Building Community From Within

Intro

Hello, I'm Kerry Guard and welcome to Tea Time with Tech Marketing Leaders.

Welcome back to the show. So excited to have you as always. So excited.This is a wonderful conversation.

I have Emily Mireault joining me this episode. And we talked about so near and dear to my heart. It's not your typical marketing conversation. It's very much more focused around how a company culture and the mission and vision and values can help you define your outward facing story to capture both customers and potential employees.

It's something that I truly believe in, it's something some of the biggest entrepreneurs believe in if you look at Richard Branson, and when he started Virgin Airlines like that was something that was important to him and how he wanted not only people to feel but how he wanted his employees to show up and to and to be authentic and to be treated well. And to have that then come across through the customer experience. It's so telling.

And so Emily shows up today to walk through her story. Why she chose Nectar the company she's currently at within the marketing department, and how she uses their culture, mission, vision and values to tell the nectar story through her own experience of how it captured her along the way to then come and join them.

She's lovely. If you're not already following her on LinkedIn, I highly suggest you head on over there and pull up her profile and look at some of the posts she's been doing.

As you start to listen to her story and how it unfolds. She's so warm and inviting, and I can't wait for you to take a listen real quick about Emily. Emily is a wife, daughter, sister and a friend. Relationships means everything to her. She's a firm believer that everyone deserves a needs love connection and community. Professionally, you'll find her strategizing and executing marketing initiatives. And personally you'll find her spending time with her eight animals in the land of 10,000. Lakes.

Wait to hear how she ends up with eight animals and this land in 10,000 lakes. It is part of her story. It is part of who she is. And it's wonderful.

Here is my conversation with Emily.

Transcript

Kerry: Hi, I'm Emily, thank you for joining me on Tea Time Tech Marketing Leaders.

Emily: Hello, hello. Thanks for having me.

Kerry: I'm so excited to have you and I can't wait for our conversation, especially as it relates to what you do. But before we get there, your story I have been on the edge of my seat to hear the full. Like how you got here story. So tell us tell us what do you do I believe and how'd you get there and don't hold back because your personal life definitely intertwines with your with your work life and we want it off.

Emily: Oh gosh, it could be an hour long intro if I went into everything I've done and how I actually got here, both personal and professional, but I'll try to keep it a little more succinct than that. So yes, fresh out of college. I knew since I was in sixth grade I wanted to be in marketing. How did I know I want to be in marketing since sixth grade well, because during our English class, our English teacher gave us a two day kind of here's what marketing is and here's what branding is and how it ties into English and writing and communicating a message and she looked us in the eyes and pretty much everyone wore blue jeans every single day at that point in sixth grade like leggings or anything yet sweats were too casual.

**Kerry:**The bell bottoms or was it the straight leg or the skinny?

Emily: Oh, it was me pants, skinny jeans. We're all wearing her while the girls are wearing skinny jeans guys are just wearing normal jeans, whatever. And she looks us in the eye and says the jeans you're wearing today were thought of five years ago. And I was like, Excuse me. What are you talking about? Like I thought this was thought of last month and then they just made them and then now it's a thing and now I'm wearing them? And she said everything is so systemized and marketers get to play in that end game, like, once the jeans are fully developed, they get to decide how to sell them to you, whether it's the stitching on the butt, or the rhinestones near the belt, or whatever it is. And I was like, I never thought about this. And she's like, think about the time it takes to design it and not print it, but like, manufacture it and ship it. And I'm like, again, I've never thought about this. And she told us how marketing really has the fun job and that the messaging and the end of the day, I'm like, Ah, I'm gonna go into marketing. Whatever it is, I'm doing it. So anyways, that's kind of my how I knew I wanted to be in marketing. But yes, so I've worked in, gosh, everything from financial services, doing marketing, to television advertising, publishing, cybersecurity, compliance, like all over the board. And now I am an HR tech. So I'm currently working at nectar. I'm on the marketing team, I manage Brandon demand. And we are a rewards and recognition software. So we encourage people to shout out their coworkers and get rewarded for those shout outs that they received. And personally, my husband and I a few years back, it was during the pandemic, and we're like, okay, we don't want to live in, you know, our parents basement or anything like that. So let's look for a house tour to one house and said, This is it the fixer upper or signing it, we're gonna start building our lives together. And it ended up having a few acres. And so my dream in retirement was like, I'm gonna own miniature donkeys. I've always loved donkeys. And I'm like, I have to wait until you know, I do all my years of work. And then I can settle down on a farm and on a few donkeys. Well, COVID, expedited everything allowed us to work from home a lot. Like, there were some positives that came from it, as hard as it is to talk about and I'm like, why wait till retirement? Let's do it. And for. So we're scrolling on Craigslist one day looking for just used farm materials, let's build a fence, let's you know, get this place up and running. And we see this little pig. And I'm like, oh, and that advertisement was like, the dad died and the sister was sold. And it went from like having friends to being completely isolated. And because of that she had gained all this weight and you know, become way less social and even become a little aggressive. And I'm like, this pig.

