In this episode, our host, Leanne Dow-Weimer, dives deep into the strategic mindset and approach to account-based marketing (ABM) with our guest, Corrina Owens. In a thought-provoking conversation with Corrina, they discuss the nuances and challenges of ABM, emphasizing the need for genuine customer understanding and the dangers of overreliance on technology and tools in marketing.
In this episode, our host, Leanne Dow-Weimer, dives deep into the strategic mindset and approach to account-based marketing (ABM) with our guest, Corrina Owens. In a thought-provoking conversation with Corrina, they discuss the nuances and challenges of ABM, emphasizing the need for genuine customer understanding and the dangers of overreliance on technology and tools in marketing. From the evolving landscape of the CMO role to the importance of personal well-being in professional performance, this episode will explore the intersection of marketing strategies, personal growth, and redefining success. Stay tuned for a captivating discussion that offers insights into the future of marketing and the power of perseverance.
In this episode, our host, Leanne Dow-Weimer, dives deep into the strategic mindset and approach to account-based marketing (ABM) with our guest, Corrina Owens. In a thought-provoking conversation with Corrina, they discuss the nuances and challenges of ABM, emphasizing the need for genuine customer understanding and the dangers of overreliance on technology and tools in marketing. From the evolving landscape of the CMO role to the importance of personal well-being in professional performance, this episode will explore the intersection of marketing strategies, personal growth, and redefining success. Stay tuned for a captivating discussion that offers insights into the future of marketing and the power of perseverance.
Timestamps
00:02:26 Entrepreneurial journey from marketing to tech space.
00:06:19 Recognized the value of organizational alignment.
00:08:49 Wine and gifts as experimental marketing tactic.
00:11:54 B2B organizations need systematic feedback process.
00:15:28 People jumped into ABM without understanding fundamentals.
00:18:30 Desire for new team structures and strategies.
00:22:40 Trusting intuition leads to seizing opportunities confidently.
00:26:28 Maintain professionalism, but prioritize self-care.
00:28:17 Marketing should integrate with customer interactions for success.
00:33:12 Redefining success, asking important questions, unique perspective.
00:37:01 Saying no in marketing is fundamental for innovation.
00:38:36 Expresses gratitude and signs off with contact details.
00:00:05:08 - 00:00:31:19
Leanne
Welcome to Market The Science of Marketing Strategy, a bi weekly podcast where all the cool marketers discuss their favorite marketing strategies. Study by study. On this show, we feature marketing risk takers who believe long term wins for the customer equal or long term wins for the business. To how human led marketing. The combination of where science, creativity and strategy meet or as we also like to call it.
00:00:32:01 - 00:00:51:09
Leanne
Markigy. Let's break down the marketing trends, myths and methodologies together. I'm your host, Leanne Dow- Weimer. Let's go!
Hey there. This is Leanne with Markigy. And today I'm joined by Corrina Owens. You probably know her, but I'm going to have her tell us a little bit about her background and what she's up to these days.
00:00:52:09 - 00:01:24:02
Corrina
Hey Leanne, I am so thrilled to be here. My name is Corrina and that I have to talk about myself. Sorry, I. Oh, gosh, my name is Corrina. I mostly talk about account based marketing. I've been a revenue marketer for the last 13 plus years and I am currently a co-host of a podcast that I run with a former partner in crime of mine, Taylor Young, called Direct Free Feature and highlight the unsung heroes and go to marketing campaigns and organizations everywhere.
00:01:24:20 - 00:01:26:23
Corrina
And yeah, that was here also.
00:01:26:24 - 00:01:49:16
Leanne
Thank you. I know we're both a little tongue tied today, so I also get a better example further as a square. So when we talked before, one of the things that really stood out to me was how you ended up in B2B sites. And I'd really like to hear more about kind of like where you started and like some of your stops along the way to get there.
00:01:50:08 - 00:02:14:06
Corrina
Yeah, it's a nonconventional story. Like I think most marketers have. And I was actually set to become a teacher and I taught abroad in Costa Rica for a little bit before coming back to the States and looking for a permanent spot to teach. Was during the recession. So there were absolutely no slots available and I always had an inkling to do other things.
