A spin-off success: Brand storytelling that boosts demand

Jon Busby: So welcome back to another episode of the Tech Marketing Podcast. I'm joined here by Kate Rogers, Brand Media Director at GE Healthcare. GE Healthcare is a big brand that we've all heard of. Even us Brits over the other side of the the Atlantic. We know General Electric. But you've recently been going through this spin off activity.

Tell me what's happened.

Kate Rodgers: Yeah. January, 2023. GE Healthcare was the first of three companies to spin off of General Electric. So we were the first to go. And all of this involved a rebrand for each of the companies so that they could each own their unique identity, their new brand, but we're all connected by the monogram and obviously the heritage.

So Vernova, the energy business, GE Vernova. And GE Aerospace just spun about like a month, two months ago. So, we are officially three independent companies, three independent brands. And I will say it is not for the faint of heart to spin a company, especially for a legacy brand, but it's been a lot of fun.

We learned a ton along the way.

Jon Busby: Yeah. So are you completely independent companies?

Kate Rodgers: We are like independent stock tickers, independent executive teams, independent.

Jon Busby: So you have no need to go back to group or back to the mothership to say, Hey, we'd like to make this change now. That's it. No,

Kate Rodgers: we do. We are a licensee of the GE brand.

You've probably seen GE like appliances or lighting. They're also licensees of the GE brand that had been spun out many years ago. And that is our connection. So we still do meet with the GE corporate team about once a quarter. And we. We do that as a process of like brand governance to make sure that we're taking care of the brand, right?

We like spent so much time building this beloved brand. How do we make sure that we take care of it in the future and it's connected? It's you know, just a little quarterly check in and it's a nice connection point But we definitely all use like phone or friends all the time So like we do talk to each other from the different businesses just because it's a unique thing, like a big spinoff and not everyone has experienced something like that.

So it's sometimes a sanity check, but also sometimes, advice or how did you do this? I

Jon Busby: think the only equivalent we probably got in the UK is like Virgin. If you think about it Branson's brands in the sense of the, they're all licensed, but quite different industries. Yeah. So I guess that's the kind of.

Comparison I'm thinking is someone's got to be a steward of that central brand.

Kate Rodgers: Yes.

Jon Busby: And you've got to be a steward of, not doing anything you're not supposed to. Yep. So what are some of the challenges you faced when going through that spinoff?

Kate Rodgers: Yeah, I think balancing everything, right?

So we had always really relied on GE corporate for our brand air cover. And now we have this opportunity to be a unique healthcare company, but also how do you balance the old with the new? We don't want to be talking about our heritage all the time, right? We want to be a new organization that's modern, but also keep that.

So it was a little bit of a balancing act. I would say that was one of our biggest challenges. And then really getting our stakeholders bought in, right? So we didn't know how to do this. We had to build a brand team. We had to build brand governance. The executive team didn't know how to do it right.

And we had to bring them along for the journey and keep them really engaged and excited. And that was no small feat by any means. But I do think, looking back, we're really happy with how everything turned out, of course, we would do a couple of things different, but yeah, it, it was a wild and really rewarding ride.

Jon Busby: I'm going to be a little cynical here, right? Yeah. Like the brand itself, it's the GE logo, which we all know with healthcare on the end What's changed from how it was like before, like what is different?

Kate Rodgers: Absolutely. So beyond, the first is like the visual. So we have a new color palette that we uniquely had selected because healthcare is like the blue sea of sameness, right?

So we really leaned into this purple and colors that you would find in like a natural healthcare environment. And that really plays so well with that, like human that we're pulling through as a new standalone brand. And so that is. It's been one of the most important changes to the brand is like how we talk about ourselves, how we talk to our customers and their clinicians.

These are people that are caring for really, for sick people. They're trying to keep people healthy. How do we speak uniquely to them versus the GE brand was always trying to speak to a large wide audience. Now we have an opportunity to become a uniquely healthcare brand. And I think that's, what's so exciting.

That's what we've really tried to own. Far beyond just how we look, and how our ads look and the copy and things like that. How do we make it feel different and use that as a opportunity to differentiate from all the rest of the competitor?

Jon Busby: How long ago did you spin out? A year and a half ago.

So what's your memory of like when it came out? That difference started to manifest itself.

