Pax (01:20)
All right, Whitney, thank you so much for joining us today. It's a pleasure to have you.

Whitney Goldstein (01:24)
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Pax (01:27)
Whitney, think it would be a really great place to start by having you maybe explain a little bit about what you do at Gorilla Logic and what Gorilla Logic does as a company.

Whitney Goldstein (01:38)
Sure. mean, at Short, we build digital products and platforms accelerated by AI. So we are a software engineering firm. We comprise of a bunch of consultants in the near shore region. I am the director of marketing. I've been here for about a year and I report up to the CGO, our chief growth officer who oversees sales and marketing. So it's been a really fun journey so far. I've learned a ton and it's been an amazing, amazing team that I've been able to lead here. So I'm really excited.

Pax (02:03)
I, think the thing that I'd love to dive into, ⁓ with you ⁓ more is especially given what grill logic does and what you do within grill logic is bringing about change within a team. ⁓ you know, things change very quickly within our industry, especially lately. And it is one of the most difficult things to just change yourself and adapt yourself for the changing landscape.

but then to bring a whole team with you or to incentivize them and push them to innovate. So I'd love to talk ⁓ about number one, what are you seeing maybe as some of the best ways that leaders should be thinking about how to bring about change within a team and then we can get into some specifics.

Whitney Goldstein (02:48)
it's always difficult to come into an organization as a leader and take over a team when there's been changes and the team is also anticipating changes that are coming. ⁓ So it's a really delicate balance and every time I've done it, I've gotten better and more confident. And then there's always a curve ball that is thrown at you and something that you thought was going to go really well changes. But, ⁓ overall, yes, I do try to lead with, ⁓

With the truth, which is I am coming in here with a specific purpose and the purpose is usually to set up some type of center of excellence within the demand gen team or the marketing team, or we need to go in a direction that the leadership team or the executive team has already kind of stated and that they know that. ⁓ and maybe they don't know what that direction is. And so I'm going to try to lead them in that place. So I always start with at least the truth and the honesty, which is this is what I'm here to do. This is what we're going to do together and build together. ⁓

also sit down with each team member individually and I try to get them and their perspective of what's working well, what's not working well, ⁓ individually in their specific roles. What are you doing that you like? What don't you like? I sometimes don't have all the... ⁓

authority to be able to make such drastic changes. But if I do and there's something that you're not doing that you want to do or vice versa, maybe I can shift some priorities around and make some change. So there is some positive that can come out of it, even if there's anticipated change within the organization or the team. And then I also ask them, like, what are their career aspirations? What can I do to support you and grow in your own career? I'm a marketer.

by trade and my history has always been in marketing, but my path has been very non-traditional. I've had a lot of opportunities to grow, opportunities that people have given me, and so I try to pay that forward to my team members as well.

Pax (04:29)
Hmm. love that. Yeah. I've always thought like every leader needs to know what their team members want to do next. And if you don't know that, that's like, you're leaving so much opportunity on the table to give them chances to grow in those areas. And, not knowing that is, ⁓ I think a big mistake speaking of mistakes. What do you feel like are some of the biggest mistakes that marketing leaders, when they're stepping into

Taking on this new role, ⁓ inheriting this team. are some of the biggest mistakes you see happen? And I think it's also helpful maybe to dissect like why they, we often step into those mistakes.

Whitney Goldstein (05:06)
Yeah, I would say, I mean, it's a great question. think it's, it's the same coin, but different sides. Sometimes making decisions too quickly or making changes too quickly. And sometimes it's not making changes quickly enough. Um, I have done both and I've learned from both mistakes, right? So I've tried, I've gone in with assumptions of team members or team changes that I'm going to make or things I'm going to directionally do. And then something happens and it blocks the way, or I find a couple of months later, weeks later, after working with the people that what my initial.

⁓ idea of my initial perception of this person or the team is totally different than what it is. So there's a, there is a balance and it depends on, you know, who you're reporting to and the organization and what changes they've gone through, whether to go fast or slow or somewhere in the middle and make an educated step and change. Right. Cause like I said earlier, it's, it's difficult to change an organization. It's difficult to be on a team that's had so much change. And so you have to be really cognizant and respectful of the team members that have gone through those.

Pax (06:03)
Yeah. So you've got, I think a really great backgrounds, ⁓ like coming in and leading teams, within the marketing space. ⁓ you've made the jump from SAS to consulting services.

How do you feel like ⁓ selling intangible expertise rather than tangible software changes your approach to the way you market and like the buyer's journey?

Whitney Goldstein (06:32)
It's also a really good question. mean, you know it better than anyone, right? Selling expertise and selling your services is so much different than selling a product and something tangible that someone can either do a product trial or a demo or something of. And so there's so many tools that we kind of take for granted or that I would have taken for granted in the SaaS and product world that now I'm looking at them like, wish I had some way of explaining and visualizing what we do.