00:02:14:06 - 00:02:47:19
Corrina
Teaching is a big passion of mine. It shows up still in my life. I do, you know, mentorships, and then I also teach aerial silks on the side. So it's very much interwoven into just like how I live and operate. But I always saw myself as kind of maybe doing my own thing, maybe being an entrepreneur. I've had lots of lofty dreams for myself, but I actually ended up doing some marketing work with a private equity firm, and it was a lot of communications with investors and then trying to solicit people to invest in our latest fund.
00:02:48:23 - 00:03:06:22
Corrina
And I found that I really just liked the the marketing aspect of it. And the art of how you can blend both like the a Y and something, but also the creativity aspect of it too. Because one of my lofty visions was to become a film director and that's TBD. I still have hope that I will one day do that.
00:03:08:08 - 00:03:29:19
Corrina
But yeah, I took a chance on myself and just started to forge my own path for what that could look like. And that led myself from private equity to a global product company. And then that led me to more of that start up, which really let in itself to the Texas space. And that's where I've been primarily and ever since.
00:03:30:09 - 00:03:57:08
Leanne
Awesome. And and I really want to like call out, but, you know, you wanted to forge something for yourself. And I think that kind of not necessarily ownership, but that like idea of want for your own goals and, you know, not necessarily just taking someone's scripts and trying to live out a script. And I think that that's really powerful.
00:03:57:08 - 00:04:42:03
Leanne
No matter what level or stage or industry or any of it you're in is thinking for yourself, what would what do I want? And maybe it's less intentional and you're just typing in like, Oh, I think it'd be cool to do that. But still having those thoughts and giving them space. And so during this process, I, you know, as you saw what it took for from a private equity perspective to get people to invest in funds and then into SAS, you've kind of I am you've kind of carved out some space where you do a lot of things, but but some of it is I'm being a generalist, being in the atrium area.
00:04:42:03 - 00:04:47:04
Leanne
Can you expand on how you approach those things?
00:04:47:26 - 00:05:09:12
Corrina
Yeah, I think that I've always had people try to put me in a box as a marketer. So for a long time I was called a specialist because I invested like I would come into a company, I would see other strategy, which is really weak, and that was a channel that really need to be optimized. So I just took it upon myself to kind of learn the nuts and bolts of it and prove some initial success.
00:05:09:20 - 00:05:31:22
Corrina
So for the longest time I was considered a specialist and then I became more of this generalist where I was coming in and optimizing different functions of demand generation programs and, you know, all the other areas of marketing. So I did have my hand in product marketing even as well in customer marketing. And really at the end of the day, these are all just principles, right?
00:05:31:22 - 00:05:56:05
Corrina
They're all just principles of marketing. Customer marketing is not so much different than account based marketing and demand generation is not so different across the board. It just depends on like your area of knowledge and different channels, etc. But at the end of the day, everything just comes back to really knowing the voice of your customer and however you slice and dice it, it's just a way to market yourself and position yourself.
00:05:56:05 - 00:06:25:11
Corrina
And I did find myself really believing and buying into fundamentally just the principles of account based marketing, which is just I mean, just to put it very simply, is just very specific intentional marketing. And to me, most embodied, you know what I found myself to be really strong in, which was alignment and cross-functional partnerships. I realized like because I was in startups, I was really just a team of one or maybe just a team of 1 to 3.
00:06:25:11 - 00:07:03:07
Corrina
And I realized just the value and the go to market organization when they all worked in tandem. So when everyone was aligned to a specific goal and everyone had visibility to, you know, different data sets, and so account based marketing principles just really lend itself well to that. So I've been adopting those philosophies in the last 3 to 4 organizations I've been at and talking about it broadly because it's it's funny how things that are relatively simple in nature, we just end up as a society kind of convoluted things and making things more complicated and hard to grasp.
00:07:03:08 - 00:07:22:26
Corrina
We throw a bunch of acronyms and buzzwords at things and then it just gets muddied. And I realize that account based marketing is one of the things that people just weren't really talking about or really able to like successfully demonstrate. What does it mean to build an account based marketing program from scratch? What does it mean to scale?
00:07:23:00 - 00:07:28:27
Corrina
So I just started talking about it and thankfully that got me some attention and I was able to show off my work.
