Meet Martin
Martin has had a unique career that has spanned both analyst and marketing practitioner roles focused on high technology and related industries. The unifying factor has always been a keen analysis of go-to-market trends while also having achieved success as a marketing leader. Schneider started his career as a journalist covering b2b technologies and quickly transitioned into leading analysts covering application software for the 451 group in New York City, where he specialized in CRM, marketing, automation, and business intelligence analytics technologies. After analyzing the go-to-market strategies of dozens of technology vendors, Schneider made the move to the vendor side, where he led successful go-to-market teams for several startups and established tech providers including Sugar CRM, Basho, technologies, Caspio, and support logic. Schneider brings a wealth of marketing and sales alignment content strategy and other go-to-market expertise to his role at Annuity this research is excited to be merging his two passions in producing research and analysis around modern go-to-market and growth marketing strategies for a broad set of b2b professionals.
So what’s driving this interesting evolution and how growth leaders that you’re talking about are looking at approaching go-to-market right now?
Look, I think I think we’ve kind of hinted at it, right? I mean, it’s the idea that looks, we we’ve changed the models of like delivery, and like payments, and like we’ve done all the infrastructure things, billing, you know, all these things that needed to be done in this new recurring model of everything. Subscription economy, whatever buzzword you want to use, right? Yep. But we have like, we never thought about the go-to-market and engagement strategies for the second half of that, right? We’ve never extended that part down the line. So that’s really what’s needed. Because what are we being forced with? We keep, you know, what did we hear a week or so ago in Chicago, right? Do more with less, you know, leverage data in ways that you never have. But well, what’s the data need to be about? It’s got to be about well, what’s the customer experience that’s driving new opportunities for growth? Right? It’s about how we find lift, not just revenue. And how do we focus on the metrics and the KPIs that matter? Not the ones that are like what I would call kind of short-sighted, you know, how many times does a CMO pat the team on the back and said, Look, we did 115% of our lead handoffs, the sales for sales accepted leads were awesome. But the company misses its number. So then fingers get pointed, and people start, you know, and there’s distrust and factions, and all those types of things that start to dysfunction, right? But because there wasn’t a shared growth plan, there wasn’t an understanding of like, well, well, what is a good lead? What are you know? And where did the post-sale? the idea that like, how do we not market these people effectively to get lifting growth inside our accounts, rather than just focusing on that new and blah, blah, blah, right? So I mean, that’s really what’s happening, right? Like, if everyone’s using this term growth, and you see these things like growth hacking, and you use a term like hacking, and I’m like, that sounds a lot like just random, haphazard acts of marketing that are not strategic. They’re not aligned to the entire journey. And that’s really what’s driving this, right, we need to have a full journey, an orchestrated approach that understands, you know, who are the personas for presale? Who are the personas for post-sale? What is that conversation track? What kind of content? What kind of channels? When do we provide that? What are the indicators that say this is upselling versus this is the reinforcement of just baseline stuff, of making sure they’re actually using our product effectively, that kind of thing? And, and really building these models’ full journey. That’s really what’s driving it lead for that because that’s what drives perpetual, which is super important when you think of perpetual versus haphazard, random acts of like a campaign versus an ad total engagement model. Right. And that’s the difference. People need that because that’s what builds sustainable growth, not, not these random acts that people still kind of talk about, you know, it was interesting, even at the event seeing people talk about this was a great campaign. And so yeah, well, how does that tie into your overall conversation track? And your full journey? engagement model? No, one is kidding.
I’m curious, if you could go back to your 20-year-old self, what would you tell yourself to do more or less of or differently with regard to your professional career?
I’m definitely networking more. I was one of those people that when I was younger, I thought I was like, Really, like smart. And I thought the books and all that kind of stuff. We’re gonna give me what I need. thought if I had the chops, everything was gonna work out. But there’s a lot of who you know, right? Yeah, in terms of opportunities, but also just learning opportunities, right, like, network and be open that like, other people have good ideas, even if they’re not your idea, right? That kind of idea. And just learning reading, like, I should have read more industry books early. I kind of got into that late, you know, and, you know, especially at my 20 year-olds, because I was still like an academic for academic sake. Not like I thought business was, you know, I had a kind of opposite, right? I thought academics were smarter and business people were like, they just couldn’t hack it from it’s like, kind of the opposite, right? Like academics can’t do so they teach right. So, so yeah, I mean, I would definitely network more and take all those opportunities to network, take opportunities to learn, you know, I liked school, but again, like much more like practical things, even if it doesn’t come out with a certificate or certification that you can put on your resume. take those opportunities to learn, you know, if you can, right sometimes, you know, time and the economics make that hard but take whatever chance you can learn from people who were doing it. Right. The academic approach is always kind of limited and dated, I’m talking about people who are getting MBAs right now, and learning from people who are really doing it now. And getting that mentorships and things like that, you know, I thought I was way smarter than I was right. And that approach of saying, like, be open, and learn from others. And network and network and network is really important, especially when you’re young like you want to, you kind of want to have like, your social life, and you want to kind of keep these things compartmentalized. But the more you kind of merge it the kind of better, like having good friends in the industry, that are really friends is really important. And I didn’t learn that until way late, right?
