Welcome everyone stacking growth podcast. We are back with Jen Davis co-founder of Gradient Works Of course, I have got my compadre here Cassidy Shield. We are in another Friday Jam session This is actually part two if you ever listen to part one go check it out We were hearing from a great works co-founder Hayes and he was chatting through Dynamic books and legacy territories and really tackling a huge issue in just a little sales in RevOps world, which is essentially Territories they haven't been motivated they haven't been disrupted in literally over a century So if you've got some pain there and you're looking for more ideas on how to manage territories and books and Modernway part one check it out. You should do that.
Today. We are again with Jen and we're gonna chat category design Jen super pumped to have you How in the world are you all getting rocking and rolling with building a new category here? I don't even know if you have a name for it or what but I would love to hear you kind of kick off how you're thinking about this I'm and excited to hear kind of the direction that you're taking your strategy. Yeah, that's a great place for us to start How the hell are we doing this?
So we we do have a name for the category that we are building and it's dynamic books or dynamic book management Dynamic books is really what we call it So I think that'll probably be the name that sort of settles out But you know some of these things are a little bit beyond your control You want to call it something but then down the road maybe somebody else calls it something But you know, I'll start I don't even know where to start right from the beginning I guess when we didn't set out to create this category We knew you know, we had a problem we knew territory sales territories were not right right they could be better And so you know in our kind of early days as Hayes and I are really trying to understand the problem and how people experience in their organizations A lot of people talk about these problems, but they didn't really have a name for it There isn't really software that does this directly. There's territory management software that helps you do The old way of managing territory better But there we felt like this was a new thing and so we identified this a little bit of white space And I mean I think that's how category design starts right is you find that white space even if it's tiny And it probably is because if it was big it'd probably be Taken already and you kind of wedge your way in and then your job is for years to expand and to find that white space Right and bring people into it and try to convince people that this is a thing Which makes it sound simple, but obviously, you know, we all know it isn't Yeah, so first it was really like identifying that white space. What is it and what makes it distinct from the things around it? So really developing a point of view and that's kind of where you start right is is what is your point of view?
What is that white space and how you how do you identify that? How do you identify and then kind of exploit and expanded you had said something like 30 seconds ago Where is like you were talking to people obviously you and Hayes have a background of like acutely feeling the pain that you solve now yourselves In previous world previous companies that you all have successfully grown and exited Talk to me though about like some how about that customer research and kind of market research prize one thing to say I've had this problem. It's another thing to really validate that this is a problem worth going through the pain of starting a company building a SaaS tool raising money Can you talk to me a little bit about like the customer research and market research? How did you do that in the early days and did you have a process or was it just kind of like, you know backhanded conversations?
Talking through that. Yeah, it was it was really important to us to talk to other people about it because you can't start a business Based on something that is just your problem, right? It has to be a problem for a lot of people So we suspected this was a problem for more people than just us We had seen it in the different companies we've worked at and owned but It was super important to validate that or to to explore it too because maybe there are pieces of it We've never seen so that was really kind of what we started the company with was this phase of discovery And so we set up calls With everybody we knew who worked in who would take a call with us right who worked in a go-to-market leadership position You know heads of sales has a rev-ops even heads marketing, you know, we we wanted everybody there CROs and The people we knew and then we asked for intros to people we you know didn't know and and just kind of went from there and I mean Hayes mentioned in part one that he's talked to more than 200 Heads of sales and rev-ops leaders and that's totally true. He's not making that number up It's probably higher even now, but that was it That was just we were just like tell us about how you deal with this what have you seen in your organization?
How do you work with it? And you know after a while patterns start to appear there are problems that show up in every organization? And I think probably you know 80% of how we all do this is about the same But then every organization has 20% that's completely unique to them their sales process and how they manage things and so I was it was figuring out Kind of where all that the trends and overlap is that there's a problem that enough people have That we say, okay. Yeah, this is a real thing and then You know kind of what does that look like and how can we be helpful?
What kind of software you know because we had these ideas that we wanted to build but like what does the product need to do first? How do we start is when you're early stage? You can only build so much you know at a time and so it was kind of identifying some of the most pressing issues to get started and Then going from there that's fascinating so such as validating that more people feel the pain that you were feeling But it's also like yeah, where do you even start such an important quite with the product like what is like the MVP? What's the most important thing that we could probably fix immediately that people would buy as affordably as possible in that research?
Was there anything it's kind of a tough question But I mean you remember anything being like surprising as far as like learnings like you and Hayes kind of had this preconceived notion from your Experience of what the problem was were there any bits of you know This qualitative data that you surfaced in these interviews and conversations that were surprising to you that added to kind of the company and the vision In the point of view, you know in a positive way. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think When we started out we didn't necessarily think the thing we were doing was fixing territory specifically We knew we wanted to attack this uneven and low attainment problem, right? We knew that was the problem But we didn't necessarily know territory design was going to be the approach to that problem And it's not the be all end all but it's where we where we are now And so I think one of the things that was surprising was was how many people first of all use geographic or other static territories But geo comes up so much.