00:07:29:28 - 00:07:55:09
Leanne
Yeah. And I mean, to your point, talking about what it is and what it is because that's that's a trap that like I personally I personally am guilty of with ABM is is I, I'm like, oh, you know, like at face value and you know, it's X, Y and Z, but it depends on the practitioner, right? It really depends on the person and what they're doing.
00:07:55:09 - 00:08:27:22
Leanne
And I and I think the way that you've gone about sharing your work and your story and the things that you work on, I kind of clarifies exactly what it isn't, isn't one way to make it successful and the the potential like complexities that can be involved. You know, it's not just, yeah, here's a list of ten people and we sent them some mine like that's not ABM and that's, that's just sending gifts.
00:08:29:16 - 00:08:49:02
Leanne
And so, you know, I guess what I want, what I want to hear next is more about, like, about that, like, like how maybe from like a strategic mindset, how you kind of approach it, you know, maybe some places where there's some risks associated with it that you kind of try to avoid.
00:08:49:29 - 00:09:14:09
Corrina
Yeah. I mean, I really treat it very much like experimental marketing. You know, I think that sending wine and gifts is a tactic and that's a tactic that can work really well. But you can't even get to the tactics stage until, you know, the the ins and outs of what makes these customers and accounts that you're trying to attract check like what are their what are their challenges, what are their needs, what is at the individual level?
00:09:14:09 - 00:09:50:02
Corrina
Like what helps them make their job better, what are their preferences, etc.? So very much for me it's about validating a go to market motion and in many ways if you treat it like that in the onset of your app, like tasked with building an account based marketing program, it's all about asking the right questions and of course attempting to figure some of that out yourself too, but ensuring that you're asking the right questions and aligned to what could potential suspect success look like and all the people involved that are going to be stakeholders in the program to get you there, because it's definitely not a single person effort.
00:09:50:11 - 00:10:31:10
Corrina
And I say it helps validate because I've been in many organizations where we have made assumptions that specific accounts and specific industries as a whole would be well fit for the company I'm representing. And rather than building a lot of custom software, a lot of custom changes to product development and partnerships, etc., there was a lot of positioning and messaging validation that we did and tested, which didn't involve a lot of technology and it did involve a lot of tools or even people we just would pilot with what we had.
00:10:31:10 - 00:10:54:00
Corrina
Assumptions were going to be the right types of messaging and types of programs that would get traction. And then we validated and iterated along the way. But yeah, I would say that it's a really great strategy to validate and potentially accelerate revenue. Right. But it's going to be a strategy first and foremost, you can't get to a ton of tactics until you have some of that baked out and on the front end.
00:10:54:17 - 00:11:27:04
Leanne
Definitely. And I think, you know, one of the things that we talk about a lot on this podcast specifically is being customer centric. And to me, the there is no better way to be customer centric than to ask your customer questions, because otherwise you're working in fiction, right? You're working in assumptions. And so I agree with you and I've seen firsthand the power of testing things and piloting them before you make drastic changes that nobody wants.
00:11:28:23 - 00:11:53:14
Leanne
So I think that that's it doesn't just impact today's pipeline. It impacts the entire companies possibilities for the future. When you do it methodically and strategically and not just spray and pray, which can be a problem for for some startups, is is not having that validation that this is our customer that we should go after.
00:11:54:18 - 00:12:20:17
Corrina
Yeah. And I think so much of what you're saying just really resonates with me about what I'm hopeful is going to be like the future for B2B and specifically how we market in B2B organizations. As I think so many startups just fail to. Maybe they are speaking with their customers, but they don't have a rigor or a process around how do we collect feedback, how do we then work with that feedback?
00:12:20:17 - 00:12:46:14
Corrina
And then what are we doing with that feedback? Like there's never yet to be an organization that has that feedback loop set up and ready to go. And there would be these amazing organizations you would think would be ready to go with that. But it's just not a systematic rigor process that they have implemented. And account based marketing is really well-suited to structure programs like that to where you are getting the voice of the customer.
00:12:46:14 - 00:13:06:19
Corrina
And the trend I think that is going to be happening is like as we start to have all of this, you know, I start to automate a lot of the mundane tasks for us and maybe other areas of performance marketing you're going to be left with people. And how are those people engaging and connecting with your your customers, your future customers, your best customers, etc.?
