Chatting and Branding with Jamie, the GoTo CMO

TalkingHeadz is an interview format podcast series featuring the movers and shakers of enterprise communications - we also have great guests. In this episode  Dave and Evan  discuss the rebranding and differentiation of GoTo UCaaS with its CMO Jamie Domenici.

In 2016, LogMeIn acquired  the GoTo Family of Products from Citrix. Both are strong brands and there must of been some struggle about branding. That ended earlier this year with the relaunch of GoTo UCaaS -- spearheaded by Jamie. 

Jamie Domenici serves as GoTo’s Chief Marketing Officer. She is responsible for overseeing the full marketing organization consisting of Customer, Product and Acquisition marketing teams as well as Marketing Operations, Corporate Communications, Brand & Creative and Web & Ecommerce teams. 

She is responsible for deploying GoTo’s brand messaging and architecture, driving demand for its suite of products via paid and organic channels to new and existing customers, and enhancing our web properties to tell the GoTo story and better enable self-service transactions.

Transcript

Dave Michels: 0:00

Hi. Welcome to Talking Heads today, Evan and I will be talking with Jamie dominant Qi, the CMO would go to, but first Aven I'm really confused about the economy, are things getting better or getting worse? I can't figure it out.

Evan Kirstel: 0:26

Well, according to the technical definition of a recession, we've had two quarters of negative economic GDP growth. And so we meet the definition, but I tell you, I look around to my peers. And granted, you know,

Dave Michels: 0:40

we swim in sort of elite circles, and it's still boom times everyone's buying Tesla's and spending money and traveling and changing jobs. So I don't feel it. But I suspect we're not really representative of, quote, unquote, the economy, what do you think I don't understand how to interpret the data. You know, it's like, for the last two years, or throughout most of the pandemic, people have been complaining about the great resignation, and that you can't hire people and that it takes months to fill a position, if you can fill it, they're really upset about that. Now, unemployment numbers are getting a little more reasonable meaning there's more job openings. And people complaining about that. It's like, you know, what's the right answer? prices were going up and then so people were complaining with inflation, and now prices are going down, and people are freaking out that prices are going down? I don't understand what the answer is supposed to look like.

Evan Kirstel: 1:33

We mean, there are some people who complain about everything, no matter whether it's good or

Dave Michels: 1:37

bad. People are that person, I got a bone to pick with those people until I

Evan Kirstel: 1:43

Well, look, I mean, what's hurting us is inflation, which is is high. I mean, if you go by a few pounds of chicken, or beef and Euro, gorilla, I mean, you've seen the prices and if you fill up your tank, you've seen the prices and

Dave Michels: 1:56

just, I just reserved a car in Newark rental car, when I land there, I'm going to be there for 24 hours, actually, 23 I went online to reserve a car, the best price I can get on the cheapest car I can find for 23 hours was $240.

Evan Kirstel: 2:14

You know, so it's these kinds of things. airplane tickets are astronomical. Again, you know, housing prices, while the market is cooling are still pretty high in any where you actually want to live. And so these things are hurting us in the pocketbook. And you know, we're gonna have this either soft or hard landing. It's just a matter of time. But I you know, I think our space is pretty resilient. And there's so many interesting companies providing real value unlike some of the crypto people out there crashing and burning that I think will be okay, speaking of being okay, we have a great guest Kryptos up Am I trying to jump back back in time to lose my shirt a second time. But let's get on to a real company with real solutions.

god: 2:54

Let's get to talking. It's a semi monthly podcast with interviews of the top movers and shakers and enterprise communications and collaboration. Your host are Dave Michaels and Evan Kirkstall, both of which offer extraordinary services including research, analysis and social media marketing. You can find them on Twitter, LinkedIn, or at talking points.com. That's points with the z and f and costco.com. That's Kr s t e l. Today we have with us Jamie Domenici, someone who has an Italian name who lives in California. Welcome to the podcast, Jamie. So we're gonna start off with a real basic question that stumped all of us that we've talked to in preparation. Who exactly do you work for? Because Evan says you're the CMO of go to but I saw a press release that logged me and hired you as a CMO. So who is your employer?