⁓ so there, there is that component. There is a product visualization or an expertise visualization that you could do, but it is a definitely a different ball game. However, I would say that the fundamentals of marketing and what we're doing in our approach to marketing, our integrated campaigns, various messages, AVM campaigns, those are all fundamentally the same. The differences is what you are saying. So I did, I've always kind of sold to or marketed to a very technical buyer.

in the professional services or consulting world.

I've had to really understand the meat and technicality of what we're doing and what we're selling to portray the expertise in a very concise message, which is very difficult if you're not an engineer and you're not actually doing the work and then explaining the work. Because some of the PowerPoints that we provide clients as a marketer, if you're coming into this organization or you're seeing some of these materials, you're like, this is, this is gibberish to me. So it's, it's a delicate balance of making sure that we have the right message to the right audience and we're portraying expertise.

but not overselling what we could actually do. And also not giving away kind of the secret sauce of what makes us so unique and differentiated in the market.

Pax (08:03)
Hmm. That's interesting. Maybe, ⁓ we've, we've had that same experience. ⁓ it took me a long time to learn this, but we would hire someone to come in and do sales who had the SAS background. And I learned pretty quickly after doing that, that that SAS background lends itself to you just learn the pitch and then you give the pitch and you can have adaptations, but generally it's like the pitch is the pitch and

In services that is not at all how it works. It's much more consultative and, ⁓ you know, they, the name of the game is trusts really in the marketing of the services. And I imagine it's very similar in your end. ⁓ How do you help your team who in this case has a, they have a marketing background and then they need to speak. The engineer speak enough to develop that trust? How do you help them?

get up to speed or how have you yourself gotten up to speed on all the things that maybe they're not, it's not as applicable to your background.

Whitney Goldstein (09:08)
Yeah, it's a good question. mean, and also to close the loop, I'm sure you know this, we're we're we are speaking on this podcast. So much of the sell or the sale is relationship driven, right? And like, it's so much of ⁓ making sure that you maintain those relationships and keep in contact because you never know when the client's going to come back or expand. So I think that's also an important note. But yes. ⁓

I have spent a lot of time and it's something I actually do think is really important for someone coming into the team to spend a lot of time to understand what it is that we do, how we talk to clients, what makes us unique. So What I have done is we've set up a lot of different trainings. have some new offerings that are related to AI that are different than what other people are doing in the market. And it's, ⁓

with anything that is new and different and the tech is also kind of pushing us towards ⁓ acceleration and adoption in a ⁓ heightened way or an accelerated way, not to use the same word again, ⁓ a lot of training. So I have set up several different trainings internally, mainly for our engineers and for what we would call our gorillas. ⁓

but also for my team and other teams that are cross-functional to understand how difficult it is for just our engineers to adopt new ways of working and new tools and strategies that we're going to market with, internalizing that and then working with them as if I'm going to give the pitch myself. So there's several different trainings that we've done internally that I've then turned into scripts or kind of documents of this is our North Star of our new messaging and our new go-to-market strategy. Really understanding, quoting and practicing with the team.

Even though none of us are going to sit on a pitch with a real client or walk them through a pitch deck, but showing that we're invested enough to be able to do it ourselves and raise our hand in front of a group of people and say, we're going to show what we've got. And if it's not right, we're happy to take critiques and feedback, work through this together. I think it's really shown that the marketing team is invested in what we're doing. We want to understand and we want to do better and we want to be a true partner. So I think that really showed leaps and bounds in those recent trainings that we've done.

Pax (11:03)
Mm.

I love that. Yeah. I've seen that, you know, it's like it's on the marketing team to display their willingness to learn, especially when you're dealing with the technical audience in house. And it's, it's amazing. And I think underappreciated how quickly that trust can be broken. And, ⁓ that that's something that I think a lot of marketing leaders don't fully understand is their role and responsibility to develop that trust. Because when you have that trust, things move so much more.

Whitney Goldstein (11:18)
Yes.

Pax (11:37)
like smoothly and quickly. ⁓ And yeah, I love that. So are you saying that you have the engineers come and train the marketing team or are they all doing trainings together listening to the same thing?

Whitney Goldstein (11:50)
Yeah, so it's a little bit of both. So some of it, ⁓ we have very different tracks in the organization and different teams that are kind of focused on different things. ⁓ But solution engineering and like the...

