Carmen Harris on Crafting Messaging That Cuts Through the Noise

Overview:

In this episode, Kerry Guard sits down with Carmen Harris, communications expert, creator of The Audacity of Comms newsletter, and host of Audaciously Speaking. With a sharp eye on the marketing chaos at RSA and deep experience helping companies navigate IPOs, crises, and rebrands, Carmen breaks down why messaging often falls flat and how to fix it. She dives into her Authority Impact Index™️, the myth of the last-minute PR push, and why AI can support your voice—but not replace it. If your brand feels like it’s getting lost in the noise, this episode offers clarity, conviction, and a much-needed reset.

Transcript:

Carmen: Probably like 200 companies and stuff right now. And I'm like, you're probably right. I mean, that sounds like a lot of companies. With that many companies and stuff, you have got to get a message early in the process. You cannot wait until you think you're ready to launch your products or you think that you're ready to ship a couple of beta. This is not 2018, 2020, 2021. It's not even 2023. The PR game is so different.

Kerry: Welcome back to Tea Time with Tech Marketing Leaders. I'm your host, Kerry Guard, co-founder and CEO of MKG Marketing, where we manage the details of building a growth engine while you capture the market. We took a quick pause last week to honor Juneteenth, but we are back in action. And what a moment for you all, because as you all heads of Black Hat, we are going to set you up for success toda, because our girl Carmen was at RSA, and she has a lot to say about what it is that she encountered. I'm sorry to miss call before we dive in, Carmen, happy birthday. Thank you so much.

Carmen: I really appreciate it. I'm just happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Kerry: So excited to have you. Real quick about Carmen before we dive on in, Carmen is the calm strategist you want in the room when the tech gets complex. The stakes get high, and the messaging needs to mean something. She's not just out here to draw attention. She's out here for impact. That's why she built the Authority Impact Index to connect communications to business outcomes in a way that's measurable, not just magical thinking.

And the timing of today's conversation, like I mentioned, couldn't be better. With RSA still fresh and Black Hat around the corner, Carmen's here to unpack what actually worked, what didn't, and how founders can think differently about ROI, not just return on impressions. Today, we're talking booth budgets, pipeline myths, and the messaging moves that separate vanity from value, whether you're a founder gearing up for the first big show or a CMO trying to tie brand to bottom line, this one's for you. Oh, and fair warning, folks, Carmen's got strong feelings about storytelling, title inflation, and why we should never kill a kid's creativity just because it's inconvenient. Carmen, welcome to the show. Thank you.

I appreciate it. Carmen, let's start off with spin or strategy. I'm going to read you a few lines that sound like they came from startup PR, pitch decks, or overworked brand copy. And you're going to tell us whether it's actual strategic messaging or just spin with a nice font.

And when we're done, we'll get you to sum it all up for us. You ready? Okay, let's go. Let's go. Here's the first one. We're redefining what it means to be secure in the digital age.

Carmen: Probably a little bit of both. I think they probably think it's strategic, but it's probably a more heavier spin than strategy. First impressions. I'd say 60% spin.

Kerry: 60% spin. All right. Trust is our most important product.

Carmen: Depending on what they're also communicating about trust, I'd say strategy.

Kerry: Our mission is to make cybersecurity as intuitive as your smartphone.

Carmen: Oh, I think they chose like spin language, but I bet they think it's also strategic.

Kerry: We're not just protecting data. We're protecting dreams. Which one? What did you say? Sorry, we're not just protecting data. We're protecting dreams.

Carmen: Oh, I thought that's what you said. Oh, definitely spin.

Kerry: Our AI-powered platform delivers scalable resilience for modern threats.

Carmen: Like you can't even get it out. It's definitely spin.

Kerry: The team that brought you seamless onboarding now brings you seamless security.

Carmen: Since I guess they were already going with the whole seamless thing, I guess it's probably a strategy. Feel spinny, but I bet it's strategic, yeah.

Kerry: In a world full of noise, we help brands be heard.

Carmen: Oh, definitely strategy.

Kerry: We've created the first-ever proactive trust layer for the cloud.

Carmen: Oh, that sounds familiar. I'm definitely going to say spin that first ever is a bridge too far.

Kerry: We don't just tell stories. We create narrative equity.

Carmen: Oh, narrative equity. I love whatever communications team came up with that. They probably actually do do that. That's probably their outcome, but it's very spinny.