00:13:08:03 - 00:13:17:12
Corrina
And I think that that's where we're going to start to be a lot more genuine and authentic and really utilizing the feedback much better.
00:13:18:08 - 00:13:51:22
Leanne
Yeah, I agree. I agree completely. You know, one of my fears is I don't know if fear is fear is the wrong word, but one of the things on my radar is just a battle of the box, right? So, you know, at some point it's going to be like this guy making ads and all these, you know, bots and spiders of the Internet are going to be the ones receiving that ad because they're set up to, I don't know, like pull information like out of it or, you know, different things.
00:13:52:04 - 00:14:20:00
Leanne
And and so it'll be so far removed from humans talking to humans that it'll just be an exercise in spend on both that. So, you know, making sure that there's those guardrails of, you know, yes, I said this, but here's where it was just a little bit off, but I really know our customers. So that one word is really triggering for our ICP.
00:14:20:04 - 00:14:43:21
Leanne
We don't want to use that word. We want to use this word instead. And it may not seem like a big deal to non marketers or to certain levels within the same organization, but it can be a big difference from the beginning of the experience of that customer or whether or not they just about.
00:14:43:21 - 00:15:03:21
Corrina
Yeah, 1,000% are going back to our earlier conversation. I mean, so many startups have been I've come in and I've just changed the verbiage and wording just slightly because I realized very quickly how our competition was talking, how our competitors were talking, how we were talking, was very centric to how we spoke internally, but made zero sense externally.
00:15:03:21 - 00:15:26:02
Corrina
And yes, that's you know, you can pull that information from tools, but it's what you do with it. It's what is that output? And I think that we were talking earlier about just account based marketing, too, and how this is becoming more of like a topic. Again, I think what happened was for the past like three or four years, you know, everybody in their mother was saying that they did account based marketing as part of their solution.
00:15:26:02 - 00:16:02:13
Corrina
And it got so convoluted. And what people ended up doing was they ended up getting told like, hey, okay, we need to do a company's marketing this year. We need to move with a digital first strategy, go forth. And then what people did was they actually went out and they evaluated software's like that was their main core step to doing APM and that's the software is like touching on your point about the eye they're built for a purpose and the purpose was predominantly to push ads, predominantly display ads, and then maybe there was some data enrichment component to that, too.
00:16:02:27 - 00:16:34:06
Corrina
But to your point, this like with AI, that's not that's not a that is a tool and a channel and a strategy like that is so removed from the original intention of what account based marketing is supposed to be. And it's unfortunate that so many professionals and organizations kind of jumped the gun here about what is the actual, you know, foundations of marketing across the board and we seek to to automate it or have a tool solve all our problems.
00:16:34:06 - 00:17:02:08
Corrina
And it really can't. You still need that that level of knowledge and that level of expertise. And we have to stop thinking that, you know, principal equals X like or principal equals tool like it's it's a strategy, it's foundations. There is there's a certain level of like expertize and finesse that you get, but you get that by really knowing and engaging with your customers inside and out, not relying on technology to solve it completely for you.
00:17:03:02 - 00:17:39:13
Leanne
Yeah. And I mean, I think to that end, there was a lot of shiny toys syndrome, right? Which is always going to be the battle because everyone loves shiny things. You know, I'm not going to pretend that I wasn't like, oh, this looks so cool, you know, because everyone's guilty of it. But when the the finesse of it, as you said, I think is really where you can tell the difference with how someone interprets their overall macro situation within the context of not just their company, but the landscape at large.
00:17:39:13 - 00:18:11:21
Leanne
Because the way that your use case would be for like shiny tool, because you have this other more like sophisticated perspective and experiences you're going to use in a way that maybe isn't even on that roadmap, you're going to use it and finesse it. And someone who is way off in a completely different type of marketing or doesn't have that mindset, doesn't see that picture, they're just going to use it for the base level features and the features don't.
00:18:12:27 - 00:18:29:16
Leanne
The features can help a good strategy, but they aren't sufficient to have a strategy that's necessarily effective. It'll get you some wins, but it won't get you all the way to where most companies are trying to go.
