4 - How to create an engaged and high-performing marketing team (with Sophie Hedestad, CMO at Netigate)

Sophie Hedestad is the Chief Marketing Officer at Netigate and host of #kommuniceraMera & Voice Of Success podcast.

On this episode we talk about:
- How to create that golden sales and marketing relationship
- Why is it important to have a highly engaged marketing team? And how to achieve it?
- How to build your marketing team from scratch and why a web developer should be one of your first hires?

Are you ready to join the movement? Join our free slack community where some of the best demand marketers in the world share knowledge on demandgenerationmovement.com.

This episode is brought to you by our great sponsors Albacross & HockeyStack.

Transcript

Intro: 0:01

The best b2b SaaS companies in the world have made the shift towards a demand generation strategy focused on revenue and revenue. And Europe is falling behind. What about you? What about? Isn't it about time you made the shift? On this podcast, we interviewed leaders at the forefront of modern demand generation to help you make the shift and join the movement join the movement, we need to drop the MQLs and focus on what matters leading you into the future. This is the demand generation movement. And this is your host, Adam Holmgren.

Unknown: 0:47

Hey, welcome to this man generation movement. And this time, it's my pleasure to welcome Sophie here to start the CMO at netigate. And also the host of the Swedish podcast community Amina, but also her newer English podcast voice of success. Thank you for joining us. Sophie, thank you so much for having me. Yeah, it is very, very fun to have you here. And, and I have after, after I've done a bit of research on you. And digging a bit, I've seen that you have worked for six years in b2b sales, and six years now in the marketing world. So for the last 12 years or so in the more or less in the b2b sauce sales and marketing space. Yes, that's correct. I started in sales as a sales consultant. And I did sales for many years, as you said, and then I moved over to marketing.

Adam Holmgren: 1:42

Yeah, I think that's so cool. And I wanted to start a little bit there. How have your perspective of what marketing, you know, does changed over that time period, because you were in sales, look at what marketing we're doing, then you entered marketing, and kind of had to do it on your own. So how have that perspective changed during those years?

Sophie Hedestad: 2:04

So if I wrote me back quite far back, I was studying at Lund University Business Administration, I did my masters in international marketing and brand management. And then I was thinking about what I wanted to do when I grow up what to do did I want to work with? So when I was sitting in school, I got this email from meltwater. And they were talking about the International. What was it called Training Program, and it's kind of caught my interest. So it was, it was a text about driving business and sales, to boards, marketeers. And the product seemed so cool. But I had no clue what software a service was back then. And this was 2011. And I started working for meltwater in the sauce, buildable space, as you said, and it was so rare back then I have no friends that started in sauce or Bigtable. And I'm even when I started at meltwater, we didn't even have you know, a proper website to build us, we didn't have inbound leads, so it was quite fresh back then. And as their space has grown, and they're, like, it's been so much more professional as well. So, and then a lot of things has happened since I started until today. And it's really cool to be on this journey and to Yeah, follow it. So I think so much have happened from you know, direct sales, you get the phone, you pick up the phone, you do 100 pickups per day, and you call business leaders out there to book meetings and demo the demo your tool. And now it's more about Inbound down down. People are not answering their phone in the same way. So it's really about creating you know, excitement about your brand. And to get people willing to, you know, spend time on having a meeting with you see what we can offer, offer their company that's missing. So yeah, a huge, huge, huge things have happened.

Adam Holmgren: 4:17

What are some key things you think now or are key for the relationship between sales and marketing to work? What do you think? What needs to happen for it to be like a good two way relationship?

