117 | Is it time to incentivise field marketers?

Jon Busby: So Ari and Lisa welcome to the podcast. Thank you.

Lisa Gilbert: Thanks for having us.

Jon Busby: It's I mean this has been a little while in the making. I'm I'm super excited to be talking about this. Cause we always talk about sales and how how how they tend to get a big cut of the pie. And now we're going to get to talk about marketing. So thank you both for joining us. You know this is a conversation you guys have It's been in the works even longer with both of you like where did this inspiration come from?

Lisa Gilbert: I've been wanting to do this for a very very long time a good portion of our career right? I've spent a lot of my career in the field. so I would say more of my career has been in a market in the field than in the headquarters. and been been one of those field marketers who have partnered with account teams and and done all the blocking and tackling to really help accounts grow.

and have really come to the insight that we have some very unique skills that complement that of sales. And together. Maybe we can use the phrase we're better together right? and I have run down the path of the attribution model which I'm not a big fan of. I find it a little toxic. So just my first like uh uh my first polarizing comment maybe.

as we go   it just didn't when you were in the field it just doesn't it just doesn't help you build relationships with the sales community and with your customers. so when I came to Kyndryl I had this opportunity to give it another go. and what I first thing I did was call my friend Ari and say like Hey are you doing anything like this?

because I want to know if you're making any traction what can I learn from you? Because I kind of heard To the grapevine. And even when I was at IBM because Kyndryl IBM when I was at IBM I knew Ari was working on this for a while. So then we started to trade notes and voila here we are.

Ari Sheinkin: Here we are. I remember the call well and it's been the long term ambition of mine.

Because I don't come from marketing. I've been in marketing for the last decade but I come from analytics and consulting. And the strangest thing about coming into marketing was to see a group of incredibly talented powerful peoples say how do we get a seat at a table? And the question didn't make any sense to me when I got into marketing like how could the smartest people who know the audience and the markets and the products and services better than anyone else.

Why are we asking for a seat at the table? What a strange question. But in a culture like Kyndryl certainly at IBM it's a sales led culture. And I'm with Lisa as much as I actually love attribution model and I love analytics but I agree they they don't ultimately solve the problem because you will never convince a salesperson or a finance person about abstract attribution.

Marketers have to meet sales culture where they live which is marketers have to convince the world starting with our leadership. We sell. PLG is a marketing led sales motion account based is a marketing led sales motion and if we're willing to step up to that including and you can pay us on that basis because we'll take the risk just like a seller would that changes the dynamic and we're just beginning that journey but it makes a difference.

Jon Busby: You've used a couple of terms there actually Ari you know PLG obviously we all know ABM you know that if those is it is it the. The fact that these terms have become more popular that we're talking about this now. or is this something that we should have done years ago?

Ari Sheinkin: Probably most but Lisa called me at a moment in which our CEO Krishna had made the same point.

And he had said for the first time it is clear to me that I can treat marketing as a value creating function. Equivalent to sales equivalent to consulting at least in specific areas. And he called out product led growth because I don't need attribution because if you can bring people to the website to discover and to buy that's attributed directly to you without any modeling.

And if you can grow the top accounts in IBM that is your value without any modeling. So it was actually at our case our CEO who brought forward the agenda. And that was an amazing moment in my life. Yeah

Jon Busby: I mean so you know you've taken a very you take a very scientific approach to this. In fact I often think you know when you look at someone in with a user experience or a UI hat on they either turn up with a Mac or a PC and you know they're either a designer or they're a they're a data analyst about how they might approach user experience.

Ari it's very clear here. You're wearing The product app and Lisa you know you take a much more services based view. So is this has this changed you know Lisa starting on your side does this change how you might implement this type of program based on the services and and and your approach to it?

Lisa Gilbert: absolutely. I think   I think and Ari can talk to it when you're more of a product company and I know IBM is a product and a services company obviously. uh when you're more of a product company and especially if you're Whether this is an IBM case or not you're a SaaS company. You can do the marketing in the tool in the in the product right itself.

And you can see true attribution completely end to end. And it's very binary. I guess you could say the words it can be very binary. in services it's a little less binary uh especially in ours. so so ours is more the what we what I hold My field market is accountable for is to build relationships.