I was shocked by that. I really didn't expect it to be as prevalent as it was So that one was was pretty interesting, but just the fact that everybody does this a little bit differently and I was I was honestly a little bit surprised about that and everybody's just constantly iterating and trying something new and I Kind of figured we'd have all figured out more by now about how this works But I think part of it too is that we started having these conversations in summer of 2020 And so the world was a is always a weird place But it was especially a weird place right then and so everybody was kind of trying to figure out how to be remote how to You know get which is hard for sales organizations because historically sales organizations have really a lot of them thrived in in-person environments So all of those things are kind of coming together in the early conversations And so I was just kind of surprised at how it didn't really seem like anybody had a figure out Which could I guess right that means the rest of us don't have to feel bad One thing I I appreciate about what you said I want to get your thought on like the process you went through and that is it's so easy to have a hypothesis And you're just looking for confirmation of the hypothesis you go through this process And I'm sure that's in the back your mind as you're going But then you kind of stumble over this other thing. Oh, we're trying to solve this problem But this is the way to solve it in this territory is etc What was that conversation like between you and Hayes as you found it? So I assume it wasn't like oh, yeah, we now we get it there's probably a lot of back and forth a lot of What's the hook?
What's the angle? What are we hearing all these conversations? We've gotten hours and hours you're trying to distill this out of it like how did that come about maybe just right away? Do it no we definitely right away to not know it and I think if you do know it right away You might not be right you might not have tested it enough So part of it was you know us talking through it And then with the rest of the team as we started to bring people in but a lot of it was just testing these ideas in the market And so the other first thing we did long before we had a product to sell was start Blogging and using LinkedIn and we recorded videos and stuff with with different thought leaders in the space just to have these conversations And discuss these ideas in public we had a newsletter still have a newsletter that we would send out We just kind of get a sense of what's resonating what are people interested in?
What do they react to what do they hate or what do they not care about? And that helped us evolve the thinking and it I mean, you know the the dynamic books category is pretty new as naming it Calling it that is only been the past few months before that we had different positioning, you know, and we've gone through a few iterations as we Really find our voice and define that point of view. So it's absolutely been an iterative process And it's it's been really interesting to see how that's come to be and only I would say in the past Gosh, five or six months has it really solidified around dynamic books as the thing so yeah How did you decide I really like this technique obviously I've heard other examples of this word you don't even have the product yet and you're starting to formulate your ideas in public talking to others putting on the newsletter building a database like building a community from the beginning before you Have a product how did you decide early on like what the Positioning or point of view of the newsletter of that conversation was we have a lot of the reason I asked this is because this is a It's like inside baseball for marketers to figure out like what how do I start on a niche for a point of view that people would be interested in Even if that may evolve over time, right? That makes any sense.
It absolutely does and because you don't really know who your audience is eventually gonna be You have a sense, but we definitely you know, we didn't have a perfect ICP right away We don't even yet, but you know, we polish it so we knew the problem was attainment was revenue velocity was consistently hitting your number Like those were kind of the concepts we knew we wanted to go after and we knew we were interested in and so we Called the newsletter up into the right, you know, the idea is increasing revenue, right? Kept it simple and kind of silly, but it's for ice people understand and that was where we went with it and then we wrote about anything Sales marketing operations related even at the beginning things about how we were setting those up in our own company So I wrote a lot of posts about like the stats behind our newsletter early on and and how I was using those to think about What we do next and so kind of being transparent about our own go-to market since both Hayes and I have at that background That was kind of a story we had to tell and so it helped us that We we just kind of tried some of those things and it's definitely evolved over time. We talk a lot more now about sales process and sales development and Then we did at the beginning when beginning those kind of broader conversations, but generally, you know It's just kind of gotten refined over time I'm sure people have unsubscribed to the newsletter since then and that's fine, right? But we try to keep it kind of broad in the area where we knew we would be and then it sort of narrows as you go That makes completely sense And just for the audience like what at the beginning what was the newsletter in terms of frequencies like something you do once a week?
And you answer on the table and come up with like hey, what are we gonna talk about this week and Basically, yes, we did it once a week at first because we have a product and I'm I was it was a zenie and my I didn't work I think so it's like what else am I gonna do? I'm gonna write a blog post and put out a newsletter because that was the idea, right? It was discovery and exploration and so it was once a week at first and then I went to every other week and now it's once a month Simply because there's just not time to do that We have so many other channels that we that we focus on now But yeah, it's and it's been going for two years now and so you know But now it's just once a month so it's a little easier to manage But yeah, we started out doing it once a week just to we have a lot of thoughts we wanted to put out there early on And I didn't really have a lot of other things on my plate at that time, you know Yeah, it makes complete sense. I love that so then Five months ago the name starts formulating The point of view starts formulating probably before that and then you hit the name and I think this is a I See a lot of companies try to force a name with a vague point of view So it seems like kind of walk us through the process where I assume your story was really tight over time I this is a point of view hazing Yourself have probably tried this out this pitch a lot of narrative Many times and you know like this is perfect now.