Kerry: Our series B isn't just capital. It's a commitment to the future of secure storytelling. Who's doing that?

Carmen: Ready? That is so backwards.

Kerry: That's a lot. That's a lot. So the ones that you called out as not spin and strategic, what felt strategic to you about those?

Carmen: Because you can tell from some of the language that they use that they probably have customer outcomes that already prove that. I've been in a lot of those conversations a lot. And you can hear different perspectives, and you go back and forth over every period, every adjective. In so many different ways, I can probably understand the rabbit holes of conversations that led to the strategy. And if you were working with a comms leader, a marketing leader, usually we do have seats at the table in these conversations. I think that those probably were really strategic.

You can only probably prove that if you could see that reflected in the strategic plans that you put together across the board. But I think those probably were. I would say so.

Kerry: Well, thank you for indulging me. I appreciate you. Let's get into it. You went to RSA.

Carmen: I did. Do we want to take the lid off of this?

Kerry: Well, I think we would be doing it to service if we didn't for the folks who are about to head the black hat. So you saw something.

Carmen: What did you see at RSA that made you think this was money well spent? And what felt like a total waste? I will say any of the sponsors of RSA who had speaking slots or who took advantage of their customer communities to do side events, from the ones I attended and the conversations I had with people while I was there, those seemed to get a lot of attention. A lot of rooms were standing room only, even early in the week. So I think that if building your brand is anchored around your messaging, and kind of talking to and educating an audience. And if you had a full room or even a 75% full room, you did, you got your money's worth. I know there were a lot of good conversations. And for brands that are kind of unheralded, meaning you're not a fan, you're not Microsoft, you're not a crowd, you know who you're not, right? And you're not any of those guys, which most of the companies I've worked for are not. You should sponsor.

Try to sponsor if that is where you're going to get most of your leads from, and you want to build a brand. I would say that was the exception at RSA. At least that's what I walked away with. I had never rolled my eyes harder at an RSA. And I knew, you know, if you know me, anybody who's known me for five minutes knows like I will roll my eyes like in five seconds over something. I was really stunned at the amount of hyperbole and coming from a person who has a very high tolerance for shenanigans. I mean, my tolerance for shenanigans is like to the heavens.

Okay. It takes a lot for me to be like, what? I mean, a lot. Most people will be all in knots over stuff and I'll just be like, whatever. If I'm in knots, you're doing too much.

Kerry: What does that mean? Yeah, keep painting us a picture. What does too much look like?

Carmen: So I feel like this year there was a lot more people in the streets, meaning in front of Moscone Center and on Howard and on all the streets around, you know, at the Buena Vista Gardens, all of that, all around Moscone with the street teams dressed up a lot of wrapped vans, a lot of more wrapped vehicles, a lot more people trying to stick cards in your face, a lot more activation spaces outside of Moscone.

There were several people doing games and tricks and things outside of Moscone, almost on every corner, between the Waymos at every corner, like holding up traffic and these people in the streets, it was just a lot. And this is from me.

Kerry: So it's out of home stuff. It's not even inside with the booth.

Carmen: This isn't even before you can get the guy giving out the lollipops. There are always these guys on the street saying, hey, you want a lollipop? Because you don't dry your thirst. You know, Daniel's lollipop.

I always take a lollipop because I love peach lollipops. So I always do that before I go in. But those guys are always there out there every year.

This year, it was so much more, a lot more people on the streets just trying to, hey, come to my booth. They would give you, come over here and have a conversation with me. No, I'm not interested. Okay, well, here, take a card.

Come to my booth. Okay, that's fine. To me, it's a waste of paper, a waste of money. It's just a waste especially if no one has ever heard of your brand before.

If you haven't, I don't know. I just, I wouldn't throw all my eggs into R and say, if you have not had a consistent kind of messaging campaign leading up to it.

Kerry: It feels really random that all of a sudden all these brands took to the streets. Yeah. Is that unusual?

Carmen: I thought it was unusual this year. I mean, you always see some, a couple of rap vehicles. You might see one, you know, kind of wrapped food truck or something parked at a location. There was one, I wish I could remember which company that was, but they were on the corner every day and they were doing cappuccinos, just giving them away. And I liked their approach because they weren't out there like, hey, do you want some coffee? It was just kind of there. People were like, oh, good morning.

You know, get a little coffee and keep it moving. It wasn't a heavy like, remember my brand, come to my booth. It wasn't like, let's stay here and have a fake conversation. It wasn't any of that.