IT adjacent kind of team are supporting sales and the bridge between the engineers and the sales team, which is typical in most SaaS or product organizations. So those teams are the ones that are usually setting up those trainings to make sure that the sales team and the engineers are both kind of on the same page and are understanding ⁓ what is the go-to-market message and how are we positioning this. ⁓ But some of the trainings are also done via various kind of,

tracks or opportunities internally to connect and partner with other teams that you normally wouldn't with and talk about what we're seeing from AI. What are they learning from AI? What tools are they using? Kind of cross-functional knowledge sharing, especially with remote organizations. have found that setting up specific purposeful kind of meetings or cohorts of people to connect and talk really helps facilitate that cross-functional collaboration. And then it makes it easier for my team to reach out to them because they have that rapport already.

the other teams have seen us kind of be vulnerable and share what we're doing and what we're playing with or what we're testing.

Pax (13:07)
Yeah, it's really breaking down a lot of silos that I would imagine just naturally develop unless you actively tear them down. So let's talk about AI for a little bit. So AI is something that every organization seems to be hopping on, launching new things that are, you know, AI layer, whatever. And it seems like Gorilla Logic is actively positioning itself, not as one of these AI, like just another AI company.

Whitney Goldstein (13:14)
Exactly.

Pax (13:34)
Tell me about the thinking behind that and the reaction that you're getting from it.

Whitney Goldstein (13:38)
Yeah, I mean, so yes, you're spot on. are, we are not taking the traditional route right now where we're seeing a lot of our competitors or people in this space are going with the agent AI or agenda AI kind of approach where we're going to give you tokens or a subscription to something. And our AI agent is going to solve, you know, XYZ. we are not taking that approach just because we believe at the end of the day, fundamentally, we're still doing what we've always done, which is building digital products and platforms for our clients.

The methodology in which we do them, the tools in which we're using are different, but fundamentally we are still doing that and we don't want to change from that. So we have two main offerings that we are going to market with that are AI adjacent or AI enabled or AI enabled product engineering, which is what I just explained and construct or gorilla logic construct, which is our proprietary AI workflows. They're accelerators that are meant to, ⁓

speed up or accelerate the outcomes of traditional engineering software development life cycles that are proven outcome determined and we can accelerate them by kind of using those predefined workflows.

Pax (14:41)
Hmm. Okay. And is the market responding to that or are you finding people like, Hey, I mean, why I noticed you're not, you know, talking about AI as much or you're not, you know, or are they like, thank goodness that you're not just spouting all this AI stuff like everyone else.

Whitney Goldstein (14:57)
It's a little bit of both. ⁓ it is a little bit of both. wish I could say that it has been accepted easily and loving and everyone's like, yes, let's sign up right now. ⁓ The reality is, that any type of technological change in the industry and shift causes disruption causes uncertainty and also causes people to not buy, which is kind of what we're seeing right now. So there are a lot of people that are going for the AI agents or that kind of, you know, token subscription. ⁓

The reason that we didn't want to do that and the reason that we are feeling a positive response from the market and from our customers and prospects is because we're not pushing another subscription. It's not another thing that they're locked into. It's not a tool. It's not a product. It's not a platform. It is still our expertise at the end of the day that we are delivering to them. And at the end of the day, what they receive is something that is proprietary to them. They own, they can continue. So we are seeing a huge like relief from a lot of people that ours is different and that we're still

at the core doing what we've always done. And I will say too, I think more people will probably go in this direction. We're probably a little bit early in the market to be saying something so different than the big competitors that we are against. But it has been really refreshing. And also as a marketer, feel like

Every several years we all have, mean, AI is the new boom. Everyone is talking about it. Everyone's using it. And it gives us an opportunity to say, how am going to go to market with this message? And it challenged me as a marketer and my team to say, we have something new. We have to educate them on it. And we also have to explain why our position is this way. And so it's, been a really interesting journey. And like I said, it has been received really well from the market.

Pax (16:34)
I like that. I imagine too it's also somewhat invigorating for a team to say, hey, we're taking this contrarian message and driving that forward. Maybe almost regardless of what the message is, they just feel like I'm owning this and we have this direction that's probably breathing a lot of life into the marketing team. ⁓

Whitney Goldstein (16:53)
Yeah.

like in a, everyone's really excited about it because it's different, right? It's not just the same message that so many people are giving in the market. And so you feel really empowered to actually deliver that message and also deliver on those promises. Once we actually get an engagement with a client to say, we have, we have seen this and we've proven it and we know exactly what to do. And you're going to be blown away by the outcome. There's so many times at the end of the engagement, our clients are saying, okay, so let me see the code that you've created.

At the end of the day, we're saying there is no code, right? Because of all of these amazing tools and our accelerators within our construct workflows, there is no code anymore, right? What we're delivering is just an accelerated outcome by a predefined workflow. It's really amazing. And I'm probably not doing it justice because we're still replying the message, but yeah.

Pax (17:40)
love it. and yeah, differentiation is another one of the, know, we talk about a lot, but I think it does go overlooked and is not quite executed well in most companies. And this is a really great example of taking that stance and moving forward with that. ⁓ so let's, let's, let's shift into AI at the team or, or more specifically the marketing level.

