Scaling With People
Tired of spinning your startup wheels but never gaining traction? Buckle up, founders and CEOs, because this podcast is your rocket fuel to profitability! Every week, we ignite explosive conversations with bold-faced founders, brainy experts, and even a few out-of-this-world vendors. Get ready to crack the code on growth, master employee engagement, and blast through your scaling goals. We’re talking real-world strategies, actionable tips, and perspectives that’ll make your business do a cosmic dance. So, strap in and prepare for lift-off!
Scaling With People
Unlocking AI Potential: Vanessa Sierra on Strategic Marketing Integration, Leadership Balance, and Business Growth Strategies
Unlock the secrets to scaling your business with an insightful conversation featuring B2B SaaS expert Vanessa Sierra. Vanessa guides us through the complexities of integrating AI into marketing strategies, underscoring both its challenges and unparalleled opportunities. Learn how the concept of "going slow to go fast" can transform your approach, allowing you to refine your messaging and strategy with precision. Vanessa's expert insights reveal how AI can be a powerful ally in amplifying your strategic vision without diminishing the irreplaceable value of human insight.
Explore the fine art of leadership balance, where empowering your team with creative freedom can lead to remarkable business success. Vanessa and I discuss the necessity of fostering an environment that encourages continuous learning and upskilling, particularly with AI tools, to enhance both individual and company growth. As we navigate the evolving business landscape, the episode emphasizes the importance of seasoned leadership and strategic cohesion. By understanding the potential pitfalls of over-relying on AI, we highlight the need for a robust strategic framework to maintain brand cohesion and alignment with company goals. Don’t miss out on this engaging episode packed with actionable insights to propel your business forward.
Welcome everyone to today's Scaling with People podcast. I'm Gwen Varequiri, your host and founder and CEO to Guide to HR. So do you want to learn how to operate in faster cycles and grow your business a skillet through people in marketing? Then stay tuned, because I have Vanessa Sierra on the call today and she's going to help us learn a little bit more about this. So, vanessa, welcome and tell the audience a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and thank you for having me. I have been in the B2B SaaS space for the last 15 years. I have been mainly tasked with the commercialization of tech products and the bulk of my experience has been in launching or scaling health tech products, and the bulk of my experience has been in launching or scaling health tech products. I dabbled for a few years in fintech and also cybersecurity, so I've been working with founders, just kind of getting them ramped up and helping them scale their efforts.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So, as you're helping them scale their efforts and ramp up, what are some of the key trends you're seeing with your clients, especially now we have AI introduced into all the different facets of work, of the working space?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I think it's been exciting, maybe a little frustrating too as a as a marketer, you know we we have lots of mixed feelings around AI, but marketing is where a lot of these you know, if you're working on a great product, if you are figuring out that you have the right you know technology or the right talent at the table whether it's HR, product finance, all the different layers of your company marketing is where it all comes together to then be pushed out into the market and be sort of that external facing, you know arm of your business and so as frustrating as a marketer as it can be.
Speaker 2:When you see AI and you hear you know you see headlines of people getting laid off or content creators just getting replaced by you know chat GPT like they can write all the blogs just getting replaced by you know chat GPT like they can write all the blogs. It'll be great. It. It has, in some ways, been a little bit of the shakeup and the wake up that we all needed to raise the bar a little bit on how can we be more productive at a lower cost and how can we also lean into the more strategic side of our roles to create, you know great results with way less, so I think that's what's been really key is just how to leverage it. For those reasons, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So how does one get to operating in a faster cycle? I know CEOs and founders out there who are just like do more with less, do it faster. You know it's not scaling the business at all costs anymore. So what are some of the things that you're seeing and that our audience could take away and implement right away or think about as they get closer to that phase of their business?