Connect with Martin!
Transcript
Hey everybody, Lori Highby here. Welcome to the social capital podcast. Our show notes are found at social capital podcast.com. So you the
Lori Highby:tips, all podcast episodes and any upcoming events you might see me at. If you'd like to connect, make sure to send a note with your connection
Lori Highby:marketing. That's why I'm bringing on marketing experts with a variety of backgrounds for you to learn and grow from. Today's guest is Martin
Lori Highby:quickly transitioned into a leading analysts covering application software for the 451 group in New York City, where he specialized in CRM, marketing,
Lori Highby:a wealth of marketing and sales alignment content strategy and other go to market expertise to his role at annuity this research is excited to be
Unknown:Well, thanks for having me. Lori, it's great to be here.
Lori Highby:It's it's great to have you here, you've got quite the quite the background, as I read and share with our listeners here. But I'm sure
Unknown:Sure, sure. So a notice is, you know, kind of a boutique management consultancy, where they focus pretty much just on go to market
Unknown:do is synthesize some of this stuff into, you know, syndicated and also some customer search for our clients and non clients. You know, marketers
Unknown:note, it's got a newest kind of slash research. And we're essentially building an analysis firm inside the company, where we're driven by both
Unknown:and an analyst in the past, as well as my relationships with the go to market vendors both has like kind of what's called coopetition competitor,
Lori Highby:Yeah, well, that I mean, it's, there's so much to unpack here, but we've only got about 20 minutes. So actually, I want to go down this
Unknown:Yeah, so this kind of came about, I mean, look, on the one hand, it's just like, it's macro level reality, right. But really the, the kind
Unknown:change the way that like tech goes to market. And then that had a ripple effect of like, this subscription economy, right? Where instead of like,
Unknown:subscribe to the concept that Uber is always there for us, right? So this whole concept has created a change in how the customer journey just kind of
Unknown:right? And then it's kind of like black box. Big Question mark. Right. And we need to extend that right to the post sale, because there are, there
Unknown:mapped the engagement methodology, what we call the conversation, track architecture, that kind of content, the channels, the personas, and all
Unknown:technology didn't really work that way, right? It was like our lead stuff thinks your lead. And you're kind of brand new, even if I've known you for
Unknown:the processes flow, the technology that we use, not necessarily just the technology, but how we use it and how it works with each other. And then
Unknown:journey, standing presale and post sale, almost like an infinity loop rather than like a line right there.
Lori Highby:Yeah, I can, I can definitely see that. Yeah, I think that's really important to take a look at a lot of a lot of our clients even,
Lori Highby:journey. You can't just look at that top of funnel approach of business because I like that infinity loop. analogy, it totally makes sense. It's a
Unknown:Exactly like cus and a lot of people get like they think, Oh, well, we need to work better with customer success. And that's 100% True.
Unknown:Salesforce, right 75% of their revenue in a quarter like new dollars that they didn't have the quarter before the year before come from their
Unknown:even if you're a small business looking to, to get that incremental value, it's incredibly effective in growing the top line and doing it profitably,
Lori Highby:absolutely. So what's driving this interesting evolution and how growth leaders that you're talking about are looking at approaching go
Unknown:Look, I think I think we've kind of hinted at it, right? I mean, it's the idea that, look, we we've changed the models of like delivery, and
Unknown:extended that part down the line. So that's really what's needed. Because what what are we being forced with? We keep, you know, what did we hear a
Unknown:that matter? Not the ones that are like what I would call kind of short sighted, you know, how many times does a CMO pat the team on the back and
Unknown:like, well, well, what is a good lead? What is you know? And where did the post sale? idea that like, how do we not market effectively these people to
Unknown:strategic. They're not aligned to the entire journey. And that's really what what's driving this, right, we need to have a full journey,
Unknown:using our product effectively, that kind of thing? And, and really building these models full journey. That's really what's driving it lead for that,
Unknown:interesting, even at the event seeing people talk about this was a great campaign. And so yeah, well, how does that tie into your overall
Lori Highby:Yeah, looking at one sliver of the entire journey. But yeah, I mean, it's really fascinating. Look at the entire customer journey. And
Unknown:Because this is this is what's really, you put on a really cool thing about that knobs the turn? Because when you're only focusing on like,
Unknown:and all this really cool stuff that we have in our at our fingertips now. You can actually start to understand, Okay, where can we turn these knobs
Unknown:are very different, right? Testing is, you're still guessing, optimizing, it's working, but let's make it better. And that's a huge difference.