We just need the name or the hook the thing to describe it succinctly Is that kind of how it went or yeah? That is a lot of it went as as we polish the narrative as we practice and deliver the pitch and all the places right the prospects and Go to market leaders and investors We get a little feedback and would refine each time and as we develop that point of view and really figure out where our angle Is and what makes it different and interesting and all that? The name is kind of in the background We we started calling we had a few different kind of iterations And at first it was just book management and we're like that is vague and boring And then it was dynamic book management because the dynamic part was really important But now we've almost dropped the management and so we just call it dynamic books There was some discussion about can we make it can we abbreviate it and we were gonna call it dbm like ABM But dynamic book management and the problem is every time we typed it we typed DMB like Dave Matthews man And so that became a really now We have all kinds of like Dave Matthews man jokes and slack You know and tourism and draws them trails and all this and so it's kind of evolved over time And this is also one of those things where you don't know what it's gonna look like in a couple of years as it starts getting wider adoption When it's not just us and our customers that use the language Will it eventually be called just books? I have no idea, you know, what does that look like?
And I think a lot of that you try to control what you can but as it as a community grows around it takes on a mind of its own Thank you for walking that walking through that because I feel like a lot of times in the state I see marketers making or see you as making is the other way like let's come up with the name We need the three word name. It's always three words You know, I like the idea to you shorten it That means you really have a name and then we'll figure out the narrative to match the name And this is where you see these websites where every startup has like their three word thing And it means nothing and the company's not driven behind it So I think my point here is which you validated is like start with yet the narrative Yeah, the point of view and then you'll name it in climate. That's because we're like I would say It doesn't work the other way around. I think so.
Yeah, and that's certainly what we've seen so so how do you then um go from I mean you got you get the you know the fish on the line you have the name you're kind of authority like you have a problem It stops people when they hear it and they may want to debate it and argue like hell against it But then you know you're onto something but how do you get it out there like what? I mean you got limited, you know your products probably narrow good but narrow and you're in a seed round So it's not like you can just spend freely like how do you decide as the the marketer what to do for a second third. Yeah, and this is I think a great question because If you're trying to define a category as an earlier stage company with less funding for your resources It's different than if you're a great big company with unlimited marketing budget, right? And you can just throw ad dollars and brand money all kinds of stuff at it So obviously you're right we can't um and so it's very much And this is where I'm also super grateful that we started this process of blogging and publishing the newsletter and putting these thoughts out Well before the product existed because one of the things that's been super helpful for us is just old fashioned SEO old fashioned I suppose you know in the terms of digital marketing maybe not old fashioned and all other things but Because we've had a website for two years.
We've been blogging and creating content about the kinds of topics that this relates to So we get just a huge amount of in-town traffic for our size And we rank for you know a couple thousand keywords There's like all kinds of good stuff coming in because of this foundation that we've been building over time because SEO takes forever Um as you know as we all know but it's so important I think to have that because it gives you that foundation of everything else on top of and so You know having better credibility in the search engines means we show up more it might mean they show our ads more I don't know but there's probably a lot of good stuff there that happens so that was one is just Writing as much as we can about it on our own website to take that traffic So for us our customers, you know, our sales and revops leaders So we spend a lot of time on LinkedIn because we know that's a channel where they are Um, and you know the last startup hazelnut did was a social media analytics startup So I'm pretty familiar with social media generally Um, but had not been a huge LinkedIn user myself So getting doing a lot of experimentation there both paid in organic, you know, what's working What's resonating? Obviously our company page is still very small But Hayes has a good presence and he's trying to you know do more of that our head of sales does it quite a bit And so we try to use you know our individual Company influencers as much as we can but the big thing for us and something that we're doing literally right now Like talking to you guys is taking advantage of People with bigger audiences than us to get the word out right so earned media has been really important and something We're gonna focus on a lot more moving forward Podcasts, bylines, placed in publications, newsletters, speaking of engagements, stuff like that Um, where we can talk about these things in front of an audience that's much bigger than our own one at this at the time Right, so it's kind of good old-fashioned PR really Which I like how you reframed earned media meaning in the classic sense I think most marketers been around a while like myself at least we think of our media as like classic PR And you've defined it. I think in a way a much better modern time and that is You know, you're using other people's audiences You're building relationships with people obviously have something to say and you're getting on podcasts and speaking engagements and Collaborating on LinkedIn and doing these types of things which I feel is a much more modern way to think about our media than You know, I got some po-dong magazine to write You know the published article. Well, I think that's bad and you shouldn't do that.
I'm just saying like there's You know the audience is a kind of move to other platforms They have I think it's funny that you say that's a good definition of our media too because Our last startup was acquired by trend kite which did PR and earned media analytics And then that was acquired by Sijan, which is like the biggest PR software company in the world You know, they own PR newswire and all that and so decision I ran global comms content brand So I'm glad that you like my definition of earned media. I think that's important Given that um, but yeah, I mean, so that's what we really are thinking that was is at this stage given our budget Which is low and our audience, which is small we need to find low-cost ways of reaching other audiences You know, we do pay digital stuff You know, we have Google ads and LinkedIn ads, but that doesn't really generate a lot of Real interest for us. Maybe it never will. Maybe we need to spend more maybe we don't know enough about how to do it But really for us it's been these other things We also want to start doing more events and stuff as well I think getting in front of people in person since a lot more conferences are happening I think that's a good spot for us to have these conversations in person I think that has an impact as well harder to measure, but I think really important.
Yeah, I would say that um Now we're gonna talk my opinion. I think at a company your stage while paid may work proving out what's resonating Let's call it organically or by doing the work the hard work you're doing at some point You can just you'll know what works and you can just take that and amplify it with distribution But paid to pay to me is just amplification of the things you already know work versus trying to do something you don't know works Because then you just blow a ton of money. Oh my god, man boy. Can you like right away?
