infer how to reach them with the right message at the right time, and make sure it's the right person as well. [00:21:36] 3.3 Leveraging GitHub Signals to Drive High-Conversion Micro Campaigns --- [00:21:36] Phil: Do you have other examples that are top of mind? Like maybe share a couple of signals that turned out to be especially powerful for driving conversion or revenue, um, that like maybe were surprising to you, like what's top of mind? [00:21:48] Kevin: Yeah, one, one really cool use case that we have, uh, internally for our team at Common Room is like we. We, um, sell to like one, one of our really great ICPs is any kind of [00:22:00] commercial open source or like AI native company because, or in dev tooling, because they have all this, we have all this signal from GitHub repositories, which is like, most people, most go to market. [00:22:09] People are like, what the heck is GitHub? I don't get this open source thing. But like, that is like a really, really strong signal for us. If, like, if some account has open source signal, um, that like they should be using common room and so. Internally, what we've, what we did there is try and identify those accounts using ai. [00:22:28] So, and we have like a product that goes in FET and does this for you. So, we'll, essentially we'll have our agent go out and find like, oh, does this account. Uh, monetize or as an alternative to open source return back that like the different open source repositories that that account cares about. And then we'll personalize an email and do like a, like pull in screenshots from common room of like, oh, this is this activity from this repo. [00:22:50] Do you want, do you want to know like the person behind. This account, or do you wanna see like the ICPs that are in this GitHub refill that you're blind to right now? And so we [00:23:00] can kind of like listen and look at open source refill activity and then use that as like a carrot to get a meeting. And so I just love that use case. [00:23:07] And like, uh, I don't think there's like no other competitors who do it and like it's, I just feel like that type of like, really. Bespoke type of, uh, uh, of play is just like the stuff that I'm always looking for. Um, there's a guy, uh, who's a friend of mine, his name's Brendan Short, and he like, has. Um, you should, I don't know if you've interviewed him on the show, but you should definitely have him. [00:23:27] Uh, he's come up with this, coined this term like micro campaigns and it's like these campaigns that are like, they're very timely. There's like a hundred or 50 prospects and contacts in them and like, those are the types of things that I'm looking for. And just like finding those and then putting them on autopilot and then scaling over time and just finding more and more and more of those. [00:23:44] I think that's like the, the, uh, end all be all of go to market right now until AI does everything for us. [00:23:51] Darrell: I love that there's almost like some sort of like, you know, being a detective and discovering this kind of stuff in the data that I think is very. [00:24:00] You know, there's like a, there's like an art to that. And on, on the other hand too, when you discover stuff like this, like you said, no other people, no other competitors are doing this. [00:24:09] So it's, it's very, I think, unique and, and, and quite powerful. [00:24:14] Kevin: those are the signals that I really like. Is like, is a signal that no, your competitors don't even care about or just like completely blind to, they're, they're really particular to your business. And like, if you can find, I'm always like, when I'm consulting with other companies, like, which signals should I look for? [00:24:29] Like that's always the first question that comes to mind. And it's like, I'm always looking for that type of thing. Like, what's this? Specific trigger that you like, have done, uh, user research around and like, can we usually, if someone comes up with a trigger, there's a, there's a path to, to finding how to identify companies and people that are behind that trigger. [00:24:47] And so like, I'm always looking, I'm always searching for that kind of like that really like essence of like, this is, this is what makes us go to market motion so effective. [00:24:56] Darrell: And what, [00:24:57] 3.4 Smarter Account Prioritization With Buyer Signals --- [00:24:57] Darrell: what would you say to somebody who's like a skeptic and, and is like, Hey, all of the signal stuff is just lead scoring, rebranded. You know, we've been doing this, we've been doing product tracking and visits, tracking, and, you know, um, um, like this is not new. Um, what would you say to those people and like, is it, is it kind of a rebrand? [00:25:16] What do you think? [00:25:17] Kevin: Yeah. It's not new in a way that, like there's always been, there's been website tracking for a really long time. There's been like keyword and TED bidding for a really long time. I just think that the, uh, user that there is a larger digital footprint than there ever has been before, and it'll just continue to keep growing. [00:25:37] So yeah, those, like some of the things I just mentioned are, have always been signals and they've always been like scored. But the, um, there's the, the other