Rebuilding Asana’s Brand, Narrative, and GTM, with Prachi Gore (the CMO Who Grew Checkr to $800M)

Dave [0:00:01]: You're listening to the Exit Five podcast.

Dave [0:00:02]: Hey, my guess on this episode is Prachi Gore.

Dave [0:00:14]: She is the CMO at Asana.

Dave [0:00:16]: And within about six months of joining, she did five new product launches, led a new brand, new corporate narrative and positioning.

Dave [0:00:24]: And unveiled a new Asana work innovation summit.

Dave [0:00:28]: Before that, she spent six years at C where the business grew from over a hundred million in revenue to eight hundred while she was there.

Dave [0:00:34]: At Checkers, she had this Prachi self serve business and an enterprise business?

Dave [0:00:39]: And now they have a similar motion at Asana.

Dave [0:00:41]: I know a lot of people that listen to our podcast have that motion.

Dave [0:00:44]: So we talked a lot about that.

Dave [0:00:45]: What is her team structure?

Dave [0:00:46]: What are the marketers at Asana do?

Dave [0:00:49]: What are her big priorities for the year.

Dave [0:00:51]: How does she have the team structured and organized?

Dave [0:00:52]: And Where does she think things are going because of all the Ai stuff that's happening in this world and also, we tell the story about how they actually did the Asana repositioning exercise and why she chose to not work with an agency or consultant why they did it all in house and what they learned through that.

Dave [0:01:08]: This was a really awesome conversation with the CMO of a product I know a lot of you are are using and love and just an interesting insight into a high performing marketing team and what they're doing right now.

Dave [0:01:18]: Enjoy my conversation with Pro from Asana.

Dave [0:01:21]: Shout out to Asana.

Dave [0:01:22]: Our team is…

Dave [0:01:24]: Our power users, marissa.

Dave [0:01:26]: She can't get me to log in.

Dave [0:01:27]: So maybe that's a product marketing pin later.

Dave [0:01:29]: I'm more.

Prachi [0:01:30]: Fix that.

Prachi [0:01:30]: I need to see why not.

Dave [0:01:32]: I'm more of a posted no guy myself, but…

Prachi [0:01:36]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:01:36]: Okay.

Prachi [0:01:36]: We have notes, you know, and a asana but…

Dave [0:01:40]: By the end of this call, I will be…

Dave [0:01:41]: I will be a a power user, but excited to to have you on the pod.

Dave [0:01:46]: You know, obviously, we…

Dave [0:01:47]: Our audiences B2B marketers I'm sure there's lots of a Asana power users out there.

Dave [0:01:53]: You are relatively new ish…

Dave [0:01:56]: Is it is in the last year.

Dave [0:01:58]: I…

Prachi [0:02:00]: What on most of these coming up soon.

Prachi [0:02:01]: So

Dave [0:02:02]: Yes.

Dave [0:02:02]: Okay.

Dave [0:02:03]: So for this before this, you were running marketing at Checker?

Prachi [0:02:07]: Yes.

Prachi [0:02:07]: I was there for six years.

Dave [0:02:09]: What's the difference between what you were doing at Checker and with the audience that you're going after at USA asana and tell people who check or like, who you sold to a checker what you kinda just that ICP and then what you're doing now.

Dave [0:02:22]: And I'm also curious as to, like, Why Asana, you're…

Dave [0:02:25]: Have an impressive resume.

Dave [0:02:26]: Why do you why'd you take that job?

Dave [0:02:28]: Why'd you go there?

Dave [0:02:28]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:02:29]: I yeah.

Prachi [0:02:29]: I'll travel a little bit So check started off as a background checks vendor.

Prachi [0:02:34]: And so in our early days, and I was there six years so I joined when we were a four year old company and then the business grew.

Prachi [0:02:40]: But in our early days, our target audience was developers course because we had Apis And so all these good companies and marketplaces wanted to use the Apis and and into background checks as part of their application process for drawing worse, etcetera.

Prachi [0:02:54]: And then we grew to, like, sort the larger Hr audience.

Prachi [0:02:57]: So background checks for everyone.

Prachi [0:02:59]: And then maybe halfway, like, through my tenure there, we we went from single product to multi product company and started building all these other trust and compliance products For insurance agencies for marketplaces cases for So the breadth of our audiences grew as our product grew.

Prachi [0:03:17]: But our…

Prachi [0:03:18]: The largest part of our revenue still comes from what I categorize as Hr audiences.

Prachi [0:03:22]: So that's tripled.

Prachi [0:03:24]: Ass asana is very different.

Prachi [0:03:26]: Asana is a product that anyone can use.

Prachi [0:03:28]: It's a horizontal product.

Prachi [0:03:29]: So technically, anyone who wants to manage projects.

Prachi [0:03:32]: We have people who manage their weddings to Asana and all the way to, you know, large, large fortune hundred companies.

Dave [0:03:39]: Marissa is gonna listen this later because she's our our content person, and she's goes and listens.

Dave [0:03:43]: I I I didn't know Marissa when she got married, but if I had to guess, Asana was heavy would involved in hurt Yeah, for sure.

Prachi [0:03:51]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:03:51]: So yeah thought it's, like, one of the use cases, but we serve everyone.

Prachi [0:03:55]: However, I'm a big fan of ICP.

Prachi [0:03:57]: So within the universe of anyone can use Asana.

Prachi [0:04:00]: We go after…

Prachi [0:04:02]: I would say, like, ops audiences, but, like, marketing, marketing apps, campaign ops, creative ops, as well as, like, strategic ops, program offices.

Prachi [0:04:12]: So it's, like, marketing and ops as audiences are our primary audiences.

Dave [0:04:18]: It's interesting to hear you say that because I…

Dave [0:04:20]: Through running Exit Five Right, we talked to lots of different marketing people in all different industries and sometimes, you talk to a company words like, anyone can use our product and to some people who have a really small, like, ICP or you're like, wow, that's amazing, but it can be a challenge because it's, like, how do you do marketing to everyone?

Dave [0:04:38]: How do you make the website speak to all these people and it's not just external.

Dave [0:04:40]: You have all these stakeholders internally who run different parts and they're, like, we're battling with the sales over this segment?

Dave [0:04:47]: Or this product person wants more voice.

Dave [0:04:49]: And so it's interesting to hear that, like, anyone can buy Asana, but from a who you're actively marketing to?

Dave [0:04:55]: Your focus is that the right way to read that?

Prachi [0:04:58]: Exactly.

Prachi [0:04:58]: I think what the ICP does is like, it creates almost within your res sourcing and investment decision a prioritization framework what.

Prachi [0:05:07]: Or even, like, place that we work with our sales team.

Prachi [0:05:10]: It's like, hey.

Prachi [0:05:10]: Here is that each one plays.

Prachi [0:05:12]: Like, let's go after these target And sometimes that's vertical.

Prachi [0:05:16]: Sometimes that's for persona, but you gotta to, like, figure where do you have the highest propensity to win even if you are a hot rock, fairly hot product.

Dave [0:05:26]: I have a bunch of questions that I wanna ask you in in our doc.

Dave [0:05:29]: And I I like to…

Dave [0:05:30]: Our audience all marketing nerds.

Dave [0:05:32]: Right?

Dave [0:05:32]: Like, kinda like you and me.

Dave [0:05:34]: They like to hear about how do you have the team structured how does Prachi run the marketing team?

Dave [0:05:39]: I wanna get into some of this stuff you've done it us on it what All get, But I'm just curious, what is the first year of your job and, like, and you've been a marketing in the past.

Dave [0:05:48]: And so you've had an opportunity to…

Dave [0:05:49]: You know, this is not the first time you've joined a company as a marketing leader.

Dave [0:05:52]: What do you come in and do?

Dave [0:05:54]: How do you know the right time to make changes?

Dave [0:05:56]: Take me into the first year at Ass asana on and how you've…

Dave [0:05:59]: And one more thing and I'll show up.

Dave [0:06:01]: Everyone says, like, don't come in and do a re brand.

Dave [0:06:04]: Don't come in all that, there's so much nuance to all that.

Dave [0:06:07]: It's different in every company.

Dave [0:06:08]: I wanna hear like, what what have you done?

Dave [0:06:10]: What have you come in and evaluate it and changed or moved around or kept.

Dave [0:06:13]: Right?

