How Marketing Can Contribute To Achieving Business Goals

Overview

Welcome to "Tea Time with Tech Marketing Leaders," where we explore tech marketing with industry experts.

In this episode, host Kerry Guard chats with Nadia Milani, VP of Marketing at Wellness Living, about achieving business goals through multiple go-to-market (GTM) strategies. Nadia shares her insights on selecting and layering GTM motions, such as product-led growth, sales-led, inbound, and community-led approaches. She emphasizes the importance of foundational work in segmentation, targeting, and positioning, as well as measuring leading indicators to ensure success.

Transcript

Kerry Guard 00:01

Hello, I'm Kerry Guard, and Welcome to Tea tie with tech marketing leaders. I am so grateful to you all for your patience, endless, endless patience. I have rescheduled this so many times, but we are here it is happening. We are live. And we are with Nadia Milani finally, and it's going to be a wonderful, wonderful show. If you are here with us the beauty of being live is we get comments and we get to interact with each other. And we are looking forward to your questions. So if you're here say hello, we'd love to see you whether you're on LinkedIn or YouTube chime on in today I have with me, Nadia Milani. We are going to talk about multiple go-to-market motions. I had to say that slowly so that I got it. And I did. Oh, we got some fireworks from Nadia.

Nadia Milani 00:54

Yeah, how I did that. But I love it. I'm all for it. Right.

Kerry Guard 00:57

I love all of the all of the motions. Yes, you could use

Nadia Milani 01:01

your emotions get oh, oh, got the balloons, right, the balloons,

Kerry Guard 01:05

we got the balloons there we do. Um, the double thumbs up and the double all the things we throw those in sporadically. So just wait for them. I am excited to have this conversation with me, as mentioned Nadia Milani. She is the marketing leader you hire when looking for a next-level change. She's a bit of a pirate who enjoys sailing the ship in the stormy seas on pasture less traveled. She doesn't follow playbooks because she creates them. She's learned that each company has to forge its own path to success. She's the marketer that helps you get there. People say go to Mark GTM is this and that, but really, it's about getting the money. Show me the money, Nadia, she builds teams that understand how to generate revenue, and who will restore your faith and marketing. Dear God, yes to that. Nadia, welcome to the show.

Nadia Milani 02:03

Thanks for having me, you reading my LinkedIn bio just reminds me that I might need to update it, but there's parts of it still enjoy. But I remember I did a webinar just recently in somebody. But it was like a CFO, thing. VC, VCs were on it. And it was all about like how to budget for 2024. And there weren't that bio. And it was like, oh, man, like, I need to update it. Get you get, oh, I

Kerry Guard 02:27

Oh, I felt by being maybe updated per audience. But for our audience, this is spot freaking on. I mean, especially like, I sort of wanted to say slowly that GTM most like, go to market or getting the money. Like

Nadia Milani 02:44

it really is. Yeah, like I mean, that's that's what it's all about. I know sounds like that's where when you're working for someone or you're being beaten by yourself, or you're working in an organization, it's as much as we think it's about something else. At the end of the day, it is really about getting the money. And the way you're gonna do it is figuring out which market strategy is going to work. And yes, so I think I'm excited to talk about all of that today. And thanks for the intro. So happy to be here.

Kerry Guard 03:09

So thank you.

Nadia Milani 03:15

By the way, I haven't been on a live for a while I was thumb and my coming in and out. Did you lose?

Kerry Guard 03:22

No, you're good. You're good. I was just adjusting. I was just adjusting the mic elements. I was hearing some things. So forgive me. We're live right now. And I want to make sure that Nadia is coming in loud and clear. So I was just you know, kicking off some buttons.

Nadia Milani 03:38

Video got lost for a little bit there. So I was a little worried that maybe we there was something wrong with me on my end. But no, I'm happy. I'm back. I'm happy everyone can hear me. But I used to host a live and it's been it's actually it's the street is hosted by Stream Yard. And I haven't been in a stream yard for a while. So it's good to be back. For some reason. I can't see the chat. So people are asking questions, if you just want to let me know. And I can answer them through.

Kerry Guard 04:01

I got the comments. Yeah, I got the comments up. I haven't seen anybody yet. But we're waiting for you. So chime on in. Now, yeah, I gave a brief synopsis of what it is you love to do, but it's all about the journey. So share it with us. What do you do and how did you get there?

Nadia Milani 04:16

Yeah, so I'm, I'm a VP of marketing. Currently, I'm at Wellness Living, I'm at Wellness Living and it's what is wellness, living, where wellness, we're wellness tech, in the wellness tech category, but we're a studio management software. So things like yoga, fitness, pilates, we even do like martial arts. So we allow studios to operate. So that was that for me. One of the biggest reasons I made the leap to wellness Tech was the mission. It's really about bringing wellness to communities and that was like for me who somebody who loves yoga who loves fitness and really that's been something that has been life-changing not only for me personally but professionally I just was all for it. But career marketer had been in marketing for my whole career studied it. So it's kind of funny because some people will say that they get into marketing just because they stumbled into it. They're just like, oh, you know, I was something completely else or something else completely. Or I was in sales or, you know, I was I was waitressing. I stumbled upon it, or I started doing events. And but no, I'm somebody who always wanted to get into marketing. So always, there's something that is really interesting to me about connecting people in businesses. And, you know, I just thought there's something there that I enjoyed the the creative design, the brand new part, started in more of the media side. So the media side of the business, which was actually a really great way to start, because it's really interesting content played a part in engaging audience and how to create really great content. They did that for a long time, then went into more of a smaller-scale content company. Love that because it was bought more startup. And that was kind of like, Oh, I love this. There's something about this, that I love to help launch like the International Division of that company, and then went into EECOM, cloud, and then Sass, so no scaling to Sass ever since. Partly because I do love just the pace of sass, but also just how it operates. And there's no book b2b That I just I just love because I've stayed I've seen in b2b size ever since. And here I am today.