And so that is how our whole hobby farm story started. We drove three hours down and I thought it was this little like I could hold her in my hand and have her sleep in my bed pig. No, she's over 100 pounds. Like it was not what we expected at all. You figured it out. I even wrote a book about her which is so funny little children's book called Easter the pig. But yeah, we have built out a hobby farm since then we have eight animals total. And yeah, now you know, my my career trajectory and my arm trajectory.

Kerry:  And the link to this book is in the show notes. I couldn't wait for the story. And now I know how it all happened because I was wondering both of these sides of the story of how you ended up and nectar and and it's not every day, son every day that you find a marketer who decided that they wanted to be a marketer, and not just be a marketer, but be a marketer, since they were in sixth grade. It's pretty magical. I feel like a lot of the times from you know, I've been doing over 100 episodes of these. A lot of the times most of the times we sort of fell into marketing versus deciding we wanted to be in marketing. And so I love to find these gems of folks who were like, No, I'm going to be a market art here's how it's gonna happen. And hopefully you had a teacher who like had the forethought of of what that meant and how these things tie together and messaging and English and marketing. So cool. Yeah, jeans me We all wear them say thanks to Margaret Valentine's Day. We're it's just a few days after Valentine's Day, and I can tell you for sure that that is a Hallmark holiday.

Emily: So many things are marketing. I'm like, oh my goodness, it's every sometimes I have to roll my eyes at it right? Even though it's my profession. Sometimes I'm like, Did we really make that a thing? Or did I really just wear green head to toe because it's St. Patrick's Day? Because my maiden name starts with a no I feel like I have to just

Kerry:  now like true story. I guess I just yeah, it's super cool. Just happened and and I mean, we let's be real. We didn't watch the Super Bowl for the football.

Emily: See, I love football. But the ads are equally as like, they have the same amount of weight to it. And then you watch Rihanna who did her own little advertising in there. With venti. It's like we're everywhere we can marketing and advertising. It's it's all rolled into one everywhere you look at this point, it's magical. It's magical. We have so much influence and who knew.

Kerry: Speaking of influence, before we get to our the heart of our story, which I'm excited for talking about a challenge you're facing right now, Emily, outside of, I don't know, maybe it's inside of nectar and or living on a farm, they think and try and tell me more. But the challenge you're facing,

Emily: I feel like a challenge I'm facing is you hear the buzzword community. And everyone's like, the hot thing right now is to have a community and to bring people to your community, whatever that looks like. And for me, when I think of community, it's so much easier when something's tangible. And I can be like, it's a community of people who love their Fenty beauty products from Rihanna. And you can try them, you know, like, do your makeup trials together and have a group and talk about it and talk about your favourite shades and stuff. But when it's a software product, or a service or something a little less, like you can't touch it, and feel it and ship it to your friend. I'm like, what community and you don't want to be in too many communities. So it's like the whole thought of community feels like a challenge. Because it's like, first of all, does every company need to have a community or be part of community? I don't know the answer to that question. Second of all, is community and building a community as a company, a fad, and you're gonna spend a lot of time and effort over the next year or two building it only for that to not be the hot thing and a few years that no one that anyone cares about? And then thirdly, if you if I were to build a community from the ground up, I guess like, where do I go with it? What does that look like? Who do I talk to? What do I really like? It's just this big blob of unknown for me.

Kerry:  It was very big. A lot of work.

Emily: Yes, that feels like all of those things. For sure. I feel like in my opinion, and I haven't built one because I feel like I'm on the same aspect of you have like Wi Fi Comcast guests and like have the be part of the community but what value school leads on nicely to our Cartesian value in my brain to that and and is there value outside of what other companies are doing to make that important enough to you free to like, and in my opinion, and I'm happy for you to sort of have the last word on this. But my opinion is, from a community standpoint, it feels more again, the best way is that sort of happened or the organic ones, like they weren't forced, they sort of just naturally happened and some people capitalised on that loophole, there's this thing happening, we should like, keep it going, versus trying to build it for the sake of building an interesting perspective. And yet I met with people on the flip side who are like, if it's not built, there is not a place for people to find it and to find the other people like them who want to talk about things like that. So I've heard both of those.

Honestly, I've heard the, it's going to happen naturally, if it happens capitalise on that. And then I've heard you need to build it and cultivate it and add the value. And the people will come. So yeah, and I won't leave me with more questions than answers. But a lot of it's just testing and figuring out with your kind of core your users who would be in a community, what they look for, what they like, what they feel like they need that they're not currently getting and how you can provide that gets a seat pretty niche, like my husband's really into keyboards, and so like to have like a specific keyboard community. Say there's a marketing, there's a great cybersecurity marketing community that are exist. So I'm like, I can't, I can't talk that. Like that, that doesn't get any more niche than I could in terms of what I'm doing in terms of what we're doing.