I've asked lots and lots of people this question and I find some interesting answers and I know that you, the way you approach this is something I haven't heard of before. ⁓ So how do you ⁓ get your team to adopt AI and more specifically explore within AI? That can be, it was a barrier that I'd never expected because it just seemed like, this new tech, everyone's gonna play with it.

But it is very difficult to dive in when I don't know what the outcome is going to be. I don't know if it's going to be worth my while. So how do you encourage your team to take that leap and explore with an AI?

Whitney Goldstein (18:46)
Yeah, that's a really good question. And I'm also, I'm at the end, I will come back because I'm actually really curious to know how your team is doing it as well. But, ⁓ when I joined the organization, there was a really significant shift and kind of push for all teams and departments to be using AI and also reporting on how are you using it and what are you seeing as the outcome?

In the several months that we've been working on our messaging and go-to-market message with our AI enabled workflows and also Gorillogic construct, we have found, and all of the research is pointing to the headlines of like 95 % of AI projects that are implemented or failing, or there's no measurable outcome from these AI tools that we're implementing into our organizations. So I think my approach is a little bit different just because of the nature of the organization that I'm in and also being in such a technical industry that I feel like My team is definitely behind, but we're behind

on a purpose. so instead of focusing on, instead of my team coming to me and saying, Hey, we were able to write a blog post 1.5 X faster than we were before. Right. Or we were able to write more content faster.

I, we're taking that approach and we kind of tabled it for a little bit. we said, there should be a measurable outcome from what we're seeing, not just we're moving faster. Like, yes, moving faster is important, but if we can't definitively say why it's making progress and it's showing up better and making incremental change that helps the bottom line or the business goals, why are we doing it? Right? We're just using another tool.

to go like a little bit faster. Like there's so many different ways that we could do that. And there's so many tools that we already use and love is this really making an impact on our team. So instead what I have told my team to do is stop focusing on what, how much, what tools we're using, how many of them are using. We really need to work from the work for level the same that we would with our clients. If there isn't a predefined outcome and a process that we can dependably follow and repeat and have something do it for us, then

it's probably not going to make that substantial of an impact to our team and our department.  So that is the approach that we're taking is we really want to use the tools wisely. And then also there's a component of governance and security, which so many of these tools right now are requiring you to integrate into your Google Analytics, your Google Ads, which is great. And it does work. It still needs so much refinement that we're actually spending more time editing the AI stuff than it's actually helping us. So there's all these different kind of components that we've found that are

reasons why we shouldn't be doing it. And so What I've actually asked my team is instead of spending 10 minutes or 30 minutes in between your work day and,

task switching or multitasking on getting this out the door and then also playing with AI and trying to come up with a metric that is proving that it's working. Why don't we take this off the table and take the stress away from it? We are using AI in our organization. We're using AI in the marketing team. What I've asked them to do is every two weeks, spend four hours of your Friday and forget about the work that we have to do and the deadlines that we have to do and spend that time dedicated to implementing and testing and playing with AI tools and investigate.

I'm not asking for you to solve the world's problems. I'm not asking you to come with a new solution of how we're going to create graphics or ads. I just want you to learn and explore. And then we can come up with a holistic way of how we're going to implement this. And it's going to make sense for the entire team, not just one person.

Pax (22:06)
Hmm. love that. That's very similar to Google's, you know, dedicate some time every, I don't remember what it is every month or, uh, to, building something new and many of their best products were born out of setting aside that time. Uh, has anything interesting come out of those, those, uh, sessions?

Whitney Goldstein (22:27)
Yes, so we're creating a ⁓ sales kickoff video for sales kickoff that's coming up. ⁓ And in variety of different tools that we have kind of played around with, we've found so many amazing ways that we can.

combine videos and get what we want that looks really high quality without spending a ton of money. And we're not, you know, signing up for a subscription and we're not using a specific tool. It's just, this is the workflow that we have to go through. We know that this is already the outcome that we need. So how can we, how can we augment our work and make it stronger?

Pax (22:58)
Hmm. Cool. Very cool. Yeah. I can appreciate that focus on quality efficiency is always the default. I think it's because we're just naturally wired to seek efficiency. ⁓ I mean, and that's a good thing that we're wired for efficiency, but, ⁓ it is definitely the default and resisting that and fighting for quality or what can we do now that we couldn't do before? I think that is maybe some of the more interesting ways.

Because yeah, I can write these blog posts, I can write these ads, I can generate this image. All that is like, sure. But frankly, it's kind of boring. And it's what everybody's doing. I'm much more interested in the what can we do that we couldn't do before ⁓ realm. Yeah, I love that.

