Krissy Camacho
Krissy Camacho is a growth-focused B2B marketing strategist and founder of Tricrest Growth Advisors, known for building demand engines that are as strategic as they are scalable.
Overview:
In this episode, Kerry Guard sits down with Krissy Camacho, a demand gen expert with two decades of experience in SaaS and cybersecurity, to talk about building lean, effective marketing strategies inside fast-moving startups. Krissy breaks down her “sophisticated yet scrappy” framework, including how she utilizes messy data to identify patterns, drive quick wins, and establish scalable programs for long-term growth. You’ll hear her approach to win-loss analysis, content gating, social strategy, newsletters, and how she turned a Formula One sponsorship into a pipeline-accelerating experience. Whether you're a founder, a solo marketer, or scaling a GTM team, Krissy’s insights will help you move faster, with clarity and confidence.
Transcript:
Krissy Camacho 0:00
There's so much data, even for early-stage startups, where you can kind of look at your existing customers, the wins, the losses, and translate that into your early demand strategy, and then map out programs that will help you get there. The data is messy. It's incomplete, we know, but it's your best guess.
Kerry Guard 0:22
Today on Tea Time with tech marketing leaders, I'm joined by someone who's worn just about every hat in the marketing world and made each one look effortless. Krissy Camacho brings nearly 20 years of experience leading high-growth campaigns in the SaaS and cybersecurity space with leadership roles at companies like Fastly, Elastic and NuSTAR. She's currently driving demand gen through webinars and content syndication, while also running her own consulting firm, Tri Crest Growth Advisors, where she helps startups scale with the kind of strategy usually reserved for much bigger teams. She's been recognized as a Drift Demand Gen hero. Holds multiple certifications, and if that wasn't enough, she's a total Formula One junkie and a webinar host who actually enjoys hitting go live, which, let's be honest, it's rare. Welcome to the show. Krissy,
Krissy Camacho 1:12
Thank you so much. Heck of a welcome. Appreciate it.
Kerry Guard 1:17
Yes, today we're talking about what it really means to bring enterprise-level marketing strategy into startup environments without the bloat. We'll dive into Chris's framework, lessons from big brand activation and scrappy systems that actually work when you're moving fast and wearing way too many hats, which we all can relate to. Krissy, we're switching it up. We are. We are going to mix it up for you folks, and we are going to dive on in with a fun segment with a little word association. Krissy, are you ready to rock and ride? Ready? Born ready. Born ready. I've been playing with this idea because I know you're into Formula One. I'm going to throw out a phrase and you tell me, if it feels more like race track or marketing strategy, perfect, split-second decisions.
Krissy Camacho 2:05
Oh, can it be both? All right, marketing, marketing,
Kerry Guard 2:11
pit, crew, efficiency, Formula One, testing, win races,
Krissy Camacho 2:19
Formula One,
Kerry Guard 2:20
data drives everything, marketing,
Krissy Camacho 2:23
Marketing, marketing, everyone blames the strategist. Oh, I'm gonna go marketing, but it could be both.
Kerry Guard 2:36
Oh, that's amazing. Thank you for that wild ride. Krissy I they, I think they all could be, could be both. I mean, you're talking about split-second decisions and efficiencies and AB testing data. I mean, I'm sure that there's lots of data in Formula One so that make sure you don't, you know, crash kind of important. Make sure your campaigns don't crash as well. And then, yeah, the strategist is holding the holding it all together for you.
Krissy Camacho 3:03
Yep, first to get the praise and the blame on both sides.
Kerry Guard 3:08
Both sides, you've described your approach to startup growth as sophisticated yet scrappy, which is awesome, and I love that. Can you unpack what that means in your world? Like I'm a founder who's totally underwater. Who would, who would that actually look like, from your side and working with those founders? Scrappy?
