RX 8 - ABM in Startups vs. Large Established Organizations | Amber Bogie, Director, Global Marketing, UCC, GoTo

In this week’s episode of the Revenue Xchange, host Davis sits down with Amber Bogie, Director of Global Marketing at GoTo, to explore how ABM programs differ between startups and enterprise organizations.

Key Takeaways:
1.) PE vs. VC Expectations: PE-backed companies demand strict efficiency metrics and ROI proof, while VC-backed orgs encourage experimentation and accept failure.
2.) Regional Strategies: Global ABM practices need local adaptation. North American tactics don’t work globally, ignoring cultural and market differences kills programs.
3.) Speed vs. Scale: Startups launch campaigns in weeks with lean teams, while enterprises work through longer timelines and complex approval processes.

Closing Note: Amber brings 15 years of ABM experience across organizations ranging from Series C startups to billion-dollar enterprises. Her perspective is clear: there’s no universal ABM playbook. Success requires understanding your organization’s structure, funding model, and capacity, then building accordingly.

Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants: 0:13

What's up Amber? Hi. Hi Davis. Hi. Alright, well welcome everybody. We have another revenue exchange this week. today we're gonna be talking about something that I do not think is referenced enough in the market, and this is the difference between ABM and startup organizations versus larger, more established enterprises. For today. So just, just some quick housekeeping before we really get into it. one, we wanna make this as. Interactive as possible. So please ask any and all questions in the chat, interrupt us live. do not feel bad about jumping in. We want to make sure we answer all of your questions. The on-demand recording for any content that we share from a visual standpoint, be up on our research hub 24 hours after. Recording today in the audio podcast version can be found Spotify, apple Podcasts and it is under the revenue exchange. So. For our episode today, we have a crazy guest, a go to one of our GTM advisors at four x. She's also one of the founding four X's executive council members. I'm sure you've seen her, heard her on some webinar, some podcast. Over the past four plus years, but we have the incredible Amber bogey. She is currently the director of Global Marketing at Go two. Amber, what's going on? Welcome to the Revenue Exchange. Hi. Hi Davis. Hi everyone. that was like the best little mini ego boost that I didn't know I needed. Lost my heart. Thank you. This show's been such a long time coming. I'm like, we did one maybe. Maybe what, a year ago and year plus. I don't even, it's, I'm like, it's, it's like, it, it, it all blurs together. I remember doing an unboxing, like a reach desk unboxing video together with you, which was one of the best things ever. and Gracie and her poof made a, made it, I think that living in Austin, maybe the first time we did one. Then you went to Florida, you've bu back like so much has, so much has passed. yeah. And shout out to Sophia Silva. We have her on live as well. What's up, Sophia? but okay. Amber, we need to, we need to break this down because one, I would love to, I'd love our audience to hear more about your specific background in ABM and marketing in general and the d and you know, kind of what you've seen being in that hypergrowth smaller startup space and really leading the marketing. Team, team and then to now in a billion plus revenue organization. kind of what, what made you make that transition? What it was like in both. And then we can really get into some of the differences across ABM, not only in those organizations, but I know that you consult and you also talk with, a lot of other companies who are, starting or. Trying to progress and mature their ABM programs. So maybe we could talk about, you know, some of those wide scale trends as well. Yeah. So just kind of start back background, sort of just like backing up. I've been in the marketing space. It's been, it's been around 15 years now, that I've been, you know, actively working in corporate. I have been doing a version of ABM since. I wanna say like 2000, maybe 16. I can just visualize ABM for Dummies, the book. Like I, you know, this has taken me back to my first SaaS company, my first knowing anything about ABM, figuring it out with a team. this is back when Engagio was its own. Company like it was a startup. We were one of the first clients. So it's an interesting perspective to, while a B'S existed for, you know, longer than that, before it blew up. And like the very, very beginning journey, if you will. that's my kind of starting point and I, I don't know that I knew that I was taking, I don't know. I guess it felt a little bit like a risk or a leap at the time. But when I was moving jobs, and interviewing, I remember I was only interested in ABM and I just wasn't. Excited about other roles. It was this that got me excited. So like that's for me personally, what got me into a very deep ABM space. And I spent the next many years building out the strategies at various sized organizations. and I've done, you know. The, the first, I guess, true kind of ownership in, in, in terms of my seniority and how long, you know, I've been doing, like the first time I owned an ABM strategy, which was terrifying by the way. And I tell my, my peers and the people