It's amazing Um, we do also use some of the paythings to test real specific stuff like CTA's landing pages and things like that You know, if you send a few thousand people to an ad and you kind of see what they click on But I still don't know how much that really tells us because no matter how hard you work to kind of narrow that audience to what who you think your ICP is it's still kind of a crapshoot versus we go to a conference like sasser a few weeks ago You know and there it's it's sass execs right lots of heads of sales and all this like our customers So you learn a lot more in those kinds of conversations even though it is you know a bigger lift and it takes a lot more time Then we do with paid at this scale. Yeah Um one question on the seo route I'm sure here's my hypothesis, but like you correct me. I'm sure early on was like i'm just creating content and putting it up Um and you kind of tied to i'm sure what you're putting in the newsletter and so forth and so on so you have this kind of idea of audience you're starting wide Um Then it starts like how did your content narrow down to You know starting to be more about like the category, but then then at some point you probably got sophisticated and you started saying okay Well, what are kind of the keywords around the category when did that process go from like hey? I just published a blog that's good enough to i'm starting to be more structured around seo And where did the category fit in?
Um, I would say we kind of gone in phases with this But yeah, first it was just doing anything um and it it took probably Let's see our SEO really started to take off in january of this year. So the website had been up I don't know 16 months or something at that point. Um, and so that was really when I think We started to get a lot more strategic and structured with with what we do Um and not just based on keywords though. There is we obviously do some of that but the other way that we use it is um Uh content that the sales team needs for informing prospects at different stages of the funnel and so you know our our head of sales will come and she'll say We just had this conversation.
They had um, it was a great conversation, but they had this objection about xy and z And um, she's like do we have anything I could share and sometimes we do sometimes we don't sometimes it's such a specific problem Maybe it's not worth it, but then you're like, oh, yeah, you know, I remember I've heard this in like three other conversations We've had and there's not a lot of great content on it. So let's add it to the calendar. So it's also um, we source ideas from stuff we just need and um because This category this problem is one that a lot of people feel that content ends up actually being helpful for seo reasons as well And so we try to find the things that are a good fit for both of those Um It I think content is just is one of our superpowers. Um given my background has an amazing writer Um, it seems to be a thing that we just have um and we can produce all this stuff in house and we can do it fairly quickly that not every team at this scale Is or at this size is gonna have but I think it's a key element and in early category design because you need that Catalog right of stuff there and so um, we think about it, you know in a couple of those different ways and then just try to We do try to make as much of it as we can too like Not at the expense of quality, but we do, you know at least a blogger who every week a new um gated piece of content or a webinar every month like some bigger media pieces and um The hub we have a dynamic books hub which is kind of a main page on our website That just has everything we can think of to help people get informed about the category You know, we wanted to make sure it was just filled with stuff so that people in different stages of the funnel or different kinds of organizations What have different paths they could go down in different ways for them to get interested in the problem in the in the category So it's um, I think we get a little bit more sophisticated about it kind of every month, you know as we decide what we're gonna publish and what we need What I love is this subtle hack you had in here, which I feel like um Is I don't see enough marketers doing it that is The insight comes from the conversations you're having and you'll see patterns and then you're when you see that then you're like, well, listen I'm gonna answer that question.
I'm gonna do that in a blog or on my website Because it's going to be a question the next person's gonna have it the next person and like you're and you know a big part of your content strategy becomes just answering the questions that are asked by prospects and customers and you don't really need even Think about what new to write. It's just like you probably be massive backlog of like ideas now Absolutely It's a huge backlog and it's interesting because it might feel a little reactive and it might not work for somebody But you know we have things we plan obviously things that we know we're gonna do but there is still plenty of space We leave space in our calendar and our you know our Strategy for these these things because it is so important because we're so early stage right um that As we the part of the job of the category definition is defining the category and the people who help us do it are the ones who are in these trenches every day And so um, I guess it is kind of hack. I never really thought about it. Um, but yeah, just get ideas from the sales team There we go.
It's a free free tip for marketers. Yeah Actually a book on this is called they ask you answer. I love it by a guy named marketer Sheridan You know, I mean literally the whole book is like saying what we just said or what you just said in 200 pages Or yeah, something like that. Yeah, it's a simple concept.
I love it I love that. You mentioned that like over time you maybe get more scalable and more sophisticated and I actually think it's funny that Repurposing objections or repurposing, um, you know sales driven insights. It's actually like so unsophisticated that we deprioritize it and we skip it And it's really like still the best source of You know driving our content, right? Like why are we gonna sit in a room with us by ourselves the team of marketers and sales and try to like invent Contents and concepts and not and it's like I think as companies grow they like get away from what what is it you're doing, right?
Because they're like after this sophistication that is actually Not probably as good as just listening is something that's unscalable as like oh, we're just gonna listen to sales calls and see what questions people ask, you know So it's awesome. Um, question around your team So when you're thinking about we've talked about kind of scaling your contents and things like that Obviously you have a really strong background in like maybe traditional PR PR overall So there's some areas of your own skill set that you're like, uh, you know, I don't know if I'm like this You know like your performance marketer like know what I push every single button in google ads, etc How do you think about early stages? You don't have a lot of resources. You're trying to do something big or try to change the world's great category You've got all these value propositions that you could lead with like who are you thinking like who's next to come on to like the marketing team and how do you think through prioritizing?