Prachi [0:06:14]: I'll tell you what I've done at Asana, and then I do wanna comment in on, like, the re brand aspect, especially when you go into a new job, but as a marketing deal.

Prachi [0:06:22]: So when I came to Asana, there were two jobs to be done or, like, key objectives for me and my marketing team.

Prachi [0:06:30]: One was Asana was going from a collaborative work management product or project management product to becoming work execution because the beauty of that collaboration that happened between humans and humans, was that when you introduce agents into teams, and let's call them hybrid teams, the agents also need to collaborate with the human or the agents themselves.

Prachi [0:06:58]: So the collaboration aspect doesn't go away.

Prachi [0:07:01]: It it is needed.

Prachi [0:07:02]: What is especially in a multi layered way.

Prachi [0:07:05]: Like, if I I have a brand strategist then both of us wanna work with them with my brand strategist agent, then we needed collaboration problem.

Prachi [0:07:12]: What was amazing about this is that now that we have agents in the system, work can actually get executed.

Prachi [0:07:21]: And we could talk more about, like, what kind of work.

Prachi [0:07:23]: But but that's very different from being a product management system.

Prachi [0:07:26]: Now you, like, moving towards a work execution system.

Prachi [0:07:30]: So the branding, or I would say, it wasn't even, like, visual branding wasn't the first step, but the positioning repositioning of who is a asana needed to happen.

Dave [0:07:40]: So you're saying, like, the Asana product strategy changed because it's, like, wait, Dave got a bunch of things on his to do list that, like, an agent could just do.

Prachi [0:07:50]: And not just that because it's like, you could say, okay.

Prachi [0:07:52]: I could be, like, in an Agent lot whatever, and and that can happen too.

Prachi [0:07:57]: But where the power was is like, oh, Pro…

Prachi [0:08:01]: Okay.

Prachi [0:08:02]: I'll give you an example.

Prachi [0:08:03]: The the one that comes up one of the most standard ones in any marketing flow.

Prachi [0:08:07]: I need to update the website.

Prachi [0:08:08]: Create a landing page for my campaign, whatever.

Prachi [0:08:10]: The old process would have been me, the marketer would have created if you're a big or, like, a ticket or something, or I would have gone and talk to someone in my have to say, like, I need to lock to this new page.

Prachi [0:08:20]: Right, then you bring in a designer or you bring in a content writer if you're a skin team but if you're small.

Prachi [0:08:25]: You know, you have all these people playing.

Prachi [0:08:27]: And before you even write something, you've had a kick call, you've had, like, action items.

Prachi [0:08:32]: You've, like, done this whole process.

Prachi [0:08:33]: In the agents in our system process.

Prachi [0:08:36]: The marketer still saying, hey, I need to just we have a meetings product too.

Prachi [0:08:41]: That's, like, that'll g now in a month, but we use it.

Prachi [0:08:44]: So we have done this kickoff meeting.

Prachi [0:08:45]: The market is saying, I wanna go to this.

Prachi [0:08:47]: The meeting is recorded.

Prachi [0:08:48]: It's an agent is taking the transcript, creating the action plan of what needs to happen.

Prachi [0:08:53]: We have three agents like the creative pre writer launch plan.

Prachi [0:08:57]: But the…

Prachi [0:08:58]: In this case, the creative pre is saying, okay.

Prachi [0:09:00]: Great.

Prachi [0:09:00]: I got this.

Prachi [0:09:01]: I'm gonna write the creative brief based on on this and suggested copy.

Prachi [0:09:05]: Then it goes we have…

Prachi [0:09:07]: We always have human in the loop.

Prachi [0:09:08]: So someone saying, like, this copy is fine.

Prachi [0:09:10]: I'm not fine or whatever.

Prachi [0:09:10]: It's usually not fine.

Prachi [0:09:12]: So they're, like, give some prompt.

Prachi [0:09:13]: But, yeah know, it's like, do stand out.

Prachi [0:09:15]: Like, for some, like, SEO type of stuff, it's usually fine my cap.

Dave [0:09:19]: Yeah.

Dave [0:09:19]: Well, I think…

Dave [0:09:19]: Yeah…

Dave [0:09:19]: No It's fine.

Dave [0:09:20]: You don't have to couch I think it's it's definitely helpful from going from zero to one.

Prachi [0:09:24]: I like having the human in the loop.

Prachi [0:09:25]: It's like, hey.

Prachi [0:09:26]: Like, let's give it the right feedback.

Prachi [0:09:28]: But the beauty of this agent is, like, let's say that copy came into you and me.

Prachi [0:09:33]: We are, like, I'm the web team we are the content editor.

Prachi [0:09:35]: And we are both giving me a feedback me for SEO or something, and you're giving it for, like, tone or just, like, creativity.

Prachi [0:09:40]: You are just like, not having a Poc or something.

Prachi [0:09:43]: This brand just now has executed on that feedback.

Prachi [0:09:47]: But now it's created memory from both what I told it.

Prachi [0:09:50]: As well as what Dave told it.

Prachi [0:09:52]: And so this is, like, shared memory.

Prachi [0:09:54]: And it's like, literally like, a real teammate.

Prachi [0:09:56]: Like, I have a grand structure just string.

Prachi [0:09:58]: That multiple people have coached.

Prachi [0:09:59]: And which is different from your agent in an Element.

Prachi [0:10:03]: So I think that's the the power that gives our teams is, like, we are thinking about these workflows end to end and say, okay, What are the steps that agents can do?

Prachi [0:10:11]: Where do Want the human?

Prachi [0:10:12]: And it can be a large part can be automate automated?

Prachi [0:10:14]: Like this web example, our team was saying, like, this say it's somewhere between eleven to fifteen hours every week that they would have spent doing something, you know, around this.

Dave [0:10:25]: So your job, then I'm just like, checking out the website right now.

Dave [0:10:28]: So your job as a marketing leader did this story exist before you got there?

Dave [0:10:33]: Or did you need to come in and, like, basically talk about the new Asana to the world?

Prachi [0:10:39]: We we have to talk about the new Asana.

Prachi [0:10:40]: What existed was this idea that we were gonna become agent?

Prachi [0:10:44]: We had pre launched like some agents, but if nothing was Ga.

Prachi [0:10:48]: The story wasn't like, flushed, and it was not about the workflow.

Prachi [0:10:51]: It was about the agents, but it's not about the agents.

Prachi [0:10:54]: The agents there are many.

Prachi [0:10:55]: Every product is gonna have them, and are gonna get comm.

Prachi [0:10:58]: You need them.

Prachi [0:11:00]: But largely, there are many types of agents.

Prachi [0:11:03]: So it was like, the differentiation of our agents, which needs to stand out, but really, the move was towards orchestrated execution.

Prachi [0:11:10]: It's, like, moving from tracking to our orchestration.

Prachi [0:11:12]: So that had to happen when I came and this, like, whole…

Prachi [0:11:16]: Half.

Prachi [0:11:16]: If it's all about the workflow which we get talk about through our process and we were uncovering.

Prachi [0:11:20]: What is that positioning?

Prachi [0:11:21]: But, yeah.

Prachi [0:11:22]: So that was, like one.

Prachi [0:11:23]: It's, like, we gotta reposition aside.

Dave [0:11:25]: Yeah.

Dave [0:11:25]: Let I have that later.

Dave [0:11:26]: Let we'll get.

Dave [0:11:26]: I wanna talk about the position.

Dave [0:11:27]: Yes.

Prachi [0:11:28]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:11:28]: So we…

Prachi [0:11:29]: That was one.

Prachi [0:11:30]: And then two was, we have to bring growth back.

Prachi [0:11:33]: Like, the company is growing.

Prachi [0:11:34]: This is publicly available?

Prachi [0:11:35]: They data, but we are growing, like, in that ten percent range, How do we get to twenty?

Prachi [0:11:39]: How do we bring, like, growth back And so those were the two more or are.

Prachi [0:11:43]: But, like, when I first came in, those were the two objectives for the marketing leader.

Prachi [0:11:47]: And so then I had to, like, take a step back and say, okay.

Prachi [0:11:50]: How We gonna organize ourselves to go to this.

Prachi [0:11:52]: And we had to launch five new products by june.

Prachi [0:11:55]: So it's like, it was like, I was like, I was sending someone joking me my first six months.

Prachi [0:11:59]: I was like, I didn't think I was gonna join your, like, reposition the company.