in the space in this space that are, you know, on this precipice of this journey, owning, owning it for the first time is a hundred percent scary. but people believe in you and, you kind of need to remember that, that someone, someone believes in you, so trust them. But yeah, the first time I owned the strategy was a true enterprise 1 0 1 strategy. I guess if I'm looking at back at it, I'm like, yeah, that was pretty much an Enter Enterprise company. It didn't really feel like a huge organization. I think it was like 600 plus. but it, it behaved like an enterprise. and then I went from there to true startups like Series C ish. I built out and scaled the, like the full funnel, a BX methodology that I, I refer to as like the full funnel, which, you know, you have the entire model around, which was inclusive of. The different tiers, which I refer to as like one of many 1 0 1, one to few. that's where I started doing, one-to-one opportunity acceleration. And like from there I went. Then from then I went to an even smaller startup. which is where I met the lovely Sophia who's on here. and that was when I had the opportunity to not just own the ABM strategy, but to own the entire demand gen funnel and the holistic build of a marketing function and organization. and it was at that point in my career that I had been for years observing the, see, just, just. The head banging against the wall between demand gen and ABM. And that was when I decided, now that I own this thing, I wanna figure out how these things work together. And that's the marriage between ABM and Demand generation. And you know, that was just the opportunity to create, you know, a true, true flywheel or, or continuous funnel, whatever you wanna call it. and then to where I am now, which is back at an enterprise organization. Building a, you know, very complex, ABM strategy while also owning the entire demand funnel. so kind of a bigger step up from where I was in my last place. I own the whole pipeline, the whole build, figuring out how to optimize the demand generation funnel and also create a supportive account based strategy that works for the business in. The way that it needs to, I dunno if I answered any of your question. You definitely did. And so I, I guess I'm really curious in. The biggest differences that you've seen and in terms of you had your demand gen funnel, you had this, ABM style strategy and one of the, one of the large trends, that we're continuing to see really. Take shape across the market is, is almost the convergence of ABM and demand gen into a holistic account based strategy. And when it comes to the different deployment models or the way in which you structured and shaped the strategy. What were some of the, the large differences or nuances that you saw or have seen across those really small, or not really small, but those smaller organizations versus very large enterprises? I mean, it's so, it's so hard to, I don't know, just like isolate it, it the differences simply, I guess. I think they're both really difficult, but in their own ways I have at startups. So like there's definitely a difference between the different strategies or maybe it's the way in which you approach the strategies. It's different. It's not the strategies themselves ne necessarily, but it's a little, I guess you can be a lot more agile. Right In a startup, I think there's a lot less, scrutiny. I wanna say maybe on just like the general strategy of, you know, there's just trust and driving, driving the demand no matter what it takes kind of thing. I think that for the most part. At a large organization, your biggest challenge is figuring scale. Mm-hmm. While I say that I've scaled at small or organizations and startups, actually, I think the biggest scale I've done was today at Degreed with like over a hundred sales reps, which maybe is really small for. an organization. We have like 5,000 sales reps, let's say. so I think, you know, it's not exactly black and white between the two, but I think that when it comes to the biggest challenges between them, I would say that scale is the hardest, thing to figure out. I think that the complexity, I mean, I'm. Just one person at one enterprise organization. There's so many people, especially in the forage community that are big organizations. They have these challenges on like day to day to day that they've been living and breathing for a long time. I've spent more time in startups than I have in enterprises, and so what, you know, feels for me, like a big challenge maybe to others is something that they're just used to dealing with on a regular basis. You know, there's a, I, speaking from my, my current experience, there's a lot of complexity in having multiple products. Within your organization and how your sales team is set up and who owns the selling component of each product? Is it one sales person that owns one product and one segment of the business, or does your industry have every sales person selling every product and you know, possibly every segment? It's just, there's so much dependency on how your organization is set up. That I think that there's some, you know, simple T chart, you know, that you can pay enterprises like this or it's like this. But I think that there, the commonality is that it's challenging between both of them. I love the way that you brought up the complexity and not just complexity of, you know, having larger teams, but