Krissy Camacho 3:30
Sophisticated, I admit a little back Patty, but like you said, over 20 years of marketing experience, and I won't claim to be Trevor-level of seller, but I was a seller for about five years as well. So it's 25 years. I don't claim to have seen it all, but I've seen a lot. I've worked in many different types of environments. I've sold and marketed through channel, direct to different buyer levels. Had many challenges along the way, learned a lot successes, stumbling blocks. So sophisticated is really taking all that experience. And I think one of the things my customers benefit from is I can identify patterns more quickly now, just having seen so many things, and so they bring me in. There's often some kind of roadblock that I need to jump into the data, figure out and help them overcome quickly. And then, on the scrappy side, I work exclusively with startups. So, you know, there's not always budget, there's not always product market fit or firm GTM strategy. It's about driving growth organically. What can we do, either for free or likes to free, and then use those successes to maybe build budget down the road? And so it's really looking at many traditional marketing channels and figuring out the right message and the right value to make that company shine against its competitors.
Kerry Guard 4:43
It is muscle memory. I think I wrote a post about that actually, not too long ago, where it's we gotta trust our trust our instincts. You know, the data is all well and good, but sometimes it takes longer to dig in and read the data than being like I recognize this pattern. I know where to go from here
Krissy Camacho 5:01
Absolutely. I really like a flywheel approach, too, and I think it's a word I used to be very against, but I haven't figured out a nice replacement for it. But, you know, flywheel means you're building, you're launching, you're optimizing and relaunching, and it helps companies move more quickly without having to put the pressure of it's going to be perfect this first time around and getting stuck in that planning mode. It's like, let's get things going. We'll learn more quickly and kind of adjust as we go along. So that's kind of part of the scrappiness too, is, you know, let's get things out the door and learn and quickly adjust and not get stuck in the planning mode, which I do see quite a bit.
Kerry Guard 5:36
Iteration station, absolutely, much easier to get things in the market, get feedback and iterate, than it is to work towards this concept of perfection, which is a farce, and then, and then it gets out there, and you've, you lost so much time than having, having just done the thing and and then working towards that, it sounds like you've been able to develop this Over the years having, you know, worked across so many different clients. Have you always been in the B2B tech space? Have you? Have you jumped around different industries? How is your variety of what you've been able to work on, you know, played into this idea of sophisticated and and scrappy with startups.
Krissy Camacho 6:20
Early on in my career, I was more B to C, so I kind of learned that space, and there are actually a lot of applications with B to C that you can pull into B to B, which is really interesting, because very different sales cycles and stuff like that. And I also worked selling B to G to the government. And so I knew that space as well, which is an entirely different motion, much harder audience to reach, very, very long path to sell. So, you know, couple different spaces there, but the majority of my career has been in B to B, B to B, SAS. Kind of the high tech space last 12 years has been in cyber security and kind of adjacent it markets. So most of my initial customers, I've gone and stayed in that space as well. So I know cybersecurity and it buyers. Well, I had, you know, customers when I worked in house where I've spoken to and gotten feedback on messaging and campaigns. So I thought when I initially started my business, I kind of say in that safe space, because I know that market better than you know, the rest.
Kerry Guard 7:21
But it's nice to be able to bring some of that expertise from elsewhere into, you know, because I think there's sort of this divide between B to B and B to C, and what works in B to C can't work in B to B, and I think those walls are starting to come down. Have you seen sort of this shift, you know, in in having been in the B to B space for so long, working on these hyper technical audiences. How have you seen the market shift in the last 510, years, in in relation to startups and and this audience?
Krissy Camacho 7:55
Yeah, great question. I haven't seen it shift as much as I hope it will in the future. But what I think makes sense that we can take from B to C is remove the barriers to let the customers walk through your door and become a customer. And I think in complicated B to B GTM motions, we make it so hard for the customer to learn about you, to test the product, and I get it, the sales average deal size are much higher, you know, typically in a B to B deal. But if we remove that friction in the process, we'll probably get customers through the door easier. So this is an area that I do push on my existing customers about. It's like, how do we make this form less than 25 fields log, you know, so that it doesn't scare people away? Or, instead of a demo call, you know, what can we do? So it's like removing that friction in the buying process. And I think that, to me, is like the number one thing we can learn from B to C, because they make it often self serve, and that doesn't work for every b to b company, but I think we can learn a lot from that, and I hope we see more of that in the future, because I think it will help B to B companies sell more quickly.