Unknown: 3:51

Well, that's a good question. I work for go to I'm the CMO of goto. But when I started here, a year and a half ago I was the CMO of LogMeIn. So in the period of being here a year and a half, we've rebranded renamed, and now I work for go to

Dave Michels: 4:06

Gu killed LogMeIn. Well, I

Unknown: 4:08

mean, that's a harsh way of saying it, but we reinvented it, we evolved it, we renamed it into go to which there was a lot behind that, why we did it how we did it. But essentially, we launched two companies earlier at the beginning of this year, go to and last pass. So now we have two separate businesses. And beyond that we needed a new name, we needed to evolve our name to reflect the new company that we have launched with go to so we have our same amazing products and technology, but we completely reimagined them. So now we have a new platform. We have two products go to resolve and go to connect and we have one platform that brings them all together. We have a new sales organization, we have a new partner organization we have a lot of new leaders, myself included, it's like a new company. So we needed a new new new name with a lot of energy behind it.

Evan Kirstel: 4:55

Okay, so go to is an old brand as well as a new brand. We even had go to on a podcast before with your prior colleague, Mark Strassman. That was in September of 2019, which feels like a universal way. And how does it feel for you? Is it that feels like 10 years or three years or two years?

Unknown: 5:15

Well, it feels like I've been here for a long, long time. If you go back to 2019, and you were having that interview with Mark and talking about go to the thing is Mark worked out logged me in there and we had a whole remote support solution. I wonder, did you even talk about the remote support solution at all?

Evan Kirstel: 5:35

We did We did I even use it from time to time, which was great. Okay. I'm pretty

Dave Michels: 5:41

sure he said that. I don't remember we have to go back and listen, now one of the brands was gonna go away. He said, I think it was go to those gonna go away.

Unknown: 5:49

Okay, so do you know it? I think there's one thing that we can take away from that podcast in 2019. We were confusing what you are the products that we had. And that's what happened when I came to LogMeIn. I said, Wow, this I know GoToMeeting, I know go to webinars. For years. I know rescue I know grasshopper actually jive. Course, I remember jive. But I had no idea. They were all in the same company. And even we had 13 websites, 18 brands, different logos. Like it just didn't make sense. And I think that was the journey we went on to make it easier for our customers to understand, like, we're just here to make it easy. We're just here to help you connect with your customers or your employees and provide support where you need it like that's it. So the name change, it has felt like a long time coming. But the intention behind it is just to simplify it. So our customers understand how we help them what we sell and how that works together. Names can help with that turned out?

Evan Kirstel: 6:52

Well, speaking of names, I'm a stickler for marketing copy. And as your cmo I'm wondering, did you debate much internally on the T being capitalized and go to or whether it should be lowercase t or uppercase T and go to?

Unknown: 7:07

Oh, we debated for many, many hours, honestly, many hours, many rounds of testing that was resonating, because then you could actually see the two different pieces coming together. And actually, if you look at the logo, and you look at the G The other thing that we debated for hours is the little arrow that's embedded in the G because we really wanted to signal this up movements and how we can help you go anywhere, work anywhere. And so this G was supposed to symbolize it. But fun fact, 54% of people that we would show it to didn't see the arrow. So I don't know if you look at it. Do you guys see the arrow swipe? I

Evan Kirstel: 7:43

see it now. That's for sure.

Unknown: 7:45

You didn't see it. Now, you know, it's embedded there.

Dave Michels: 7:48

That's great. I love that era. There's a gateway computer, if you remember them, they had a really clever thing like that with the universal symbol we have for the power button was somehow in their logo. Very clever. I think that's good marketing. So little easter egg. They're hidden. And there you go. So before we dive more into go to let's talk a little bit more about pre go to the heard of a company called Salesforce. Oh,

Unknown: 8:16

maybe once or twice. Yeah.

Dave Michels: 8:18

What do you know about Salesforce? Well, I

Unknown: 8:20

have the honor of working there for 10 years. So I worked at Salesforce. I joined in 2010 there was 2000 employees, and they were a single product, kind of with a startup mentality back then. And I worked there for 10 years. Yeah, right before coming to go to do you

Dave Michels: 8:39

think you got hired there because you went to the same high schools mark?