How you grow your team? Yeah, I like this question too because so much of who you hire early on depends on The skills and strengths that you personally have, you know, because you want to hire for the things you don't have or the things you don't have time to do Or if you're lucky the things you don't like but that doesn't usually work out. Um, and so yeah My background is in is in content and communications and research. Um, I have a phd in communication So like these are the things I know but the things I don't know is a lot about Google analytics I don't know much about performance marketing.
I know just enough to you know run my reports and get in trouble spending money, right? So that was the first thing I looked to hire was somebody who had some of those The slightly more traditional demand generation functional capabilities, um, and who can help with you know, we run our website on HubSpot So I can do a decent job with that, but I need somebody else who can set up landing pages And so that was our first hire was someone who, um, could really run with some of those those pieces And so now we're looking at our next hire so there's two of us right now So hire number three or person number three we had thought might be a product marketer Um, because we were struggling with that early on but as we've gotten better at articulating our point of view about the category The product marketing has gotten a lot easier for us We we understand it a lot better and so between hazer ceo me and then our head of product the three of us right now We're forming a pretty decent product marketer that won't always be true But what that means is the next person that we want to hire is someone on the content side Which might sound redundant, but what that does is it frees me up to do some more of the Strategy and the you know new like what are we doing next and how is all this fitting together? And then someone can come in and really focus on producing content and Specifically on channels that maybe I'm not thinking about So I want somebody with a kind of new ideas and new energy Who isn't as old and jaded as me and who still rolls my eyes when I have to go to LinkedIn every day, you know Um, so maybe not someone who's gonna come in and do tic-tok for us I don't see that but someone who has these kind of fresh ideas and who is really a content creator And so I think that's who we'll have next to really lean into this content superpower And what I think you need for category definition And then the higher after that we'll kind of see you know Where are the next set of holes that we need to fill or whatever whatever metaphor you want to use but it does evolve as as our Go to market evolves as the company evolves and our thinking on that changes, you know as as we grow But I think that's what we'll how we think about the capabilities that we need on the team right now Whenever you think that's awesome and awesome answer In the very beginning you started with like this kind of newsletter in LinkedIn You actually scaled that back You said, you know what we're not gonna move right I do once a week we're gonna do once a month I create space for you all to do some of the more of the content that I see now on the website And it seems like that's really working for you all. It's where like in part one, right?
We got gradient.works forward slash books or whatever the URL was for all of that content This content higher you feel like again, you want to push even further or they're literally just gonna kind of backfill So that you don't have to do the writing or just maybe your content or you look at somebody that's like content evolves more to video To podcast to some of those mediums How do you think about hiring to backfill and save time? But also somebody that can push us to what is the next evolution? How do you solve for that make that kind of higher? Do you even do that?
I the answer is yes to all of it. Um, I do think we need someone who can push us into new media Um who can bring in some new capabilities and not just so that we can produce more content But we can produce better content different content in other channels or formats that speak to our audience I think video is a podcast or two great examples. Um Hayes and I recorded some videos early on some like inner, you know, podcast style interviews with thought leaders But just that takes so much time. I mean you guys know this is an effort to run one of these Um, and you can't just half-ass it you have to hold ass it and that it's a big ass, right?
So, um, I think I'm gonna forget a little loss there But um so somebody who can help us think about those things and who has some of that I think is really important So you need to both kind of backfill some holes as well as stretch your capabilities So you have to find somebody who can do both of those things which is tricky Right, and then somebody who's also comfortable in an early stage startup So it takes months to find the right person for something like this for sure You said something I just want to circle back before we get too far away from this conversation because you said something that's uh Carl likes to call a non-obvious insight Um and it's something I felt in the past but I hadn't been able to kind of articulate it and you did and that is You went from needing product marketing to not needing product marketing now because the narrative and the story in the category was so clear And I've actually felt this as a marketing leader in the past and I and once you said that I was just like I got all the tingles I'm like that is it like probably marketing gets so much easier when you actually know you're you're narrative your point of view very clearly That's I just want to say that That is a good indicator for other marketers out there like if they're struggling on product marketing It's probably not because your product's complex probably because your story is not right exactly It was kind of mind-blowing to us too because we had really thought that was I'd never done product marketing None of us had that background and we're like oh this we just aren't describing this right We're not making the right materials or something is missing and then as our yeah as our narrative got better This just it just got so much easier um And we released a video describing dynamic book management a couple weeks ago And it's you know just a little two minute kind of illustrated thing and it's cute and really great But the thing I love about it is that I feel like First of all, it's the best video I've ever been a part of it just describes the problem so clearly I'm just extremely proud of the script and the illustrations and our designers amazing Um, but the thing that I thought was really neat is that um we released it and you know kind of talked about it quite a bit And a couple days later I was at a birthday party for my daughter and uh one of the other parents came up who is intact But nothing related to what we do like does not understand sales as far away from sales as you possibly can be And he's like I totally understand what you guys do now and I never did before and I was like well If he gets it then gosh our customers are totally gonna get it Um, so that was super validating and I think that really showed that yeah if your story clicks if it makes sense if it's strong Then everything else gets easier and so it is worth it to do the work and it takes a lot of work But to iterate on the story and get it so that it's easier to tell right? Yeah, so true um how it's making of the story how much of your time is spent um discussing the problem versus discussing the solution? 95 of the time is discussing the problem like We we succeed as a company if we get people to buy in that territories are broken that dynamic books Isn't that is is a thing that makes sense right? If they buy into that then right now we are the only dynamic book solution on the market No, um the market leader exactly person only um But almost all of my time is spent on on the problem and the way it could be not our product at all Which maybe feels counterintuitive sometimes but nobody gives a shit about our product If we can get them in with the story if we can get them to see themselves in this problem then The rest gets so much easier.