Kerry Guard 8:59
Well, especially this audience in particular, are huge researchers, and so the minute they hit any sort of wall, they just look immediately, look elsewhere. So I couldn't agree more it's actually happening. I know you've been out of the B to C side for a while. I've actually just stepped into B to C for one of my clients, and they're actually starting to experience the other side where they've been. It's been so easy to sell for so long. It was like, see it, like a buy it. And now they're dealing with researchers. They're like, why are people calling asking all of these questions, like, why are they just not booking? And I was like, oh yes. Welcome to the rodeo. Welcome to the researcher. They are a they are a fun bunch of buyers that we get to now just change up our marketing strategy and meet them where they are.
Krissy Camacho 9:48
I hadn't heard that yet, so now they need to learn from the B2B side. So we need to, we need to collaborate across. Like you said, there's a divide, and we can definitely be learning from each other. So that's really interesting. Be interested to hear how they adjust moving forward.
Kerry Guard 9:59
You. Yeah, it'll be, I'll be curious to see how we help them move in that direction as the buyers.
Krissy Camacho 10:04
How do we remove the form but without losing attribution and, you know, getting the data that we need to, you know, justify marketing programs and disable there's a strain there that I think I don't have the answer for entirely, but definitely agree that overall forms just complicate things for the customer.
Kerry Guard 10:23
I think people have been moving in the direction of the contact form and freeing up everything else, which seems like a mixed bag as well. Where do you fall? I know you said that. You know you'd like to make it less friction. So where are you creating that less friction? You sort of mentioned making forms shorter, figuring out how to get the demo into the hands of the buyer faster. It sounds like is that sort of your primary go tos? You have any other tricks up your sleeve in regards to less friction?
Krissy Camacho 10:52
Yeah, I try to balance form versus no form. Like, if it's an informational piece of content, do not make them fill out a form to learn about your product, right? Like, we want to get that out to people, you know, if it's a big research report that the company paid for, you know, I get that. We have to gate that. And I do still support gating, you know, big, expensive pieces of content like that. But I see some infographics, you know, gated, and I just think, don't do it, you know, that's just gonna irritate. It has to be something that the audience feels good about after they fill a form to actually get a piece of content that they learn from, even if it's not about your business, if they're learning about their space and challenges may be similar. Title levels are overcoming through this piece of content, then I think it's great. So it's a balance to me, but never gate all or ungate all. For me, it's somewhere in between.
Kerry Guard 11:39
Proprietary seems good too. Like, if you've done a lot of research around something that maybe you don't want to just, you know, hand over to your competitors.
Krissy Camacho 11:51
I like data enrichment too. I know it's not always cheap, but if you can enrich the data on the back end, so the forms don't have to be so long, like that seems like a decent investment to make, where, again, removes friction, but you still get the data you need, because I get it. You know, as marketers, we can't, you know, go back and show value if we don't have any clue how many people have seen this, you know, report that the company banded together to work on.
Kerry Guard 12:13
So how do you feel about that funny little field that Scott people are sort of talking about right now? In regards to, how did you hear about us? Is that something there's been, there's been interesting feedback on that too, of like when it when it works, and what it doesn't, or what people will fill in.
Krissy Camacho 12:28
Yeah, well, so I like to control it by giving them options. Oh, maybe not a free form text, but a pick list or something. I think it's super helpful. Because I think especially with my customers being startups, they don't always have the ability to track, so sometimes it's we have no idea where this you know, these demo requests are coming from, or the form fields are coming from. So if you can get some information, it can be really helpful for early attribution and tracking stuff like that. So I like it, but control it. I haven't done just an open box free for all.
Kerry Guard 12:56
Well, the nice thing about the open box and gotay was on our show a few weeks ago, months. It might be months now. My gosh, time flies when you're having fun. And she does do an open field. And she talked about, you do sometimes get those people who fill in like online. How'd you hear about us online? But she also said the you do also get really juicy, like people say they went to chat GPT, and they did this search, and then they started going down this rabbit hole, and they'll give you a bit more information. So I wonder if there's a combo, or maybe there's, like, sales follow up, or something of like, oh, you mentioned ChatGPT, tell me more about that.
Krissy Camacho 13:32
It would be more personalized in that target. Yeah. Absolutely
Kerry Guard 13:36
Curious about your work with the and your world's got to collide, which is even more exciting the work you did at fastly and Formula One. Can you tell us what what that campaign was, and how you made that happen, and all your dreams come true at the same time?