00:18:30:18 - 00:18:57:07
Corrina
Yeah. And it's it's so much about you're saying just makes me just really like ache for some new new ways of structuring teams, new ways of like, how are we enabling our individuals that the organization because so much of this knowledge of who your customers are like the product roadmap you know that three or five year plan for the organization are just gated information inside a lot of companies.
00:18:57:07 - 00:19:19:18
Corrina
And so it's impossible to task. I think a marketer that doesn't have the wherewithal to know, to ask certain questions or or to go to for certain information to enable. I mean, because, again, account based marketing is really just it's a go to market strategy. It's a it's a way to it's not even a channel. It's a strategy.
00:19:19:18 - 00:19:41:07
Corrina
You know, there are other things that you could say are channels like product led growth is definitely a strategy, but it's also it can be a channel to but you have to know that they can coexist with both. And then you have to look at the vendors that are offering that. And how are they pitching it? Are they pitching it as a solution or are they thinking of it and pitching it as a strategy?
00:19:41:22 - 00:20:05:08
Corrina
So yeah, there's just there's so much about these concepts that I think that people would grasp and get better if we also just enabled our teams to to have access and visibility to just broader conversation and that they should, I think, have information or be involved with that they can best equip themselves to launch these types of programs.
00:20:05:27 - 00:20:34:01
Leanne
Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly because it's, you know, back to what you said originally validation, right? Because if you're marketing puts in a Easter egg about a future thing and people glom on, then like, oh my God, there's pent up demand. We validated this. Like, we need to put this as a push priority or if they start like talking a lot of shit and they're like, This is dumb.
00:20:34:09 - 00:20:55:03
Leanne
Like, we don't care. Like, you guys need a fix. Like just us being able to log in first, like, you know, like get better at the basics. So I think including and selfishly I'm not good at staying my own life. So like the more information that I have as a marketer about all of it, the better job I can do to look out for other departments.
00:20:55:03 - 00:21:03:12
Leanne
And the bigger picture. So that's my my soapbox about gaming Barbie will hands on all that information.
00:21:03:24 - 00:21:22:25
Corrina
I love that. I think it's I mean it's definitely not I subscribe to that, too. I don't ever stay in my own lane. And any time I'm eventually asked to, I that's kind of my cue to say goodbye because I just limits my potential and I know what I can bring to the table. And I really I really feel for people that feel stuck like that, right?
00:21:22:25 - 00:21:41:21
Corrina
Where they feel like not empowered to ask the hard questions, empowered to challenge the status quo. And it just limits your own growth and your own potential. And I wish we all had more opportunities, feel empowered to to ask those questions because it makes us better marketers, but it also just empowers us to be better employees, too.
00:21:42:14 - 00:22:10:17
Leanne
Yeah, I agree. And, you know, I think that that brings to light something that I you know, I think is is hard for people in a lot of situations, is having that sense of self-awareness to be like, hey, wait a sec. Despite these messages I'm getting, I really am capable of X, Y and Z. And so I would challenge people myself out.
00:22:10:17 - 00:22:40:12
Leanne
All of us, to just think of something that we think we could do and just go do it. And you don't have to do it on like a giant scale. Like, I'm not saying that like we all, you know, try to make the next Amazon or any of that, like, you know, just be brave because having that bravery is the difference between feeling like you're stuck in a dead end job and, you know, having something that feels aligned with your needs.
00:22:40:12 - 00:23:05:12
Corrina
Yeah, I think if you even have an inkling of something different, I think that that's you tapping into your intuition and your potential. And I think that, you know, whenever I've felt that, whenever I felt like the need to want to put myself out there to speak at a conference or learn about something new in the business, you know, raise my hand to be a seller before.
00:23:05:12 - 00:23:39:24
Corrina
And I've sold deals that I never thought I could sell. Wow. So doing my marketing job, I've raised my hand for almost everything that's been provided to me as an opportunity. And it wasn't easy to do it. It was sometimes met with some resistance and some judgment of Why am I even asking? But I, at the end of the day, do it because I weigh that opportunity to everything else I've had to face in my life, and the fear level just jumps all the way down, right?
00:23:39:24 - 00:23:57:08
Corrina
I mean, it just doesn't even compare to some of your hardest moments in life about what you could do, you know, at your job as a selfless job, right? Yeah, I it's not just a job. And, you know, sadly, most organizations really don't care about you. Like, they just don't.