also the product specialization, the industries, the segments, the micro segments. Mm-hmm. What comes with the whole package of being in a really large enterprise organization and when it comes to the launch times of the programs. Mm-hmm. What have you typically seen in terms of the difference between, you know, smaller org versus the enterprise? When you would layer on the added complexity? Well, that's a huge, that's a huge difference. I'd say probably. and I would absolutely welcome Sophia to chime in on what she remembers of like our long time campaigns,'cause we were together doing it. But I would, I would say that the time to get a campaign to launch is significantly longer at a, an enterprise. Organization. And that is, I'm, I mean, that's just fact, fact, fact. Like, I don't think there's anyone here that would argue that. I remember I, it was like the forge event that we did in Austin last fall, talking to someone who was at, an enterprise here in Austin. And that was her biggest issue. and she was trying to figure out how to do ABM in her organization. And at the time I was. Earlier in like my tenure, at GoTo. So I hadn't, I hadn't taken over the team. I was doing the advisory internally for, for the strategy. So I didn't feel that day to day kind of pain. but it absolutely is a challenge. I'd say the standard time that we're kind of running is about 12 weeks. and you know, the goal, you know, the goal reduces, you know, eight to eight weeks. Yep. Yeah, so there's a lot, a lot more, oh, go ahead. Sorry. Can I ask a, is, I'm gonna, I have a question. can you speak to the different. Expectations between enterprise and startups, meaning specifically I think in enterprise, most companies understand the value of ABM and, you know, understand the value of just engagement in, engagement scores. I don't know if that's the same for startups. I mean. I, it's been a long time, to be honest, that I've even really used the engagement metric as a, a way to, I'm gonna say tell the story of success. I think it's been, I don't know, probably like five or six years per personally. so I haven't really fo been heavily focused on that. For a while on the engagement side. I would say that, I mean the, the, the metric and, and what, what is I think between both organizations is ultimately the bookings and the pipeline and the conversions. I, I don't necessarily think that enterprise organizations, like, I don't think it's necessarily a safe assumption to say that they value it or see the value, over startups. I think that it's so hyper dependent on who. Like, what organization are you working at? How old is your organization? What is their in invest? Like, are they public, private? Are they pe Like are they vc? Like what, like all of this stuff, I think creates a completely different blueprint. I think that PE versus VC is starkly different. and I think that my experience with. Building a strategy for VC versus PE is, there's a lot more, I think there's a lot more scrutiny, on the PE side, and, and, and need for nuance and detail that is really hard to show with ABM. so yeah, I don't, you know, I think that it's certainly complicated. What was the que like circling back? What's the question? No, this is good feedback. If I'm hearing correctly, it sounds like they both startup and enterprise, there actually is, that doesn't necessarily mean there is a difference. They both focus on revenue, influence, pipeline, all the stuff, things you mentioned. But it's more that if you boil it down to start it, it is more the type of organization, so like you were saying, PE versus venture back. mm-hmm. Then. Can, can you, can you kind of dive into that a little bit more? the differences between that and, you know, Davis, I'm sorry if I'm diverting this conversation. I I can take this offline with her too. I think this is, this is a great question. Yeah. No, yeah. This is important. This is hugely important I think. I think that orgs earlier in my career and then vc and it's so interesting to like have such a different experience and this is just me speaking from my experience, no one else's. I didn't realize the differences until I was more senior. Because I didn't really have to face the scrutiny. I didn't really have to answer a lot of the questions, right? So the last time I was at PE org, culturally, you know, had some similarities I think. but as I went up in seniority, I spent more time with VCs and then now, and, and, and pe. So, so what the best explanation I've ever been given. I asked somebody who worked in the space of like, like on the, the investor side, VC versus pe. And the way that it's, the way that somebody kind of said it to me was, okay, vc, they are gonna throw a bunch of money like at the wall and they're just gonna see what sticks. And if one thing sticks, that's cool. So basically they expect failure. Because they're placing bets and so some of their money needs to make money, right? But there's losses that are gonna be expected. So if you think about how. Who you are at what company you're at, like are you the company that they believe the most in? Are you the one that's like, yeah, wow, that was a bad choice. Like, which one are you? You don't know. You don't know because you know, you're just doing, you know, you're just doing due diligence as a marketer trying to do the best job you can do, but you don't necessarily know, like how do they value you? But