Kerry Guard 06:32

So it's a fast pace that you love about it. And it keeps you on your like,

Nadia Milani 06:36

it keeps me on my toes, it keeps me on my toes, it gets stretched, there's never a dull moment. It's like so I'm the one thing that I can't I can't do maybe this is more of a personal thing. But anything that I'm a builder, so I really enjoy coming into your company and being able to build either a team or strategy or GTM motion, something that we need to do as a company. That's that's net new, and we're building it and says tech is just there. I mean, you know, we had a couple of tough years. And I think we're still receiving some patchy some headwinds there. But you know, I think we're slowly coming out of that. But yeah, there's just something about the just being the fast-paced pieces of it all, you know, being able to be agile, pivoting, and there's parts there's, it's not for everyone, some people will, you know, this is the this is somebody's nightmare. Sometimes, being able to be pivoting all the time not doing the same thing. Dealing with a lot of ambiguity is like not everyone's cup of tea. But you know, for me, for me it is

Kerry Guard 07:41

I does take a certain person. I mean, it's caught. I mean, the startup world is constantly pivoting one day, this is a priority. And then the next day, I just happen to me, I have a lovely client who's a startup, it is the funnest job, the most the product they're working on is so exhilarating. Like I just on the edge of my seat of my time. But literally every week I come in, he's like, okay, new priority. Like I've shifted things around, I want to lean into this new thing. And it's, it's a whirlwind. But it is absolutely like what gets me up in the morning. I'm like, I'm here for it. Let's go like

Nadia Milani 08:15

Yeah, and it's really about like not, you don't have to figure it out. So it's really about trying to figure it out. How do we grow? How do we scale? How do we understand our customers? How do we build this product that is, you know, that our customers or segment needs, and I just think there's super challenging about that, that I really, really enjoy?

Kerry Guard 08:36

That product market fit for sure. Especially in an ever-growing category, where it gets really crowded very quickly, and trying to make sure that you're meeting your clients where they are. It's the joy.

Nadia Milani 08:49

The joy and the challenge will give you the absolute Yeah, pain and pain in the butt sometimes, but it's usually it's usually usually enjoy.

Kerry Guard 08:55

When you're up for a challenge, let's talk about challenges. What's it you know, you just started this new job. You've been in it for months-ish.

Nadia Milani 09:05

Yeah. So I just finished my 90 days. Yeah, so it's, so it's like, The Blues Blues. That splits? Yes, that

Kerry Guard 09:13

Fireworks. All the things started, yes, the fireworks have started. So you're either you're 90 days, you're on to the next thing. So within the next. I don't know how you measure whether you measure in 90 days segments, or you're like, Okay, I'm out of my 90 days, and now it's about the next, you know, nine months. But you know, what's the current challenge for you? With the current startup, you're in with the current, you know, headwinds you're facing? Yeah.

Nadia Milani 09:39

I mean, for me, it's so that 90 days is exhilarating, but challenging all at the same time. I think for for your first 30 60 90 days, I think a lot of it has to do with understanding the business and the role before you actually accept it. You're gonna have to understand like, what are the business problems? What's the market with the team dynamic Who's my executive team? Like, what's who's like, who's the board? What's the product? And what stage is the company at? And can you have the necessary skills to bring, bring, you know, the performance required to bring the company to the next level? So understanding, you know, the unit economics of the business, all that stuff is really, I think, important interview stage. So you're not, you're not really surprised the first 3060 90, but also that you can build a plan that's going to that's going to work, I think, I think the challenge is that your 3060 90 day plan will never be as what you thought it was gonna be. So yeah, it's built on a bunch of assumptions. And until you get into the weeds, you're not going to really know if that's, that's the direction that you need to or want to go into a more reverse like you want to go into or need to go into. So I think that is a part of the challenge is like being able to understand the business lead, and like learning all at the same time. And I think what, what I think what makes those first 90 days successful is understanding like, where are the wins that you can implement early, like, super early, and the wins that make the most impact are the ones that are aligned with the business and the strategy. So it's, you know, is it like, you know, more MQL is more inbound opportunities, is it, you know, a process thing where, you know, you have to like, depending on bigger companies, if you're super startup precede like maybe processes in a big one, maybe it's marketing ops and data. So that was the first thing I realized, in my 30 60 90 days is like, Okay, we really need to figure out our data, like, we're at the 25 million ARR mark. So it's like, we're not like babies anymore. Like we're older. So we got to figure out like, what is there all over our data? How does it all work together? It's like, it's the crummy work. Some people love it. But it's, it's most the most, for me, it was the biggest priority. So you know, hired a marketing ops person, right away. The first I think, 30 days ago, I'm like, Okay, we need some, I think two weeks, and I'm like, I needed a marketing ops person that we hired them. They started, like my preceptor my 30 days, for going into the next like nine months, after you kind of approach that 90 days, it's really good delivery mode. So you kind of like you understand what's going on. You've you know, for me, I had to like put together a whole year forecast budget, so I had to figure out, Okay, where were where are we going to grow? How are we going to do it? What are the resources that we need? What are some of the technology, some tech that we need to do it, and then it's really delivering on that? So it's still it's delivering on that. And then it's managing down and managing up. And, for me, the biggest challenge has been, has been like doing kind of all of that all at the same time. And being there equally as much for my team as I need to be for as I need to be there for my executive team and the board. And, yes, the board is important. And yes, the executive team is important, but like your team is really important too. And it's being able to like manage that time, like everyone will, and also not burnout at the same time. So for me, it's really about managing the time communicating making every minute count that you're that you're that you're working, he's heavy working around the clock, right? So you have to like be able to I know it's like a qualitative thing, but it's something that's so important to the success is managing how am I going to manage my day? How am I going to how am I going to manage my week? So I that everybody that needs me, my team, my board, my executive team, they, have what they need, and they understand what's what's going on. I approach it by quarter by quarter. So right now I'm, we're, you know, I looked at q1 plan to in q4. Now I'm we're in q1, I'm planning for q2, yes. I kind of know what I want to accomplish for the year. But it kind of like I plan a quarter by quarter.

Kerry Guard 13:57

There's so much I want to unpack there. I know. I know. I went on No, no, it's good. It's good. Because I feel like when you walk into a startup, well, you walk into any company net new. So wait, so you're at 25 million arr. How big is your team that you're managing? My

Nadia Milani 14:15

my team right now is so we we grew pretty quickly. So we have a team of heard a lot of people not what is the actual number? There's about like 16 of us right now. So yeah, so we were like a four-person marketing team a year and a half ago. So that like really grew pretty quickly. The way the way it works. We have a creative team. So I have like three people there plus some freelancers and then that's it. And then I have the demand gen team so that's a mix of demand gen specialist content but I Manager events, field events, and then I have a PMM product marketing manager as well as the marketing ops person And then between all of that it's like 18 or so.