signals like. Uh, GitHub activity, social activity, keyword listening. Um, uh, you know, there's like a huge, uh, community forum. Like there's tons and tons of, like, we have [00:26:00] 50 different, uh, signal partners that like, um, we pull signal in from. [00:26:04] And like that volume has never been, uh, so widespread. Um, and the APIs to be able to. Natively connect and pull that signal in. And layering AI to go fetch signal on top of that is, is a, is kind of a new thing. And so, you know, I think the principles are all, are still kind of the same. And I have a separate, um, separate take on lead scoring, uh, if we want to get into that, but, um, but yeah, yeah, it's still, the concept is the same as like identify and like see who's, who's the best accounts to prioritize and, you know, you know, build a play around that. [00:26:41] Like now there's a lot more breadth of signals. And another interesting thing is that the users are, are, um, have been burned by marketing so much and sales so much that they know if they fill out a form or if they, uh, sign up for the product, that they're just gonna get nonstop just, uh, hammered by, by outbound. [00:26:58] And so they're much more protective. And [00:27:00] so like the new form of signals is maybe more meeting people where they are. [00:27:03] ​ [00:28:54] Phil: I love it. Yeah. You, you mentioned plays there a a few times and I feel like that goes hands in [00:29:00] hand. Hand in hand with signals, right? Like [00:29:02] 3.5 Why Messaging Drives GTM More Than Signals and Plays --- [00:29:02] Phil: a lot of the hype in GTM and AI is around the plays. What tools should you use? What uh, are you gonna use to set them up? The signals that you. Have, but I think that like the tools and the signals, it's only really part of the puzzle here. [00:29:14] What to say in your messages, the positioning, your messaging, the context is probably more important than the signals. Um, the best signals don't really matter if you reach out with the same shitty template that your recipient gets every single day that you kind of talked about. Do you agree? Like what are your thoughts on like balancing, focusing on the data, the plays versus the messaging and standing out there? [00:29:38] Kevin: I am glad you brought it up because, uh, because it's like the other part of the equation that just kind of gets forgot about because people get so hung up on like, oh, the tech, I'm gonna like do a, a flex where I'm just like, putting together all this cool stuff and like, yeah, you're, you're like stitching together all these cool plays and like, yeah, you, you did all that, but like what really matters is like what, what you say and how you say it. [00:29:59] And if you're hitting on [00:30:00] that pain points and like, that's the other half of the equation. And so, um. That's also a very underserved part of the market that like we, we try and coach people up on or try and like share. Maybe I should share more about like how to do outbound the right kind of way. Or like, if you get this signal or if you get this thing, here's what it means and here's how to like follow up. [00:30:18] But um, I think that a lot of times people will just be like, oh, we got a pricing page. Is it like, put them into the pricing page, outbound sequence. And it's not like. Using the context of the other parts of the customer journey or anything like that as as context to inform the AVA message. They're just like, oh, we got this play. [00:30:35] We're gonna run it, we're gonna put it on autopilot. And that's where you get to like these spam cannons that like don't actually work is if people are not thinking about like what you're actually saying and you're not like meeting the person where they, where they are. And so, um, yeah, I think, I think. We have a long way to go there in terms of like how to do the right kind of messaging. And we're, I'm on the tech side of it, so I'm, I'm kind of like on the other half of the [00:31:00] equation, but I do think that there's an under underserved part of the market that's like, Hey, you need to like say these things in this way because, like, otherwise, yeah, you could do all the plays and like cool tech that you want, but like if you, if you kind of, if you completely fumble the message, then you're like, why'd, why'd you do that in the first place? [00:31:14] You know? [00:31:15] Phil: Yeah. [00:31:16] 4. Why Overengineered Tech Stacks Fail GTM Teams --- [00:31:16] Phil: You, you actually mentioned this in, in our pre-interview chat, like you warned about like flex Stacks, all the LinkedIn bros that are sharing like all this like cool flow chart with like 75 different tools and what to use for ai. What do you mean by like flex stack and, and, and why can too much focus be on the tools and why is that like dangerous for a GTM team? [00:31:38] Have you seen a case where like piling on way more tech ended up hurting more than actually helping folks? What are your thoughts [00:31:44] Kevin: I mean, I get, I totally get what people are doing that, you know, it's, it's cool to see like these diagrams of like, oh, I'm, I'm pulling from this data source and then I'm enriching with this data source, and then I'm like, you know, automating this LinkedIn outreach with this other