you can potentially tell based on how much. Attention they're paying to you, how much they trust your, you know, leadership team. How involved are they? you kind of can get those nuances. PE on the other hand, is so much more buttoned up and so like they don't throw money at the wall. They know where their money's going and they know exactly how much they plan to get out of it, and they're fine tuning it. Along the way. So if you can differentiate just those two types, you feel a difference, like from the top down. So now that I'm at the level that I'm at and have experience with them both, I'm like, oh wait, they feel different. And there's a lot more. Scraping through the data, combing through the details of things with PE than there is in vc. And that's just, I think the nature of the two types of investment kind of orgs and how they behave. there's a guarantee, it's a guaranteed, but. They're gonna get their money versus like, VCs are looking for bets, they're looking for wins, and they're placing their money on the horses. Right? they're not all gonna win the race. And so when it comes to ABM, like you can think that you're gonna just generally, I think, face more scrutiny and like what's. What is the efficiency of the strategy? Like how are you proving value? And it's, as we know in the ABM space, it is really hard to tie dollars to metrics. And so that's where the source first is influence comes in all the time and makes you wanna rip your hair out. because. You know, that just opens up a whole can of worms, worms of attribution, and the complexities of attribution. And so, you know, from my, my own perspective and standpoint, I honestly, like, I just try to show the value and I think that. As marketers, it's literally our job to tell stories and our job to create narratives. And I don't mean lies, I mean narratives of the realities and find the story and and to tie it together. And so if you are able to say, well, I can't tie. This dollar to this opportunity. I can tell you that when we shifted dollars from this area to this area, we saw direct conversion results across the entire business. our close rate increased, our cost per opportunity, decreased, that kind of thing. It's really hard and it's not hard because. It's hard to tell that story. It's hard to manage. I think all of the, the balls in the air when you're running strategy, you're running a team, you are, you know, trying to balance so many things. I think that the challenge is finding like a mental space and clarity to be able to focus on those things and pull them together. Okay, so, let me just make sure I understood. So for vc, would you say it's, there's more op, Expectation to experiment and, test and try new things as long as you can show some value somewhere. but on the PE side, it's more about optimizing and fine tuning what they, their money essentially. And it's, more focused. You, you need to be more focused on. Then the metrics or presenting the value through correlations or whatever. is that, did I understand that correctly? Yeah, I think so. I think that there's, you know, there's always, there's always opportunity to, kind of s. To say that, you know, both things can happen anywhere. But yes, I think that truthfully that's, that's a synopsis is there is more, there is more room at with VCs to just experiment and to, to test a little bit. but I do think that in terms like your summary was, is accurate. Yes, I do think that market in terms of like the market industry, we are in a. Tight, you know, time where it's not growth at all costs. It's, you know, growth at zero costs. So it, it is, it's, it's challenging between both, but those are, those are the personas, if you will, of the different words. Thank you. Yeah, that's super helpful. That's, that's really good insight. Thank you. My pleasure. That was, I'm like that, I was taking so many notes during it. And Amber, one of the questions that, that I have for you around this is, what are some of the things, or what are the top things that are being scrutinized on PE versus VC backed? What are, what are those hard questions that they're really pressing you around? Is it budgeting? Is it specific, growth metrics? What, what are those levers? I mean, I think that, I think it's fair to say that they both ask the same questions. like, what's your LTV? What's your cac? You know, what's your cost per opportunity? All of those, all of those things, I think that are, I think that because PE is positioned to. They buy, they package and they sell. I think there's a lot more inquiry on those, those, you know, efficiency metrics, and ebitda, right? that's kind of an obsession is ebitda. which is, I, you know, I, I don't, I don't have much, I, I don't have too much going on there. Like, I can't really, don't ask me, you know much about it besides the definition. it's a, it's obviously a, a complicated analysis of your business, and, and how it's positioned. But yeah, I mean, I, I think that they're looking for efficiencies. Across the business so you know how much, how much you know, how profitable are you, and how well are you spending the money. Yep. That totally makes sense. Now, smaller org versus larger org. As you get into these enterprises that might cover multiple regions, you probably will have some form of ABM and, AMEA versus AMEA versus apac. Something in, you know, a a, some program in LATAM as well. Thinking