Genefa Murphy 00:00
We're faster than we are cheaper than we are better than. And that's not compelling that doesn't turn into value that isn't going to give the customer true value. It's better to think how you can approach a problem differently.
Ben Kaplan 00:14
This is the podcast where we go around the globe to interview marketing leaders from the world's biggest brands, fastest growing companies, and most disruptive startups, re ideas packaged a certain way want to spread, they want to be called to someone else's simple, surprising, and significant data to unlocking viral creativity is to make it rapidly scalable. This is TOP CMO with me, Ben Kaplan. Today, I'm speaking to Genefa Murphy, the CMO at Five9, a leading provider of Cloud Contact Center software, and the company that made headlines for almost being acquired by Zoom in a $14.7 billion dollar deal. Prior to Five9 Genefa held various global roles across Product Marketing enablement, and communications at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, as CMO at microfocus, she helped transform the underlying marketing tech stack, helping deliver scale and strong ROI for the company. Its customers and partners. We have CMOs that have different superpowers, right? Some CMOs are they're great at branding, it's all about positioning. Some CMOs are incredibly analytical. They really like delving into the numbers, some CMOs are great team leaders, right? They're like a leader of people, they get people aligned and get them going. Some CMOs have a they're just a visionary with marketing, right? They're just great at that. Some are growth, folks. They're just growth marketers. They're big experimenters they got a marketing laboratory, how would you describe yourself? What is your superpower?
Genefa Murphy 01:49
Yeah, I think I would say my superpower is that I'm not a career marketer. I came from a different background, I came from the product side of the house, I came from sales enablement, I came from go to market strategy. And that means you're one of the most important relationships a marketer can have is with the sales team. And that's I think, one of my greatest strengths is that ability to engage with the sales team and make sure that marketing is an equal player in that team game, that sales and marketing play together to win over the customer and to keep the customer and to delight the customer.
Ben Kaplan 02:29
Well, a common dynamic is that usually between sales and marketing by sales is complaining marketing's getting us, you know, crap leads. And then and then marketing is complaining sales can't close a lead to save their life. We gave them all of these things. And then unfortunately, Customer Success comes in and says both of you guys are doing the right thing. Because I'm not being said about this being sold something else or something else. And we have to actually deliver this and actually, so there tends to be a blame game. It's not uncommon doesn't have to be that way. But how do you if you have a better understanding of how these work? You've been on the other side of the aisle? How do you do that to make this all work together? Because it's very easy to blame another group?
Genefa Murphy 03:12
Yeah, I It's so funny. Because yeah, that don't that dynamic definitely exists. And I think it comes down to transparency. That's what I've always looked at, as is complete and open transparency. I don't hide my metrics, from my sales leaders and my sales counterparts. I'm, you know, me and my team are incredibly honest about what's working and what's not. We share our wins, but we also share where we've maybe, you know, put some investment in that isn't getting the ROI that everybody expects. So I think it's about transparency, you know, getting alignment on the metrics, getting alignment on the goals, it's also about owning your craft, I think that's a really important part as well, because I think you do have to think of it as a team sport sales have their job to do I have no desire to be in sales. I, I think sales is an incredibly, incredibly hard job. You know, getting someone to park with significant some significant amounts of money. I know as a CMO as a purchaser how difficult it can be. So I don't envy our sales teams having to do that on a daily basis. But marketing also has their part to play. And so I think it's about standing up for yourself as well and sort of saying, Listen, this is what you're bringing to the table sales. And that's great. And I respect that. And I trust your judgment, but this is what we're bringing to the table as marketing as well. And asking for and earning that respect and trust. Because too often I see marketing teams who just bow down to sales and K title sales, and that's not going to help anyone because that means that you end up demotivating your marketing team If you don't get the best diversity of thought, in coming up with an end outcome to really please that customer,
Ben Kaplan 05:07
when they sense well, so So now you're spending a lot of time you mentioned to me thinking about Account Based Marketing. And so you understand so we two types of marketing, you could say, Okay, we're gonna have a really big top of the funnel, like lots of people can go after we're going to filter it down. Or we could say, We're gonna like laser focus on these specific accounts, which are like the ones who really want maybe they're you know, it's a large accounts, it's a well, it's worth a lot of revenue could be very strategically important. You're moving into a new sector, maybe a new geographic market, something else. So why are you prioritizing Account Based Marketing in terms of the overall approach to kind of laser focus? Why is that important part of your toolkit?