Kate Rodgers: Yeah. I would say when we first actually got to see the purple, like when we got to see the brand applied, I think it switched it switched things for everyone. And it was just, it felt and the excitement was there.

And that was the moment for us. And what was great was it was very intentional, but we brought together 200 of our top leaders from the company, put them in a room and we walked them through, here's the new brand, here's our new purpose, here's how we're going to go to market. And the excitement was just like.

Busting from the seams and it was the perfect time to introduce the brand. And then we had 200 brand advocates that we can then send out into the world, into the field as we continue to do our work. But that was about four months before the actual. launch. So it was quite a ways before we actually even hit the finish line, so to speak.

Jon Busby: So I think that internal advocacy is incredibly important. Like for you, which is the most exciting bit going out to market publicly or actually just seeing the energy internally?

Kate Rodgers: Yeah, that's such a hard question. That's not even fair. Like I, I will say there is nothing, we have the best people in the whole world.

Like these people are so dedicated to building amazing healthcare equipment for patients and watching them feel so proud and feel like they were reflected in the brand. And we actually incorporated them in our first commercial spot. We had two employees. We included them in the creative. We put some of them in Times Square during the bell ringing.

We invited actual employees to help us ring the bell instead of 50 executives. And I think that really differentiated it to say we're all part of this, right? It's not just like Kate in marketing who just put this brand thing out. Obviously, I love to see my work. We love to see the work out in the wild and it's really exciting because We hadn't seen it in a while before, but it was always just GE.

Now how it looks like, how it feels just uniquely us. I think there's a lot of pride and ownership. But our employees even if they see a billboard, they're like posting it on LinkedIn. That's not how a billboard works. So they can take a picture and then post it. But like them next to the billboard, they're so excited.

And I, that's the stuff that like, Yeah,

Jon Busby: I think that's, we've talked a lot in the last few guests today about purpose and like finding your why. And so I'm the same we've got cameras around us now, like this, it's, it, I have something about growing something, making it, having a team around me that now have jobs because of the effort that we put in.

And so hearing your why there is incredibly, that's that that's It's incredibly inspiring to hear.

Kate Rodgers: Yeah, it's what inspires people to do really great work. And then those people love your brand. Like I, I really want every single person that works for us to love the brand. And so many of them face our customers, they're helping our customers.

If they love the brand and respect it and value it, they're going to take good care of it. And they're going to make sure that we always deliver for our customers. And that's just good business, right? And I think it's one of those things where it doesn't have to be like, just your purpose, feel good, fluffy stuff, or just business, right?

They can really work together to, to work and drive your

Jon Busby: business forward. But let's come back to that word purpose because that's something that speaks to me a lot. I think it's important for every brand to have a purpose that people can get behind. You mentioned you had to redefine, geez, like how was, how did you go about that process?

Kate Rodgers: I know. Yeah. So we started with a lot of research. So we did three different studies, three different pieces of market research. We really wanted to understand what the trust was in the brand, what we were doing well, what we needed to work on. And that, that took the span over like probably four months.

And we also did a lot of surveys, even internally surveys to audiences that we hadn't talked to before. So like investors. Analysts, we had never had, we just didn't have to worry about it, right? So that was a big piece. We get all the data together, we find our white space, and then we start pulling together what we are seeing coming through.

We actually involved the executive leadership team in creating that purpose. Okay. So that they had buy in from the jump, right? And it had to be something that was going to work for us and drive the new business forward. And as soon as they had said it, I wasn't in the room. My, my wonderful boss at the time was leading this effort and fighting the good fight in the room with the executives.

And she just said, it was just like, it clicked, like it worked. And our, When it works, and now our employees use it all the time. We don't have a tagline, but they use it as if it was one, and it's been super organic. So our purpose is to create a world where healthcare has no limits, and I think there's so many different ways that you can interpret that and make it meaningful for you, and I do think that's why it's so powerful. When we apply it.

Jon Busby: I completely agree. Yeah. And I've used, I've referenced this a few times today because this purpose speaks to me a lot.

Kate Rodgers: Yeah.

Jon Busby: Which is that idea of a purpose should transcend business for the next 100 years, right?

Kate Rodgers: Yes. I love this. Okay. You're making me excited because I love this idea because when we were doing some of this like research, we're thinking about it.