Prachi [0:12:03]: We did end up doing a visual brand and launch five new products and a flagship brand all in six months.

Prachi [0:12:08]: So it was crazy times but fun.

Prachi [0:12:10]: And then I wanna go back to the branding.

Prachi [0:12:13]: I do firmly believe that you shouldn't just go in as a new CMO and, like, re brand.

Prachi [0:12:18]: You should, if something is categorically not working or is fundamentally changing, that will drive the objective that you've been brought to drive and that's growth or whatever.

Prachi [0:12:29]: And and sometimes, because it's rebranding for the sake of rebranding is such a costly project, not just like, dollar wise but the amount of effort and team effort you're putting in It's like expensive.

Prachi [0:12:42]: And so if I ever have the choice, then if the current brand was working, I wouldn't…

Prachi [0:12:46]: Like, it would be the last I love doing branding, I love being positioning, it's fun, but I would not I would not try and touch it first if it didn't have to change.

Dave [0:12:56]: Think is, like, one of those things that people love to just, like, debate about on Linkedin, but I think there's just so much nuance to it.

Dave [0:13:01]: Obviously, if you went to a company and it was, like, so obvious that the brand didn't represent what the company was actually doing, then that actually could be a lever.

Dave [0:13:09]: I think That's crazy.

Dave [0:13:11]: By the way, five, five new products in six months.

Dave [0:13:14]: I'm just, like typing some of these things as you say them so Can come back to them.

Dave [0:13:17]: I'm not ignoring you.

Dave [0:13:18]: Five new products in six months and a whole re brand how did you do that?

Dave [0:13:23]: How did you do that?

Dave [0:13:24]: Why didn't you push back?

Dave [0:13:25]: Why didn't you say no?

Dave [0:13:27]: And I'm saying that because I got a text from a one of our members over the weekend and she was like, I just took this new job.

Dave [0:13:32]: Am I crazy?

Dave [0:13:33]: They want this this this this this in the first ninety days.

Dave [0:13:36]: Now the ninety days is not six month, but take me through that.

Dave [0:13:39]: How do you actually decide to go do that?

Dave [0:13:41]: How do you block and tackle it?

Dave [0:13:42]: How do you you have a new team who doesn't know who you are yet or doesn't know your working style?

Dave [0:13:46]: Like, there's a lot in there?

Prachi [0:13:48]: It is, and it's not is not and was not easy on anyone.

Prachi [0:13:52]: So it was a lot of, like, fun, but also sweat and tears and learnings, I would say you asked the question.

Prachi [0:14:00]: Why did…

Prachi [0:14:00]: Why did you not push that?

Prachi [0:14:01]: The need to go to tell the Asana story to go drive the growth, the infect growth was needed.

Prachi [0:14:07]: Like, it was necessary.

Prachi [0:14:08]: We…

Prachi [0:14:09]: Our core market is growing at the rate it's growing, but we could deliver so much more value to our customers.

Prachi [0:14:15]: We have to go tell that story.

Prachi [0:14:16]: The five product launches came a little bit later, and and they came because our inch team's productivity just skyrocketed with the innovation of coding tools and so a timeline when I first got in here late last year, the timeline was more spread out through the year.

Prachi [0:14:35]: And we had, like, two big events that we do.

Prachi [0:14:37]: But our teams was just able to deliver.

Prachi [0:14:40]: This amazing innovation.

Prachi [0:14:41]: And so it didn't make sense to fold that back and not announce it.

Prachi [0:14:45]: So we pulled it forward and announce these products.

Prachi [0:14:48]: However, we did stagger the Ea g launches so that we can do the due diligence on enabling our teams in detail, like, you know, having the place and the campaigns ready.

Prachi [0:14:59]: So the big external push and the Gs, Es, ga, we did stagger But the announcement we had to go make because the products were gonna be ready or we're red.

Prachi [0:15:10]: This is gonna happen.

Prachi [0:15:11]: If this is gonna continue to happen.

Prachi [0:15:13]: Like, we were having this discussion around product launches, and I've been around the block a lot.

Prachi [0:15:17]: We used to do like these batch.

Prachi [0:15:19]: Batch releases and product launches, another one.

Prachi [0:15:23]: That's like, yeah.

Prachi [0:15:24]: Batch product releases, then we went to, like, hey.

Prachi [0:15:27]: We could by way.

Prachi [0:15:28]: Like, we just, like, do, You know, the last three or five years were just like, go, like, push your innovation.

Prachi [0:15:32]: Right now, I'm see it this, I don't know that we've decided that.

Prachi [0:15:35]: But I am…

Prachi [0:15:36]: As I think about next year.

Prachi [0:15:37]: Like, I'm like, our teams are just launching something new every week.

Prachi [0:15:41]: It's like, does it make sense to go back to batch to just like, give our customers a moment to absorb what is happening and

Dave [0:15:48]: This is kinda where I was going with this is, like, what?

Dave [0:15:50]: Can you take me into what some of those product launches even are, what's the playbook?

Dave [0:15:54]: Because…

Dave [0:15:55]: Yeah, You're…

Dave [0:15:55]: I…

Dave [0:15:56]: My…

Dave [0:15:56]: One of my first jobs in marketing was, like, writing release notes?

Dave [0:15:59]: And it would be, like, once a quarter, like, there'd be a bunch of new products, product updates, and I would write them and be a blog post in an email.

Dave [0:16:08]: You're Asana, publicly traded company.

Dave [0:16:10]: Lots of people know you.

Dave [0:16:12]: Are you on stage, but also, like, do people care at that level?

Dave [0:16:16]: Like, can you tell me, like, what…

Dave [0:16:18]: When you say, like, we launch the five products, what were the marketing components of those?

Dave [0:16:21]: And how do you decide what goes in there?

Dave [0:16:23]: And then even what you just said.

Dave [0:16:24]: If you're gonna launch something every week, just because product The product came shipped something every week?

Dave [0:16:29]: Does that mean the marketing team has to…

Dave [0:16:31]: What do you even do send an email about it?

Dave [0:16:33]: Make a video?

Prachi [0:16:35]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:16:35]: So I'll I'll tell you about the five launches because we had pre planned this big…

Prachi [0:16:39]: Our work innovation some European event in London about a thousand people in the room, that was in June.

Prachi [0:16:45]: And so we decided to use that as our launch moment for all five.

Prachi [0:16:49]: Because two of them were gonna launch at pat to work gonna launch like, a few weeks.

Prachi [0:16:54]: Afterwards.

Prachi [0:16:54]: So we're were like, okay.

Prachi [0:16:55]: This becomes the moment and we announced some of them as Ea some of them as ga.

Prachi [0:16:59]: And so that was our launch moment.

Prachi [0:17:01]: So we did get up on stage.

Prachi [0:17:03]: We did bring our Gm on stage.

Prachi [0:17:04]: We did bring our design partner customers on stage to talk about their experience.

Prachi [0:17:08]: So we did make a big moment out of the launch.

Prachi [0:17:10]: But our launch never just stops there.

Prachi [0:17:12]: It's a rolling thunder afterwards.

Prachi [0:17:14]: Right?

Prachi [0:17:14]: Like, yeah, We got the word out.

Prachi [0:17:15]: But now we have to actually go sell these five products.

Prachi [0:17:18]: And so in the back half of the year, we designed our entire campaign strategy around…

Prachi [0:17:23]: It's like we call them the h two place, but it's like the five place.

Prachi [0:17:26]: And the five plays were all around these five products.

Prachi [0:17:29]: And the five products are, I told you as asana as a Horizontal product, anyone can use it, but we are…

Prachi [0:17:35]: In the and the for the core product that we build, all the features are great for marketing and ops teams.

Prachi [0:17:41]: But we also have these other teams that are in our database use it in many happy ways.

Prachi [0:17:46]: And so we are just building full fledged features for these personas.

Prachi [0:17:50]: And those personas are agencies, like twenty percent of our customers our agencies who use Asana, and so we've like the client that time sheet budget.

Prachi [0:18:00]: Like, just round out the full product for them, so they can execute end to end workflows relevant to their job.

Prachi [0:18:06]: The other audience is R and D teams, like product and dev, and they've always used us in a program management capacity, but we are building out now integrating with coding agents and things like that.

Prachi [0:18:16]: So it's just, like whole coding end end it can work.

Prachi [0:18:19]: That's called command.