Lori Highby:Totally 100%. So how do you actually create a Demand experience for the post sales stages of the customer journey that can be
Unknown:Yeah, I think like, again, we call it a conversation, track architecture. But once you actually map the journey, and a lot of people
Unknown:engagement models, across those channels, you're building into like your chat and your other types of flows, you're just including the full journey,
Unknown:the posts in the entirety of the post sales cycle. It's a total black box, we don't know what's going on. So how do we how do we create engagement so
Unknown:analyze your tech stack to figure out, where are the gaps, right? And sometimes it's extending the value of technology you have, and sometimes
Unknown:and kind of ideas, like we do what we call our go to market assessments. And we and we build these out, and we look, again, all those things, how's
Unknown:jobs to be done at this phase, product marketing needs to work with product, but they also need to work with brands and sales needs to work
Unknown:doesn't change how people get paid, it doesn't change who they necessarily report to, in quotes. But from a jobs to be done overlay, you can be really
Lori Highby:Yeah, wow, that's just a lot, Tom.
Unknown:We could do like a two hour podcast.
Lori Highby:Yeah. And I don't have that kind of time right now. But Martin, I'm gonna just kind of switch the conversation a little bit up,
Unknown:I'm definitely net work more. I was one of those people that when I was younger, I thought I was like, Really, like smart. And I thought the
Unknown:idea. And just learning reading, like, I should have read more, like more industry books early. I kind of got into that late, you know, and, you
Unknown:I mean, I would definitely network more and take all those opportunities to network, take opportunities to learn, you know, I liked school, but again,
Unknown:approach is always kind of limited and dated, I'm talking about people are getting MBAs right now, and learning from people who are really doing it
Unknown:compartmentalized. But the more you kind of merge it the kind of better, like having good friends in the industry, that are really friends is really
Lori Highby:For sure. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, social media
Unknown:makes it easier than ever. Right. But it's like, you know, and we didn't have that when I was telling you that we didn't, yeah,
Lori Highby:Link thing when I was in?
Unknown:When I was 20. I had to go to a room because email, you know what I mean? Your lab at school? Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it's so so these are the
Unknown:how many years ago it was when I was 20. But
Lori Highby:all right, well, I'm gonna give you the opportunity to interview me, what's something you'd like to ask me?
Unknown:You know, you do work, you know, kind of in your day job other than doing podcasts? With some clients? I mean, what are their biggest
Lori Highby:Yeah, I think a lot, a lot of it is all about generating new business right now. But what I find especially in like that manufacturing,
Lori Highby:nurturing those opportunities and warming them up a little bit to it's not going direct or the sale. I don't know why everyone thinks that just
Lori Highby:a look at that.
Unknown:Gotcha. Yeah, absolutely. We have time for one more question. Sure. But yeah, so in that vein, I mean, like you said, you're talking
Unknown:getting into, like, Omni channel, or multi channel versus like, their traditional just like, they bless them emails, they build some drips, they
Lori Highby:I would say it's very slow. Yeah, it's a very slow sell. Because my assumption yours because there's, it's a lot of gray area from
Lori Highby:hands in a room meeting at a trade show, you know, this is the kind of this is how they've done business and this is what they know business to be. So
Unknown:Yeah, I've been like, yeah, I can. I can. I can see how that was. We had a lot of manufacturing clients when I was running marketing
Unknown:open their eyes. So I'm sure someone like you is probably good at that, and hopefully helping them out.
Lori Highby:Oh, yeah. I mean, it's all about education. And, and, you know, even to your, the conversation, the conversation we've been having
Lori Highby:mean, you don't know how many people I've said, Hey, having any sort of chat feature, whether it's a live human or leveraging automation or AI? I
Unknown:And it's time even if you're close rates stay the same. Your time to close shrinks, right? Yes.
Lori Highby:I mean, there's, there's a whole bunch of positives to it. But it is a big step in an unknown territory for a lot of individuals. So
Unknown:to go on first, and then everything else follows.
Lori Highby:Yeah, yeah. So Martin, I know that you've got you've got something to offer our listeners, right. There's a book being published.
Unknown:Yes. So we have, we have put together what we call the chief growth officers handbook. Now, again, when we talk about converged growth,
Unknown:converge growth lens. And we've put together this whole book to do it, we're in the finishing pages, finishing pages, finishing stages of the
Unknown:really great tool for thinking about and operationalizing. And some Getting Started tips for a lot of what I just said in these big shifts that we're
Lori Highby:Love that will include all that information. We'll include the link in the show notes as well. So if anyone was interested in getting in
Unknown:easy. Just find me. It's you know, Martin, a Schneider all one line is my if you do the LinkedIn slash n slash, one, if you could go
Lori Highby:we'll definitely include all the information in our notes as well. Thank you so much for being on the show today.
Unknown:Laurie, thank you for having me. It was a great conversation. And hopefully we can do it again sometime.
Lori Highby:Absolutely. All right. This wraps up our episode of social capital A huge thank you to Martin for taking the time to connect with us.