Genefa Murphy 05:49
Yeah, so I think for me, it really depends on where you are as a company, and where you are in terms of both your marketing and your selling maturity. So if you're, you know, if you're in the volume game, and it's just about getting as many hits at bat as you possibly can, then, you know, is Account Based Marketing applicable, maybe, but is it going to be the most useful tool to use maybe not, however, if you start to get into a place where you really need to prioritize the leads that you're working on, you've done all the usual things like scoring and nurturing and all of those different pieces, then Account Based Marketing is a really useful tool to be able to prioritize and focus your efforts. And also make sure that you're truly going after the customers who meet your ideal customer profile. I think that's a that's something that is actually lacking, you know, creating an odd and ideal customer profile is such a fundamental of marketing. But yet, I think with the rise in agile marketing, and performance and growth, marketing, sometimes people forget that, and they don't look at things like segmentation, who is the right type of person, and persona, to be able to target our Messenger, and to be able to target our solution out? So I think it comes down to your company maturity, and what are your overall objectives, I think you always have to have a balance between awareness, preference and perception. But Account Based Marketing, given where we are as Five9, helps us to be a little bit more targeted with who we're going after we know where our product works well, and maybe for those markets where it's not as applicable. So we've learned that through many years of selling, and winning, and so we can now apply that into a little bit more of a targeted approach.
Ben Kaplan 07:41
That shirt makes sense. I mean, we have so are we have a global marketing agency topic, why we sometimes actually experienced clients who is a problem arises from incredible success, which is, let's say, their prolific team and you know, search engine optimization, or bring in lots of people that come all over, right? Because people are searching out for you, then the problem is, you get all of these inbound leads, you get all of these things, but then it's easy to lose your focus because you like doesn't They're over here, they're over here, there's, you know, like the movie up like squirrel squirrel. Yeah, you're seeing all of those come in. And, and it's easy to lose your focus. And so what you're saying is, I like that it's actually an interesting way of taking the value of Account Based Marketing, because a lot of times people just do Account Based Marketing, because they're like, yeah, these are the companies that move the needle, right? But you're actually talking about, like defining your ideal customer. And it forces you to do that you can't really do Account Based Marketing, if you bought it. So it puts a sort of discipline and focus, which is
Genefa Murphy 08:44
it's not always about size and scale, right? Sometimes, of course, yeah. And Account Based Marketing you go after we want to get X percentage of the Fortune 100. Great, okay. But you might also say as well, like for Five9, we have a very healthy mid market business as well that we go after we have our enterprise customers and our fortune 100 customers. And we've we've got those big customers that we go after. And of course, we target them. But we've also got companies who are smaller, who maybe have no desire to get up into that fortune 100 And we have a solution that fits them as well. And the other thing as well, that I think you've got to think about talking about marketing and sales is context switching. context switching is incredibly hard. So think about if you've got a limited set of you know, lead development reps, or business development reps, who are having to qualify all of these leads that are coming in their ability to context switch between the needs of an enterprise customer and maybe the needs of a commercial or a smaller customer. That's pretty hard to do. And if you've only got one pool of LDRs, or lead development reps, you know, asking them to constantly context which becomes tired, tiresome on them, and also as well, you know, how can you make sure that they're giving the right pitch to the right level of customer with this vast volume of leads coming in as well. So I think that's the other thing is just thinking about your team burn out and your team's ability to consume the volume of opportunity that you bring in as a marketing team. I see.
Ben Kaplan 10:16
So to paraphrase what you're saying, you're saying that it's a, it takes a lot of mindshare for a person or a team to be like, I'm thinking one way, I'm thinking that, you know, two plus two equals four, then suddenly, I got to do nine divided by three equals three, it's a, it's just a different way of thinking and just jump between those things become difficult. But a benefit of Account Based Marketing based on an ideal customer profile is you kind of hone in on that. And then that allows you to optimize a little bit, had a series of conversations, you're like, I didn't quite close that one. But you know, they were just hung up on not seeing examples of use cases that really value, you can then apply it to the next one, if you've got a context, which then suddenly you got new use cases, new case studies, all this other stuff, makes it a lot harder.