Prachi [0:18:19]: We launched a service management product.

Prachi [0:18:22]: We had so many teams employee service management, Like, Hr ticketing facilities.

Prachi [0:18:26]: They were just using a sign out to do that in hack ways.

Prachi [0:18:29]: So we are building out for, like, knowledge base and, you know, at the agent remediation and things like that, when but when it needs project, it can create a product in Asana.

Prachi [0:18:38]: So that's the differentiation.

Prachi [0:18:40]: So anyway, there's, like, a personal persona packaged products that we have five of these that we are building out and we launched them.

Prachi [0:18:46]: I'll pause.

Prachi [0:18:47]: I could go.

Dave [0:18:49]: What's the, like, go…

Dave [0:18:49]: So, yeah.

Dave [0:18:50]: What are, like that…

Dave [0:18:50]: I think people wanna know, like, separate from it being an Asana thing?

Dave [0:18:53]: If you covered up the brand?

Dave [0:18:54]: Like, what are the, like, go to market elements of that?

Dave [0:18:57]: Is it like, emails?

Dave [0:18:58]: Is it sales enable?

Dave [0:18:59]: Is it ads, creative?

Dave [0:19:01]: Like, what's in the kind of product launch kit?

Prachi [0:19:04]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:19:04]: All of it but varies is by product.

Prachi [0:19:06]: So I would say that the parts that were consistent across all five products was sales enable moment, and the part in that sales enable was it's all about the use case.

Prachi [0:19:17]: Because we are selling workflows end to end workflows.

Prachi [0:19:20]: So we have to identify the canonical ten that all of these companies will do.

Prachi [0:19:24]: And so…

Prachi [0:19:24]: And enable our sales team to be able to speak to it because it's the new audience they've never spoken.

Prachi [0:19:29]: So, like that enable, of course, you know, your first all day, Like, all of that, yes.

Prachi [0:19:33]: We did demos demos for them to go do, but we had these use cases under the.

Dave [0:19:38]: Start…

Dave [0:19:38]: I like that though It start…

Dave [0:19:39]: It makes sense Like it starts with, let's come up with ten specific use cases that can get everyone to understand this.

Dave [0:19:46]: Train the sales team.

Dave [0:19:47]: I think it's a good forcing function And if you have to train the sales team that forces you to develop the ten use cases.

Dave [0:19:52]: And then, like, you can't go figure out what the ads are gonna be unless you figure…

Prachi [0:19:57]: You figure that out Exactly.

Prachi [0:19:58]: So because we were doing this at any event and many of our is people were gonna be there, they would get questions.

Prachi [0:20:02]: So we first leaned into the sales enable.

Prachi [0:20:04]: So and we had webpage pages.

Prachi [0:20:06]: Like, so the webpage pages on our website and the sales enable went were the first starting points across all of these.

Prachi [0:20:12]: And then as we develop the phase, we started doing use case videos for each of these use cases that were either customer or a asana on a asana or just fictional of how you would do it.

Prachi [0:20:23]: But a combination of use cases that are launching.

Prachi [0:20:26]: We did a ton of persona content, I would say, like, agencies is is specifically one that we are going after and more actively.

Prachi [0:20:34]: So just content of, like, blog post, I would say.

Prachi [0:20:38]: But that type of, like, short formed written content.

Prachi [0:20:41]: And then the distribution mechanism was at social, email the same channels.

Prachi [0:20:46]: But what worked for our first go at this where we are creating most of our pipeline is because we had so many our installed base, we have a hundred and seventy thousand paying customers.

Prachi [0:20:57]: That are ping and then, like, the free even larger.

Prachi [0:21:00]: We had, like, a install base to go to.

Prachi [0:21:04]: So through our community effort, we did a lot of training.

Prachi [0:21:06]: So…

Prachi [0:21:07]: These were, like, a asana on tour events, which were workshops.

Prachi [0:21:10]: These were trainings, and then…

Prachi [0:21:11]: And we have not work.

Prachi [0:21:12]: We're still doing them.

Dave [0:21:14]: The goal with this is, like, because you have such a big customer base.

Dave [0:21:17]: Is it…

Dave [0:21:17]: Let's get our existing customers using these new features.

Dave [0:21:22]: It's not like more…

Dave [0:21:23]: It's not like, we wanna…

Dave [0:21:24]: We wanna get this number of new customers because we have these new features.

Dave [0:21:28]: It's like, am I reading that right?

Prachi [0:21:30]: Could…

Prachi [0:21:30]: I mean, we do wanna get new customers.

Prachi [0:21:32]: Course Growth

Dave [0:21:33]: is all the goal.

Dave [0:21:34]: But both will come through the new customers adopting it using it, telling people about it?

Prachi [0:21:40]: And we've seen, like, word is such a…

Prachi [0:21:42]: Has always been such a big part of Asana growth, like, not not just since I got here, but even before we have a seventeen year old history that if our customers use it and love love it.

Prachi [0:21:52]: A keeps you honest.

Prachi [0:21:54]: So it's, like, instant feedback because they know a asana or…

Prachi [0:21:57]: You know?

Prachi [0:21:57]: So it's, like, a quick iterative loop with product, but also they become gaming fans, you know?

Dave [0:22:02]: So is this motion, like, because of the asana is, like, Is it one of those, like, kinda of product led, but also enterprise companies where you…

Dave [0:22:10]: Exactly.

Dave [0:22:11]: Okay.

Prachi [0:22:12]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:22:12]: We have a product led…

Prachi [0:22:13]: For our core product, we have a product led motion and that, usually, it's the graduation path once team start using.

Prachi [0:22:19]: But for our…

Prachi [0:22:20]: We have two new products that is service risk management, and one is, you know, just workflows, like, it's called Stack Ai.

Prachi [0:22:26]: It's an acquisition that we made.

Prachi [0:22:27]: Both of those are direct to sales.

Prachi [0:22:29]: So it it does not have a Prachi machine.

Prachi [0:22:32]: It's direct to sales.

Prachi [0:22:33]: And so that is the one audience where we are not mining our database, like It.

Prachi [0:22:38]: We have to go create demand.

Prachi [0:22:39]: We don't have…

Prachi [0:22:40]: You know, if as people know Asana.

Prachi [0:22:42]: But the per…

Prachi [0:22:43]: They don't perceive Asana is the product that solves the It workflow builder problems.

Prachi [0:22:49]: So we…

Prachi [0:22:50]: It is a new audience with new…

Prachi [0:22:52]: It's almost positioning a new company, but with some kinda known, yeah.

Prachi [0:22:56]: It's positioning.

Dave [0:22:58]: Okay.

Dave [0:22:58]: That's good good background.

Dave [0:22:59]: I feel that's great.

Dave [0:23:00]: That's good beginning to tell me about tell me about your your job.

Dave [0:23:03]: You you run the marketing team?

Dave [0:23:05]: There's, you know, hundred ish people on the marketing team.

Dave [0:23:07]: What are what are your big goals for marketing.

Dave [0:23:10]: How do you have the team set up?

Dave [0:23:11]: I'd love to try to, like, get into, like, your job right now, running marketing, twenty twenty six heading into twenty twenty seven.

Dave [0:23:19]: People are interested in, like, who does what?

Dave [0:23:22]: How do you have the team?

Dave [0:23:23]: Are you doing weekly sprints?

Dave [0:23:24]: Quarterly campaigns?

Dave [0:23:25]: Do you have four direct reports?

Dave [0:23:26]: Like, you know, those those types of things?

Dave [0:23:28]: Can you just kinda take me into, like, the…

Dave [0:23:30]: I guess, it's this would kinda be, like, Pro at the at the Whiteboard showing me the marketing strategy for the company.

Prachi [0:23:37]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:23:37]: I mean, our Kpis, it starts with the Kpis.

Prachi [0:23:38]: Our Kpis are, we need to drive more new logo acquisition in our Prachi machine for our four products.

Prachi [0:23:44]: We need to go drive sales pipeline against all of our five products, and we need to change the brand not just grow awareness for change the brand perception about Asana.

Prachi [0:23:55]: So those are our primary Kpis.

Prachi [0:23:56]: In the first half of this year, we did most work on the third and the first, Like, we already have a scaled engine, like, how do we optimize and the third.

Prachi [0:24:05]: And then in the back half we're doing a lot more work on the pipe build.