Kerry: But yeah, I just, like, they're call it desperate? It sounds like it just felt desperate. It did.

Carmen: So I feel sorry for these people because a lot of, you know, people have been laid off of jobs, and then to come to RSA and see this disgusting display of pump in circumstances, I just was, I was just like, are you kidding me? Like it was just too much.

Kerry: You think they just couldn't afford to be a sponsor for RSA? Have the prices for RSA gotten insane?

Carmen: Oh, I don't know. Well, everyone's been complaining about the prices for RSA for years. I just think it's part of the game you have to play. But I think maybe some people said, I'm just going to toss, you know, 80% of my marketing budget into RSA.

And that can be a strategy. But if you're not doing the piece, where would I do the cons piece to supplement that along the way? I don't know that you're getting the ROI that you think. And actually, you're not, you're not getting the ROI that you think.

Kerry: If a founder's goal is real ROI, not just noise, what's the first step in building a story that actually converts when you're going to a big event like this?

Carmen: The first step is probably the work that you do right now on June 26th with someone like me, who is going to start shaping how you roll out as you prepare to show up at RSA when is it in March next year? So I think that, yeah, I mean, once you leave one, I mean, the most the team you're focused on Black Hat, right? But once you leave one RSA, you have to start looking ahead. I would start doing some things, maybe you want to deal, maybe you close to deal at RSA, maybe you pull that customer in, if you're a young company and say, OK, how can you help me? And I can help you build a brand, maybe you can orient some programs around that customer. I think founders will rely on their marketing teams to come with the best advice. But the thing about founders is that they can really get really excited. And when they see other companies with more swag, more this, more that, and they haven't really invested in the brand building and the communications piece, there's a disconnect. And I don't know that they know that. And I feel like people like myself and other marketing leaders need to kind of always keep that in mind because there is an expectation that founders have. They may not communicate it, but young company founders they always have an expectation of how they're going to show up at a show like RSA. And you have to give the feels. You always have to make sure the founder and the leadership team feels good. But they have to stop working on that now for next level.

Kerry: It's expectations, right? So managing expectations always, yeah. Yeah. What do you, in your experience in terms of founders, what are their expectations? Do they expect the big splash, the head, the to toe with the competitors?

Or are they more like realistic of, I don't see this really delivering the pipeline we all think it's going to. So you could take to the streets and get scrappy about it.

Carmen: Yeah, there's two or three different type of founders that I've encountered. One kind of founder is I have the best product on the street and we're going to launch this button and we're going to launch the RSA and you guys better get it together because this is what's happening. Oh, and by the way, RSA is next month. Oh, okay.

So there's that founder. Oh dear. Like I've been asking you for a couple of months and now we're going to just, okay, let me see what happens. So that's when, if that happens and this happens all the time, then that's when usually they'll loosen up the purse strings because they know that that's what they want. So you can go out, do what you can do as a marketer and usually that's going to be more on plastering your stickers.

Any last minute place you can grab, doing some partner things, any last minute thing you can grab and then probably a press release or two. And I think that will cover the basis for that kind of founder. Then you have another kind of founder who's been there before or they went when they were in the startup village and now they're kind of needing to graduate to the North Hall or the South Hall and then they're kind of like, you know what, we spent a lot of money in the startup village and we had a lot of support from this group by group.

We're not going to have that this year. So then they rely on the sales team and the sellers to set up the right kind of meetings with the right people. And those are the founders that say, let's just, we can get a restaurant, we'll wrap it, we'll take it over for a few days and we'll just do a bunch of meetings there. And by the way, if the comms people can get me a couple of press meetings, I'll be happy. I think that's kind of a bridge to a bigger presence and I think that can be impactful because there you're just trying to make the connections, have meetings with the right people, advance conversations with partners or prospects. And that's a strategy. And if you're getting 20, 40, 80 meetings in a week, your mission's accomplished.

And if someone like me can walk over, you know, a reporter or two or an analyst or two for you to meet with as well, then mission accomplished. And then you have the founders who are focused on RSA. There are ICPs there. They've been there a couple of years. Maybe they've won, you know, a cyber defense award or something like that. And then that's where a person like me who's like six months in advance or nine months in advance is thinking about, oh, maybe we should do that for RSA next year.