I think that's true that answer is I Sorry, sorry. I thought you thought you thought before I was hoping this was the answer to this is what I wanted to set up And that is it's all about the problem Especially when you're designing a category and oftentimes what we hear is too many people want to spend all the time talking about the solution and to your point Nobody cares like and we know this we know I don't care But we as marketers we still talk about the product all the time anyway and our solution and that's just It helps having a good story to tell like that makes such a difference Sorry car. Yeah, it's no I was gonna announce this because this is awesome I got the tingles too when you answer that so we're all just getting the tingles today, but I think you know Marketers teams overall make the mistake too of like even in early stage when they're like hey We're just gonna evangelize the problem and be the people who solve the problem even if it's just like the ideas that can solve the problem Right and then they move the product once more competitors come into the space And I think that's a misstep as well because again people aren't attracted to you because necessarily of your solution first You get into like the feature, you know wars with other competitors because there's gonna be competitors now that come into your space They're gonna come they're gonna be net new sass companies And then you're gonna eventually be on the radar of some of these other like RevOps platforms like lean data and sales force potentially that are like Oh, man I can we could add a couple of features and do some of that as well And so I think it's a misstep again to even move away from evangelizing the problem and educating around the problem even like regardless of Of what stage you're in so um yeah, no question, but I just it was awesome for you How do you I guess the question is like how do you stay focused on that right? You like your heart like sometimes will want to talk product Especially as the product becomes a lot beefier, right?
You guys raise like a day you get a few more million bucks in the bank a lot of Those resources go to engineering and into the product that make you want to talk about the product a lot more How do you feel like you defend against that and keep a helping mix of 90% problem 10% product? Um, I think that will be a great question We'll see how we we manage that But one of the things that I look at every day that helps me stay kind of focused on what do we need to produce and kind of wear and that is And it's so fundamental and basic but it's our buyer stages diagram And it's just you know awareness consideration decision and success I think is how we break it out and you know for me on the marketing side I'm awareness and consideration or kind of where I focus and but really right now most of what I need to do is awareness but um What I look at there is is one of the slides and like our iCP and personas deck that we you know use internally is What kind of what what's the major problem or question people have at each age and then what kinds of content do they need? Um to help support that and so when I'm like, oh, I'm not sure if this is what we should be working on or I don't know what to do I go and I look at this and I'm like, you know what right now We are in awareness that is what I'm focusing on so I should do something that helps this and so I just pick something from the list and that's what I can work on Um, it's not quite that simple but um So we're very I try to be very um prescriptive right now with creating things for the different stages of the funnel and thinking about As we're walking people through the category awareness Um what they need when and um, I think as long as we can kind of stick to a framework like that We can stay on track um and knowing right now the majority of what we need is awareness Um, but as we grow our needs will shift and and trying to make sure we kind of stay on track with that Um, that's been really helpful and I know that's a super basic thing But sometimes when I get because it's so easy to get distracted or not where to know where to focus at an early stage startup Is I just go back to a couple of those really basic fundamentals and I have a framework for something that helps me stay on task Um, I'm a big framework person because otherwise who knows what's up, right? I need that to keep me structured.
Yeah, I love that framework and I think that Like educating on the problem too like you know a lot of marketing leaders They start to educate on the solution too early as well. I think of myself as a buyer Um, I really want I crave I say it's like every product that I crave non-obvious insights It's really hard to find them out there today, right? Um, you have to really like suss through like a sea of just noise And so I think the way that people buy today too is like you really only need that solution Or product oriented education like at the tail end like could you argue? I don't know how many marketers are going to banish me from the community at this point But I'm like is that all like sales like should handle that in sales coverage like does marketing have any responsibility really at all?
To talk about the problem if you're kind of gating marketing to that awareness and consideration stage like is the product ever really relevant I I think no ish, you know, don't don't banish me But I think I got to lean towards no because if you are talking a lot about the product in those earlier stage It probably means that you don't have a non-obvious insight Like it's that you're not nurturing someone because you have new ideas You're not helping me to up level in my role You're kind of just pushing product and trying to force me down the funnel in a product oriented way as opposed to like in an ideas oriented way Do you buy that at all or is that total garbage? No, I kind of think I do actually I think Maybe I'll be banished too But especially at this stage, I just don't really feel like the product The product has nothing to do with what I do People care even less I feel like when you're like seed stage early stage about the product right because the product is literally the least impressive that it will ever be It's very good. And so it's like why not spend the majority of our time I don't know. It's just it seems so simple and like a no-brainer, but it feels like it feels like we're banished Jen, I don't know I would be so curious to hear what people think about this part specifically because yes Most of the product conversations happen on the sale in the sales calls And then you know later once we get somebody up and running then that's where success handles that um, yeah, I buy it I'm on board.