Sophie Hedestad: 4:32

So I think in any, you know, departments relationship, because there's so many departments in the company could finance it could be HR, it could be product, it could be sales and marketing. So I think it also is about the company culture. So how open is the culture and what kind of culture do you want to have at this company and how what cross functional projects are there to work on? and how encouraged are you to do so? So I think Gam Yeah, and then sales and marketing, of course, have a special relationship because both sales and marketing is so eager to get it to work. I've been on both sides. So when I was in sales, you know, that you want always more sales, collateral, always more information, always more leads. And when you're in marketing, you want conversions, right, so you want to see that the leads you're bringing in, and that they have really high quality and that they get close will mean the end. And, yeah, it's like, it's a complex relationship. For some company companies, it works really, really well. For some companies, it works less well. But I think it's about that culture really to have, you know, zero tolerance for sharp elbows, you have, you know, clear guidance, how to treat each other. And, like, of course, some structure around it as well, when to follow up when to help workshops, and then both marketing and sales notes, you know, time to focus on quality of work as well. So you need to have time to actually execute on campaigns execute on calling customers execute on emailing, execute, on sending offers, executing on updating website, blog post, you know, everything that needs to be done for both Bing lids and to get them closed. So I think, also, wow, yeah, there should be structure around what kind of structure the two departments wants to have, but also that the two departments gets time to work on what's really matters in the end on quality.

Adam Holmgren: 6:54

How often do you meet with with anyone from the science department at navigate?

Sophie Hedestad: 7:00

Every day, so I don't maybe have moved things every day. But we sit in the same space. So I talk to someone at sales every day. But then when it comes to new things? Yeah, since I sit in a lot of meetings, unfortunately, I would say one of the main things I have per day is definitely there with someone from sales. But with my team, and then then it's bi weekly catch ups, or we'll catch ups. So we could do everything from 30 minutes to one hour. And yeah, so it's, it's a weekly follow up.

Adam Holmgren: 7:39

Yeah, that's really, I think it's really key to have those follow ups even though they can be hard sometimes, but have like continuous follow ups with the sales department, of course. But if we, if we step away from that, and go a bit more into you, I have been following you for a while, of course, seeing you all over the place on LinkedIn. And you're running podcast, you're creating mentorship programs, can you talk a little bit about, you know, where your drive come from, and, you know, you have so many initiatives going on, and it's really, really cool to see but talk a bit about the behind everything.

Sophie Hedestad: 8:21

So I think when it comes to what you explained now, you know, the networking part to really, you know, myth people out there that is not really drive from my side, it's more passion, you know, I get a lot of energy, talking to people outside my own little box to get insights from them. And you know, it's just a lot of fun and a lot of energizing out to multiple people at the same time I learn new things I get the new ideas what will should implement and also I find synergy effects you know, what events or what can we do together with other companies so it's actually great for business as well. So I think I think it's a passion of mine and more than a drive when it comes to drive I of course I have drive as well I would say but that is more a personality trait I have to building Yeah, I like competition a lot. So I'm in when it comes to numbers I always want to crush numbers. So back in sales, that was a good thing too. Good mindset to have that you always want to crush your numbers and saving in marketing of course. So I think the drive comes maybe from that I like competition a lot and see the numbers grow.

Adam Holmgren: 9:46

I think it's super inspiring. And from from all these initiatives, you you have talked to so many marketing executive but also business leaders. What are some of your like, what if you have any more memorable episodes that you have interviewed people from or happenings that happened. Things that people talked about that you Yeah, that really stick to your mind? You have any of those?

Sophie Hedestad: 10:12

Yes. So I have, I guess like every day I have some Wake Up Calls, you know, I talked to different people. Yesterday, I talked to Frederick about Nissan at Cognetti. And we discussed, you know, funnel and conversion rates and how to drive more, a better quality of leads, and also, you know, the relationship between marketing and sales. So that was a really inspiring conversation. So I think that this is something everyone can take with them to get, you know, the best out of each day, and to learn something new every day, I had student blnd I mean, in my podcast community, Amira, she is the marketing app think, and she told me about how she grew her department from, you know, just a few marketeers to more than 30 people in that team. And that's growth journey is quite interesting to, to listen to. So I think, yeah, building a CMO in sauce Bigtable. There is a lot of mistakes and a lot of obstacles and a lot of thing you want to avoid. And it's great to hear people open up about this things, what they have done, and you can get inspired and you can spar things out. But one fit does not one size does not fit all. So I would say that you need to take of course everything with a pinch of salt. So it's great to look at external reports, external benchmarks, and, you know, different paths you can choose out for inspiration. But in the end, you need to do what's right for you and your company in the end. Yeah, that's that's might not be the same for for another company. So I have a lot of good discussions with external people.