So help the sales organization build relationships to help shift our reputation from what we've known been known for as an infrastructure services provider to more of an it consultancy. and then if you do the two the signings will come right? So ours is much more stay very connected with your customer partner with your consult partner make sure he or she understands the value that you add.

And together you agree on if or not you opened up a relationship that it ultimately closed new business.

Ari Sheinkin: IBM is both products and services. A small set of products that are more SaaS like you can go online discover and buy. But even most of our products will have four six nine month sales cycles in some cases.

So you don't get these very clean simple attribution models. PLG or ABM are good entry points for the conversation with the business. So it's a place to sit down with the CFO and say where can you most clearly see the value of what marketing does? And they may say in that direct e commerce sale. I can see that that's entirely good.

Let's start there. But we've also then been able to extend that. But what is it you value about what marketing does relative to services? Relative to account relative even recently talking about things like to relevancy at the brand level. Because if we can agree to Let's say in our case we have a survey about brand health.

And if being in the top three for AI is an outcome that you value well then the idea of marketing taking ownership of that and being paid on that basis is of itself a valuable conversation to have. And it grew out of an opening that came out of the more tangible.

Jon Busby: I think this is this is where it gets super interesting for me.

And Lisa used this term relationship which is something that that I was recently actually working through a project with a with another tech brand. And we were talking about moving from being task based to being relationship based. And so we had a deep conversation debate over what that really means.

Like how do you measure your sales teams on a relationship? Like how do you get to that that depth? Like is it an agreement between sorry sales? I said so I'm so used to thinking about how we incentivize people. I said sales teams how do you incentivize the marketing team? To build that relationship.

Like what's the model that you've worked on between marketing and sales?

Lisa Gilbert: So we did just get it over the line. So that took a good nine months to do to be quite honest. we used a program that already exists at Kyndryl. It's a program that we actually use with our delivery centers. So while our delivery centers that's a good portion of who we are at Kyndryl are the people who deliver all the services to our customers that we have.

they interact. With our customers every single day not necessarily on a proper sales incentive plan. so this gave them the opportunity to add more value. these are the super smart people who who who are the eyes and ears. and you know they're on the front line every day to make sure our customers businesses staff   they I wouldn't say afloat but keep working right?

And I can continuously  have their uptime and and they opened up this uh model uh program that's the discovery of new services opportunities to them a few years ago. And they'd been taking advantage of the model. And when I started talking to some of my sales partners like Kyndryl and the incentive team and I started proposing Hey We in marketing also have a skill set similar to this where we see we have the ability like Ari said to understand the customer very very well understand each of the personas.

We have access to all the LTV data. We have access to the. Sales navigator data we kind of know the movements of the customers we can help. We can see when customers come to our website and download things right? So we can help kind of unearth some of the things that the sales teams don't necessarily see.

and that started to get them interested. We are a challenger brand right? so we're not at a you know all in all ideas are good ideas at this point in time. And so they were open to it and we've figured out a way to apply uh that program to marketing which we kicked off around three weeks ago.

Jon Busby: Yeah. So it's it's still for me a sale is a. It is quite clear like a customer signs on the dotted line. You're able to to demonstrate where the the impact that someone's had to potentially close that. Like how do you how did you go with did that model give you the monetary framework behind the behind those elements as well for the marketing team or you know Ari to your point you mentioned being top three for AI as a as a potential metric.

you know how do you put a monetary value on some of these more nebulous terms?

Ari Sheinkin: It's interesting and. Our case and my case particularly because I now get compensated on the basis of three outcomes and we've said we will be in the top set for AI relevance and we have a set of measures around that. We said we will grow our top most important accounts by 14 percent and that's directly measurable in our financial systems and we said we were going to acquire 25 000 new customers.

And that's directly measurable in our procurement related system. So even where you have open questions about the exact value or relevance which we can debate and we do have models for we can quantify it but just tying out with the business that the sales leaders and the finance leaders and our CEO find that to be a valuable outcome and in of itself being measurable and I will tie my compensation to those outcomes.

That was the first step. And then we can have discussions about. What is the financial impact of being third instead of fourth or second instead of fifth? But it almost becomes secondary. So the business got to help decide what was most important. Once you decided is it directly measurable without models?

And am I willing to get compensated on those outcomes? And that changes the culture of how people think about marketing.