Genefa Murphy 11:05
Yeah. And then and then you end up creating marketing and enablement that's too generic. And then you end up creating messaging that's too generic, and it's not specific to either what your company does, or what your buyers need. And then that becomes problematic to the
Ben Kaplan 11:22
other, the other problem would even have that is you're saying that, essentially, then you got to meet all these different profiles, then you're just gonna like dumb this down to a level that sort of go, you know, okay, it fits all of this. But then you potentially could lose out to competitors, who are just like drilling in and being more specific. They're building it for that case?
Genefa Murphy 11:44
Yeah, yeah, it's really tough, right. And I always, I always say, it's something that someone once said, to me, it's better to be different than to be better. And I think, you know, when you try and dumb down a message, so that it can reach an appeal to all audiences, you end up either creating a very generic watered down message, or you start to get into differentiation through Well, we're faster than we're cheaper than we are better than, and that's not compelling, that doesn't turn into value, that isn't going to give the customer true value. It's better to think how you can approach a problem differently.
Ben Kaplan 12:23
Sure. And it's also difficult because in a crowded spaces, or competitive spaces, some of those messages, everyone's saying, like number of places that say we're data driven, we really we really look at the data, right? Everyone says that. So you've got to be able to differentiate yourself on how you use data and analytics in a really original differentiated way. Because everyone's gonna say
Genefa Murphy 12:43
that, yeah, who's gonna sell that we don't help you optimize your business, we don't help you save costs. No one's ever going to put that out there as a marketing message.
Ben Kaplan 12:52
Yes, we are incredibly slow. We are just Yes. So hard to do business with? Yeah, it's difficult, it's difficult. And I ideal customer profile defines the perfect customer for your solution, the company or person that has the precise qualities you're looking for. But what if your target profile is multi dimensional? And where else do you look after you've already nurtured your ideal customer? So who is your ideal customer? It would be who is your ideal customer? And how did you determine that? So someone else? How did you figure out what that would be?
Genefa Murphy 13:30
Yeah, so I think, you know, for Five9, like I said, we've got a few different segments, we've got our commercial segment, that's where the ideal customer is a little bit smaller, there, maybe just, you know, maybe they're smaller business, they've got individual contact center, maybe just one contact center. So that's one grouping, then we've got a mid market, sort of set of customers, those of customers who are looking to grow, they're looking to do more with technology, they're looking to optimize and scale their business. And then we've got the enterprise customers who are the fortune 500. And in those cases, those customers tend to be looking a little bit more things like digital transformations, how do they digitize the full end to end customer experience? How do they connect their customer experience with their employee experience and do more of a company wide digital transformation? So it really varies at the top end, like I said, the teeth of an enterprise that tends to be digital transformation projects. As you go further down into the big market and commercial, it often does become about optimization, it becomes about value for money, it becomes about finding ways to reach that audience in a more scalable fashion.
Ben Kaplan 14:48
Okay, so when you take them and you extend that tactic, whether that's Account Based Marketing or some other, how do you set up your campaigns? I know you're a performance marketer. Do you care about measurements and you care about scalability? So how does that get? I mean, do you have, you know, three different drip campaigns running as your base campaign? And then it branches out from there from each of these segments? Is there something else? How do you sort of like start, like, bring this to a practical level of just like how you're reaching people are having these touch points?
Genefa Murphy 15:19
Yeah. So the first thing is that we actually look at what our sort of messaging hierarchy is, and what are the main problems that we're solving, and then tweaking each of those nurture campaigns based on the audience and based on the problem we're seeing. So for example, we look at there's a segment of customers where we focus more on business agility, those are the customers who haven't moved to the cloud yet, and who maybe have an on premise contact center, and then looking to move to the cloud. So we have one set of nurtures, that goes out and says, Okay, if there are customers that are going from on premise to the cloud, this is sort of phase one that we take them. And we put all of this in a sort of maturity model. The second piece is to look at, okay, let's assume that they've moved to the cloud. Now, one of the challenges that they're dealing with is how to scale their team, and how to leverage the power of AI and automation to scale their teams. Great. That's another set of ongoing always on nurtures that we have. And then the third, and the fourth area looks at analytics. So for example, and analytics crosses across all of them, right? Are they more analytics driven, more insights driven? Did they want to do customer journey mapping? Do they want to look at how do they integrate their contact center into their CRM, as an example? And then the fourth area is how are they looking more at things like empowering their agents and their supervisors? So are they thinking about workforce engagement, and gamification and performance management of their employees? So we have baseline nurtures across each of those four pillars. And then depending on where a customer comes into the journey, we can sort of tell based on the content that they're downloading or interacting with, which ones of those nurture journeys do we want to then send them through?