Kerry Guard 15:03

That's a Yeah, that's an amazing team. of people to manage.

Nadia Milani 15:09

Yeah, it's so that's, that's the thing. Yeah. So you have to like be able to figure out how am I going to like work my week out. So everyone, we're communicating enough when it was going on, and we're moving things forward.

Kerry Guard 15:21

And I think in those first 90 days, something you said that I sort of want to double down on is the learning aspect of it when you have that many people who've been here a bit longer than you. How do you take the how do you balance the board and the C suite and your team in a way of giving yourself space and grace? To really listen to your team while also managing the board and C-suite expectations?

Nadia Milani 15:52

Yeah, it's really big challenge. It's a big, big challenge. I wish I had somebody from my team to let me know how I'm doing there to join the call. But yeah, I know, I think so. That's, that's the biggest difference. So as a report into, like the board and what you're executive, I think that sometimes it's, it's easy to just not be as good as like, you know, it's like, almost like, I've seen this happen where some VPS will, like, they're almost more connected to like the board needs versus sometimes your team. But I think too, that we're small enough where you, I have to be able to be connected to the team and understand what's happening in the weeds. And how I do that is, is being really clear about what we're trying to achieve. Like this is the target this is how it affects everyone, we have an OPR system of how we develop our objectives and key results. And we have people who are owning each, you know, objective and key results on the team. So we're so all of that ladders up to like the corporate goals. So we kind of understand like, I mean, corporate goals, but I mean, the company goals. So I think that that's one way we kind of link everything together, but I'm actually very much boots on the ground. Like I probably have more meetings than anyone else. Bad I don't know.

Kerry Guard 17:08

But I mean, that's really what it's about when you're in that position? It's a less about the doing and more about the understanding enemy. I mean, yes to

Nadia Milani 17:17

I'm doing a lot still though I'm doing meetings, and observing a lot. So, like in terms of I still like, you know, help, right, you know, potentially write some stuff or anything. Yeah, like sometimes I'm you know, ideally with the team like helping with like content ideas, like I'm still doing all that stuff, and maybe I shouldn't for any other VPS that are listening to this. Yeah, me if you're like, What are you doing with your life? But I don't know like, for me, there's also the fun of marketing. I just love I love marketing. I just love it. So it for me, there's a part of it where I need to be in the weeds because it just makes me happy.

Kerry Guard 17:52

You got to fill your cup. Yes, yeah. Yeah. Like Love Cup? Yes, you do. It gives you energy to then walk into the things that stuck here and you gotta it's a balancing act of the ebb and flow. There are things in everybody's job that we don't all love. And we got to do it. And the more

Nadia Milani 18:10

Yeah, the more I'm living in the spreadsheets like give me I have to do that is a part of my, ah, oh, I'm gonna get away from the spreadsheet. But then you know, then that's what I did I fill my marketing love copy, and then I'm okay.

Kerry Guard 18:24

Yes, yes, I'm below the opposite. I love the spreadsheets. I love the spreadsheets, it gives me the data and the information to be able to make decisions and it gives me the information I need. And then I go off to a really thoughtful conversations and then I look at a giant wall of words. So like I don't know what to do with this.

Nadia Milani 18:41

I love the data I love the dash over love love going into like, you know, my god dashboard and stuff like that and understanding what's happening. There's Yeah, the thing is, is like an over-indexing of just doing that all day I do this, like, that's her main part and like all the other creative stuff that also comes with the marketing stuff. So I feel like it has to be balanced for sure. But

Kerry Guard 19:01

I also think that's the beauty of marketing is we all have different loves of it. Like I love the numbers and some people really love the words and there's and there's so much you can do with both of those things in a multitude of ways. And it's you know, if you get into marketing it doesn't mean that you're going to be doing just one aspect of it. There are so many so magical I love it. Let's talk about whatever is on their edge of their seats are for is this idea of multiple go-to-market motions. So before we get into the how the why and the next and crannies of all of the things. Let's define this for folks because it means different things to different people. So go to market, aka get the money, show me the money. What does that define that for us? Not in terms of what go to market means now for me it means

Nadia Milani 19:56

like how are you gonna go to market like how are you selling To market who you're selling to. So I think and I've heard a few other alternate definitions, but it really is to me like how you're gonna get the money, like, how are you gonna go out there and sell your products? And what is that market? So I think like what I've noticed earlier on in my career, this is again, like, just me serving this is that people or companies, or I got the assumption that it was, you know, we're just gonna go after this one go to market strategy, we're just going to be PLG product like gross go to market. And that's what we're going to do. And we're going to grow and sell based on like our product, and like leveraging the features and selling in product and like, you know, push notifications to, to certain segments and stuff like that. And as I started to work in an organization seat at the more senior level, it's really about layering. I think, go to markets that that work for, for your particular company. So, you know, basically your product and stuff like that. So I think, I think it's about layering that but also the other thing as an end, where I think sometimes companies will either succeed or fail, is developing a strategy for each of those motions, like, you know, if you want to, you know, be your product lead, and then you layer on a sales lead motion, for example. How are we gonna support those two motions? Like I think being very, you have to understand like, what's the budget, the resources? How is the team? How are we operationalizing these to go to markets, because you can, you can easily say, we're going to do these to go to markets. But if you don't really have a plan strategy budget around it, it most likely will fail. So

Kerry Guard 21:40

let's talk about the different types of motions you mentioned to them. You mentioned PLG, product, lead growth, and sales. Before we define all these different ones, what other ones sort of come to mind for you that are the Go twos?

Nadia Milani 21:55

Yeah, I think I, again, there's different thoughts on some of this. But what comes to mind for me, is like inbound lead, outbound lead motions, product, lead, sales, lead event lead, even community lead.