Whitney Goldstein (23:40)
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Or it still goes back to metrics, right? Working with a team like yours. However, we get the ad copy and the ad creative. Okay. If we can do it faster than we were before, that is all, that is great, but it is always the result and the outcome of them that matters most. Right? So if we're using AI to augment our team's work to write copy and create images, it also should have a metric at the end of it that's saying they're performing better.

Pax (24:01)
Yes.

Whitney Goldstein (24:10)
than the human ones. If they're not, then why are we using it?

Pax (24:14)
Yep. Yes, definitely. And it's mixing up the, the KPI, you know, the KPI should not be volume of content. should not be, yeah, but look at how many, or it shouldn't also be how quickly we did it. None of that, all of that is secondary. mean, it can be measured and it can be helpful, but it is secondary as you're saying to the outcome. What is the purpose that like, why does this exist in the first place? And we should be optimizing for that.

And yeah, that's a great that's a great call out ⁓ Let's let's talk a little bit about b2b. So you've got extensive ⁓ experience in the b2b space and Again an underappreciated ⁓ Difference between b2c and b2b you know a lot of people will say Hey b2b is just b2c. You know it's human to human man, and that you know I think that's

Whitney Goldstein (24:44)
Yes.

Pax (25:13)
It's a true sentiment, but that's also a flag that this person probably hasn't worked too much in B2B when you're dealing with like complex buying committees and like it can get very, ⁓ sales cycles can be very much longer. They, there are actually sales cycles versus D2C. ⁓ I'd love to know what you said that the traditional channels still work. ⁓ and we're talking specifically within B2B, but they're not dependable or not as dependable anymore. Everyone's using the same AI tools, the same platforms.

So how are you thinking about differentiation from a marketing perspective within the B2B space, maybe even from like a channel perspective? Where are you looking at as the new ways to go? What are you interested in exploring?

Whitney Goldstein (25:57)
Yeah, it's a really good question. And I think you work with a mix too. So you're probably seeing this convergence of the two. I think we're always going through waves of the traditional channels. And what I mean by traditional is print and out of home or.

You know, direct mail type strategies, events, billboards, right? Mass kind of advertising. There's a, an ad that we've been looking at recently that's in the airport. That's like in the huge terminal. So stuff like that, we were seeing a comeback. And I think we've been seeing that for several years. There's digital billboards now that you can use, or people are geo-fencing events. And if there's a pre and post event strategy that people are doing, so maybe they're not actually going to the event, but now they're. All of these are very similar tactics that we've seen over time that have evolved.

to share with the market. ⁓ But yes, I would say that especially in a world where people are very hyper aware of data and cookies and what's being tracked and that they know that they're being followed and retargeting, those are just not as strong as they were before. We can't really rely on those channels and tactics that we did prior to get a sale or to get a customer.

⁓ so I mean, I'm definitely leaning into content. That's been a theme for the last, at least two to three years as content is king with the caveat that we're trying to be very specific about the, what we're putting out and not just my own term of this AI slop or AI stuff that we're seeing all over. but I do think the traditional channels, paid search, organic search, SEO, AIO, all these optimizations that we can make with, with, ⁓ a gen AI, ⁓ overview or whatever research results are coming from that search engine.

Those are also still channels that are still performing well and still very dependable from a B2B or potentially probably a B2C perspective. ⁓ So it really depends on the audience and it also depends on the stage of the funnel and the relationship that you have with the client, right? I'm not gonna, I don't think I'm gonna send a direct mail to someone that's never heard from us before. ⁓ So it really does depend and I'm seeing different channels work for different audiences and yeah, I think it depends.

Pax (28:06)
Yeah. I want

to dive in a little bit deeper because I was watching your reaction when I was talking about, ⁓ B2B and D2, B2C. ⁓ and it seems like maybe you might be on the side of, know, these really are the same thing. ⁓ and given your extensive background, in B2B, I'd love to hear maybe your take on that. And because there is a bit of a convergence, especially, you know, lots of B2B brains should be looking more at.

TikTok and Instagram and other channels like that, that they've traditionally completely ignored. ⁓ yeah, I'd love to hear your take on that. Maybe, maybe your opinion actually is different in that they should be viewed as the same.

Whitney Goldstein (28:39)
Mm-hmm.

Um, no, do think that there is a fundamental difference. I'm laughing just because in my personal life as well, I'm sure you've experienced this many years. Um, a lot of my family members and friends, they're, they make jokes. like, you know, I still don't know what you do. And it's so funny because marketers in my group or in my family, direct family, um, and they're direct to consumer or B2C.

And the difference is so we might as well be not in the same world. Like it's a joke to call us both marketers because we, what we do is so fundamentally different. So I do think that there's, depends on the brand. depends on the business. There is always, of course, some type of overlap. They're advertising. They do email, they do campaigns. We do a campaign. They have a website. We have a website, right? But fundamentally the approach, like you said, is so different. They don't have a buying committee. They don't have hurdles and objections. have to get through.