Adam Holmgren: 12:05

Yeah, I think that's it's really cool. And it's probably the biggest reason why I started this podcast also to to learn from other marketers and from other leaders. Because I think that's, that's a big thing in how we grow. But if we, if we move into that a little bit more, you talked about how to build teams and so on that Sylvia had shared with you. Could you share a little bit about your team, your marketing team at netigate, but also some of the like, key things that you see now, when you have built that team? what are maybe some mistakes, even that you did early, and some things that have been really good when hiring people,

Sophie Hedestad: 12:47

I have so many key learnings and mistakes that I have done during my years, of course, that I learned from so in the beginning, I had a team and I looked at the team and you know, tried to build a structure with their competences, the profiles I had in place. And then I, I think I'm in that is maybe not optimal. And so then I got the advice, you know, like, Look at, look at the external companies in similar sizes. What do they do? Like how, how are their structure? So I look blindly on what other companies were doing. So I think the truth lies something somewhere in the between. So I think Gam unit, of course, research and have a look at what other companies are doing external numbers, external benchmarks, but then every company is unique and that you have to have people on board. And you want to do what's best for them as well. So it's to be mixed, like what's profiles and competencies do I have in place today? What competencies do I need to add to make this team stronger? And then try to structure it of course to scale. But I don't think you should. Stare yourself blind at scaling, because, for me, at least, it's a lot about engagement from improves because you know, yourself. If you are not engaged, if you have days, or if you have had in your career sometimes like a hiccup. And your motivation goes down down. It's often because it's maybe unclear what you should do. It's may be that you don't feel motivated. It could be that, you know, the communication you have with your manager is not great or between colleague, it could be many different circumstances. But I think for me is leading this group, I want everyone to be very excited, engaged, and I want to curl their way so they can execute because when you execute a lot that you're really, really motivated and you have momentum That is what's most important for many of the AMS. So people are not scared of executing or scared because they don't know what their responsibilities are. So I think, for me, in my role, it's about creating clarity, and making sure there are no obstacles for anyone in the team to execute.

Adam Holmgren: 15:19

Nothing, that's a really great point that I will bring with myself is to try to bring clarity, I think that's very important. That, as you said, I've experienced this many times myself that when you, when you get these kind of motivational dips, that's usually because you don't have clarity in your role or in your day or Yeah, I think that's, that's awesome. But how does the current marketing structure look? Now? How many are you? And what kind of teams do you have?

Sophie Hedestad: 15:52

So we'll have three legs, let's say, so we'll have affiliate marketing, which is regional marketers executing regional campaigns, we have digital term, which contains of growth marketers, and that developer, you know, more analytical, strategic side. And that supports the Philly marketing team. And then we have product marketing, which is, you know, creating demand for our product, making sure customers are super happy and on boarded with what they purchase them. Yep, more traditional product marketing.

Adam Holmgren: 16:30

And if you were to, I think, many, many people listening or in more of a startup, maybe scale up face. So if you would have a completely new marketing team, what would your kind of first three hires be? What kind of roles would you prioritize first in a company?