tool and like. Those things are [00:32:00] cool. [00:32:00] Like I think it's cool that you can, you can do all that stuff and stitch it all together, but, uh, but it also begs the question like, why are you doing all this? Like, do you really need to do all this? Like most people I talk to, most companies I talk to, you know, they're just trying to do like a job change play or a closed loss play. [00:32:15] And it's like, you would think the level of sophistication at these companies is like. Way beyond what it, where, where it actually is. And like I think, you know, there is something to be said. It's not gonna get a bunch of clicks or not gonna get a bunch of interest. But there is something to be said about doing the basics, right? [00:32:29] And like, I feel like there's many, many companies that just don't even get the basics right or that their data is so like messy and like in all these different systems that they like, you know, need to do some like cleanup or something. And that is much more effective, but much less appealing than like showing this like crazy stack of like all these different. [00:32:48] I call 'em Signal point solutions because, uh, we like to corner them into, pigeonhole them into like, uh, something that common room can't do. But, um, yeah, it just like, I see the, these diagrams that are just kind of like a mess and I'm just like, [00:33:00] yeah, that's cool, but like, why would you do that? It seems like such a burden to maintain that and it's, it is kinda like a, a stack flex or like a, I like to call 'em Franken stack too. [00:33:08] So anyway. Uh. [00:33:10] Darrell: Yeah. I think the other thing is about that is like from a measurement perspective of, or just an effectiveness perspective, it's very difficult to. Um, no if sophistication actually drove any, any impact versus just the activity itself. So, and, and what I mean by that is I, I, I had my, my friend show me his nurture program. [00:33:30] It was the first one he was launching for a company and it had like, you know, seven different branches, you know what I mean? And my feedback to him like right away was, li listen, you're going zero to one. Anything will be better than what you have now. So you actually don't know if it's seven or five or three. [00:33:47] That is gonna work. You're literally doing it for the first time. And, and, and that, that, you know, I, I like what you said about sometimes just master the basics. Like if you're, if you're, if you are operationalizing intent for the first time, just start with the [00:34:00] basics. Let's see what happens. You know, versus like having the Franken stack. [00:34:03] Um, [00:34:04] Kevin: Can I, can I interject there for a little bit? Because you're, you're giving me PTSD from when I was, you know, learning how to use Marketo and doing all these things and like, you would just get these crazy, crazy like nurture, nurture things and like scoring on all these like little different things and like, you know, if someone has this role, then forked them over here and if they do this action, forked them over here and all this stuff, and I'm, it, it is completely over-engineered. [00:34:25] Like, what I found to be more effective is just have really good content. Put someone in a nurture campaign. Of like sharing your best content and like, that's what gets the most clicks, most engagements. And then like, eventually they raise their hand. And so like, I, I really, really, that really, really resonates with me. [00:34:41] And also, you know, um, I, I remember the days of Marketo when it was just like nurturing was a complete mess. And it sounds like that's exactly what, what your, your friend was going through. So. [00:34:49] Phil: Oh yeah. It sounds like we've all come up, uh, in our careers using Marketo, bringing me back to like nested nurture flows and we, we [00:34:57] Kevin: Traffic [00:34:58] Phil: from [00:34:58] Kevin: and if anyone knows, shout out [00:35:00] Traffic Cop. [00:35:00] Phil: Yeah. [00:35:02] Yeah. [00:35:03] Uh, yeah. Super fun. [00:35:05] 5. Why AI SDR Agents Need Structured Coaching to Work --- [00:35:05] Darrell: Um, so why don't we talk a little bit like transition into talking about ai, like AI SDRs and the, the technology that supports, uh, uh, SDRs. And I have like a, a couple of questions on this one. I wanna get your take, Kevin. The first one is, you know, a lot of this stuff, um, SDRs have had access to in the past. [00:35:27] So, you know, what do you think? New technology, what, what is really different, I think today versus maybe in the years past when, you know, SDRs could look, could look stuff up with, like, built this or like, look, look on what, what's going on with LinkedIn profiles and, and everything. So, so these, these sources aren't new. [00:35:43] So on one hand I'd love to, to hear your take on what's new. The other, the other hand, I'd love to hear you riff a little bit on like, AI, AI, SDR agents and what the future kind of looks like because isn't. You know, if a, if Ai SDR agents replace [00:36:00] SDRs, isn't that a whole job going away? So, but let's, let's start at the beginning and, and, and talk about here the, the, the technology for, for a, for SDRs. [00:36:12] Kevin: I mean, um, I feel like part of the, what you