00:23:57:18 - 00:24:01:09
Leanne
There's a limit to the type of caring that you can expect from a company.
00:24:01:21 - 00:24:11:25
Corrina
And I don't think we really set people up for what that care really is. I think there's a lot of facade and marketing that we do to make people think that it's a bit more than what it is.
00:24:12:27 - 00:24:44:08
Leanne
I, I think that that could be a whole episode. Yes, but, but yeah, I mean, that's, that's definitely one of the things that that I've felt a lot lately was the idea of like the fairy tales in business. And, you know, we are we here were raised growing up thinking you have to be so organized or so put together or real business people do this and maybe their English teachers that said that we had to write a thousand words for the essays, you know, maybe it starts in in school.
00:24:44:08 - 00:25:00:24
Leanne
But where we have this expected vision and reality and expectation are often not the same. So, you know, there's there's that that you get like a little bit more seasoned and you drop some of those expectations.
00:25:02:11 - 00:25:36:17
Corrina
But never drop your own expectations for what you deserve. I mean, yeah, I think that's been my biggest, you know, maybe curse and blessing at the same time. But, you know, others, I, I have this sticking out right here that tells me others don't define who I am. I know exactly who I am already. So that maybe doesn't maybe doesn't tamper my disappointment, but it at least keeps me first and foremost at the front of my life, which I should be.
00:25:36:17 - 00:26:00:00
Corrina
Right? Yeah. And I severely lack confidence. Like, I have so much internal dialog and chatter that is just awful. But there is this, like, perseverance of like I've, I still want to do what's best for me. And the only person that's going to know the answer to that is you. So if you feel that attempt to go for it, even if the outcome isn't what you hoped.
00:26:00:00 - 00:26:28:27
Leanne
Yeah. And I mean to, to kind of bring us back to marketing, this could be like a for sure. I relate to that so strongly and, and, you know, I was like, okay, Leanne, this is not a therapy session. This is a podcast. But, you know, when we show up as people that are safeguarding our own existence and our own potential and ourselves, we can then be a better agent within our professional life.
00:26:28:27 - 00:26:56:29
Leanne
Because if you let yourself go to shit and that's the second time I've cut straight now. So, you know, everyone here, everyone here is a grown up. But if you let yourself unravel and maybe it's not let yourself, but if you're unraveling for whatever reason, it impacts your your ability at work. And there are seasons where sometimes things happen and you have to be a little unraveled and you just do your best and you show up and you keep showing up.
00:26:56:29 - 00:27:37:14
Leanne
And that's what it takes. But in the seasons where things are a little bit more forgiving and you have the opportunity to to focus or to go full blast or do a sprint professionally. That's what you deserve and then go for it. I you know, it's defining what good looks like every day, and that might be a different definition on a day when you have the flu or a day where you've had a hot coffee, you know, there's there's ebbs and flows, but it allows you to then show up genuinely to your job and it allows you to then genuinely look out for the interests of the company and the clients you're trying to serve,
00:27:38:29 - 00:27:42:13
Leanne
which, you know, sounds like some pretty kick ass strategy.
00:27:43:17 - 00:27:46:25
Corrina
Yeah, definitely.
00:27:46:25 - 00:27:51:03
Leanne
So that was that was a long monologue. Thank you. Thank you for letting me do that.
00:27:51:14 - 00:27:55:17
Corrina
I think you feel like we have a sidebar.
00:27:55:17 - 00:28:17:25
Leanne
So kind of like when you think about everything like from from what you're doing, you kind of see the the future of marketing going in one way or another. And do you think that where it should go and where it is going are the same place I do?
00:28:17:25 - 00:28:45:13
Corrina
I really am. I'm hopeful for this trend of being with marketing being more integrated and interwoven with customer interactions. I've been at too many organizations where marketing doesn't even speak to a customer. Maybe unless they've been at the company for three years and they're of a certain level and it's time to interview them for the case study. Like who knows?
00:28:45:13 - 00:29:18:29
Corrina
But I've just never taken that approach to me. Like networking and relationship building is just fundamental to marketing. It's how I learn, it's how I better serve, it's how I better communicate a message. And I do think that more individuals, even up as high as chief marketing officers, are feeling more empowered to actually have those relationships with prospects with customers, because there's so much focus is being taken away from a lot of the mundane tasks.