She bought it. What about you Cassidy? Well, you know what we're gonna hear I mean you hear from Carl and Max is like when does he get to take over product? Product marketing is now in sales And I mean I have a question and I have maybe the inverse question of this and it's um An observation I've made of other thoughts on and that is um marketers can get wrapped around the axle of I'm marketing the problem, but what if my product can't deliver that problem and so I get this kind of uh You know, I can't say that because we don't have actually anything to sell to solve that or maybe what we're selling to solve that It's a very niche solution, but yet the category is broad and What kind of you know this made it a natural for you?
But like how did any advice for folks out there to kind of how to separate these two things? I that's a I like this question too. Um, I'm inclined to say I don't care and I'll just say what not whatever I'm not gonna lie But my job right now is the category is to educate people about this problem and what this category is Um, if there are things, you know, and like you said our product is the worst It's ever gonna be right now future customers. It's still great though.
I promise But um, you know, so it doesn't do everything but it will continue to improve and so for me I I just want to attract people to have a conversation about this problem Um people who are interested in this To read our stuff, um, maybe get in a sales conversation and they are sales can decide if it's a fit for them or not But if there is something the product doesn't do yet that is fundamental to this problem I still want to have that conversation because that's important to us for you know learning and discovery but also because, uh, well, no, I think just because of that because I want to learn I would never lie or mislead But I think we're still so early in the awareness of the category that It would hard for me to say something specific enough that the product just wouldn't do it You know, I'm just like territories are bad. Um come talk to us about that You know, and then we can like get people into a conversation where we have something that fits their needs Um, that's a kind of a non-answer though because I'm not sure that that that's gonna apply to everybody Um, you obviously don't want to sell functionality. You don't have but I don't really we don't quite get there yet I have this concept that I'm about to invent right now But I was just thinking about it while you were talking to us this idea that like idea market fit Or maybe it's another way to say that is like problem market fit That pmf happens before the product market fit, right? I love this.
Um, I call it message market fit But that's exactly the same I've been talking about it like in my we do a leadership team doesn't weekly update out to you know Investors and people and I keep talking about how we're really knocking them out of the park on message market fit Um, because yeah, I think you're right. I think that does come before product market fit that And maybe you're always working on it, but you want to make sure the message is resonating and at this stage It's it's such a high level message that yeah sales can work out with the the prospect and the product and like find the right fit there And yeah, and if there's something we're talking about the product doesn't do yet specifically then this is how we learn that we need to add Right, that's how this works. I'm pretty sure. I know our product doesn't listen to this.
I have another um Tough one. I don't know interesting question and that is um So you come up with this concept this problem Awareness is zero By and your job is to build awareness How do you think about Not measurement in like the actual physically like I'm measuring these things, but how do you think about like whether you're making progress Um in having more people aware of this problem super important, right? Because how can we show progress to our investors for example if we don't have some way to measure this um, I think So for me the things that we look at are um, just simple engagement stuff to start are people engaging with our content on this Um, literally are people commenting on linked in posts about it? Are they downloading our resources?
Are they reading our blog posts? Um, so simple stuff like that just to see is anyone even paying attention, but beyond that, um, I think one of the things I'm going to be monitoring pretty closely in 2023 is earned media kind of stuff. Um, how often not gradient works necessarily, but how often are these Like dynamic books, but these concepts coming up. Do we see them starting to sprout in places?
I doubt we'll get much of that early on, but that should grow right as we go. Um, so so just some like good old fashioned media monitoring there Um, I'm calling a lot of things old fashioned. I'm noticing um, uh, so that um, another thing too is Quality of inbound leads that we generate. So by quality, I mean, are they a better fit?
Are they in our ikp? Do they have a problem? Um, that's a little further down the funnel, but I think that that shows that we're starting to nail some of the messaging that that is resonating That someone has an interest. Um, so those would be some of the things I would look at.
I also and this is an answer that Some marketers are gonna hate, but I can feel when it's working and when it's not Um, so there's some things that are a little harder to measure, but I can it just feels different now than it did six months ago Those metrics are all doing better too, but there's something qualitatively emotionally that you can feel that is different about Yeah, I think one of the things to that by the way, I love that answer It there's a variety of different things early on that you're looking at as indicators that you want to see going up to the right and they're gonna be small They want to get bigger and I think you outline a bunch of them that I'd agree with Um, the feeling thing is that another really important one and that is you probably in conversations now Don't have the objection to the problem is probably very little. That's right. Maybe somebody's not ready to buy They don't they're not ready to make this change. It may not be the number one thing they want to solve Um, maybe your products not ready for their environment But what I think you find early on and when you when you're on to something is very few people say no, Jen You're not right.
The only ways way better Um, and I think maybe that's what you mean like when you start feeling it It's like like we know when we have an inbound or we're talking to somebody everybody's gonna agree with the problem They may not be ready to solve it. We may not know solve it for him But we know we're on to something when everybody's like that's something I've never heard of and you're right I have that problem He just taught me something that I didn't know that to the carl's point on non-obvious insights to me This is not obvious. I first time I read them like this makes complete sense It just it seems so obvious, but yeah Once you know it once you hear it, you can't put it back in the bottom You can't like walk away from it. You now you can't unhere this concept Yeah, I think that's what when you when you have that then to your point it feels easier And I don't know how you feel about that.
