#304: The B2B Buying Experience With AI: What Changes?

#304 | AI Buying Shift | This episode is from a recent Exit Five live session where I pulled together Lindsay O'Brien (Head of Marketing & Operations, Predictiv),  Tom Wentworth (CMO, incident.io), and  Aditya Vempaty (VP of Marketing, MoEngage) for a real talk on how AI is completely rewiring the B2B buying journey. We got into why buyers no longer need your pretty funnel, how AI-powered research changes the sales call, and what that means for your GTM strategy.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - – Intro + Dave Sets the Stage
  
• (04:07) - – How AI Is Changing B2B Buying
  
• (11:07) - – The Big Shift: Taste, Unscalable Work, and Distribution
  
• (16:07) - – Getting Exec Buy-In for “Unmeasurable” Marketing
  
• (20:07) - – Does the Funnel Still Matter?
  
• (24:07) - – Dead Tactics: Gating, A/B Testing, Lead Score Theater
  
• (30:53) - – AI That Actually Works (Real Use Cases)
  
• (37:53) - – Team Size, Skills, and the New CMO
  
• (43:53) - – Authenticity vs AI: Creative, Video, and Brand
  
• (58:53) - – Content Attribution + Final Takeaways

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

Dave [0:00:03]: Okay.

Dave [0:00:17]: Hello.

Dave [0:00:17]: Good morning.

Dave [0:00:18]: Good morning.

Dave [0:00:19]: Good afternoon.

Dave [0:00:19]: Oh, this is so much better, by the way.

Dave [0:00:21]: So I have this fancy camera.

Dave [0:00:23]: And if there's any any tech people out there that wanna help me out.

Dave [0:00:26]: I do have this fancy camera, and it looks great on our podcast, But when we do these webinars, It's impossible to, like, see the chat because I got the El god prompt, but it's small and this is such a better setup.

Dave [0:00:37]: So shout it to my It team for getting me, getting me set up today.

Dave [0:00:40]: I'm excited to be here.

Dave [0:00:42]: I see people rolling in.

Dave [0:00:43]: If you can hear me right now, Can you just throw throw a message in the chat I know that I'm not...

Dave [0:00:47]: No know that I'm not out here alone.

Dave [0:00:49]: That'd be nice.

Dave [0:00:50]: Nice.

Dave [0:00:50]: Hey, Sheila.

Dave [0:00:51]: What's up.

Dave [0:00:51]: Okay.

Dave [0:00:52]: Here we go.

Dave [0:00:53]: Loud and clear.

Dave [0:00:53]: Everybody's here, Dave take a picture of the setup for us and post on Linkedin.

Dave [0:00:57]: I can't because and you'd see all the embarrassing things that I have, like, off screen over actually just a lot of.

Dave [0:01:02]: My kids are.

Dave [0:01:02]: I do have Moe.

Dave [0:01:04]: Mo in the house today.

Dave [0:01:05]: Moe joining me today.

Dave [0:01:06]: We got some people doing some stuff on our house.

Dave [0:01:08]: So there...

Dave [0:01:08]: There's Mo.

Dave [0:01:09]: Moe.

Dave [0:01:10]: What's up, dude.

Dave [0:01:10]: He's a very good boy.

Dave [0:01:11]: La z boy.

Dave [0:01:12]: Burn Doodle.

Dave [0:01:13]: So, super excited.

Dave [0:01:15]: Dan asked, can we switch to the small talk questions instead of where are you joining from?

Dave [0:01:18]: Too late.

Dave [0:01:19]: I already said it.

Dave [0:01:20]: So, my name is Dave Gerhardt.

Dave [0:01:21]: I am the host here at Exit Five I'm the founder of Exit Five, Exit Five is, in my opinion the top B2B marketing community on Planet Earth?

Dave [0:01:29]: As rated in G two's forrest wave about, the best communities on earth.

Dave [0:01:34]: No.

Dave [0:01:34]: I'm kidding...

Dave [0:01:35]: And we do these free live.

Dave [0:01:36]: So we have a community of a thousand...

Dave [0:01:38]: A couple thousand marketing professionals, but we do these free live sessions twice a month.

Dave [0:01:43]: Don't You dare call them webinars.

Dave [0:01:44]: And they're super fun because what's different than a podcast is, like, the best part to me is being in the chat and seeing what people are saying.

Dave [0:01:52]: Because, you know, we're all we're all marketers.

Dave [0:01:54]: It's fun to it's fun to hang out with each other share your ideas.

Dave [0:01:57]: And so if you're here, take the time out of your day to actually be here, participate participating in the chat, share what you're doing.

Dave [0:02:02]: Share what's working at your company.

Dave [0:02:03]: The focus of this session today is on, B2B buying.

Dave [0:02:07]: And we decided to do something on this session because we've been talking a lot more specifically about the tactics.

Dave [0:02:13]: Like, Ai and Seo.

Dave [0:02:15]: We're doing one in a couple weeks on Ai and email.

Dave [0:02:18]: It's Ai this, Ai that we haven't done a higher level one about strategy, and we wanted to grab three marketing leaders at different different stage companies to come and hang out and talk about, like, What is it?

Dave [0:02:28]: What does all this Ai stuff mean for B2B marketing.

Dave [0:02:30]: Something that I lay in bed and think about it at night?

Dave [0:02:33]: It's like, what is the role of marketing?

Dave [0:02:35]: I can do my research.

Dave [0:02:36]: Hey, We need to buy a Crm for Exit Five right now.

Dave [0:02:39]: Let's go...

Dave [0:02:40]: We went to Chat.

Dave [0:02:40]: We had chat Do all the research.

Dave [0:02:42]: We collected the data we compare this to that, and then we're gonna reach out to the company?

Dave [0:02:46]: And that's how we're all buying things in our personal lives today.

Dave [0:02:49]: And so the question is, like, what does that mean for the role of marketing.

Dave [0:02:52]: Was it mean for the role of sales.

Dave [0:02:54]: And so we have a great crew of three marketers here with us today.

Dave [0:02:57]: I'm gonna bring them bring them up in a second.

Dave [0:02:59]: This session will be recorded.

Dave [0:03:00]: We'll take all your questions in the in the q and a.

Dave [0:03:03]: That's the best place to do it not the chat.

Dave [0:03:05]: In the q and a, maybe we'll get to some of them as we go, and then people upload them so we can sort the most popular ones.

Dave [0:03:11]: So Real quick, I just wanna give a shout out to our friends at Walnut.

Dave [0:03:14]: They're the sponsors behind this session today, and I really appreciate it.

Dave [0:03:18]: Walnut makes interactive product demos to help you match how people actually wanna buy in real time on your website.

Dave [0:03:24]: Like, if I go to somebody's website, want you to show me the damn product.

Dave [0:03:27]: Show me the product.

Dave [0:03:28]: Walnut makes it easy.

Dave [0:03:29]: They do interactive product demos.

Dave [0:03:31]: They're one of the best companies doing it right now.

Dave [0:03:32]: You can go check them out at walnut dot io.

Dave [0:03:35]: Thank you for sponsoring this webinar and being a part of a bunch of things We've done at Exit Five this year.

Dave [0:03:39]: So Alright.

Dave [0:03:40]: Allison, Wanna wanna roll my people out here.

Dave [0:03:42]: That'd be really nice.

Dave [0:03:42]: Heck yeah.

Dave [0:03:43]: Lindsay here.

Dave [0:03:44]: Tom's here.

Dave [0:03:45]: Aditya here.

Dave [0:03:46]: Alright.

Dave [0:03:47]: Lindsay, let's go you, then, Tom, then a dj Just say say, hello real quick.

Dave [0:03:51]: Who are you?

Dave [0:03:52]: Where are you writing?

Dave [0:03:53]: Who are you?

Dave [0:03:54]: What do you do for work?

Dave [0:03:55]: Rough stage and size your company that will get into it?

Lindsay [0:03:57]: Sure.

Lindsay [0:03:57]: Yeah.

Lindsay [0:03:58]: I'm Lindsay O'brien.

Lindsay [0:03:59]: I'm head of marketing and operations at Predictiv.

Lindsay [0:04:01]: We are a bootstrap B2B company helping marketers activate their revenue through our revenue activation framework.

Lindsay [0:04:09]: I have a very lean team of two full time employees and a content contractor, so happy to be here.

Dave [0:04:18]: Mister Tom.

Dave [0:04:19]: What's up?

Tom [0:04:20]: K.

Tom [0:04:20]: Thanks for having me on your webinar.

Tom [0:04:21]: Great.

Tom [0:04:22]: Such a jerk,

Dave [0:04:24]: man.

Dave [0:04:24]: Right away.

Tom [0:04:25]: When

Dave [0:04:26]: not a webinar.

Dave [0:04:26]: This is a live session.

Dave [0:04:27]: This is like a cool.

Dave [0:04:28]: It's like, how everybody's doing events now, but they're, like, it's like a festival for marketers.

Dave [0:04:32]: That's what this is.

Dave [0:04:33]: This is not a webinar.

Dave [0:04:34]: It's a festival.

Dave [0:04:35]: It's a digital festival for marketers.

Tom [0:04:37]: Yeah.

Tom [0:04:37]: So gonna be great webinar.

Tom [0:04:38]: So I run marketing be startup up called incident.io.

Tom [0:04:41]: We sell Incident management software when things break, like Aws out alex last week, we help companies resolve it.

Tom [0:04:47]: I work at a small company.

Tom [0:04:49]: I came from a much bigger company, a company called recorded the future.

Tom [0:04:51]: So I've gone through the journey of having to run a huge team to now having to actually do all the marketing, which has been, exciting, but also scary.

Tom [0:04:59]: And Looking forward to chatting today.

Dave [0:05:02]: Who invited him.

Dave [0:05:02]: Next.

Aditya [0:05:04]: Hey everybody.

Aditya [0:05:04]: Aditya Vempaty here.

Aditya [0:05:05]: I run a marketing MoEngage in North America.

Aditya [0:05:08]: We're about to hit hundred million Arr.

Aditya [0:05:11]: We sell a customer engagement products to other businesses that engage their audiences, certain brands like Posh mark, Chick f, as well as sound cloud or a few of our customers to tell you how we think and who we target.

Aditya [0:05:23]: And, Tom, the Haircut looks great, man.

Tom [0:05:27]: Wait.

Tom [0:05:27]: That's right.

Tom [0:05:28]: Both.

Tom [0:05:28]: I wasn't lying to you guys.

Dave [0:05:30]: That was some founder mode stuff.

Dave [0:05:31]: Tom took the Tom took our prep call from the Barber chair the other day.

Dave [0:05:34]: I wouldn't I wouldn't know what that's like.

Dave [0:05:36]: That'd be, like, let me call you from the the the shower.

Dave [0:05:38]: Okay.

Dave [0:05:39]: So I'm I'm gonna kick this off.

Dave [0:05:41]: I got a bunch of questions.

Dave [0:05:41]: I'm not gonna call on you.

Dave [0:05:43]: I just want you to, like, if you're passionate about to answer it and we'll we'll we'll use it as a a jumping off point.

Dave [0:05:47]: But what do you think...

Dave [0:05:48]: What what's the biggest shift?