Kerry Guard 22:11

That's totally a thing. It's coming. Yeah, yeah, community lead. And

Nadia Milani 22:15

I've even heard, this is actually I had attended a GTM partners event A while ago. And I remember them saying, saying, Raj raise the they have a GTM partner, data team, and a consulting team. And they also even mentioned, like ecosystem lead. So it's really about your integration partners. Eventually, it also channel lead is another one. So I mean, there's a whole bunch of things, or motions that you can, you can either I mean, there's one but the thing is, is like usually one motion will plateau tap out as at one point. And then you got to figure out okay, well, what else can we do to reach, you know, a different market and or the same market, but in a different way?

Kerry Guard 23:05

And I think that's what's happening right now is for all the companies that went sales lead, or all the companies that leaned into their marketing teams, and then overhired because they had momentum and then plateaued and then how to do these massive layoffs. I think that's a really great example, a terrifying and sad example. But reality of why. Maybe not leaning into one TTM motion makes sense. Yeah,

Nadia Milani 23:33

I mean, things like the layoffs, like we'll definitely a mix of like some, like complex factors, like economy, and, you know, also like VC funding, just completely drying up. But I think that you're right, like, there's like a, there's a GTM component of that, too, is like maybe there was just, we're banking on one thing too much. And then like when things weren't going as well, and we'd have that, you know, companies didn't have anything to fall back on or didn't couldn't, couldn't get the other motion up and up and going quick enough. Yeah, was the gap on any new revenue?

Kerry Guard 24:03

So we have all of these possibilities in terms of how we go to market. And I agree, I don't think you can depend on one anymore, because I think a couple of things have changed. One is the VC market, to just how the market is in general, in terms of are we going into recession. Are we not going into a recession? Who knows but hang on to your hats?

Nadia Milani 24:31

Yeah, hopefully, we're seeing the tank. We're

Kerry Guard 24:34

okay. But yeah, some

Nadia Milani 24:36

people are saying some get worse before it gets better. Some people are saying it's getting better because we've now seen the worst. So I

Kerry Guard 24:43

know it's a crapshoot right now, and that's fine. I think the other I think there is a I think it's also the audience, the audience has changed, where you know, you're gonna pick up the phone as a salesperson and make a cold call. And if you're still doing things that we should talk. Because the audience doesn't want

Nadia Milani 25:06

To listen on the call, there'll be like a dial all day long. And that's fine. That's

Kerry Guard 25:10

yeah. And that's really hard because the audience doesn't, doesn't want it. They don't want to, they want to make the decision. They want to do their own research, they want to be in power to make that decision of when they're willing to get on the phone with sales. It's not up to sales anymore. And so all these factors weigh into nothing, get rid of your sales team. It's just time in place, which lends itself beautifully to multiple, go-to-market strategies. Let's let's focus on the idea of one just to get started. Because this is like the biggest elephant in the face of the planet that we have to sort of pull apart here. That was a terrible

Nadia Milani 25:47

I'm gonna give you my humble, humble ideas. But yeah, I don't have all the answers, but I can just give my ideas based on my experience.

Kerry Guard 25:55

Absolutely. That's what we're here for. Everybody has a different approach based on their experience, and we're here to share it, that's what it's all about. So let's talk about the approach to getting started with just even knowing where to go. So how, how do you know which GTM motions to even lean into and where to begin?

Nadia Milani 26:13

I think it was because of like the stage that you're currently at. And usually, there's gonna be one motion that's going to work for the stage that you're you're currently at so you typically early stage companies precede or you're gonna have been, I don't know, if there's really an official GTI when you're early stage, you're kind of just, you're just trying to like, the product, yeah, you're probably going to, you know, is founder-led usually, so the founder is going to sell as well as help with like other you know, other areas of the business like product. So there's really like you're kind of just figuring things out. So I think that at the beginning you may not really have as you can motion until like you're getting you know, certain like almost like product, product market fit and you can kind of figure out maybe and maybe that's you know, you want to debate that too, but I think that early on, it's hard to tell until you start to see some some traction around what's happening with your business. So typically sales lead is is is a big one early on, or its product lead so you're launching the product you're it's all about getting you know, if you're plg then it's all about getting users and more users into the products you're probably going to have like a free version of your product just to get people in there and then once you find like the adoption then from there you can start charging for it and then you that's that's probably the product lead motion some people will have like inbound so sometimes we'll have inbound and and sales lead at the same time so you'll have like you know, your website and then your product and you're generating and it's a really strong SEO strategy to get people to discover your product which will then convert to hopefully a demo or a trial but you're also layering and sales one person or two people Sales Team early on to also like generate some some you know outbound and cold and cold outreach so it's it's really depends on Yeah, it depends on the company it depends on what the goals are it depends on like the product so it's really like a strategic decision of where what you want to do and how you want to do it but with with the realization of the goal of like we need to get the money somehow so how are we how are we and then as you're kind of building momentum on like one one sheets like one go to markets, let's just say it's plg plg I mean a lot of debate here and then there's I mean, there's a lot of debate even on LinkedIn is plg doesn't even work who knows I mean, there are some like gold standard examples out there of like plg companies, you know, being could be appealed GE until IPO but there's you know, there's not there's like many, many of those examples. But even if you're PLG you're probably gonna plateau at some point like Slack is a perfect example I PLG from the start later in the sales team had like 100 100 sales reps at one point don't quote me on that I know they had like oh

Kerry Guard 29:02

no, they had a lot Yep. Zoom was the same way total sales lead.

Nadia Milani 29:06

Yeah, so like you know that that's the thing at some point it's usually it's usually gonna plateau I've heard a lot from like just conversations I've had with founders, and like you know, other GTN people out there is usually that anything that you're doing plateaus typically the 10 million ARR mark so you're gonna be like doing stuff and then there's growth sometimes you'll see hockey stick growth and then all of a sudden you reach 10 million ARR and it's kinda like me like for like a year and that's when you realize like holy crap like I mean not even New Year's and some teams will not even allowed to go for a whole year but then what you got to figure out okay, how what else can we do usually layering on a sales lead or community lead like sometimes it'll be you know, how do we build community Apollo's doing this like, really well with their community? So I mean, it seems like they're doing really well and I'm not I don't work at Apollo, but they're going they're going strong with community. You know, a lot of us Oh, it's new-ish. Yeah, it's new-ish. And it's an award by the web team.

Kerry Guard 30:06

Well community itself isn't new, but people leaning into it for growth feels new. Right?