Prachi [0:24:09]: So so that's kinda, like, how we mapped out this year.

Prachi [0:24:11]: Going into next year, that growth, number one and number two become more prominent like that pipeline growth becomes real.

Prachi [0:24:19]: We'll also make some of these products P.

Prachi [0:24:21]: So how do you set up multi product demand, gen.

Prachi [0:24:25]: Frameworks is gonna be top of mind for us.

Prachi [0:24:29]: And then Brand, you know, brand is a continued effort, but maybe that's a second great Kpi api as we lean for the order.

Prachi [0:24:35]: It it's a brand kicks yours, but we had a lot of work on that upfront.

Prachi [0:24:38]: In terms of team organization, we have two demand gen demand creation teams.

Prachi [0:24:44]: I have a growth marketing team whose primary Kpi is that Prachi new logo acquisition not trials.

Prachi [0:24:50]: And then we have a revenue new marketing team whose primary Kpi is pipeline for sales.

Prachi [0:24:55]: Now both of these teams are tied to the hip because There's a lot digital digital channel and new campaigns that has crossed, so they have to be, like, one team in many ways, but they have two separate teams with different Kpis.

Prachi [0:25:06]: And then then I have the, you know, I have a product marketing team.

Prachi [0:25:09]: I have a random and creative team.

Prachi [0:25:12]: I have a comm team, and a off steam.

Prachi [0:25:14]: So the rest of the team stock is pretty standard.

Dave [0:25:18]: Okay.

Dave [0:25:18]: I'll come back to…

Dave [0:25:19]: I wanna come back to…

Dave [0:25:20]: And and it's, like, on the…

Dave [0:25:21]: So the growth you have the revenue and growth.

Dave [0:25:24]: Did they have shared resources or they each, like, running their own ads as an example, and they they share learning?

Prachi [0:25:32]: No.

Prachi [0:25:32]: So I've I've done it.

Prachi [0:25:34]: So Check was also a Pm and s g company.

Prachi [0:25:36]: So I've

Dave [0:25:36]: done asking this question because every so many people that listen to this one, and there's, like, a lot here, like, a lot of…

Dave [0:25:42]: This comes up a lot, which is, like, hey, We got we gotta sell to the enterprise, but we also have the self serve thing.

Dave [0:25:48]: How do we work together because it's not perfect tell me…

Dave [0:25:51]: Yeah.

Dave [0:25:52]: Tell me about what you're doing.

Prachi [0:25:53]: I'll tell you what we're doing at the asana, and then I'll also reference my check, how how I had it designed at checker because I think the scale matters.

Prachi [0:26:00]: So here, they have their primary Kpis, and they have dependency on each of those Kpis.

Prachi [0:26:06]: Like, we need campaigns to also drive some trials.

Prachi [0:26:09]: We need digital channels to drive pipeline as we do.

Prachi [0:26:12]: And so there's, like, our demand model has that.

Prachi [0:26:14]: But they they are the Dr and so they have to work with the cross functional team.

Prachi [0:26:17]: So let's say, like, on makeup.

Prachi [0:26:19]: This is not true.

Prachi [0:26:20]: But, like, let's say, in Germany, like, our pipeline is down and paid search and not bringing anything.

Prachi [0:26:25]: If that were a problem statement.

Prachi [0:26:27]: Then the Dr i's might have been marketing leader, but they would work with the digital team to figure out, like, what is happening?

Prachi [0:26:32]: The budget go down like, So they they pull in the team to make

Dave [0:26:36]: Is a digital…

Dave [0:26:36]: Is the digital team part of the revenue?

Prachi [0:26:38]: Digital is part of growth.

Dave [0:26:40]: Oh, got it.

Dave [0:26:40]: Okay.

Prachi [0:26:41]: Growth marketing has life cycle, education, like, expansion, but also digital acquisition, which is, you know, where see.

Dave [0:26:49]: High volume, like…

Prachi [0:26:50]: Paid media.

Prachi [0:26:50]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:26:51]: All the high volume channels.

Prachi [0:26:52]: And so that is how we've structured it at Ass asana because our paid and web channels are very scaled, and if I start doing…

Prachi [0:27:01]: If I start replicating efforts it's gonna be inefficient for us as a team.

Prachi [0:27:05]: I'd rather give them primary Apis and hold them accountable, and we have operating cadences that help us do that.

Prachi [0:27:11]: At record, we did have a small portion of S budget that we ran through an agency that our revenue marketing leader did own the subject matter experts from the growth team weighed in on the strategy with this agency, but they managed the agency themselves to kinda right?

Prachi [0:27:26]: Because it was, like, segmented in that way.

Prachi [0:27:29]: Like, Check was, like Smb was largely self serve and enterprise was largely revenue.

Prachi [0:27:33]: Here anyone can come in through growth.

Prachi [0:27:36]: So it's like, just…

Prachi [0:27:37]: It's different in that way.

Dave [0:27:38]: Have you learned anything about the Kpis and incentives that matter here to foster the right relationships between the teams versus I don't have as much experience.

Dave [0:27:48]: Just a very one small example, Maybe this is just my outlier example, but it felt like when you silo the teams, they're very like, nope My…

Dave [0:27:57]: This is my job.

Dave [0:27:58]: My job is generate Q in this segment.

Dave [0:28:00]: And as long as I do that, I'm gonna get my bonus and I'm gonna do my job and it's like, well, no.

Dave [0:28:05]: We should we could be helping this team.

Dave [0:28:06]: Like, have you learned anything about how to get everybody kinda rowing together even though we're we're…

Dave [0:28:10]: We have different different goals or do they have they have different goals.

Prachi [0:28:14]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:28:14]: So the metrics matter, so their primary Kpis is the training function for how they think what programs.

Prachi [0:28:21]: They put what strategies.

Prachi [0:28:21]: But one of the things that I've always done is when you start out a year and you do your demand model, of, like, hey.

Prachi [0:28:27]: Where is this demand gonna come from?

Prachi [0:28:29]: I have carved out demand models by channel.

Prachi [0:28:32]: So it's not just enough to say, okay.

Prachi [0:28:34]: We have, like, a x million dollar pipeline goal.

Prachi [0:28:36]: We take it down to, like, what…

Prachi [0:28:38]: Where we believe what channel is gonna drive that.

Prachi [0:28:40]: And so then have the…

Prachi [0:28:42]: Let's say web market or carry the goal secondary goal of pipeline in addition to the trial.

Prachi [0:28:49]: And so one way to do that would be, okay.

Prachi [0:28:52]: I might need change my top of funnel to bring in more Ic.

Prachi [0:28:55]: That's convert.

Prachi [0:28:56]: Like, the so that's one.

Prachi [0:28:58]: Not ideal, but it does help to give them a secondary kpi that they know is, like, on their channel.

Prachi [0:29:05]: They're tracking.

Prachi [0:29:05]: And then operating cadences matter also.

Prachi [0:29:08]: It's like, so when we are running, like, funnel reviews for pipeline.

Prachi [0:29:12]: We do invite our growth leads, especially, like paid media, which is thriving what, you know, web to weigh in and this into the sales and feed feedback, so they can take it back.

Prachi [0:29:21]: So they have accountability because they're on the call versus their accountability is not connected in in that way just behind the key leader who owns it.

Prachi [0:29:28]: So that's my way of doing it, like, in an ideal where you could like, hey.

Prachi [0:29:32]: Put both of these one leader.

Prachi [0:29:34]: It'll do.

Prachi [0:29:35]: And we definitely don't wanna create inefficiencies, but that's a lot of, like, hierarchy.

Prachi [0:29:38]: And I I am that we leader.

Prachi [0:29:40]: Like I can figure it out.

Prachi [0:29:41]: I mean, I have four other things, but at some point, maybe we need to create that hierarchy.

Prachi [0:29:45]: If, like, But right now, it feels like, okay.

Prachi [0:29:48]: These two leaders can work together.

Prachi [0:29:49]: Like, we we are part of one team, so that's how that's something.

Dave [0:29:54]: Alright.

Dave [0:29:54]: Tell me, how do you run the team.

Dave [0:29:55]: So you…

Dave [0:29:56]: You're a member of the exec team as a CMO, you all have your off side somewhere.

Dave [0:30:01]: You come up with these three key Kpis for the year?

Dave [0:30:04]: Now pro has to take these back to her team and then actually go and, like, make the bets and plan the strategy.