mentioned there, the thing that immediately came to mind is, you know how you enable. SDRs who are typically like usually pretty early in their career, like what this actually means. Um, and so I think. What we've seen work well, or what I've seen work well is to have kind of like an architect coach behind all these things where it's like, oh, you know, here's, here's their tech stack. [00:36:35] Here's why, you know, they're using this competitor and like, why they might want to use you instead of a competitor. Because like, yeah, you could give equip SDRs with like all the information and all the tools, but like they don't have the same kind of, um, built in tribal knowledge that someone like myself or any of us have. [00:36:53] And so like. Uh, understanding like what, you know, how to where the SDRs are in their knowledge and like how to [00:37:00] coach them up is like almost where I would focus more of my attention than just like, oh, there's all these cool things. Here's all these signals, like SDRs, go figure it out. I feel like a seasoned sales rep, like, does very well with that kind of exploratory type of like, you know, you, you throw a bunch of things at them and they'll figure out like how to, how to, you know, bridge the gap of like how to connect that with how to, you know, book a discovery call or like get a meeting or whatever. [00:37:22] But SDRs you almost need to like, um, build them like baby steps, like build plays for them, and then tell them what's happening behind the play and then. Open up the aperture over time as they become more and more familiar of like, oh, this works and here's why it works. And so I focus more on that enablement side of things. [00:37:40] I dunno if that answers your question around the tech, but, um, happy to go in deeper on that or also happy to go into the Ai SDR thing too. [00:37:46] Darrell: No, I think it makes sense, but yeah. Let, let's talk, let's talk about this, this sub subject, like what's your prediction for the future of AI SDRs? It's all the trend right now. Is that the future and is the old role going away or what's gonna happen?[00:38:00] [00:38:00] Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think we've seen things in the market where, you know, ai, SCRs, it went through the hype cycle, right? It's like ai, SCRs, like we're the, the, you know, thing to do. We're gonna replace our whole SDR team. The, the concept makes sense. Uh, it's like. You know, why would I hire five SDRs when I can, you know, hire one go-to market engineer who's going to just do all this stuff at scale. [00:38:21] It's gonna be the same quality as our SDR team, and they're gonna be, you know, a quarter of the price of an SDR team or whatever, and they're gonna just do all this stuff behind the scenes. And, you know, if you're running the predictable revenue playbook of the past, like, sure, why not do that? Why hire a team when you're gonna have the same results? I think people have kinda like seen that and they're like, they, they were bought into that, that story and they're like, we're just jumping straight to, you know, an ISDR to do all that stuff for them, expecting to get some return. But what's happened is like you do need a human in the loop to kind of like review and check the quality of work on the AI side [00:39:00] of things. [00:39:01] Um, and it essentially just turned the whole, uh, SDR motion into like more noise, more of the same. And so like the, the recipients on the other end was like, I can't even keep up with any of this. 'cause it's all, it's all just the same. And it's all, like, my take on that is that it's because the, the data that's being used by the A-I-S-D-R, like the training for the model is essentially like doing a Google search on this person and scraping LinkedIn. [00:39:29] Essentially every single person who's reaching out to that, that, that, that prospect who's like, you know, A CMO or buying decision maker or whatever is the same. And so it just, it just adds to the noise and is ineffective. And I see, and I think we've kind of like are going through the like trough of despair where like, oh, we tried this. [00:39:46] It's not effective if we're churning off these A-I-S-D-R tools. But I do think eventually like the market will will catch up to that. And I think like. Not to pitch comment room too much, but I think that that's where we're positioned pretty well is like, because we're pulling in all these data points, [00:40:00] like the, the, not only the data points, but like unifying them to a single user profile and an account, um, that, that is like the infrastructure, like the data layer that the AI can work on top of. [00:40:11] And I would say like even then. Even with all the signals as inputs like the AI SDR or an AI agent that's generating a message for you is still not to a level where it's like you can turn it on on autopilot. Like we found it's like very helpful for like going from zero to one or like stop not starting from a blank canvas. [00:40:29] And then the user comes in and edits based on like what it's pulling in for them. And so that's where I see the market is right now in the future, like I think it could be more autopilot. And I really just do see AI as a. As a, uh, vehicle for making your teams way, way more