Like, from an HR perspective. I think there's definitely aspects that you could be doing in terms of cultivating communities around HR. Keep things in in the way that you're trying to level the way that you're trying to cultivate almost internal communities, right, like, that's the beauty of the products that you're working with is they're most helping companies build internal communities. But yeah, it's really funny that empty space and feeling like you could fill it in a really got huge under way. It's tricky, and it's a lot of work because to your point, you gotta cultivate, it's not just like, you build it and then it's sort of like, you have to feed it every day and nurture it and bring people along and, and and want to stick with it for five to 10 years like you don't start something that you envision fizzling into years. And that's where I feel like communities are great, because right now, if I join every marketing community, every donkey community, every pig community, like I have Facebook pages or whatever, every day is black communities. I don't know what's going on. And though like, I'm not up to date on that, not that you need to be maybe it's okay to just exist in them. But I don't know, still big unknown for me. So I find slack to be the trickiest because I'm not logged into that every day, it's a little easier for the ones that come to me like on LinkedIn. Like if I join groups, it's like, that's cool on my feet. And that's fine. It'll just sort of like happen in my own I have to go to it.

Kerry: That's a good point. Yeah, it's quite, it's a good question. And if you have some really lovely answers for Emily, or you build community, and you have some suggestions for her, if you want to noodle and keep cultivating, you should reach out, and her link is in the show notes. And I'll reiterate that later. But I do want to move on to speaking of value, and bringing value to your audience, you are in a very cool product area. Full disclosure, we use a similar product called Bonus.ly. But I'm thanks, literally, I've checked out Nectar. And they have some interesting value props that Bonusly does not have. But I'm not, we're not here to sell nectar one way or another. But what I do love about these types of products, is that it really just gives us chance to bring value internally to our team and allow them to feel a lot of times people don't get praised until like their annual reviews. And the part on the back like you're too good until a whole year later. And so this is a chance to like hear from people throughout the year. And not just from the higher ups, which I love. But it's a huge value prop in terms of how you're thinking about your audience, you know, for HR for business owners, and the value you want to bring to these folks. How are you doing that in a way? That yeah, it's probably selling your product, but more is about the value you bring to your end user?

Emily: That's a great question. And honestly, I would say to answer that the thing we're really leaning into is this framework we've created because we got that question so many times. And so we actually just develop something that answers it, essentially. And that is that we believe culture has to be created. You can't just have a company, have employees and hope that the culture is going to be great, because you're a nice person. You have to actually do things every day, put things in place, establish systems, implement software, do a lot of things, to make sure that culture is what you want it to be that it reflects your mission, vision and values that is lived by the people who are in your organisation and not just leadership, but especially leadership because of the way that that trickles down. So we it's called Create. It's six pillars. It's an acronym, connection, recognition, empathy, alignment, trust and elevation. And to your point, most people only get recognised during that annual review. To us. That's the time for elevation that last E like growth opportunities. How do we get you to the next step, maybe you're already ready for your promotion, here it is, or here's a great bonus for all the work you've done. Like we see that being the time to cover, elevation and maybe opportunities for more growth and more elevation. But we see the rest of the year all the other months and days and weeks and everything for the time to connect with each other. Have fun, plan an event go to a so again, time to recognise each other use nectar use bonus like use a software where that can happen if you have the money if you don't have the money for a software, create a Slack channel create something where there's people recognising each other, outside of a meeting a one on one, an annual review, empathy. It's like the biggest one to me outside of trust, putting yourself in other people's shoes and actually understanding who they are what they need and treating them as such alignment. Huge cross departmentally not to have silos trust as without saying, but if you trust your employees, let's just say your ROI is going to be a lot better than if you micromanage them.

Kerry: Oh my gosh.

Emily: Yeah, I'm gonna be touched on elevation, but essentially that That's the value prop is like we want to help companies build better culture, we're not just in it to be like this, set it and forget it software. In fact, once you implement an actor, we can't help you, you as a company have to start recognising each other, you have to start implementing your core values, you're the one going from good to great with your culture, we just created the stuff on the back end to help you get there. And we get to share in your success when you do. So it's a really unique place to be in, there's definitely a hot market for it, lots of folks in this space, and it's, you know, booming while other things aren't. But lots of fun, great value, prop and a great place to work. I mean, we're preaching all this culture stuff. So luckily, we have a culture that lives out all of these pillars and all of these things. And we truly feel these as employees that we're experiencing them.