Dave [0:30:10]: Can you take me into, like, the team Kpis?

Dave [0:30:13]: And then also, just, like, how…

Dave [0:30:15]: What does your team look like?

Dave [0:30:16]: You have a hundred and twenty people on the team?

Dave [0:30:18]: They can't all report to you?

Dave [0:30:20]: Seems like you're very involved?

Dave [0:30:21]: Who reports to you?

Dave [0:30:23]: What is your direct reports?

Dave [0:30:24]: Like, what do you what do you expect out of them?

Dave [0:30:25]: What is your operating cadence?

Dave [0:30:27]: People love that stuff?

Dave [0:30:28]: I'd love to get some of that from you.

Prachi [0:30:29]: Let's take on your planning because we are into it.

Prachi [0:30:31]: My play…

Prachi [0:30:32]: I I have a playbook for that, and I think it works well.

Prachi [0:30:34]: So my playbook is usually, like, these off oxide, we have enough warning that that off upside is coming, which is exec off side.

Prachi [0:30:40]: I love to do, like, a marketing leaders.

Prachi [0:30:42]: Off upside or, like, session before that, to, like, hash through, like, what did we learn this year?

Prachi [0:30:47]: What would we do differently?

Prachi [0:30:48]: We all have a general sense.

Prachi [0:30:50]: Or, I have a sense of what our primary kpis might be…

Prachi [0:30:53]: Might change a little bit as we do this off upside.

Prachi [0:30:55]: But where on we head in, And so we do a little bit of high level brainstorming.

Prachi [0:30:59]: So I take some of that thinking and mind off upside, and sometimes I'll have a deep dive topic or not, but we'll work on that.

Prachi [0:31:05]: And then so what that generates is, like, more of a tops down direction of, like, your other primary Kpis.

Prachi [0:31:11]: Here's.

Prachi [0:31:12]: What or job.

Prachi [0:31:12]: And, I have some input on what's worked or not work from the team directly.

Prachi [0:31:16]: And then once that off upside is done, then we do a full bottoms of built to say, okay.

Prachi [0:31:21]: These are our top line Kpis.

Prachi [0:31:22]: But we know, usually, we know what our res sourcing is, let's do a bottoms to say what is it gonna take to hit those goals.

Prachi [0:31:30]: If you need more resources why usually, we'll do a lot of debating within our own teams where we investors.

Prachi [0:31:36]: So we do a…

Prachi [0:31:37]: We do a down.

Prachi [0:31:38]: We do a bottoms up.

Prachi [0:31:39]: There's always a gap.

Prachi [0:31:40]: It's like, never what happened that you know tops down and the bottoms up, like matches.

Prachi [0:31:43]: And then it's, like a negotiation.

Prachi [0:31:45]: A negotiation with finance sometimes negotiation with sales sometimes to be like, okay.

Prachi [0:31:49]: We can do this with this res resource finances is and no.

Prachi [0:31:52]: What else can outbound it.

Prachi [0:31:53]: Or so, you know?

Prachi [0:31:54]: So like, then it's negotiation.

Dave [0:31:56]: Are you in the thick of this?

Dave [0:31:56]: Are you in the thick of this now for next year?

Prachi [0:31:59]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:31:59]: We kicked off planning, so we are doing this right now.

Prachi [0:32:01]: And once like that, the negotiation happens, and we generally have a sense of, like, okay.

Prachi [0:32:05]: What is our what is our res sourcing what are our goals?

Prachi [0:32:08]: Then we go and lay out plans.

Prachi [0:32:10]: And, like, I used to do quarterly planning only and be like, okay.

Prachi [0:32:14]: We, like, we have a general sense of what quarter, but, like, really get the quarter.

Prachi [0:32:17]: Right?

Prachi [0:32:17]: I have moved more recently more towards, like a six month plan, we just have more detail the future because it…

Prachi [0:32:23]: It was just becoming two.

Prachi [0:32:25]: We are spending more time in planning meetings that.

Prachi [0:32:28]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:32:28]: So so I I'd like, stretch that out to six months, but I don't go beyond six Like we generally know, like, oh, we have this big event or, like, those things we know, which we have to pre commit to.

Prachi [0:32:37]: But outside of that, like, we haven't decided exactly what campaign in the team is.

Prachi [0:32:40]: And right now, with the piece of innovation, we have to be nimble.

Prachi [0:32:44]: Like, big or small teams doesn't matter.

Prachi [0:32:46]: Like, you have to be so nimble as an marketing team.

Prachi [0:32:50]: So that's my framework.

Prachi [0:32:52]: And then in terms of cadences, it's it's pretty standard.

Prachi [0:32:55]: Like, we do weekly marketing calls when we do a dashboard review, like, the leaders talk about what's top of mind what's working.

Prachi [0:33:02]: We do Mb, which is, like, monthly business reviews that are more deeper dive into insights and especially focused on if something's not working whatever are we gonna do?

Prachi [0:33:10]: What is the action plan.

Prachi [0:33:11]: And then we have Qb at the company level.

Prachi [0:33:14]: We launched…

Prachi [0:33:15]: I also do marketing Q as especially for larger teams because it gives me an opportunity to hear from the teams.

Prachi [0:33:21]: So it's a pretty standard cadence.

Prachi [0:33:23]: So we we do…

Dave [0:33:25]: What would be like, a topic in a in a Mb?

Dave [0:33:27]: Like, what do you what are you viewing All of marketing, parts of marketing and the same question for the Qb, and then who's the audience for those?

Prachi [0:33:34]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:33:34]: So Qb, I'll start of the Qb.

Prachi [0:33:36]: Qb is often functional.

Prachi [0:33:37]: And so we look at the goals for the function and what…

Prachi [0:33:40]: You know, it's like, a recap of the quarter and, like, a big priorities for the future quarter.

Dave [0:33:45]: Do you have to get up in front of the company and say, hey, we said we're gonna do this this year.

Dave [0:33:49]: Here's how we're pacing towards that, and here's what's going on.

Prachi [0:33:52]: So we don't do that at a asana level.

Prachi [0:33:55]: So marketing is not presenting a Qb to the rest to the El, but my individual leaders are doing a roll up.

Prachi [0:34:02]: And for Us asana, we do weekly goal updates, and then we do have gold reviews every month.

Prachi [0:34:08]: And then we do we do what we call un Qb, which are, like, strategy sessions every quarter.

Prachi [0:34:13]: So…

Prachi [0:34:13]: But our Qb is just for me to roll up what's happening in the business and what are our key priorities for q two or, like, future quarters.

Prachi [0:34:20]: And then the monthly is more deep dive into the very specific things that we are seeing that are red.

Prachi [0:34:26]: Or sometimes they're very green, like, what more can we do, but it's mostly, like, if something's very red.

Prachi [0:34:31]: Like, so it's not, like every function and every metric.

Prachi [0:34:34]: We we do a high level metric review, but it's, like, really focused on, like, hey, I really wanna us, like, entrepreneurs enterprise manager.

Prachi [0:34:40]: I know what, like, one key narrow agency campaign or what…

Prachi [0:34:44]: That is top of my for me or exact or or or is red.

Prachi [0:34:48]: All needs a ton of alignment and I just don't see it.

Prachi [0:34:51]: So it's like we pick those topics, Tb.

Prachi [0:34:53]: And then Vicky is a dashboard review with Kinda hall insight.

Dave [0:34:57]: What is your direct report structure look like?

Prachi [0:34:59]: I have rev marketing, growth marketing, brand and creative, comm, product marketing, marketing ops.

Dave [0:35:06]: Didn't do all spend time separate from the team, like, with your leadership team.

Prachi [0:35:10]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:35:10]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:35:11]: Quarterly off sites, scanning off sites.

Prachi [0:35:13]: We…

Prachi [0:35:14]: We have a weekly and tea call.

Prachi [0:35:15]: Either did one on months with each one of them.

Prachi [0:35:18]: So, yeah.

Dave [0:35:19]: How do you keep things nimble, but also at the same time not, like, burnout out the team.

Dave [0:35:25]: I feel like a lot of…

Dave [0:35:26]: One of the sentiments that I'm feeling right now in marketing is like, because things do change so much?

Dave [0:35:31]: Like, that is awesome.

Dave [0:35:32]: I hear you.