Unknown: 8:43

I think it helped but no, I did let him know that one time and he was very impressed by that. Now I've worked at Salesforce actually went to work there because prior to going there I was a Salesforce admin like so many people are and I loved the product so much that it was a mission I wanted to be part of. So I was there for 10 years I marketed every product you can imagine and worked in customer success and had an incredible incredible ride with a great company

Evan Kirstel: 9:09

awesome. If you ever in touch with Mark tell him and I think go to have a much better name than Salesforce. Go to is a verb as you said there's action oriented motion. Salesforce is a noun. I mean you know it's kind of a boring name despite being a great company. But no comment I want to ask for your commentary

Unknown: 9:28

I won't let Mark know your you know that you think you think he has a bad day but I will say that one of the challenges at Salesforce as we began to expand our portfolio was that everyone associated us with sales. So for a long time I worked on our SMB product line and I really need to help small businesses understand we could help them with marketing we could help them with services so the name sometimes was a challenge but we had so much equity in it and brand equity that it was okay we're not gonna go change it. But here I think it go to it was a similar situation. LogMeIn, which was always confusing, it did not represent the full portfolio and LogMeIn had done, you know, seven acquisitions and five years of great products, but didn't really bring them together in a way that made sense. So that was kind of what created the space to rethink the name. And I agree with you haven't I think goto is a great name. And it helps really tie the platform and the portfolio together. So the name is helping us here now. But we were in a similar situation where it wasn't helping us. And we didn't have that blue cloud. And we didn't have the brand equity. So it allowed us to change it.

Dave Michels: 10:32

So give us a little more idea of what you did at Salesforce, you were there for 10 years,

Unknown: 10:36

10 years, like a whole decade, I had two kids there, like everything. So I was there for 10 years, I did a lot of different roles, but I ran a lot of product marketing. So I ran product marketing for the Sales Cloud for a while. And that was fun a road to a billion dollars. I also launched one of their products, which was the analytics cloud. So it was a kind of this next idea of moving into analytics, and it was great launch, but then we needed to go make some money from it. So I came in and helped with that. And then I spent a lot of time running their SMB team, which was, we had done a bunch of acquisitions of companies, all marketing to small businesses, none of which were working together. So my job was to come in and really build an organization within Salesforce that was all focused on our small businesses and how we helped them grow and sustain and get the full value of the platform as we moved up market. So continuing to build that balance within Salesforce did a little bit of everything, it was a good time, it was hard to leave it to great, incredible company. But so let's go to so when I came here, I got to bring all of that experience with me and kind of build up a company who was in a similar state when I joined Salesforce. So it's like doing it all over again, in a totally different product university. Well,

Dave Michels: 11:53

you had three vice president jobs, and Salesforce, which was the best one. Oh, I

Unknown: 11:59

mean, that's like picking a favorite child, I would say probably SMB, because that was, I'm just so passionate about that buyer. So I got to act kind of like the GM, which was really something I was super passionate about, I would say if I had a second, it was actually customer success, which a lot of people are like, Why did you go work in Customer Success, you were a marketer, or you were in the product side. But I really wanted to learn about the entire customer lifecycle. So going and working in customer success, I got to own all of our adoption at scale. So I got to figure out how we do our onboarding, how we help customers get the most out of technology without talking to a human necessarily, if they talk to a human, how do you make that experience good. And I feel like that really helped me round out the entire customer experience, entire customer journey. So I said to I didn't pick a favorite I had two favorites.

Dave Michels: 12:53

Will love that slide.

Evan Kirstel: 12:55

I love that you described yourself as an SMB advocate on LinkedIn, and I am an SMB owner. Dave has a small business very small. But why do SMBs need advocate? So what makes an advocate tick, you know, what excites you about the SMB world?

Unknown: 13:11

Well, I think you kind of hit it on the head, you both have our have small businesses yourself. I was born and raised it with a small business is a fun fact. My family, I come from a family of morticians. So we own funerals. Yes. Which actually, ironically, we rely heavily on technology for as well. But it's this notion of wanting to do more with less and sustaining and so many tech companies. As they grow, they move up market. And that's incredibly important marketing to the enterprise selling to the enterprise. But I find that why you need an advocate is because you need somebody who wakes up and thinks every day about a different pain point that SMBs have. It's about how do you scale? How do you do more with less like, I don't have an IT guy and the mortuary business I have like somebody who's doing secretaries doing multiple things. So I think for me within Salesforce being an advocate for that buyer meant I could think about how to influence the product really make it easy to buy, easy to use, easy to onboard. I also think about the messaging of an SMB is very different than an enterprise an enterprise is looking how to scale how to deploy, you know, internationally, security in a whole different way. I think being an advocate for SMB. It's like understanding what they need, and how do you ensure we're delivering what they need for the price that they want and not anything more. So it was great to do that at Salesforce. It's been great to do that go to our whole product is focused on delivering value for small and midsize businesses. Everything from our r&d decisions to our sales alignment to our partner investment is thinking about that buyer exclusively. And because of that, I think it's really allowed us to focus how we invest and really connect with that audience in a way that's impactful, right and helps them.