Kerry: Okay, we have a lot to unpack here. Because this is marketing at its greatest you all, like taking what you are as a company, and then being able to put that back out into the universe in a really intentional way that happens to build demand and ROI. It's the dream. It is it is right, let's back up for a second, you talked about creating culture through really living your mission, vision and values. How do you? You know, I don't know, did you join nectar? Or either even going back in the wayback machine to the other companies you've worked for? Have you had a hand in building these three pillars? Or have you bought into them? What's sort of been your experience with these with mission, vision and values?

Emily: I used to not think about it. When I was joining companies. I had a few year period where I was like, I'm chasing the money. I'm chasing the whatever I'm chasing the title I'm chasing, getting into a certain industry. And I didn't even ask those types of questions. I didn't really even I guess I don't want to say I didn't care. But I thought I didn't care until I got in and realise that the mission, vision and values didn't align. And then I really did care in a bad way. But, yes, I bought into them. When it came to time to work at nectar, they had already been established. Actually, shortly before I joined, they were being finalised and really defined and broken down. But I bought into two people specifically who worked at the company, the content, they were sharing the stories they were telling. And then as I talked to more people within the company and had a few interviews, I bought into what they're all about where they're trying to go.

Kerry: When you were interviewing. And maybe you didn't know, all they ask you that question first, when you were interviewing Did you know what the mission and vision and values were?

Emily: I knew what the company did. So even though I didn't know their actual, this is our mission. This is our vision. And these are our values yet. I felt like unlike places I've worked in the past, the product that they were selling, was doing the things that aligned with my values, if that makes sense.

Kerry: Yeah, that makes total sense. So there's clear alignment there between the practice versus what you were looking for, in terms of once you went through the interview process, and you met all these great people, and then you decided maybe an offer was made before you decided to join at that point. Did you just did somebody tell you about the mission and vision and values? Or once you learned about those things? did was it an aha moment of like, oh my gosh, I totally felt that through the interview. Like I feel like there's there's this moment that happens for folks at some point in the journey. What what when was that for you?

Emily: It wasn't necessarily like, here's the mission, vision and values specifically stated to me, it was more so then living them out as we were going through the interview process. And that was actually I do have a specific aha moment during the interview process. And that was I got the offer. I was reviewing the offer. And for the first time ever, I'm sitting there with the CEO on a call and he says, How does your husband feel about this offer? Is this something that would help support your entire family support your life that you want to live? Like? Is he on board with the company? Is he on board with this new roles? Do you care? Like is that a thing and and maybe people have always cared and they've just never asked or maybe it's they feel like they're overstepping boundaries. But I had openly talked about my husband I openly talked about how important it is for us to be aligned and a family and, you know, accomplish the dreams you want at the farm support our farm animals, all the things? Yes. Gotta support it. And so it was in that moment right I was like, sure you can say like, employees are not family. Like I get that whole argument. That's not what I'm trying to say. But I was in that moment where I was like, I'm cared for deeply. Like, if the answer to that question was no, we would have follow up conversations about why it might not be the right set, because they wouldn't want to bring me on board. If somebody in my life wasn't on board with it. And I'm like, everyone needs to do this. To do this when you start dating someone new like is, so you don't find out after you wasted two years that nobody likes the guy. No, but that was like getting off topic. But really, it was like you are living everything that I was about to find out was their mission, vision values, the Create framework pillars, through the way that they acted the way that they treated me the way that I felt like an employee, like a contributor, and like an important part of the team before I was on the team.

Kerry: I feel like that's, for me as a business owner, like what that happens, like, okay, like, culture mission accomplished. Because if you can feel that through the interview without me even walking you through our mission, vision and values like check.

Emily: Yes. You like you're loving it, that's more important than saying, right?

Kerry: Totally. Yeah. And then people want to join you because of it, even though they don't understand even though they don't know, like the the, you know, when you say the words out loud, oh, we're people first company, we believe in transparency and big picture. They're like, Oh, my gosh, yes. You didn't know what we did. We set it to make it to tie the lines together. But that's it. But you felt it before. There's like, that's so magical to me when that happens. So that's so cool. You found a company that does that for you. In terms of those things, mission, vision and values, and now that you're part of nectar, heart, and you're the marketing, radio, the full marketing department, you have a team, what's sort of your setup over there?

Emily: Yeah. So I'm kind of on the branded demand very much top of funnel, get people interested in this whole thing. Get them in, get them to book a demo. And then we have folks on the content team and like freelance writers developing a tonne of blog content ranking us for SEO. Oh, that we have a head of marketing, who oversees everything that the team is doing, and that I found through LinkedIn, and report two. And then we have somebody who's more on the like, customer marketing slash product marketing kind of doing both sides. Right. Nice. Yeah. Yeah.

Kerry: You have resources. That's awesome.

Emily: Yeah, there's some marketers probably listening going, Oh, that sounds awesome. I wish I had all the resources I didn't know I was looking for like a startup, but not a seed start, like it needed to be a little further along. So it's like, no, I want health and dental insurance or like, you know, just like that. Or like, you know, I want three team members, not a solo marketer, like I just wanted a little bit more a little bit further down the path, and it all worked out.