Speaker 2:I would say number one it's how you think about, like, what does fast mean to you in relation to your goal? So I'll give you an example in the marketing world, I could be a founder that came up with a great product, a product that maybe is 80% baked and then the last 20%. I'm still kind of fine tuning and figuring out what functionalities really resonate with my audience and just how to put something out there that's just like a plus material. In the process, I might engage with someone to say, hey, I want to go and get some leads and get people on my platform, so my goal might be to unlock that silver bullet, that perfect messaging that's going to make everyone get on my platform and, like, generate all the leads that I need.
Speaker 2:Operating in faster cycles in order to accomplish that, you know, has to be very clearly defined, right. So like, if you are just going to take a sloppy approach to figuring out that messaging and that's your operating in faster cycles, that might feel like a failure, right Like it might be like I'm not going fast enough, this isn't happening quickly enough. But if you've really set out to figure out, unlock your messaging, if it took three months versus taking three weeks. That might be as fast as you need it to go Right. So, number one, this mindset, and like really putting it in the context of what you're trying to accomplish and you know what's doable.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, as the statement says, sometimes you need to go, so go slow to go faster, and that's a great example of what you just said. You might actually end up at your end result the desired end result faster If you take those three months, versus doing it sloppy, as you said, in three weeks then you go out. It's not hitting it right. You have to clean it up, you have to revise. That's another three weeks plus the time frame you were laying the market, figure out if it was working and rinse and repeat. And all of a sudden now you're in nine months, 12 months, instead of taking the three months to go out to the market the right way.
Speaker 2:Exactly, Exactly. So I think that's definitely, you know, really important in just setting yourself up for success. The second piece and I think you would probably, you know, I think you might have a similar view on this is getting the right experience and the right talent at the table.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at the right time too.
Speaker 2:Right time. I think that's so important and the reason for that is and this kind of ties back to the AI conversation that we were having you know, ai is great, but it's almost like saying I can drive the car faster. I can, you know, maybe drive the car more efficiently with less gas, but if I don't know where I'm going, if I don't have that vision, or like, hey, I've done this drive before, then it doesn't matter how fast I go or like how quickly I can crank out a blog, because there's no vision, there's no strategy Right. And so if you are a founder, early stage startup, get the right talent at the table that can then leverage the other resources to maximize that output, to maximize your productivity. I think that's that's also key in operating in faster cycles. Yeah, and that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, I totally agree, and there's like the reason why I added at the right time is I have seen so many CEOs who trigger a higher, more experienced yes, more costly. They figure they can't afford it or this is the time they're going to have to pay for that to bring that executive level person in or higher level person in. But is it the right time for the business to accept that? I've seen it so many times where the first chief level hire they weren't quite ready for it and it was because a lot of chief level individuals are going to want to focus on the strategy, which is important. Like you said, where are we going with the business?
Speaker 1:But a lot of smaller businesses, startup businesses. When you're younger in your life cycle, you still need that roll up your sleeves, vp level mentality who is going to come in and get it cleaned up and put right processes in place, put the right function, be tactical, while also creating a roadmap or a strategy plan of where we're trying to go and understanding what the business is doing, so that then you can go out and get your chief level people at a different point in time. And so that would be my one warning sign to founders out there that we're not necessarily saying go out and hire a chief level person overnight right, it's the right levels, the right experience, doing the right things at the right time for your business.
Speaker 1:If I say right one more time. Maybe someone will win a prize.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's the right idea, yeah, I think it makes sense.
Speaker 2:And I would say to add to that, just as a third layer to all of this, in terms of operating in faster cycles and I actually had this conversation with a couple founders a few weeks ago in these forums that I do Set your goals and stop deviating from the plan.