00:29:19:00 - 00:29:50:11
Corrina
I think as marketers we've been stuck in spreadsheets and just awry calculations for years and it's left us to really focus just on more of the the output versus the input. And I think the input matters for the output. So when I say that, I think that we've kind of just been stuck in creating tactics or tactics sake in order to drive up some numbers, not even revenue numbers, but just vanity metrics a lot of times.
00:29:50:11 - 00:30:21:14
Corrina
And I think that we're really honing in on as a society, but especially in B2B, the importance of relationship marketing. And I think we're seeing that with the rise of like influencer marketing and B2B. And I hear more people talking about customer advocacy programs and I'm hearing more about retention versus acquisition and there's just again, narrowing that focus on serving the right fit people versus just the entire world.
00:30:22:14 - 00:30:29:21
Corrina
And I think that that's only going to yield better benefits for clients. And I think just making marketers even more honed into their craft.
00:30:30:08 - 00:30:34:03
Leanne
Yeah, absolutely. I would love it if more CMO's were talking to customers.
00:30:34:24 - 00:30:35:15
Corrina
They really are.
00:30:36:20 - 00:30:55:25
Leanne
But they're the number one person who should be right now because the buck starts stops with them. Right. It. If your job is depending on how well your team embodies what customers want, you should probably be talking to the customers too. Like you know, have some some proofs and some validation there.
00:30:56:11 - 00:31:16:25
Corrina
It's kind of why I for the longest time, when I would get recruited to or when I was interviewing, it would always be like, well, you're you should be like, when are you ready? What do you want to be a CO? And like, what does that track look like for you? How do you want to get there? And like I don't want to be a female because I've seen what the modern day CMO is tasked with.
00:31:17:03 - 00:31:48:17
Corrina
And it's very much, I would say, operational. There is a lot of board shenanigans is what I'll just say. And it's it's taken away from the craft of marketing, which I love, which is how do you create like a compelling narrative that resonates? How do you create a compelling narrative that, you know, drives business value? Like, that's that is not what the modern day CMO is really, in my opinion, is really tasked with anymore.
00:31:48:26 - 00:31:59:08
Corrina
And so I created my own path for what elevating my career would look like. And it just because I didn't subscribe to the modern day marketing progression in your career.
00:32:00:00 - 00:32:32:25
Leanne
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that with the the way that 2023 has gone, that a lot of people are just kind of not drinking the Kool-Aid. And, you know, maybe they maybe they were lifelong Kool-Aid drinkers. But this year has really been like a whole lot like I don't know if that's right kind of year. And I hope that that means that there'll be some adjustments and expectations and tasks and and how it's done.
00:32:34:29 - 00:32:51:04
Leanne
But maybe it's also room for or just redefining like a fractional CMO or full time CMO and and really just doing what it should be done. All right. I've got a big question for you and take a sip of water first. I know I'm getting.
00:32:51:22 - 00:32:54:07
Corrina
A couch on you.
00:32:54:07 - 00:33:11:05
Leanne
Cheers. Cheers. So along the lines of of everything we've talked about or even outside of bounds, what is the question someone should ask you? But they just don't. It's just not on their radar for whatever reason.
00:33:12:16 - 00:33:38:18
Corrina
Yeah, I think that kind of the theme here where we just left off to is I don't think people ask me enough like what does success look like to me? I think that maybe they see what success should be and maybe use my resume, my profile as like a template for that, but really redefining what success looks like.
00:33:38:18 - 00:34:20:03
Corrina
I don't feel like I get asked what that is. I feel like there is an expectation of what it should be. And I feel like if more people did ask me that or others, that it would help to us as a society to have more productive conversations about how we should be thinking about what success is. And I think that's a little bit unique for somebody, too, that maybe is of my age and has my experience, but just the my model of life does not look like what most people, women my age looks like, I think is also like a talking point that would be interesting to have more people chat with me about.
00:34:20:27 - 00:34:37:00
Leanne
Yeah, I mean, I think by asking what success looks like is, is so huge about like for, for anyone, why would you indulge us and just share with us maybe what one area of success look like for you?