Ben Kaplan 17:08
I say makes sense. And then how do you then if those are kind of the base sort of nurture campaigns? How, what happens then? So so someone responds to that? Where does it go? How does it sort of branch out from there? And I think one of the, you know, and if you're doing this way, that sort of an arc marketing automation sort of way, one of the challenges that people either want to be incredibly complex, right? There's like, all these branches, all these things that it gets overwhelming, or else people have, like, you actually see actually quite large companies that have like, one track, right? There was so complexity as like, we've just slimmed it down, like one sort of thing, because we couldn't do it. So how does it branch off? From there? You got four of these four tracks? How complex does it get?
Genefa Murphy 17:49
Yeah, so I mean, he definitely that I would say, we have taken a simpler approach versus a more complex approach. The other nuance that we have to think about is, are we speaking with prospects? Or are we speaking with existing customers, because those are two parallel audiences that we sort of reach out to and that we work with. So for example, both of those audiences have newsletters, but the content of the newsletters, I would probably say there's about 50% of overlap, and then 50% differentiation in what might be the theme of those newsletters. So let's just take that, let's assume that somebody has come in, they've downloaded one of our assets, they're part of our nurture, they've opted in to get the newsletter, I prospect, maybe in that newsletter, we talk about overarching campaigns, which are relevant to all customers, their points of view, thought leadership, things that we feel are important that we're hearing in the market. And they may focus more on the prospect newsletter on things like well coming here about us from a webinar, come and participate in a meetup COMM And, you know, do some of your own research and will point them to blogs and social content. Whereas on the install base side, that's where our customers are already familiar with our solutions. And their needs are a little bit different, because they're either looking to optimize their investment in Five9, or potentially become more aware, not with our core offering, but what some of our adjacent offerings are, either that we offer ourselves, or that we offer through our partners. And then we do things like lunch and learns. Hands on demo workshops. customer references, how is like customer references is a great example for a prospect. The customer reference or customer webinar that we take is much more about helping the prospect to build an internal business case and taking stats and facts, for example, so that they can go back to their management team and say, Okay, well, let's just say I'm moving from on premise to the cloud. Here's five Exam. pools have customers that have done this before with Five9. And here's some of the savings that they got, you take that same customer reference and use it in install base, the tone and content will be different. So we might say, actually, we want to use that in the context of the customer a little bit further down the path, when they've rolled out the solution. They've got a different set of ROI. And instead of talking about just the end stats and facts about the ROI, we want to talk about the how, how did they do it? How did they onboard a new part of the Five9 portfolio? How did they leverage a partner solution? So I think you've also got to think about who your audiences as well as sort of tweaking that content so that it's more applicable to either a prospect or an existing customer who you're trying to retain and grow.
Ben Kaplan 20:49
In 2021, Zoom intended to acquire 591 of the company's largest acquisitions. Now, at the time, the second biggest tech deal of the year, Zoom was to put up $14.7 billion for the acquisition. But unfortunately, by September, it fell through. So how did that affect the business? And what about the customers? Back in 2020 159, was part of it, you know, high profile acquisition by Zoom in the media a lot, because at the time, it was, I think, one of maybe the top two largest, you know, in the year, something close to a $15 billion valuation, Five9s, and then that ended up not going through parties kind of pulled out and we won't get into all the specifics here. But then how does that impact with this sort of that high profile event? You know, either existing customers or new prospects hear about this? It's in the news? And then it doesn't go through? How has that affected your marketing? That's kind of an unusual event that maybe not a lot of CMOs have?
Genefa Murphy 21:51
Yeah, so I mean, the thing was, was, there's a very special thing about Five9, we have an incredibly close relationship with our customers. So we've got probably about 2500 customers, and we have a very close relationship with them. So we have been very transparent with them all along the way. And so we've just been talking with our customers ongoing, letting them know what's happening, and letting them know the benefit of what potentially a joint solution could be. But then also, as well, I think you have to think about the different buyers, because sometimes the bias for contact center and UC unified communications and collaboration are the same, and sometimes they're not as well. So for some, there was a portion of our customers where it was like, Yeah, this is great, because now I just have to deal with one company, and another set of customers who were like, That's great. I don't deal with UC. So I'll just keep working with you, as I've worked with you before. So I think the key is open and transparent communication with customers, and just being very honest with them about why the different events transpired as they are. And the worst thing that could have happened is if we would have shut down communications to our customers, and not being transparent about how these different companies can work together and be successful, but how we can also be successful standalone companies as well.