Like, what can we do to build that up? So then you just do a whole program. And then in that case, you're not really spending as much money because you're doing a lot of the strategic work in September and October and November.

And so you already have your plan in place and it's rolling out wonderfully and you're building your brand and you're putting your message out there. So you can show up and then you'll get more kind of cons results out of it. You'll get more out of whatever survey you're putting out. You'll get more out of your analysts and press meetings. So those are the three kind of major buckets I put them in.

Kerry: It sounds like if you start planning now, there's actually more prep and buildup done to launch into RSA with almost brand visibility at that point versus hoping that RSA would be the brand visibility. Am I catching that?

Carmen: Yeah. Yeah. I would say so. But you know, companies have to do what feels right to them. I would really just encourage people to kind of think about those budgets. I mean, RSA is not going to get any cheaper.

The hotel rooms are ridiculously priced. I think that if you play especially in like with AI right now, and I think this is the golden age of PR as I keep saying, you know, you know, trying to train those LLM so that your brand is the answer to the questions that people are looking for. I just think that if you're focusing on columns that you're always going to win. And obviously I'm completely biased, but this works. I see all the time and I feel like the investments in communications are so important.

Kerry: Yeah. Got to get the message down. What's one startup message or pitch you've heard recently that sounds smart, but fails when you ask what's the ROI?

Carmen: When you say pitch, what exactly do you mean pitch?

Kerry: Or a tagline or like, you know, what's something you heard or or a LinkedIn post? What's something you heard recently and you were like, that sounds good, but I can't imagine it's delivering. Yeah.

Carmen: There's a couple of things that I've heard lately. And I'm kind of like, didn't we solve this problem like eight years ago? Like, and I can't think of any particular line that I've heard that, but I feel like I've been saying that a lot in the last couple months. And I will tell you the feeling that I get when I'm saying, oh, I thought this company already like went to market and sold on that already. I think a lot of times you're the comms or it's really not the comms. It's more the marketing is out ahead of actual work. Like there's a lot of this agentic AI agentic agentic like building a bot building an agent. This is not like a co pilot. It's like an actual worker B that's doing things agentically. I think that no one is actually working with an agentic, whatever it's called model. I don't know. No one's for real doing that, right? You might be using chat GPT and have it trained or whatever.

I guess I don't use chat GPT, but somebody might be using that. To me, the marketing is way ahead of where customers are actually looking for to solve that problem right now. I think that two years from now, having a genetic AI in your staff is probably going to be important for productivity and whatever type of security you're delivering to your customers. But, you know, people been talking about it since like last fall. They talked about it heavy RSA this year. I don't think it's a real thing.

Kerry: I don't think it's a real thing. I'm asking self driving cars.

Carmen: No, there's probably some companies out there that are trialing it and trying to figure out how it's going to work with the other like 50 tools they have in their security operations center at this point. But it's just like for as a communications person, I can see why reporters are are done with AI. They're so sick of the topic. Like I had an editor tell me I'm so overwhelmed with AI like enough with the AI. So I think, you know, sometimes the marketing gets ahead and as a communicator, I'm like, oh, I thought we fix this a couple years ago or why haven't we fixes already and it's because it's not fixed.

Kerry: It's not fixed. The marketing is ahead of the product of product capability. That's fascinating. I hear that people are trying the agentic thing, but I don't see a lot of it. I think there's a I think people there are some people who are ahead of the curve where they've done a good job of wiring systems up together based off of rules that help accelerate things. But that is not that's a workflow versus agentic and I do think we're closer here. And that is a real thing that can solve problems. But I agree with you that the agentic cannot work as well as workflows yet. Yeah. Yep.

Carmen: And then, you know, there's all the challenges of training them. Like how do you train them? How do you keep the data that your training on? I mean, I can only imagine what these developers are learning and finding out. I can't wait to hear about it, but I don't think we're there yet.

Kerry: We're all gonna be seeing it now. It's gonna be like when you buy that car and you didn't see that car anywhere and now all of a sudden you see that car everywhere. That's gonna happen. It's gonna be crazy. How do you help early stage companies avoid messaging that wins vanity points and focus them on what drives them?

Carmen: Oh, this is a good question. I think this is really going to really rely on the person because that's you have to educate a little bit in a situation like that. Look, I am a big fan of founders. I prefer to work for like founder led companies. And I will tell you why because I'm always in awe of the brilliance that they've sat in a room and they're like Oh my God, I got to fix this problem. And then they go fix it and they build the thing. I can't build the thing, but I'm just like, Oh my God, this is totally interesting, totally cool. So I always like to pick into that brain.