Evan Kirstel: 15:04

Love it. And Dave, Please restrain from any jokes around the mortuary business. I know you're itching to share some.

Unknown: 15:11

How is there no reaction to that? There's usually always a reaction.

Dave Michels: 15:16

Did you like that series? Six Feet Under

Unknown: 15:19

my life? It was absolutely.

Dave Michels: 15:22

Did you drive a hearse to your high school?

Unknown: 15:24

I did. And I would get driven to Seoul in a limo. And now my dad picks up my kids and takes them in a limo and I in high school, worked for the mortuary and drove the hearse. So yes, I can. This is really real life.

Dave Michels: 15:37

Real life is probably the wrong term. But anyway. So let's go back into go to here talks about the arrow, let's talk about this yellow and black logo. I

Evan Kirstel: 15:47

mean, holy, we're still on the logo. Come on, there's there's more to the logo.

Dave Michels: 15:53

Because it jumps out at you. And this is a, you know, you might find this hard to believe them. But I have a degree in marketing. And I remember I remember one thing from college, it was yellow and black is the highest degree of contrast you can have. So what are you screaming about it go to what is this? Is this a construction site? What what's going on here?

Unknown: 16:13

Okay, well, first of all, there is a lot of science behind marketing. And we actually took all the competitors or all the companies within our industry, and we put them on a color wheel. And what we found was everybody was on the blue side, right? Everybody was in this blue spectrum is very interesting. Nobody was over here on the yellow space. So he said, You know what we want to stand out, we want to stand out and we want to be different. And so we said yellow It is we're going with yellow and black. I'll tell you, when I showed my CEO the first time he was like, what, this is really out there. But we eased him into it. Because we did we wanted to stand out. And that was something we wanted to also show that we're investing we're different, we're showing up in a whole new way. And I know Dave, you and I met at Enterprise Connect, which was where we launched our new logo and our new brand. And I don't I don't know what you thought, but I felt like you couldn't miss it. And that was what we were going for.

Dave Michels: 17:11

It was actually a very impressive watched. Thank you. I remember I even tweeted that there was like a little, you know, a little round sign on one of the stairs like that and had to go to your booth number. And it made me think of, you know, my days is taking basic programming, which is pretty much the go to command was pretty much the extent of my programming skills. What does the word go to? Do? You mean? What are you saying what go to where should we go?

Unknown: 17:36

Great question. I think it's twofold. And it is intentionally twofold. It has two meanings. One, it means you can go to anywhere with our technology you can work we empower you to work from anywhere in this new flexible work environment. So that's one piece of it, like go to wherever you want to go, we can take you there. The other piece, which is really important is we want to be your go to technology, we want to be your go to to make it easy. So our name is intended to really reflect both of those, which are cornerstones to our brand who we are our value prop and how we want our customers to know us.

Evan Kirstel: 18:07

Awesome. Well, that's pretty straightforward. And you launched Enterprise Connect, as you said, and, and the logo came out in February. So why launch in February and what was involved, that must have been a huge process.

Unknown: 18:20

I was nothing, you know, just rebranding a company. So what was important about February was we won, we picked the day that we launched was to 222. So I mean, that's just a great date, it can never forget it. I like those kinds of dates. I got married on 777. So my husband can never forget our anniversary. What's a 222 became our date. And I started back in January of the year prior. And it will say it takes about a year to really do a rebrand and do it right, that's even pretty fast. So it took that amount of time to get the right name to get the right color to get the right value prop to really get the right product portfolio enhancements in place. So that timing really helped. The other thing was we were carving out last pass. So that was when we announced that we were carving out in a meaningful way to I think in December. So when we came out February, it was clear there was two separate companies to the point that we have two separate names, two different CEOs, two different businesses. So time to get it right. Great date and two companies coming live.