Ben Kaplan 23:12
So you have that ramped up, you're still actively communicating work, assuming that, you know, these kind of deals go through as long as there's like, a quiet period. There's other things you have to do you were kind of continuing to message back and forth. And then when it sort of, what did he do when news came out that like, hey, maybe this might not go through or stuff like that? Did you do anything proactively, at that point, specifically want a message? Or how to do?
Genefa Murphy 23:36
Yeah, so I mean, obviously, you know, you have to be careful, because you've got to make sure that you follow all of the various regulatory, you know, things that you've got to be subjected to whenever it comes to mergers and acquisitions. But we had, you know, with all the information that we could share, when we could share it, we shared that with our top customers and stayed close to them. And we made sure that immediately, you know, after the notification went out to the street, we spoke to our shareholders, we spoke to our top customers, we prepared our sales teams with FAQs about what to say and how to answer questions. And we invited our customers to ask us any question that they potentially wanting to and many of our senior leaders myself, our president or CEO, got on the phone, one on one with customers and just had open and transparent conversations with the
Ben Kaplan 24:25
where you are now as a marketer, one of the things that you said which was interesting was we came up more of a product track and I was looking at your your background here and and how that kind of jumped him over. But you obviously did with some very big company companies microfocus, Hewlett Packard ones, they're very large, but how did you make the jump over from what if I go far enough back in your LinkedIn, I see it consultants, I see business consultant, I see Senior Project Manager We want to move on always back. So how did that sort of transition happen and and what do you have expected that UBS, CML,
Genefa Murphy 25:02
no, I wouldn't have expected I would have been a CFO to be honest with you. I was always a product person. I mean, when I was a consultant, I was implementing SAP. Right. So I was always a product person. But I think it's like a natural, it really is a natural evolution. Because when I was a consultant, it was about working with customers on what was their business problem? And how could technology solve it. And then from that I was implementing software. And then you know, when you're implementing software, you very quickly understand the limitations of what certain pieces of software can and can't do. So you automatically start to get into the realm of what product management is all about, which is understanding what the market needs, understanding what technology is doing, and bringing those two together. And then when you're in product management, you, you find yourself not just thinking about, well, what's the roadmap for this product? But how am I going to make money with this product? What should the pricing be? How am I going to make sure that the feature that I'm building has a compelling value proposition and people are actually going to want to buy it. So you start to get into some of the marketing disciplines like messaging and positioning, and you start to think about well, especially if you've got a PL G model, or product lead growth model, where you're looking at, well, how do I get more trials for my product? And how do I then convert those trials, you start to get into the marketing discipline of E commerce and digital commerce and website transactions. And so for me, it was always just a bit of a natural evolution, each area that I was in from being a consultant to a product manager to then begin product marketing, and so forth, I got little glimpses into the other worlds. And then I just decided to go and learn more about them. Because I think that's where you create. If you can understand all the other parts of the go to market ecosystem, I think it just helps you again, to have better conversations, because you see where somebody else is coming from. And in particular, with marketing. I think people think they know what marketing is, they think they know how marketing works. And they don't realize until they're in it, how complex b2b marketing can be. From the sense of the technology stack that you often manage, there is a ton of integrations, there is more technology at the hands of marketers, and there ever has been, from the data side to it to how do you manage your KPIs and manage volume, value and velocity through to the creative side to it, you know, events, events is a great example. You know, you turn up at an event as a customer or partner and you see all the shiny outside stuff, you don't realize all the little stuff going on behind the scenes, what it is take taken to coordinate the content, create consistent content, the prediction teams that are working on it, the scheduling the rehearsals. And so for me, it's always been just interesting to be able to sort of delve into other worlds, and really understand from the inside of those worlds how they work.
Ben Kaplan 28:19
So what would your advice be to someone who's, let's say, five to 10 years from being a CMO, they want to be prepared, they want upward career track, they want to be considered for those positions? Well, if you're if you're going to go back and be five or 10 years before where you are now, what advice would you give yourself? Or what advice would you give that other person?