productive. I mean, we are still hiring tons of reps and tons of SDRs because like we know we can supercharge them and like, there's just way more market to have. [00:40:54] And so we're not in layoff mode. We're in like, let's hire because like we wanna capture this market [00:41:00] mode. And I think, you know, a lot of companies are like that, but also some are trying to figure out like, oh, how can we do more with less? So. [00:41:06] Phil: Yeah, love. Love your thoughts there, Kevin. It, it's cool to hear that you are hiring a bunch of SDRs despite creating. A platform that, you know, some folks are kind of seeing as like, oh shit, like is this gonna replace my role? Right now? All I'm doing is manually researching a prospect, giving that data to an ae, and then the AE reaches out, or I am reaching out, or the BDR is kind of stepping in there. [00:41:28] So it's cool to hear that you're, your POV on it is more like supercharging those folks, making them way more efficient. I had this question about like, uh, getting your thoughts on like AI and roles that it can replace though. Um. [00:41:43] 5.2 Why The Last Mile Of AI Marketing Still Belongs To Humans --- [00:41:43] Phil: Daryl and I actually had a, a, a full episode where we explored some of the roles that are well and not so well positioned with this like AI wave, not upcoming wave, like current wave that, that we're going through right now. [00:41:55] In the episode, I actually argued that roles like customer marketing, product [00:42:00] marketing, community building are really well positioned because we're actually talking to customers. We have these like. Leap of faith insights when it comes to coming up with new campaign ideas and connecting with people. [00:42:13] What are your thoughts on like, roles that are well positioned versus, you know, like, shit, if you're in that role, maybe start thinking about something else. [00:42:20] Kevin: Yeah. I mean, I think because, because of the volume of. You can create, you can generate content, you can generate emails, and you can do all this stuff. I think, you know, the market might move towards a direction that is more, I dunno if you wanna call it like human centric, but it's like, what are the things that like AI is not gonna replace? [00:42:39] And I think that could actually be a differentiator in the future where it's like, maybe it's in person events, maybe it's, yeah, maybe it could be more community, community building. It could be more like channel partnerships and, and that type of stuff. Um, but I do think that like the, the replacement. [00:42:54] Side of things is actually like it, it seems like it's right there, but the last mile for [00:43:00] AI to, to re fully replace a role is the hardest mile. Um, and I found that just like with working with AI in general to like build apps and things like that, it's just like the fine tuning at the end is just like very, very, very, like tedious. [00:43:16] And like, we built an app and it was like 97 versions later, like I finally got the prompt to like a somewhat acceptable rate. And like if we were to do it like a, you know, production with like some sort of like 99 point, the five nines SLA or something like it would definitely fall down. So like. I think that that, that, that last mile stuff is, you know, maybe that, maybe we never get there. [00:43:34] Maybe there's always a human in the loop, but just like the humans have superpowers. Um, and so I do think that like maybe marketing will shift more towards like, the intangible things that AI can't do right now. But, um, but yeah, I still think that, you know, the, the traditional roles, like you still need someone with human expertise to like review and check the AI's work and all this kind of stuff. [00:43:54] And that last mile's, like a really tough one. [00:43:56] Darrell: Yeah, and, and [00:43:57] 5.3 AI Sharpens the Divide Between Experts and Amateurs --- [00:43:57] Darrell: I have this like, you know, sort of theory that AI makes, um, professionals that are already effective and already strategic, like much better. And it makes the folks that actually aren't really effective or not that good at, at their jobs, like kind of worse, you know? It, that, that's my, that's my take. [00:44:18] And I've seen documents written by people. Where like you can just tell like, this is just Jet GPT and this is just a prompt, you know, versus, um, you know, like personally, like I know like when Phil or I use use, um, gen ai, it's to really like amplify and improve the content or whatever type of project that we're working on. [00:44:40] It just makes it better. [00:44:41] Kevin: I'm gonna totally butcher this analogy, but. It's something I've heard. It's, it's like this, um, I, I think it was a story about Picasso where is like, someone asked him to do a painting and he like, you know, made some squiggly lines and like, it was a, you know, nice painting or whatever. It was like, gimme, you know, some exorbitant amount of money for this. [00:44:58] And they're like, why would I pay you for [00:45:00] that? Like, it just took you like five seconds. But it's not the five seconds that it took to like. For Vacasa to create this thing, it's all of the knowledge that you had to like, create it in the, in the first place. And