Jon Busby: So like did you have to go back to the board to decide to build out some of these frameworks and get their buy in? Like how difficult was that to get to get buy in across sales and financial leadership?

Lisa Gilbert: I think it just had you kind of had to I had to show the value. It wasn't it wasn't It wasn't something where I mean it's not like people are going to retire on these incentives. Right? So these are incentives that are a percentage of the sale up to a cap. and I think for me it's. To show and celebrate the wins together and to and to show that we've had the sales or consultancy buy in that yes this marketer this field marketer contributed to growth.

That's what I'm that that's the premise I'm trying to prove here right? I mean we're this is baby steps from my perspective. So so if I can start to change culture very very slowly on Hey This is the value that marketing can bring and they can bring you know we yes we use some great messaging.

Yes. We do phenomenal advertising but we can help you soften the ground to help you build relationships that you've never had before. You know that that's a win to me. Right. And and us celebrating that together sales and marketing is what I'm trying to achieve at this stage in the game.

Jon Busby: Yeah. I mean I I'd like to say and I'm going to extrapolate let's think about this kind of longer term deadline.

Instead of in fact instead of me doing my theory of where I think this is going because I think this is. You're only on stage one and I think we've got a hundred more steps uh that we could we could be going cause this is definitely the trajectory that we're seeing with the importance of marketing.

But what is your I guess when you started this program together like what is the end goal that you wanted to achieve here? Like where is when when were you think yeah this is this is what Marketing should look like

Lisa Gilbert: I don't know what kind of behavior this is going to create. I don't know what kind of good behavior this is going to create.

I don't know what kind of bad behavior this is going to create. Right. we are absolutely learning our way through this. This could be a program that lasts a year. but you know my boss Maria said like this is the budget. I want you to blow the budget right? That that's my goal. and   and I hope we do right?

And I think I have a lot of hungry field marketers on the ground who who is in it to win it type thing. but but I will look at it at three months time six months time reassess. And you know my goal would be to double our budget next year and really kind of show. That when sales and marketing works together we are better together than uh than apart.

Ari Sheinkin: I think these businesses need marketing to be more confident and more assertive and more in a leadership role. And I think culturally marketing hasn't always been as confident and as bold and assertive as we need to be and the business needs us to be. And there's a gap there because we'll say we want a seat at the table but are we willing to go drag the couch into the office and say I'm plumping myself down here at the head of the table?

And this feels like with experimentation and successes and failures along the way for IBM for Kyndryl for these companies to achieve their goal marketing has to be a stronger force. And one way of building that confidence is to take more ownership out of outcomes and put more risk in to our own compensation around that.

It's almost symbolically as much as practically it's announcing a different position for the function relative to the business. That's what it is.

Lisa Gilbert: Yeah. And to be fair as we start this we aren't putting we're not putting uh an incentive model for our marketers any risk based model right? They're going to get their base and then this is more recognition budget above and beyond it.

So maybe you could say we're doing this with a safety net but we're doing it. So we're excited about it. but then we'll see kind of where where it goes. Right.

Jon Busby: I I'd love the Language you use there Ari this like marketing needs to be more confident. So the the way the way I've been thinking about this and obviously I'm gonna put my agency hat on for a moment but I'm also very similar to you.

I'm uh well I didn't I didn't direct a film when I was younger. I've always been in the data and analytics side and we can come onto the film in a moment because we haven't talked about that yet. but the uh like I see you know we we can see the B2B buyer journey has been changing. Every year on year it's been shifting more and more towards being marketing influenced.

So people want to do their own research. Now they're now rely on peers to generate their short list. They look at things like user generated reviews. They they want to read up on your products and see demos of it even before they speak to sales. And so for me it's just madness that we haven't been recognizing marketing as part of that journey.

and that. Actually where we've been seeing using the 80 20 rule we've been saying 80 percent being sales before I I see a future where it's 80 percent marketing. and the sales just just just close close the door. In fact and that this is stealing one of our again another one of our previous podcast guests a lady called Teresa Parks who's heads up the B2B institutes at Google.

She she recently told me if if you can't If you still need sales to close your product that's you haven't got a a complexity problem. You've probably got a product problem. which is a super interesting way to look at it and probably going a little bit too far but that's that's the trajectory that I think we're on and that's why we need to start making using the language you said making marketing more confident.