Sophie Hedestad: 16:48

So I mean, would I be the CEO or the CMO of

Adam Holmgren: 16:52

this lifting startup, now you would be

Sophie Hedestad: 16:54

the CMO, okay, so I have myself. So that is a good thing, though. Because if I would be the CMO of this startup, then you can analyze what profile you are yourself, because there are CMOS that are like, really, you know, analytical, data driven. And there are the most that are more maybe creative and relationship building. So I would analyze my own profile where I can support because I think as a CMO, recruiting three people, and then you want you need to, to work operational yourself as well. So analyze yourself in that case, and then I would hire thrilled peddler, as you say. So I would go for a web developer, really technical person that can you know, sync, CRM, web website, marketing, automation, building staff backend from them. So full stack web developer would be my first hire, then I would want the creative person. Person that's, as you know, where more networking kind of personality that was set up webinars would make reports would work with pazar and awareness would work throughout the customer journey. And, you know, write all blog posts, do all the landing pages for Google ads do the design for is a very, you know, multi multi person that can do a lot of things. So create the person that is good, inviting, and the designing. And then the third person would be the digital person that is also quite analytical, and would place ads would analyze what works well, what what could be improved. So I think this three people would work really well together.

Adam Holmgren: 18:43

I think it's so cool that you said that maybe the first role you would hire, it's actually a web developer. In my experience, most times, that's the role that kind of get the left out or miss. And then we realize down the line that oh, we really need a web developers. I think that's yeah, that's a cool thing. Yeah,

Sophie Hedestad: 19:04

I'm, like, get the web developer we'll have here at netigate. This Rockstar like is, so no, he's solving all the problems will have. So there is a lot of technical issues, you know, CRM syncing with marketing, automation, syncing with all the tools were using. So I mean, that is just a key player in the

Adam Holmgren: 19:26

cool and if we, if we move into the kind of basis of of this podcast, in your words, what is demand generation to you, and then also kind of dive into a little bit maybe the difference you see between the more traditional medium that we we use and then maybe demand Yes, that's a more modern tactic. How would you view those?

Sophie Hedestad: 19:54

No, but for me, the answer lies a little bit in the word so where I Guess like Demand Jam is creating a demand for your products. And I guess you can do that with many different tactics. So Well, I mean, it's about having our compelling story, how your product actually solves problems. So maybe just not the story about your company, but actually how your product solves the problems. It's about product market fit. It's about having personas, or an ideal customer profile and work with those. So I would say more top of the funnel, and then Legion would be actually converting this top of the funnel leads into a close one in the app. But actually, Adam, I think you are the expert that is, so if I just ask you the question like, because I'm really interested in this, and I think you can answer it much better, what for you like, what is the difference between the gem and the Mon gem to you?

Adam Holmgren: 20:57

Yeah, for me, I think it's, as you talked about a little bit of perspective, change, I guess, where we more in demand and maybe look at the entire funnel, so we really, obviously want revenue at the end. But to do that, we need to create that compelling story, as you talked about, I think those really go hand in hand. And I think lead Yan is more focused on getting those kind of leads converted, but then that kind of stops. So I think it's more of a making sure we also hold these leads in our hand and make them into qualified opportunities and revenue from my perspective.

Sophie Hedestad: 21:35

So should companies work with both demand gem and lagenda? Nor should they choose one path?

Adam Holmgren: 21:42

For sure, I think it's, I think it's vital to also work with Legion in some way, especially for smaller companies, like startups scale ups. I think it's I know, I listened to an interview with HubSpot some months ago. And they were like, Yeah, we have these 1000s of leads coming in each month. Yeah, of course, then you can be more picky and only go for the one that raises their hand. But I think it's important for scale ups and startups to still have this kind of, you know, we need to get the revenue in also short term. So sometimes the lead quality might go down a little bit, even though our objective is to have a high quality of leads, of course. So yeah, I think both is, of course, sustainable. And I think their perspective should always be demand. Yeah. But we can also use certain lead generation tactics. For sure. But it's funny that you started interviewing me now.

Sophie Hedestad: 22:44

Yeah. I have lots of question for you now. But I will keep silent.

Adam Holmgren: 22:50

It's what would you say? Would you say this is something that, you know, this have always been the perspective as netigate? Or have it been more top funnel before and now transitioning more into thinking about revenue? Or has that always been the case?