so I think that's where, you know, AI can kind of just accelerate that and like create the, the proverbial like painting for us super fast. [00:45:17] Um, but you need to have that, that knowledge to be able to like direct it in the right way and then also to know like, this is good or this is bad. [00:45:24] Phil: Yeah, such a good point. Like the, the nested nurture that I can make for a client. It'll take me five minutes, but the pain and the ghost stories that I have around nested nurtures. And everything that I've learned about him, that's what you're paying me for, not, not the five minutes of, of doing it quickly for you. [00:45:40] Kevin: Yeah. [00:45:41] Phil: Um, one, one of my predictions, sorry, darl last point on this, um, is like, I [00:45:46] 5.4 Why Declaring Human-Written Outreach Gets Better Responses --- [00:45:46] Phil: , I see this like counterculture in the coming years where. People that stand out in this AI noise are people that are not anti ai, but like loud about the fact that they aren't generating this with ai. So for example, like one really cool play that you could use with common room is like signal, job change, whatever the signal is, instead of like using whatever the AI is is coming up with you like. [00:46:13] Delete all of that. And you simply write like, Hey, I could, uh, write an automated message because you changed jobs, but you know, this just came up in my screen. I don't wanna like bore you with AI speak. This is our product. Let me know if you're interested. It's just like making it obvious that this message isn't AI written. [00:46:31] Like a lot of folks applying for jobs are writing their resumes with chat GBT and it turns off people immediately. As soon as they spot it, they're just like, fuck this, I'm out. [00:46:40] Kevin: I have an amazing story about the, the, the like resonated writing or the like, uh, you know, filling out a prompts, um, for, for a candidate for candidates filling out a prompts with ai. So our, you know, be, before we moved into this more like go to market space, we were more like a, a platform for community, um, like [00:47:00] community managers in Dere and that, that kinda like stemmed and expanded into what we are now. [00:47:04] But like, we had like two years of content that was, the AI models were trained off of, of like. Comedy Room is a community platform, and it was just like such a dead giveaway that like no one looked at our current branding or website or was tuned in when they were applying for a role because we, we had this prompt. [00:47:19] It was like, you know, tell us like why you're interested in comedy or something like that. And it was just like every single time we'd see like community, community, community. And I was like, I. I was like, oh, this is dead getaway. It, it was kind of nice to filter out, but I was also like, oh, we don't want the LLMs to like, think this about us. [00:47:30] And so we, we through this whole like purging and optimization thing, and now like the LMS are like nailing it. Um, but, and we've also seen our traffic like go up into the right because of it, but, which is another different topic. But that was a, a interesting takeaway or interesting finding of like, this is how, um, how people are applying for jobs now. [00:47:47] It's just like all ai, you know. if you can stand out as a candidate and be different from that, like, you know, it's, it'll get noticed. So that's maybe a good tip for people looking for jobs out there. [00:47:57] Darrell: Totally. Totally. So how do we, like, you [00:48:00] know, [00:48:00] 6. Futureproofing Operations Skills Through Challenge Driven Learning --- [00:48:00] Darrell: what should operations people focus on to make sure that their skills are future proof that they, um. I think it's so challenging because we're in such an interesting time where you can look up anything and you know, even like really complex things like programming and, and, and AI does it for you. [00:48:19] So like in that, in this new stage, like and in this new era, like what should we focus on? Is it, is it continual like becoming more technical? Is it becoming more strategic? Do you have thought, thoughts on that, Kevin? [00:48:32] Kevin: I honestly have, I have no idea. Like, I, I can't give anyone, give anyone advice on that. Like, um, the, the advice I would give on that is. That you can read and you can research and you can do all this stuff all you want. And what really, what I find really has sharpened my skills and ha has kept me, like, kept me, um, in the i super icy type of, uh, zeitgeist to roll or whatever you wanna call it, is that like [00:49:00] doing things, you learn so much more. [00:49:01] And so my advice wouldn't be like, use this technology or learn this skill, or whatever. It'd be more like find a challenge and then try and tackle that challenge yourself and don't listen to it. Don't listen to what I'm saying on a podcast, like, go do it and then that'll sharpen your skills and like make you more marketable as a person, as a candidate or whatever. [00:49:18] And so I, and I think it's like a great, like we're in a boom area era for like being able to just like, think of an idea and like, go do it. And so like the more you can think and be creative and like go do something and try it out, um, I think that's like where you would futureproof yourself. [00:49:33] Darrell: I have to double down on what you said around like find a challenge. And then try to solve for it. 