Ari Sheinkin: I do. I think in a more digital world and a more data connected world the business Marketing. It's not just about brand and storytelling. Those things matter. It's about connecting with audiences and in B2B and buying groups. And the complexity of those relationships and the orchestration of those tactics.

When you get into the field across media and marketing automation and events. Is so enormous that only marketing can do that. And that means marketing is the engine of growth. I can say in a company like IBM to get everything we want marketing has to be more assertive. We have to be more confident. And as much as we say we want these outcomes I'll tell you in our case for instance we did put in front of the market as a risk incentive plan because sales said yeah I like that idea.

And our CEO said that's an interesting idea. And it was the marketers who in the moment where we could leap said I don't know do I want this? So it's going to be a test for us specifically at IBM. But I think for the industry we've talked and we've talked and we've talked and now. Here it is in front of us.

Do we want to grab it?

Lisa Gilbert: Yeah I think Mark uh Ari you said something when we talked earlier which I really liked you know uh where back to you know do we have the confidence to have to take a seat at the table? And I do believe it's uh confidence that has to come from within but also we have to a hand has to be held out.

On the sales side to kind of bring us in as well. I like how you say until we take ownership of outcomes do we really earn that seat at the table? Right. And it is about truly taking ownership of outcomes and you could start with baby steps and then you can go to a fully leveraged plan right?

Eventually. but right now we're starting with these baby steps to to really Bring the sales and marketing team together and celebrating those outcomes when they come. Not should they come.

Jon Busby: Yeah. Com com Completely agree completely agree. Look I so I always say that things worth doing are never easy.

but that's that's kind of what I tell my team whenever there's a challenge that we have to we have to take on you know when when implementing a program program like this like what frictions did you come across when you were uh when you put this forward? I describe our

Ari Sheinkin: CEO and our senior leaders as open.

I'll tell you a heartbreaking moment not so long ago also where our CEO was describing 2024 agenda and start to categorize functions in terms of value creators versus support. So sales your value creator legal your support consulting your value creator finance your support marketing. Hmm. Where are you?

And it was this moment of truth as he was describing. He said you know support. That's heartbreaking for me. That's not how I see myself. That's not how I see the people who I work with. It's not what I want to be. And in saying that he also expressed optimism. But he's open to something different. So yes the first friction is is that openness there?

And in our case it is but I think you have to open that. But I think the biggest friction almost becomes internal which is are we willing to take ownership of that outcome? Pick anyone again as much as I believe in data and science and modeling pick an outcome that is just a you delivered the financials or you did not kind of outcome raise your hand and say we will lead this.

It's gotta be big and bold. And something that's not easily achievable and then agree to take the risk in it. We're at the point in our company where the openness is there and we've even worked through the design principles but we have not been able to put it in place at scale. I myself agreed to be a guinea pig on a personal level.

And so my incentive is now much more tied to those kinds of outcomes but we haven't been able to rally the community. The function yet. So for me personally it may not be a universal truth but the biggest frictions are in our willingness as a marketing function to say we'll take the risk we'll take the ownership.

Lisa Gilbert: I think it was a culture change that that you know when Kyndryl kind of built the Kyndryl way. and I think kind of where we are and I'll go back to we're a challenger brand and you know there's no bad ideas out there. We're trying to figure out our best way through for profitable growth. We just have people who are really I was expecting more of a battle.

granted I did kind of take a I found out what the friction point was. which was Hey I don't want to take money out of the mouths of our sellers to at this stage in the game. so I took that friction point away or I worked with a team to do that. so once that friction point got taken away I have to say there was a lot of openness to trying new things right?

And I think that's something that feels great to be part of a culture like that. And and uh like I said maybe I'm doing this with a net but you know what we're doing it. And and honestly the reason I I kind of wanted to put this uh podcast together with you and Arias. I really wanted to start the conversation.

I don't think there's a right way of doing it. I don't think there's a wrong way of doing it. I just think there's a way of doing it. And the fact that you guys we just need to start doing it. I'd love to hear from others around you know how do we get confident marketers? What is it going to take for us to really pull that couch up?