The thing about that is they know that world and I know my world, right? So how do you sit down and approach? Hey, what was the original problem you wanted to solve?

What do you why? And my favorite question, what's your unique right to win? Why do you think you should have a seat at the table?

And those rabbit holes, you can go down if you're asking smart, smart questions to kind of dig into their original why? I think that they will listen to you and trust you. I think that's all it is. I don't because at the end of the day, you're going to have to do with that founder wants you to do.

Kerry: Why do founders? Yeah, this happens all the time. Why do founders lose sight of their original why?

Carmen: Because they caught up in the customer requirements, they get caught up in what, you know, the investors and prospects and they just talk to people, you know, and they're like, Oh my God, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so me, I'm like, why did you originally come out with this? Like, I always ask for like, can I see your original investor deck?

Can you walk me through it? Because I always hear things that they might have forgotten that might be interesting, that might be able to quickly fill a gap in the industry discourse. And that's what I'm looking for. And they usually have it, they just don't know.

So you have to be able to pull it out. I don't usually get in, you know, shouting matches or anything with founders, they know what they're doing. They're they have the, like all the big brains, they got more brainpower than I do. But a lot of times if you can kind of build that trust to kind of figure out why we're here today in the first place and go down that rabbit hole with them a little bit, they will share the insights with you and you will always hear it. You'll hear it and you'll be able to do something with it.

Kerry: Why is that more impactful than following the investors and what other people think?

Carmen: I don't think it's more impactful. I just think it's different. Because I am watching the industry from I'm looking at your competitors, I'm looking at what the press are writing about, I'm talking to reporters in the illness all the time to figure out where they think the gaps are. And I can put package up that feedback and go back and say, Hey, last week, you told me that you think you're in this category, but I was talking to someone. So when they said this and that, and I was reading this and three years ago, I remember we talked about that, like, how do we, I can kind of help help them see what that they don't normally pay attention to, like the comms piece and what people are writing about, they might catch a few things, but I'm paying attention to everything. I'm reading every newsletter.

There are certain newsletters I don't miss, you know, just so I can stay informed and bring that advice back to the founders that I work with. I don't think what I would I have to say is better. It's just a different perspective. And they would trust me because I'm paying attention to that. Like that's 90% of what I bring to the table, you know, so recognition.

Kerry: Yeah, yeah. You've spoken about title inflation and marketing. What's the ROI risk when someone who doesn't understand comms owns the messaging?

Carmen: Oh, okay, I was going to say something, but I'm just going to skip over that. Um, so, okay, usually, um, a founder will get, you know, they'll have their, their co founder, you know, they'll have their CTO or, you know, lead engineer or whoever, they might, they may or may not have their lead seller, but they will have like a CMO. And usually the CMO is focused originally on, you know, drumming up demand, how they get demand, how they get demand going, how they get the lead gen piece going and CMOs who are not like formerly like PR agency, PR people like, like me grew up doing this. They have peripheral vision to my side of the PR world, right? They kind of know a little bit to be dangerous. They can talk the talk, but from strategy to execution is something different.

There's nothing wrong with that. I think that as if a CMO or marketing leader is putting together messaging, that, you know, they should definitely own that when you bring someone in like me, I'm going to say, oh, this messaging is good. It'll fit here. We should do that with this. And this is how execute the strategy to support that. But I don't think CMOs who kind of just did the CMO, did the marketing demand thing. They just don't have the full picture like someone like I would. I'm not trying to pitch myself. I'm just saying there's usually a gap there and you can see it show up when you, when they go out and hire their friendly PR agency, you know, a lot of people have PR agencies that they love and they go work with PR agencies that they've worked with in the past.

And the thing about hiring a PR agency early is that a lot of the stuff that a founder might think will help the PR agency doesn't get to the PR agency, right? It just doesn't get there. There's usually something lost in translation or we don't get it fast enough or we're just not answering the right question, not talking to the right person. And I think that there's a, there's always a gap there, unfortunately, and they'll see it when they go to their first RSA and no one's paying them any mind or they don't get the meetings that they think they should have gotten or they say, oh, my PR agency only got me two meetings. Sometimes the PR agency just sucks, but nine times out of 10, they don't.