Sophie Hedestad: 23:06

I mean, when you put it that way, you know, talking about demand Jana Logen, in a very structured way, I think we've been doing it without, you know, categorizing it. So we've been working top of the funnel with certain activities, middle funnel with certain activities and bottom of funnel with certain activities. And then when they get closed one, there are certain activities when your customers well, that you want to do to get them, you know, lawyer land, refer you in the end. So I would say the marketing department has worked quite strategically throughout the customer journey with different activities. So both yes or no, I think that we could definitely improve, you can always improve and change ways of working, but in indirect, we'll have been working with the farmer. Yeah. According to this, I would say.

Adam Holmgren: 23:59

And would you say that you you, you talked about your team before? Would you say that the funnel is owned a bit by the digital team? Or how does that work at you?

Sophie Hedestad: 24:09

So I would say Philly marketing works throughout the customer journey and they are executing at him they are executing on writing content and so on. The digital term is responsible for converting and make sure the funnel is optimized and analyzing the fundament and come up with a difference strategies to improve. So they work very, very close together. So I'm in the field of marketing to them. It's almost like you know, the sales department executing and then the digital to them is more analytical and looking at the data and improving stages in the funnel. So they need to coexist, because one cannot live without the other.

Adam Holmgren: 24:56

So in one way, then you can say that it's not one funnel. Action that does demand generation with you, it's more than entire marketing operation almost.

Sophie Hedestad: 25:06

Yeah, I would say so. And we, you know, there is also projects and processes. So process for me is something that is recurring, and it's manual labor, you know, let's say on a monthly basis, let's say newsletter, for instance, like, if you don't want to optimize that, but you actually want to look at different content pieces and put together newsletter, that's what the process is, it comes every month, and you're going to send it first week, every month. And you need certain time people to look at it and put it together and send it out. And then there are projects as well. And that could be let's say, you fix the lead scoring in your CRM system. And when that is set up, you don't need to look at it again, until you need to review it 10 months later. So you create the new project. So I think we work a lot with processes and projects, and make sure that we are prioritizing projects that actually moves the needle. That is supporting growth.

Adam Holmgren: 26:05

Would you also say that you do a lot of these projects around brand and brand awareness and building your your brand? Or how do you think about, you know, building up the netigate brand in correlation with that?

Sophie Hedestad: 26:18

Yeah, so that is the top of the funnel, I would say like awareness stage. So what we do in the awareness stage is working with Pilar. And to work with pulsar unit to have something, you know, interesting to say, because you cannot just contact me and say like, Hey, write about netigate, you need to have some kind of insight that is something that is great for society to read about. But something that actually your audience will hear about as well. So an example of that has been that we created a lot of expert reports. So during the pandemic, a lot of people started to work from home. And we did a lot of market research around this. And we'll ask to, you know, people around swill down and we'll have a look in our database Europeanism at European data. And we could draw some conclusions from this data, and we made a really, really interesting report out of it. And that report was presented, you know, interval four, and swiza. Down, it's, it's been written about in, you know, plus 30 newspapers. And they are linking to this report to our website, and it's behind the form seven, and that is how offline can actually support online as well. So that is an awareness activity that is actually great for lead gen as well, because there is, if you if you would work in HR, or as a leader, you would want to download this report.

Adam Holmgren: 27:51

That's such a cool thing to build your brand through using your own data in a way using your own research. And then letting people in. Yeah,

Sophie Hedestad: 28:03

yeah, I think yeah, definitely. And then that's great with navigate that it's, you know, it's quite, if you think of it, like, will actually give, you know, customers and employees voice, and we have a lot of data around this. And, and then now during the pandemic, it's harder than ever to, to read about these things. And we're actually sharing insights. We're not, you know, eventually we want to sell to them, of course, but we really want to give them great insights and inspire them in their daily work.