Speaker 2:And I think the goal setting process it's an art and a science. It is having the right data in front of you, it's going with your gut, it's understanding where your company really is, at your own strengths and weaknesses, and then set your goal. I have sat down with founders that have said, hey, in the next two months I want to land one enterprise client and five small businesses like from this target list that we've created. We will go ahead and give that a shot, right, but but is that realistic with the resources you have? Um, you know, is a better goal to say we want to grow, you know our revenue by 25% in the next two quarters? You know off of like a specific segment that we're going after and I think if you can, if you can really put some thought into those three pieces, then you know you will be in a good place, set up for success to actually operate in faster cycles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so many times what I see is you have the board goal, right, and then you have what you're telling, like everyone else, or what you're telling your leadership goal, and then you have like shoot for the moon goal that you tell everyone. So like, hey, you know, board, we're going to give you 25 million by the end of the year. Leaders, we need 35 million by the end of the year. Employees we need 40 million by the end of the year. Right, and that way is like you know, you're really stretching them people. But at the same time it's kind of okay quote unquote for those that watching or listening quote unquote. Okay to miss that mark because you've told the board quote unquote. Okay to miss that mark because you've told the board you're at a lower rate. So being able to make the board for sure, that's important and investors right, and all that good stuff. But then pushing your leaders to push, pushing your employees to push even further, is what I see a repeat theme in.
Speaker 2:I agree, and I think that's where it's important to get specific right, because there's an intersection of your goal setting with your strategy.
Speaker 2:And you were just, I think, before we kind of kicked off, we were talking about, like the strategy, the business one, the one that you know you're maybe talking about at your senior leadership level and then the strategy to execute something, as you were, you know, kind of describing.
Speaker 2:Well, if you can come to me, if I'm part of a company and you know there's a strategy that's already in motion, that's been decided, and the goal setting is like yeah, we are going to target these enterprise clients within this segment and we're going to win 25% of those Like, give me details as best as you can to really be able to like execute on this vision. And that will also feel faster, right, because you just removed all the noise of like I could have gone in every direction, grow 25%, I'll have a whole bunch of accounts in there and like check the box, right. But then that feels slower Because on the other side of all that effort, you're like but those weren't the right accounts, that wasn't the thing we wanted to do. Obviously, I'm kind of leaning into the marketing side of that conversation, but I think it applies to the whole company. Right, absolutely, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Being and it's interesting, there's a fine line between being detailed and being prescriptive.
Speaker 1:Being detailed and being prescriptive and I think that you've got to as a founder you really have and leader, you have to walk that fine line really well to be able to give your employees and your managers and other leaders the space to be creative and to own and empower them to execute on it, without telling them that, okay, here's every single step that you have to take.
Speaker 1:It's, yes, I want the enterprise clients and I want it to be in this industry and I want it to be the size and I need it to be X, Y and Z, but then how they go about it or where they're going and executing on that, like, let them empower them, give them a, and there's studies that show that employees that understand the overarching business goal and how it ties back into their own role, I think it's really important their department and then their own role. They actually will feel more empowered to make decisions on the fly for the business that are going to actually impact the business goals the way that the founder, the leaders, want. So it's really important, but don't be prescriptive. That's where you're going to start killing your culture and your engagement, and people are going to start fleeing fleeing for another opportunity, for sure.
Speaker 2:I had a nickel, but I think you're spot on to something and it kind of my my brain went to kind of jump to another piece of this. That's really important. You're right, you end up hiring really great talent and you've given them a goal or you've painted the picture of what you're trying to accomplish and now they're going to help you get there. It's so important to get out of the way. A lot of times you're hiring people that have done this many times.
Speaker 2:That's why you hire them, because you trust smarter than you many times, that's why you hire them, because you trust smarter than you hire, exactly, and so I think that's also an important reminder, mostly at early stage, where you have, you know, founders, where it's like they're very passionate. This is something that they've really put a lot of effort into to make it right, to make it good, and it comes from their own industry experience and it's something that they've been living and breathing for so long that all of a sudden, I have to hand over the keys to the car and I'm just like I'm not sure if you're going to scratch it. You know like there's just so much there. So I think that piece of like get yourself to a good place in terms of goal setting, get yourself to a good place in terms of who you hired for the job and your trust and their experience, and then, yeah, definitely being able to set yourself up to get out of the way.