'cause I think today the big problem is people are learning random AI shit. And like, there's a ton of podcasts that are like, Hey, let me show you how to like, do all this image stuff with midjourney or whatever. [00:49:52] And, and, and like the, the, the new features of this. And I'm just like, I don't do that. [00:49:57] Kevin: It is like the stack flex. Yeah. Yeah. [00:49:59] Darrell: yeah. Like I don't create [00:50:00] pictures of people and stuff like that. I don't, I don't need that type of help, but like. I think the zeitgeist right now is you need to learn this stuff just in case, you know, rather than actually solving problems with ai. [00:50:12] And that's, I really like what you said about [00:50:13] that. [00:50:14] Kevin: I can give you like an actual example of that too. Um, and this is also from my moving into a super IC that I, I can do stuff like this, which is, um, we, we wanted to create a tool, uh, like a, like a, you know, HubSpot website, greater type of tool. And, um, I had this idea, 'cause we have all this content around like, um, which, like, we get that question asked a lot. [00:50:34] Like, what place should I run? And we have a huge repository of a hundred different plays, but. Categorized by website or product-led growth or open source and all this kind of stuff. And so the answer to that question, I'm like, what place should I run? Really depends on your business model, how much signals you get and all this kind of stuff. [00:50:49] And so I was like, oh, can we create something that someone plugs in their domain and then we'll just use AI to go fetch all this stuff about their domain and then recommend plays to them? And so. I was [00:51:00] like, this would not be possible. Like the engineering team would be like, yeah, cool, but like, I gotta do real work here. [00:51:04] Like, I don't want your stupid marketing project. And so I worked with, I worked with someone on our team to, um, who's our front end developer to like build this tool and what we, what would've been really challenging and like you would've to make a really strong case for in the past and maybe would've taken a quarter. [00:51:19] We got done in two weeks and so shouted and plugged to. Plat ai, we even have a vanity URL for it plat.ai, uh, to go check it out and plug in your domain and it'll recommend plays for you. And so that's like something that we built with AI in like two weeks. So that was like a challenge that we came up with and like did it. [00:51:36] So fun stuff. [00:51:38] Phil: Super cool, uh, love, love that example there, Kevin. The interviews have flown by. I I got two last questions for you. We, [00:51:46] 7. Why Data Warehouses Are Taking Over Customer Data Platforms --- [00:51:46] Phil: we can't have the former, uh, head of marketing at Segment without chatting about CDPs at least a little bit here. Given your background there at Segment. Uh, I'm sure seeing the state of customer data platforms and [00:52:00] composability has been really interesting. [00:52:02] Like new tools are still coming out, but we're, we're seeing a lot of acquisitions and consolidation there. What's the future of this space? Maybe chat about that. [00:52:11] Kevin: Yeah, you know what? It's, um, it's, it's, I don't exactly know the future of the CDP space. I mean, I think that. You know, the, the evol, how it evolves with, um, reverse ETL, which is now called like Composable CDPs, we're solving like a really interesting challenge, which is like at Segment we were like, okay, we are the source of truth for event data and we're gonna federate that data to all these different destinations. [00:52:37] Uh, and that's gonna be like, your brains are your, like, you know, I'm gonna pass things. Like, it's almost like you're, you're, um, ETL for. Uh, for like top of funnel or something like that. And so it's just like passing all these events into the systems that you would use as a marketer, but then like there is, uh, entropy in those end systems. [00:52:53] And so like a reverse ETL would say like, oh, we're gonna like take this and turn all that data into like a [00:53:00] consistent, um, up to date across all these different systems. And so I think, I think that that was like a, a interesting take, but then. I feel like now, because there's just like so much data and so much unstructured data and like AI coming into the equation and screwing things up, that I actually think it might just all end up going into like a data warehouse as like a data warehouse being the source of truth. [00:53:23] And then from there you can compose and do all these things on top of your data warehouse. Just because like a, a data warehouse, um, or a data lake, or whatever you wanna call it, Databricks or Snowflake, essentially is the only play, the only place I see right now that can handle all that data. And then there's like tools that are built on top of it to structure that data and make it usable and composable in Salesforce or pull it into common room or, you know, put it into customer a or something like that. [00:53:48] So. Um, I kind of