Kerry: That's good to know. I think that's, you know, as people are looking for their next role, especially with all the layoffs, that sort of happened, I think that's an important element of really thinking about what do you want, and with all the companies, that's the beauty, it's a blessing and curse of layoffs, right? Because there's so many folks out that are like, I can do something different and better, and I'm excited about and they go off, and they build these things. And that's, like I said, in a few years, we're gonna see this explosion of new businesses and startups, and it's gonna be great. But for those who are looking to get back into the market, I love what you're saying, I'm really in terms of really understanding what it is, what in terms of what you need, not just from a mission, vision and value standpoint, but also like, are they in the health of their company, some people love startups. I know so many folks who join their like, league, like once company sort of gets that scaly point. They're like, please, I gotta go to a startup. Yeah, again, there's some folks that totally thrive in that. And there's some folks are like, this is what I need right now. And I was I'm ready to take that company's next level and scale them and like, let's go and they're simple, like, oh, the enterprise. I want that big picture. I want to help this gigantic Titanic move to that next level, because that's a really exciting challenge. So I do think what you're saying is really cool for people to like, take a step back and think about what somebody's company do. I want to join next. So that's awesome.

Emily: Like I thought when I went through my position being eliminated, actually, no, it was before that because when I got eliminated I went to an actor, but before that, I thought, I want the earliest of early stage startups. I I was like, I'm a builder I want to build, I wanted to be doing more. And I came onto a company as a solo marketer. And I mean, other things went wrong in that role. But like, I realised, I want at least one or two other members on the team, I love to build, but I love to build alongside, I love to collaborate, I love and I learned so much about myself and like, props to the solo marketers. And I think I could do it like starting out a marketing team, and then hiring people and building it that way. But starting out as a solo marketer with no additional funding, and no promise of a team is kind of a lot more ambiguous. And that takes a different type of person. So

Kerry: yeah, I think we're all tired, tried to step back and try that understanding ourselves of like what we need. And I love that. So I don't know what you need great boundaries around it. And that's awesome. I wonder how you're taking these elements, both the mission vision values as well as the Create, now to create come from you and your team, or was that there before you got there?

Emily: Before I got there, but from my team, and I'm helping, like, dive deeper with it.

Kerry: So great. So how are you now taking these elements? And building them into what you're doing from a marketing standpoint?

Emily: Good question. We're still formulating what that looks like, essentially, our messaging weaves in these pillars whenever possible. And when we're creating or contributing to conversations, we weave them in. Now I've started anytime somebody says one of those words or alludes to one of those words, Mike, great framework, like it's almost too much marketing my head, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, empathy. That's, that's one of our pillars. It's so important. I'm glad you're doing that. But yeah, so the mesh messaging, messaging strategy is a huge part of it. We have it on the website, and it helps, you know, elaborate in some conversations, but more people on the sales side are interested in like, what's the ROI, show me hard and fast numbers. So they're like, you know, I don't need another framework. And so we're working through that and showing some of the actual some of these pillars have an ROI, like trusting your employees has an ROI and proving that out. But yeah, we have created different types of content around it, and are still figuring out where to go from here with weaving in the Create framework to our marketing strategy.

Kerry: Do you feel like because, you know, we're, we're being very definitive here in terms of what the Create framework stands for. But it sounds like in terms of the content you're creating, the marketing that you're doing, it naturally has some of these elements like empathy, alignment, and trust? Is that a natural occurrence? Because of your mission, vision and values? Do you feel like or is that something you're being very intentional about weaving in, or it very much a natural occurrence

Emily: With the people that I work with that nectar and stemming from the mission, vision and values of the company, our whole thing is making people feel appreciated and valued at work. And the vision ties into wanting work to be something that adds to people's lives, which we never see, like, even work life balance is falling under the idea that we need to balance life because work is not fun, and life magically is. And so there's this balance, and that's what it looks like. And we're like, no life is actually better because of work. If work has these six pillars in it for you, and you're growing every day, and you're learning every day, and you know how to get elevated and people trust you and you're connected, right? Like, if you have all of this, then all of a sudden, there's nothing to go balance other than, you know, your time and your priorities and other things. But it's not like I'm balancing good and bad yin and yang, black and white. It's like, Oh, I'm just weaving things in together, because they're all good in their own way. And they all serve me in different ways to so it definitely flows from, you know, what was established. And I think, when we think about it, being this defined thing that we want to, I don't want to say push but that we want to like help others establish, we are working with some companies were like, this is all new to them, like they, they have leaders from 20 years ago who are like, wait, I can't just like micromanage every little task. Like just I have to, you know, loosen the reins a little bit or here's what trust actually can do for your employees. So for them, for some of the companies we work with, we find that, you know, this framework is like transformational and really, really eye opening. And so their mission, vision and values might even be tweaked. or shaped or leadership might tweak some of the things that they do because of it. And I think that's where we're trying to go. Because we know we're well aware that implementing factor implementing the our, in our create framework doesn't solve your culture issue, if you're not committed to building a better culture.