Sorry about that. Pull that seat at the table and and really kind of. come in with confidence knowing that you know for me it's all the insights that we bring right? My team has access to so many insights that can help fish more more uh more strategically and more more focused versus kind of casting a wide net for example.

So very curious what the people are going to say.

Ari Sheinkin: The area that I've pushed all the time. And if I were more successful I would write a book about it but we'll see what happens. But at least we're pushing on the idea of how bold is marketing willing to be? Because of the example I gave you before there's a difference between saying we'll help the topic grounds grow 3%.

That's supporting sales and what they've already gotten from the financial requirements for the year. That's different than saying marketing will get it to 14%. You had said three I'll get it to 14. And whether those exact numbers make sense the notion that. Incremental non attribution directly measurable value because in IBM I can tell you these top accounts are going to generate 40 billion of revenue and at 2 or 3% it's another billion dollars but I can actually make it 3 billion.

That's the level of confidence. Not only do I think marketers. Have to bring to the business. I actually think can bring to the business for all the reasons Lisa just said the insight that we have around how audiences buy and what messages resonate and how you progress opportunities. I don't know anywhere else in our company where that exists except marketing.

So I go in personally with a lot of confidence. And then the confidence I think we have to put ourselves out there a little bit more. If we were selling from outside the company we wouldn't come in and say yeah I can support you in exactly the modest goals you've set for yourself. We'd say we can change your expectations of what's possible.

How would you define a confident marketing?

Lisa Gilbert: Having the we'll use the word clips but to go in and give it a shot right? I think it's like It's you know I I've been I'm currently working with a sales leader and I worked with a sales leader when I lived in Japan. and I told him my job was to have as many up at bats as possible even though you would shut me down.

Cause I think I he was shutting me down a few times and he was starting to feel a little bad and I'm like you know I want my batting average like I'm about getting my batting average up. So I'm going to keep coming in and keep coming in to get that batting average up. And you kind of have to have that point of that kind of.

Fire. to to want to do that. because one day you're going to knock on that door and it's going to Fall down.

Jon Busby: I actually we do we haven't really dived into AI here but I'm going to take it a bit broader and say innovation. Like I think a model like this and you know gives marketeers a little more freedom especially growth marketeers.

Like we used to use a term growth hacker. Now we talk about performance marketing. Like you know the the these terms get bounded around a lot but it. For me it it comes down to how you break down your budget and your plans and your and structure your campaigns even at the tactical level to be more innovative.

And how do you factor that into to a a journey or to some to to whatever you are delivering like how you've been running these programs now for two months if I'm if I'm getting my dates correctly. Like have you started to see a change in not any confidence but in in some of the approaches that marketers have started the field teams have started taking?

Lisa Gilbert: So this is to me uh we've been doing this for like. Not even four weeks. Right. So uh so it's been announced and there's a lot of interest and there's a lot of you know trying to clarify what it means and what do we have to do and so we're kind of in that. Storming phase and I've put kind of a challenge to each of my markets as to who's going to be the first one out of the gate and we're going to celebrate in a really big way.

so so uh I've created a kind of a team's community where they can share best practices. They can share their wins. They can share their failures what worked what didn't. there's only 50 51 of them right. On my side. So I have a very finite set and we'll kind of see how we go right. you know maybe.

This time next year when we do this podcast or even in six months I could have a little more learnings to share with you but right now we've kind of framed it. We've announced it and now you know game on.

Ari Sheinkin: But I do think this formula that Lisa started on uh the marketer being at the center of that. We have this inherent advantage that we can tell stories about that.

We can be dramatic when we get on stage and say how would you like 25 percent of your costing? We can do that in a way that sales or finance they can't make that a spectacle but we can. Do we have the underlying skill set to actually know how to use the technology and automation to make that happen?

And do we have the confidence to get up there and say By the way I'd love to be compensated because I actually think I'm worth a lot more money than you may have thought you know how you're paying your sellers on top of their salary pay me on top of my salary if I can bring you these kind of results.

So I do think empowerment and confidence at the intersection of that with real soft capabilities and hard skills is a formula that. Do you see accelerating for the function?

Lisa Gilbert: You know one thing that I that already made me think about is you know John as you were talking about you know where does the CRO come from right.

Or where is the CMO of the I mean you'd be talking about that but you know what is the modern day you know if we if we want field marketers with this confidence and the technical capability capability to understand how to get. extract insights and then apply them in the right way. Like where does the modern marketer come from?