Speaker 2:But the other piece that I feel like really relates to some of the conversations and the pieces that you work on, potentially is also the training, like the knowledge scaling right, like helping others understand, have enough information about the industry, the product and the players that they can make those decisions, and in highly regulated industries like healthcare or finance or cybersecurity. That can be a really deep, deep, dark tunnel of information that people have to get smart on very quickly to make the right decisions for you. So there's a training component and like knowledge sharing component to this. That also really helps.
Speaker 1:Especially when you layer on AI, going a more general, like whether it's a Google tool or Microsoft tool or something else. Where it's, it's for the whole company. And then you kind of sit back and you watch the analytics of like, what are the questions? How are they using the tool? Who's using it more than others? And it's interesting to see everybody needs to be upscaled, because you have people who baseline like how should I, what should I cook for dinner tonight if I have these five ingredients? And then it's like they don't know that. They can then say what is the recipe that I should use for this ingredient. I'm being really simplistic here, right?
Speaker 1:But, there is more functionality and if we don't continue to upscale our employees, no matter what we're talking about. But AI is just an easy one. That's an easy target for me right now, right, like, we have to do that in order to make sure that we're getting the most out of our employees. And then also, too, by doing that, you're then engaging them in a way where you're you're showing, you're giving them value back, right? Employees are obviously a value add to the business. If they're not, then maybe you need to help them move on, but most of them are, and the If they're not, then maybe you need to help them move on, but most of them are, and most of them are trying to be. So we also, as employers and companies, we need to be doing the same, and the best way to do it is to help them with their professional growth, and that's just something really upscaling, you know, helping them understand how to use a tool like that, or maybe it's a project that they need to work on.
Speaker 2:It's actual work that they're doing for you, but they're learning and growing through that experience. Yeah, and I think we see that a lot. I mean their growth is your growth and on that sort of topic, on that thread of growth, I think a lot of what you know I think there's a relationship between a company's ability to and again I'm being biased from my view of the house here, but it's scaling revenue is directly related to your ability to scale your people and vice versa. So the earlier that a founder can really dial into that and understand that and get you know as much knowledge transfer from people that have done it before you know, just really understand what that can look like for their own small operation as it starts to grow, the sooner you can incorporate that, the better prepared you will be for, inevitably, that moment where you take off or where you have those pivotal changes that allow you to grow just a little bit more. You know you're hopefully setting yourself up with a good foundation to be able to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so curious. If you could get in front of founders earlier on and their life cycles, what would be one of the things that you would just wish every founder could know and be able to impact their business immediately before, like you know, you're able to even talk to them. It's like, oh man, if I could just tell them this one thing, or if I could have them recognize this one thing, what would that look like? Or what would that be?
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, just one Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, or two, or three.
Speaker 2:If I had to narrow it down, um and again, just there is just a world of things that have to come together for a founder to really be successful. I would say it's Really understanding the reality of like when you're out there hiring amazing talent to join your company. How can you inform yourself and become comfortable with the handing over of the keys to the car, so to speak? No-transcript really easy, I think. The topic of trust you know when, when you have something that you're so passionate about and I'm kind of speaking to the founders specifically here like you're so passionate about this thing that you put together and it's really good and you've done a great job and you've gotten really far and maybe you've raised a lot of money for it and you know you are essential to all of this.
Speaker 2:Existing. Yeah, that shift that needs to happen when you bring in others to the table. Just having that self-awareness of knowing when you still haven't let go or when you, you know, didn't set the right goals and therefore don't trust that the people are going after what you want or, you know, helping you execute on that vision, that can really go a long way. Becoming self-aware, arming yourself with founders that have done it before and understand what the mental you know, I don't know physical athletic requirements to shift into. That is probably a huge game changer for first-time founders or early stage founders.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I think that actually kind of is great advice for all executives, all leaders. It's really what I hear you saying is having a group of mentors or a group of individuals who have been there and done that that you can lean on and learn from. It's the same thing as having a couple of mentors, or one mentor even, where you can go and say, hey, here's what I'm dealing with, here's how I think I should operate. What have you seen in your experience? And learning from each other and that's one of the reasons why I love also bringing founders onto the show is I love to learn from them and hopefully the listeners are learning from each other from that perspective.