Dave [0:05:49]: Like, how are you thinking about your marketing strategy because of what's happening with Ai And I...

Dave [0:05:54]: Not even tool specific?

Dave [0:05:55]: Like, hey, we're using this Seo tool, but, like, has anything actually changed in how you think about go to market inside of your company because of of Ai.

Lindsay [0:06:04]: Although, I think that for us, it's really...

Lindsay [0:06:08]: We've moved way past the point of pretending, like, our competitors don't exist, and we really need to be focused on our clear messaging, it needs to be who we are, what we do, who are for and who we compete against, because we know that over the years, we've continually lost more and more control over the buyer journey, there's no guarantee that they're coming to our website.

Lindsay [0:06:33]: So we need to make sure that those Ai summaries that Ai research is picking up on who we are and what we do so that we can surface that information.

Lindsay [0:06:43]: So it's more about the orchestration of all the information rather than being in promotional mindset.

Tom [0:06:51]: First slide I put up on our company kick this year was a math formula that was essentially some mathematician.

Tom [0:06:57]: It was essentially marketing success dictated by Ai adoption times taste squared.

Tom [0:07:03]: And what that means to me is, like, you you have to be good at adopting Ai.

Tom [0:07:07]: And I think right now, there are opportunities to do that better than your competitors.

Tom [0:07:12]: But at some point, everyone's gonna to use the same tooling.

Tom [0:07:14]: Everyone's gonna have the same prompts.

Tom [0:07:15]: So the id that taste has an exponential impact on marketing is the thing I'm trying to double down on, and I have zero taste.

Tom [0:07:22]: I'm a mathematician Ai guy.

Tom [0:07:24]: So I've had to, like, rethink about.

Tom [0:07:27]: My entire team is people with great taste.

Tom [0:07:29]: And I think we do a really good job of that at my company.

Tom [0:07:31]: So we've really tried to make our strategy be, the un scalable taste things that are hard to, like, put into a notion doc, but you know it when you see it.

Tom [0:07:40]: It's hard to measure, but, like, I'm convinced that that's the thing that's gonna drive marketing in the next five years.

Aditya [0:07:46]: Yeah.

Aditya [0:07:46]: Yes.

Aditya [0:07:46]: So.

Aditya [0:07:46]: I think for us, it's twofold.

Aditya [0:07:48]: One obviously getting people to use Ai, that's one half of the equation, so they actually see how these tools work and how it fits into the workflow, internally.

Aditya [0:07:57]: And this comes down to, like, sales and getting them to use aspects of Ai Like, we use Notebook L.

Aditya [0:08:02]: We put all our content stuff into Notebook.

Aditya [0:08:04]: We're like you don't get Ari table anymore.

Aditya [0:08:06]: Here.

Aditya [0:08:06]: Use L As all your content, look up what you need.

Aditya [0:08:09]: Put in the phrases.

Aditya [0:08:10]: Don't come asking for us.

Aditya [0:08:11]: Yep.

Aditya [0:08:11]: All that will be constantly outdated and getting my teams, like, hey, change your workflows.

Aditya [0:08:15]: That's one aspect of the internal side.

Aditya [0:08:17]: The external side, we are completely obsessed with distribution.

Aditya [0:08:20]: Anything my team does has to start with distribution.

Aditya [0:08:23]: Like, there, we have a blog list.

Aditya [0:08:24]: I'm like, don't care.

Aditya [0:08:25]: How's does it go with distribution?

Aditya [0:08:26]: They're like, wait, why?

Aditya [0:08:27]: Like, because Ai literally only gives a shit about where it shows up and how many places it shows up and who's talking about it.

Aditya [0:08:33]: Your authority is gone out the window?

Aditya [0:08:34]: So, like, distribution distribution distribution.

Aditya [0:08:37]: Everything you do comes down to that.

Aditya [0:08:38]: So you wanna write a blog post.

Aditya [0:08:39]: Who's the partner on it?

Aditya [0:08:40]: Who's a practitioner or that's gonna give you a quote.

Aditya [0:08:42]: Or who's gonna share it when it goes live.

Aditya [0:08:44]: That is all we are obsessed and care about, because that's the only way we think we'll reach your audience because everyone as we said, does research before you can come to you.

Aditya [0:08:52]: As Dave mentioned.

Aditya [0:08:53]: You did all your research and you're like, cool.

Aditya [0:08:54]: I'm ready to go.

Aditya [0:08:55]: You done all the work, how are you talking

Dave [0:08:57]: to me?

Dave [0:08:57]: So I'm not gonna sit through your process because because that's how it has to be no disrespect you're...

Dave [0:09:04]: I'm not gonna waste an hour of my time talking to some twenty two year old.

Dave [0:09:08]: Yeah a Bd because that is the process that it has to be.

Dave [0:09:11]: And I...

Dave [0:09:11]: I was twenty two once.

Dave [0:09:12]: I'm not I'm not discriminating.

Dave [0:09:13]: I'm just saying, like, like, we got better things to do then sit through that demo.

Dave [0:09:17]: Maria in the chat said, love Cmos who are okay to do un measurable things, it's so crazy to say that out loud?

Dave [0:09:24]: Because I think the the longer you've been around marketing?

Dave [0:09:27]: You understand that.

Dave [0:09:28]: These are the things that matter.

Dave [0:09:30]: How do people actually buy?

Dave [0:09:32]: Is it because they went through some perfect funnel?

Dave [0:09:34]: They saw all your ads they converted it all the ways?

Dave [0:09:36]: Or is it because a lot of times like, Well, the product's really good, and then the Cmo knew the Cmo of the other company, and she told them that was really good, and then like, when they went to the event, and they had this really cool, like, it's all these steps.

Dave [0:09:46]: And so I love this idea of, like, this phrase that Tom had the the un measurable, the the un uncontrollable things.

Dave [0:09:53]: But it's also...

Dave [0:09:54]: Is this weird j position because, like, you're all using Ai a lot in the actual, like, workflow of your business, but then from a as a mark from a marketing standpoint, you're trying to think of these un scalable harder to measure harder to quantify things.

Dave [0:10:08]: It's like, it's this balance of both.

Dave [0:10:09]: I I feel that in our business right now, we're doing this event in March and we're like, we're literally finding a hundred addresses by hand, handwriting a hundred envelopes hand selecting a hundred people invite.

Dave [0:10:19]: It's like, This is taking a lot of time, but it's almost like that is that is the opportunity today is to is to find more things like that in in the business.

Dave [0:10:26]: Right?

Tom [0:10:27]: Yeah.

Tom [0:10:27]: You want specific examples.

Tom [0:10:28]: I hear your audience, It's, like, numbers and specifics.

Dave [0:10:31]: Yeah.

Dave [0:10:31]: No.

Dave [0:10:31]: They love when people just come in here and just use B2B marketing like, plateau awards.

Tom [0:10:36]: It just...

Tom [0:10:36]: The...

Tom [0:10:36]: Earlier this week, we just went live with an eighty thousand dollar billboard that you see coming into San Francisco on the on the...

Tom [0:10:43]: I guess it's the one zero one.

Tom [0:10:45]: Yeah.

Tom [0:10:45]: And it's a big old bright orange we called the alarm color.

Tom [0:10:49]: And after this thing is done in four weeks.

Tom [0:10:52]: I'm not gonna have any way to measure it.

Tom [0:10:54]: Like I'll know some anecdotes, I'll have some data points.

Tom [0:10:56]: But, like, can I go to my Cfo and say, for this eighty thousand dollar billboard?

Tom [0:11:00]: We got one point three million in pipeline out of it?

Tom [0:11:03]: No.

Tom [0:11:04]: And I don't care.

Tom [0:11:05]: Because I know, like, my audience lives in san Francisco.

Tom [0:11:07]: They're commuting into a bit into their office every day, they're gonna see it.

Tom [0:11:10]: I'm a hundred percent convinced to that.

Aditya [0:11:13]: So along those lines, we did something earlier this year, we launched a book called the customer engagement book adapter die.

Aditya [0:11:18]: And we could not measure it in the sense of we printed it out.

Aditya [0:11:22]: We had a I think, like, roughly.

Aditya [0:11:23]: We spent for probably eighty ninety k making this book.

Aditya [0:11:26]: And each book to print the first edition was, like, forty bucks.

Aditya [0:11:29]: We we got the cost down, like, ten, eleven dollars, and It was like, a hundred and twenty page book.

Dave [0:11:34]: Got it.

Dave [0:11:34]: Be right here.

Aditya [0:11:35]: Yeah.

Aditya [0:11:35]: Here we go.

Aditya [0:11:36]: And I, like, thirteen different authors and this goes back to like Tom was talking about taste.

Aditya [0:11:40]: But the big part of this was, we've had over twenty eight hundred people download it, and we've shipped out eight hundred physical copies for people.

Aditya [0:11:48]: And, like, I...

Aditya [0:11:50]: They're like, where's the pipeline?

Aditya [0:11:51]: What's what I'm like, listen.

Aditya [0:11:52]: Give me time and this will show up and that's where we're back to Tom's point.

Aditya [0:11:55]: It may not be un unimaginable.

Aditya [0:11:56]: It'll be un measuring upfront, But now we can attribute over five million pipe to this thing.

Aditya [0:12:01]: And, like, about four point eight actually to be specific.

Aditya [0:12:04]: But from enterprises medium, to small businesses across the board.

Aditya [0:12:07]: And so...

Aditya [0:12:09]: But to do that, we had to get the buy to do the un unfavorable thing, so we could actually measure later.

Aditya [0:12:13]: And then you can do the measuring, but just shows up on the score board at a later point because how people buy as Tom was saying now Dave was saying Lindsay saying has shifted completely.

Aditya [0:12:21]: And they're gonna follow your pretty little funnel that you want them to.

Aditya [0:12:25]: They'll do their own thing, but it'll show up on the score where I believe.

Aditya [0:12:28]: Just not in the way that people are tracing you

Dave [0:12:30]: that measure.

Lindsay [0:12:31]: Yeah.

Lindsay [0:12:31]: I think revenue was obviously the big one that everyone wants whenever you're going to measure, time efficiency is another one because that equates to revenue as well.

Lindsay [0:12:41]: But I think one that people don't measure enough and because it's difficult is team morale?

Lindsay [0:12:48]: Does that new workflow or does that tool make your team happier.

Lindsay [0:12:52]: Are they doing more of the things that excite them and bring them joy, are they more passionate about their role because that's a big one that they're they're likely going to be there longer than.

Lindsay [0:13:03]: You're going to have a team that wants to stick around.

Lindsay [0:13:05]: So it's not just about the time savings and the revenue.

Dave [0:13:10]: Okay.

Dave [0:13:10]: So I'm just trying to take notes and organize my thoughts around this because we...

Dave [0:13:13]: We came out of the gate hot.

Dave [0:13:14]: We wanna focus on, like, what's changing in B2B buying.

Dave [0:13:18]: I'm hearing that a common theme is this un scalable stuff.

Dave [0:13:21]: But I wanna...

Dave [0:13:22]: And I...

Dave [0:13:23]: I'm taking notes, so we'll get back there, but I wanna take a d back to something a part that kinda connects all of your...

