Sydney Sloan: CMO Insights and Intent

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And today's conversation is with Sydney Sloan, my good friend and somebody who's been on the podcast before. But this time she's the CMO at G2, the world's largest and most trusted software marketplace where buyers come to learn from authentic reviews. Now, Sydney and I met when she was a CMO and sales leader at Sales Loft. And since then, she's been an advisor for Scale Ventures and the CMO of Drada. And so, we just use this as a great opportunity to catch up and for me to pick her brain about what she's seeing out there from a marketing standpoint and where the whole world of sales and marketing is going in this new AI world. And one of the things we started with is just when she left Sales Loft, she actually was burnt out.

And, you know, she has some recommendations on how to deal with it and why she was burnt out and how she just needed a break. And got into this whole energy management, which I'm a huge fan of, which is doing things that give you energy versus suck energy away from you. And there's so many things that we do on a regular basis that just drain us from energy that we got to get away from so we can focus on what really lights us up. And that's the whole evolution, what she went through. She realized she needed a break. And so, she got into that advisory role and she saw some really cool companies. And we talked about some of the challenges that all companies face, no matter what stage you're at, they all kind of have the same problems that boil down to some basics there.

And then we got into some specifics, right? About how, you know, ideal customer profile and how important that is right now to go really deep in it. And she's got some great insights there. And I talk a lot about this myself. And then, you know, the AI agent movement here. And what does that mean for sales reps? And how do we leverage it as businesses? How do we not get replaced by it as sales professionals? And how do we leverage it from a sales and marketing standpoint? So, we're all on the same page, right? Because the sales and marketing divide has been there since I got out of college almost 30 years ago at this point, it's still there to this day. And there's definitely some things now that are blending the two roles and AI is facilitating that.

So, we have to pay attention to it so we don't get replaced. We talked about, I mean, obviously, intent data. That's what G2 is all about. And that's where I think the world is headed. With all the information that's out there about us as individuals between LinkedIn and all the social stuff that we do. There's some intent data that's out there that AI can grab and start to send super hyper personalized information. So, where does that leave us as sales reps from an outbound standpoint? And then, last but not least, we just talked about how to stay relevant. And for her specifically as a CMO, how is she staying relevant in how fast things are moving right now? So, you're going to want to listen to this whole one.

It's two good friends catching up, but tons of insights from Sydney. She's just got such a great perspective on things and a ton of awesome experience to share. So, hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Let's make it happen. Sydney Sloan, what's going on? Welcome back to the Make It Happen Monday podcast, my friend. How are you? I am good. And you're still wearing the same shirt, John. Every day. Every day. Although, it's funny. It's funny that like, so, you know, the whole decision fatigue thing, like Mark Zuckerberg, they always talk about like wearing the same thing and, you know, that type of stuff. I also think that was a joke. I'm like, come on, dude, really? Like, you just pick what you want to wear in the morning.

When I standardized on this and I have like 75 of these shirts and I just wake up and I put this thing on, it's a, the decision fatigue thing is a real thing. To not have to make that decision in the morning is actually quite liberating. So, I recommend it to anybody. Yeah. I'm a bit on black girl for most, the most part. Yeah. So, the decision for me is just what jewels to put with it. I love it. Love it. Well, Sydney, let's catch up a little bit since the last conversation because like we were just talking beforehand, like I don't think we've really talked until the sales loft days and that's been a while. I mean, I remember, I remember getting a call from Kyle saying, hey, I just want to say thank you.

And I'm like, for what? And he's like, just for sticking with us over the years and being such a good advocate. I was like, oh no, of course, man, like you got a great company over there. And he's like, yeah, well, nobody knows yet, but tomorrow we're going to announce that we just got acquired. And I was like, oh, and I had totally forgot that I had any options or anything like that because he had given me some weight. Oh yeah, the advisory. Yeah. Yeah. And he was like, hey, I was like, oh, congrats, man. Like that's a 2.4, like good, good for you, man. Like that is incredible. Right. And he's like, John, do you, do you know how much like you have like options you have with us? I was like, oh yeah, I think I got some, right?

He's like, John, he told me how many I was like, holy shit. He's like, yeah, you're going to have a nice little Christmas present in your inbox tomorrow. I was like, well, thank you very much. So I know that that was one of his favorite parts about the whole process was getting to go back and saying thank you to everybody and make people say to change some people's lives. And it meant a lot to him. I think that had a huge part of the decision criteria as to why to do it. And he couldn't have timed it better. No, actually he couldn't have because I was in a pretty rough spot at that point in my life and my career and a bunch of other things. Listen, it's weird how the universe works because, you know, I was kind of at a low point, quite frankly, and I get that phone call and all of a sudden it was like that year of hell that I had been through.

I won't say it was worth it, but it made it a lot easier to deal with. Let's put it that way. So it was, it was, it was an incredible call. Right alongside you, John. So I had already resigned before I knew that it had happened. Oh, wow. No way. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. I did. And so he was convincing me to, you have to stay, you have to stay till the end of the year. And I was like, I'm going to have this other job and I should go to it. And, um, and I'm not going to tell that story because it's not worth it. But, but same thing. Like I was completely burned out and we'd just done the big rebrand and we all lived through COVID and, and I just had nothing left in the tank. And I'm like, I know this new chapter is coming with Vista and I just, I don't, I don't have anything left.

And I, and I couldn't, and I was so happy with kind of how that chapter ended by the way, with the, with the rebrand and like how it landed. And so it's like, you know, my time is done here and it was hard. And, um, I've talked to other people and have thought about it in reflection. And one option that I could have done and that I now encourage people to do when they're talking about burning out or just not finding the motivation anymore, but still loving the company is to ask for extended leave of absence. If I had been able to take six months off, maybe that would have been enough for me to recharge and come back because I still deeply loved sales loft and I loved working there. Um, so just throwing that out for anyone that might be listening.

And it's just like, God, I love my job, but I'm just, I have nothing left. And it's like, well, just ask. I mean, all they can say is no, but you know how long it takes to find a CMO more than six months. So yeah. Yeah. Well, let's talk about that for a minute. Cause I think a lot of people are in that situation, you know, could be in that situation where they just feel burnt out just because of external circumstances. Forget about the internal stuff. I mean, we all have stresses at our jobs, but it feels like the weight of things that are going on right now externally, um, is rather heavy across the board. And so I think that I'm feeling a lot of burnout, a lot of like, so how do you, how do you know, like, say you did take that six months, right?

But then you just came back and you still just didn't have the energy for that stage. Because I look, a lot of people, Kyle Porter, quite frankly, is the only executive I've ever come across who has stayed at a job from, as a CEO from zero, literally from startup all the way through to a 2.4 billion acquisition and been effective at every single stage of that business. Most people are really good for a stage of a business. You know what I mean? Whether it's a startup stage or the mid stage or the IPO stage. And so, you know, two years, three years, like you put your heart and soul into this company and then it's just like, ah, do I have anything left? Even if you love the company. So how would you kind of understand yourself kind of going through some self-reflection here of whether you were burnt out in general and just needed a break and a change, or you just needed a pause here for a little while to kind of get your shit in order and come back swinging.