Speaker 1:But I think that is such a key thing. It's you know, they say history repeats itself. It's because we're not learning from each other. So we can learn from each other and be like oh, I remember Vanessa telling me this. This is a minefield I can avoid, because she actually did it and it blew up in front of her face and I'm gonna learn from that. So it doesn't happen to me doesn't mean I won't step on a different minefield, but at least I'm not going to step on that one.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I think we cannot highlight enough that, while founders sometimes are doing this for the first time or maybe you are a founder, you know you've done this several times, but it's a new product or a different industry that you're stepping into, whatever that might be you know when you're hiring people into these roles, specifically in your leadership team, you know I have 16 years of mistakes and growth, right Like I have 16 years of both messing things up and 16 years of creating millions in pipeline opportunities for companies. It's possible that you know I've seen versions of this before and might have some good advice possible that it doesn't apply, but opening up that conversation and creating that transparency and like the openness to, to filling in those gaps where it's needed, is again I feel like it could be a game changer.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I mean, even when you think about it, it's like, okay, the business world, the world itself, where we are today, where we were, versus 10 years ago, and we're talking pre COVID, right, you know that's a different way. If you step back and go, well, pre 9-11, right, pre this, pre that, then like obviously there are things that change, but one thing that's constant is the human interaction and the human element that is a part of our business world and the consumers. Whether you're B2B or B2C, you're still targeting people, there's still relationships and there's still interaction and engagement and the knowledge of those individuals. So there's at least one little thread of consistency that you can pull from other people's experiences.
Speaker 2:It's so true. It's so true, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So, as we wrap up to this podcast today, is there any last minute words of wisdom or tools or tricks, advice, you'd like to give the audience?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say. Specifically in relation to AI, I want to underline something that we touched on throughout our conversation, which is just, you know, you can drive the faster car, you can use less fuel to get to your destination, but in the end, you are going to need that person. You are going to need some level of strategy and, like, cohesion to what you're doing. And buyer beware, when it comes to AI. It's so great that you're doing things more efficiently. It's so great that it's so smart.
Speaker 2:It already has so many answers for you, but there is a possibility that, by automating so many elements to how we show up as a brand or how we show up as a company communications within the company I mean, you name it the ways that AI can impact every department in a company there is also the risk of being completely fragmented and essentially diluting your impact because you don't have that full cohesion of your marketing strategy, of how you're treating employees, the employee experience you name it, and so that would be my one parting thought is don't forget, you're going to need some really good either experience or strategy at the table to help you pull all of this amazing, you know power that you have with AI into your sphere and help you create exponential results with very little investment and resources. And you know, make sure that you're tapping into that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so in your car analogy I can't help. But like just I don't know sickly imagine. We know AI hallucinates.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You don't want to be in the car where the AI is hallucinating. There's a bridge, but there's not right.
Speaker 1:You don't want to go off the course, like literally, that just came to my mind as you're talking about it.
Speaker 1:I'm like, well, I don't want a hallucinating bridge where I'm going to drive off to it and it's not there. So it is really important that you are making sure that you are using AI in an effective way and I've talked about this on past podcasts recently of also double checking and validating and reassessing your tools, because I think, as AI is becoming more and more, you have departments and even sub-departments who are going out and test, trying tools that maybe then, ultimately, they decide to pick it out for the year. But then you know you have layers of AI tools all over the place and none of them are connecting and, like you said, it's it's, it's just so disparate and not connecting and not aligned to your vision. So that's another piece of the puzzle too is, as you start to look at bringing on tools, that you don't end up having a hundred AI tools when, like three or four would probably, you know, meet 80% of those hundred tools that you have.
Speaker 2:I think that's spot on, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks, Vanessa, for your time and thanks everyone for listening today. We hope you got some good words of wisdom and some actionable items out of it, and we will see you on the next podcast.