Krissy Camacho 13:50
I could go on all day. I won't, but I could. I am truly a lifelong racing fan, thanks to my parents were racing fans and grew up around fast cars. So loved Formula One and many other, you know, racing environments. So when I got asked to bring this global partnership to fruition for fastly, you know, it was the quickest guess of my career, I will say. But you know, I had just a couple weeks to figure out what's the message, what are the channels we're going to use, and which races are we going to try to bring customers to and launch it. So it was pure chaos behind the scenes, but then bring customers to these races, what I learned is, although it's a very expensive investment for a company, the prospects that agree to come to these races with you spend three full days with you, and so you get an insane amount of time with them they really would never get on an hour discovery call or a 30 minute demo call. And so it really acted as deal accelerators for us, which was great, because that's how I showed the value of the sponsorship in general, but on the fan side of the house, getting to experience the VIP world of. Paddock, club and Formula One, and meeting the drivers and the team leaders, and learning about aerodynamics, which is not clearly my background at all, but learned a lot of really cool things, and just got to experience stuff that, you know, the average fan doesn't get to do. You can't, you know, go into the garage and actually see the cars and and stuff like that, unless you you have a partnership with one of the teams too. So just absolute memorable moments that you know definitely highlighted my career, I would say.
Kerry Guard 15:30
Let's just set the stage for everybody. I sort of got glimpses of how this was set up. It sounds like it was a sponsorship, and then you actually got to invite clients to join you on the VIP experience. Does that how you negotiated the deal?
Krissy Camacho 15:46
Yeah.So part of the sponsorship comes with a certain amount of tickets at a certain number of races, and all of that is not for fastly to enjoy. It was bringing potential customers in and then showing them a really great time and again, just getting that face time with them as well. And so it was really about bringing net new prospects that we otherwise had no relationships with into these specific races globally, and then, you know, they get to experience, you know, that VIP throughout the weekend at those different races. So I got to kind of go to a couple of different races globally, and it was.
Kerry Guard 16:18
What were some of the questions you asked? Like, you're sitting one on one. You have their undivided attention somewhat. They are watching the races. They're enjoying their time. But what did you, sort of, like, know, going in, what you wanted to find out? Did you have sort of a an approach there?
Krissy Camacho 16:34
Yeah, it's a mix of getting to know them on a personal level. You don't want to, you know, start with hitting them on the head, on like, are you gonna buy? You know, it's not a good look getting to know them as a person, and they want to get to know you as well. So again, it's like this more personal side of a potential customer that you just don't normally get in the first time you, you know, you meet them. And then what I found was that they naturally wanted to start talking about challenges they were having at their company where we could solve and so it really opened that door. And I was feverishly taking notes on my phone to then be able to deliver back to the folks that would actually be following up with them down the road. So it created kind of this, a trust that we had to when, like a Trevor, needed to call these folks back to try to have a true business conversation. They were ready to pick up the phone and have that conversation. And so it's getting to know them on a personal level. But then there was a lot of good anecdotes around data challenges they had where I knew, you know, fastly, could help them. So, little bit of both, little bit of both.
Kerry Guard 17:32
That's amazing. Have you brought that experience in different ways to the startups you're working with in terms of helping them build these, you know, deeper relationships with their potential buyers?
Krissy Camacho 17:42
Yeah, and, you know, throughout my career, I've been in demand, but in person, events is an area where have a lot of experience as well. So I've developed a mini Formula One, kind of scrappy startup version of that, with go-karting. And again, it's pick a city where you want to drive, you know, net new customers and give them the best possible go karting. Is it the same thing? Of course not. But, you know, you bring food and drinks and then, you know, just a fun time with, like, a happy hour after the driving, and that's where you get the conversation starting. And so again, these can act really is kind of doorbusters for companies, and it's way more affordable, and we bring kind of the fun of Formula One into it that way, but those in-person events, to me, it's a little old school, but nothing beats a handshake. You know, like meeting people in person. It really It works. It works better than just over the phone all the time.
Kerry Guard 18:36
So I feel like there's a huge resurgence happening, like we're out of the COVID era, and people are desperate to be in person again. Are you feeling that energy? Are you? Are you going to events now, and are you sort of bringing these, this go-karting experience and these things like right in this moment, right now, with folks? Are you feeling that, with people just want to be in person?