Because I think my fear would be, hey, give me six months to chill. And then I come back six months later, I'm like, I still don't want to do this. I'm sorry. I just lost it. So how do you figure that out? Well, I think in reflection, you know, what I did and I ended up taking a year and a half off. I did some consult or I was an EIR and executive in residence for scale ventures with Craig Rosenberg, which we can talk about. Love Craig, yeah. But, you know, I think how people now think about energy and how you gain energy and how energy is depleted. I used to talk about, you know, my passion was a secret weapon. I could be passionate about something. I could bring my energy to every single meeting and conversation.

And I did, but I did it so much that I actually went to negative zero. I went to an acupuncturist. The week after I left Salesforce and she told me, she's like, you don't have, you have nothing. She's like, you know, you want to be like, you know, maybe in the middle. And she's like, your take is less than empty. You're not even running on gyms. And I could feel it, right? I knew it. I couldn't even fake trying to be, have energy anymore. And so a year and a half with acupuncture, you know, doing things that, and recognizing energy levels and, and just having to accept that I couldn't be the person I was before that could just power through it. And instead, you know, like I can do one trip a month or I can do one speaking engagement because they are high energy.

And then I'd have to go take a nap afterwards. And, um, and so I, I'm, uh, I just read actually, uh, there was an article on our D2 learn today. Um, uh, bill from, um, uh, focus labs was saying how he color coded his calendar and like, uh, things color coding red are things where energy is going to be depleted and purple was at times where energy would be gained. So you're just looking at your week and you're like, am I being balanced in where energy be depleted energy to be gained inside and outside as well? Like, you know, maybe you put working out or reading or meditation or whatever it is that then gives you that energy. So I think that's really important to be aware of if you're, if you are feeling like you're going to burn out or if you have burned out to start studying that.

Um, and, and another, um, uh, there's a, a gentleman that, um, and I can give you the podcast link later, uh, cause it's something that we reviewed with G2, which talked about your environment and the being in an environment. So when you close your eyes and you imagine yourself somewhere, are you on a beach? Are you in mountains? Are you in an urban scenario? And that's most likely where you feel and, and gain energy. So you've heard a lot of people move and like move to the mountains, move to these different places. Um, and, and so, uh, making sure that you're putting yourself in those places. And so for me, I did this before I listened to that podcast, but the home I lived in, the kitchen table that I was sitting at for five years was actually depletion of energy.

I was so sick of, I mean, we were stuck there for COVID and then, you know, I got sick there and all this stuff. And I'm like, this is, it's not giving me energy anymore. It's actually negative. Um, so I moved, sold the house and moved. Yeah. Total change. So not that it has to always be that drastic, but again, like it was the thing that worked for me to help me bounce back. Hey, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a quick minute to share with you what I'm working on these days with my new JB sales membership. It includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses, which are filling the funnel and driving a close to cover all aspects of the sales process.

It also includes monthly workshops that I'll be running on specific sales skills and different tech skills like chat GPT and how to leverage AI throughout the entire sales process. Finally, the membership gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done. And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to jbarrows.com, click on the individual membership link and use coupon code podcast at checkout, you'll get 25% off. Now let's get back to the conversation. And I think it's interesting because a lot of people feel tied because of very specific things, right? Like they're tied to their house. They're tied to this. They're tied to that. But I think if COVID taught us anything, we're not really tied to much, you know what I mean?

Like, and what is really important? And I've been going through the same kind of energy audit over the years of like really, I mean, there's certain times of day, right? That you look at as far as energy. But to me, it's like what you said, what gives me energy and what takes energy away from me? Like I, I'm definitely, people think I'm an extrovert. I'm not. I'm an introvert. And I know that I'm an introvert because I, well, I'm an ambivert, whatever they call it, right? Where you can step up and become an extrovert when you need to. But I like, whenever I speak, I am exhausted. It gives me, it gives me energy while I'm up there. Cause I love like engaging with the audience. But literally after I'm done with that presentation, I need to go back to the hotel and crash because I'm so drained of energy.

But that's like kind of a good energy and drain where there are people, there are tasks, there are things, there are customers. There are a bunch of things that just suck energy away from me every time I talk to them or meet with them or whatever it is. And I have been systematically eliminating them from my life over the past few years here. And like mean to like, not mean, but just like, sorry, I have no more time for you. Like if you, you bring drama into my life at this point, I have, I want nothing to do with you. So yeah, I mean, sign of maturity, right? Like, and just being, I think awareness is the first, being aware where you're at, what gives you energy, what doesn't, then tracking it, and then doing the things that help make you balanced.

And, and taking naps is awesome. Taking naps. I wish I could take naps. I used to never do that, but now I'm like, Howard, napper. I wish, I got to get into it because I can't, because usually when I wake up from a nap, I'm like, rah, I'm so groggy for the next couple of hours. That's what I always would do, but I learned, I learned how to nap. Love it. So let's talk about, you know, so after Sales Loft, right? Did you take a break or did you, or did you jump right into that advisory role? I jumped right into a big job, actually, thinking that the change of pace, I said I wasn't going to say that, but if, if you were watching my LinkedIn for two and a half seconds, I went to Zoom and stayed for two months.

That's right. Yeah, I forgot about that one. And it was like this, stuff happened. My dad got sick, my daughter, and I, again, didn't have the energy. So it was after that two months that I was like, I need to take, I need to take a break. This is just not, not going to work. And, and so I did a couple advisory things like, you know, five hours a week or whatever. And then Craig Rosenberg called for Scale Ventures. And so, you know, I, I never, I don't know if I can just stop working. Cause it's like, I love doing it. That actually is one thing that gives me energy is like helping people and being with people and, you know, solving problems. And, um, so I, I do enjoy it. It gives me, you know, a reason to get up in the day.

Um, but you know, 10 hours a week or five hours a week, it's just totally different. So I, but going into scale, um, first of all, it was, uh, Craig had just started and the, and the program was just coming off the ground. And so he was putting in an advisory network and it was me and Matt Amundson. And so I'm sure you know Matt from, uh, ever string days. And, um, so the three of us were like starting it and trying to figure out what, what it is that our port coast needed, how to build it. And, and Craig was kind of given the challenge to build something topo like again. And, um, and so we, we got to start working first of all, with the companies that were like raising their hand, asking for help and proving our value to the partners that having an operating team inside the firm brought the companies we invested in value and was an attraction for getting new investments.

So looking at both sides of the equation as to why you would put in an operating team inside a venture capital firm. And, and so, you know, we became part of, and, and we would source deals because the network is out there talking to, to new, um, to new firms and understanding the, the tech landscape. Uh, so that was super fun. Um, and there's some things that I learned. Um, uh, regardless of stage, size, maturity, market, the same challenges, you just see the repeatable patterns. I mean, I was working with, uh, robotics companies, uh, B2B marketing tech, um, uh, like construction tech, you know, just drone, a drone company called drone deploy. And, and, and, you know, it just like, it's, it's, it's, I think it's just, there is no one way to build a go to market engine and everywhere you go, you see, you know, people at different phases of building or rebuilding what they built.