There isn't the fiscal year end component. isn't layoffs and changes with the industry and partnerships that they value and MSAs and NDAs and all of the things that make ⁓ solution selling and strategic sales so much more complicated than direct to consumer. Not to say that it's easy. It's not to do it well and to do it consistently. Well, it's difficult. Your team knows, but I mean, you know better than anyone, right? To provide consistent results, regardless of B2C or

or B2C, B2C or B2B, you have to be constantly improving, iterating and making progress. ⁓ It's just fundamentally different though. The objections and the journeys are just different from B2B from my perspective.

Pax (30:16)
Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. You know, one of the big differences too, is the feedback loop. ⁓ D to C, you know, I can send people to this page and they buy or they don't buy it then let me optimize. now do they buy B2B? You know, you have the, do they sign up? Do they get a demo or not? That's true. But then did they convert or not? Did they, what's, you know, there's, it's a much longer feedback loop often.

with many, many touch points and their journey is often very complex. And so that is one of the things that, know, we do B2C ⁓ too, but we're probably about 70 % B2B. And that's one of the things I envy a lot about like the direct to consumer brands where it's just like, I send this out, it's a volume game, you know? And it's like, there's some B2B companies where they'd be willing to pay, you know,

Whitney Goldstein (30:49)
Mm-hmm.

Pax (31:14)
$5,000 just for a lead because the conversion value is so high and they're looking at getting, you know, a couple of conversions in a month and they're like stoked with that. ⁓ so it's like very, very different worlds, but it is interesting to see how they overlap being, you you have those, ⁓ I'm talking too much here, but those, those, companies that I think they're beat it. I mean, they are B2B, but they adopt a lot of the B2C model, like, MailChimp back in the day. It was that that's a B2C.

Whitney Goldstein (31:18)
Yes.

Right.

No, no.

Pax (31:44)
marketing strategy applied to the B2B world and it was very successful for them. Slack was also very, it felt very B2C, but it was obviously more B2B. So anyway, I think that is fascinating area to look into for growing B2B.

Whitney Goldstein (31:59)
Yeah. And I'm sure your team is, I mean, I know from experience of working with them, they're also exploring channels that were traditionally B2C, they're now B2B or vice versa B2B now working with B2C. Reddit, you had someone on the podcast recently that was talking about the strategies of utilizing that audience and how those have shifted over time. More male dominant and, you know, technical audience. Now people like me are on there. mean, I've been on there, but you, mean, I'm curious from your perspective.

How have you seen the strategies shift over the last specifically year, year and a half with AI and the convergence of those?

Pax (32:36)
⁓ yeah, it's interesting. think AI, the bigger shift has happened less in the, the marketing channels or the marketing execution and more on what's happening internally at these organizations. so, you know, you have some C-suites that say, okay, AI is out. I don't need all of you. You're gone. And then that like that's happening many times and having a massive ripple effect on buying behaviors for people at organizations across the board.

So I think what it's created is it's not just, you know, in the B2B space, it's funny to see very different industries, but the buying behavior is following somewhat similar patterns where there's been a bit of depression as AI was released. And then this bounce back as the promises of AI aren't quite there. ⁓ so I mean, that's, that's, that's kind of a weird nuance take there, but yeah, I think, from marketing strategy.

You know everybody who was like completely 100 % in on AI producing my content what we know what I feel like are the the lazy answers and applications for AI You know a lot of them had a really hard time They it started off well, but then it did not go well and You know both algorithms and the general population started to catch up to to that and so

⁓ the name of the game needs to then be, okay, do you move on to the next, ⁓ thing that will eventually catch up to, then won't work. Or do you invest more in building trust, building those relationships? And that, in my opinion is more of a boat for, for B2B brands. And is where I think marketers should be spending their time.

Whitney Goldstein (34:24)
Yeah, it's really interesting.

Pax (34:27)
Let's let's end on marketing seat at the table. ⁓ there's, there's some stat I need to, I need to pull it, but, ⁓ I, I marketing is the most underrepresented background on boards. ⁓ you know, you'll get tons of people from finance, tons of people from, you know, all different areas, but marketing is often most, most of the underrepresented on boards. And I think.

I've thought for years about why that is, but, ⁓ there's something that we need to be doing better to kind of step up and earn that seat at the table. ⁓ you, ⁓ you have this phrase, ⁓ is about the Swiss army marketer. ⁓ I have hunches, but I'd love to hear, you know, what you feel like, what that means and, ⁓ what's broken about the way that marketers are approaching their roles.