Dave [0:35:33]: We gotta be nimble but I've also seen, like, when you whiplash and changed too much, everyone's, like, it's hard to keep morale high when you're doing that, even though innovation is happening.

Prachi [0:35:45]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:35:45]: So it's not something that we've solved especially with the pace that is happening right now.

Prachi [0:35:50]: So I don't Don't wanna act like, oh, I I have the perfect playbook.

Prachi [0:35:52]: I think the things that are working for us, like, on…

Prachi [0:35:56]: Okay.

Prachi [0:35:57]: I'll say two things.

Prachi [0:35:57]: One is, I do think, like, the six month planning forces to pick the biggest bets that we want to do anyway and gives us enough insight into what's coming in the next few months that we can drop if we need to pick something else up.

Prachi [0:36:10]: So I think that versus quarterly planning that the longer runway does help with that.

Prachi [0:36:15]: I think the second thing is over emphasizing on just, like, context, communication and clarity.

Prachi [0:36:21]: Like, I've always done it as a leader.

Prachi [0:36:23]: But I'm doing that so much more now on in terms of, like, getting the team to…

Prachi [0:36:28]: Because sometimes they might foresee something that needs to change that will…

Prachi [0:36:32]: If I hadn't done that would come later as I like, oh, we gotta go change this.

Prachi [0:36:35]: And so that is another aspect that we are really trying to give a lot more clarity and like, that was some of the feedback from the team is, like, the monthly all hands feels like not enough.

Prachi [0:36:45]: So let's do something weekly.

Prachi [0:36:47]: So async calls bi.

Prachi [0:36:48]: Like, we've we've done a bunch of things.

Prachi [0:36:50]: But…

Prachi [0:36:50]: So communication transparency and context across the board.

Prachi [0:36:54]: Is the second thing.

Prachi [0:36:55]: And I think the third thing that is helping is clear roles very, very clear roles and accountability and the decision making framework.

Prachi [0:37:04]: So when something comes, and you have to move fast.

Prachi [0:37:07]: I want to the extent possible?

Prachi [0:37:10]: I want every person to know.

Prachi [0:37:11]: Can I make this decision myself?

Prachi [0:37:12]: Do I need somebody else involved?

Prachi [0:37:14]: When do I go to my boss?

Prachi [0:37:16]: When do I go to Clutch?

Prachi [0:37:17]: When do I go to a CEO?

Prachi [0:37:18]: And so we've really tried to…

Prachi [0:37:19]: We use this framework called rad for decision making?

Prachi [0:37:22]: And we are really trying to, like, create like that added for every team every project.

Prachi [0:37:28]: And again, it's not perfect.

Prachi [0:37:29]: Right?

Prachi [0:37:30]: This is worked in progress.

Prachi [0:37:31]: But I think those types of things are helping us and our team.

Dave [0:37:35]: Is that, like, a role specific what I have a framework?

Dave [0:37:38]: Or is it, like, team specific?

Dave [0:37:39]: How do I know when to deploy that that decision making framework?

Prachi [0:37:43]: Drag we wanna use it.

Prachi [0:37:44]: It's like, who's responsible?

Prachi [0:37:45]: Who has to agree and who's the final decision maker?

Prachi [0:37:48]: So that's like rad.

Prachi [0:37:49]: And we we try to use the same framework across every every single project, and I don't wanna see…

Prachi [0:37:54]: In agree, you can have multiple names.

Prachi [0:37:56]: But in R and D, I only wanna see one name.

Prachi [0:37:58]: And then when we move the project, change…

Prachi [0:38:01]: Like, we get that alignment across the world to say, like, hey, This is my dad, especially for bigger projects, smaller projects, generally the team knows what has to come to me you want, you know.

Prachi [0:38:10]: And so that helps with we saw some of this, especially when we are working through our product launches.

Prachi [0:38:16]: It's, like, not having that drag fine early on.

Prachi [0:38:19]: Created some rework because all, like, we need to get the Cp, but sometimes you need to get the CEO and it's like, we…

Prachi [0:38:25]: That was very avoid.

Prachi [0:38:26]: Like we could have gotten ahead of that with the framework.

Prachi [0:38:28]: That's when we implemented it.

Prachi [0:38:30]: So it seems to be working better right now.

Prachi [0:38:33]: But, like, this is gonna test all of us as marketers I was like, we…

Prachi [0:38:36]: So I…

Dave [0:38:37]: Yeah.

Dave [0:38:37]: I don't know.

Dave [0:38:38]: I I mostly was asking not because I think you'd have a perfect answer, but I kinda wanted to, like, say it out loud because I do think everyone listening to this is kinda navigating this.

Dave [0:38:46]: Yes.

Dave [0:38:47]: It's real time.

Dave [0:38:48]: Yeah.

Dave [0:38:49]: Okay.

Dave [0:38:49]: I wanna wrap with one question I didn't ask you about which I wanted to get to is so you did this whole re brand.

Dave [0:38:55]: I'm not not a re brand.

Dave [0:38:56]: Repositioning is probably the proper

Prachi [0:38:58]: Yes.

Dave [0:38:59]: Thing.

Dave [0:38:59]: And in this stock, famously did not hire an agency or a positioning consultant to to do this?

Dave [0:39:06]: Why you did this all in house, tell me why?

Dave [0:39:09]: And does that say anything about the future of working with agencies or was this just a a thing that you needed to get done in house take me into that?

Prachi [0:39:17]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:39:17]: I mean, I have done positioning three or four times in the last ten years, and I've used an agency for every one of them.

Prachi [0:39:26]: Like, the cadence agents for a contract, like, somewhat…

Prachi [0:39:27]: Like, a…

Prachi [0:39:28]: An expert for every single one of them.

Prachi [0:39:30]: And I would have used one here as well.

Prachi [0:39:32]: In fact, I did talk to the top three that I that I thought about top three, and we did talk about the project got, you know, really went deeper.

Prachi [0:39:41]: The biggest constraint why we didn't go with an agency was we had…

Prachi [0:39:46]: The time was not on our side.

Prachi [0:39:48]: Like this entire repositioning and brand had to be done in ninety days, which meant, like, I needed a partner who could work at our pace, But I did know we had so many executives in involved.

Prachi [0:39:59]: We, like, schedules.

Prachi [0:40:00]: Like, all of this stuff was just gonna, like, throw timelines off, and, like, the proposals I got, even if the personas as we brought in were the kind of people who would work in our, at our pace.

Prachi [0:40:10]: They just didn't have the bandwidth or, like, the timelines were delayed.

Prachi [0:40:13]: And so that was the forcing function to take a step back and say, okay.

Prachi [0:40:16]: Looks like I…

Prachi [0:40:17]: I'm not gonna be able to bring an agency here, then what is my…

Prachi [0:40:20]: What is my path forward.

Prachi [0:40:21]: What helped me here if you…

Prachi [0:40:24]: These…

Prachi [0:40:24]: What is the biggest value problem of bringing in agencies is either.

Prachi [0:40:27]: So p, you have, like, a sounding word.

Prachi [0:40:29]: Someone who you can work with on these these things, you know, someone who's bringing a fresh outside in perspective.

Prachi [0:40:35]: Otherwise, you get, kind of you get in your own world and it's…

Prachi [0:40:38]: It's…

Prachi [0:40:38]: It can be more inside out.

Prachi [0:40:39]: For me, I was new.

Prachi [0:40:41]: So I had the outside in perspective.

Prachi [0:40:43]: But two is our CEO comes up from the marketing back.

Prachi [0:40:46]: So he was an established the amount, like, right.

Prachi [0:40:49]: He's now CEO at, like, multiple times CEO.

Prachi [0:40:52]: But he has that background.

Prachi [0:40:53]: And so having him as a thought partner works really really well.

Prachi [0:40:58]: And like, that was out alignment.

Prachi [0:40:59]: Like, hey.

Prachi [0:40:59]: I'm gonna reach out to you more times than I would, typically.

Prachi [0:41:02]: But I I need that part.

Prachi [0:41:04]: So that kinda of worked out.

Dave [0:41:06]: Oh, okay.

Dave [0:41:08]: I should have asked Dan Rogers.

Dave [0:41:09]: I interviewed him back in the day.

Dave [0:41:11]: He was the CMO at servicenow.

Dave [0:41:12]: I feel like…

Dave [0:41:13]: Yeah.

Dave [0:41:14]: Okay.