Dave [0:13:29]: All all of these things right now is this, like idea of patience.

Dave [0:13:33]: Like, how do you How do you stand up?

Dave [0:13:35]: Maybe this is easier for some of you who have more experience and have more wins under your belt and are proven, but can any marketing leader or any marketer on this webinar?

Dave [0:13:43]: Damn it.

Dave [0:13:44]: Live session.

Dave [0:13:45]: Can any marketer on this session today?

Dave [0:13:48]: You know, go back to their team and say, hey, I actually, I wanna think about measuring this in a different way?

Dave [0:13:54]: I wanna have more patience.

Dave [0:13:55]: I want you to trust me a little bit more.

Dave [0:13:57]: Like, you have to earn that trust or how is there a way you can stand up in front of the company and say, hey, here's how people buy, and so here's what our marketing playbook needs to be because Brendan Hu, I love he calls this checkbox marketing.

Dave [0:14:09]: Like, so many companies just do this checkbox marketing.

Dave [0:14:11]: So how do you how do you break from that?

Dave [0:14:13]: Because it does take courage to say, like, hey, we're not gonna measure it this way.

Dave [0:14:16]: We're not saying we're not gonna measure it, but we're gonna not not gonna do it this way.

Dave [0:14:19]: We're gonna try this thing.

Dave [0:14:20]: We need to do things like a billboard, write a book, do un scalable things.

Dave [0:14:25]: How do you go get that buy in?

Dave [0:14:27]: I want you to talk to the people who are listening to this right now being like, okay.

Dave [0:14:30]: I hear you all, but, like, you're all proven people, whatever.

Dave [0:14:33]: You'd easy free you to walk in the room and and and go get those things done, help us walk somebody through that in the company.

Aditya [0:14:39]: So I'd I'd go into this because I deal with this a lot like, how the company set up.

Aditya [0:14:42]: We have most of exec team in India, and then we're...

Aditya [0:14:45]: North America our fastest growing region.

Aditya [0:14:47]: And so, like, they're also familiar with the region.

Aditya [0:14:49]: So whenever I, put but ideas out there where the team puts ideas, there's always like, wait, will this work?

Aditya [0:14:53]: We don't know, etcetera.

Aditya [0:14:54]: It hasn't worked here.

Aditya [0:14:55]: And before you any campaign, it doesn't matter what level or, you know, you have experience or not, be obsessed with your customer and their problems.

Aditya [0:15:01]: Before, like, literally I launch any big campaign or my team does, they'll come an idea.

Aditya [0:15:05]: It's like, one distribution And the second part is like, how do we der risk it.

Aditya [0:15:08]: And I asked them, like, have you talked to any prospects or customers.

Aditya [0:15:11]: And so, like, over the year, we start building a base of, like, fifteen people I can text that are either people who are not our customers, but are friend, but are in different platform?

Aditya [0:15:21]: And Like, what do think about this?

Aditya [0:15:22]: Does this resonate with you?

Aditya [0:15:23]: Does this align with what you're thinking?

Aditya [0:15:25]: Would this get you to take a meeting, a demo or tell someone else to attend?

Dave [0:15:30]: Yeah.

Dave [0:15:30]: And like I...

Dave [0:15:31]: I'd love this shit.

Dave [0:15:32]: I think about this all the time.

Dave [0:15:33]: I'd go to somebody's website, And I'm like, would anybody at this company actually do this?

Dave [0:15:38]: Who contact sales now.

Dave [0:15:40]: It's like, why why would I do this?

Dave [0:15:41]: I'm not gonna do?

Dave [0:15:42]: Do we do we think of that?

Dave [0:15:43]: And I I beat myself up over that all the time If I rush to send an email and I see it in my inbox and my damn.

Dave [0:15:48]: Like, I just sent that email to, email.

Dave [0:15:50]: Twenty three thousand people and like, I probably wouldn't have opened that email.

Dave [0:15:53]: Like, that is...

Dave [0:15:54]: I think that is a common trade among people that are good at marketing.

Dave [0:15:57]: It doesn't matter what industry you're in, what stage whatever it's, like, how do you think like that?

Aditya [0:16:02]: Yeah.

Aditya [0:16:02]: And and that's that's come down like, your customers will tell you whether your customers are not, your audience will tell you if that's a foolish idea, and you have to talk to multiples, obviously.

Aditya [0:16:12]: Don't just talk to one and, you know, end of one.

Aditya [0:16:14]: But go after them and, like, At least I've learned to der risk that way.

Aditya [0:16:18]: And it saved me and be like, look, I talked to this many people.

Aditya [0:16:21]: Here's the names, the companies.

Aditya [0:16:22]: The titles is what they said.

Aditya [0:16:23]: Here's the recordings, with Ai it's more beautiful than I easier than ever to record stuff, put it up there summarize and say, here you go.

Aditya [0:16:29]: And that's won me a lot of, like, I wouldn't say arguments, but like, there's no a debate if the customer is telling you audience is telling is what I care about.

Aditya [0:16:36]: Right?

Aditya [0:16:36]: Yep.

Aditya [0:16:37]: So...

Lindsay [0:16:39]: And I don't think it has to every...

Lindsay [0:16:40]: Everything doesn't have to be this big bet.

Lindsay [0:16:43]: You can start out small and and build up incrementally.

Lindsay [0:16:46]: But I would say moving from the tactical, you know, writing your email with Ai to actually using it as a strategic counterpart.

Lindsay [0:16:56]: Someone that is challenging you because if you let it, Ai continues to just be your to cheerleader leader and that can be really annoying.

Lindsay [0:17:04]: So look let's get it to a place where it's pressure testing the things that you're giving it, and then for something more future focused is doing Ai impact assessments.

Lindsay [0:17:16]: So, okay.

Lindsay [0:17:18]: Maybe that's what your customer's feeling now in their role, but we all know that Ai has exponentially changed the way that we think about our role and the things that we're focused on?

Lindsay [0:17:28]: What does your customers role look like in the next twelve to eighteen months.

Lindsay [0:17:33]: What are they focused on what does...

Lindsay [0:17:35]: Their role look like?

Lindsay [0:17:36]: Does your solution still serve them?

Lindsay [0:17:38]: If not, then it's not just about a messaging change.

Lindsay [0:17:42]: It's about an entire product roadmap change.

Lindsay [0:17:45]: So there's a a right...

Lindsay [0:17:47]: What to do right now versus what to look for in the future?

Dave [0:17:51]: Yeah.

Dave [0:17:51]: Tom, what are you gonna say build on that?

Tom [0:17:54]: Here's a few things.

Tom [0:17:54]: There are a lot of questions about how do you do things that aren't measurable.

Tom [0:17:57]: If you all work at a company where marketing isn't strategic enough to make big bets here at the wrong company?

Tom [0:18:01]: Sorry, Not sorry in that one.

Tom [0:18:03]: And then second, if you're also at a company that doesn't have a really good Ai product roadmap.

Tom [0:18:08]: Gonna be hard to compete.

Tom [0:18:10]: Like, we're just the reality goes, I I live in a world where engineers are dealing with these outages.

Tom [0:18:15]: We have vibe code churning out more code than ever.

Tom [0:18:19]: You need software like ours to be able to react I need Ai to fight Ai sort of how we talk about it.

Tom [0:18:24]: But, like, I think the two un...

Tom [0:18:26]: For me, the two non negotiable are, the company needs to be Ai at the core or they're gonna be your irrelevant in the next five years, and the Ceo has to be willing to do the kinds of things that break through the noise.

Tom [0:18:36]: Like, if we just think about all the Ai slot that's getting churn out by every company right now.

Dave [0:18:41]: Yeah.

Tom [0:18:42]: That's gonna be a sort of regression to the mean if we all just do the same tactic on the same channels.

Tom [0:18:46]: Like, I just spent a twenty two thousand dollars as of this morning on a month on an influencer campaign.

Tom [0:18:53]: So we will be working with an agency who will help us find influencers who talk to developers and engineers.

Tom [0:18:59]: These engineers will churn out bunch of content cross bunch channels.

Tom [0:19:02]: That feels like a way to break through the Ai generated s.

Tom [0:19:06]: One of the places you can go that are gonna let you getting out, which has never been more difficult than it is right now because everyone has any n and Zapier and Clay, and we all do the same emails.

Tom [0:19:16]: We all send the same templates.

Tom [0:19:17]: It's all the same.

Tom [0:19:18]: None of that shit's gonna break through anymore.

Dave [0:19:20]: Totally.

Dave [0:19:20]: It's like the same thing over...

Dave [0:19:22]: I think if you just cover up Ai and you called it, like, Mart tech or whatever.

Dave [0:19:25]: It's just we're all...

Dave [0:19:26]: You know, we're all using this...

Dave [0:19:27]: It's the same thing.

Dave [0:19:28]: Oh, I I would find out what Tom's using.

Dave [0:19:30]: It's like, oh, he's using optimize for this.

Dave [0:19:32]: Okay.

Dave [0:19:32]: Did it...

Dave [0:19:33]: He's using, you know, whatever.

Dave [0:19:33]: I wrote that down because I wanna Wanna recap these, and I I love this.

Dave [0:19:37]: This is a more strategic discussion which what what which we wanted to have.

Dave [0:19:40]: But my Tom said, basically, this is my take.

Dave [0:19:44]: You can, you know, get this for social media or whatever.

Dave [0:19:46]: How to do good marketing in twenty twenty six?

Dave [0:19:48]: It's number one, you have to be the company, you have to be Ai to the core, like Ai has to be...

Dave [0:19:53]: Your company has to be Ai native and marketing team, whatever.

Dave [0:19:55]: And then number two is the Ceo has to be willing to break do things that break through the noise.

Dave [0:20:00]: I love that as a as a benchmark because let's let's just go look at what everyone's doing in our industry, and let's find different ways to do it as opposed to just running the same place.

Dave [0:20:08]: Every everybody else does.

Dave [0:20:10]: I like that.

Dave [0:20:11]: I have a question about the marketing funnel.

Dave [0:20:13]: Does that still come up?

Dave [0:20:14]: Like, does the...

Dave [0:20:16]: Do you do you y'all think in terms of funnel anymore as marketers, You know, it used to be...

Dave [0:20:21]: When I learned it, I was at...

Dave [0:20:23]: I think I was at constant contact and it was, like, the funnel was, like, awareness interest desire action?

Dave [0:20:28]: And then, like, there was teams across the company.

Dave [0:20:29]: Does that cater to each parts of the funnel, You know, there's an ad team.

Dave [0:20:32]: There's a conversion team.

Dave [0:20:33]: There's a...

Dave [0:20:34]: There's a life cycle team.

Dave [0:20:35]: Do you all think of that inside of your companies?

Dave [0:20:37]: Like, you sit down with your team?

Dave [0:20:38]: You draw out, like, the customer journey or the funnel or has all that gone away?

Dave [0:20:42]: Does any of that still still matter I'm curious how you're thinking about, like, the awareness that, you know, I gotta jump into this

Aditya [0:20:49]: because I just had this entire review with with my team and everyone else and, well I think this goes back to, also what you're saying, David, I think there's is a funnel, but there is isn't.

Aditya [0:20:59]: And I think like people have to start thinking about how do you buy products?