about, governance. And making sure that one, there are consistent definitions of ABM, consistent definitions of the different deployment models. Also tactical differences, sharing of best practices and even experiment results as well. in. As you've transitioned in, as you've been in these larger orgs, how have you approached or seen governance within them across your ABM program versus the smaller ones? I mean, I don't really know that we had governance at like the startups, to be honest. It was more just do the things, get it done. The governance was us. We were the governments. Like we were a brand, we were legal, we were like, we were everything. yeah, no, I mean there, there's obviously some components of, you know, like, don't do that. but I, there's. When you are at a startup, you are everything like you are. You have to figure out who you know of your 20 person organization who's gonna manage this process, or how do you do it if you know there isn't somebody, I'd say, you know, fortunately for majority of the startups I've been at, we've had, you know, these roles. But, you know, so Sophia can attest to as well, like, we were content, we were brand, we were, we were all of it at certain points when our team was, you know, at certain stages of growth, you know, digital marketing automation, social media events, we were everything. So, We created our own governance and the team wasn't big enough, to really nece necessitate, you know, how we differentiated between, we had to kind of do some overlap of, well, this is the strategy globally. you know, and or. Where necessary, you know, when it came to like paid ads, you know, we do different things in different countries, of course, but I think that when it comes to like larger organizations, you know, I, I think that, I think that you, my instinctive response is you need to be flexible. I don't think you can mandate a global strategy that needs to be. Refined and defined for each region. so the expectation that a North American person would be building out a strategy in apac. Or EMEA or LA Tam and have all of the nuances of these, these regions, I think is, is an error. I think that you need to trust people who know these regions and cultures and have experience. I mean, the EMEA market itself is so, so different than America. and that's what I think we have the most. Overlap in coverage with, you know, I, I'd say most of us are probably used to working between those regions. it's been a minute. Yeah, it's been a minute since, you know, APAC and, and, and, and stuff. But, yeah, I think that, you know, you, you need to create some guardrails of, you can't just say, okay. You know, go pick your list and create your strategy. I think that, you know, you need to, to think through, okay, well this is how many accounts we've selected in North America and for our sales teams. Okay, how many reps do we have here? How much can one rep manage? So it's not, okay, we're doing 500 accounts in this region and this region is, it's, how many sales reps do you have? Okay. What's the capacity of each sales rep? Right? so like that's just one example, of, of something like that. I think that, you know, the, the very simplest thing is like, oh, okay, well we love, in the US to not really. To, to, to be un unaware or, and, or ignore, you know, like email spam, gifting, like whatever. It's just like, yeah, there's no, there's no bribery, there's no, you know, like we don't deal with that on a regular basis here in terms of, we don't constantly think about it. Like we get emails, like, I mean. We get emails and we're like, oh, they're probably breaking the cans spam, but we're just kind of used to it. You know, we get gifts for over$25. That's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. There are places where you need to take into consideration how they receive things and or sometimes it's an insult, right? Like sometimes it's an insult to be sending gifts. Like there's just things that you need to take into account with your strategy. so I'd say when it comes to that, it's less about, I. It's less about creating rigidity and it's more about nuance to, from a strategic build and an operational flow, how does it need to work in different areas? And then from a cultural kind of. Reception, like, how does it need to be perceived? I think that, that, that also goes into the language, right? You cannot just, translate something and have it make sense. There's nuance. And I think culture is such a big, a big aspect of not only that, but when you're initially launching your ABM program or even working to get sponsorship to pilot one. And when thinking about culture. When you're coming into some of these larger, more established orgs, they have these processes that might have been in place for, you know, decades in some cases. Mm-hmm. How have you seen, or how have you approached, piloting or, bringing in a more ABM style strategy to those larger orgs where they are? So, So used to doing it one way versus what has it been like in the smaller scrappy orgs where you could kind of, you know, mo move faster? Yeah, that was a nice way of putting it. I feel like there's two ways to go about it at the large orgs, you know, take their templating and their complex overly. Worded, you know, process and work through it or be the catalyst for change at the business. and I think for my, you know, my own personal experience there, it's sort of