Nadia Milani 30:12

And I don't I can't think of anyone else right now that's doing an amazingly well, Apollo comes to mind. I mean, there's, I don't know, there are other brands that are doing it, especially in the b2b Tex tech

Kerry Guard 30:24

Spots always had one. And gusto I think is having, like they're all Asana is another one that's sort of leaning into a community of like, how to use or you know, how to project manager how to product manage really well. Yeah, I think everybody's sort of trying to figure out this community thing. I think it's because we're all searching for connection. And so how can we bring people together who have similar ideas and challenges that we can all work on these problems, collectively, and then having this tool power behind the scenes is

Nadia Milani 31:00

Marketo amazingly well, like I remember Marketo back in the days before it was purchased by Adobe, like they, it was all about marketing automation specialists. And I was a part of that community. And it made me want to use the platform more I, you know, wanted to go to all the conferences, like just wanted to speak and it was all is so community-based. And that was, you know, I think early on, that was one of the best examples from a marketing perspective that I can remember you want it to go to, like, merketos certified. So yeah. And then if you had like, the theater was 50 program, like as you want it to be part of the Fearless 50 If you're working on an Asian person, they would have like, amazing events for their user group, like their users. And I think that's where some you know, there's it was, that was a really gold standard for me, when I think about all the communities that I belong to HubSpot, yeah, isn't really another amazing example. And then they have their annual inbound Conference, which is like, obviously amazing, everybody, every marketer wants to go to it. Everybody, you know, every marketer wants to speak at it. I submitted my speaker session, I got declined. I was I wasn't good on you. We try. Every marketer can have a dream. Every worker,

Kerry Guard 32:11

don't give up on that dream. And maybe this is a jumping-off point, because wonderful topic.

Nadia Milani 32:16

I'm going to totally submit another speaker submission just because I just because of this chat,

Kerry Guard 32:20

I think you should. And I think it should be around this because I think it's so important. We get so hung up on a single, we are a PLG-led company, and or we are community-like, like, but you need other things like, yeah, you're leading that? And what don't hang your hat on it? How do you figure out which you mentioned some things? You know, from a seed funding standpoint, from a very early-stage startup standpoint? Yes, founder-led growth is 100%. Where it just naturally starts, you started the company, you understand the product, you understand why you even began this thing. People want to talk to you to understand to know your story. It's why I started my other my other podcast, he titled Tech Founders, like I want your story. So yes, yes to that, and then it, maybe you hire a single marketer to like, get started. So let's talk about the growth stage like, like the companies who have a product there, they've gotten some traction, they're ready to freaking go. Like, how do you figure out in your experience? Have you worked across multiple SaaS companies, we can say in the SAS realm, that is your bread and butter in your home. Let's talk about where you figure out where to start, you make up your own playbook. So how do you know where to begin? Or what motion to lead with? And B, do you do immediately goes multiple motions? Or do you say let's start here? And

Nadia Milani 33:56

starting with one for sure. I think a lot there's a bunch of variables that you have to think about to think about the market. What does that look like? So your customers was if you're taught your Tam, your SAM, like, what are you trying to? What are you trying to do sometimes, like I mean, depends on the product to like, if maybe it's a brand new market, or product that's completely disrupting the market, or maybe it's its own category. You're creating a whole new category drip, drip, and conversational it, you know, conversational AI. So you have to really understand all of that. And also like with how are you going to sell it? Like where are we going to sell it like in product? Was it we're gonna have a self-serve motion? Are we going to do? Are we going to do you know, a, like a free version of this product? What's the what are the tiers of the pricing? You know, so that there's that's really important to consider in the strategy and then also, like, do we need are we just going to sell this or we're going to just try to sell it with the sales team and then from then build out a self serve motion with leader so it really depends That depends a lot on the product. Like you could think about Asana, like Asana is like self, you can self-serve on that worked at proposal phi, the sales tech tool for proposals to create proposals, we had a self-serve motion, you can self serve on that you can like use the product with a really great robust onboarding. And so it really depends on can somebody figure this out on my own, like, can somebody figure this out. So if they can, then you could probably do appeal G motion, but if it's like a really dynamic, complicated product, you're probably not going to be able to self-serve. And so that PLG is kind of like not in the cards for that type of companies, you're probably going to have to have a sales team that can you can Demo, demo the product. And then you can have a separate sales team to explain it. Because it could be like a really complicated HR tech platform or a, you know, a FinTech product, where you need to describe it to a CFO in order for you to purchase it. So those are kind of the variables. And then it's a thing like there's no, there's kind of some ABC one, two threes around GTM. But like, again, it's so different for each I think each type of company and my kids are home right now. I did warn everyone and yeah, we just ran in from school. I had somebody dropped them off for me for this show. But I'm hearing a lot of Mom Mom, Mom, so

Kerry Guard 36:18

if you want to go check on him, that's,

Nadia Milani 36:20

I feel like now we just we just might get a somebody joining us a little

Kerry Guard 36:25

a little head poppin. That's cool. Yeah. Often I could even go, I can go, I can't even Yeah, well, we're tight right now. So you might be okay. And if that enemy pops up, we can just say hi. And that's cool tip because this is what it's the joys of being live. The beauty of live television, yes, the beauty of live television, I'm here for it. And I'm here for little people I have my own, the fact that they went down without a sound is pretty magical. So it's a Friday because I always try and eke out a little bit longer. So no

Nadia Milani 36:59

words, two different time zones so that you stay up late,

Kerry Guard 37:03

halfway around the world. This is I love this. This is what I this is one of the things I love about podcasting is I get to meet people from all over. So this is fantastic. Okay, so there are lots of things to consider, depending on what kind of I'm working, I have a friend who has a startup, and they're going with a networking motion. So they're like, if we can just now if we can just get a few people, the way that their products work is pretty cool is that and actually had them on my tea time with founders podcast. So I'll put them in, in the notes if you want to networking sort of model. But the idea is that they, they're, they're called credentials. And it's a product where they manage the cruise, every time they hire people into a boat, they have a lot of paperwork that has to get approved and make sure everybody's in it, you have different countries and all of these things that have to like align. And so this product is going to just make sure that like you just upload the paperwork, and they double check it for you to get like a checkmark, or they let you know when things are going to, you know, need to be updated, or whatever the case may be. And so it's this beautiful dichotomy of if you can get a few people in the crew site to start using it. And then they send it to a company to say, well, here's all of my credentials, let me know if any questions, and then the company sees the product. Then the company goes, oh, I want this for all of my people tell me more. Right. And it's, and it's this networking effect that sort of happened as more people just come naturally into the product from the free motion for the users that then the companies get to see it. And so that's another sort of aspect of it, depending on what the product is and how it works and, and how it might grow.