Like you think about Apple. Was a computer company, right? And had they made their purpose to just build really great computers, they wouldn't be what they are today. And the same thing with Microsoft. So I think your purpose has to be lofty enough that it will leave you the room to grow and aspire. It might be something that you will never reach, but is it a good North Star for your business?

I think is really interesting.

Jon Busby: I've taken our own company through the same. So I know exactly what you mean. I probably know some of the questions they may have asked you when defining that purpose. And it's that item of can you see this purpose still being relevant in a hundred years time?

And I think that with what you've just described with GE healthcare, like it, it's just, it's never going to be finished.

Kate Rodgers: Yes, no, our work will never be done. And I think there's something really exciting and motivating about that too. And. We talk a lot about limits. It's opened up this whole different discussion, right?

And there's different limits, whether that be like socioeconomic status and healthcare race, gender, location, like where are you in the world and there's just, it's like you said, it just ignite this passion in our people and that is when, it's like hitting the right chord.

And luckily, all the stars aligned, the research did its part and we landed on something people really love.

Jon Busby: I think what's really exciting about the story you just told is, you've just created a legacy that could last another 150 years.

Kate Rodgers: Yeah. I've never thought about

Jon Busby: that. Just to put it there, like this, that purpose that you've been part of defining could still be here for the, your, the next person that replaces you, that's Yeah.

The next person that replaces them Yeah. The next generation after that, like that's something to be incredibly proud of.

Kate Rodgers: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I hadn't thought of it. And we stood on big shoulders, GE is not a small brand, right? And Linda Boff and her team have done unbelievable work especially in the B2B space.

So I think we had Good example to work from. And we were really inspired with the opportunity to make it our own and make it, unique to us as just a healthcare company. That was, that's what's exciting to the teams. And we've really leaned into that.

Jon Busby: So let's move away from legacy and brand purpose because that's an incredibly inspiring conversation, but come on to something you mentioned.

Storytelling earlier. Yeah. Like how do you align the brand storytelling with something like demand generation? Yeah. Like how do you bring, how do you blend all of that together?

Kate Rodgers: I love it. It should be blended together, like it should feel natural enough. A good story will transcend just one place, right?

So if we have an amazing customer story or an amazing patient story, I love when we combine the two. Absolutely. You can create all sorts of materials and storylines and proof points far beyond just a brand campaign. So maybe we start with a video some social posts, but then how do we turn that into owned articles?

Can we take that clinician and make white papers? How can we really weave this thread all the way through, educate people when they're out of our, when they're not ready to buy, which for us is most of the time. But they're interacting with our products every day and in a way that our customers are connected to their work is through patients.

So brand storytelling has been an extremely powerful tool for us. And I would tell you that we were so product focused, like historically always, and then the pandemic happened. And We were like, Oh no, what are we going to do? Because we can't sell products right now. We literally, we had so much demand. We couldn't even meet the demand of how many products we needed, but it was just also not a time in the world as a healthcare company to be trying to sell our products.

So we had this whole strategy that we had to throw away and essentially redefine. And we had all these marketing dollars that we had for trade shows and like in person events, all these different things. Now, what are we going to do with it, right? And what we decided to do was really lean into that storytelling angle of our people who were working on the manufacturing floor the collaboration that we did with Ford to help produce ventilators.

And it just created this like huge blooming effect. And that was one of those times where we had to pilot it because of a crisis, but it. It became a North Star for us, way beyond that and it was really powerful to see that, firsthand.

Jon Busby: Just the, how we've talked about storytelling so much I think there should be like a chief storytelling role.

Kate Rodgers: Yeah!

Jon BusbyI think it's something not it's just not, it's just underutilized.

Kate Rodgers: Absolutely. Absolutely. Or it's Testimonials. And I don't want any more. We have enough testimonials.

Jon Busby: No, I think testimonials downplaying it, right?

Kate Rodgers: Yeah, that's like, when people a lot of times will be like, I have a great client story, kate, look at this story. And it's like a test, it's like a talking head testimonial. And I'm like, why did, you're missing the whole thing. Why did that person get into healthcare? Maybe it was because of their mom or their sister. What was it like the first time that they ran the ultrasound that they use?

Was it easier? Ask them about the first time that they ever had an ultrasound machine. It definitely wasn't in color. It wasn't 3D, right? And those are the kinds of stories that really emote and connect people in a way that someone telling you know, I was able to scan 10 more patients today because I had the help of this, whatever.

