The marketing movement. Why we find laughs? Hey, I'm Casey and this is Sam Keenley and we are here for an episode of We Don't Know What This Is Called. I think we're under something there.
How in the world are we just met and now we're on a video recording like you've been able to contact stuff, kind of how this doubled up? That's the attribution to LinkedIn that no one wants to give, right? What's the value of posting on LinkedIn? Well, I got connected that way so we're having a conversation about all this.
So somewhere. Yeah. And so I'll talk about just a little bit. My strategy is to always when I'm looking for a role or some sort of problem inside of always looking out into LinkedIn for specific people who have and who are solving that problem specifically and Sam solves this problem specifically for tons and tons of companies from with refined labs of what we were dealing with.
And so I just said, Hey, man, how would you if you were recruiting this role? How would you do it? He sent me back as a long Google document. It was so helpful and it was helpful, helpful back and forth and no way is pitching each other.
And it was just like value value value and it was awesome. So now we're here and we're going to talk about three things really quick. First thing we're going to talk about is what's the difference to you, Sam, since you went this role all day between and I always want to know the difference between director of demand, let's say director of demand, Jim and a VP of demand, Jim or a director of marketing of VP of marketing. And you may say there's things of different things, even with the titles and titles and marketing are even weird for me right now.
So, but if it was director to VP, what are those differentiators and how do you do that? Yeah. So when I think about from the top down, we're definitely going to simplify this here. The VP to me is the person who has the vision, the philosophy for how you want to approach your market and then also how are you going to market to your internal stakeholders, so the executives, investors, whoever that may be.
The best VPs that I've seen are often the T-shaped marketer. So they're very strong in the area that they came up the marketing ladder in, but there's two more nuances to it. They're quick to always learn, improve across those other skills, but they're also quick to defer to the team members who are stronger in those areas and want them to voice their opinions. How do they empower them to make those decisions for them?
So it's, it's creating that team that's going to help drive the best result, not saying, I'm the person, you know, I'm the captain from the captain field thing there, but yeah, I mean, the person who's really organizing all of that. So when I think about a quick analogy for it, I grew up playing soccer. So think of a European soccer manager. They bring the best talent possible to their team and they help them improve their skills during the week, but on game day, they're sitting back and letting players do what they do best.
Compare this to something like a football coach, they make a call for every single play and they tell their players to execute what's been told to them. So the VP's really get those teammates in the best place possible, let them execute. And then moving over to the director, to me, that's the person who knows and has been able to internalize that vision, the philosophy and their crafting strategy that's going to lead to the marketing success in that. So this is the individual who has a large toolkit.
They know exactly what should be used and when in order to achieve the desired outcome, but they're also not afraid to try new things to continue to push the boundaries. So when I say new things, don't get this confused with shiny object syndrome, new marketing tech, you know, it's not that aspect of it, but it's thinking of it as how do we question things? So it's always been done this way. Why?
Is there a better way of doing that? And so that's where I really look to the director to do that. So again, I often say best directors are the T-shaped marketers here as well, strong as certain areas. So for us, it's the man marketing, but they're familiar with the other aspects of marketing and they'll defer to those teammates to help with that.
So when it comes to products, place, things like that from the product marketing standpoint, we'll work with clients to help figure out what should we be doing as it relates to, you know, positioning for the specific market, how we make this product a better fit for this specific industry, things like that. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. I mean, that's really the gist of the two minute download on the difference between those two and we can do some back and forth from there.
Yeah. And you're looking currently for which roles? We're currently looking for directors. And these are the people that are going to be interfacing with multiple clients and helping them lead the strategy to get to all the growth goals and success for 2022 and beyond.
And what's the difference in somebody that's in a company versus somebody that you're hiring that's working with multiple companies? Is there another skill set that they have to have when they're interfacing with multiple companies and they're not inside of the company specifically? I'd really just say it's exposure to the number of problems, products, markets. So most agencies will have you work with 25 to 50 clients.
And I call bullshit on that. I'd say if you can buy success for a client in 20 minutes a day, that's not realistic. So we intentionally keep our team small. Our directors are working with no more than four clients.
It's off between two to four. And we want them to internalize what's the client's goals, knowing their ideal customer profile like the back of their hand and becoming a true team member. So we kind of sit in this middle where we're not in house, but we're not that traditional agency that you have in your mind where it's, you know, go do this for 50 people. We're taking the playbook that we know that works and then tailoring it to each individual client based on their specific needs, their industry, they're, you know, all those different things that come into play there.
So that's how I kind of think of the balance between those two. Yeah. And we started this because we're both looking for people and we're looking for people because of something that you noticed and you all have noticed and talked about a lot is that marketing is just, it's just the change, right? So it's created a weird funnel of demand for the people that not only, this is not problem that I feel there's people that cognitively understand the change.
And then there's people who have cognitively understood it, digested the calories of it, metabolized it and actually can pull it off and do it, right? That group of people is really small. And so what's changed that you say? What is the change, I guess you would say?