Krissy Camacho 18:59
Absolutely. I thought maybe that would die off a year or two after the pandemic. People got sick of each other again, but I'm noticing conferences especially. And I know Trevor and I go to some of the same security industry conferences, but they're back up to pre-pandemic numbers. You know, people are still going out to these global conferences, meeting in person, you know, having trade shows in addition to the curated events like I mentioned. But yeah, I think people are still hungry for it, and it's because it accelerates conversation so much faster. Digital space is still extremely important. I think any business that hasn't kind of cracked that nut yet will probably be in a bit of trouble. But I'm a huge believer in in-person events.
Kerry Guard 19:37
Founders often say they need demand gen. You mentioned you've been in demand gen for a while, and I hear this often from founders, but really they just want leads. How do you sort of spot the gap when you're first talking to someone of whether they're just looking for more leads, quality be damned, or if they're really looking for a more demand gen motion? The engine of the whole engine.
Krissy Camacho 20:02
Yeah, you really hit the nail on the head. It's probably the number one question, or first customer interaction I have is like, need more leads. You know, sometimes it's just get them in the door. And so I think that I'm constantly, especially for the earlier stage startups, trying to balance the let's not completely skip strategy and just jump into doing things, but I know we need quick wins, so I'll outline here things we can do today that'll bring you X number of leads, but we should be doing this other thing on the side, so that as we do more and more of this, it's more targeted, and we are bringing in the right people, because that's going to be the best use of what resources you do have, whether it's budget or head count, you know, they're strapped, you know, to what they have, so it's a little bit of both, but it's doing some quick wins. And then I'm a huge believer in win-loss analysis. And anybody who knows me that's on the call now will know that I always talk about win loss analysis. There's so much data, even for early-stage startups, where you can kind of look at your existing customers, the wins, the losses, and translate that into your early demand strategy, and then map out programs that will help you get there. The data is messy. It's incomplete, we know, but it's your best guess at what works for your business at this particular stage, and using that data is like a gold mine.
Kerry Guard 21:24
I find it, you know, I'm a I'm a fractional marketer myself for more small businesses, definitely not on the scale that you are at. And I still find it so hard to juggle all of the things, especially when you're trying to, like, execute on the low hanging fruit while, you know, building the rest of the plane around it as you are flying. So help me, Krissy, like, how do you do it all in real time? Do you? Do you pull in Contractors? Are you doing it all yourself? Like, teach me your ways?
Krissy Camacho 21:53
Yeah. Well, when I decided to form a business exclusively to work with startups, because I must be kind of crazy that I love that type of environment of building plane while you're already flying it. Some of my favorite moments in my career were was working at a startup. So I think it, you know, must take a special breed to want to do that day in and day out. But I like the challenges trying to figure out how to go to market for the first time. So I am very selective with the types of clients I take on to make sure that it's in the right space where I can do all those things for them. I am doing it on my own by now, by choice, I do have some subcontractors that are willing and able to jump in. But for now, I think the simplicity of working, you know, Solo has worked really well so far. And so I just am selective with with who I join and work a tail off for those customers, when they're when I'm with them.
Kerry Guard 22:45
Definitely a work your tail off sort of motion. But I'm like you. I like to, it sounds like you're like me, where you like, just like to be busy in a good busy isn't always the right busy, doing the right things to make it happen. Which actually we got a question from Ryan Vaughn, who asks, ooh, this sounds good. Curious about the scrappy growth tactics Krissy uses. Scaling without burning cash is such an art form.
Krissy Camacho 23:07
Yeah, absolutely. So I'll go back to win loss analysis. It's mentioned number two in this in this podcast already, but you know, I really like to look at the data we have available and help that lead me to where, where are we going to invest our time and resources to be scrappy. So if we know we have a customer that kind of looks like this, how do we reach more of those and how do we leverage this customer's testimonial to reach more like that? So the scrappy part is that none of that process I just mentioned is costs any money. It's using the data we have and creating look alikes and then using channels to go, get, get those folks. So I think the win loss is it's often missed or it's done, and the data is never looked at again, and it's not translated into anything actionable, and it's it's kind of lost. So that's often where I start, is in whatever data we have available, and use that to translate into how do we get more customers like we have now to help the business grow?