Adam Holmgren: 28:39

Exactly. And that that really feels key in in the whole demand generation concept. Okay, we want to provide them with value, we don't want to sell to them right away. Maybe we of course want to sell it to them at some some point, but we want them to feel value. That's really cool. And if we were just we talked about that before, but we are just starting out now in 2022. Obviously, what are some things you're excited for in 2022 to either test or some of the new things you want to do new channels or? Yeah, anything like that? 2022

Sophie Hedestad: 29:16

Yeah, it's a good good question. I am I'm then I will start a new adventure. I'm having a baby in in spring, summertime. So where I'm in I have the short term. I have a short, you know, a couple of months here to test new things out. But it's really about you know, now when I know I'm also we live I want to make sure my tune and people I work with are testing things. So I'm super excited to work with them the coming months to you know, growth hack and test things we've never tried before and to be brave. And that is a lot of fun as well, you know to test things that you have never done before. So I think and that is something I am excited about, and then I will shake out for a little time and have a more personal adventure. But yeah, that would be my 2022.

Adam Holmgren: 30:16

Yeah, that's, that's really, really cool. That's an adventurer of its own. Yes. But I also think it's, it's cool what you said before about bringing clarity to your team. As long as you do that you you can probably be away and they will do very well.

Sophie Hedestad: 30:33

Yeah, that's, that's the mission of every leader, I think, to make sure you can live and they can do good without you anyway. So yeah, I think that is good.

Adam Holmgren: 30:45

Yeah. Perfect. And I wanted to end this episode with you with one final question. And that is to hear from your side if you have any company or person in Europe that you think are, you know, crushing it right now in marketing in demand gen or growth that we could all follow.

Sophie Hedestad: 31:05

Oh, that's super good. Question. I. I actually, yeah, have a copy. So I just checked this demo out at snowflake. She is located in California in us her name is dinner's passion. I just had a look at her just now. Because a friend of mine told me she was like superstar in she was more thinking of the CMO role. As head of pipeline. I heard Atlas. And you know, work with the SDR team to book meetings as well. So more commercial and much more commercial converting function. But then I also have you know, in Stockholm, I have a great network with the demos I filled out, you know, are quite well wishes of get except she's awesome. Sylvie, Sylvie lamb, and as I mentioned on think Yahama forget that on quinyx clinics has done such a cool journey as well. And then every time you know, we are updating or doing campaigns, I do look at different websites. So I think I guess some websites I check out regularly would be, you know, some Swedish startups for sure. Like em Mentimeter. I found, I think it was a French company called spam decks that I thought looked really really cool as well. And what else plan had? Yeah, there is multiple. What else? Do you have any website inspiration, I think like some decks, some desk, Twilio, HubSpot or some some inspirational

Adam Holmgren: 32:53

company, that's, it's also inspiring to hear that you're also looking at a lot other people for inspiration. And I think that's, that's something we can all take with us. I guess, too, we can always learn something from other companies and from other journeys. I think that's so cool.

Sophie Hedestad: 33:09

So let's say you would put up a you know, pricing and plans page on your website. Like there, you can go into a room with related ball and you can sit for hours and hours and hours and sketch it up. And or you can go and look at you know, the 10 most inspiring companies out there and look at what they're doing well and not doing well. And, you know, create your draft out of that. Because you shouldn't invent the will. And I think you can spend so much time in unnecessary listings when it's all about, you know, executing and look what's already there. You can you can grow a you know, you can work so fast if you get inspired and take the raisins out of the cake or what do you say?

Adam Holmgren: 33:57

Yeah, I think that's a very true. Good. Yeah. Thank you for joining us for this episode of it was really great to have you. Thank you for having me. Thank you.

Intro: 34:12

Thank you for listening to this episode of the demand generation movement, the podcast where you can learn everything about demand gen and how to make the shift towards revenue. Are you ready to step into the future and join the movement? Subscribe on demand generation movement.com. This is your host, Adam Holmgren, signing off