Aditya [0:21:02]: How are you going through the funnel yourself and how does your audience go through it?

Aditya [0:21:05]: And it's not a funnel, but just the journey.

Aditya [0:21:07]: And how you go about, like, discovering, engaging, learning?

Aditya [0:21:11]: And so my team, I'm much more like, forget the funnel.

Aditya [0:21:13]: Just, like, think of where they're on their journey?

Aditya [0:21:15]: Are they're, like, already ready to make a purchase or they just starting or they're like, learning?

Aditya [0:21:19]: And, like, I've have had to shift the thinking to make, what do we make assets where, like, if they're just starting that we show up?

Aditya [0:21:24]: Versus if they're already, like, ready to make a decision, what does that look like?

Aditya [0:21:28]: And back to Autonomous saying, like, with influencers like, is influencers like, in the middle of the pack or is that at the top of the pack?

Aditya [0:21:34]: Or is even at the bottom pack and we don't know?

Aditya [0:21:36]: And so some of these, like, channels I think are, like, pretty saturated so the phone no longer applies, but the journey through these channels, I think you have to start understanding how being utilized or not.

Aditya [0:21:45]: But as less we should our thinking.

Lindsay [0:21:49]: Yeah.

Lindsay [0:21:49]: So...

Lindsay [0:21:49]: Like I said, I a lean team.

Lindsay [0:21:51]: So...

Lindsay [0:21:52]: And we oversee everything from brand and demand to enable it and retention, and then I also have Rev robots under my purview as well.

Lindsay [0:21:59]: So those stages are really helpful when you're communicating internally because most people know about them and understand them.

Lindsay [0:22:07]: As far as running campaigns, we don't really look at the...

Lindsay [0:22:12]: Of those stages that we just talked about, but more of the engagement, like, we'll we use Ai to really figure out what the scoring model looks like so that we can have that better sales and marketing hand and understand what a quality lead looks like.

Lindsay [0:22:28]: And if it converts to a a quality deal.

Lindsay [0:22:31]: So it's not so much focusing on those stages so much as it is making sure we've all got alignment internally on what engagement points look, check the bots to hand that over to sales and let them do their thing.

Dave [0:22:47]: There's a there's a bunch of really good stuff in the chat on this Kurt.

Dave [0:22:49]: Kirk says the funnel is a planning tool.

Dave [0:22:51]: I think I'd really like it as that because I think you need it as a...

Dave [0:22:54]: You needed it as a guard.

Dave [0:22:55]: Like you still to figure out which marketing place to run.

Dave [0:22:58]: And so it's like, oh, maybe maybe not...

Dave [0:23:00]: Maybe literally just not enough people in our market know that we exist.

Dave [0:23:04]: Like, hey, we have Tom's cases Like, we have the product.

Dave [0:23:07]: The product rocks.

Dave [0:23:07]: It's just early, not enough people know about us Like, oh, yeah.

Dave [0:23:11]: We're gonna go spend money on billboards because, like, we just...

Dave [0:23:14]: We should have need to tell more people we exist.

Dave [0:23:15]: Okay.

Dave [0:23:16]: Cool.

Dave [0:23:16]: First like, Hey.

Dave [0:23:18]: We have a ton of interest.

Dave [0:23:19]: We a ton of inbound demand.

Dave [0:23:20]: Like, meetings are full.

Dave [0:23:21]: We're just, like, struggling to close deals right now.

Dave [0:23:23]: Okay.

Dave [0:23:23]: That's a conversion issue.

Dave [0:23:24]: Maybe the funnel is...

Dave [0:23:25]: I really like that.

Dave [0:23:26]: And then Alexander says the chat forces of progress.

Dave [0:23:28]: Still one of my favorite ways of evaluating where a prospect is in their journey.

Dave [0:23:32]: So it's still like the funnel.

Dave [0:23:34]: Okay.

Dave [0:23:35]: Here's what here's what Wanna go next...

Dave [0:23:37]: Tell me tell me something that was a staple of your playbook, Tom, start with you.

Dave [0:23:41]: Well, the staple of Tom Went where it's like a marketing playbook, maybe, you know, ten years ago that, like, is not a thing.

Dave [0:23:47]: Is not.

Tom [0:23:49]: I used to work at a company called optimize, pioneer the idea of website optimization.

Tom [0:23:54]: We're gonna run end number of experiments and find the best shade of blue that's gonna give our landing page the best conversion.

Tom [0:24:00]: Was the dumbest thing, Like, the dumbest thing.

Tom [0:24:03]: I did some...

Tom [0:24:04]: I think even last week, we talked about this at my off site.

Tom [0:24:06]: We did

Dave [0:24:07]: do you see work that optimize?

Dave [0:24:08]: Yeah.

Dave [0:24:09]: You did?

Tom [0:24:11]: I'm cmo Well, the company that v optimized a long story.

Tom [0:24:14]: The company that bought the company became optimize.

Tom [0:24:16]: At this company called Epi server, which is E electron.

Tom [0:24:21]: I was bought optimizing brand...

Tom [0:24:23]: Took their name and rebranded.

Tom [0:24:25]: Oh, I didn't know.

Tom [0:24:26]: Okay.

Tom [0:24:27]: Yeah.

Tom [0:24:27]: Alright.

Tom [0:24:27]: So my Linkedin said optimized.

Tom [0:24:29]: It's a little bit of a stretch, but it's it's close.

Dave [0:24:32]: I didn't know.

Dave [0:24:32]: I didn't know you're just family.

Dave [0:24:33]: Sorry.

Dave [0:24:33]: Okay.

Dave [0:24:33]: But So...

Dave [0:24:34]: But...

Tom [0:24:35]: But big user, like, of website testing.

Tom [0:24:37]: Sure there's...

Tom [0:24:38]: It's of zero consequence to me.

Tom [0:24:39]: Haven't thought about in ten years.

Dave [0:24:41]: So you don't do any website testing?

Dave [0:24:42]: No.

Dave [0:24:43]: Do...

Dave [0:24:44]: Is that true for

Tom [0:24:45]: me testing not trying to figure out if the...

Tom [0:24:47]: If...

Tom [0:24:47]: If putting the word I my.

Dave [0:24:51]: Yeah.

Tom [0:24:52]: If the bunch should need blue or orange.

Tom [0:24:53]: No.

Tom [0:24:53]: It doesn't matter.

Dave [0:24:54]: Is that because Ai Ai can do it or it literally doesn't matter?

Dave [0:24:57]: To lift as they...

Tom [0:24:58]: Or the the percent gains that you get, first of all, most people don't understand the concept of statistical significance.

Tom [0:25:03]: So they run this test.

Tom [0:25:05]: They it takes them six months to get any learning.

Tom [0:25:07]: So they run it.

Tom [0:25:08]: And they they put it live after two weeks, and it wasn't...

Tom [0:25:10]: It just had no physical validation.

Dave [0:25:14]: Is this...

Dave [0:25:14]: I like, is this only in B2B?

Dave [0:25:16]: Like, if you if you and I owned, like, a, you know, consumer beverage brand.

Dave [0:25:19]: I'm assuming we would...

Dave [0:25:20]: We would...

Tom [0:25:21]: We be try more likely...

Tom [0:25:22]: Because in order to get learnings, you have to have conversions.

Tom [0:25:24]: And none of us B2B marketers have enough conversions to get any sort of real meaningful learning at scale.

Tom [0:25:29]: Okay.

Tom [0:25:30]: I get a twenty demo requests today.

Tom [0:25:32]: You're not gonna learn anything.

Dave [0:25:34]: By by changing the button.

Tom [0:25:36]: The button color.

Dave [0:25:36]: Are you

Aditya [0:25:37]: worrying the language.

Aditya [0:25:37]: We definitely don't it we don't Ab b test star, home

Tom [0:25:41]: How do you.

Tom [0:25:42]: Smart people on this webinar.

Tom [0:25:43]: I mean

Dave [0:25:46]: Yeah.

Dave [0:25:46]: I...

Dave [0:25:47]: Yeah.

Dave [0:25:47]: I don't I don't have opinion on that.

Dave [0:25:49]: We always were, like, we always couldn't do enough of it for some reason.

Dave [0:25:52]: It's, like, we need a hundred variations of the home homepage see which one is the winner?

Dave [0:25:56]: Meanwhile, someone like, just Dm you and nearly k, man.

Dave [0:25:59]: So, your Ceo is awesome?

Dave [0:26:00]: Like, can I get a demo?

Dave [0:26:01]: Yeah.

Dave [0:26:02]: Exactly.

Dave [0:26:03]: Okay.

Dave [0:26:04]: That...

Dave [0:26:04]: That's a good one.

Dave [0:26:05]: Any...

Dave [0:26:05]: What else?

Dave [0:26:06]: What else?

Dave [0:26:06]: Come on.

Dave [0:26:06]: Come on.

Dave [0:26:07]: You three?

Lindsay [0:26:08]: I agree with that one I think gating everything is definitely, you know, there was a time when it was a collect information at all costs.

Lindsay [0:26:18]: So now we're in a very much given information as freely as possible so that we can be we can educate the buyer as much as possible in our favor in most cases, but also, I think now that it's very easy to compare and do that Ai research, it's important to make it as accurate as possible.

Lindsay [0:26:39]: And because it's going to be easy to compare across the board.

Lindsay [0:26:43]: So I'd say, no, trying not to get as much content as possible unless you absolutely have to.

Lindsay [0:26:50]: Pricing too.

Lindsay [0:26:52]: That needs to go out the window.

Dave [0:26:53]: Like, not having that of event.

Tom [0:26:55]: We talked about gating content for a second.

Tom [0:26:56]: It's the fucking dumbest thing.

Tom [0:26:58]: I hate to score this way.

Tom [0:26:59]: I...

Tom [0:27:00]: Like, it is the dumbest thing.

Tom [0:27:02]: Like, it's a a throwback to, like, I need to show the Vp of sales.

Tom [0:27:07]: I hit my lead commit target this month.

Tom [0:27:09]: So let me put a form in front of my nonsense content.

Tom [0:27:12]: If anyone on this call looking at you right now.

Tom [0:27:14]: Any of you are gating content, I'm unblock you on Linkedin.

Dave [0:27:17]: Yeah.

Dave [0:27:17]: No.

Dave [0:27:18]: I get I get everything.

Dave [0:27:19]: We run a different business though.

Dave [0:27:20]: But...

Aditya [0:27:21]: Well, Know.

Aditya [0:27:22]: Is getting content Linkedin counter and say comment to get asset.

Aditya [0:27:24]: It's worries.

Dave [0:27:28]: I have the I but let me let me put this on the record.

Dave [0:27:31]: I have the...

Dave [0:27:31]: What what a privilege life you have?

Dave [0:27:33]: I'm all of you.

Dave [0:27:34]: If the biggest problem in your fucking life is that people want you to comment on their Linkedin post to get a piece of content.

Dave [0:27:40]: Some of these posts I see out there, leave people.

Dave [0:27:42]: Busy people should go to jail.

Dave [0:27:44]: I'm like, okay.

Dave [0:27:45]: Comment on it.

Dave [0:27:48]: Like, ignore it.

Dave [0:27:49]: Move on.