00:34:38:19 - 00:34:58:09
Corrina
Yeah, I think that, you know, this has been an interesting year for me. It's been the year where I've had the most balance in my life, and I thought for a little bit that it was just like in a couple of years I hadn't had solid balance that I realized that it's my life that I have. This is the most balance have ever had in my life.
00:34:58:09 - 00:35:24:27
Corrina
And a lot of it had. It was because I have to ask myself that question, like, what is success really like for me? So I would find myself in positions and places in life where I questioned that my initial view of success and in how I felt in it, like how did I feel intuitively? Like when I was in those positions, in those rooms, in the proverbial rooms, and it was conflicting with what I thought it should be.
00:35:25:05 - 00:36:04:13
Corrina
And so that was my cue to like revisit that. And for me, I think success looks like peace and confidence. And trust me, my intuition and not planning the next ten years, not planning maybe the next five or the next 5 minutes from now, but operating in a way that feels a lot more natural to my my body, my mind, rather than trying to subscribe to a lot of ways that always subscribed to as what success would be.
00:36:05:12 - 00:36:32:09
Leanne
Awesome. I love it. Yeah, I definitely relate so strongly. I, I'm not going to I'm not going to share all my stories where I think one of the key things about finding success for yourself is the same as marketing, is finding out what you're going to say no to and who you're going to say no to, and being okay with saying no to it and saying yes, saying no.
00:36:33:16 - 00:36:45:21
Corrina
I love your framing of that because I think there is like there's this like thing in my mind where it's like, yes, I want to say no. Right? But then I also want to say yes because I love learning and growing. But say no is a way of saying yes.
00:36:46:05 - 00:37:00:25
Leanne
Yeah. It's saying yes to the path that you're trying to go. When you say no to the the distractions or the like, pressures or whatever it may be, saying no is our biggest superpower, but we can help.
00:37:01:17 - 00:37:26:18
Corrina
Yeah, and I mean, you're dead on it. That saying no and marketing is just fundamental. I think you can not continue to innovate and create if your brain does even have the capacity, time, bandwidth to do that. But I think we try to be everywhere at once. We try to beat everybody to be at that place. Right. Like we try to be the first that we try to be the best and we try to do that for all things.
00:37:26:18 - 00:37:41:16
Corrina
And it's just it's not sustainable. I think this is a show not to. So I do think that we're going to hopefully start to refine all of our marketing practices a bit more.
00:37:42:02 - 00:37:44:09
Leanne
Yeah, I get off the task hamster wheel, right.
00:37:44:11 - 00:37:44:25
Corrina
Yes.
00:37:44:25 - 00:37:52:05
Leanne
I guess at some point say no to like revising something that was working just fine. Is this okay to say now?
00:37:52:15 - 00:37:53:21
Corrina
Like, Amen.
00:37:53:25 - 00:38:14:23
Leanne
It's working like it can work for another week. Like we don't talk. I work for another week. Then, but we're kind of running out of time. I wanted to just, you know, give space if someone wants to connect with you or if you have anywhere where someone should really be paying attention. What does that look like?
00:38:15:15 - 00:38:32:19
Corrina
Yeah, I'm actually saying no to a lot of social media platforms lately. So, by the way, you can reach me is LinkedIn. So I am saying yes to LinkedIn, saying no to a lot of others. It's helping me with focus and I feel like what I'm trying to do in marketing, it's best suited there. Please reach out to me.
00:38:32:19 - 00:38:36:06
Corrina
Always love to have conversations. Yeah, that'll be the best place.
00:38:36:18 - 00:38:54:19
Leanne
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. If anyone has any questions for me, the best way to get a hold me is on LinkedIn or info at market g m a r k ig Wired.com. And thank you so much for listening. Thank you for joining me, Carina, and have a great day, everyone.
00:38:55:08 - 00:38:56:07
Corrina
Thank you so much.
00:38:59:11 - 00:39:20:14
Leanne
You've been listening to Market G, the science of Marketing Strategy. If any of the strategies we talked about today inspired you to learn more, try them. Remember, the perfect strategy doesn't exist, only the one that gets done. Subscribe to our show on your favorite podcast player to make sure that you never miss an episode. Thanks for listening. Until next time.