90 — A Year In Review: A Recap of Consumer Insights in 2023 with Jenn Mancusi

Lenny: 00:00:00

Hello, everybody. It’s Lenny Murphy with another edition of the Greenbook Podcast. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to spend it with myself and my guest. And my guest today is Jenn Mancusi—probably does not need any introduction because I’m sure that you all know who she is. But, Jenn, welcome.

Jenn: 00:00:31

Thank you so much for having me. I’m not used to being on this side of the mic, so I’m very excited.

Lenny: 00:00:36

Yeah [laugh] . Well, you know, we need to kind of switch things around every now and then, right? So...

Jenn: 00:00:42

Yeah. I’m going to try not to interview you today, Lenny.

Lenny: 00:00:44

You know...

Jenn: 00:00:46

That’s my goal.

Lenny: 00:00:46

I remain very teachable, Jenn, so please give me some times because...

Jenn: 00:00:51

All right. We’ll see what happens [laugh] .

Lenny: 00:00:52

Okay. All right. It’ll be an equal value exchange, as it should be [laugh] . All right. So, Jenn, for folks that don’t know you, would you introduce yourself, give them some of your background, and let folks know the pertinent details?

Jenn: 00:01:06

Sure. Yeah. I’m Jenn Mancusi. I’m the CEO and Co-Founder of Growgetter. We are a growth marketing agency focused on helping market research, technology, and services business do better growth marketing. So we kind of act as an extension of the teams for companies that need some marketing help. I’ve been in the industry for about 15 years working at companies like Toluna and Voxpopme and, prior to that, on the B2C side—so lifelong marketer and, yeah, excited to be on the agency side for the first time.

Lenny: 00:01:39

Yeah. And, yeah, a very cool agency launch that fills a real need. Yeah, because I think it’s almost a meme that market researchers are really bad marketers. So... [laugh]

Jenn: 00:01:51

Yeah, that’s—you know, there’s a lot of opportunity for better, smarter marketing. And I think it’s a lack of focus or a lack of investment in marketing or a lack of trust in marketing that we’re seeing a lot, so we’re trying to change that. We’re trying to get people to employ some smarter strategies and see how marketing can actually help drive revenue and not just be something that is happening but something that’s actually performing and working for the businesses. So, yeah, we’re having some fun. There’s a lot of opportunity, and a lot of people are starting to see the light, which is fun.

Lenny: 00:02:26

Very cool. Very cool. So, Jenn Mancusi, the light bringer. Is that the—can we add that to your—

Jenn: 00:02:33

I’ll put that on my LinkedIn profile.

Lenny: 00:02:33

—LinkedIn?

Jenn: 00:02:34

Yeah.

Lenny: 00:02:34

[laugh] So, Jenn, you launched Growgetter this year, right?

Jenn: 00:02:41

Yeah. Back in the spring.

Lenny: 00:02:43

Yep. During a time of great disruption and change for the industry. Do you think that’s impacted the growth of your business—of people thinking, “Wow... wait a minute. We’re in a different world. There is some new pressures that we need to pay attention to that could really impact growth, and we need help.” My hypothesis—am I right or wrong?

Jenn: 00:03:03

Yeah. I think there’s a little bit of that for sure that, you know, it’s definitely been a challenging year for the industry as a whole. And I think that, in some cases, that is a hindrance to investing in your own business, and some cases it’s more of a, you know, ‘this is the time,’ right? Like, now is the time to reinvest in the business. Because, all of a sudden, I think started maybe in Q4 of last year. Like, a lot of the strategies that the businesses in the industry had used in the past were, all of a sudden, not working anymore, whether that was on the sales side, the customer success side, the marketing side of things. All of the businesses in the industry were having to reevaluate their strategies and think about what they need to do differently. So, in that case, that is an opportunity for, you know, somebody like me and my team to come in and help do marketing in a different way. I think, in some cases, it also is a little bit scary [laugh] for businesses that are struggling and, you know, trying to keep costs down and maybe thinking it’s not a good time to invest in marketing. But, you know, if you’ve heard me or my partner, Kristin, talk about the importance of marketing. You know, when revenue is down, that’s the time to invest, actually. And it seems counterintuitive, but, you know, you set yourself really far behind by cutting in those areas.

Lenny: 00:04:27

I agree, wholeheartedly. I mean, as a business owner and having experienced that, I think that’s when it’s time to double down. So, you know, you trim in other ways, but you don’t trip the top, you know. We need to expand the top of the funnel, not narrow it. It’s always kind of baffled me during downturns how that’s one of the first places that companies go to is to decrease their marketing. I just—I don’t—I get the accepted wisdom of marketing as a percentage of revenue and keeping that in line. I understand that piece of things. I certainly understand, you know, being budget conscious. But I’ve never understood why you don’t double down to drive more growth when growth is a struggle.