Kerry Guard 24:04
You mentioned events, which I think is a wonderful, scrappy way of doing it. Are there other especially when you're talking about low hanging fruit and doing things a bit faster, events take a little bit of not a little bit. They take a lot of energy to really plan for. While it can be cost effective, it is, it is a time intensive resource to get out there and do it. Are there other tactics that you use that are a little bit more like that can be activated a little bit quicker that are sort of your go to scrappy elements once you sort of read the data? I mean, you've been doing this for a long time, so I imagine there's some patterns of absolutely and probably no surprise, it's social channels and email.
Krissy Camacho 24:39
Social is the easiest way to go out and look for the audience you actually want and talk to them. It's better to do that organically when you're first starting off anyways, and you know, hammering them with ads and stuff. So activate those channels organically, and then. An email. I mean, these are leads you already paid for, and sometimes they sit in just as I saw Trevor say, leads are dying or they're decaying. If we're not emailing them in a thoughtful way, in a personalized way and targeted way, then those leads are dying as well. So those two channels, surprisingly, are still under leveraged. I see a lot. So those are the easiest I mean, we can activate today. They're already propped up, you know, write some posts, write some emails, learn from the engagement and keep doing it. And I think consistency is really important with those channels as well. And again, doesn't cost anything initially. So those are usually my two go tos to activate in terms of email.
Kerry Guard 25:36
I actually find, I don't know if you, I don't know how this works for you, but I actually find the newsletter just to be like a resurgence of of a thing. And I have a little system where we'll write a newsletter, we'll get that out to our email audience, and then we'll re repost it on the website for SEO and link build, internal link building. Do you have is Is it a newsletter? Is it automation? How are you leading to into email and activating that out of the gate?
Krissy Camacho 26:05
Yeah, I still love a newsletter. I think, like you said, it sounds old school of like in person, events, letters, but I mean, these are our channels we have available. They still work if you have the right audience in your database and you're giving them relevant content, so just spamming with, you know, messages that don't matter to them, of course, don't work, and I feel obliged to mention AI, but obviously I can help you get more targeted in the messaging and personalized. And there are some, some ways to achieve that at scale with a database, but Yeah, as long as the message is specific to the audience, those things work, newsletter, you know, weekly, monthly, whatever the cadence is that you decide it's better than not emailing the database at all, that's just a missed opportunity. As far as I'm concerned, totally.
Kerry Guard 26:50
I absolutely love a good newsletter, and I love when it's like, can be timely too. And in regards to, like, what's going on in the market, and being able to speak to that and have a point of view, I think, is just so I've just seen that perform so well in terms of open rates and engagement and so yes.
Krissy Camacho 27:08
When people still prefer certain channels to consume their information. Again, this is not a new thing I'm sharing, but so you could be saying something over and over on your website or on LinkedIn or whatever social channel, and people still may not see it. So if they're an email kind of a, you know, information consumer, you have to leverage that channel to be able to reach them. So I think, again, it's just leveraging the channels. We have to reach people where they are.
Kerry Guard 27:32
Let's talk about social because that is a beast, an absolute beast. I mean, I've been on LinkedIn for a while. I've been doing it for years, but I still do not have the amount of time that I really, truly need to pour into the social media engines that they are. It takes a huge amount of energy, not only to post, but to really do the hard work of engagement and building relationships. So when you say social sort of that low hanging fruit and that immediate thing we can activate. It still feels so big to me. So where do you start?
Krissy Camacho 28:08
I try to start by encouraging two posts a month, which sounds less daunting than post every day or post every week even so get twice a month down and make it the best post you can, you know, relevant. It's new information. It's targeted to your audience. And then as you start to see engagement go up, you know, try to increase it. I don't typically try to encourage companies to do more than that, because it does feel insurmountable. And I'm a huge believer in leadership teams posting on their own channels, especially on LinkedIn, instead of just the corporate channel, and that can be even a bigger beast to dig into, because, you know what executive has time to be posting even a couple times a month. So I typically jump and help with writing in that aspect, to give them drafts, and don't make it all about the business all the time. You know, like I talk about Formula One, because it's not just me talking about marketing. It's another topic that I'm passionate about, and it can drive engagement. And so I try to identify topics for executives where they can filter that in and have some diversity to their content on social as well. And that allows people to get to know the company on a personal level. And I think that builds trust in the audience, and it gives you a little bit of a brand, voice and tone, stuff like that. So it's a little bit of a balance of not just the corporate channels and handles, but with the executives and other, you know, thought leaders within the company, you know, really activating them. I think it's a big task, but I think that works really well in the market nowadays than just posting on a corporate social handle.