Dave Michels: 19:25

Before we talk a little more about your launch. I just got to you've mentioned your husband and I mentioned your high school. I believe your husband is your high school sweetheart. Is that is that? Gosh,

Unknown: 19:37

that's a lot. Yes. I don't know where that came up. But yes, I my husband and I both went to Burlingame High School. And we're born and raised here in Burlingame. And we've been together for a long time.

Dave Michels: 19:48

One of the things I found on your website, he was on LinkedIn, but it was actually ambiguous because it said married highschool sweetheart. It didn't say you married your high school sweetheart. So I wasn't quite sure. So I just want to clarify Are you sure we're on the same page? But I remember the launch very clearly at Enterprise Connect. You guys had a big presence. You had signage all over the Gaylord, and I remember you this giant candy store. I don't, I don't think I ever figured out what the candy store was doing. But it was spoiling of sweethearts, right?

Evan Kirstel: 20:13

I mean, it's all coming together. Oh, so

Dave Michels: 20:16

were you pleased with the reception that Enterprise Connect,

Unknown: 20:19

I thought Enterprise Connect was great. It was a great way to introduce our new brand company vision to the world. And I'll tell you that kiosk it was a kiosk it wasn't a candy shop. But But what we did was really give people incentives to learn more about who we are what we do, and give back so people could come get schwag, or candy or green juice, whatever you're looking for. But we had a great reception, and both from analysts, customers, even peers, like I think the best thing I heard was someone said, Oh, wow, you guys are back, like in a big way. Like you're here, you can't miss you. And I think that's what we wanted to signal was not that we ever went away. But we're really doubling down and investing and communicating who we are and what we do to the world. And I want the most important audience, I really hope is our customers see that and feel that which is so far been working and really well received? We not to pat myself on the back, but it's working.

Evan Kirstel: 21:20

Absolutely do it. I will pat you on the back. And it's working. Because you're here talking to our millions of listeners, I mean, 1000s of listeners, many of whom are small businesses. So tell us what's involved as part of your SMB advocacy efforts and go to what sort of work and messaging are you doing to those business owners today?

Unknown: 21:40

So great question. And from day one, actually, from the day that LogMeIn was conceived, it was always really focused on small businesses, we are a plg company, we really think about how we make it easier for that buyer to consume. But I think we've taken it a step further. Now, with our relaunch, we're really, it's out there, it's deliberate, it's intentional, we are focused and purpose built for SMBs. And from every dollar of every investment that we put in market, we're thinking about how we can make it easier for an SMB to buy, consume us on board. And we're really focused on LinkedIn about enterprise grade tools available at an affordable price. I'm not saying we're building bad product, I'm saying we're taking the best of the best and making it easy for SMBs. To consume. And I look at a good example is security, everybody has to be worried about security and how we think about it differently in this new world, probably something SMBs might have not been thinking about two, three years ago as much. So when we launched our new product go to resolve, we also embedded zero trust security out of the gates out of the door. So we're making security more accessible, but still at a price that is affordable, and delivering what SMBs need, and not all the rest of the stuff. So it's not just marketing or messaging, it's everything.

Dave Michels: 22:59

Well, marketing this and Bs is kind of a, you know, double edged sword, really, because it kind of says you're not suitable for enterprise. But I know that's not the case at your company. And I know you've got some very large customers, and even some large universities. If so, do you feel that your SMB marketing is excluding part of your customer base?

Unknown: 23:21

Oh, that's a great question. I get asked that a lot. First of all, I think we should have like, Well, how do you define SMB? Dave?

Dave Michels: 23:27

Well, technically, stairs were small, medium businesses. Yes. Those are very, you know, ambiguous terms. But yes, certainly, large enterprises, not SMB. And so I don't know exactly what that line is. It's a point of contention with every five opinions with every three people. But great, but the point is, is that if you are a big enterprise, you feel like you're not SMB. And so you're targeting in your advertising and your marketing, probably an SMB is purposely excluding them is that dangerous?