It's just different. And I agree. Everyone should have a chief storytelling officer.

Jon Busby: I actually think it needs to go one step further than that, right? So this is something where. With the advent of AI we all talk around what the future could look like. And I often think just no one is visualizing, no one's bringing that to life enough to say, this is where we are now heading.

Kate Rodgers: Yeah.

Jon Busby: Instead we just we talk in kind of a sea of sameness. I don't know if that makes any sense. Yeah. I think there's like a, Maybe it's a chief vision officer instead of storytelling officer, but I think there's something about trying to paint that vision much more cleanly.

Kate Rodgers: I think, or an innovation officer, I don't know, marketing, we were just talking about creating your own roles, right?

So I think I think they could go beautifully together, right? Because there's also so many amazing things that you could do with an AI technology to really make that story work super hard for you. We talk about sweating the assets and that's one of an example of where that could apply. But I would love having someone who had the mind space to really think about. What is the story and the stories that we want to tell? What do we want to move into as far as an innovation space to make ourselves modern marketers and make sure that we're not behind the eight ball and really push the organization in that right direction?

Or even a little like an idea lab or something, right? Like where they could test things out and then, either push it forward or kill it and keep it going and that's how engineers create amazing products. Can't we do the same thing?

Jon Busby: So I'm going to, yeah, I completely agree.

I'm going to come back to the storytelling piece for a moment though, because I'm going to ask a controversial question that you could either answer exactly as I expect you to, or it could be something very different. So bear with me. Yeah. In a story about your brand, about GE Healthcare who is the hero?

Kate Rodgers: It's so hard, right? Because there's so many, we have three main audiences that come to mind. Everyone will always say probably their customer, right? Their customer is the hero. We have if they're the hero, we have some really strong supporting characters and that's the patients that all of us are working for.

And then that's our people, like our people are the ones that are really like pushing our company forward. And that is something that I have so much respect for the Legacy GE brand, is they've always been really intentional about telling the story of how their people are building something bigger than themselves.

And I think that's like a way for people to also connect with the brand that feels a bit more human. Maybe they don't want to connect with Kate, but they would love to connect with Mike, the guy who's been working on the manufacturing line for 40 years to make, you X technology that helped his mom find her cancer sooner.

And those are just the different types of stories. And I, that's like the trifecta. When you can get all three, then you're like, this is it. And when you're like, that's it. That's good.

Jon Busby: I'm so glad you said that. Cause I think so many people think, Oh our product needs to be the hero.

Kate Rodgers: Oh, no.

Jon Busby: And that's like the first mistake you can make.

Kate Rodgers: Yes. That's how we always thought before though.

Jon Busby: I would say, when do you say that changed?

Kate Rodgers: During COVID. Because we couldn't do that anymore. So because it was just like morally not the right thing to do as a brand. Like integrity wise, we should not be pushing our products in a time where as a healthcare company in a healthcare industry, we're in crisis.

So what can we contribute To the world, to the society, that was stories about clinicians who were using novel techniques to screen COVID patients, that was employees that were doing amazing things. We had people, we had accountants being trained to work on the manufacturing line so that we could run a manufacturing line 24 7 to produce ventilators.

And had we just focused on products, we lost that whole story. And it really allowed us to continue telling our story in a time where it would have been very easy for us to just take a step back and just wait for the storm to pass.

Jon Busby: I did not realize you were retraining.

Kate Rodgers: People volunteered.

Jon Busby: That's crazy.

Kate Rodgers: People literally volunteered. And then we did We did COVID safe interviews with them. So at the time we had put an independent reporter, his name is Mikey K. He's fabulous. He's also Brit. We put him in an RV. Also, like the RV people were like, what do you think? Where are you going?

We put this guy in an RV and he drove all over the U. S. and was interviewing people for us. And we could only have one person go in anywhere. So he was, interviewing these people who had volunteered their time, they were getting paid to work on the line, which most people will never ever do in their entire life.

And we had the privilege of sharing that with the world.

Jon Busby: I think when we tend to reflect on COVID, we, we tend to think about it being a relatively dark time, but I think some of the stories like that make it such a positive and inspiring time that we should all be proud that we were part of.

Like I in England we had the same we had some of our largest tech companies like Dyson and so on volunteer to be creating ventilators and new devices. In some ways, I think it's a shame that entrepreneurship and innovation didn't stay up. Because it was like we were going out, every company was going outside of their way to try and make the world a better place.