Nadia Milani 38:48

In the beginning, you could only get in if you were invited. Like you couldn't just use the product. Yeah, love that. Oh,

Kerry Guard 38:54

yeah, that's also another like FOMO sort of aspect to it. Like, like, vacation.

Nadia Milani 39:01

You know? For

Kerry Guard 39:04

sure. Let's talk about the layering effect now. Right? So we talked about starting with one how do you manage let's say you have multiple G Chandrika in Iran.

Nadia Milani 39:14

Yeah, they are in the second or third is where people get I think I've seen this like, this is where things can go awry. Because, you know, your PA let's just say peel Jays My favorite example. And then you're like, we need sales. And then you either don't understand like how to build a sales motion use like hire like one or two sales reps, or you hire a VP of Sales first, who might not have been in tech signs I mean, there's a whole nother show about just that. Someone has like so many, you know, so much content around that from Sastre and so I think that's where things can go wrong. You really need to strategize. Okay, if we're going to layer this on, how do we do it? How do we do it? So we operationalize. said so they like these people are trained and they we don't have a sales lead, there are so many things to consider, you know, strategy markets, how many reps are we going to have commission structure also like the revenue that they're responsible for, they need to understand like, you know, the ICP and like the buyers that they're going after. So there are a lot of things that are that need to be considered. And I think where people get things wrong is if they think that you'll, you'll be able to, like, build that GTM motion really fast, and you'll get the return and the revenue from it a lot earlier than you actually didn't actually than what actualizes or what happened. So that's, that's like, that's where people will get it wrong. It's like, we're gonna build a sales engine, and then we're gonna get like, you know, $5 million more revenue, or $6 million more ARR within like a year and, and sometimes it takes longer to build a sales engine that that works, then that that's, I think, also true for community-led. I think that's true for doing your point, like the net, you mentioned, like the networking lead, if it's channel lead, like you're building a channel so hard, like I was in cloud, and we were trying to build a channel motion a defined

Kerry Guard 41:12

channel for me, because people use this interchangeably. So what is yes? Chat

Nadia Milani 41:17

when I say channel that to me means like, your reseller programs are getting partners, right? Or it's like a partner program. Yeah. So you're getting people in who are ready, like have contacts or have like a, you know, the sell into the market and for you on your behalf? It's so hard. Yeah, so it was posing like cloud cloud. And like, you know, that was like, we were trying to build our own channel. And like, it's so hard because they typically is, especially in it and cloud, like there's already so developed and they already have like these big players that that they already will sell for, then suddenly, if you're like little guy, and you're, you're, you're like only giving them a percentage of the cut and small and it's hard, it's hard to like really build those relationships and see that generate actual revenue. But you know what people do it, it's heavy lift, but against the resources, because if you want to build a channel partner,

Kerry Guard 42:11

or happenstance, sometimes people just happen to have the right partners that get them going. And then they can lean into that. And then that's all they do. But it's either like a huge lift, or I fell into this and it's working.

Nadia Milani 42:24

Right, right. Exactly. Signed, or, usually, it's like, you're lucky, you're the right place at the right time. And then it's like, or it's like, it just, it's the hardest thing ever. But again, it's rather resource serenity. Okay, so like, we're going to be doing this, like, who's managing this route these relationships? Who's cutting all these deals? How are we managing it? Like, do we need a portal? How are we training these people? How often are we training them around your product? You know, how, you know, all of that stuff has to be considered? And if there's not somebody who's managing that on a consistent basis, it'll fail. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that really believes it the second because that first initial one was like, reliable, scalable, and it got you to a certain point, and then it's like, it's almost built other layers other motion. It's almost like this other thing. And it requires, it requires time to rehearse time,

Kerry Guard 43:17

and it sounds like you shouldn't stop necessarily stop the first motion. No,

Nadia Milani 43:22

no, no, you just layer it so you're doing both like so you're gonna be like that the slack, for example, their appeal G the lately layered on the sales team specifically for enterprise accounts. You're doing you're talking to a different segment. And so, you know, they layered it on and that's what got them to, I don't know, 100 billion, what are they at now? I don't know. But you know, that's what they did it right. I don't know. I'm not from I don't know how long it and I honestly haven't read like every use case for our use case around this thing. But

Kerry Guard 43:52

here's what's funny about Slack for me. I decided to sign up for Slack because I saw them on a TV ad back in 2000. Yeah. So it must have been the 2017 Salesforce

Nadia Milani 44:06

is doing them now the the Salesforce ads. Yeah.

Kerry Guard 44:11

You never know all this new again. And it's true. I think that's a whole other podcast I actually did that with with one Mendoza. So if y'all went check it out. We talked oh, what's old is new, because with cookies and things going away, all right. We're gonna lean into the renaissance of marketing in that regard. So yeah, yes to that. I mean, there's lots of there's lots of demand motions in there that we can resurface. Let's talk about measurement because when you talk about Show Me the Money, getting the money, that's all well and good, but to your point, like you just said that takes time. So what are those leading indicators when you're looking at some of these? Initially you know, when you start with that one, go to market? Do you wait for the money to come? And then and then it plateaus, then you layer in the next one? Or do you use some leading indicators? And then look at those what are? How are you sort of measuring the success of each motion and how they work together? Yeah,

Nadia Milani 45:11

it's different for each one, for sure. And I probably would be like another show to go through each one. But yeah, like if your product, your product lead, and you're, you know, it's free, free, you have a free product, it's really about activation. It's all about, like, how many users are in the product adoption, you know, you know, just all of those activation and user type of metrics that you're going to need to know about. If sales is really it's really about your meetings booked. And then like actual closed opportunities. So we use both opportunities and like closed one deal. So it's just it's monitoring all of that. For inbound, let inbound, it's about, you know, traffic, and it's about understanding like, is that? Is it growing? I mean, again, high level, but also an MQL. Some marketing teams are now you know, they're responsible for sales more later stage metrics, like sales accepted leads or SQL. So it's about understanding like, those metrics, community lead, I don't even know I haven't done it. Before, but I don't know. Let's guess what would those be. I don't know, community lead. I feel like it would

Kerry Guard 46:17

be adopted into the community first, followed by engagement, so you can get into the community. But are you actually doing anything?