Unknown: 23:59

Great question. And I asked that because I think you hit it on the head, people think SMBs and sometimes associate micro SMB is, you know, the one denying the mom and pop shops, but when we're selling SMBs, we're selling the companies up to 1000 1500 seats, and then more midsize business where you have an IT department, you are thinking about how you integrate how you adapt and scale your technology. So it's not all you know, flower shops over here, even though I do love flower shops, too. That's about not isolating them. But we have a very diverse customer install base. We're not trying to exclude the enterprise organization. But what we are trying to say is we're going to focus and be really purpose built on ease of use ease of deployment and at a price that's affordable. So I don't want to say I'm excluding but I am being intentional in our target audience and making sure that we're building product that matters for them. So maybe I am excluding Not intentionally, but I want us to be focused. Our product portfolio is kind of adapting to Every one I think it was hurting us before.

Dave Michels: 25:02

What will you guys is clearly a crowded sector and arguably maturing as well. So you have to stand out some way. So you've got your colors, obviously make you stand out, and your SMB, is there anything else that we should be discussing?

Unknown: 25:16

Yeah, well, you're hitting on our differentiators in a wonderful way. So thank you. I think the third thing that's really important is what we do. So at the most simplest form, we help companies connect what matters, which is their people. And whether that's their customers, or that's their employees, we help them connect in a way that's meaningful, and easy and impactful. And when you think about connections, that could be through your phone through your UCaaS, right, you could be on a webinar, it could be on a meeting could be calling someone, but think about how you connect internally in your company, right? Use all those tools, but also support actually, after I get off this call, I have a call with it, because I'm having some problems with my computer. And we're going to use go to resolve so that we can connect and troubleshoot easily. So what's so interesting about what we do what's so different is that we do both of those we can help you connect, communicate, or support all in one place. Awesome. Thank you.

Evan Kirstel: 26:13

So I know Dave Michaels and his analysts love five letter acronyms like UCAS but how do your customers view you? How do you define yourself? Your Are you a UCAS company, you know horrible name, or an IT or support company or people connector? I mean, what's your preferred definition?

Unknown: 26:32

All the above. But as the marketer and me I like to think of us as a company that provides essential connections really simple. And I like to talk about connecting employees and customers because at the heart of it, that's what we do. There's a lot more behind that. And you could drill down into each of those sectors and different product lines. But what makes us differentiated is the ability to do both communicate and support in one place. I mean, we could talk UCaaS and CCAFs all day, but I don't know if the average it buyer is is walking around talking that lingo all the time. So we try and make it easier to consume. But we sell across all those product lines.

Dave Michels: 27:10

So is there a lot of cross promotion. I mean, LogMeIn has its customer base, go to SSBs Are you cross promoting very much between your brands

Unknown: 27:20

100%. It was hard to do before I will say as a marketer, my dollars were stretched very far trying to figure out how to get a rescue buyer to understand a grasshopper buyer. So it has not been easy. But right now, we're doing a lot of things just specific beyond renaming, and replatforming. We've also built a whole digital transformation underway, we used to have 16 websites we're taking down to one so you could go to one place and understand all that we do. Don't look today, there's still about 10 out there, but we're in the process of consolidating it down. And I think the product is, as I mentioned, plg we've built one app that's bringing these two products together. So now as customers onboard, they can get access and start to see more of the different features functions that we have across portfolio, and within each portfolio as well. We're doing a lot to cross sell Dave, a lot.

Evan Kirstel: 28:12

You are actually on the go to website now. And I see you're leading with flexible work solutions, which is kind of a cool catch all not UCAS, then there's basically three product or portfolio branches, flexible communications game, changing it and secure logins, they'll look interesting. So are they typically sold to the same customers or different or

Unknown: 28:36

Yeah, and oftentimes, there's a lot of crossover with our buyer, predominantly it buyers who are looking to make things easier internally, like a great example. We work with a law firm recently. And they went into the pandemic, like so many small businesses and had no technology to go remote. And in a law firm, you need to talk to your clients. That's kind of important. So they implemented technology out of the gates. And now two years later, their employees, they don't want to go back into the office, I like my home, I don't want to go back to work. So they're trying to figure out like if this is the new normal, we have to implement technology, that's going to be a better experience, both for our users and our customers. So they came to us. And we were able to help them implement a new VoIP system, right, they used our UCaaS solution, which was great because it had webinar and meetings embedded within it. So that helped them right. And then beyond that they needed to now remote provide remote support in a more consistent, scalable way. So they also rolled out go to resolve. And they got to do that with one vendor. One cost, actually half the cost of what they were doing before and it just made their life easier. And like that's a really common scenario that we're hearing across a lot of our customers. One person is trying to figure out how to just make everything easier for their customers predominantly in the IT space, but a lot of our customers don't have an IT department so we have to make it easier for them to understand and consume.