So there's a gap there. And like I said, if you have like a lot of DCMOs, they know what they're doing, they're catching on, but I would always recommend having a communications person in the loop just to kind of help you. I talk to people and I'm saying, I tell them, oh, no, you don't need me.

You're not ready for me yet. And I tell them what, why and what they need to do. And I'm like, let's talk in a couple months or something like that. Not saying that you need to hire a PR agency on day one, but the comms aspect is unique. I would not throw that on a marketing leader.

Kerry: The way that you describe it feels like a lot because you have a unique, you talked about this and I'm doubling down on it. You have this unique position of the fact that you have an ear to the ground, not just for what the founder did and why they started the company and where they are today and not just with competitors, but with the market and the PR piece of really paying attention to the new side of it that just takes time. It's just and the social media piece, right? And the listening piece. Social listening is half the battle.

Very true. Yep. Yeah. So I feel like, yes, you're in that unique position to really put all those pieces together to be able to tell a more holistic story around where they should be fitting in the market and how they should be telling their story to stand out. That makes a lot of sense to me.

Carmen: I think the more that as these companies start coming out of stuff, particularly being in cyber security, I think an analyst told me a while ago that he was like, Carmen, there's probably like 200 companies in stealth right now.

And I'm like, you're probably right. I mean, that sounds like a lot of companies. And with that many companies in stealth, you have got to get a message crafter early in the process. You cannot wait until you think you're ready to launch your products or you think that you're ready to ship a couple beta. But just don't wait. This is not 2018, 2020, 2021.

It's not even 2023. The PR game is so different. You have to have budget and the budget's going to be bigger than you think it should be because it's the game has changed. You also need to consider working with some influencers and bringing them into the game, which is going to cost money as well. But I would recommend not waiting to hire an agency when you start to decide, oh, I need to feed the LLM.

The customers, I was saying last year, and I still believe this right now, that the customers have to be the center of your program. And I had said, I'm abandoning funnel logic. Because I think that you have to just meet people where they are.

And if some people are across the street or some people are next door, you have to just go where people are, you can't push them down your funnel. That just is not really a thing. I think that's fading quickly. So if you are able to invest in communications, not necessarily PR early on, it will benefit you in nine months. It just takes time.

Kerry: In terms of feeding the LLMs, and I think you're alluding to it, but just give it to a straight, what does that mean?

Carmen: So that means when you pick up your phone, and I have a Samsung, so my stuff is default to Google, and you'll say, what did I ask it yesterday? Oh, because I'm wallpapering in my house.

So I said, how do I fix my wallpaper overlap? And it just takes me to a page. And those AI answers that you get are feeding the LLM. I bet if someone asks theirs, how do I make a perfect egg? It'll get you to Gordon Ramsay or whoever has that moment in a video that says, hey, this is how you make a perfect egg. So you want to be the answer to the question. If you're not the first, second or third answer, you want to be one of the answers. I do scroll down the page looking for answers.

But you want to be that answer. I asked the LLMs that I have access to the paid ones that I have access to a question about threat research that was released at Black Hat over the last two years. And it pulled up a bunch of different brands you're familiar with, some that I know released research that were not there. And it's because the uniqueness of the research that was released, there was one brand that I had never heard of, never seen their logo, never heard their name. But all three LLMs agreed that they released that I checked, agreed that this company released research at Black Hat in the last two years.

And you want to know why? Because they did a specific survey on email security. There's probably a couple companies doing emails like a ton of companies when we're getting to email security, right? This one that I've never heard of, never, never seen a logo. I'm like, who is this? They are doing something right because they fit the LLMs something specific in a survey around email security and they released it at Black Hat.

Kerry: Yeah, proprietary data, right? Like having your voice and saying something different.

Carmen: That kind of stuff is so important. And that takes time to build. I mean, these LLMs are getting trained on stuff that's been out there for a while. So you have to be out there, especially for a young company.

Kerry: We've all seen companies throw money at awareness. What does a messaging strategy with ROI in mind actually look like today? You mentioned that the game has changed. This isn't even 2023 anymore. So what does a messaging strategy with ROI in mind actually look like today?

Carmen: First of all, understanding your communication objectives and being very clear about them. I like to deal with three or four, no more than that, maybe five. I think a messaging strategy that delivers ROI has to be certainly connected to your customer, your sales, and marketing. I'll need to see the table to help build it. And to test it. I think that especially in cyber, you need to be talking to who you believe your ICP is to develop your messaging.