That makes any sense. I think that makes perfect sense Um, it it feels easier. It's such a great way of saying it too And just like we were talking about a few minutes ago with a product marketing part of this This stuff gets easier when the message is right Um That's just I think it's just to across the board and you can feel it it feels easier It feels yeah I mean we do have a few people object to the concept but most people don't right and so yeah Then it's just a matter of like, okay, and when you're ready to implement it here We're here for you and so trying to make it seem more urgent So they want to implement it sooner, you know, those would be some of the challenges we face moving forward But um it really is like it's an easier story to tell it just feels easier. Yeah, I'm gonna be respectful of time I want to ask you one other question for myself Carl.
I have one um You've had a very successful career even in startups you sold companies You've been in big companies and senior leadership roles Now you're back in the startup and you're you've you've found something that's a problem that people couldn't weren't aware of you're making them aware Any advice for when you should or shouldn't be thinking about category design I think there's a lot of marketers out there struggling with them. Am I developing a category or not? Do I need to get the CEO on board or maybe the CEO's like I have a category but they may not have a category Um, and what do you do if you don't like how do you think about that? I think probably a lot of marketers run into a CEO or an investor saying hey, we have a category We want to create a category.
I think a lot of us resonate with that. Um You never want to force a category, right? Um if there truly is no white space in this area It doesn't mean you can't have a very successful company with a very successful product Because there's lots of things that have created their own category. They're wildly successful like Nike, right?
They sell shoes and athletic apparel. So lots of other companies. I don't think Nike invented that category, but um, So I think one one piece of advice is Figure out if it's a category. Is it truly white space?
Are you doing something fundamentally new? Um, and one thing we we we say a lot is that we're not doing the old way of territories better We're doing a new way and so I think if you can articulate the thing that is truly new Um, truly unique then that can be a category um And again, it doesn't have to be a category not every if every company created a category would be crazy But categories and nothing would be a category. Um, so I think there's that what is the white space? Um, if you can find it, um If you attempt to build a category when it's in like manufacture something that isn't there It can be really distracting too and harmful to what it is that you're trying to do, right?
You think of like hub spot like not a category creator still totally dominating crm space, right? And so I think it's just to your point, Jen like If you chase something that isn't there is gonna be a little opportunity cost to be energy expenditure That goes through something that probably to harm you, um, and it seems a little bit pointless But it's it's a shiny object that casts at each point now Like everybody wants to be a category creator. Everybody does and and I mean it is a shiny object But you are so right that it is it is a distraction It is a waste of resources if it doesn't make sense for sense for your your company or your brand or whatever You should not do it because it's so much work, right? And the thing is it also takes years to do so you can't just kind of sort of do this, right?
You have to be all in on this and spend a lot of time and effort on it. So, um, you got a whole asset like you do You got a whole asset you can not know none of this stuff you can have asked. Um, so yeah, I think that's a great point You just you got to to commit what you need to do to do this. Well, you got to really want to do it You know, it's got to make sense for you.
I tried to um, Markers to think of the notion like there's no excuse to not Have great positioning in how you're taking your company to market and on a spectrum that positioning may be creating a category For designing a category, but if it's not there's still no excuse to be able to position yourself in your market uniquely to your capabilities and I feel like What I frankly see as a categories is an excuse or a Lifeline for marketers just not doing what they should be doing Which is just most of the time it's just really good positioning and counter positioning to the competition and understanding recent in the market and Reading our recent Jack Charles books and like doing that and once a while like it will be a category, but oftentimes it's not and Yeah, it's just you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna put my sit box, but I think it's just this It is a one it's one way to do positioning effectively, but there's many other ways to position your company Yep, I think that's a great way of putting it is that yeah, it is one way, but not the only way Yeah, and just simply depositing something else is not a category. Um, yeah, I like that like just because if you position your Category here your your message as in opposition to something else is that a category? It might not be yeah Although maybe that's what I've been doing by saying territories are terrible, but we have a new way of doing it So, um, let's get kind of a tricky one. So yeah, I want to make sure I'm not contradicting myself there.
That's okay Yeah, I mean, I think what I get let this test is nobody's actually thought about this new way Um, and so to me, you know, it's one thing to say like I've done a matter of mouse trap and here's I've I'm different. Okay, let's a patient position exercise. This is You're fundamentally changing a paradigm of how sales have operated for 100 years Yeah, what if we don't use mels traps at all? What if we take care of mice in some other way?
Yeah, exactly That's awesome. Um, caro, I'll you wrap up any other questions you have? That's it. Janice has been awesome.
Um, where where I know in volume one or part one We talked a little bit about it, but I want to learn more about reading works Where do I find your best content your best ideas to learn more about this concept? Yeah, our best stuff is on the dynamic books hub. It's gradient dot works slash books Um, it's also very prominently displayed on our website and all of our linkedin, so I'm sure you'll find it but yeah gradient dot works slash books Perfect. Thanks so much, Jan.
Appreciate you guys for having me hanging out with us. Yeah, this was awesome. Thanks for having me. Yep.
Thanks, Janice