Kerry: I have so many thoughts around all of this. It's true, like, it can't just be a band aid, like none of this is a band aid and I think was so impactful about what you're doing at nectar. What I think companies are sort of struggling with is sort of that what your product solves, versus what it can create, what it can empower, sort of looking for, like your that are, but you're so far up in the funnel of that you're so far off in that word of create, right? Like you're one piece, and you're up here, that then you can empower the rest of that to create a really wonderful culture. And I don't know that a lot of companies have figured out how to be one element of something so much bigger, and then how to voice that in the way I think you're, you're like, you sort of have a happy, a happy place in that. You get to create, you get to talk about something really thoughtful and empowering from like a company standpoint that and that might be a little harder for companies who are more in like the very technical side of things. What advice do you have for them in relation to like what you've learned at what you've been doing in nectar, but also having worked at some of these other various technical companies have like, how they can build a mission that's bigger than themselves, and then message it and really intentional way.

Emily: Yeah, I mean, I would say, don't try to be something you're not. If you are a plug and play cybersecurity firm, where you help prevent from some type of malware attack, you don't need to go out into the market and say that you're going to help companies build better culture, or that you're going to, you know, you don't have to go out now to save the world. Exactly, you don't need to go out and save the world, you don't need to go out and say that you're donating a portion of your profits to like feed hungry kids like not that there aren't so many noble causes out there and issues to be solved in the world. But your one little thing, like we just kind of talked about plugs into something much bigger. That piece of software, or hardware or whatever you're selling is important. Because if you lack it, here's what you're exposed to, here's what your customers are exposed to. So understanding exactly where you plug in, why that's beneficial. And not saying that you're any more any less than that. But then understanding all the tertiary elements is huge. If you don't have a partnerships team, the sales people will have to know this and understand this is that if you don't plug in to the piece right next to you, and do something that's very similar, but not quite the same. You need to have somebody on hand who you know, like and trust, who does that, who you can send them to, to help them with that. So be more than just your solution. If you're serving, like a community or group that is more technical. You don't have to have all the all the answer is they understand that you protect from that specific type of attack or leak or virus. But if they also need the software that does XYZ, helping them makes you stickier, helping them makes them trust you more, and helping them is going to help your business long term. So don't try to solve everyone's problems, but know somebody who can solve everyone.

Kerry: Oh, my gosh, that so you're saying partnerships team? Only? You're very clear. I'm not going to double down on that. Yes, I know. I mean, I'm just thinking about it from my standpoint, like we do SEO, digital ads and analytics. And that's all we do. Because we wouldn't be great at helping you go to market and have your audience find you really intentionally. We don't want to try and start building websites. We don't want to start being PR we don't want to. We don't want to try and be everything to everybody. We want to do these three things. But we have really great partners who can build websites who can do the PR for you who can do these other elements To help you build up your marketing grade that band, and so, yes to this, and I think that as cyber or even more technical companies outside of cyber thinking about their specific thing of what they solve, I think it's helpful to not get stuck in the trap of meeting new meet, will I do this? Well, I do this. Well, I just sorry, I don't do that. Because I only do this. I mean, I think that comes back to the value in the conversation of at the end of the day, you need to help your audience in whatever capacity that means. That doesn't mean here. Yes, man. That doesn't mean you say you take on everything, that just means that you know where to point them next time.

Emily: Because I mean, if somebody's working with you, and your digital marketing specialists, like their product, especially if they're super technical, they don't really know what that means. So when you say you can do SEO, but you don't do websites, like in their mind, going into the conversation, you do everything under the marketing umbrella, you probably set up their trade notes, right? So if you're equipped with, right, but you don't, so if you're equipped with the knowledge and information of like, who can help them become dangerous and look really good, and they don't have any headspace behind the marketing stuff they hate doing, which is why they're outsourcing in the first place. Golden, sticky, beautiful.

Kerry: Yeah, or the research to go figure it out? Yeah, I build trust with you. I, you're an expert in the field. Yep. Who else? Do you know? All the research? Tell me more. So that I don't have to go do it. Yeah. Okay, love this in terms of value in terms of other aspects and value of bringing to your audience. So I think this is really important. You know, like, you know, the value that you bring from your product standpoint, and the problem you specifically solve, but in like, the realm of HR in the realm of cultivating a wonderful culture, I imagine there's other value that you try and bring to your HR to your HR audience, what are some ways you show up in that element outside of partnerships as an example?

Emily: Can you expand on that a little bit? Sorry? Sure.