I would say go through a couple rounds. There's, you know, Danny Wolfe and her team do that very well. They do like a message. They have a whole message testing thing that they do. So I would advise doing the message testing. And then once you're clear on your messaging, I like to do deep, deep interviews.

Like I said, the unique right to win. I only do six questions, just like the best six I can come up with. And then I will start and then I will compare it to what's already out there. And when you can figure out the white space and fill yourself in, that's how I build messaging around ROI. And that ROI looks like your share of voice, young companies don't need to track share of voice, but I'm just throwing out that out there because it's a metric a lot of people want.

Yeah. Your share of voice is your website visits are up because people are starting to see your name pop up in articles where your ICP is reading. You know, you could build if you need to a rapid response program around that. And if you know your three or four core objectives and then your messaging feeds those objectives, you're going to get ROI, especially if you can do that good comparison of what you're saying, what you think your customers need and the white space in the market. That's really it. But it's just not something you can build in three months.

Kerry: How long in your experience does it take to do it well and do it right?

Carmen: So I always used to tell people a year, but then I cracked a code and I did it in six months at one place. So I think I figured out something else. So yeah, I think you could probably do it in six months. I just would not don't wait until December to start to start talking about this. Actually, a lot of sales leaders at some of the mid-size or bigger companies, they'll start working on their messaging for their sales kickoff meetings early. And that messaging should also align with the messaging they're taking to market.

Kerry: So the best spotter for this stuff because they are so close to the customer.

Carmen: That's right. Those customer success people, the sales teams, they know, they know. You know, it's one reason why I'm miss working in the office. Because I used to get all my best stuff from the sales guys. They'd be like, I'm like, oh my God, I never would have known that. And then you use it and it works.

Kerry: Yes. The best story.

Carmen: It's just the best story. I run taxing often, but I, that really the sales people always know. And sometimes you can only ear hustle while you're getting a coffee in the office.

Kerry: It's true. I do, I, we've been remote since 2011, but there are times where I do miss, especially after COVID and we were also isolated for so long. There is something super special about that office time. It's so disruptive most of the time. Nothing like being heads down on something and someone coming by your desk. So frustrating. I don't miss those days, but I do miss, I do miss the coffee chats and the going for walks and those.

Carmen: Yeah, me too. I mean, my, when I worked at a fireman, the, we had like kind of cute posts and we moved into this new space in Dallas and I would hear the phone or we'd be in the kitchen and I'm like, what are you talking about? And the sales, the insight from sales that they would share with me would keep the program lights one because, you know, there's not always a product to launch. There's not always something new, but there might be something that you can refresh and the sales guys know it. So, Oh my gosh.

Kerry: Shout out to the sales team for sure. Last question for you. We talked about this a in terms of AI. How are the best comms teams using AI to improve ROI, not just automate noise?

Carmen: That is such a good question. And I will take this time to say, please stop using chat GPT to write quotes for your press releases and to share with reporters. I'm not going to say everyone can tell it's chat GPT because I think you've heard enough of that, but just less, less abandon that practice before it becomes like really bad. Okay. I use Claude is my main partner and I call him my intern. Look at me talking about him like he's real. I use Claude. I use him as my intern. So I've been training him. I, you know, since I've been on my own, I've been just trialing a lot of different AI tools to see kind of how I can improve to just be more productive faster, usually just faster, get more done in the day. And I use Claude for helping me to walk through and sort out my ideas.

I have a strategic approach that I use and I have different approaches that I apply in different situations that I already know work. And I use Claude to help refine them. I do not use Claude to do quotes or anything like that.

I mean, I've been doing this a long time. I can write a quote, but I think that training a tool like Claude on just feeding it the insights that you have, any ideas that you have, it can get smarter on your voice and how you think and how you talk. So I use Claude as my main, my intern. I like, I'll stand up a template and put it in there and I'll ask him to say, here's all this stuff, my emails, my stuff, my agendas, make a monthly report for me.

It's never perfect. So it's just, just to help you get a little bit ahead and stuff you would probably get to within your team member. So that's how I use Claude. I also use Leaps. Leaps is a really cool tool I was introduced to, I think from LinkedIn a couple months ago. And Leaps is like a content insights tool. So I use this when I'm ready to interview my customers. It can, you can tell it what you need and it can make up questions for you.