like a read the room kind of thing where you kind of need to figure out like what is appropriate. Certain, certain experiences have. I have actually been reminded No. Your or why. The reason that you're here is because you are different, and because we need change and because we need to break the mold, we need to break things. So, I think that it's, we should not assume that if we are at these larger organizations with complex processes that we can't make the changes. sometimes it is a welcome breath of fresh air. I think that this is kind of a, a random offshoot conversation, but, there is a call that I've, you know, been a part of and for the longest time I just. W was like, I don't really know what half the stuff is, and I'm struggling so hard to like retain the information. And eventually I took over that call and I started asking the dumb questions. Turns out nobody knew the answers. So if you feel like you're asking a dumb question, be brave because chances are everyone's just quietly wondering the same thing. And so since those changes, since those like being vulnerable, has opened up the conversation to be more normal, more. More valuable, so much more impactful. and I think that similarly with these, these types of things, like, like if you're willing to be the loud voice in the room, or to be, you know, the, the rule breaker or whatever you wanna call it, it might just be so desperately welcome. so. I guess, I guess my long-winded answer to that is, you know, you can do it, you can do it the way they've been doing it, or you can make changes. My preference is to make the change, because I guess, you know, it's, it's served me, it's served me well this long, so I might as well keep running with it and having the courage to ask those questions too. That's, I mean, that, that is. True leadership that you're bringing to the organization. And as a ABM leader, I mean you are. You are ushering in a new strategy that a lot of people might have seen done poorly in another organization that they were at, or they're seeing it for the first time. And that can especially be true on the sales. Side when it comes to, getting them bought in. Excited. Have you seen any difference between the larger orgs versus the smaller orgs? yeah. I mean, I guess I'd say this is one of those, again, like, just, just kind of cultural differences between enterprise and startups. Like, please, please, if anyone has different experiences, like I'm not the only one. but startups tend to have younger people. They have young energy. That's something I, I, I remember feeling like was a breath of fresh air. There's pros and cons. There are pros and cons. when it comes to the ABM side of things or if you're kind of. Supposed to be a catalyst for change in an organization. I would go ahead and stereotype by saying that the younger group of people is widely like open to try new things and to change. and. That comes with, you know, the ABM stuff, the new tech, the new tools. Like, they're not as scary and overwhelming. they're, you know, they're not struggling to think outside of traditional strategies and tactics because they have been born into the chaos that is like, you know, the SAS tech marketplace, in terms of their career, you know, starting there to those who have been around long enough. I think that if you've been around for at least like 15 years, like I can now raise my hand and say, yeah, I remember a time when, you know, there was a, I came up during marketing automation, so I didn't really work in a world before, but it was during the, it's a, it is nascent, I guess you can say right now with ai. I'm going through that and it's like. We have to evolve with the market and the industries. Like we have to evolve, we need to learn to do that. we can't stay stuck in the ways of behaving. So I think that's just an example. when it comes to, you know, let's say sarp Enterprise, going back there perhaps. Weirdly, AI has forced it to be a situation where you have to change. And so there's a little bit less ability to push back anymore, if that makes sense. But yeah, I'd say that i's easier in some ways with the startups. you have smaller teams and I think you have. More access to them. You're working directly with them versus you're working with the VP who has like this many managers who has like this many, you know, there's like, it's a, it's a little less personal. that brings me back to my sales army, back in the degree days where I talked about the top up and the bottom down approach. in order to kind of. Communicate that, but both ways because if you're just doing top down, then you're really, you don't know what's being messaged at giant organizations. You don't have the luxury of doing that. Like you need your team to do the bottom up and you do the top down, to try and help facilitate that change. And you brought up ai, so I was just writing so many questions. I'm like, we, we need, we need to dig into that on what you're seeing in with ai, how that's impacting ABM, especially, Dr. Well, driving that change and the innovation and, and really being a, a forcing factor for that. oh God. That, I mean, that's a lot like, can talk so long about that. Right. I, I've, I've really personally started to dive into this and really, am trying to absorb so much about what's going on with ai, how people are using it. I think that there's, I think the majority of us are trying to figure