And the number one thing that came back, the one thing that I learned in working across all these companies was the effort and time it takes to build the ideal customer profile is hard. Uh, thank you for crying out loud. I've been screaming this forever. So like I start my trainings with, I know your equation, whatever, just to understand your basic metrics, but then your ICP and getting detailed into your ICP because so many people literally just, okay, industry size, number of locations. All right. There's your territory. There's your territory. Get after it. It's like, and the exercise I'm actually encouraging a lot of clients to go through, and I'd be, I'd love your feedback on this is, is to go get your CFO, your, your, your head of customer success and sales and marketing in a room and have them try to figure out who your top 10 customers are.

Okay. So let's step one, because you're, you're, you're CFO is going to say the most profitable. Your CS is going to say at least pain in the ass and your sales market is going to say highest revenue, right? Somewhere in there is your top 10, but then you look at your top 10 customers who are killing it right now in this market, right? Doing really well in this economy and getting a lot of value out of your solution. And when you get those 10 customers dissect the absolute shit out of them, like look at every single nuance you can about them to find the commonalities. Because once you find the commonalities of your best 10 customers now, not in general or not your perceived best customers, but the real ones, right?

Then you can find everybody who fits that profile and use those as customer references and everything else. So how do you go about getting, getting layered deep in, in ICP as opposed to just scratching the surface that most people do? For me, I think about, yeah, the, the fit characteristics are, you can math that one, right? You can just math it, just looking at your, your total customer base and like looking at segments, looking at geo distribution, looking at, you know, your renewal rates and churn and, and all of that. You can math it. Um, and, and, and, and, and that is like, what's the common pain point? Uh, what changed in their industry? Um, it, everybody always says leadership changes and sure.

Yeah. That opens the door, but that's not a behavioral characteristic of an ICP. That's just a triggering event to action on. Um, and so like, and that, so that's market forces. That's like stuff, something there. I'll give you the perfect example. Like the AI agent movement is going to be a triggering event. Yeah. And so, you know, if you're building a company right now, like, you know, if that's your IC, if that's in your IC, like you have to figure out what's going around, you know, who's going to be displaced, who has the most to gain. Um, and, and, and that's the reason I'm saying that is because it's related to kind of G2 and how I'm thinking about our strategy. And it's like, I want to find the trend or the market shift that is bigger than me and that we can latch onto, to help the industry solve and be a benefactor in the process.

And so maybe when you're talking to those or dissecting those top 10 accounts, don't forget to make sure you're really looking deeply into the market forces that are driving the change. Okay. So, so I guess how do you, you know, as a sales rep, right? Cause I think that's your role as a CMO, as a CFO, as a CEO is to kind of look ahead and be like, okay, you know, 12 to 24 months, some shit's changing. I got a future proof myself in some way, shape or form. How do you, as a sales rep, kind of put yourself in a position? Cause in this goes to coming with a perspective and a hypothesis versus solution selling, right? Cause I think the days, at least at the executive level and correct me if I'm wrong, um, of me like, Hey Sydney, I'd love to talk to you about your 2025 priorities and how to help you achieve your goals, you know?

And then, Oh, tell me about your priorities. What keeps you up at night? All these dumb bullshit questions that are super lazy, right? And then I think the tolerance for that is over, right? Cause there's no value in that to somebody like you, but on the flip side, you know, and you're Doug Landis, right? Like he's got this whole hypothesis selling where you like, you actually come in with knowledge about the industry, about the business. Cause it's so easy to find right now, but then a hypothesis on how you can help. And I guess from your perspective, what do you appreciate more from a sales rep coming to you? Is it super thoughtful, insightful questions that get you to think a little bit? Or is it, Hey Sydney, here's what I know about you so far.

Here's where I think I can help. Here's some ideas. I'd love to talk to you about this and see if it resonates. Like, where are you on that from an acceptance? Like, what do you, what do you think is necessary these days from a sales rep? I'll tell you the same thing that Kyle Porter always said. He'd say, tell me something I don't already know. And so if you've taken those 10 customers and found the commonality between them, that may be something that that customer doesn't know about the industry because you have the insights from those 10 customers. Okay. Not, we work with so do so and so and so, right? It's like, we've been solving this problem for our customers and it's because of X and Y.

And what they're seeing is Z. How does that relate to some challenges that you might be having? And is that impacting you in the same way? Like, something where you're like, again, like, oh, I just learned something about my competitive market set that I didn't know. Like, we're, we're, you know, very lucky at G2 that we sit and have a view of what's happening in each market segment. Yeah. But anybody could do that. Come to G2. Read the, read the, read that customer's reviews. And you've just gotten as much insight on what their customers care about. Now go read their competitors' reviews. Now you know what the competitors think about them. And you can draw a correlation between doing that research that is customer-centric, industry-insightful.

You know, you know the other, like, and I was even telling our own team to do that. I'm like, uh, youth research on the G2. You know, like, like, how do we go deeper? We're asking, you know, AI all these questions about, you know, tell me about the CEO, their top priorities that are impacting their growth. And, you know, you get a good answer. It's a good research mechanism. And I always want the two levels why behind that. So keep asking, go to multiple, not just one GPT, go to multiple. You'll get different answers and you'll try to tease that through and then you'll share what you've learned and then ask the next question of why and why again. Yeah. I'm telling you stuff you teach, right?

No, but, no, but you're, you're actually the, the G2 comparison of feedback is actually, I've, I never dove into that, right? As far as looking at the top three competitors as it relates to G2, you know, on the side and saying, okay, yeah, there's always positives. Everybody's got some positive stuff, but like, where's the negative feedback and where the trends in that feedback based on the different industries and how do I compare now? Because I don't know how many CEOs like obsess over the, you know what I mean? It's just like, yeah, I mean, when somebody brings it to them, but I don't know too many CEOs who are just like on G2 looking at like intently every single one of their reviews and evaluating them.

So if you can bring that data to them. Those two CEOs who are leaders did, we set up the Slack read, right? Kyle read every single customer review, every single one and our draw to team, same thing. Every single review that came through, they'd read. Good for them. Voice of the customer right there in front of them. Right. Well, I was like, I'm not saying that they shouldn't. You know, the indifferent, I love them. Yeah, I'd say they should. I just don't know too many that, you know, a lot of them are just kind of out and about doing their thing, the brand and pushing the business and they rely on other people to bring them, not insights. But the ones who actually are tied to, you know, the real customer and getting feedback from other ones who talk to customers a lot.

I see a lot of people studying gong calls, which is good. I mean, you're getting the insight into the sales process and how the team is doing, but that's not the same as like, you know, post-implementation, direct customer feedback. And, and so I think that's insightful. Like why, why do customers can continue to buy? Where are they finding value? Is it, is it the value promise that you're delivering or is it something completely different you didn't expect? And if so, go double down on that, change your messaging, you know, um, and, and it's real time. So you can keep updating it and, and, and see how that comes through. And I'm not trying to do a pitch here for G2, but, but, but it's like whatever source you have to be able to go out and research what, you know, customers, their customers care about.