Yes. And you, yes, it turns out that we didn't need as many ventilators in the end and so on, but it was, but that didn't matter. Like the spirit was there to bring everyone together.

Kate Rodgers: Yes. And to think differently. And I think that was the big opportunity. And honestly, I will tell you, I've never seen a marketing plan come to come together faster.

We were like, overnight, we were like, throw all that away and same thing. Comm team, right? You just, you really had to adapt quickly. And I think what it taught a lot of us was not to be too precious, right? So we get really precious with our marketing and this was the plan that I had, and this is how I want to do it and.

I'm going to do this and that. And it was we had to keep things moving. We didn't have the time to like obsess over one thing. But

Jon Busby: I think that's there's actually some, there's a message there underneath this, which is we have that sunk cost fallacy of I've written this marketing plan and now I want to execute on it instead of thinking, is this really where I should be spending my time?

Yes. Is this the most valuable thing I can be doing today? And actually that's stands out front and center there. If you had to throw away your marketing plan and start again. And it was so successful, then maybe we should be doing that more often.

Kate Rodgers: Probably. Absolutely.

And I think that's a big opportunity and I would challenge other like businesses and marketers to like, take a step back and look every, few years. Why are we doing the things that we're doing? And is it because we've just always done it? And that's not the right answer. And that was, we still have some of that is continued into the, post spin world.

But we do, it's it's actually quite interesting, it's like a perfect change early adoption curve, right? So we had the people who jumped on right from the start, and now we have we're getting in the middle. And then we still have people, though, that are like, we got to do product marketing, otherwise my job doesn't have value.

And it's going to take some time to shift that. But I do think like your point is a really interesting one.

Jon Busby: Yeah. But do you think actually what you just said there, because, and I'm a product marketer at heart, if I was to define myself because I've built SAS products. I know what it's like to develop them, but actually, is there a, have we reached the final form of what a marketing department looks like?

Or actually, is there another? Are we going through an evolution now that is much more focused on business outcomes?

Kate Rodgers: Yeah. And

Jon Busby: financial results and other.

Kate Rodgers: I think so. I think so. I think the modern marketers will do that, right? And they're also going to think about how their brand, they're not going to think brand and demand, right?

It's not going to be church and state anymore. It's this is how we're marketing. This is how we go to market period, right? And I do think that's going to be like a modern marketing organization is where it really falls. Into the entire spectrum and what that allows us to do is then report more effectively, right?

And really tie that to, to the outcomes being okay, where we don't, where we can't track everything that's okay. And we're doing some cohort measurements to help us with that. But I do think also learning how to act like part of the business is a big part of what modern marketers and really successful CMOs do.

I had great advice from one of my mentors that I should understand the business like better than anyone else, right? And if I'm that entrenched in the business and I understand it and I understand the product, I'm going to be able to do the best marketing that I can possibly do. And it picks you out of you're not in your little zone, right?

Not like my little brand bubble, I can really think bigger. And that opens up new opportunities that we wouldn't have because I'm just on the brand team, and that collaboration can be really powerful.

Jon Busby: Do you what's your memory of one moment where you were like this is where I changed the game in marketing.

Yeah. You talked a couple of times about some mentors you've had, yeah. Can you pinpoint one moment that. Really stands out for you.

Kate Rodgers: Yeah I do think, there will be nothing probably ever like rebranding a company like GE Healthcare, like ringing that bell felt like I, like we made it across the finish line.

It was like a four month sprint. But I will say there was, after we had during COVID thrown everything out and we had tested this, like this approach, a strategy that I had been pitching for years and everyone thought I was absolutely crazy. They also thought it was crazy because I said LinkedIn was going to be a main social media channel.

So, but I, it was interesting and amazing to see that we did these storytelling stories and our CEO didn't really expect any return from them. We had customers who saw them and were proactively reaching out to our sales rep and saying, I saw this. On your guys social feed, how can I get engaged?

How I saw that you have a touchscreen ultrasound. I didn't know that you had that. Like the sales rep didn't tell them. So now we have this whole new loop and clinicians would ask questions in the comments and we were able to drop them mid to lower funnel materials and resources for them to use right away.