out how to use it. While also enabling our teams. and that's like two different learning streams, right? We're trying to enable and encourage and provide access to. I think that there is so much stuff that can be done. it just depends on like what your skillset is and what your team's skillset is. I think that. Oh gosh. And I couldn't even answer like, Ooh, started versus enterprise here. I think that they both could have massive benefits. Like we have our own AI team, like we have a literal AI team in the organization. That's job is to not just build for the products, but to build for the organization. So I have, I have connected with our team. Basically internal external utilization, right? AI for the products go-tos, products, and then AI for internally. Like how do we use to better our workflows, our systems, et cetera. So I have, initiated that myself because like, oh my God, we have access. How amazing is that? So that's, you know, something that I'm working through a process, you know, that's, that's in place. But at startups what's cool is most, this might not be the most secure, but they can all just like log into their instances and their non-secure computer. And like connecting and using all these things and like workflows and whatnot. So like, that's really great. we have our own instance of CHATT that was built for us, secure for our business that I use. and then I'm working on kind of getting some workflows and, and stuff built with more advanced tools. But I mean, you, you, if you dream it, y you know you can do it. That's basically, I think, the story with AI and ABM and like the most packaged button up. Way you seeing AI have a shift in, not just in your business, but across businesses overall? Is it shifting budgets, especially as we're just coming up on 2026 planning for a lot of ABM programs? Are you seeing any impact there? I, I'm not saying that. Currently, I'm sure there are people and places that are though that are able to rep, like replace certain tools with workflows that they've built out. I think that we will continue to see that. I do think that will continue to occur. I don't want to be those organizations that have the tech, like I don't envy those businesses that are going to be replaced. because it's easy enough to build out, you know, your own workflows and whatnot. in terms of, you know, I can't really think off right now. I'm like, I can't really think of anything that would. Like to, to drop the budget. I think that we're still in a state of figuring out how to optimize and use everything. and I wouldn't say reactive by any means, but I think that we're moving alongside, you know, we're moving alongside of the evolution as fast as we can. And I know we have a few minutes left. I do want to open this up broadly to any questions. I have a couple more pages of notes. Ab I could, I could ask you questions all throughout the remainder so easily. This has been an incredible session, but I do wanna make sure that we open it up, to everyone and we don't have to stay specifically on topic as well. so I'm gonna gonna pause here for a quick moment. I have another question. I feel like I'm dominating the question sphere, but on this you spoke about startups and having like 20 people. so it's obviously very small, smaller probably budgets too. What tools. Did you think was absolutely important to have given that small, small environment? Because I think I'm at a big enterprise company, so we have all the tools and, I think about like intent, providers. Did you. Did, was that something you employed in at a small startup? Because that could be expensive for a star small startup as well. Totally. Yeah. I mean, it is expensive for a startup, and I did, I did use them. some of the places that I went had already had contracts and I just, you know, increase them to bring on that intent aspect. But so much has changed in the last few years. You know, there are the tried and true intent providers that we've been using for quite a few years now. There are people that are very, overtly and, and publicly trying to destroy those companies with different types of data. and then, you know, there's, there's an evolution of. What we can build, you know, with, with ai. Right. I don't think I am of really the belief that there's any tool that you really need anymore, which is I think probably pretty, like, it's pretty hard for me to say because I was pretty dead set on like, these are the things you have to have. I think I've just. You know, I probably lived through the, the heyday of having a lot of tools at my disposal and the luxury of that. And we've all lived through the economic impacts for the last several years and have been a part of reduction, reduction, reduction, cutting, cutting, cutting. And we just figured out how to survive with the tools that we have available. so. You know, I think that when it comes to startups and like where you are. Even in an enterprise. I mean, I think that you just have to determine what the tools are that you need for your initiatives, and what the most important things are, because perhaps not everybody needs the intent providers anymore. Like, how big is your audience? How big is your market? Like how well do you have a, you know, you're built out? Like CRM ecosystem, like how much data do you have? Like perhaps you have to prioritize, cleaning out your database and optimizing your database over, you