Kerry Guard 29:38
Do you find a lot of challenge with executives, of like, trying to get them up and moving with this, or is it pretty are they finally, like, Yes, let's go. I'm ready. What's sort of the the tone of working with executives when it comes to, hey, you need to be posting more on LinkedIn, and let's work on that.
Krissy Camacho 29:52
Yeah, very supportive. Always. It's just a matter of, you know, the question that always comes after is, like, how am I going to do this? And so again, it's usually. Be not asking them to write all their own posts and do the physical posting to figure out who could help with that. And that usually is the the only hurdle is the time piece. So once we have a little bit of a formula for, again, finding those topics that matter to them and then mapping posts out to that, once we kind of crack that nut, it's just getting the drafts done for them and keeping their time commitment as little as possible.
Kerry Guard 30:23
And it's a startup. What sort of data and KPIs are you? Are you paying attention to that make you and the team feel like you're crushing it and moving it forward?
Krissy Camacho 30:37
I always lay this out as we have leading indicators and lagging indicators in terms of KPIs, and so still look at still look at leads. Those are the earliest indicator of something. But I always stress the most important lagging indicator is pipeline and opportunities, you know, and depending on the business that can be months down the road. And so that's why you have to track what's happening earlier on, even if it's form bill, and then we kind of keep an eye on that initial lead. You have to have both. So I don't call it a day if we have a certain number of leads in a month, or even sales picking up leads and saying these are qualified. It's really that longer view of do we generate business opportunities for the company at the end of the day, that's how they're growing. So to me, that's the ultimate KPI is it's revenue, but it takes time to get there in the B to B world. So we'll report on other things in the meantime. But to me, that's the ultimate goal, quality and quantity conversation.
Kerry Guard 31:34
I feel like I'm living this so hard right now. How do you navigate that in the moment of like, trying to build up the funnel, but in a way that actually translates, knowing that it's going to take months. So if you're pouring in the wrong people at the top, and it's not translating, then you've sort of lost months of time.
Krissy Camacho 31:57
I'd be out a job at that point. Well, that's why, all right, mentioned number three of win loss analysis. Like that's why I'm writing a book on this topic. It's, it's, that's how passive I feel about it. But if you start with that, then it leads you to the quality over quantity conversation pretty naturally, because it says, here's how we know with this is how we we we know we're winning here, we want to do more of where we're already winning, and we're not going to spend time and effort in bringing in leads where we're losing. Why would we do that? You know, the data speaks for itself. So I stress the quality over quantity for that exact reason. And I will fight against bringing in just fluff at the top of the funnel, because, you know, they're not going to go anywhere. And again, I always anchor it in that initial win loss audit. And that usually helps the conversation. The data speaks for itself, and it's not data I created. It happened before I even, you know, joined this customer, so that that usually helps in the flow of bringing in, you know, high quality, even if it's lower volume, it's all well and good to bring leads.
Kerry Guard 32:57
But if they're not, if they're not going to turn into not only just revenue, but the there's good kinds of revenue too, right? The ones that are actually the people we want to be working with, or who are going to create more work for our team, because they're not actually the right kind of customer, and now they're, they're turning and they're and they're burning energy on both sides. So yes to finding the right people. Yes to stick to your guns. Krissy, yes to all of this. I, I am. So here for it. In terms of we've touched on three pieces. We just touched on the third. Are we missing any? Are those the three key pieces to startup success, right there. Can we all like,
Krissy Camacho 33:43
Oh, it's so easy. Is what we're making it sound like? I think, no, I you know, I think each customer environments different, and so I think I love that variety, but the reality that I'm seeing so far, my almost two years of businesses, you know, every single environment is different, so no easy peasy lemon squeezy, absolutely not. You know, it could be, but the reality is, you know, it's learning, it's adjusting to each customer environment. And again, working with startups, a lot of times, you find out their early batch of customers is not who they want their next set of customers to look like. And so I also run into those situations where you got to scrap the data and start fresh, and so there's other challenges there. So definitely not easy, but lots of variety and challenge. So I enjoy kind of figuring out those unknowns.