Of course, I'm old school and they got my own questions. So, but it just kind of organizes insights and I send it to my SMEs and they can type in their answers or report their answers and then it'll like give you social posts. It'll give you an outline, kind of like the same thing that Gemini and whatever these other tools are. Now, but it really gets it organized for you and then you have a repository. So it's another tool that's learning what you're putting in there from your individual SME insights and that helps me build out, you know, my thought leadership pillars, things like that. I think Leaps, Claude, I do have a paid subscription to Perplexity just, you know, for research, helps point me in the right direction. I think those are the main three that I'm using. Yeah.

Kerry: I mean, I've heard of Claude. I know of like, I can count how many people who've mentioned it to me on one hand. So good on you for, I've heard Claude is really great for big brain thinking. So pretty cool. That makes a lot of sense for why you're using it in that regard. I love that. I need your intern. Do you have a name or do you just call Claude? Do you just use Claude?

Carmen: It's Anthropics' tool and it's called Claude. So you haven't renamed it for your intern. I could name him something else, but now I'm already called, like I talk about him like he's here, like, so no, he can stay. I just wish he had a voice that I could pick a voice.

Kerry: All right. Like they do with Alexa and things where you can change the name. Yeah. You have Alexa's new voice.

Carmen: She's got a new voice. She just has a new voice. Yeah. Yeah. So she and like my son talks her about Fortnite and I'm like, what is she talking about? She knows that. Apparently. Apparently.

Kerry: Carmen, I could literally talk to you all day. I absolutely love this. Thank you so much for joining me. Where can people find you?

Carmen: Well, I'm always on LinkedIn, Carmen Angel Ayers, you can find me there. And I'm probably sure a lot of your listeners that that's how kind of we got connected are in the cybersecurity marketing side, which is a great place to be. It's a Slack community.

I don't know how big it is now, but it's huge. So, you know, we always are sharing insights in that group as well. Oh, one thing since you brought up AI, I would love it if anybody else is interested in reaching out and like talking about AI tools and comms and, you know, traveling different things. I would love to hear from you. I'm kind of having an idea back in my mind about doing like a little AI working group for communicators, just, you know, figuring out tools and figuring out, you know, just ways to be more productive, see what's garbage, what's not that kind of thing. So, I'm super interested in that. Awesome.

Kerry: We'll connect with you on LinkedIn. And if you're in Cyber Marketing Con, hit up Carmen. I have a few people I'm going to send your way who are trying to figure out the exact same thing. So stay tuned on that, Carmen.

Carmen: I talked to you recently, and he's doing the same thing. So I'd love to. Nice.

Kerry: Let's order where we're all trying to figure it out together, versus feeling like we have some secret sauce that we don't want to share with people. It's just so great. No gatekeeping. That's right. That's right. Last question for you, Carmen, because it's important to me. Joy, what outside of being a comms person is currently bringing you joy?

Carmen: Well, well, the fact that my Eagles won the Super Bowl this year has constantly given me joy, and it's having me extend all kinds of grace. Okay. That brings me a lot of joy, but also, I hate to say it, but velvet taco. You don't understand. You don't understand how good these tacos are. And they just put a velvet taco of the street from my house. I no longer have to drive 14 minutes away. I could just go to the street. It's 11 o'clock. It's just like Velvet Taco.

Kerry: They're what in Austin? You're going to take me in Austin. It's our marketing concept.

Carmen: There is one.

Kerry: When I worked at Sumo Logic, our office is right across the street from us. You're taking me over to get some tacos. And when I come out in December, that is happening. Pretty here, folks. Whoever wants to join us, we're going on a taco walk. We look forward to seeing you there. Velvet taco. Let's do it. Awesome. Carmen, I'm so grateful to this episode. Thank you for joining me. Thank you to the people who joined us in the chat and the comments.

Bronwyn Hudson, I appreciate you. If you liked this episode and this conversation, I've got a few more for you folks from metrics to meaning, how our pine builds revenue-driven marketing for ThreatConnect, features a deep dive into line and comms with pipeline and trying to measure and tie messaging to measurable impact. I also have the fearless marketer, Stephanie Cox, who shared why confidence is a demand gen superpower, a bold conversation on leading with guts, not just data. We will drop those in the comments so you can keep on listening. Thank you again, Carmen, for spilling all of your marketing secrets. I'm Kerry, and this is Tea Time with Tech Marketing Leaders, powered by MKG Marketing, where we manage the details of your captured market. See you all next time.