Jenn: 00:05:18

I think it—there’s probably two reasons why companies do this. I think one is that it’s easy, right? It is easy to cut variable marketing spend because it’s often not committed in some sort of long-form fashion. So it’s hard to cut, you know, really, heavy technology that you have a 12-month subscription for. It’s hard to cut, you know, headcount, even. But it’s easy to say, “Let’s turn off our ad spend,” or, “Let’s not go to that conference that we haven’t yet committed to,” right? Those are areas where it’s just easier to cut that out of the budget when you’re looking to cut overall business spend. I think that’s one reason, which is not a good reason, but I think it is one of the ways that marketing gets cut first. And I think the other is a lack of understanding of why you’re doing a certain marketing tactic or strategy. So I had this—somebody [laugh] texted me yesterday. “What should I say to this person who just turned off all of these ads because they weren’t driving conversion? Like, isn’t awareness just as important?” And, basically, like, yes, it is, but you have to be really smart about understanding your customer journey and who are those people you’re going after. Where are they in their journey, and are you showing up in that right place? I see a lot of, like, top-of-funnel advertising on bottom-of-funnel channels, and vice versa. And so that’s sort of, like, misunderstanding or misalignment of the strategy is why people turn things off that they quote-unquote “think are not working.” When, actually, they just haven’t properly defined what “working” is before they start. So that data-driven practice of marketing can really help you to make more strategic decisions on getting more efficient with your marketing spend as opposed to just cutting it, you know, straight off the top because it’s easier.

Lenny: 00:07:18

Well, let’s unpack this a little bit more, because I think there’s some interesting points in here that are relevant to, you know, industry transformation and the year ahead. Because you said that things that used to seem to work stopped working or weren’t working as well. And I would echo that. I think we’re seeing some of the same things. And there’s some stuff that’s kind of obvious. I think, post 2020, the, you know, the saturation on webinars and virtual events—because that’s all anybody could do for a while—that there’s maybe a fatigue level there. But I think there’s also just a fragmentation of channel across the board. And the ways that we thought about, to your point, finding our customers—I think they’re in different places than they used to be. So, again, my observation, hypothesis—is there validity to that? Is that part of that challenge that you think folks started to experience last year?

Jenn: 00:08:18

Yeah. I definitely think that’s a big part of it. I also think that, you know, a lot of consumer insights teams in the big brands, you know, a lot—I’ve seen this a lot in CPG, a lot in the sort of Consumer Product General area. There’s been, obviously, massive budget cuts across the board—a ton of really, major restructures of teams. So the people that are working on those teams and making those buying decisions, when it comes to how they’re going to deploy market research and what venders they’re going to use and who they’re going to partner with, like, their whole process has changed. They are getting a lot smarter about evaluating partners. You’re not seeing, you know, a lot of sort of silo teams working with a lot of different vendors for the same thing. The companies are getting more efficient and trying to streamline their internal processes, which means those procurement [laugh] processes that were in place before that were already crazy are even more intense. And so it's become more and more important to be differentiated, in a better way, in the market, showing up at the right point, and having a—like, following a process that’s really customer-led, as opposed to, you know, technology-led or product-led.

Lenny: 00:09:40

Yeah. We’ve got the other side of the business, the Gen2 business, and a big piece of that business has always been brands coming to us to effectively kind of outsource vendor identification and onboarding. This year, that’s been a huge part of the business. So we’ve been kept very busy with brands coming to us. And, to your point, they’re trying to navigate their own internal procurement blockages in innovation but while also—you know, they don’t have the bandwidth to truly engage and evaluate different potential partners. They know there’s lots of cool stuff happening, but they’re so busy. They can’t pay attention. And I think that’s a proof-point to this, you know, kind of fragmented attention and different stakeholder groups changing. We know brands are looking for help to identify new partners. And, often, that help is ‘I need you to do it, not me, because I don’t have time to do it,’ which is a whole other wrinkle to the whole thing, right? I mean, this intermediates the role of marketing to an extent, at least in terms of, for some companies, of reaching out to the end buyer. And, often, the end buyer is saying, “I don’t want to deal with this at all. Here. Okay. Forward this over to Lenny and Gregg or whoever, right [laugh] , somewhere else. You guys handle this,” which doesn’t help the cause.