Nadia Milani 46:25

That's the biggest one. Yeah, I had Leslie Greenwood in my I used to do a weekly show. And she was all about like, that's the hardest part is engaging with the community, making sure they're active. She was the one who started the pavilion, community, sales marketing community. Yeah, so it's about like, engagement there. So it's really, but that is important. Like, you gotta define that with your team. And all agree, like, these are the right metrics that we're gonna go after, that's the other thing that can like get misaligned sometimes is like, marketing is like, Oh, I'm doing this. And the product is like, well, I'm measuring this and sales is like, I'm measuring this, and if you guys are all measuring different things, and there will be different metrics that, that like you need to monitor that are gonna be different, but there should be an align metric of this is what we're trying to achieve all together, whether that's revenue or, you know because product Yes, user activation, but if we're not generating with the revenue number, and I think product should have some ownership of that as well. Total different debate.

Kerry Guard 47:14

I love that, that leaders with everybody, the great debate is definitely of who owns revenue, and it's we all own revenue. But to your point, the, the leading indicators that we monitor, love, that word, that we monitor, are what help each of our pieces move forward towards that revenue. At the end of the day, we all

Nadia Milani 47:39

got it that too, like I was saying earlier, and up out of that, like earlier on in my career, I would always be like really focused on like those lagging metrics, but like, you really need to be an expert on the leading metrics, and even like channel performance, like how is each channel performing, and really get the weeds on, like all of that, because you can't, can't change we don't know. So you gotta, you gotta really know before

Kerry Guard 47:56

you can change and you gotta, like, you gotta know where you're going. You got to start at the end to some degree, we know, we want this much money. So we need these many customers. So that's probably this many leads, and you sort of work your way up, but at the end of the day, then what do you actually turn the program on? You gotta measure from top down, okay, we hit the impression number, we hit the click number, we hit the end, you sort of just keep layering in until you, you know, work towards that bottom of the funnel, but doesn't night, and you can expect for revenue

Nadia Milani 48:28

journey, like, measure the journey as in, like, what's happening where the conversion points, like, there's a bunch of ways that you can measure that too. Yeah, yeah.

Kerry Guard 48:37

And so do all the go-to Marketing motions sort of start at that top? Or do they intersect? Or does it depend? Like, I feel like PLG sort of starts More at the bottom and then builds the funnel.

Nadia Milani 48:51

And intersect I think like, like the gold standard appeal, geez, like just selling the product using the product, average sales. So you have to define like some key moments that are happening within the product that is true, that is like showing that there's an account here that's triggered, or like an enterprise person. What I'm trying to say is that a salesperson is triggered by actions in the product that would then require them to follow up, let's just say there are six people and a free trial from the same company, boom, that's like, hey, sales, you got to contact this company, so that it would be like an integrated, like, you know, measurement of and using the so it'd be like sales lead and PLGA working together in order to like drive the revenue. So sometimes they're separate most of the time they're sometimes they're separate. Sometimes they're they're, you know, you have one target everyone's working towards, I think it should be everyone's working towards like this, this main goal and then like each department has except for goals that are closer to that, that North Star that

Kerry Guard 49:53

makes so much sense. How do you in terms of optimizations, we're looking at multiple go-to-market Uh, you know, motions, we talked about not necessarily turning any off. But does it come to a point where you may be put your, you know, bet on the wrong horse, so to speak, and decide that this isn't the motion that's working? But luckily, you got a couple, you know, go on at the same time, and it's okay to turn one off.

Nadia Milani 50:17

Yeah. I'll give you an example of someone exactly my example that I knew that a new, a new about, about this example anyway, like, what I'm trying to say is that when I was working a proposal by with a start, we repeal G and then they layered on a sales motion, but it was a false start. It just didn't work. So we had to, like pause the breaks and like, re-strategize. And then like a year ish later, we relaunched it. And we were much more successful. Because we had a just a more cohesive strategy around it. And we thought, you know, we thought through budget and like, how are we going to operationalize it, how many reps we need? What was like the what was the monthly or monthly targets, yearly targets? And how were we were how we were all going to align to support it. So I think that was the difference. So but yes, like, that was an example where we had to stop it

Kerry Guard 51:07

happens, right, where we like, think we were trying to move so quickly, we move a little too quickly. Yeah,

Nadia Milani 51:14

no, we were thinking of like, layering on community lead on top, but we decided to, like pause on it, because we knew that it would take like a lot of resources to really, you know, generate a meaningful outcome. And so we decided, no, like, we're not going to start it now. But it was something that, you know, what we're considering?

Kerry Guard 51:34

Yeah, yeah, community stuff a little left, but powerful, if you can, if you lean into it. There's a new one, too. I was just on a podcast about a week ago, the new shows coming out, podcasts led growth into like, becoming a thing too. I mean, I started a podcast from a content standpoint, but and think about it from a growth standpoint. So that's, that's happening as well between. And I think Mason Cosby was also my show. Scrappy ABM is sort of leading the charge. In that motion. From an ABM standpoint, it's very much podcast-led, which is rare. Yeah. Very cool. ABM.

Nadia Milani 52:14

Yeah, that makes sense. Right. And you know, he had a really great podcast at the ABM podcast, this during the podcast, and they put on hold for a little bit, but it was fantastic. I think he had like four seasons of it or something like that. Yeah.