know, getting those insights into what their behavior is at this point. Every company has eaten every company, and they all have some sort of. This, that, and the other, capabilities, right? So it's, it's like buy one, get seven free practically when you go to any particular company. so I just, I just think that, you know, that's not clearly specific on like, must have this or that, just because I think that, I think that maybe we're past, we're past that. I think that we're past that time, in, in the space and we are a what do, what options do we have? How much money do we have? What are our priorities? What do we need to make happen? I think that we have to just make hard choices and you know, like I would say at one place I'd be like, oh, I want Chili Piper and I want the meeting Booker, another place. It's like, I need gifting. Like this is super important. You know, it's like, oh, I need operations and insight and into our accounts. I think that if you, you know, pick the one that you need, pick the two that you need, the three, like as many as you can. But I would, I would say I've, I've spent time at places with Tech Blow and I've experienced that too. Right. And you don't use it, you, you don't use it. because it's all too, you have too many tools, too many complexities, nothing works. You figure out how to live without them, even when you have'em. Yeah. Was, that was super helpful. Well, it was helpful and makes sense, but also wasn't helpful. I almost wish you would just tell me like five tools here, you know, I, and make it straight and easy. But no, it makes a lot of sense and it was, it's good insight that. It, it's a good perspective from, especially since you're right, that all these tools are changing, AI's coming on, you know, taking over. Yeah. And, or everybody's taking over everybody else, but I mean, that makes sense. The hands down is like, you need, you need a CRM. Like, that's like, I mean, like you need your marketing automation platform. You need you, those are the things you absolutely need. Right. So it is just, I, I also have. My husband who works at like baby, baby startups that have like two people, three people. And so I'm like, I see what he is figuring out. Like I'm the spoiled, you know, marketer who's had budget and tools. I'm like, I can't live without this. And here he is getting like the cheapest version of HubSpot and building out workflows and making things work that I have been, you know, like. I've been, you know, of a certain way and experience for so long. you know, I'd say for you with the whole kind of question like, oh, I wish that it was just like a list. I would say the list of the tools that you do have access to, and then like line item, like what, what do they do? And then what, like what are your strategic priorities and then are there gaps? yeah. That makes sense. Thank you. This has been very, this is a great conversation. Thank you. This has been awesome. I'm like, thank you Amber. This is I, and one other question that I have too is agencies. Have you partnered with any in the startup versus enterprise, or have you seen any difference, around working with agencies, consultancies, vendors, on that side? yeah, I guess, I mean, I've worked with agencies on both sides. I mean, pro on the enterprise side, they are very experienced working with enterprise companies. They have systems and process in place, pro with startups. They are scrappy. They know how to make things work with few options. They need three directions and$5, and they'll go make something happen. You know what I mean? quick to kind of get to market. So, think, you know. There, there's also a, we have a, opens up another can of worms over here. you know, we're in a massive, massive shift of consulting and fractional and, so it's like, you can't even speak about agencies is there's also the fractional marketers and there's the fraction, like there's the contract, like there's, there's a whole new world out there. and I think that. I don't know. Might be, I don't think I'm biased. I think that the fractional is probably would be my preference, because they're, they're a person that can just run quick. and so I think that they would be great at either size because I've had experience with both. And it's kind of like having, you know, a, a direct. Team member that just kind of like gets in there with you. That's a really interesting insight. And, alright, we have two minutes left. I do want to, if anyone has a final question for Amber, let's get'em all. Let's I please jump on or toss it in the chat. Amazing. Well, AB I'm sure you will definitely see some, through LinkedIn or in our community. And where is the best place that, people either on our call today or listening from the podcast version, should, go to get in touch with you? link. My LinkedIn is really just the easiest. I have my own personal website. It's my name, Amber bogey.com. Talks a little bit about like my experience, my offerings and, and whatnot, but LinkedIn is just the easiest. So, yeah. Well go ahead up. Amber. Amber, thank you so much for joining. This was an incredible conversation. We're definitely gonna have to run it back and we'll have to get the studio for the next one too, because that will be really fun. Thank you all for joining. We will see you next week for our next revenue exchange. and thank you again, Amber. Thank you. Have a great week everybody. Thanks. Bye.