Jenn: 00:11:02

Sure. Or, even worse, they’re not working with a company like yours or, you know, to help them do that. So they’re just at a stalemate of making no decision because they are in the midst of a big restructure or a big reevaluation of their budgeting or their strategy. And there’s just been—this is probably the biggest shift I’ve seen in how market research teams operate in my career in the industry. You know, I’ve seen, like, the Center of Excellence teams come into play, which was new, I don’t know, 5, 10 years ago or something like that. And, you know, that’s building up. And we see Foresight teams emerging over the last several years. But this is, like, such a massive industry-wide restructure that’s happening that I think is just impacting everyone across the board.

Lenny: 00:11:48

Yeah. I would tend to agree. You know, certainly, there is—we know, from the work that we do, that the—one of the real strengths of the largest suppliers in the world are they have standardized rate cards. They’re through procurement. They’re preferred vendors. And, in these types of times, it’s easier to go with what you know. “All right. I’m just going to send it to Company X because we’ve always used them, and they’ll do just fine,” and depend on that company to drive the innovation. Which, arguably, they’re all doing, but that does make it tougher for, you know, smaller, newer companies that are trying to gain market share in that scenario as well.

Jenn: 00:12:28

Yeah. For sure. For sure. It’s a challenging market for everybody [laugh] .

Lenny: 00:12:33

It is. So... And I think I mentioned this to you last time you and I spoke. We had an interesting experience recently that was really eye-opening for me. You know, we launched The Exchange, the weekly news show, chat show, with Karen and I. And our assumption was that that would be LinkedIn specific draw, right? That’s where our audience would be, and that’s where people would engage with the content. And what we found is that is not the case. It was YouTube. YouTube is where we found an audience, a growing audience. And it was like I had blinders on, right? I mean, I use YouTube all the time, right? It’s a tab opened constantly [laugh] . You know, I’m observing content, listening to webcasts, et cetera, et cetera. But, somehow, I just—I did not make the connection myself that that was a viable channel for business content, but that’s where we found a home, a growing audience. So is that one of the things that you’re observing as well that, you know, it’s not—LinkedIn, you know, and the channels we always go to, the things that we know. Well, of course we have to be on LinkedIn. Of course you do.

Jenn: 00:13:43

Sure.

Lenny: 00:13:43

But, maybe, you know, we can also find our audience outside of those channels in things that we think of as more non-business oriented. Are you seeing some of that?

Jenn: 00:13:55

So I think that this is a broader sort of, like, philosophical marketing question in some ways. Like, you know, I am a big believer in ‘you don’t know what the most successful strategy, tactic, or channel will be because marketing changes every day.’ Every day, it’s different. So it’s vastly different from when I was in college and what I studied. I don’t use what I studied in college because that information is 20 years old, right? Like, marketing is not the same. There are some core principles that remain, but there’s all new channels and all new ways of engaging with people. And people’s behavior changes as well. So this goes back to that sort of data-driven marketing strategy and having that in place as a foundation for whatever you do. Because I’m a big believer in experimenting. You have to experiment. You have to go into every marketing tactic not knowing what’s going to work. And that will just open your—sort of open your eyes, open your behavior, to try new things. If you’ve got the tracking and the measurement in place at the start, you can do anything. You can do more of what’s working, less of what’s not, and you can identify that faster. And I think that’s the biggest gap that a lot of companies have right now is, you know, you just do the one thing. You know, there’s a lot of people spending a lot of money on Google AdWords, right? And I would argue it’s probably not the best channel, especially in our industry. We have a pretty niche market, and it’s a small group of buyers. So, you know, that might not be the best channel. You know, we’re always experimenting with new things that emerge. Christoph, who is on our content team, who I’ve worked with for a number of years, he messaged me one day and said, “There’s this new thing called Racket. It’s an audio-only something. I’m putting a bunch of stuff on there.” I’m like, “Great.” It didn’t work. It failed pretty quickly. Like, the—

Lenny: 00:16:00

[laugh]

Jenn: 00:16:00

—platform as a whole didn’t survive. You’ve probably never heard of it. But we heard of it. We tried it. We experimented with it. And you just don’t know what’s going to perform. Like, we see the same thing with our ‘lives’ that we get a lot more—a lot of viewership on Twitter and on YouTube. We get some on LinkedIn as well. That’s a good channel, but it’s not always the highest performing channel. We get a ton of, you know, engagement with YouTube Shorts, which was not something that we put a lot of effort into, you know, creating and crafting the perfect strategy for. It’s an experiment. Try it out. Build something that’s 60 percent. Improve on it if it works and, you know, sort of adopt this agile iterative approach to marketing. And I think just going into it thinking, “I don’t know what’s going to work, so we’re going to try a bunch of different things. You know, what’s the lowest risk that we can experiment with,” and measure, measure, measure. Then that’s a really solid approach to making decisions on marketing strategy.