You can't tell me that a C level person wouldn't care to learn what their customers care about. The good old days when you'd secret shop, do people still do that? I tried to be your customer. I signed up online, right? Like that doesn't work in a spray and pray cold email world, but it sure does. If you're, if you're being a good rep, like I tried to be your customer. This is my experience in that. I saw this, this, and this, like, um, you know, just, yeah, that's the definition of, uh, you know, design thinking, right. From a sales standpoint, it's like, you become the customer, you sign up for the newsletter, you buy something, you return it, you, you know, you get a license of it, you see how it works, you download the app, you see what's going on.

And then you're like, okay, just from my perspective, like, here's some, here's some stuff that didn't work for me. Right. And bringing that to the table with a solution. Right. And I think why don't more executives lean on existing customers to educate their sales organization? Because another thing that I recommend to my clients is, you know, Hey, pick a, pick a persona once a month, right? Like get the whole team together. Everybody do a little bit of research. You know, what does people care about? So they, you know, asked in thoughtful questions and then for 30 minutes, get that persona on a zoom session or whatever, and just say, Hey, you know, what's a day in the life look like? Like, you know, what, you know, why did you buy in the first place and all these different things.

So they're literally talking to the person they're about to create a sequence to, and then creating that sequence or that messaging, whatever, and giving it back to that person and saying, Hey, based on your feedback and our research, this is the kind of messaging would you, if you were cold and you never knew of us before, would you respond to this type of stuff and getting that type of feedback? Why isn't there that loop yet? Or, and how do you operationalize that? Well, I think it's spot on, except you just called it a sequence and it's called a cadence. Sorry. Sorry. Cadence. Yep. Old school sales. Still there. Um, so, uh, um, uh, I mean, it's, you're spot on, right? When it, when it comes to, uh, understanding your customers, persona-based, uh, um, empathetic communications, um, uh, truly empathizing what it's like to, to be in their shoes and the challenges they face.

And the best way to hear that is from a customer because then they can, then they can reshare that story in first person. Yeah, exactly. Um, and, uh, and so I think, and there's no reason they couldn't do that, you know, put it in your, your sales enablement once, once a month. It just takes coordination. But if you don't have 10 happy customers or 12 happy customers, you know, then, then you got a different problem to solve. Um, so it's like a customer a month. Um, and, and for the ones that really care, they'll totally do it. They, they feel that connection. Um, so I, I think that's an, an amazing suggestion. What I think is continues to be interesting is, um, the idea of doing more threading with, you know, these more complex buying committees and not just understanding the persona, but understanding that person's relationship to the other personas as it relates to the whole buying process and the order within which you should engage.

And so like checking you through, like, okay, here's our, here's our, here's our three door opener personas, right? Like something C level. So we can throw a hail Mary. And then the two most common. And then once we get there and we get talking to them, how do we get the sponsorship to the next personas that we know we need to talk to? Um, when is the right time to bring in the financial perspective as you're kind of checking off your medic or your med pic, um, uh, you know, this measures, um, and, and I think, and I was sharing with our team last week, it's like, well, why not send a cadence to two people or three people? Um, you know, if you, if you get one connection, then add the second connection in and be like, I was talking to their, this person.

And I noticed you're this role and generally our customer, our customer marketing person and our demand gen team, you know, work in this way. Like, are you guys working in that way? And here's what the best practice looks like. Um, and, and so I think that idea of being more, um, intentional about multi-threading in the way that you think about your personas, um, is something that I don't see enough companies doing, they're just like, I have one cadence per persona and I'm just firing them all at once. And it's like, no, there should be an order and there should be like rationale as to, you know, who we connect you to whom during that process. Um, so I, I do think about that, um, especially when they're common challenges shared between the different personas.

Yeah. And then like going back to that go to market motion, right? Like we're all from a go to market motion, trying to figure this, how to slice this up. And you know, I, one of the things I wish we could just do is get rid of attribution. I know, I know that I know everybody needs to get credit for their shit. And I know complexities is marketing, but if, if we could just literally do who gives a shit where the meeting came from, we all did a good job. That's why like outbound to me, I actually put more as a marketing function these days because it's about impression points, right? It's about leaving the MPs, these poor kids out there who are making cold calls and like, you know, the connect rate.

I tell people right now, like sales leaders, if you're putting the expectation on a sales rep that they're going to make a cold call and get a meeting with a, with a tier one ICP, you're out of your fucking mind and you're setting them up for failure. Cause first you have to have the right contact information. Good luck with that. Second of all, you have to have somebody live pick up the phone. Good luck with that one. Third, you have to get through whatever gatekeeper it is to talk to somebody who's not the gatekeeper, right? So you have to go through that gauntlet first. Good luck. Then you think whatever you're going to say is going to be some magical thing that's going to catch me. And I'll be like, Oh, you know, all that strategy I've been doing and planning for the past 12 months about what we're trying to accomplish here.

I'm going to dump all of that and jump into a new sales cycle with you. Like you're out of your fucking mind if you think that's going to happen. But if you look at it as an impression point where that call might lead to them reading your email, that might lead to them looking at your LinkedIn profile, that might look at them going to your website. So how do you address that? How do you allow for attribution? So people get credit for wherever the fucking thing came from, but you still have this more of a teen GTM approach versus a sales GTM and a marketing GTM and everybody fighting over it. What have you done in, in kind of your, your career here as a CMO to help smooth that out and get teams to align more effectively?

I haven't solved it a hundred percent. Yeah. I don't think anybody has, but we, when I got to, again, it doesn't matter the size of the company, the age of the company or whatever, you know, when I got to G2, we weren't running an account-based approach yet, even though we sell to account-based companies. We were running MQLs and leads and we did have tiered accounts. That was good. But, you know, I think you, I want to have attribution because I want to understand what programs were for which part of the equation. Yep. So I know where to invest. I 100% agree with you that every opportunity to engage with a prospect or a customer is a touch point. Yeah. And you should add all those things up to understand how hard it is.

It's hard. Yeah. It's brutal. I was going to say that the best answer to your question was to have a strong brand. If you have a strong brand, that cold outreach doesn't, isn't as cold. And as customers and companies have pulled back on spend, you know, brand is harder to make that case to invest in because people are still looking for the quick wins of the demand coming in. And so that's, you have to, you have to defend it. That's hard. That's really hard. Yeah. I think the other thing too, I'm a big fan and believer in, um, I'll give you the big picture of it. What I always want to do first is I want to understand the market landscape of my customer. So let's say we figured out the ICP that we were talking about earlier.

Okay. Now what's their world look like? If I were to take those 10 companies that you talked about and look at their tech stack, what's the common, what's, what's common in those tech stacks and what's uncommon? Uncommon toss out, you know, then what's common, um, you know, map those. So you're seeing the view of, of the software world from the eyes of your customer with those market categories. So sales soft being an example, we would like to think that we were the center of our customers world, but probably not. CRM was probably still, you know, at that point center to their world. And so, okay, it's CRM, then it's sales engagement, then it's probably some kind of marketing automation solution.

Then maybe it's a gifting platform and maybe it's a, a calling platform and recording platform back in the day. All right. Well, then how do I make those connections to all those different systems? So it makes it easy for my customer to pick my platform because I integrate with everything that they need and how can I create unique uniqueness in the way that it integrates. So I'm creating product differentiation through partnerships, not just me. And then you double down on those partnerships and you're go to market. And so I am seeing that play, that partner sourced, we don't want source, but the partner led play be very effective when you do that well. So you understand the market, you know, the different partners, you pick a couple, you do special things with them.