Kerry:  No, no, it's like, so we talked about this all the time, and my sales team, they're like, what value? Can I bring? Like, I have this great prospect? I want to help them out. Like, can I give them a case study? Can I give them a white paper? Like, what can I give these folks that's going to help them feel like I'm supporting them? Because that's really what I'm trying to do here. So like, what is that for you, as audiences continue to figure out what content they should be building? Or how they should be showing up for their, for their people?

Emily: Good question. I mean, honestly, I would say, if you're gonna double down and invest on some in something, it starts before that relationship is built. Like, if I were to recommend a piece of technology or something to implement, it's to help marketers, it's when they submit that they're interested, they came to the website, and they want to hear what you have to say, make that seamless, like they should not put an email that then goes to the abyss that then somebody answers four or five days later, and then you lose the I mean, that is like marketing gold. If you either have the money to buy something like chilli Piper and just have the process automated, or if you as a marketer can go into that process and figure out how you can plug in how you can get it straight to the sales team, how you can make it really like get them everything they need. If they need to request more information, maybe they put on the forum, how they heard about you, or they put on the forum, what specifically they're looking for, like if you offer cybersecurity Compliance Services, and they want sock to like if they can indicate that and then you know who to route it to. Having that up front, is going to make all the stuff further down the funnel way easier for marketers, because when you get clients that way, like you're gonna miss out on so many opportunities if you don't have that figured out. But yeah, as you get further downstream, I would say, helping enable the sales team with follow up material is huge. Again, there are beautiful software applications that help make this seamless. But if you are a marketing team, have one or work at a startup or don't have the capital for that, creating templates, creating things that do provide that enablement sales team or that yeah, that provides that enablement to the sales team. And then making sure you're reinforcing the messaging that we talked about all the way through this the mission, vision and values where you plug in all of that how you help what problems you solve. If that messaging is reinforced through email and your LinkedIn page and the company and you know all these different channels, then it becomes easier for anyone in the cycle to be like, yes, this has all been reinforced every step of the process, instead of confused every step of the process. Because I've seen both

Kerry:  just two things I heard a dad that I want to just round the conversation out with. And one of them was, I know, everybody hates this word. And I'm probably gonna make skin crawl and it is what it is. But it's the times that we're living in my business partner made a really interesting point. My team was having a little bit of this today, like, everybody wants everything yesterday, they need leads tomorrow. And they need these things like right now or their jobs are on the line, it's like, this is part of a really good point of that's, that's the economic world we live in right now. And it will ebb and flow. And sometimes we'll get to a place where people want to live in the space of research and learning and really cultivating that, and then going into market. And we look forward to that. But for where the economic state we are in right now. It's really volatile. And everybody feels like their jobs are online. So they need everything yesterday. And that's just the world we live in. So it sounds like what you're saying, Emily, which I think is important to note, but also note to say where we are right now, speed is important. Yeah. If your audience is raising their hand, knowing that raising their hand and inserting them right now, is important. Whenever you import forever, but the tighter we can create that funnel, the more opportunity there will be done. The bottom of the funnel is that did I capture that?

Emily: Absolutely. And I think I mean, I've realised that a lot of the mark in this is based on sales cycles, differing at different companies. But I've realised that a lot of the marketing activity I do today has a major impact on the business three months down the road, that's just due to a variety of factors. And like I said, it's gonna be different for everyone. But understanding that helps you evaluate, like how you've done in the past, on a more holistic basis, rather than campaign by campaigns like this month, we're way above where we need to be for leads. And we're looking at everything. And it's like, yeah, we've added team members, and we've spent money on different ads and stuff. But like what we did a few months ago, started to put that bug in someone's head and create that demand. And then you have the dark social aspect. And then we've gotten more consistent on certain channels. And then we added that, you know, and you bundle it all together, and you add it all up. And it's like actually stepping stones that build on each other. And that's another great way to assess, like I said, holistically. It's not like your KPI where you can tell your boss, this is where I hit this. It is like those leading and lagging indicators that you should pay attention to.

Kerry: Yeah, I really love that. And then the value, you bring it every step of the way. And that messaging that then intercedes, and bringing in your vision, mission and values. The last thing I want to, I want to ask, before we move on to my people first questions, and wrap this conversation out, is when you talk, I've had mixed vibes from when I've talked to a lot of people about content and over the years, all my podcasts in terms of your mission, vision and values, and being careful. I'd love your opinion on this. Being very careful to not get stuck in the sort of meaningly me world. Yeah, so how can I grind this out? Here? Emily's I know, this is what you're saying. And I don't think the audience is caught that at all. But I just want to be really intentional of how we bring this home. Talking about mission and vision and values is great, and how you want to do partnerships and how you want to help people and bring the value. But doing that in a way that is it putting the company or the product at the forefront?