Dave Michels: 30:00

Now from my perspective, the three branches that Evan mentioned, the most interesting one, of course to be is flexible communications, your comms portfolio at goto is very impressive, very broad. And as you can see cars, meetings, webinars, and training, oh, my God, a lot of stuff there. So are all those services typically sold at a bundle? Like what Cisco WebEx is trying to do? Are you more ala carte? Do you have customers that are just buying the training solution or just the CCAP solution? Well,

Unknown: 30:28

that's a great question. I would say both. And I would say we had a lot of our UCaaS customers who would start with phone and by other pieces, we also have a CCAP solution. Dave, I'm not sure if you said that in our list of stuff. But of course, okay. I hope so. So we have a lot of customers who would start with one and consume more. But we have found now we have more customers, like the law firm that I was explaining to you who are looking at kind of, especially right now, if they're recession proofing, trying to cut down their tech stack, and look for consolidation, and also look for, you know, less vendors to work with. So we have actually a bundled solution or essential connection solution, where customers can get everything, all the good stuff that we have, with one SKU for one price with one vendor and make it easier to purchase and consume and work with us. So it's a little bit of both, but we're making it easier for you to get everything all in one. So you don't even have to think about it.

Evan Kirstel: 31:25

Nice you mentioned so you guys, and one little mystery to me is why go to sold it's bold, 360 business to Genesis, I was checking out their website recently in your antique as as his Genesis. So why did it fit better over there?

Unknown: 31:40

Well, I'll give you one guess. And then we want to know why it's because bold was focused on more of the enterprise sale, it was a one piece of our portfolio that was very, very much use case specific for the enterprise. So our customer install base was really different than where we are building for in the future. So it made more sense in the Genesis portfolio. And we carved it out I think last year, and it's been a really good positive experience thus far.

Evan Kirstel: 32:08

Yeah, well, you're walking the walk, not just talking the talk. And what's the difference between go to resolve and go to connect? I think I've used both, or police tried both? Are they bundled? Or are they meant to be used independently? What's the deal there?

Unknown: 32:23

Great question. So now we have go to and we have our two core portfolios that sit under it go to connect is our easy to manage business communication software. So it's all those great things that Devi rattled off, but it's really our portfolio that's geared at customer conversations and employee collaboration, single unified application, then you have go to resolve, which is our IT support management solution. It keeps everyone every device up and running, you know, remote access, device management, ticketing and all of that, as I mentioned earlier with zero trust, access security. So you have all of these things, you have your remote support and go to resolve, and you have your collaboration with go to connect, and we have our go to app which brings both of those together.

Dave Michels: 33:11

So the obvious question is, are you satisfied with these two major bundles are more coming?

Unknown: 33:18

Well, we've been on a transformation. So we used to have 13 different products. So even the fact that I could talk to you today and say we have two portfolios, and we've really platformed and consolidate those in a meaningful way is very exciting. I mean, who doesn't get excited about platform consolidation? I do. You guys do too. But so I think the future is about making sure those are best in class, how do we bring them together? And how do we continue to evolve them could another one becoming maybe stay tuned. But for now, I think over the next year, it is enhancing these two portfolios, building more integrations, advancing some of our seat cast solutions. You'll hear more about that. And as I think forward, I think about really this digital communication. So I'll just say that thinking about how we make it easier for SMBs to really communicate and support through all of their digital channels. In a really easy way. A future is digital. I mean, we're already in the future. But I think it go to are uniquely proposition to help think about how to make that even easier for SMBs

Dave Michels: 34:24

for Old MacDonald had a digital farm IO IO IO

Evan Kirstel: 34:29

Don't worry, we'll cut that part out but you may not know this. Okay, we'll leave it in. But I'm kind of a big deal in the cybersecurity space I have a lot of people following me and go to is one of the few UCAS companies that's talking about this new approach to security zero trust, kind of like my relationship with Dave Michael zero trust. Does that apply to your communication services as well as you know IT services

Unknown: 34:57

so we're starting with IT services but aren't Han Shan is to bring that across the platform. So you will see that evolve across our UCaaS solutions. But right now it's predominantly in our go to resolve product.

Evan Kirstel: 35:08

Got it? Very cool.