I always like to pick a favorite in every category. So it's very clear. And then say, let's go to market together. Ideally, let's go to market in three companies. So back in the days at SalesSoft, they did it with Drift, Sixth Sense and SalesSoft. We created custom integrations, we built playbooks, and then we brought our teams together. We used Crossbeam to like help each other out. And now I'm seeing that play repeated. We did it at Droto really well, repeated and repeated and repeated. And so, you know, how to get in, right? That's what we're saying. We're like, how do I go from being a cold call to a warm call? Well, let me tell you, a partner introduction is a pretty nice warm call. Those companies are happy with that partner and they're recommending you as a way for the customer to get incremental value out of the solution they've already purchased by purchasing another solution.

A one plus one equals five. That's the story you can tell, right? And it's funny because you're talking at, obviously, from a company level, right? And strategic alliances and partnerships, but you can do that as a sales rep too. Like I've been talking to sales rep right now. Like you have to be a problem solver. Forget about selling your solution here for a second. Be a problem solver. And what you do is you kind of figure out your client's ecosystem. Like you said, like who are all the other vendors that touch your client? And ideally the persona that you're going to talk to. And then what I used to do is I would find like the category leader in each one of those areas. I would call into their sales team.

I'd say, can I talk to your best sales rep, please? And they'd be like, why? I was like, I just want to talk to your best sales rep. Just give me your best sales rep. And I get on the phone with them. I'd be like, hey, Sydney, looks like you and I actually go after the same type of customer here. Could you give me a favor? Would it be okay if I had you in my backpack? Because sometimes when I talk to clients, they don't need what I have, but they need what you have. And would you be okay with me referring you in? Who's going to say no to that, right? Then you go, hey, and would you mind maybe once a month we get together and just share some insights about what's going on out there or whatever it is, that type of thing.

So now you don't expect anything back from them, right? So you kind of create your own ecosystem here to add value to your client list. And then you bring that. And then inevitably, if you do that enough, they're going to start bringing you into other opportunities. And you can do that as an SDR if you wanted to. You don't even have to be an AE, right? And I think that the thing that's unique now is that Crossbeam brings that if your company's already partnering, Crossbeam brings that visibility into the account list. So you can be very specific right out of the gate knowing like, you have these customers, I have these customers, let's cross-pollinate. I love Crossbeam too to make sure that they turn on integrations to make sure that because you know when companies build more integrations, the products become stickier and they're less likely to churn.

That's, again, the case for everybody. This is not just anything that's unique. And so really thinking about that piece of it, I would guess, and I'm curious for you, John, like how many of those partnerships do you need? I would say like three. Like if one rep has two or three other sales reps in these tangential companies that they're maintaining a monthly call or a bi-monthly call with, I think that's enough. Three to five, right? I mean, I think it depends on what you sell, right? Because if you sell something like a platform, like a sales loft that has a bunch of stuff in it, you need probably less partners, right? Because you want to make sure you cover a lot of other stuff. But if you're kind of a point solution and there's a lot of other things involved, like the tech stack around you is different, then I think maybe a few more.

But yeah, you go too many, then you start to dilute yourself in general. But I think it's just more of a, again, if you look at going back to understanding, you know, attribution and equation and stuff like that, like, yes, you can generate quote unquote meetings through outbounds. That is a channel for developing, you know, leads or meetings. But there's also networking events, there's partners, there's referrals, there's inbound, there's all these other different channels. And I used to look at them as different channels. And to figure out how do I optimize each one of these to make sure that I get the number of meetings that I need to get each month to be able to convert all the way through.

And I remember SalesSoft had a study, I don't know if they've ever updated it, but it was like, once you hit three channels, it's like a 5.7x increase in conversion rate from just doing single channel. So if you're only using email, like you're open rates, it's got even worse, right? But if you go email, phone, and social, it's a 5.7x more likely chance that that customer is going to respond to you. I think you put partner in there, then it just, it'd go in higher. Yeah. And it just feels like, you know, what's funny is all these reps are freaking, like I get a lot of reps who are freaking out about, oh my God, but that sounds like so much like you have to cold call, you have to do this, you have to meet.

Let's just reverse about 20 years ago when sales was just fucking sales. You know what I mean? And I didn't have any SDRs and I didn't have any AEs and I had my book, I had my notebook and I had it like, you actually could manage it. It's just, we are now, the perception is that we can't because we are so hyper-focused on our channel or whatever we have to do. But if you macro out a little bit and realize how to, first of all, manage your energy, like the things that we talked about, who you want to spend it with, you can put together your own little ecosystem here that can future-proof you in a lot of ways. And then if you have an SDR, treat your SDR like a channel. Oh God, yes. Yeah. And please, I can't, AEs who treat SDRs like shit drive me out of my mind.

Yeah. Because I don't know why you would like treat somebody shit who's doing the shit. Well, that's not if I've ever been one. That's what I would say. Yeah. Let me, I'm very curious on this one. I want to move to intent data now because I do believe, you know, with you as CMO of G2, like right in the middle of this, I am wondering what you're, like, I have my opinions of where we're going to go here and I'd love to get yours because I think intent data is everything, right? Like I train trigger events. Hey, look for that trigger, make a connection, right? But I'm making an assumption, right? Hey, you just opened up a new office. You made a new, you know, launched a new product, whatever that is.

We help companies who do that. And this is how we do it, right? But it's an assumption. And at a very baseline level, a lot of times it's like you take people from spray and pray to look for, like, do a little bit of homework, holy shit. And then they make a connection, right? Oh, you went through merger and acquisition? Well, this is how we help people merge and acquisition. But they don't really understand the stages of a merger and acquisition. They don't really understand what happens in a merger and acquisition. They're making that connection. But then there's that level where you get to where you're like, okay, I now have business acumen and I know what's going on with all this stuff, right?

But that's still me taking a guess. Intent data is like you're searching for something that I have, right? And so I'm trying to figure out as an SDR and the role as it evolves right now, because I think it's the biggest impacted one right now. How is it that, you know, when I look at Instagram, for instance, every single thing on my feed, like I have trained this, well, again, this algorithm has trained me. So literally every single thing in my feed I want. I'm like, oh, yep, definitely want that. You know what I mean? Like I buy the amount of shit that I buy off of Instagram is embarrassing. Okay. Good thing you don't need clothes. Yeah. Well, actually tell me, I bought some crappy, like don't get me started.

Yeah. I just don't trust the quality, but go ahead. Yeah. No, the quality is terrible, by the way. And it's almost weird because like, it's like I'll order it and then it won't come for like six months and I won't even know when I'll forget about it. And then I'll get it in the mail. I'll be like, oh shit. Yeah, I totally got this. It was like Christmas, right? But how is it that because now Instagram feed, everything is in it, there's no person sending me that ad. So now with all the information that's out there about the internet, about me, right? With crystal nose and my search and what I'm looking for, how is it that these agents aren't going to be able to pick up on all that activity that I'm doing right now, listen to this podcast podcast and my inbox in the next year or two isn't filled with hyper-personalized, hyper-relevant information.