Emily: Yeah. And the big best answer I have to that is rather than like you said, making it me, me, me, here's what we've established as a company, here's what we sat in all these internal meetings and agreed on scrap all of that, that lives here, what needs to come out of your mouth and go on to the sheets of paper and go on to you know, LinkedIn and emails and all of that is a story. Like tell me a story. Or tell me a story that hasn't happened yet of how you might be able to plug into my story. And that is where the gold is like, I do not need a cold email of somebody telling me that they value transparency and saw that I do the same. And that's why we should work together. Like I hope you value transparency. But there are so many great values and it's like that's just what you need to live. But it's in the stories and in the experiences that you have that speak louder. lead to that. And I think that's why people like sales teams crave the collateral. That's a case study, because they're seeing a transformation, they're, they're seeing a story being told they're seeing data put behind it, they're not seeing that you listed your five values, they're seeing that a company started without your piece of software, and increased ROI, three acts, and that convinced the next customer to buy, which then, you know, increase the bottom line. And then they referred so I mean, this whole chain effect. But yes, do not get my message twisted with, take your mission vision values, and go talk about them and plaster them everywhere. In fact, that's the opposite of what we want to do. And we talk about, of course, the Krait framework and those pillars specifically, to help other companies implement things like that, and make sure they're doing that. But that's not us sitting here being like, nectar is connected, you know, we might give an example. Like you could always give an example of something, but at the end of the day, tell the story of how you do it well, or tell the story of how you're going to plug in and help them do something well.

Emily: This circle, this is full circle, I would love for you to stay. Right like It's like imagine you're going on an interview. And everything you come into contact with happens to have the elements of who the company is, and that the like, you get that aha moment of like, Oh, here's the framework and the mission, vision and values. I just lived that through this experience. So what is that sales experience similar to an interview experience that's going to bring that to life? They're the same. They're just for different folks as problems of the world here today.

Kerry: We did we totally did. Yeah. I'm like, wow, I could talk about this all day. Clearly, I feel like we, we've brought it full circle, people are on board with us ready to go. And I'm so grateful for it. Before we close out, you have shared so much of yourself these in this whole conversation and starting off with your story. And that you live on a farm and your husband and and so many elements before, just to give people again, a little bit more about you. I have three quick questions if you're ready. Oh, right. Speed Round the speed. You know, um, you don't overthink it. You're just going to stop first aid comes to mind. Okay. First question. Have you picked up a new hobby? Well, I mean, maybe you have now that you live on a farm, but that any, any new hobbies in the last two years or three years now? Since COVID? I feel like everybody's sort of gone something new to explore. Is that been the farm for you? Is it been something else? What's it for you?

Emily: Yeah, I guess the firm's been the last few years. That's always been a hobby though. I would say I picked up writing. I write every single day now. And that was not a thing, pre pandemic. And I write on LinkedIn every day. I wrote a children's book, like writing is weaved into everything I do. And it's really, really great.

Kerry: Yeah, that's how I found you. I found you on LinkedIn through one of your stories. And there we go. Yes, it's powerful. It's huge. I love it. And you're a great storyteller. Alright, second question for you. If your team could be together it sounds like you've grown a great team you're all remote if you could all be together maybe you're getting together soon we've you've just been together. What song would you want playing sort of set the vibe of like who y'all are?

Emily: Oh my honestly, we champion each other so well. Obviously that's what we're all about. I would play we are the champions.

Kerry: Yes. Yes. Oh, just hear it can't you all like you're all singing in your head? I know you are.

Emily: Cocky like to put that there but that's okay.

Kerry: That's how you feel. We call ourselves the Avengers. So like you do. That's what we do. Right? So you feel Alright, last question for you, Emily. If you can travel to anywhere in the world without hoopla without logline without passports and vaccinations and all of the things if you just go where would you go and lie

Emily: I've always wanted to go to Australia. And I if I could eliminate the hoopla of like actually flying there and the time that it takes so Yeah, bring me there instantly. I want to see the wildlife. I want to meet the people. I want to do it all there.

Kerry: Tell you about seeing kangaroos just feels life changing. Yeah. Right missin pouches. Yes. Hello, Emily, thank you so much. I'm so grateful for this conversation.

Emily: Thank you

Outro

That was my conversation with Emily Mireault.

If you would like to learn more about Emily and follow her story, like I said, head on over to LinkedIn. Her link is in the show notes.

Emily, I'm so grateful. So grateful. Thank you so much for joining me.

And thank you listeners for tuning in once again. If you liked this episode, and found it helpful, please like, subscribe and share. This episode is brought to you by MKG Marketing, the digital marketing agency that helps complex b2b tech companies get found via SEO digital ads and analytics. It's hosted by me Kerry guard, CEO and co-founder of MKG Marketing, Music Mix and mastering done by Austin Ellis, and if you'd like to be a guest, please visit mkgmarketinginc.com to apply.