Dave [0:27:50]: Gosh.

Aditya [0:27:51]: Let's get you some bigger problems.

Tom [0:27:53]: It's like.

Tom [0:27:53]: You're actually your Colleague Adam from Drift.

Tom [0:27:57]: Adam, the the Sip rock guy.

Tom [0:27:59]: Yeah.

Tom [0:28:00]: He made a post about it and about how he hates it.

Tom [0:28:03]: And someone from Linkedin dan, like, a Vp at Linkedin commented and said, we agree.

Tom [0:28:07]: This is a bad experience.

Tom [0:28:08]: It was a whole thing yesterday.

Dave [0:28:10]: Well, let let me...

Dave [0:28:10]: Let me let's talk about Linkedin, but while we have this audience.

Dave [0:28:13]: The other the other place that Linkedin has fumble the bag.

Dave [0:28:17]: I'd like to give a shout to Eric from Hatch who who coined this phrase for me fumble the bag.

Dave [0:28:21]: So we've been running tests and other people have some similar data.

Dave [0:28:25]: But with video on Linkedin.

Dave [0:28:26]: Despite the fact that everyone looks at social media videos, what do they tell you about social media videos, vertical video, vertical video, vertical video, That's what Tiktok is That's what reels is, Youtube shorts.

Dave [0:28:35]: Right?

Dave [0:28:35]: Linkedin, no clue what they're doing, the best converting video, that the best engaged videos on Linkedin actually are actually horizontal videos.

Dave [0:28:43]: Because have you seen the experience, like, if I post a...

Dave [0:28:46]: It just it just is, like my face, like, in your screen with no context of a caption or anything?

Tom [0:28:51]: And so this is, like,

Dave [0:28:52]: a reverse growth hack.

Dave [0:28:52]: It's like, because they got the feature wrong, like, the videos that work better right now in Linkedin our horizontal videos.

Dave [0:28:57]: Amazing.

Dave [0:28:59]: Gating content, I think the issue look.

Dave [0:29:02]: So the obviously, the side tangent about the Linkedin stuff.

Dave [0:29:05]: The issue to me is not gating gated content.

Dave [0:29:07]: It is, like, thinking that gated content should then get a phone call from your sales team and some some good outcome is gonna happen for that.

Dave [0:29:14]: Right?

Dave [0:29:15]: And so, like, I do think it's it's a totally fine mechanism for, like, content delivery and getting people to hand raise things and and maybe get interest on a topic.

Dave [0:29:22]: I I like it at that, But...

Dave [0:29:23]: Yeah.

Dave [0:29:24]: I remember my first my first real marketing job, the...

Dave [0:29:27]: I did marketing for a year before we had a...

Dave [0:29:29]: I had a sales counterpart.

Dave [0:29:29]: And they brought in a Vp of sales.

Dave [0:29:31]: It's got twenty years more experience in me.

Dave [0:29:33]: You know, I'm just a kid in my twenties he's like, running marketing for the first time.

Dave [0:29:37]: He's like why don't you come in here and draw draw me the funnel on the whiteboard.

Dave [0:29:40]: I draw him out the funnel and I'm bragging about all these metrics and here's...

Dave [0:29:43]: We got twenty thousand, you know, this many visitors, this many context.

Dave [0:29:46]: He's like, how many how many sales qualified leads buddy.

Dave [0:29:50]: I'm like, I have no idea.

Dave [0:29:53]: I'm like, we have really big email Is say like, yeah, yeah.

Dave [0:29:55]: It's like, these...

Dave [0:29:56]: Would you would you have what you have here?

Dave [0:29:57]: Or these are not leads?

Dave [0:29:58]: These are called contacts and that was the very first, like, slap in the face that I got from a sales sales leader.

Aditya [0:30:04]: Think to yeah that part.

Aditya [0:30:06]: One of the things that we were doing in the fast, and I that we've stopped altogether and now is back to, like, oh, someone filled out a form.

Aditya [0:30:12]: Hey go contact them sales.

Aditya [0:30:13]: Like, we stopped that.

Aditya [0:30:14]: Sales doesn't get any leads or anything, except for, like, until they literally have hit filled out in demo four.

Aditya [0:30:20]: Like, that's the only point in which we had something the sales, but that's a practice like in the past you'd be like, hey, they filled out this.

Aditya [0:30:25]: Go talk to them.

Aditya [0:30:26]: Oh, they've done this many actions.

Aditya [0:30:27]: These are Lead score says it's ready to follow up with, and all the debates you go back and forth countless as hours dear god that you'd spend on stupid shit.

Aditya [0:30:35]: That's a lead.

Aditya [0:30:36]: Why don't you follow with it?

Aditya [0:30:37]: It's not a lead.

Aditya [0:30:38]: It's a contact.

Lindsay [0:30:39]: Yeah.

Lindsay [0:30:39]: We just used Ai last quarter to completely revisit our scoring model for both contacts and accounts.

Lindsay [0:30:47]: And we set up this a similar thing is that until a contact reaches a certain engagement score, they're not even assigned.

Dave [0:30:58]: Yeah.

Dave [0:30:58]: What else?

Dave [0:30:59]: What should I be?

Dave [0:30:59]: Right now.

Dave [0:31:00]: I have a bunch of questions, but let me take...

Dave [0:31:01]: I'll take a drink of my water.

Dave [0:31:03]: Like, I'll let you free form.

Dave [0:31:04]: What what what should we talk about?

Tom [0:31:06]: Is Ai resulting in smaller marketing teams.

Lindsay [0:31:10]: For sure.

Lindsay [0:31:11]: Yes.

Lindsay [0:31:11]: There was actually a Pro and Gamble study earlier this year.

Lindsay [0:31:16]: Did you see it?

Lindsay [0:31:16]: It's in April, I believe, and they compared human only teams to people losing Ai and what they found was that one person using Ai performed as well as human only teams, but two people using Ai outperformed everyone.

Lindsay [0:31:37]: It was a solid study.

Lindsay [0:31:39]: It's great.

Lindsay [0:31:40]: I think that's just proof that it's here to stay and that people are going to be more generalist and that they can be empowered to do more despite what their job title is.

Dave [0:31:53]: That's true.

Dave [0:31:53]: I've seen this just directional as a thought leader somebody who makes a living hosting a podcast interviewing Cmos, maybe you heard of it.

Dave [0:32:01]: It seems like a lot of people are team size is shrinking, or maybe it's such shrinking, but it's not growing at the rate that it used to.

Dave [0:32:07]: Everyone is under intense pressure.

Dave [0:32:09]: Like, to ask for one head count right now is, like, you better go to the Ceo and board and explain, like, why you can't do this with technology.

Dave [0:32:16]: And by the way, I'm not sure that that's entirely fair.

Dave [0:32:19]: I think there's a lot of...

Dave [0:32:20]: I believe in Ai, but I also think there's a lot of, like, we can't really do all the things We think it can...

Dave [0:32:26]: It's not literally running the entire business for you despite what some people might say.

Dave [0:32:30]: There's a lot of half baked stuff or, like, you could vibe code something and then actually it just gets the halfway and then you just spent a week doing it and now you still not done, and it doesn't work.

Dave [0:32:40]: And so I think you I think you still do need people, but I've never shared this perspective, I don't think on any of our webinar.

Dave [0:32:45]: So I think one of the things...

Dave [0:32:47]: For for me in my career in marketing, I had a ceiling once I got to become, like a team manager, and I was the Vp marketing and we had thirty people.

Dave [0:32:54]: I came up because I was like a I was a good marketer and then you get thrust into managing people and then you become the head of marketing and that's the progression.

Dave [0:33:01]: And they basically brought in, like, a professional Cmo over me because that was what you needed.

Dave [0:33:07]: You needed the Cmo who has you know, managed a team of a million people at Salesforce and has seen that.

Dave [0:33:13]: And I think what's very exciting about what's happening now is like, I think the trend is not just smaller team sizes, but I think it matters that the Cmo is actually good at marketing now more than ever and the Cmo is not just the people manager, Tom.

Dave [0:33:26]: Like, I know that's why you're still doing what you're doing and like, you wanna be a Cmo.

Dave [0:33:31]: It's because you actually enjoy the brand building, the storytelling the company building the marketing.

Dave [0:33:35]: I think that unless you're at maybe those top Fortune one hundred companies or whatever.

Dave [0:33:40]: Like, the Cmo job is less about becoming, like, a professional, like, people manager now, which is super exciting at least for me with my confirmation bias of liking the marketing.

Dave [0:33:49]: And so I think the secret is, like, Cmo team

Tom [0:33:53]: of,

Dave [0:33:53]: you know, five to fifteen marketers or whatever, and and then lots of Ai and and agency.

Dave [0:33:59]: Like, that's the direction.

Dave [0:34:00]: And I know a bunch of founders who are starting new companies, founders who, like, had companies in the last wave of Saas and then are starting new companies now and they're basically, like, I would never have a big marketing team ever again, and that's the founder saying that right at right out of the gate.

Aditya [0:34:13]: So I'd love to ask the folks on the call anyone, and they're like, how much Ai are you guys actually using on your teams and what what tools?

Aditya [0:34:21]: Because, like, I I...

Aditya [0:34:23]: Very honestly.

Aditya [0:34:23]: This is gonna, like, maybe piss people off, but, like, I had bought one Ai product in the last twelve months.

Dave [0:34:30]: What is it name it?

Aditya [0:34:31]: Z.

Aditya [0:34:31]: Z.

Dave [0:34:32]: Z is Ai product.

Aditya [0:34:35]: And it was because they sold me so well on how fits into my workflow.

Aditya [0:34:37]: Yeah.

Aditya [0:34:38]: And what I'm doing.

Aditya [0:34:39]: I've like looked at many, but everything comes out to my favorite Ai chat buddy, which is either Gemini or chat G.

Aditya [0:34:46]: Yeah.

Aditya [0:34:48]: It I have not bought Ai tools.

Aditya [0:34:51]: Like, nothing is, like, made me say I wanna jump into this because oftentimes, I'm like, wait.

Aditya [0:34:55]: This is making my world even harder.

Aditya [0:34:56]: Yes.

Aditya [0:34:57]: It might give me more outputs.

Aditya [0:34:58]: But I'd love to know how much are you guys are doing and then

Dave [0:35:01]: put in the chat.

Dave [0:35:01]: It.

Dave [0:35:02]: Everybody's doing.

Dave [0:35:02]: I put it in the chat.

Dave [0:35:03]: How much Ai would you say you're you're using?

Tom [0:35:06]: Yeah.

Tom [0:35:06]: For us, it's a lot at my company.

Tom [0:35:07]: One really tangible example.

Tom [0:35:10]: We do a ton of agent stuff off of gong call transcripts.

Tom [0:35:14]: So every time a gong call transcript app, every time a gong call happens about ten agents fire.

Tom [0:35:20]: For example, our sales reps have to use Med pick when they're filling out details on an opportunity, all the Med pick stuff we have an agent that just reads that call transcript pulls out all the eight pieces of med pick and dumps it in into Salesforce.

Tom [0:35:33]: So multiply that times twenty sellers times ten minutes of work.

Tom [0:35:38]: Every discovery call, we're saving them tens of hours a week by doing that.