And do I care that it's coming from a person? I don't think so. So are we going to get to that point where it is so intent driven that anything other than a hyper-personalized thing isn't even going to resonate with me and SDRs who are doing the traditional like sequences and cadences and that type of stuff are just going to be irrelevant. I mean, I wish I had the crystal ball. And here's where our research and this is obviously an area that's very much related to what I do and also my curiosity just, I think that, you know, this is going to be another one of those transformative shifts like digital transformation, cloud movement, like AI is going to, we have to completely rethink everything.

And we're going to do a whole roadshow series on this with our partners this year. Um, so I think just starting with the intent piece and being able to, um, what people like are calling all the signals and understanding the signals because they're different. And so when you're talking about signals coming from third party, which is like your website traffic, right. That are keyword oriented, you know, that's just a, that's a faint little signal, but, um, Kerry Cunningham who works over at Sixth Sense just did a podcast. I listened to you and he did a study. He used to be a serious decisions enforcer and he did a study that, um, said they found out that within your ideal, your, your target account list, your ideal customer profile, likely only five to 7% of companies at any one time are going to be in a buying cycle.

So, okay, now you've got a thousand companies, five to 7% of those, like it's, you know, is that enough accounts as a question mark, depending on your ACP, um, or ASP. But so now, so you, it's important to know when those companies are potentially doing something. I looked at it from two facets. One is, well, then I can direct my, you know, my valuable advertising dollars to those accounts. So I'm, I'm not wasting a lot of money outside of before that even existed. Um, I'm making decisions on going to certain events by the fact that the right kind of customers are at those events. So that that's helpful. Um, but it's, I think it's the triangulation and what some people have been able to figure out is like, well, not just one person is searching on that from that company, but many people are searching on that from that company.

Now, now it's gone from, you know, uh, just a single signal to like, okay, there's, there's likely interest and, and the account-based platforms do a good job of aggregating that. Um, as well as what I always wanted to do was like group the signals into like pain point and categories, like construct the sequences or cadences specific to what I thought their pain point would be. So at least we were like connecting the dots. Um, so could all that be done by an AI agent? Yes, I think so. Um, just adding G2 in there though, like when you get into G2 and it's very different, a third party signal of a keyword of a, somebody in the ether, I call it the internets that might be looking is very different than somebody coming to a two-sided marketplace that's in your category, looking at you and looking at your competitors.

That's like one step away from them being on your website. And then we can also triangulate that they'd have been on your website so that the value of the signal is different. So I think people need to start thinking about signal value and how to correlate those things together. And so now you're really getting into a, you know, a super data science project, but I think companies will go there. Now the question is what can AI do in that equation versus what do people need to do? And I think we're all going to start with like common workflows of, you know, the repeatable pattern. If you're not adding any personalization, then an AI agent can do that. And that might be okay. Like call them your SDR versus your BDR, right?

The difference between an inbound, it's the same process every time and you could further qualify them and an agent could do that work before they get handed over to a human. And then you want to think about, well, what are the human centric things? So cross correlating different personas and adding evidence in, I don't know if an AI agent is going to be able to do that right away. First of all, you know, what are the input or output parameters of the evidence that you want to capture? How is that formulated? And can the agent deduce what that means to the end user? It means that the SDRs, the sales reps even, you know, are going to have to do a little bit more of that homework. So they have that extra insight, but I will guarantee you that that communication is going to stand out way more than an AI one.

Oh yeah. Right. You just like, you can tell when an AI is writing it still. It's, um, I tell people it's just like, you know, we'll, we'll take a step forward this year. I do think that people will start implementing agents, figuring out what they're good for, what they're not good for. We already use a couple of the tools, like they're hallucinating. They're sending wonky emails, you know, we're having to tweak that. So, you know, but, but it's going to come. It's going to come. Yeah. I just said, I get this. So I get, you know, AI comments on my posts. I get AI emails all day long and I can tell you, I don't care what anybody says. I can tell exactly when an AI post is hitting me. And the only way I can describe it is it just doesn't have a soul.

Like, I don't know how to explain it other than I just, I just feel that it doesn't have a soul. Now, will that change? Absolutely. In the next year? I think so. I think it's going to get so damn good that it's going to know. So here's where that comes. Here's where that comes. It's how you train them. Just how we train it the same way that we train our reps. So what information is relevant to an agent to be trained? And I think the mistake people are going to make is that they're going to train them on their own data set, which is only half the equation. So they need to be thinking about other data sets. Sorry, this is a plug for G2, but it's actually a good use case, right? Well, our data is all the people in that market talking about the same problem, the same solutions, what they value.

And so thinking about the quality of that small language model that is less likely to hallucinate to train your agents is going to make them more knowledgeable and educated. Now, what kind of data sets might you do for personality? There's some AI agents out there that have put a lot of effort into understanding neurological and human behavior. And so I don't know, are they going to sell their data sets to train agents? Are they only going to sell their agent, which then has to be trained? It's likely there will be some winners in that camp as well. So I think the big companies like the sales forces and the HubSpots have their own agents that you can customize using their data, right? And then other data sources, how do you get that trained right in that use case and keep it in the box for now?

And then there will be some third-party standalone agents that I think are going to do interesting things. But holistically, like our SDRs, you know, no longer having a role. I don't know. Like I said, I don't know. I don't know, like four or five years, three years. You know, I think it's just with everything, right? We're not going to get replaced by AI. We're going to get replaced by sales reps. We'll learn how to use it, right? That whole thing. And I think that's the key here. It's the evolution of it. And I do think that the average anything, pick a job, is going away. Like you are no longer allowed to be, you know, just a button pusher, just a sales rep who's just going to push cadences, templated.

Like there's zero need for that at this point. If that's what you're doing, then you're out of a job. You're out of a job. Reid Hoffman just did his podcast on this too. Like, you know, it's like if you do the repeatable play and you're just entering data into data, like you're done. You're done. So how are you as a CMO kind of, I don't want to say future-proofing yourself, but like putting yourself in a position where you're staying on top of all, like you're staying grounded with what you need to stay grounded in the fundamentals and making sure you're doing the work here, but also keeping that eye on the future to say, hey, there is a point where we have to shift and be agile enough to adjust because things are moving so fast right now.

I think with every other shift I've seen, you know, the internet, the iPhone, all these different things. It's like, okay, but it wasn't this exponential hockey stick scenario. Whereas AI is this hockey. It's like every time I turn around, I'm like, holy shit. Like, where did that come from? Like it can do that now? Wow. So for you personally, how are you, A, you staying on top of things so you don't become irrelevant. And then B, what can a sales rep do to help add value to your life to keep you relevant without trying to sell you something or anything like that? You know what I mean? Like, and I'm thinking about like me trying to prospect. You threw me a curveball at the end. I thought I had the answer and then you did the sales rep thing.

So let me do the first part of the question. Yeah. Yeah. First part of the question, three things. You have to educate yourself. I'm lucky enough that I have this guy named Tim Sanders, who's our lead analyst on AI and in our one-on-ones every week. We talk about this and I get to learn. And I keep on saying, we need to record this to him and put it out in the world because like, I learned something from him every time. So like, find your person to follow who you feel is on top of it. I just named three other people. Like, Reid Hoffman, totally on top of it. Like, you know, keep yourself educated by the people Thomas, uh, some also on top of it, right? Like keep yourself informed by the people that are studying this and watching it.