And when I saw that, I was like, this is it. Like I was like, this is when marketing works together. I was like, we got it. We can do this. We got it.

Jon Busby: This is the way I'm seeing it. And tell me if this is right. Okay. That's true. Brand to demand. This is where you created storytelling pieces that were, they have no demand generation.

Kate Rodgers: Yeah.

Jon Busby: Purpose. And yet there they are helping to close sales.

Kate Rodgers: Yes, exactly. Like the salesperson was shocked himself. He goes, he sent me the video and he thought it was crazy. Did you make this? And I was like, yeah. And he goes, a customer just sent it to me and he just ordered a humongous order of these ultrasounds.

And I was like, so I get commission, right? Yeah.

Jon Busby: That's a really interesting point. Do you think it's time that we get incentivized as marketers? I thought

Kate Rodgers: about this, right? Because I did, I worked for a SaaS company and we were able to really, it's so cool because you can see the full funnel so effectively and the sales life cycle so short.

But every time we would close one of those big deals and, they were tied and attributed to us, we were not actually getting any sort of like commission off of it. But I couldn't see in the future, if a business wants a marketing function to act like a revenue generator, I couldn't see that being a possibility.

Jon Busby: But, you were ahead of the curve when LinkedIn would appear let's ask that question. If we were to go one step further B2B buyer trends are already changing, right? They don't want to speak to sales they want to do their own research online. Yeah. Do you not feel that marketers should be incentivized for driving that pipeline?

Kate Rodgers: Yeah, I think if we can tell the story, we could probably make a pretty strong case for it, honestly. Yeah. We work in MedTech and 80% of MedTech buyers reported that they don't wanna take talk to a sales rep at all until they're ready to buy. These are humongous, complex piece of equipment. Yep. And they don't wanna talk to anyone.

And you think about that and we're, you're like, we're carrying the, we're carrying the football all the way down the field and I feel like I'm just like hanging you out on the finish line. And our sales team does amazing work and they're the ones who build that relationship. But I do think it's like a tag team approach and I could see it happening.

We, like when I was working in software, we were producing about like 40 percent of the revenue and I wasn't the revenue leader, revenue ops or demand gen leader, but I would say they would have a pretty compelling case. to say that they could have their team

Jon Busby: incentivize. That's a really interesting point.

So we just recently interviewed not today, but she is here today, Lisa from Kindle.

Kate Rodgers: Okay.

Jon Busby: And then her colleague from IBM and they both started a pilot program of incentivizing field marketeers. Interesting. So it's a really early stages, but I think it's something where we are starting to see that movement that recognizes the importance.

of marketing as part of the customer journey.

Kate Rodgers: Yes, yeah.

Jon Busby: So I think it's going to happen.

Kate Rodgers: Actually, what, there's, there will be, there could be benefits to that because then we're thinking that will inherently give us a closer connection to the commercial team. Which is a lot of the problem today.

Like I feel like we are creating a lot of our own problems because we don't spend the time. Understanding the commercial business and their needs and you put those, you put marketing and commercial teams in the same room and it's like a throw down, right? They're like, you're not using my thing.

Jon Busby: But why are they not in, and when you say commercial, are we talking sales?

Kate Rodgers: Yeah, like sales. Yeah.

Jon Busby: So why are they not aligned? I remember going to university nearly 20 years ago and we were talking about sales and marketing alignment and we're still talking about sales and marketing alignment today.

Why is it? We

Kate Rodgers: have different priorities. I think that's really it, right? We are measured against different things and until, and I would say a brand and demand team are put together against each other all the time and it's because we have different priorities. So until we all have the same priorities, we're not going to work together in that way.

And respecting each other's craft, I think is another really important piece. I love when someone from the commercial side comes to marketing or marketing goes to commercial It's, that person is so valuable to us because they understand that in a way that we just don't. Yeah. And we shouldn't spend that time always.

And we try to do that. But you have to respect their craft. You can't be saying like, yeah, it's just a sales team and these marketers make me PowerPoints and things like that. These are really important parts of the business and taking the time to learn to understand. Instead of just being like upset because they didn't use your thing that you made them.

Jon Busby: I think you've just made a lot of marketers very angry thinking about Oh, you didn't, we don't just make PowerPoint. Like I, I completely agree. And I think the point you've made there around, actually, we should see more rotation between the two teams. Yeah. I'm recently spent a bit, some time with an ex tech sales person on a sales call, right?