Tom [0:35:43]: Every time as a mention of a competitor, it summarized the learnings of that competitor dumps it to a database that we used to update a battle card every few weeks or so.

Tom [0:35:52]: There's a whole bunch of stuff, call transcripts are the, like, gold mine of stuff and Ai makes call transcripts actionable, used to talk about listening to a couple gone calls a week.

Tom [0:36:02]: But, like, Ai can listen every single one and pull out insights on every single one.

Tom [0:36:06]: Right, and then you can make them do things, like, update Salesforce, update the battle card, send the Slack notification to the person

Aditya [0:36:13]: Did you have to buy new tools or did you take what you had and just plug it in?

Tom [0:36:17]: Clayton Zapier man Clay and Zapier or like you...

Tom [0:36:19]: I love Clay, and I love Zapier.

Dave [0:36:22]: Never heard of either.

Aditya [0:36:23]: So you we have sent it also as well.

Aditya [0:36:25]: I'm just wondering, like, is there any other tools also?

Lindsay [0:36:29]: I...

Lindsay [0:36:29]: We keep it very much to the the general use tools, one they're more cost effective and two, they're just more versatile.

Lindsay [0:36:38]: So we have Cha Claude, notebook L because to your point Tom, those notebooks and those call transcripts.

Lindsay [0:36:46]: Ai can store all of those If we need to call out something that someone said to us recently about something that went really well with their campaign.

Lindsay [0:36:57]: We can just ask it a question.

Lindsay [0:36:59]: It gives us a verbatim quote of something that was said and a note to where the call transcript can be found.

Lindsay [0:37:06]: So that's been a huge help it also helped with our mixed method surveys where we paired survey data with actual interviews with marketers, and it surfaced again, verbatim quotes, which it was so important to us because we didn't want to mis anyone.

Lindsay [0:37:25]: So those three and then the only kind of niche tool we have is Riverside for videos.

Lindsay [0:37:32]: So I like to keep it nice and simple, get as much out of those tools as humanly possible.

Lindsay [0:37:38]: And then, you know, if if there's a really great use case that you need to double down on, and there's a great tool out there.

Lindsay [0:37:46]: Go ahead and invest.

Tom [0:37:48]: I also will give a shout out to Exit Five sponsor, at least at some point qualified.

Tom [0:37:52]: I think I was super skeptical of the Ai Bd r idea, but we've been using this qualify thing to do inbound follow up.

Tom [0:38:01]: Like, we go to a big event.

Tom [0:38:02]: We met eight hundred people, Only forty of them really wanna talk to us.

Tom [0:38:06]: I think ten years ago, we would have sent an email, nurture stream out a hubspot and said, thank you for coming to the booth.

Tom [0:38:11]: You know, and we've sent them a bunch of resources.

Tom [0:38:13]: We're not doing all of that sort of follow up in this disqualified.

Tom [0:38:16]: And the emails it writes are shockingly good.

Tom [0:38:19]: Like, good enough where I'm proud of them.

Tom [0:38:21]: We give it some context.

Tom [0:38:23]: So...

Tom [0:38:24]: It's not just writing emails just off of random stuff.

Dave [0:38:26]: You're you're proud of them, like, you're proud of you're proud of the Ai t.

Dave [0:38:31]: You're like, I'm.

Tom [0:38:32]: I'm like I look...

Tom [0:38:33]: It's not a bad pilot.

Tom [0:38:34]: I'm not...

Tom [0:38:35]: I look at and say this is Ai slack.

Tom [0:38:37]: Awful.

Dave [0:38:38]: I know.

Tom [0:38:38]: I'm shockingly good.

Dave [0:38:39]: Look, one of the hardest things in in for me and marketing was been, like, I've always been the email guy.

Dave [0:38:44]: Like, give it to Dave.

Dave [0:38:45]: He'll write the email Dave writes the email.

Dave [0:38:47]: Like, I'm not good at many things in life, but like, writing emails is is one of them.

Dave [0:38:50]: And it's and been an impossible task to like, try to scale that and train someone on it, and it always ends up just being, like, outright it anyway, but stuff like this makes a ton of sense.

Dave [0:38:59]: And I'm glad to hear it's working because everybody else has telling me nothing's working.

Dave [0:39:03]: Outbound is not working.

Dave [0:39:05]: It's dead.

Dave [0:39:05]: It's whatever.

Dave [0:39:06]: And so what do you think makes the Ai outbound work though, Tom?

Dave [0:39:11]: Is it, like, they do better restart...

Dave [0:39:12]: Like, how did that?

Tom [0:39:14]: So a good question.

Tom [0:39:15]: It's the context.

Tom [0:39:15]: It's the research.

Tom [0:39:16]: Right?

Tom [0:39:16]: So I feed this piper qualified thing.

Tom [0:39:19]: The...

Tom [0:39:20]: A summary of the person's linkedin profile, a summary of the summary of the company, I give it all the contextual stuff about incident.io.

Tom [0:39:27]: So it's able to take...

Tom [0:39:28]: And I give it all the context of what they were doing on our site.

Tom [0:39:31]: It takes all those things, It can munch them all together and come up with something really good.

Tom [0:39:36]: So I have a clay process that does all the research.

Tom [0:39:39]: The clay process feeds it to qualify and qualify does all the writing of the emails.

Lindsay [0:39:45]: I definitely agree with the context aspect.

Lindsay [0:39:47]: The context is what makes Ai really powerful, and then the prompt is what gets it really precise.

Lindsay [0:39:56]: So whether you're using those agent flows or you're using just a Gp that you've created.

Lindsay [0:40:03]: We have a really solid knowledge base that we created that covers everything from brand voice to positioning and messaging competitors, personas, existing content, and anytime we need to give Ai context, we just download that as a Pdf and upload it.

Lindsay [0:40:22]: So it's absolutely tool agnostic, and it gives so much rich context.

Aditya [0:40:29]: I I got booted it off for my answer clearly earlier, but now.

Aditya [0:40:31]: Now I'm

Dave [0:40:32]: back.

Dave [0:40:32]: And I think

Aditya [0:40:33]: for us like...

Aditya [0:40:34]: Exactly for my answers.

Aditya [0:40:36]: We've done that, and this goes back to what Tom was saying, I think and maybe Dave two with the same as.

Aditya [0:40:41]: We've done that we've given a brand and give this.

Aditya [0:40:44]: And then, like, instantly, we can tell the, like, the Sdr str are the ones who are, like, creative versus the ones who are, like, mid as all the all the kids say.

Aditya [0:40:53]: And, like, you can just tell the quality and so, like, teaching that actually is where Ai is come to me be like, these emails aren't working.

Aditya [0:40:58]: This is how like, an email looks when you use Ai use context and actually I think outside the box.

Aditya [0:41:02]: And that's actually where the learnings have gotten really faster.

Aditya [0:41:05]: And be, like, what this is what good looks like and this is what goes into good and, like, explain to someone who's not there.

Aditya [0:41:11]: What are the parts that went in so they can almost like, visually see, like, this where you missed.

Aditya [0:41:14]: This is where it happened?

Aditya [0:41:15]: This out of the anatomy.

Aditya [0:41:16]: And anatomy of a good email looks like that's outbound what context is there?

Aditya [0:41:20]: How is it relevant to the user.

Aditya [0:41:21]: And it helped them bill taste it takes time.

Aditya [0:41:24]: But it has helped people build taste that wasn't there before, but it definitely takes time.

Tom [0:41:29]: I I look at it, like, Ai can...

Tom [0:41:31]: For email specifically, Ai can generate emails as good as maybe sixty percent or eighty percent of humans, But the benefits of it's it's reliable.

Tom [0:41:41]: It's fast.

Tom [0:41:42]: It's always working.

Tom [0:41:43]: I can get an email out minutes after a conference ends versus the Bd hours is on vacation that day.

Tom [0:41:49]: Like, there's are so many benefits to it that, like, I'm all in on it.

Dave [0:41:55]: Alright.

Dave [0:41:55]: I like it.

Dave [0:41:55]: I like it.

Dave [0:41:56]: My least favorite, you, every is like Who's soon.

Dave [0:41:59]: And soon, we're gonna have to have our...

Dave [0:42:01]: The Ai, You know, we'll have an org chart for Ai agents inside the company, and they're like, no.

Dave [0:42:05]: What does that mean?

Dave [0:42:06]: We're gonna...

Dave [0:42:06]: They they don't they're gonna give them benefits.

Dave [0:42:08]: You're gonna do Like, we've just...

Dave [0:42:09]: It just sop with we're like, we...

Dave [0:42:11]: We'll do performance reviews for Ai and it's like no.

Dave [0:42:13]: It's just called we're, like, reviewing if the product works and you like it.

Dave [0:42:16]: Like, what...

Dave [0:42:18]: Anyway, there's always gonna be something.

Dave [0:42:20]: Dan is in my ear saying, like, we need to just do this as, like, a regular radio.

Dave [0:42:24]: Because I wanna I wanna go in into fifteen different directions.

Dave [0:42:27]: There's so many, like, Wanna ask you personal questions.

Dave [0:42:29]: Lindsay and I were talking about yoga in in in my and impending hip surgery in New York.

Dave [0:42:34]: I've Tom's got work.

Dave [0:42:35]: I wanna ask him about what whatever he's on right now or whatever he's been taken because it looks pretty look...

Dave [0:42:41]: You know, he's he's doing it.

Dave [0:42:42]: I'm happy for you, man.

Dave [0:42:44]: It's good.

Tom [0:42:44]: Dumb jacked.

Tom [0:42:45]: Let's go.

Tom [0:42:45]: Yeah.

Dave [0:42:46]: Yeah.

Dave [0:42:46]: Yeah.

Dave [0:42:46]: One of the cool ways we've used.

Dave [0:42:47]: I didn't get the chance to talk about some of some the ways we're using.

Dave [0:42:50]: I Ai, but, like, a little example is, like, we have these ads that we're running and to...

Dave [0:42:54]: For our newsletter.

Dave [0:42:55]: And in the ads, it's like, a picture from our event of me at the whiteboard.

Dave [0:42:58]: And and it's for the ad...

Dave [0:43:01]: The ad copy is about Ai and Seo.

Dave [0:43:03]: And jess just took that image, and she put it in, like, Nano banana or whatever and updated it And now in the back of the image, there's a Tv, and the Tv screen was blank.

Dave [0:43:12]: And now there's, like, a chart on it grow going up.

Dave [0:43:14]: And then on the whiteboard, it has, like, five things about Ai and Seo, and it looks super legit.

Dave [0:43:19]: It's like, think about in the past, we would have had to, like, run that to have that idea, give it to a designer.

Dave [0:43:24]: They gotta go put it, make it together in Photoshop, But, like, they already have fifteen other things to.

Dave [0:43:28]: Like, in seriously four minutes.

Dave [0:43:30]: She made an amazing piece of ad creative, And I I love I love things like that.

Dave [0:43:35]: You know, it doesn't have to be...

Dave [0:43:37]: For people listening, like, you're...

Dave [0:43:39]: You don't have to do the, like, super in...

Dave [0:43:41]: Like, we're gonna revamp the whole marketing org I just like this mindset of, like, what small ways could we be using Ai?