And we, we just launched the AI agent category. So, you know, we, we want to be part of that education too. So figure out who's, who's got the right thing and start following them and listening. Um, the second thing is train your teams. If you want to stand out, you need to help your teams embed AI in how they work day to day. So I'm in the process of hiring an AI coach for our team. They're going to coach us on how to use what we already have. So we're a Google workspace team. We've got the Gemini capabilities. And so like help teach them how to use it. So it's not scary. Understand what's the fear of adopting that. And then just, you know, encourage the day to day. And I'll do things like, I just asked Gemini this in a meeting.

We'll be talking. I'll ask all, you know, Claude says this, like just weaving it into the way that we work to make it more of a natural part of the way that we work. So we'll go through a couple trainings. Then she's going to go deep dive with, um, she or he haven't picked him yet, but I think I know, um, we're going to go deep dive in a couple of different use cases. So there's, you know, there's an emergence of AI coaches and trainers that, uh, is needed in this economy now. Right. And, um, and so that's the next step is kind of like the one, the areas where I think going deeper on how to write more sophisticated prompts. And, and that's around our research team. That's around our data analytics team, just cause we have so much data.

And then I think there's probably a use case around content. Cause that's the most commonly applied use case in marketing is, is content ideation. And then kind of you write your own stuff and then, but, but the tools like do the repurposing of the content. So that's number two, enable your team leaders who invest in enabling their teams will let their teams outperform and not rely just on the individual. So when we hear that story about, well, those that don't, well, make sure your team doesn't trade them, right? Make them more effective. Um, and then the third thing that I'm doing is community. So, uh, in our communities are in my CMO networks where there's a sub network that we're forming.

That's just getting together once a month to talk about it and to share best practices, find your network, pull them together, start talking about what you're doing. And we're like, what's working for people? What's not working? What are you testing? And we want to learn together. Um, and, and so, you know, that's the power of community and network. Now the benefit of that, let's go to the salesperson, right? Is your CMO in a network? Find out, right? Um, uh, you know, are you in a network? Are you talking about with your network about those different use cases and how it might apply? But I think the best one, like the lowest hanging fruit is being really smart about understanding what AI enhancements your company has put into your own technology.

So you might not have to understand the whole AI landscape, but you can be an expert on sharing with your customers, your prospects, the investment your company is making in AI. And how that will help them adopt the product better or create unique differentiation. And, and so you can still be talking about it from a perspective of expertise and not trying to think. I love that. So that's, it's kind of goes back to, you know, when I always told sales loft reps or, or Salesforce reps or any of them, when I was training them, like, if you're not the expert in your own damn product, then like, cause you use it. And by the way, you're, most of those reps are calling into VPs of sales and that type of stuff.

I'm like, you're their rep. Like, all you have to do is explain what were you doing before you were at sales loft and how convoluted it was and how much more efficient you are now. And if you can show that as an executive, I'm like, holy shit, wait a minute. You went from X to Y and it's because you're using that platform. I want to talk to you. And then do the secret shopper thing on top of that. And then I applied it and did in your case. And so here's the five points that broke down in your process that I know we can help with that would accelerate your deal cycle by this, close your rate, like, you know, like, yeah. I actually just thought of something that was kind of interesting. I tell reps all the time to, if they don't think they're in trouble, um, in front, from an AI standpoint, just go on to chat, GPT perplexity, whatever it is, and pretend like you're a customer of like a potential customer.

Right. And so for me, I'd be like, Hey, I'm a VP of sales of a 50 person sales team, 20 SDRs, 30 B, I'm looking at the JV sales training. Tell me what I need to know. And, and when you realize that you get more value out of that, then a kid who's going to ask you bank questions, you know, you're in trouble, but it also helps from a marketing standpoint. Right. And this is actually the, I want to kind of end on this because I'm just insanely curious about what the fuck happens to SEO in this world. Because I, because a lot of like the clients that I work, I just had one this morning where I was doing a training with a client and I told the, Hey, go on and act. And I go tell your marketing department what it's saying.

Cause if it's saying crap, if it's saying stuff that you don't want, you got to find a way to fix that, right? Because it's pulling from somewhere and Claude's pulling from a different one than, you know, than whatever, you know, co-pilot is and perplexity is. So I'm curious from your perspective as a CMO, where almost everything for years was SEO, right? How do we optimize these words and all this other stuff to these search engines? Now it's the answer engine. What, what are you even doing to make sure that G2 shows up when people start asking questions about it? Yeah. Well, I mean, it, it's our product too, right? Like this is just not a CMO question. This is a CMO of G2. Um, and, and it's a common question that we're all seeing.

Um, you know, everybody's SEO is down somewhere between 20 and 40%. Um, and so I, I think, uh, that a couple of things that, that I, I've learned through this process, um, is expert. So there was a concept of topical authority that kind of came through in the Google world last year. So where they started looking at not just AI blogs that anybody could write, but they started getting higher value from the authority that it came from. And so I think you have to start to establish authority in, in who is creating your content. If that's you, if you're hiring evangelists and, and industry experts like you, John, um, and how those authorities or authoritative voices are being leveraged. And then which channels do you go in?

So before you just do the authority to your own site in hoping to drive traffic. Now I think we have to be happy with the reference, right? So you may not get the direct click or link, but it's seen as the reference in the outcomes. Got you. Okay. Right. So if you do a search on Google now and you'll see the Gemini summary and you'll see like five, five blocks that you can click the link into, but what's the most common reference there? And maybe they'll link into it, but if you're really good, you'll figure out how to, how to, um, get multiple channels. Um, so it's not just your reference. Maybe there's an article on Forbes and then another, like, I think that going back to the, the media platforms that have, have kind of lost ground is it, you know, they are seen as authority.

So maybe going back into contributed content is again, a better play. Um, and you know, I think, I think we're all figuring it out. The, the one thing that I would still say in that though, is while traffic is down about 40%, 60% is still there. So make sure you're optimizing the ship. Yeah. Well, and that's a beautiful thing to ask chat GPT. It's like, how do I optimize? Like I've actually started to ask chat GPT, how do I optimize search for GPT so that my stuff comes up? Oh, that's interesting. What does it say? It, it, I, I haven't gone into the details of it, but I just started playing around with it. Cause I'm like, Hey, how do I do this? And it kind of got to like sources and make sure that, you know, whatever is out there, if you Google it is valid and is reputable and there's no negative stuff out there about you.

Right. And if you find it, try to erase it because it's pulling off of the different platforms. But yeah, it's, um, there's a product, um, and, um, I'm not going to remember the name of it. It's, it's, it's still very early, but, um, um, I'm sorry. I can't remember the name. Uh, but it does do that. It, it, it searches across the different GPTs. Um, and to get brand sentiment. Oh, does it, is it? No, it's something different than that. Okay. But, but yeah, there's, there are people that are developing products now, right? Like this rapid to, to understand brand sentiment across the different platforms. So large brands can start to address what, what those are and try to feed the different, um, uh, GPT engines.