Genefa Murphy 28:42
Yeah, I would definitely say go do something outside of marketing. Right? I love marketing and marketing is is a passion of mine. It's a beautiful blend of science and creativity. But go do something else outside of marketing. Because I think a lot of times again, I'll go back to people assume certain things about marketing. And sometimes marketing have to work a little bit harder for their credibility for their seat at the table. And sometimes by having taken a role outside of marketing, it can help you boost your credibility, and it can help you boost your understanding of what why are we building these campaigns? Why are we doing these events? How are they really going to impact revenue and pipeline and bottom line of the business?
Ben Kaplan 29:33
Well, I think that's good advice. Actually put anyone in a type of industry or a type of company that tends to be led by certain divisions that might be different than marketing, right? So give me there can be companies that are marketing led companies, right? Marketing is front and center. It's driving the whole company. For those. It's not often a credibility question. You're driving the company, everyone knows what you do is important, right? It's that you know, if you're a CMO and Coca Cola, people understand So you're what you're doing this is hugely important, right optimism, but particularly in as we started getting more either it's b2b spaces, but especially technology driven b2b spaces, to be caught companies that are, you know, engineering driven companies, Texas Instruments with a couple of like that, like driven by engineers to be product driven companies, it could be other things, meaning it could be just like, you know, enterprise sales teams that are done. And so if you're outside of that, if you're in marketing, being aware of that, and having some of those other skills, what you're saying to talk the language to be like a part of that, that can be hugely important, especially if you're at a company where your skill is not the dominant skill.
Genefa Murphy 30:41
Yeah, I mean, it helps create relationships, right to say, oh, yeah, I get where you're coming from, because I've been there. Right. I've been in that that scenario. I've had to do that. And so I think you're exactly right. In b2c, it's a different case. Because I think in b2c, it's probably more important to go and diversify yourself within the marketing function, and decide, you know, is there a, do you want to be a specialist in branding? Do you want to be a specialist in demand? Gen? Do you want to be a specialist in segmentation? Or are you looking to be a sort of have a broad ability to cover all of those areas? So we meet as b2c? I think you've diversified within the marketing function, and in b2b potentially look for diversification outside of the marketing function?
Ben Kaplan 31:31
Sure, absolutely. So you've also been an advocate for women in technology, technology, historically a little bit more male dominated. You're also you're a member of the C suite. As a woman, I'd love to know, your perspective on that. Do you feel like there is a glass ceiling in the industry that would be different than other industries? Or do you not? Do you feel that it's, you know, women and men on equivalent footing? Or do you see things every day? And then what do you do to try to make things more equitable as as a woman in a leadership position?
Genefa Murphy 32:08
Yeah, it's a tough one. And honestly, it's one that I struggle with, because I hate to think that there is any type of glass ceiling than I. But there is, and there are there are biases that people have, especially, you know, with females, and technology,
Ben Kaplan 32:28
do you think is, especially in technology, do you think,
Genefa Murphy 32:31
I think especially in technology, you know, people expect you if you're in the C suite, to maybe be in marketing, or be in like HR or legal, potentially, and just, you know, even if people don't come at it from a place of malice, sometimes there are just inherent biases that people have, because that's, you got to remember, sometimes, you know, maybe they grew up in a different environment, where there weren't as many females in leadership positions. So we're just
Ben Kaplan 33:06
it's I think, for for anyone who has worked for a while, and to take it away from the gender discussion, it's like pattern recognition, people try to recognize patterns, they see if you've been around a whole bunch of folks that look a certain way, or talk a certain way or, you know, dress a certain way, you tend to recognize patterns, oh, this is what a person is supposed to be like. And maybe here pointed, there's no malice at all, but you're just biased by the patterns, you tend to recognize. That's all you've been around.
Genefa Murphy 33:32
It's all you see. Well, yeah. And it's also like, executives, right? Just just forget about anything else. But the executives, people, I think, have a certain perception of what an executive should be, and how an executive should behave. And, you know, then you're like, Well, why, you know, because, again, that's what they've always that's what they've seen, that's what they've been exposed to, they haven't seen a different approach. And so I do think I do think biases still exist. I do think that it's harder. There are lots of opportunities out there. I think there's a turn of tremendous awareness that is created for diversity in tech. And I think that's really positive. And I'm very happy to see that. But I think it's something that we just always have to keep top of mind. And even myself, I'll be the first to admit, you know, when it comes to things like hiring, I have to make a conscious effort to remind myself Hey, Genefa, we're hiring for these roles. Have we really thought about diversity? You know, whether it's looking at diversity of, of, of sex, race, religion, all different types of diversity? Are we making a concerted effort? And I think you constantly have to remind yourself and you have to keep yourself in check to just keep it top of mind.