Dave [0:41:14]: He's a really good marketer or a while.

Dave [0:41:16]: He should've ask you about this.

Prachi [0:41:20]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:41:20]: So it it it helped having him as a sounding board.

Prachi [0:41:22]: And that helped move the product…

Prachi [0:41:24]: I mean, and a positioning exercise really is, like a company strategy exercise too.

Prachi [0:41:28]: This so the CEO has to be involved.

Prachi [0:41:31]: If not lead it, but those two were, like, my Drivers for why I didn't bring in an expert.

Dave [0:41:37]: Yeah.

Dave [0:41:37]: That's that's like a hugely positive thing then if you believe if, like, the CEO gets marketing has done this before.

Dave [0:41:43]: That that is your agency is kinda you and the CEO working on this and rolling it out to the team.

Prachi [0:41:49]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:41:49]: I mean, you have to carve out time.

Prachi [0:41:50]: Right?

Prachi [0:41:51]: Like, that's hard, but we were both new ish and so it kinda helps.

Dave [0:41:55]: Okay.

Dave [0:41:55]: You don't have to answer this question, but I'm gonna ask it.

Dave [0:41:58]: I'll be…

Dave [0:41:58]: I would be…

Dave [0:41:58]: You you mentioned, like, the top three.

Dave [0:42:00]: Are you are you able to tell me who the people you may have considered?

Dave [0:42:04]: Because everyone's gonna ask, like, who should I use for positioning art?

Dave [0:42:06]: Do you wanna work give any names?

Dave [0:42:08]: You can pass.

Dave [0:42:09]: It's okay?

Dave [0:42:10]: No pressure.

Prachi [0:42:11]: Well, I'll tell you who I think got amazing.

Prachi [0:42:13]: And then these may may not be the exact ones I update.

Prachi [0:42:16]: But I worked with April done in the past.

Prachi [0:42:18]: And so I've done with her, fire breaks was one that I've met a couple times has been recommended.

Prachi [0:42:24]: So I like Bob and fire breaks, and then and cunningham him is another one who I was introduced to at great conversations with.

Prachi [0:42:33]: So there were a few.

Prachi [0:42:34]: I met quite a few of them, but…

Dave [0:42:36]: What about this guy called Claude.

Dave [0:42:37]: I heard he's great Cloth.

Prachi [0:42:39]: I hope if we could…

Prachi [0:42:41]: This to be in a whole hour figures your sky.

Prachi [0:42:43]: I I think with excellent prompting and a lot of, like, your own Poe inserted.

Prachi [0:42:49]: Clark can be a great brain partner

Dave [0:42:51]: for sure.

Prachi [0:42:51]: And one of the things like I told you I created in my brand strategist just agent or back elena you know, the…

Prachi [0:42:56]: We use that agent uses claude.

Prachi [0:42:58]: But I fed it frameworks that I believe for positioning books that I had.

Prachi [0:43:02]: And I I gave it very detailed, like, an exercise of how I would do this, and then it became a pretty good brainstorm from.

Prachi [0:43:08]: So I would give it credit, but it's a lot of generic words.

Prachi [0:43:13]: Let's the Aha has to come from you.

Prachi [0:43:17]: Was it…

Prachi [0:43:18]: It's all about the workflow.

Prachi [0:43:19]: Now once we got back, we were able to use far.

Prachi [0:43:21]: But…

Dave [0:43:22]: I'll give you one just personal story related to that.

Dave [0:43:24]: So we we had our big event in September, and I needed to do the welcome, like the keynote.

Dave [0:43:29]: Right?

Dave [0:43:30]: And I love writing creating public speaking.

Dave [0:43:33]: Like, I would tell you that that's my thing.

Prachi [0:43:36]: Yeah.

Dave [0:43:36]: But I could not get going on my talk.

Dave [0:43:39]: Like, I just…

Dave [0:43:39]: And that's never happened.

Dave [0:43:40]: Like, since I got good at this stuff, like, ten years ago and I was like, oh my god.

Dave [0:43:43]: Did I, like, Did Ai, like, ruin my brain, like, am I not allowed to have…

Dave [0:43:47]: And Am I not able to have an original thought of my home.

Dave [0:43:50]: Right?

Dave [0:43:50]: And a friend of mine was, like, helping me on it This guy Harry Dry.

Dave [0:43:53]: He's amazing storyteller teller and Writer.

Dave [0:43:55]: He runs this website called marketing examples dot com.

Dave [0:43:57]: And he's, like, dude put.

Dave [0:43:58]: He's like, put away the Ai, Put it away, like, just just what does Dave Gear hurt think?

Dave [0:44:04]: Like, what do you think?

Dave [0:44:05]: And I think that was such an important lesson because it's, like, that is the unique thing.

Dave [0:44:09]: So for, like, you and Dan Rogers to have your own gut feelings…

Prachi [0:44:15]: Effective.

Prachi [0:44:15]: Yeah.

Prachi [0:44:15]: Feel me.

Dave [0:44:16]: That's like, what makes it good.

Dave [0:44:17]: It's like, you know, the homemade meal is what's gonna make it unique.

Dave [0:44:21]: And I…

Dave [0:44:21]: It was such an important lesson, and I'm like, okay.

Dave [0:44:24]: The Ai stuff is awesome.

Dave [0:44:25]: There's a lot of like, interesting things.

Dave [0:44:27]: Like…

Prachi [0:44:28]: And it works.

Prachi [0:44:28]: You know, where we use Ai.

Prachi [0:44:29]: It's like, I love seeing Ind does everything institute.

Prachi [0:44:33]: So we would like, just feed it and crying and me, like, show me the whole page.

Prachi [0:44:36]: Awesome.

Prachi [0:44:36]: We could move so fast because, like, this works.

Prachi [0:44:38]: This doesn't work.

Prachi [0:44:39]: But Anyway, I we reuse Claude and all of the elements a lot.

Prachi [0:44:44]: So I don't wanna, like, but there are some things which I feel like, start with

Dave [0:44:48]: Yeah.

Dave [0:44:48]: Well, we don't wanna say anything because there's claude claude is, like, they're gonna run the world and so you don't wanna put

Prachi [0:44:53]: any happens.

Prachi [0:44:54]: And it's it's that we use it a hunt.

Prachi [0:44:56]: So there's a lot of stuff that clock can do and do well, but some things just require a human create everything input per lot?

Prachi [0:45:04]: Okay.

Dave [0:45:06]: Last question, can you name of one CMO that I should have on this podcast that now that you've spent an hour talking to me and hanging out, someone who's awesome, peer of yours that that you say, I'm I'm not asking you to do the outreach.

Dave [0:45:18]: I'll do, but who should I get?

Prachi [0:45:22]: Wow.

Prachi [0:45:22]: Okay.

Prachi [0:45:23]: I love Amanda, Blue beach, CEO.

Prachi [0:45:26]: Like, she is…

Dave [0:45:28]: Oh, Don't…

Dave [0:45:28]: I don't know that.

Dave [0:45:29]: Alright.

Dave [0:45:29]: Okay.

Dave [0:45:30]: Alright.

Prachi [0:45:31]: Send, but she's blue beach, but she is amazing.

Prachi [0:45:36]: I think she do great.

Prachi [0:45:37]: On on the

Dave [0:45:38]: call.

Dave [0:45:38]: Okay.

Prachi [0:45:39]: That's.

Prachi [0:45:39]: Right.

Dave [0:45:41]: P.

Dave [0:45:41]: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Dave [0:45:42]: You did you did great.

Dave [0:45:43]: It was great to hear from you.

Dave [0:45:45]: I hope that you get at least one new linkedin message and connection after this.

Dave [0:45:49]: You'll get a bunch.

Dave [0:45:50]: Great great.

Dave [0:45:50]: I'm really for you all this time.

Dave [0:45:52]: Thank for coming on the podcast.

Dave [0:45:53]: It's been great to have you.

Prachi [0:45:54]: Thank you.

Prachi [0:45:55]: I enjoyed this.

Prachi [0:45:55]: Thanks, Dave.

Dave [0:45:56]: Okay.

Dave [0:45:56]: I'll see you later.

Prachi [0:45:58]: Okay.

Prachi [0:45:58]: Bye.

Dave [0:46:03]: Hey, real quick before we wrap up, I just wanna give a quick shout out to all the stuff that we're doing at exitfive.com.

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