Dave Michels: 35:10

All right, so we have to ask you the obligatory question about the economy, there seems to be tons of evidence, we're about to fall off a cliff, or there's a bunch of evidence that says, No, we're about to skyrocket. What is your position at go to? And what are you doing to prepare for the ride?

Unknown: 35:26

I mean, well, who doesn't get excited about a recession? It's just, it's great. It's a great time for any company out there. Well, I will say I think go to is no different than any organization where as the recession comes, or doesn't, who knows? I read today, we're having a soft recession, whatever that means. But I think what we know is true is we're preparing for it and companies that think early on about how do I drive down cost? How do I maximize ROI are super important. So of course, we're doing those things at a leadership level. But I think beyond that, we're thinking about our customers SMBs? How do we help them navigate the unknown? And thinking, Well, what can we do to help with that? I think something like 95% of SMBs are looking at tech stack consolidation post coming out of the pandemic, where everybody just stood up whatever they can. So when we think about how can we help SMBs, I think about tech stack consolidation and cost. And so for us, as I mentioned, having a value prop that brings both connecting and supporting together in one place at a price that's affordable with one vendor on one tech stack is an area that we can really help customers to help navigate what may or may not be a recession.

Evan Kirstel: 36:42

Awesome. And speaking of customers, do you typically sell direct or, you know, through channels to those SMBs?

Unknown: 36:49

A little bit of both, I mean, the the UCaaS space partners are critical to growth in that part of the world. And in the last year, we've really doubled down on our ecosystem, we have a new leader, we rolled out a new partner program, I can say from marketing, we're investing millions of dollars into our partner and growing our channel. So it's critical. We also Yeah, no, it's good, right good time to be a partner where an event right now we've done custom Nikes. I mean, we're doing anything and everything to show our partners that we care. And then beyond that, we do have a direct channel. And we have a new CRO, who joined just a year ago, actually, today is his one year anniversary. So Happy anniversary, Bill Robinson. But he's been really investing in building up a direct channel, globally at a global scale, which has been great. It's been so kind of growing both angles of our sales organization, really transforming them. And I'm really excited about where we're going. It's been a great partnership.

Evan Kirstel: 37:46

Fantastic. Well, you've been a phenomenal guest. And I don't say that to all the guests, we need to

Dave Michels: 37:52

wrap to the host.

Evan Kirstel: 37:56

He's an average host. But before we go, we're in the dog days of August here, you can probably hear the dogs barking outside my door. But what are you most excited about as we enter September, and October? You know, the final stretch of the year, it's the busy season. What's up with your planning for us this last quarter?

Unknown: 38:14

Well, I think the thing I'm most excited for is for my children to go back to school and get out of my house. And in my background, I can hear my nine year old slamming her door out there as we speak. So two more weeks. Beyond that, I'm really excited. We have a lot of great events coming up in the second half of the year. And we'll also be talking a lot more about our essential connections and the bundle that we talked about. So we have a lot of exciting stuff coming, all of which I think is just going to be a lot of momentum and kind of paying off the promise of goto right, we're going to make it easy. So I think there's a lot of launches, you'll see coming down the road that will be exciting for our customers and for you guys to

Evan Kirstel: 38:53

it. Well Well thanks so much for having us. We really enjoyed the conversation and you know chatting to you about the new goto. Yeah,

Unknown: 39:00

thanks. Great. Thank

Dave Michels: 39:02

you so much.

Unknown: 39:03

All right. Thanks, guys.

Evan Kirstel: 39:06

Wow, great discussion go to sort of disappeared off the radar for me for a little while, but they're back. And Jamie's

Dave Michels: 39:13

happy. It's just an audio podcast. You can tell she's a smile smiling the whole time.

Evan Kirstel: 39:17

Yeah, it comes down to people and the team and they put together a firecracker team. So I look forward to more

Dave Michels: 39:24

press release and a dancer coming to go to said that she will be leading a group of 200 people in the marketing group over there. I think that's about 200 More than you have Is that about right? I have one

Evan Kirstel: 39:36

and a half people who helped me with my marketing, but somehow I managed to accumulate 500,000 followers so I'm gonna be doing something right somehow.

Dave Michels: 39:46

Until next time

Unknown: 39:49

you some information, gathering conversation Oh man I gotta get out of the phone don't don't don't read your phone no man knows me