Ben Kaplan 34:53
Is that is that to be equitable, or is that to also does it relate to performance? relate to how you actually want the best team that you can you can have that's that accomplished the most results.
Genefa Murphy 35:06
I think it's I think it's both. I mean, I want the best team that I can possibly have. I'm a firm believer that diversity of thought, diversity of background leads to better creativity and better ideas coming together. But I think as well, you know, you fall into habits, right, you've got it, you've got a wreck that's open, and you need to get the wreck closed. And you know, you want to get someone in that role as soon as possible. So you're like, oh, yeah, this person ticks all the boxes, and they've got qualifications. And you have to remind yourself, well, hang on. Am I just have I have I just been given a pool of candidates that were the easiest to get to, from the most likely sources? Or have I really tried to get different people's opinions. And that's why for example, like in my marketing team, I'm super excited that in the past, in the past couple of months, we've hired people that have come in from sales, into marketing, and we've hired people that have come in from things like a technical account managers, and they're coming into marketing, because that shows diversity of thought, right? So I think it's, it's yeah, sometimes we just get caught up in the daily grind. And you have to remind yourself, take a step back, and be purposeful about who you're recruiting and why.
Ben Kaplan 36:34
If you need help with a specific marketing challenge, we would love to speak with you. Email us at TOP CMO at top agency.com, or visit our top agency.com website. Talk to you soon. As a marketer, as CMOs, we'd like to be confident folk, we like to, to focus on our successes. But what is one mistake you've made? Either it's in your current role, or your current journey? And how has you learned from that and become a better marketer as a result,
Genefa Murphy 37:03
you know, one mistake that I always feel guilty about is forgetting about the nuances of marketing in different geographies. And that can be anything from language to the type of medium that you use to the maturity of the market to accept certain messages. So a great example of this is in the states in the US, I would argue that the concept around putting an ad in a newspaper is not really something that's top of mind for most marketers, whereas, you know, I go back to the UK, the first thing I do on a Sunday is I read the Sunday newspapers, when I'm on the London tube, and I'm commuting during the week to work. Everybody is reading the physical newspaper. And sometimes you forget, especially when you live in the US and when you work in the US, even if you work for a multinational company, that not every market accepts marketing and advertising the way the US does.
Ben Kaplan 38:08
Absolutely. You go to the Middle East, and you're doing all kinds of things on billboards all over like billboards might be the best mechanism, you have incredibly powerful lever. So great to think about. It's one of the reasons why I think you got to a little bit more challenging to the dynamic and delicate, you got to get out a little bit, you got to get around, you got to see things from other perspectives, and to your point about diversity of thought, surround yourself with people who have diverse thoughts, but also incorporate it into yourself, be able
Genefa Murphy 38:35
to Yeah, and if you can have a global team, I mean, you know, people are moving around the world all the time. So if you can, you know, if you can hire global teams, if you're in Europe, and maybe there are some Americans who live in Europe, and you want to have them on your team, or if you're in the US, and there's people you know, you can have fun lucky I have a European team, and they keep me honest about things. But yeah, I think just having having that different perspective is so critically important. And that the differences in culture is something that as a marketer, you know, I've made the mistake of falling to the sort of getting caught in the trap of thinking that it's one size fits all, and it's definitely not the case.
Ben Kaplan 39:17
The more marketing you do, and the more marketing you learn, you realize there's always more to learn. Yes,
Genefa Murphy 39:22
exactly.
Ben Kaplan 39:26
I want to end on a lightning round and get your thoughts on on a few topics that very common for, you know, b2b tech companies to be involved in want to get your opinion on. So first one, data studies and white papers, overrated, underrated. And how do you approach that right? I'm talking about the like you did like the state of, you know, customer communications, the state of call centers 2023 reports. overrated, underrated and how do you have are underrated. How do you approach?