Dave [0:43:47]: Could we be chipping away at some of our workflows whether ad creative, whether it's, you know, something you're doing for this mailer campaign.

Dave [0:43:53]: The how much time of think.

Aditya [0:43:55]: Double checking me on that.

Aditya [0:43:56]: Right?

Aditya [0:43:56]: That's the part I think if you look, like, Ai in the buying journey and internal in both external.

Aditya [0:44:00]: One of the biggest things like, starting small actually helps as Lindsay was saying.

Aditya [0:44:03]: Right?

Aditya [0:44:04]: Like, one of the things there are people who are, like, smart, but they're afraid of away because they don't wanna give up the control and they were raised in the past of, like, controls everything the Everyone's have checks and balances and let's get stuff out we, as Dave you're saying, five, six checks before it goes out and then marketing goes to help because Frankenstein shows up.

Dave [0:44:18]: But that way, we're like, who who wants control?

Aditya [0:44:21]: Oh, everyone that's on marketing.

Dave [0:44:23]: Okay.

Dave [0:44:23]: They wanna see everything before it goes out.

Aditya [0:44:25]: Yeah.

Aditya [0:44:25]: Right?

Aditya [0:44:26]: And so, like, part of the job now is like, we start small.

Aditya [0:44:29]: And we just ship things and they're, like, wow, this volume of things that's great is good.

Aditya [0:44:32]: And then we're noticing people back off.

Aditya [0:44:34]: They don't want control.

Aditya [0:44:35]: They're like, Cool.

Aditya [0:44:36]: You guys are good.

Aditya [0:44:37]: Okay.

Aditya [0:44:37]: You're using Ai You're good, But we also like, is that a good thing?

Dave [0:44:41]: It's like, oh, cool.

Dave [0:44:42]: You're using a machine gun.

Dave [0:44:42]: We're are you, we all good.

Dave [0:44:43]: Alright.

Dave [0:44:44]: Yeah.

Dave [0:44:44]: You're.

Dave [0:44:44]: You're good.

Dave [0:44:44]: For.

Aditya [0:44:46]: Yeah.

Aditya [0:44:46]: That's the sad part is people think volume equals good equals Ai when getting That's

Dave [0:44:51]: so and insane, oh, you used to Ai to do it.

Dave [0:44:52]: Oh, yeah.

Dave [0:44:53]: You're good.

Dave [0:44:53]: You're good.

Dave [0:44:53]: Yeah.

Dave [0:44:54]: Oh, Tom, A, Ai wrote the billboard copy.

Dave [0:44:58]: Oh.

Dave [0:44:58]: Great.

Tom [0:44:59]: Must be.

Tom [0:44:59]: Great.

Tom [0:44:59]: No.

Tom [0:45:00]: That's exactly what's happening

Aditya [0:45:01]: and if you're like, Glory.

Aditya [0:45:02]: We wanna do fewer things better?

Aditya [0:45:04]: Like no.

Aditya [0:45:04]: That's not what Ai is good for, like, it's like we're seeing this debt dichotomy and you're like, okay.

Aditya [0:45:07]: Alright.

Aditya [0:45:07]: How do used to appease the gods internally to get them off so we can actually do good work.

Aditya [0:45:11]: We definitely fall into that of, like, I piece you now.

Aditya [0:45:14]: I'm gonna go do good work, which is it fifty billboards or fifty copies.

Aditya [0:45:17]: It's like five or ten that hit the mark and review and get to the good spot.

Dave [0:45:21]: But, like, look, I'm I'm just trying, like, I'm joking about the Ai stuff, but I I love to...

Dave [0:45:25]: It helps me whittle down ideas much faster.

Dave [0:45:28]: And so I'm like, the other internet at work here on this Like, I wanna write this tagline.

Dave [0:45:30]: Here's how Wanted to like, help me come up with fifteen versions of it?

Dave [0:45:34]: And I can get to, like, I can get through the shitty ones faster?

Dave [0:45:37]: And then I can, like, spend more time on the on the one or two, one or two ideas.

Dave [0:45:41]: Do you have any opinions on, like, Ai video?

Dave [0:45:43]: First of all, have have you played with So two on your own?

Lindsay [0:45:48]: Not level to Davidson son.

Dave [0:45:50]: Yes.

Dave [0:45:50]: My wife, Leah is leah is having an intervention with me.

Dave [0:45:53]: She's, like, and my kids have become obsessed with it and, like, it's also kinda scary, and I'm trying to teach them, like, it's fake.

Dave [0:45:59]: But I just...

Dave [0:46:00]: You know, I made a video myself.

Dave [0:46:01]: I just been making the most ridiculous like, Ai videos, and it's very it's very addictive.

Dave [0:46:06]: But in a in a work context, do you see them working?

Dave [0:46:10]: Like, would you have Ai generated, like, Avatars for your company for your sales reps for your Ceo If you thought about that?

Lindsay [0:46:18]: We're playing around with us right now for cold outreach.

Lindsay [0:46:20]: So that working on those really solid subject lines it'll get it open and then once it is open, playing around with how we can create a video that cuts through all of that noise that we were talking about earlier.

Lindsay [0:46:35]: So we...

Dave [0:46:37]: Would you would you use Ai avatar?

Dave [0:46:39]: Would use Ai avatar people in your marketing?

Lindsay [0:46:41]: Yeah Personally now.

Dave [0:46:43]: Or Lindsay No, Aditya?

Dave [0:46:44]: No.

Aditya [0:46:45]: I have tried it.

Aditya [0:46:47]: And for some our customer went announcements his the last two weeks.

Aditya [0:46:49]: I was tempted.

Aditya [0:46:50]: I got it out.

Aditya [0:46:50]: I, like, no.

Aditya [0:46:51]: This is...

Aditya [0:46:51]: I'm putting it back down.

Aditya [0:46:53]: It was just a little too cringe.

Aditya [0:46:54]: It was like.

Dave [0:46:56]: Sorry.

Dave [0:46:56]: Yes Yes or no.

Dave [0:46:57]: Would you Ai ai?

Tom [0:46:59]: No.

Tom [0:46:59]: No.

Tom [0:46:59]: No.

Tom [0:46:59]: No No.

Tom [0:47:00]: Like, this is where No...

Tom [0:47:01]: Like, that's knows.

Tom [0:47:03]: If you're coming out of college right now, I think the most Ai proof job is a great designer who's creative.

Tom [0:47:11]: We're so far away from So and Nano Banana and all the image generation models being able to do work that stands out.

Tom [0:47:18]: So we have a designed...

Tom [0:47:20]: We have an unusually sized design team at my current company, like five or six designers for a company of roughly a hundred people.

Tom [0:47:28]: And it's it's honestly one of the reasons we've been able to build a great brand, while everyone else is out there doing temp nonsense, we we put care into everything we do.

Tom [0:47:38]: Like, our billboard, we obsessed over every pixel every word, every effect we put on the treatment of the billboard?

Tom [0:47:45]: Yeah.

Tom [0:47:46]: I I would...

Tom [0:47:47]: If I were doing it over again.

Tom [0:47:48]: I wanna be marketing, I would go in into design.

Tom [0:47:50]: Except I'm not creative.

Dave [0:47:53]: Do you think we all just have this, like, reaction to that because we know it's not real.

Dave [0:47:56]: I could just

Tom [0:47:58]: That should

Dave [0:47:58]: be a real person.

Tom [0:48:00]: Of all the things that Ai can't do a good convincing job of.

Tom [0:48:03]: I think Texas is way further along than images.

Tom [0:48:06]: I don't think great brands are not gonna be built off of Nano banana.

Dave [0:48:15]: Way?

Lindsay [0:48:15]: There are also options where you can create a whole podcast with avatars.

Dave [0:48:20]: Yeah.

Lindsay [0:48:21]: I don't wanna listen to that.

Lindsay [0:48:21]: I don't why do I care that they're.

Dave [0:48:25]: That would just be, like,

Lindsay [0:48:26]: exist.

Lindsay [0:48:26]: They're not even up new things.

Dave [0:48:29]: They're like, the forbes the Forbes council version of writing for your your, you a hundred percent.

Dave [0:48:34]: They check out my guy.

Dave [0:48:35]: Sucks out Just like dips.

Dave [0:48:38]: Kids over by swings and not getting the shoulders Yeah.

Dave [0:48:41]: You It's the end.

Dave [0:48:44]: Is the end.

Dave [0:48:44]: He goes, he goes, ps see me.

Dave [0:48:46]: I said I send it to my mom.

Dave [0:48:48]: I sent it to my mom.

Dave [0:48:49]: I said, is this me or Ai and she goes, I know that's not you.

Dave [0:48:51]: I know that's not you.

Dave [0:48:52]: That's not your smile.

Dave [0:48:53]: It's one of those weird Ai smiles.

Tom [0:48:56]: We just did a...

Tom [0:48:56]: We know...

Tom [0:48:57]: We launched a product recently, and we went out and filmed a Tv commercial with real actors.

Tom [0:49:02]: Like, what people are doing these days is they're doing b roll with So, and they're they're sit there having...

Tom [0:49:08]: Strip writing, But, like, we went hire real actors.

Tom [0:49:10]: We paid them.

Tom [0:49:11]: We had to have catering for them.

Tom [0:49:12]: We filmed it for a full day.

Tom [0:49:14]: We had set design.

Tom [0:49:15]: We had Yeah.

Tom [0:49:16]: All this stuff and it was expensive.

Tom [0:49:17]: But our launch video was ten x better than what we would have done had it been So and, you know, a bunch of a bunch of text.

Dave [0:49:28]: Yeah.

Dave [0:49:28]: So I think

Aditya [0:49:30]: one of the things we're all hitting on here is the lack of trust is gone if you go too hard into Ai and what Tom you're saying, like, better equivalent is trusting somebody and trusting them if it's Ai clear, like, there's level of mistrust with that.

Aditya [0:49:42]: If that's all you're using in leveraging.

Aditya [0:49:43]: Right?

Aditya [0:49:44]: Why you hired actors put a set together and went that route.

Aditya [0:49:47]: Like, that's something we also, like, I care deeply.

Aditya [0:49:50]: I'm like, to have trust.

Aditya [0:49:51]: It's gotta look at authentic tickets it's gotta look like I can relate to you.

Aditya [0:49:54]: And so so is fun to post on Linkedin stuff, But I'm like, would they really take me seriously.

Aditya [0:49:58]: If I put a store of myself promoting this brand link.

Aditya [0:50:01]: You can tell that is not me.

Aditya [0:50:02]: Yeah.

Tom [0:50:03]: Because they're, like, remember exactly out Cameo.

Dave [0:50:06]: Do you remember, like, when...

Dave [0:50:07]: I remember when Cameo was more of a newer thing.

Dave [0:50:09]: It was, like a super niche and creative play to, like, if I'm trying to outbound a Lindsay, and I find, you know, like, Kevin from the office and I I know she likes the office, and I send her a funny video.

Dave [0:50:19]: Like, that worked.

Dave [0:50:20]: But now it's like, any...

Dave [0:50:21]: It's been democrat any...

Dave [0:50:22]: Anybody can do that.

Dave [0:50:23]: I think the novelty.