Right. is it I mean I I don't think it's no it's no longer maybe the classic advertising scheme anymore. It's more maybe it is more data analytics. Maybe it's more sales. I don't know. It'd be an interesting conversation to talk about. You know I I talked to lots of parents who like asked me Oh should my Child you know take this or that or this or that uni right.

And uh and you know my answer is you need a child who has curiosity and that added space right. And and from there they can. but it would be interesting to think of what would be the ideal on a growth path or career path to land one of these amazingly competent field marketers who who is on a leverage plan and blows their nbers.

You know that comes.

Ari Sheinkin: I could see it coming from anywhere Lisa because I see that in you and you and I don't come from the same path and I hope I see it in myself. Quick confession for years I didn't like calling myself a marketer. So I'd. Within the function I'd been here for seven years and people say Oh you're marketing.

I said well I'm in marketing but I'm not really a marketer. I kind of do this other stuff. And I want to be even on my rese or my LinkedIn profile would say more like a growth leader something on those lines. And then at some point I realized I want to take that back. I want to reframe what marketers instead of running from it.

I want to embrace it. I want to be proud of this is absolutely what a marketer Lisa is an ideal for me of what a marketer is. It's. Is someone who first and foremost has that compliment who has empowered themselves who opens up those possibilities in the business and they can come from a data background or they can come from an advertising background or an agency background.

But I do think the future belongs to people who can probably say I'm the kind of marketer who. Owns outcomes and owns the risk and gets compensated on that basis. That's why this is so personally important to me.

Lisa Gilbert: Yeah. And I think uh I think that it doesn't happen overnight. It hasn't happened innately.

I used to use a phrase which I don't use anymore which is fake you till you make it type thing. But the phrase that I'm more comfortable now it's kind of a be it till you become it. And sometimes you just have to put yourself into it and be it. and see how it goes and then the more you be it you will ultimately become it.

uh from that standpoint.

Jon Busby: If you're Simo listening to this and thinking How do I I want to get started. Like how do you what would be your tips?

Ari Sheinkin: The most productive thing on our side is to really challenge ourselves and to challenge the business leaders in what is it that you value about marketing and what is the business impact that marketing can have.

It can be different for different businesses. It can be relevant. It can be account growth. It can be product led growth but that conversation and then the sense of if we can articulate that outcome that has real value and measurable value and not modeled value. We as a function will own that with a boldness and a confidence and a financial incentive to get to incremental growth that you haven't seen from us.

And it does start I do think with The willingness to have the conversation in our case which is what you really want marketing to be because we're more powerful than you realize that I think we have to frame that for the business.

Lisa Gilbert: Yeah. I think I'm going to pick up on on what Ari said. You definitely have to have the chops or the technical the expertise and the confidence to go in.

But I think you have to choose your sales partner wisely or choose your company wisely right? So if I was a CMO looking to launch something like this. I would look for a company a sales colleague a sales partner who has an openness and a curiosity to find growth wherever they can find it. Right. And not have a fixed mindset.

and so the company it's important about the company you keep with big C and little C.

Jon Busby: I couldn't agree more. And it's exactly and that is exactly what one of our previous podcast guests did when they made a similar change in their organization. So Jeff who works at smart tech I'm sure I'll get to interview again.

Uh this year's A and A's you know famously brought sales and marketing together under one roof and renamed everyone's job roles. which is going probably five steps down the line uh from what we're talking about here but I think you've got to find that partner that's willing to go on that journey with you and and willing to help you with the alignment before before you can.

Again I guess build out the mod modules and build out the the attribution modeling to to know it's gonna be successful. So a Ari and Lisa it's been fantastic to have you both on the tech marketing podcast today. I'm really hoping this is just the first of a series so let's keep uh you know let's keep coming back and seeing how you get on on this journey because this is something that as a marketeer and like you a I.

Refuse to wear that hat for a little while. I'm super excited and I want to know uh that that we're going to be that we're changing the models and we're going to be bolder and more confident in the future. So yeah thank you very much for joining us. It's been a real pleasure.

Lisa Gilbert: Thanks for having me on.

Jon Busby: Thanks Ari. Thanks Lisa.