And then why has that created such a demand for those, those great people? Yeah. The change has just been the buying process. So when you think of 10, 20 years ago, the companies had all the product and influenced how a purchase was being made, you know, you couldn't get information without talking to them.
You had to call your sales rep and go through this long dated process. Whereas now, information is at our fingertips constantly. The way that we consume information isn't through having to go to trade shows and talking to people at booths. But you can go to a website and find out in two seconds download a white paper.
No, this will fit our needs. This won't fit our needs. And so as a result of that, the power has shifted from the seller to the buyer. So if you're not able to deliver what they're looking for, there's so many competitors in today's day and age where if you aren't really focusing on delivering value, creating that relationship with them, you're commodity.
So making it as easy as possible for people to find you to know what you're about, but to also show that you understand them, you care about their problems. You're not just here to collect $1,000, $100, $100,000, whatever the price of your product is, but you want to help them achieve their goals moving forward and be that trusted partner who they can go to, not just for the product functionality, but for the thought leadership, the best practice to help them overcome these challenges since you should be working with a number of different customers who also have that same problem as them. So go ahead. Go ahead.
Yeah, I was just going to say where that then ties into in today's marketers is the marketers that know how to bridge that gap from, okay, let's just keep going to events. It's keep pushing trade shows, all that. But with this new psychological shift in the bank behavior, what does that mean for how we approach our website, for how we approach the market, how do we need to make content for people that want to consume it in today's day and age? So I can't remember the last time that I signed up for a webinar, attended the webinar, talked to a sales rep after.
If I signed up for a webinar so I could get the recording after watching it at my own time, I was listening to a podcast, you know, it's much more people want to do things on their time, not on the company's time. So thinking of things like that, where the best marketers now understand that this shift has taken place and are helping to lead the change that needs to occur in the company in order to position themselves in a way where the buyer wants to come to them instead of having this outbound sales motion that's just getting harder and harder to do every year. Yeah. And then that leads to, to me, the third part of this and the final that we want to talk about was the buying, the buying behavior of the people that we're trying to recruit for our roles has shipped as well.
And so I feel the new, the way to recruit demand gen leaders is because it shifted in that favor is what you said is we got to wake up and go, it's got to be different. And I always say being better is not what you need to be different, different is better than better. And so you said, you know, it's got to be on their time. So I say for recruiting, it's got to be on their turf.
Like it's got to be in their world and their timeline and they're like, and that kind of thing. And so as we're thinking about this, this is one of the things that as I'm looking for these demand gen leader, VP of demand gen, and you're looking for the directors is how are you changing your approach to find these people. And then that's what I'm doing and changing my approach. And I want to talk a little bit about our approaches.
Yeah, let's hear it. Okay, for me, it is I pay people like you or I'll pay people that I talk to you. I'll say, Hey, if we jump on a call 30 minutes of your time, I'm happy to pay a consulting fee. And I scour LinkedIn to find the people that not only are posting about this, but where I found some great people are people that aren't necessarily great posters, but they're great commenters and engageers.
And I find them and I start following them and I start looking at all that one of the most powerful buttons on LinkedIn is viewing all of some activity. And I scroll through activity feeds of what people have clicked on lights, said, all of that kind of stuff. And you see patterns in the pattern, very clear that the problem we're trying to solve, which is number one, the number one thing we come up with is I don't need a director of demand gen. I need a VP of demand gen.
Here's the problem I'm trying to solve. And then I'll look at who's talking about that, who's done it, I offer to pay for their time for consulting. And sometimes they want me to pay sometimes, I'll say, no, I just want to do it. And we kind of just try to have value back and forth each other.
And then most of the time out of that, they're like, Hey, I know somebody, their name is so and so or Hey, do you follow it? It's my never heard of it. I start going down that rabbit hole. And then I usually find a person or two, they go, that's it.
They got the, they got the mojo that we're talking about. They've solved this problem. I'm watching their activity and their content. I send a voice direct message on LinkedIn and I start a conversation.
And as soon as possible, I go visit them in person. And I go to their city, even if there's only a 1% chance that they would be interested in working with gravy. And that's how I start the process and what I'm currently doing to recruit our VP of demand gen. It's highly personalized and highly relational and highly curated conversations.
And again, I'm still looking. So I've done this in other roles. I haven't done this successfully in this yet. But that's what I do.
I make it hyper personalized. And it's on their time on their terms, zero pressure, heart sailing, zero, trying to just up the ante, you know, and say whatever it takes to close the deal. And what I found is great people spook if you try to go too fast. And so it's sort of a slow play.
And most of the people that we're looking for recruiting, they don't want to leave where they are. They like what they're doing. And those are the people and the best people that we've ever had in our staff who told us to know at least three times before they actually came on our staff. And so that's our process of how we try to find great leaders.
And that's what we're doing. So what are you doing? Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, it's a we're doing this.
What's that? We're doing this. Yeah, besides this. Can't say we've got the travel budget to go to get to people.