Genefa Murphy 40:02
I think underrated. I initially my gut said overrated because there are so many of them out there. And they all say the same thing. But I think they are underrated when people don't use them properly. And people aren't thoughtful about the questions that they are asked. So, as an example, we do these studies as well at Five9, but the person who leads this on my team, Scott Coleman, he is really good about going out and looking at all the surveys that already exists. And basically saying, well, if all of this already exists, and we've got data on it, even if it's not ours, let's find the whitespace. And let's ask about the whitespace. And the other thing is, we actually what we've done, we're about to do a business report, we went out to our customer advisory board, and we pre we sent back a preview of the questions to the customer advisory board and said, Hey, here's the 20 questions we want to ask, share it with your team, is this useful? Tell us the ones that are not telling us the ones that are. So I think it's really critical to go to a sampling of it's first of all critical to look at what's already out there. And don't get hung up. If it doesn't have your logo on it, have your name on it, right? If the data is already out there, then customers can already get it, what's the point in them getting the version of it, that's pink version versus version of it, that's blue, there isn't much value in that that's not value to the customer, just because it's got your logo on it, it might be valuable to your sales team, but it's not valuable to the customer. So first of all, look at what data already exists. Secondly, and find the whitespace. Secondly, go and ask some of your existing customers or your target audience if they would find this data useful. And would they would they pay for that report? Right, even if it's a nominal amount? And if they'd be like? Probably not, the likelihood is they probably don't find value in that. So then why are you asking the question of why you finding the data? You're doing it to inflate your own ego?
Ben Kaplan 42:05
Sure, sure. And then ultimately, I think, thinking about you first versus me first meaning are we serving you? Or providing some value to you? And then our message is get along right along with it? Or is it me first? It's kind of a self serving exercise. We're not adding any value. Great thing, if you're not adding value to serving yourself and checking in another box that you're doing it, then maybe not.
Genefa Murphy 42:28
I have Donald Miller's Donald mirrors a story brand in my head, make the customer the hero, the customer is always the hero.
Ben Kaplan 42:37
Absolutely. Which brings us to the next lightning round question, which is branding in the b2b tech space, overrated or underrated? And how do you approach it just the brand, your voice, your persona, so many b2b companies I hear now like, like we want to market like a lifestyle brand. How do we do that? Okay, branding, overrated or underrated?
Genefa Murphy 43:02
Yeah, I think can be slightly overrated. It's like, owning who you are. Like, you're not a lifestyle company. You're a technology provider. You're providing a service only. That's valuable. Not everybody needs to be a lifestyle company. I actually funny, a b2c brand that I was talking about the other day with an agency that I really appreciate is Nike or Nike, I would say it because if you look at some of their photography, and their imagery and how they approach their website, what appeals to me about them is they owe their athleticism they own themselves as a sports brand. They haven't tried to over pivot to the lifestyle brand, like some other of their competitors have. They do it? They have elements of it, but they really own being a sports brand.
Ben Kaplan 43:54
Final lightning round question, which is, let's say you do that differentiated data study. You're trying to spread it around the world, you're going to implement a global PR program. So you're going to earn media around the world. So global PR, overrated or underrated? How do you approach it?
Genefa Murphy 44:17
Underrated. But you got to do it. Right. A great example of this is last year we did a campaign for reimagined CX, we did a piece of own media, we put a person one of one of our team actually on the side of a cliff in Wales, and showed that you could run a contact center from anywhere, even the side of a cliff in Wales. And we basically for a period of about two weeks, we were trending on Reuters as their second highest top topic, not because we put a person on the side of Cliff not because Reuters cared about contact center, but because we tapped into something that was really key, which was remote working agent burnout, moving to In the cloud, and creating great customer experiences,
Ben Kaplan 45:03
so it which sounds like what we would call a great strategic context around the doing that so much, it's not just the product or what it is, but it's actually all the stuff you put around it, which is happening to all these cultural things and things that are happening, post pandemic and all these sorts of things to make it more relevant even when you're doing
Genefa Murphy 45:23
press releases are not gonna get you noticed, right? They're not gonna like everyone just press releases. I everyone's was less your press release. I'm like, I don't think I don't know why people seem to think the press releases and magic and all of a sudden, you create a press release that it creates all of this noise and attention. It's like, no, there's a lot of work that goes into making something news worthy and newsworthy is that you have to tap into what is happening in the culture at the moment at the point in time, and you have to be ready to jump on it and to be relevant and then amplify yourself.
Ben Kaplan 46:00
Well said Genefa Murphy, there you go. Basically press releases, overrated, thoughtful, strategic, newsworthy, PR, underrated. So for CMO Genefa Murphy, great marketing is all about focus. Focus on your ideal customer, focus on segmentation, focused on nurturing campaigns dynamic content, focused on making information flow between sales and marketing, the results, a proven approach to marketing that is simple enough to scale for TOP CMO. I'm Ben Kaplan.
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