And I honestly think you should, as marketers spend more time listening to how they pitch because. I, the way that he put three brands together or three products and explain them to the customer. I could take straight back and put further, put in the funnel further up the funnel, if that makes sense.

And so I just think you should spend more time with your commercial teams. Why

Kate Rodgers: not? Just go and shadow them, right? Most of the time they're not going to care. Be a violent listener on their call. For anyone who is, I think

Jon Busby: AI's got a big gap to fill when it comes to, you actually saw the stat today, right?

I think Bob talked about it. What, 6. 2 percent increase in sales productivity due to AI, right? And we are seeing tools like Gong, like Core, like Dialpad that are helping to essentially promote marketing content as part of the sales core. So I think we are now seeing them mold together a lot more.

Kate Rodgers: Exactly. Yeah. And you can understand, you, then you, we would use it to understand trends and what customers were talking about. So like the salesman say, like the salesperson would say, what are your biggest challenges right now? Everyone wants that information. So why wouldn't you, we use it.

Exactly. And. Sit in with your sales teams if you can and or, phone a friend. I'm sure someone will take you on a sales round, but it's, I worked inside the commercial business for several years and I wasn't a salesperson, but I supported them and I was right alongside with them and I learned how their business worked and it taught, it was one of the most valuable roles I ever had because it did give me a completely new perspective.

And we were able to build that trust in that respect and I think it just changes the conversation.

Jon Busby: Absolutely. So I'm going to come back to the comment you made about, predicting LinkedIn's role and where it is now, what is the next trend that you are lighting GE healthcare up to take advantage of?

Like how can I stay ahead of, if you predicted the future once, so Let's, I want, I'm interested to know what, what's coming next.

Kate Rodgers: Yeah, I don't know. I think I might've just gotten lucky with that one, but yeah I think really you're going to continue to see B2B brands, really good B2B brands.

They're going to start acting more like B2C brands in the sense of like how they are running campaigns, how they can get so much more like strategic and smart about their demand generation activities, using them across the board. I'm going to give Workday a shout out, Eric and his team, like they crushed it.

And do you know why? It's because they took that approach that most B2B companies will not because they're in their safe bubble.

Jon Busby: Like I interviewed Eric last year from Workday and the, I think they've done us all a favour in showing like, this is what happens if you invest. Yeah. In creativity and brand properly.

Yep. Yeah. Like this is the impact it has. This is the trickle down effect or whatever you want to call it. Yes. This is the impact it has on demand. Yes. I couldn't agree more.

Kate Rodgers: So I think the more that your brand is like ready and willing to do that. That's gonna, that's going to be the future and, of course, everyone's gonna talk about AI and it will make us work better.

Everyone should know how to use AI tools and in their business. And I really think it's that strategic thinking, that shift, that's like what's going to be really big for B2B. And I think that's exciting. As someone on the inside, I think that's why it's exciting to be in B2B right now. It's like ripe for the taking, right?

And you see the people take it and Deloitte and Workday are taking those steps and people are noticing. So it's exciting.

Jon Busby: Yeah, completely agree. So I'm going to bring us to a close now. I could carry on, we could carry on talking for a while, but like we asked this question to all of our guests on the Tech Marketing Podcast here at the ANA's.

So in five words or less, what advice would you give a future CMO? And of course, you're heading to be a future CMO what advice are you going to give yourself?

Kate Rodgers: Yeah. I would say don't, let's see. Don't be afraid to go. We'll just make that one word big. So don't be afraid to go big. I think a lot of times we play it really small.

And you can use strategy and data to help you pick the big thing. But don't be afraid to do it, and don't be afraid to push for it. You will know in your gut, your intuition if that's the right thing to push on. But I will tell you there is like nothing sweeter than getting to the other side and seeing it work and being so confident that it will work and making sure it works.

I've put in a lot of extra hours. I'm like, this is gonna land. We got to make sure it lands. And I think that's the best advice because I don't think CMOs are made by playing it small.

Jon Busby: Completely agree. Kate, it's been a real pleasure having you on the Tech Marketing Podcast today. I've loved you sharing your story.

We've had a fantastic debate as well. Yeah. And I wish you all the best in the future at GE Healthcare.

Kate Rodgers: Yeah, thanks Jonathan. Really appreciate it.