Kerry Guard 52:29

Oh, we got a question. Nadia, we got a question. It's a LinkedIn user. So I can't see who you are. But I'll look you up later, I promise. They found that companies may be startups or more mature companies that barely pay attention to segmentation, targeting, and positioning. Do you also sense that? Yeah,

Nadia Milani 52:48

I think that the ones that do it, right, really think about positioning. And that's really about looking at like, what's your total? Like, what's your Tam? What's your like, you know, relevant, or school market and stuff like that? Also, like, it's, I mean, I'm really prescribed to April Dunford positioning methodology. So we actually hired her to do some work with us. I propose a phi and just reuse that to help with our own positioning and in market. So I think, sometimes overlooked, but the one the companies that are doing it right, are definitely considering that and how they approach their marketing, I think that it's in terms of targeting Yeah, like this like the positioning is so important in terms of targeting and segmentation. Also, I mean, it's a part of like your positioning exercise to it's like, how does this does this positioning work for each of these segments that are a part of our total addressable market? So all of those things should be considered? Have they been overlooked? In my opinion, sometimes, like I have worked at organizations where an executive team or potentially aboard is kind of like sent out, we don't need that or not as important as like the revenue number. So I think as a marketing team, and as a marketer, Chief Marketing Officer, that's really where you got to like wave that flag of this is really important work. This is actually foundational. So that I believe to believe it's foundational work in order to drive your business

Kerry Guard 54:13

before you figure out what your go-to-market motion is. Yeah,

Nadia Milani 54:17

it's a no, it's a really good point. Yeah.

Kerry Guard 54:21

I love Thank you, Arthur, for your question. And yes to figuring out Product Market Fit ahead of time before you start hiring and spending a bunch of money. I think we're both in agreement there. Yes, please, please, please. And it's going to depend because depending on your audience, for audiences who do not want to deal with sales, you're going to need to figure out a motion that is not sales lead. You will, if you're talking about CISOs or developers or even marketers, we are the worst market to having sales lead growth. Yeah, we want to be in that we want to be the driver's seat. make our own decisions, we feel empowered. So make as much information available online as possible to help us make that decision, then we'll come to you we promise we promise. For so what I heard you say, Nadia, in terms of how you layer in multiple go-to-market strategies we just talked about, you know, making sure you do the legwork to understand your product market fit, making sure that your founders have done some legwork upfront, to you know, lead the sales charge initially to make sure they get some traction, and then figure out based on the product, the market, and how you know, your primary audience if it's enterprise doing a PLG, might be really tricky. But having something that's more consumer-facing like a Slack product than plg is the way to go, you know, understanding those different aspects and then figuring out your initial, go-to-market motion, letting that build up some momentum, and then layering that next one, that next one next one to really fill the funnel is ultimately what I heard you say with a lot of nuances, but did I miss anything is anything you want to double down on or, or a last word you want to have here that we may have missed?

Nadia Milani 56:07

So I think you really summarized it well actually summarized it way better than I actually explained it. So thanks for that. Yeah, I think that you know, it's all a learning process, like, no, no one's gonna ever it's all experimentation. You know, there are experts in this who've done a bunch of times. But I think that you know, it's a journey, and I think everybody's GTM journeys always a little bit different. But, you know, and again, like my, my point of view on it is very much based on just my experience leading companies with, with, you know, in different segments and different categories. But yeah, I think, I think that it's something that is not often discussed in great detail, but there are definitely some resources, you know, online, I, one of the people that have been have so much on this is GTM partners, like I was at a couple of their events, there, they're fantastic online, you can check them out. And there's also, you know, winning by design is another like GTM, like, great, great company that shares a lot of like, how to like launch new motions, specifically around Sales Lead motions. So I would also like, I recommend checking that out as well. But thank you so much, Kerry, for him for having me, this has been an awesome conversation.

Kerry Guard 57:24

It was such a joy. I'm so glad I'm so glad you're here with me. Nadia final question because you are more than a marketer, you're more than a marketer. And it's been a wild west in the last three years in figuring out how to live with this COVID thing. Yeah, we sort of like figured it out, kind of we're dealing with it. But the dust is settling and we're moving on. And so 2024 is a new dawn and New Year. So what are you most looking forward to in life?

Nadia Milani 57:55

So I just started this gig. While the survey VP marketing was living, you can follow by updates on LinkedIn of so I think it's really about you know, it's it's driving the leadership that I need to within the organization, but also just like, creating some moments of where I can breathe in between. And, you know, one of the things I've been I have been thinking about is, you know, potentially I have missed like doing the whole podcast thing. So I'm I'm looking at potentially launching something there. I mean, I know like people listening are probably like, gosh, we don't The world doesn't need another Marketing podcast. But if they do, you know any of you not promise it'll be fun. It'll be fine. It'll be good. So that's something that if everything goes right, it'll be it'll be launched in a couple of quarters. Maybe I have everything here that I need.

Kerry Guard 58:47

What's the what's sort of the thing you're leaning into in regards to starting a podcast? What's Yeah.

Nadia Milani 58:55

To figure out carry but did you know you'll be the first person that knows what's like what's in yellow down? But I think yeah, I think the big thing that I don't Yeah, I don't have an answer. That's

Kerry Guard 59:13

okay. That's okay. I love that you want to get back into it. And we're here for one of our seats.

Nadia Milani 59:18

I have some ideas, but

Kerry Guard 59:19

I gotta nail well if you need a brainstorm partner. Oh,

Nadia Milani 59:23

yeah. If anybody wants to DM me if they're interested in CO hosting with me, let me know. Happy to Yeah, you have this brainstorm.

Kerry Guard 59:30

Let's get this off the ground for you. Let's get you back in the game. I'm here for I

Nadia Milani 59:33

have everything I need. I have like my profit of a podcast. It's been sitting here for like six months. It's right beside me. I got to just install it. And then I got all my stuff. I've got like my headphones like I'm ready to do it and I got my stream yard link I've got no I've got all my editing stuff all ready to go. Just kind of like you know, you know the game. Got to just make it happen. Exactly.

Kerry Guard 59:54

Well, whatever, you know, kick in the pants you need here. I'm here for you, Daddy because I want to hear it. I, I want it if no one else is caustic. We're on the edge of our seats. We're gonna make it happen. Nadia, I'm so, so grateful. Thank you so much for joining me if you liked this episode please like subscribe and share this episode was brought to you by MKG Marketing the digital marketing agency that helps complex brands get found via SEO and digital ads. It's hosted by me Kerry Guard CEO and co founder of mpg marketing. And if you are a marketer in b2b Tech, marketing complex brands come hang out with me. I want to know your story. I don't know what you got going on over there. DME. Thank you so much, Nadia. Thank you so much, everybody. Have a good evening.

Nadia Milani 1:00:36

Bye for now.