Um, I've talked to, you know, I've talked to the folks at Reddit. We've talked to the folks at, um, Stack Overflow, you know, like these big companies that have partnerships with the open AIs of the world. And I mean, the challenge there is like, you have to have a lot of content. So I think a single company is going to really struggle to try and influence the LLMs. Um, and so I don't know if we know, I don't think we know the answer yet. Like for, you know, for, for the short term, it's, it's, uh, influencers being where your customers are. So, you know, LinkedIn, I'm sure it's going to get a lot more investment coming its way as people pull off of Google. And then, you know, are these, are these GPT platforms going to figure out a monetization strategy where we start sponsoring within them?

I think so. I think so. All right. I'm going to ask one more selfish question. I know we're up on time here, but I'm going to be very selfish on this because where I am and it relates to this, right? The, the influencer marketing, right? So influencer B2B, you know, I've been sitting doing this for 15 years, just kind of chugging away, doing my thing. And now all of a sudden it's like, oh shit, people actually want to, you know, have me help represent their brand. And I, for me, I'm very selective, right? Cause I never, I never want to be the NASCAR logo, right? That type of thing. You've always done that way. I know that. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And, and so, but, so, Hey, John Barrows, you got right, whatever.

But, um, you know, I'm, I try to be easy to deal with, but I might not post at the exact time that you want me to. I might not say the thing that you want me to, but these AI agents that are brands in and of themselves, you see in the B2C world, actually creating these AI influencers, right? We're on Instagram, they're showing everything and they look exactly like a human being. They have personalities, they have fun. So I guess my question is, is from a CMO standpoint, what's the transition here of having your own AI agent influencer that posts and does exactly what you want it to versus somebody like me who has my own brand, has a bunch of other stuff. Where do you sit on that, like leveraging somebody else's personal brand versus creating your own influencer brand with these AI agents that you can mass produce and get out there and post 75 times a day if you want to?

Um, I don't know if I'm going to see that coming to the B2B world. You don't think so? I mean, it's fast because I think that still at the end of the day, the human needs to follow that person. And so I haven't met an AI agent yet in the B2B world that can do that. Um, and not saying that it wouldn't happen, but, you know, in the short term, like we're just solving a problem. And, you know, there's still a lot for the, us to all figure out the B2B world of the role of the agent. Um, and, you know, when, when the human will stand out versus the agent, like I just got somebody, you know, said, here's my virtual avatar. And, and it wasn't personalized, you know, you know, it was like, there was nothing like when I used to get a Vidyard video, like someone was on my website, tell me, tell me like I knew.

And I was like, that was valuable what I've gotten, like, no, that's not valuable. Um, and so again, I think it just, it continues to come back. I'll take it all the way to the beginning, right? You understand your ICP. If you understand your customer, if you understand what they, they care about, then you have to deliver insight and value with every interaction at every possible place that they might live. And, and so that's, that's still the foundational and the basics of being a great marketer. It's just that our worlds have changed. And so now we have to reinvent how we think because we can't just write, go write a bunch of blogs and SEO our way to it or buy a bunch of ads on Google and buy our way to it.

Like, this is why this is fun. Well, that's the point, right? Like, that's why people like, people are afraid of this. I'm like this, if you get into this shit, this is cool. Like figure this shit out. Like if you have the figure it out mentality right now is a bananas time to be in business. It resets the game for everybody. Everybody. Right. Everybody. And it's a level playing field too. Just like marketing automation did what, 12 years ago? Yep. Right. If you got there first and automated your way to like incredible, like spam and nurtures, like you converted more than the first people that adopted SDRs, like got to people first and more. This is just a new thing. I, so I will say on the agent, on the, on the influencer agent, here's my use case on it.

I'm a founder led small business. Okay. I'm a technical person. I don't like being on camera. I don't, you know what I mean? That type of stuff. So I got this, I can create this AI avatar that looks like a human and feed it with just knowledge and say, you know what? Post three times a day on Instagram, post this, that, and create your own brand for us. I could see that use case. Now maybe for bigger, you know, B2C, Coca-Cola and all that stuff. I think whatever. Well, just call them JBJ then and let them post from your handle. Right. John Baird is true. Yeah. And like make it a, make it a younger, you know, John Baird or whatever. Right. Like, like create, I don't know when that happens. It's true.

Yeah. I know that. My wife does not want to see that, by the way. You still have to be, you still, you still have to be, I think, truthful and authentic that this is an AI because we're all going to figure it out. And what you don't want to ever erode is the trust. And so if you, if you, you know, brand your new avatar as a name and people know that it is, and it's worth following because you're training it to do these things. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. That's what I think my delineation right now on AI is as long as I know it's AI, I'll accept it. But as soon as I feel duped because it's pretending not to be AI and I don't care how valuable the content is. As soon as I sniff it's AI, I'm like, you know what, fuck that.

You know what I mean? Never mind. No matter how valuable the content is because I feel duped because I feel duped. It was kind of like Drift. Remember when Drift, the chatbot started, right? Oh, yeah. And at first, you know, it was like you would, you would get into a chat. You'd be like, oh my God, this is the most responsive customer success person I've ever met in my entire life. This isn't great. But then after like three or four chats, you'd be like, dude, like, wait a minute. This isn't a person. You got to the end of the decision tree even though it was supposed to be AI. Yeah. But then Drift came out and Drift was like, hey, I'm a robot. I just want to give you a heads up. I'm a robot.

Okay. What questions do you have? And I'll get you down to the point and then I'll hand you over to a human. As soon as that happened, I was like, oh, cool. Let's see what this robot can do. Right. So I don't know. I think we're there. But I will tell you, if you look back at a few, about a month ago, I played around with Hey Jen. And I now speak perfect Spanish. I now speak Japanese. And you would not, like, if you didn't know me, you watch that video that I posted on LinkedIn a few months back. And it's me speaking not Spanish, Spain Spanish, not Mexico Spanish, Spain Spanish. And it is blah, blah, blah, blah. And my mouth is moving perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And my mouth is moving perfect.

And it's like, holy smokes, like you can do this now. And so it's moving faster than I, I mean, like you said, it's fascinating to me. It's fun. So Sydney, where can people find out more information about you, what you're doing, if you're hiring, what's going on? Where can they find out what's going on with G2? So it is actually sell.g2.com. Because when you come to g2.com, you get our marketplace. So sell.g2.com. Or just hit me up on LinkedIn. That's it's on LinkedIn. I answer all my DMs. I know. I'm still one of those persons. Yeah, I do too. I do too. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So, well, we got to get back together one of these days, grab a drink, maybe go out dancing or something like that. We'll see you.

Remember? Back in it. Back in the clubs. This time with tennis shoes. Yeah, exactly. Yes, exactly. Thank you so much, as usual. So good to see you. Everybody, good to see you too. And everybody, I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. And like I always say at the end of all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today. Because no matter how bad your day is going or how bad you think it went, you go out there and make somebody smile. And you know you had a good day. And the world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all very much. And I will see you on the other side. Hey, everyone. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. With your support and our incredible guests, we're one of the top sales podcasts out there right now.

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