Whitney Goldstein (35:20)
Yeah, it's a, it's a really good call out. And I think, I think a lot of people, if you're in the B2B space and you've been in marketing for a while, you are seeing this, there's, there are less and less CMOs and the executive, in the executive team or the executive function. ⁓ you see more people like me, head of marketing or director of marketing rolling up to the C-suite and being, you know, that strategic and executive kind of voice for marketing. I think from my perspective, personally, there's two fundamental things that I think marketers could do better at.

getting us back to the boardroom and the executive table. ⁓ First is being a data-driven marketer and tying those analytics and data back to the business goals and the main metrics that the C-suite and the board are interested in. We often, I mean, I'm a data-driven marketer. I fall victim to this as well. Sometimes I get really excited about my own data and I have a hard time marrying that or bridging the gap of.

What is the CFO explaining in our all hands or our company meetings or what are they saying to the board? And how are my slides or my data points mixing and, and complimenting those, right? Or tying together to show the whole story. Because if it's a fragmented message where it's marketing and sales or sorry, sales and finance and delivery and all these other organizations that say the same thing, we're trending this way. We're doing this. And then marketing is like, Hey, we're doing this and we're doing really well. And here's our click through rates and here's our open rates. You're not marrying the, like they they've tuned out.

don't understand what it is that we're doing and we're not bridging the gap between them. So I think there's a fundamental thing of saying, this is marketing generated pipeline. This is sales generated pipeline. The reason that this is important is because this funnel feeds this funnel or this opportunity rate and this close rate is different and this is working backwards for those. So I spent a lot of time educating the sales team, my team and our organization. ⁓

on what they can expect from marketing, what the data means and how it kind of bridges, or, you know, what does it mean in the grand scheme of things and in relation to what our sales leader is saying and our CFO is saying. the second component that I would say is The biggest, downfall of why we're not seeing as many leaders from marketing.

is because we're not doing a good job of marketing ourselves and also flexing skills and being open to opportunities, challenges, and growth and exploration in our own roles. think several years ago marketers were praised when they were marketing specialists. I am a paid ad specialist. I'm an SEO specialist. I am a content writer, or I'm a content copywriter. I'm a demand gen. I'm a BM. And so we were in these silos of what we do.

When in reality, we all have a marketing background, we work in a marketing team, we work on integrated campaigns. We all need to be doing more in our roles and saying that I can be a Swiss army knife. That means I can do anything that you kind of throw at me and I will take it and I will learn from it and I will excel. And it takes time to get used to that and to be okay with do things. I wouldn't necessarily consider PR a marketing function.

But in today's world, I do, and that kind of rolls up to me. And so something I'm not as comfortable with, I haven't done it in 10, 15 years. All of a sudden, now I'm doing that. I would never say, this is not my role, I'm not going to do this. I think, and I'd like to see more marketers do this in their own roles. And I think it would do, I think it would really help us become leaders at end of the day as well.

Pax (38:36)
I love that. That is one thing that I feel like I've never fully, it's just like, I don't know, the way my brain works is a new thing. It's like, sweet. You mean you're going to pay me while I learn this thing? Like, that's awesome. And I've found like a lot of people don't think the same way. They're like, I don't know how to do that. So either you tell me how to do it or I just am not going to do it.

Why do you think people have that mindset and like, can they do to change it? Because I do think that becomes a, their own stumbling block often in their growth.

Whitney Goldstein (39:12)
Yeah, I do think it does come from leadership to some degree. I mean, you're a perfect example of this. And I think that my background is an example of this as well. My path to where I am is not traditional by any means. Your path to CEO, I would not also say is traditional. It's because you were either given the opportunity or asked if you wanted the opportunity and you said yes. And so both of those kind of came from a leadership or someone above you saying,

I think you could do something different if you're interested, if you want to accept it. And you said, yes, I'm going to. And most of my team that I've ever gone to and I've said, I think you would be really great at this. It's completely outside of your traditional scope, but I think you would excel at it. And I think if more leaders went to their team and showed excitement and ⁓ trust that they could do something that they haven't done, more people would continue to expand their horizons and be more of a Swiss Army knife.

Pax (40:04)
⁓ I like that and that excitement I'm sure communicates confidence in this person that while you may not know how to do this I'm so confident in you that I'm excited for you to take this on because I think you're gonna win.

Whitney Goldstein (40:13)
Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, your, your journey, what would you say for your journey? I mean, you started at the company 13 something years ago, right?

Pax (40:24)
Yep. Yep. 13 years ago. ⁓ I started at just, ⁓ like entry level, ⁓ role and, ⁓ yeah, I would say it was probably a mix of a lot of different things. ⁓ some luck, some opportunities given to me, some opportunities I just saw and I just did. ⁓ but yeah, I always viewed it as I could go to call. mean, I did, I got a degree.