think that that's where the market's going is like if anything's gonna displace Salesforce, it might actually be a data warehouse, which is maybe a, I don't know, counterintuitive or, or, [00:54:00] or different take, but I, I don't see anything disrupting the, the CDP market other than like a data warehouse right now. [00:54:07] Darrell: Yeah, I mean, you know, the, I, I think what companies are finding is that it's more beneficial to them cost wise, flexibility wise to build a composable CDP or a tech stack that's revolves around the, around the data warehouse and just use like reverse ETL or warehouse Native Tech to like. Accomplish some of these actions. [00:54:30] I think the challenge is the large vendors don't really want that because, you know, unbundling the tools and, and buying tools outside of their suite decreases their wallet share or how much the, their, the companies are paying or the, uh, you know, for their, for the best in breed, uh, suite and [00:54:50] Kevin: you can bet. Salesforce is gonna pull up the ladder on that as much as possible and try and gate the gate there. The, the, the moat that they have. 'cause like they don't want things going to a data warehouse for sure. [00:54:59] Darrell: [00:55:00] They are. And I think that, um, what is, what's, what we can't underestimate is just how big and how, like the, the type of pull that these companies have. They, they can, there's a lot of levers that they can pull, you know, building walled gardens or, um, you know, just the, the, the, the whole marketing. Branding thing that they have around, um, and, and the story that they tell executives is, is quite compelling. [00:55:25] But, um, anyway, I guess that's to be seen. Um, why don't we move to this, uh, last question, Kevin. [00:55:32] 8. Finding Career Balance Through Self Reflection --- [00:55:32] Darrell: So you're a GTM leader, a super icy, a frequent conference flyer, a demo man extraordinaire, and you're also an upcoming dad. Congrats avid gardener and you do a lot of surfing. One question we ask everyone on the show is, how do you remain happy and successful in your career? [00:55:50] How do you find balance between all the things you're working on while still remaining happy? [00:55:55] Kevin: Well, I mean, I think a lot of it does go back to like. Self-reflecting me, like [00:56:00] what part of my job do I actually like? And that like, if you're, if you're happy in your job, then like you're probably gonna be happier in life too. But I think that also helps you step back and reflect on like, oh, like I'm just selling software. [00:56:13] Like it's not that important. Like it's not gonna be the end of the world if it goes away. And so like, you know that having that kind of self realization. And, uh, reflection, you know, um, you know, it, it helps you, you know, spend more quality time with your wife or like, have fun in the garden or like, you know, if I could do whatever I wanted, selfishly it would be like surfing all day long and like, I'm hoping in, I could retire and do that with my wife and family. [00:56:37] So, um, you know, fingers crossed that something happens in the next, like, you know, couple years. So, 'cause at some point I'm gonna be like, I don't need to do software selling anymore. I wanna just kind of relax it. You know, the motor in my mind is probably just gonna go back to it at some point. But, uh, it, it's conceptually sounds nice to just be like, oh, I'm gonna travel the world and surf with my family. [00:56:55] That would be my, right now, that is where I feel like my happiest [00:57:00] place would be. But who knows until [00:57:02] you [00:57:02] Phil: Who knows? Yeah. Who knows what AI is gonna be like in five years changing our opinions, or what's your number one tip for growing lettuce in your garden? [00:57:10] Kevin: Um, that is a good question. It just, I mean, it live in a climate where it works well, uh, is, is not really a super helpful tip. But, uh, San Francisco tomatoes grow like garbage and, 'cause it's not hot enough, and lettuce grow as well. So, you know, we just hit it with water every once in a while on, on the drip and, uh, it, it just grows like more, more than I need. [00:57:33] So if anyone wants lettuce, hit me up. [00:57:37] Phil: Do you guys have a lot of bunnies in in San Fran? I, I have no idea. [00:57:41] Kevin: Uh, not that I know of. I think there's, there's coyotes. I don't know if they, I don't think coyotes like lettuce, but [00:57:46] Phil: There's like an epidemic of bunnies in, uh, in, in my, in my neighborhood. I'm in Ottawa and in Canada and like growing a home garden in our backyard is so hard 'cause freaking rabbits everywhere. Like they rabbit everything. As soon as there's like a [00:58:00] little sign of a carrot or like even jalapeno peppers, they love that shit. [00:58:04] Kevin: As a California native, uh, have not experienced that at all in my life. It's a no, not too many bunnies in California. [00:58:12] Phil: Awesome. Kevin, I really appreciate your time today, man. This is super fun. Uh, we'll link out the common room. Obviously we'll link out to the demo showcase that you did on on, on the MarTech spotlight there. Thank you for for joining us and thank you for taking part in that. Also. Thanks for your time. I.