Dave [0:50:24]: I also think there's some really good stuff on on Store.

Dave [0:50:26]: If you if you if you can, you know, like anything.

Dave [0:50:28]: If you can can prompt.

Dave [0:50:29]: Alright.

Dave [0:50:30]: Producers are saying we got a lots of questions.

Dave [0:50:32]: I don't wanna so I don't wanna stop.

Dave [0:50:34]: I wanna turn this into radio show.

Dave [0:50:35]: I wanna talk...

Dave [0:50:36]: I wanna ask you about the World Series.

Dave [0:50:37]: I I wanna ask you about, Claude versus chat.

Dave [0:50:41]: I get so many things, but, I can't do that.

Dave [0:50:43]: Tom, this one is from Don, Don V in the chat.

Dave [0:50:46]: Thank you for using the the q and a Don v.

Dave [0:50:48]: Tom, I get the reference, but can you please provide an example of taste for your shop.

Dave [0:50:53]: So this is the million dollar question, which is how do you define taste, mister mister T.

Tom [0:50:59]: I think taste is when you build something, whether it's a piece of marketing creative or dish a restaurant or a bottle of wine you can get an Napa that people who know who the who, like, are passionate about the thing, look at the thing that you built and said, yeah, this thing is special.

Tom [0:51:21]: So for me, who my market to engineers, it's really hard to stand now.

Tom [0:51:25]: If my marketing to engineers, is respected by engineers stands out to them represents their challenges.

Tom [0:51:31]: That to me equates to taste.

Tom [0:51:34]: The same way if I'm a wine maker, and I build a bottle one, and I get a ninety six reading on wine spectator probably means I have good taste in wine making.

Tom [0:51:43]: I think it's it's the audience has to define taste, and I think you kinda know it when you see it.

Tom [0:51:48]: And when you get feedback.

Tom [0:51:49]: Yeah.

Tom [0:51:50]: And as Eric Williams williamson had said, shout out to Williamson, yeah.

Tom [0:51:53]: Not trying to appeal to everyone.

Tom [0:51:54]: Like, I don't care who who sees it.

Tom [0:51:56]: Like, I I want people that I want to, like my creative like it.

Dave [0:52:00]: I didn't know that was a guy in the chat.

Dave [0:52:01]: I'm like, who the hell Eric William.

Dave [0:52:03]: I'm like, shot

Tom [0:52:04]: Former colleagues.

Tom [0:52:04]: I just kidding.

Dave [0:52:05]: I would...

Dave [0:52:06]: I had the Q and A tab up He's like, yeah.

Dave [0:52:08]: Shout out to eric Williams.

Dave [0:52:08]: Like, I know that guy to Ceo.

Dave [0:52:11]: I, I guess I should shout out dave shout out to Eric Williams.

Dave [0:52:14]: Dave, this one's...

Dave [0:52:16]: I don't know it's a seriously.

Dave [0:52:17]: But Dave, we try to avoid calling our Linkedin live sessions webinars, but it's a hard habit to break.

Dave [0:52:21]: How would you position the difference the name difference to help understand the team to the team why it matters.

Dave [0:52:26]: I...

Dave [0:52:27]: It's really just a bit.

Dave [0:52:27]: It's just a joke for me because I actually love webinars, and I'll tell you why I love webinars.

Dave [0:52:32]: I was thinking about this.

Dave [0:52:32]: I'm trying to get a hat that says I love webinars because I think this format is amazing.

Dave [0:52:37]: I got a message from my team like, you know, Tom was like something like, they're like, wow, Tom's taking this real series he's blown up the chat, like, that's what makes this super fun.

Dave [0:52:45]: Like, it's different than a podcast.

Dave [0:52:46]: And I think the issue just like any other channel and marketing with the webinars if it's not interesting and if it's not relevant, then It's not gonna be useful.

Dave [0:52:53]: This format call it a webinar call and everyone.

Dave [0:52:56]: This format has existed for a long time.

Dave [0:52:57]: I...

Dave [0:52:58]: As a kid, I grew up listening in a sports radio and I love that.

Dave [0:53:00]: I would listen to it all day.

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

Dave [0:53:02]: That's what this is, but we're just talking about marketing.

Dave [0:53:04]: And so what can that be for your world.

Dave [0:53:06]: So I think the the problem is people hear the name webinar and they associate with, like, some super boring, pseudo sales pitch, some company walking you through their software.

Dave [0:53:15]: Like, webinar is so why are podcast super popular, Youtube super popular radio, you know, talk shows super popular.

Dave [0:53:23]: Those are all basically webinars it's just the name.

Dave [0:53:25]: And so you have to think about what...

Dave [0:53:27]: What's actually gonna be interesting there for for your for your business.

Dave [0:53:29]: And why would Summit, put the a thing on on your in your head is, like, why would someone take an hour out of the day to to come and hang out with us.

Dave [0:53:36]: That's something that we try to think about.

Dave [0:53:38]: Yeah this is one's from Maria, and you have any insights on measuring content attribution today, not a fan, but that's how I prove my content worth to my leader, So you're doing a lot, you know brand stuff, taste stuff creating content doing content marketing.

Dave [0:53:51]: Anybody have an answer to measuring content.

Aditya [0:53:54]: We've had to answer this question because our content budgets were great and then Ai showed up and they're like, you don't need all this to do this.

Dave [0:54:01]: Just just do Ai.

Dave [0:54:01]: Just use for it.

Aditya [0:54:04]: And I can tell you our budget.

Aditya [0:54:05]: We're we at an agency everything.

Aditya [0:54:06]: We're like, twenty five grand a month.

Aditya [0:54:08]: Like, I'll call it out.

Aditya [0:54:09]: It's an agency I've had for ten years.

Aditya [0:54:11]: They're amazing.

Aditya [0:54:11]: I've using an amplitude, etcetera.

Aditya [0:54:13]: Love them.

Aditya [0:54:13]: And so they're like, you gotta cut this.

Aditya [0:54:15]: Like, we can use Ai for most of this.

Aditya [0:54:17]: And I was like, for Okay.

Aditya [0:54:18]: Cool.

Aditya [0:54:19]: How about this?

Aditya [0:54:19]: Let's run and test I'll cut it for a few months, And then let's see what happens.

Aditya [0:54:23]: And the way we start looking at the measurement it actually was the number of times our brand would show up in certain search results, How our search traffic?

Aditya [0:54:30]: Rankings were progressing to the content Ai generated versus what the agency generated.

Aditya [0:54:35]: And that's where it starts showing.

Aditya [0:54:39]: The the what the agency generated was still ranking, whereas the Ai was not ranking.

Aditya [0:54:43]: And after three months, here, I was like here you.

Aditya [0:54:45]: You told me you cut.

Aditya [0:54:45]: I did it.

Aditya [0:54:46]: That's what happened.

Aditya [0:54:47]: It's one of those things that has been put to bed and never brought up again.

Aditya [0:54:49]: And justified by not just saying oh here, I'd help the funnel, etcetera.

Aditya [0:54:53]: I'm, like, in this new, a day and age, rankings matter more than the traffic is sixty percent of searches don't end up in a click.

Aditya [0:55:00]: So I'm, like, the rankings matter more because that's what the reference ability for the Ai comes from also as well, I the chat That are showing up in results too.

Aditya [0:55:09]: But that...

Aditya [0:55:10]: That's how why we've done it and that has been put the bed completely now as a result and we off validate content as much as we've had during in the past as result.

Lindsay [0:55:18]: When you mentioned it before to about distribution, what does it look like in many different forms and what is the engagement with it across all of those forms?

Lindsay [0:55:28]: What's working best and what's driving what kind of engagement?

Lindsay [0:55:32]: I think that's really important as well so that you can get a full look at what that content actually did for the company.

Lindsay [0:55:40]: And then something that we've been leaning in on is taking those interviews from real people.

Lindsay [0:55:46]: Repurposing them and giving them share kits to make that content go even farther.

Dave [0:55:52]: While we wrap, give us.

Dave [0:55:53]: We measure everything.

Dave [0:55:54]: I'm a soup.

Dave [0:55:55]: If you know me Tom, I'm a creative analytical ninja.

Dave [0:55:58]: I measure everything.

Dave [0:55:59]: So we...

Dave [0:56:00]: We we always wanna get feedback on these scale of one to five.

Dave [0:56:04]: Hot...

Dave [0:56:05]: Rate this this to five ever been in a meeting or have to do that.

Dave [0:56:07]: You have to say how the meeting was in front of other people.

Lindsay [0:56:11]: Words.

Lindsay [0:56:11]: Big middle

Aditya [0:56:14]: I this just getting n p score right now, Danny, Is that one time you're you're getting live.

Dave [0:56:18]: You're getting live N p.

Dave [0:56:19]: Like...

Dave [0:56:20]: And then we have the per speaker breakdown later?

Dave [0:56:23]: And no I'm kidding.

Dave [0:56:23]: This was this was great.

Dave [0:56:25]: Super fun.

Dave [0:56:26]: Dan's messaging me the whole time He's like, we needed you need He's like, I need you to do this live three days a week.

Dave [0:56:31]: Like, I'm like, fine.

Dave [0:56:34]: I'll do, but I'm not doing that it.

Dave [0:56:35]: I'm not doing anything else.

Dave [0:56:36]: And I'm gonna wear a tu.

Dave [0:56:36]: Anyway, this is great.

Dave [0:56:37]: Just a virtual round of applause for you three super fun.

Dave [0:56:41]: This was everything that I hope there would be hang out, have a chat.

Dave [0:56:44]: Talk about what we're all doing.

Dave [0:56:46]: Look, we'll we'll send out all the follow.

Dave [0:56:47]: We have the recording for everybody.

Dave [0:56:49]: The chat was amazing.

Dave [0:56:50]: Shout shot a few chat.

Dave [0:56:51]: Like, way to go.

Dave [0:56:51]: Way did not just be here.

Dave [0:56:53]: Like, you were in the chat, like, hanging out having a good time and and I really appreciate that.

Dave [0:56:57]: We will be back here next month, we got more good stuff to do.

Dave [0:57:00]: Check us out Exit Five dot com.

Dave [0:57:01]: If you're not a member, check us out, Send us a message, and then send each one of our...

Dave [0:57:05]: If our speakers spoke to you today they go find them on linkedin, hit hit the follow button there, connect with them.

Dave [0:57:10]: A bunch of them are hiring.

Dave [0:57:11]: A bunch of them were good people to know in the world of marketing.

Dave [0:57:14]: And I wish you nothing, but a great rest of the afternoon wherever you are.

Dave [0:57:18]: I'm a big positive affirmation guy.

Dave [0:57:21]: I think if you believe it can happen.

Dave [0:57:22]: So have a great rest of the afternoon, You three, I appreciate it.

Dave [0:57:26]: Virtual fist bumps.

Dave [0:57:27]: We'll see you next time.

Dave [0:57:28]: Thank you.

Dave [0:57:28]: Go to Exit Five dot com and thinking of walnut for for sponsoring this session.

Aditya [0:57:33]: We love you.

Aditya [0:57:33]: We'll see you all later adios.

Dave [0:57:39]: Hey Thanks for listening to this podcast.

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