I want to talk to you about that after this. That's beyond expectations. It's taking our philosophy for getting people to buy software. But how do we get people, how do we create demand for the roles that we want to fill in our company?
So you must have to market your company as if it was a product in a way and not just say, you know, five years ago, it was a lot harder to come by a job that you want. So as soon as a company that you follow post-doc job, you get applicants, like it was, you know, anything that you ever wanted. Whereas now it's there's the great resignation and everything that's going on. The people searching for jobs have so many opportunities out there.
I can't tell you, you know, every client that comes in or just websites, I go through every careers page has director of demand, Jen, VP of demand. Like you can go to any company that I'm sure that Nike has it open if we want to go check Nike right now. But we have to figure out a way of not just showing, you know, what are the skills we're looking for? What's the expertise?
What's the day in the life look like going above and beyond to say, you know, what's different about refined labs or this role or how do you get them excited about what they would do here and not just from a career standpoint, but just are they going to be happier doing it? Are they going to enjoy their life? How's it going to benefit their family or, you know, any other aspect? You have to figure out these are no longer things that you're clocking in from nine to five four, but they're so much bigger and especially this younger generation coming up.
They want to be connected to what they're doing. It's not a no, don't touch my say IBM. It's not like an IBM where you can go clocking to your pension at the end of the day and, you know, leave work at work. But, you know, they want to be connected to the company's mission and knowing that what they're doing is truly making an impact.
So how do we communicate that as the employer that you're not just a number to us, but we truly do value what you do and want to empower you to be the best at it as possible. And I think the way most people are approaching, like for me as a CEO, the VP search is like with salary and stock and, you know, that to me comp should be given and comp should that's like the lowest barrier of somebody being happy in their job is going to be compensation. You have to do it to stay competitive or you're going to lose these people over and over and over again. So comp is just like check has to be there, right?
It's the things around it. What I found is like one of the strongest ways to recruit people to a team is your other VPs. It's not viewers, the CEO, because I'm supposed to be positive. I'm supposed to have the vision.
It is the other people in the organization. They are the most powerful source of recruiting. Once you move it forward is getting people in front of those people. That's number one because they go, Oh my gosh, I want to work side by side with that person.
And what they do is start comparing them to the people that they're currently working with and they're looking at it and they're making a comparison of like, do I want to be on with working with those VPs or these VPs. Another one is weird things that I didn't realize that people would value would be like, Hey, I want to help train you in like balance sheet, profit and loss, like macroeconomic business stuff. You've got all the marketing, you've got all of the skills, you've got all of that. But they're like, I just don't have that because nobody's ever taking the time and like developing them to like be super, super valuable along the way to go CMO type stuff to understand that level and say I'm committed to you to develop you in that way.
That's enough sometimes to shift people. Another thing I've seen is with a lot of the overfunded Saa startups, the way to get people out of there is our company is going to be about April, May will be cashflow positive and still growing really fast. And a lot of them, they're tired of, they feel irresponsible with the amount of burn that they're having to do. And I talked to somebody the other day that said, must be literally said, Hey, just five X, what you said you're going to spend because we've got to spend it.
And they knew cognitive, some people say, Oh, that's a dream job. Well, no, it's not for a responsible individual. And so they were like, I just don't respect that. And so there's a lot of those people out there.
So me saying is to just say, there's a look, there's the nuances that if you'll go sit down with people, get off the zoom screen, get individualized with people, you can find out that there's things behind the curtain that will tilt in your advantage to be able to get great people to come your way. Yeah, absolutely. That makes me think one of the first conversations I had with Chris, it stemmed from the topic of spend your marketing dollars as if it was your own money. So I have a little side to do.
I do furniture, car country, that kind of stuff. And there was one time where local Charleston area said, what if I just put $25 towards marketing on Facebook? What would that do for my company? You know how far I made $25 ago?
And now I go and look at clients who have six figure budgets and I'm just like, I know what I can do with this. That's so much bigger. And just how much $1 means that we do take on that level of responsibility of I don't want to just spend for spend because we're not going to get the results that we want. It's going to be responsible.
It's going to have long term positive or certain negative impacts towards the company. So yeah, I love that you brought that up. It's definitely something that I'd also look for a skill and a director of EP is understanding those types of things as well. That's awesome, man.
Why this was a fun chat. I love it. Maybe we can put this on a Salesforce dashboard is attribution to the dark webs of some sort. But thanks for this.
And if somebody is interested in your your dimension, I mean, your director of dimension roles, where where would they go? And shoot any of us a message on LinkedIn, Megan, Chris, Judy, myself, we're always happy to chat there or just answer it to our website or find labs.com. We've got a career section. Go find the job and apply through there.
What about you? Yeah, for me, it's directly a message me on LinkedIn or sending me a Casey at greaty solutions.i or Casey at greaty solutions.i. So that's it, man. Thanks for chatting on this thing that we made up.
We're called. We don't know. We don't call it. We got changed every time we hop on.
All right, brother. I need you to get here.