Kerry Guard 34:34
You're writing a book. A book is happening. A book is happening. Do we have a Do we have we're on we're on the edge of our seats here. We need to get our popcorn. Like, when can we start reading thebook?
Krissy Camacho 34:44
As soon as I complete writing it, and it has to be perfect, unlike everything else I've mentioned today. No, I am. I'm aiming well. I have no business really writing a book. I'm not a writer. I think the concepts in the frame. Frameworks and the templates that will be in the book, I think will be useful and help companies, because the reality is, I want people to not have to hire me, necessarily. They can do things around win loss audits on their own. And I think, again, it's a huge missed opportunity for a lot of businesses. So my goal of the book is to make it almost a dummy's guide to win loss audits and how to translate that again into your GTM strategy. So I want it to be, you know, user friendly, and something that all marketers, whether they're new or, you know, seasoned, can pick it up and really utilize it. So I have a lot of work to do, but hopefully this year early next year. I don't know.
Kerry Guard 35:44
I don't know we are going to be keeping up with you, Kerry and knock you on your door once in a while to see when we can expect this book. Because I don't know about you all who are listening, but I am certainly on the edge of my seat and excited for it. I all of our clients are asking for those immediate, quick wins, right? They all need the thing, and they need it yesterday, and they can't wait for us to build the big, beautiful engine with the plane still just sitting here on the runway. We gotta, we gotta get it in the air, and we gotta build as we're going and it sounds like you're going to help us do that.
Krissy Camacho 36:17
So that would be the goal. I'm excited. First copy goes to you.
Kerry Guard 36:25
Yes, I will pre-order it. I'll be first in line. It'll be so good if you're building marketing from scratch and it feels like you're juggling knives. Krissy is the calm, strategic brain you want in your corner. You can find her work at Tri-Crest, growthadvisors.com, we'll have the links below, so please go check it out. Krissy. Where else can they find you?
Unknown Speaker 36:44
Oh, LinkedIn, probably the best,
Kerry Guard 36:49
definitely. Okay. Well, go connect with Krissy. Go ask her all the questions that I didn't get to. I'm sure you got tons. I could keep going. I could keep going. I only have one more for you. Krissy, what is currently bringing you joy?
Krissy Camacho 37:03
Love this question. So I played the piano when I was a child, and then during the pandemic, I got a keyboard, and, you know, there's an app for everything now, so I kind of relearned how to play, and it's sitting behind me, not in this beautiful virtual background, but in real life. And for me, it's really a creative outlet, but also a de-stressor. So I'll just sit and play. Sometimes I sing poorly while I play, and it's just very calming, and I feel really relaxed afterwards. And so it's been really nice to be able to learn again. And I do a mix of like classical, but also some pop and songs that are, you know, current now. So it's just fun. And that just really brings me a lot of joy. Lately. Are
Kerry Guard 37:44
You on like, a swivel chair so you can just, like, turn around real quick and just start, like, get a like, next bye!
Krissy Camacho 37:53
I'll come prepared with a little piece for you, and I do play some Coldplay. So I saw that listed, yes, for sure. Look at that. Look at that. Elijah, oh so good. Kerry, the Biola is what she told me. So you have a whole band next time.
Kerry Guard 38:10
Its gonna be a perfect tune in. Folks, can't wait. It's awesome. So good, so good. Krissy, I'm so grateful. Thank you so much for joining us and for giving us all these good nuggets. We're looking forward to your book. If you liked this episode, please like, subscribe and share. This episode is brought to you by MKG Marketing the digital marketing agency that helps you fuel your growth forward using SEO and digital ads. This episode is hosted by me, Kerry Guard, CEO and co founder of MKG Marketing, Music Mix and mastering done by the amazing Elijah Drown, my podcast sidekick, and if you want to be a guest, if you're in marketing and you have lots to uncover and teach us about, we are here for it. So DM me. Let's hang out and have another conversation just like this one. Kerry, thank you again. You.