Uh, just a bachelor's degree. So I don't have like an advanced degree, but I thought I could go get a master's degree and I'd have to pay a lot of money for that. And these guys are, they're going to pay me to go learn how to do a P and L or they're going to pay me to go learn. I'm going to go pitch this giant corporation and I, you know, I'm going to learn how to pitch. And I thought that's a way better deal and I'm excited to learn new stuff. Uh, so I just kind of felt like every opportunity was just like another arrow I was putting in my quiver.

that I could rely on at some other point in the future. And so I think it was that like hope and positive outlook that ended up making the opportunities that I had more successful. ⁓ And I feel like if I had approached the same opportunities with a lens of, I don't know how to do this, I'm probably gonna fail, it's probably not gonna go well, that I would not have taken advantage of those opportunities nearly as well. So I see your.

point about having a leader who's kind of inspiring and saying, got this, I got your back, it's gonna go great, that that could add a lot of fuel to someone's fire when approaching something new. What about you, your background, like tell me about some of the opportunities and chances you took and the impact that that had in your career.

Whitney Goldstein (42:10)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's very similar. I either was given an opportunity or I raised a hand. And like I said, that's what I'm trying to do with my team as well. And I have seen it. ⁓

produce dividends that I wouldn't expect and that no one expected of those team members. At various different roles in various different organizations, when you give people the trust and confidence that you see in them and that you, I mean, that's also partially a skill. I'm a strategist. I'm trying to pull out specific things from people. I'm trying to pull out specific messages that are going to go into our messaging, but it's, it is really the same muscle that we're using either internally or externally with our campaigns. So.

Yeah, mean, part of it is also just marketing, right? Marketing ourselves, marketing your team, marketing our abilities of what we're doing internally, marketing what we do with clients, right? To get more clients. ⁓ It's interesting how everything at the end of the day is very actually similar when you boil it down to what we're doing.

Pax (43:07)
I love that. So if there was a leader to wrap up, let's say there's a leader listening right now who's building a team and ⁓ they want to help this team innovate, strike new ground, come up with new ideas, break the mold and what they're doing. Maybe they've stepped into a new role or maybe they've, they're leading a team they've been leading for years, but they know it's time to shake things up. ⁓ It's, I'd love to know maybe your parting advice for that person.

⁓ Obviously one being inspire confidence, give them opportunities to take these risks. What might be some other things that you would tell this person to really shake things up?

Whitney Goldstein (43:50)
to give people space, space to be creative, space to learn, space to grow, ⁓ space to make mistakes, ⁓ space to bring whatever it is that you need to bring to work that day and work through it. you know, so much of...

business is set your personal side aside and focus on what we're doing in the organization and ⁓ I tell my team all the time, thank goodness. Thank you to everyone who is a first responder and a doctor and a nurse and all the people that ⁓

make our world go round and that we have safety and healthcare and all the things. Thank goodness we are not saving lives, right? That's what I say to my team all the time. At end of the day, we do not save lives and that's a blessing because we can, if something is coming up, you have the space to always talk to me. So as much as I am going to inspire them and push them to grow in their careers and in their individual roles, my team also knows that they can come to me and say like, my dog is really sick and I need to take him to the vet.

And part of that is being compassionate and giving them the space to know that they're not gonna be able to bring their best work and they're not gonna be creative and they're not gonna push boundaries if something is going on at home or that they need to. So I think it's a delicate balance of having compassion and understanding. And I think I've done the same and leaders have done the same to me as well, which I've always really appreciated.

Pax (45:08)
Hmm. Yeah. I like that. have a friend who ran a PR agency and she would always say, guys, this is, this is PR, not ER. Yeah. And that's always stuck with me. Like, yeah, you know, lives are not hanging in the balance on what we're doing here. I think that creates a lot of psychological safety to take some risks and do some things that are new.

Whitney Goldstein (45:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, and that we can push the boundaries and it's okay to fail. mean, sometimes the best thing to do is to fail fast, right? Is to try something and redeem it. This was unsuccessful. We have to try the next thing and move on quickly. ⁓ It's okay. And almost every organization and every team has done it. And some of the best learnings come from those as well.

Pax (45:46)
love that. Thank you Whitney so much for joining us today. I'd love to send ⁓ listeners ⁓ to like something to have them read about you or connect with you. What would be the best place to send them?

Whitney Goldstein (45:58)
LinkedIn is the best place as a true marketer. I'm not the best at marketing myself on LinkedIn. So I'm usually behind the scenes on Gorilla Logic or other places, but LinkedIn is definitely the best place.

Pax (46:03)
you

Okay, great. thank you so much, Whitney for bringing your perspective on leadership and marketing innovation. I think a lot of what you said was, something that, ⁓ our audience needs to hear and, yeah, it's a time of change. so like leadership and strong leadership is really, really valuable right now. ⁓ so thank you for sharing your tips on that.

Whitney Goldstein (46:28)
Pax, thank you so much for the time. really appreciate it.