Lenny: 00:17:05

So what’s the biggest win that you’ve had this year taking that strategy. You know, the company was struggling. You came in. You did something unique, different. And now they’re just kicking ass, right? What’s that look like for you?

Jenn: 00:17:22

Yeah. So, I think, to be honest, it’s—the biggest wins we have are turning off things that appear to be working but actually are not. So putting that measurement in place as the foundation—that’s number one what we do with all of our clients on day one. We do an audit. We build some dashboards. We make sure everything’s connected all properly. And then we start looking at the data. So we’ve had a couple that fall into this bucket of saying, “Hey... we’ve got these channels that are really performing well. They’re working really well. They’re driving a lot of leads top-of-funnel.” I’m like, “This is great. Let’s take a look a little further down in the funnel.” This is where it’s important to understand not just marketing metrics but marketing metrics that matter because it’s very easy to get inexpensive, high volumes of leads. They are not necessarily going to be the right people, right? So, taking that a bit further and looking at the entire funnel and saying, “Okay. You’ve spent this amount of money. Yeah, the leads are going up, but it’s not good quality leads. Actually, you’ve got this other channel that you’re not investing in at all that just, organically, is way out performing that other channel that you’re spending a lot of money on. What if we reinvest in another area?” Then, all of a sudden, it’s game changing. You’re not only able to cut some costs, you know, save a little bit of money, capitalize on something that’s already working. Like, I think there’s a lot of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole oftentimes of like, “Well, this channel should work for us. Other companies do it, so we should be able to make it work too.” And that’s where a lot of money gets wasted. So I think that’s the big wins. It’s not necessarily about, like, the sexy campaign or the thing that looks really nice or gets a lot of likes on LinkedIn. It’s how do you get really smart about what’s working and what’s not and make good decisions on what to do next as a result. So I think some of the biggest wins are actually turning things off as opposed to turning them on.

Lenny: 00:19:36

Hmm. Okay. So stop digging the hole.

Jenn: 00:19:39

Yeah. Yeah, in some cases. And reinvest in something else that could be—that could work better. I mean, if we want to talk about some of the more fun stuff, like, we’ve launched a couple of podcasts on behalf of clients that we just—that’s a really fun strategy. I think there’s a lot of companies out there that want to do it and don’t know how to get started. I’m a big believer in podcasting and—as a, you know, sort of way to show your thought, leadership, and expertise. It’s a great brand channel. And I think everybody in this industry has a unique perspective, just struggles to communicate it. And a podcast is such a great channel for doing that. And so being able to bring that to life for people who have always wanted to do it and didn’t know where to start, that’s another big win. I think that’s a lot of fun.

Lenny: 00:20:24

Yeah. I agree, obviously [laugh] . And...

Jenn: 00:20:28

[laugh] We should just [dye your hair] .

Lenny: 00:20:29

Yeah. And, also, leaning into video more and short-form video, you know, webcasts, there’s a couple things going through my head with this conversation that—one is that—so I know you have a 7-year-old, so I’m sure you’ve seen The Incredibles.

Jenn: 00:20:45

Aw, great movie. Yeah.

Lenny: 00:20:46

Right. Yeah. Yeah. One of my all-time favorites. And, you know, Syndrome says, you know, “When everybody’s super, no one will be”—and such a great line. And what that speaks to is how challenging it is to truly be differentiated because there’s always this leapfrog process. And, in the era that we are in now—you know, this time last year it was all AI, what? Generated—ChatGPT, what? What? What? And now it’s, yeah, ChatGPT. Yeah, AI. Okay. You know, that’s—we’ve already gotten past that shiny object element of differentiation and kind of first-mover advantage, where, okay, now this is table stakes. And we’re just kind of back to iterating and making it better, right, as we go. So no one is super now, right? There were a lot of companies in Q1, Q2 that were able to claim, you know [laugh] , they were incredible because they were early adopters of these technologies, and they were proving out that. and now everybody else is there. So what’s next? What is the next way for folks to enhance their superpowers and differentiate themselves in this rapidly changing environment? And I think that’s just a real challenge for everybody—and add that to the kind of follow-on effects of these new technologies in, you know, fragmenting content and fragmenting, you know, engagement channels, et cetera, et cetera. It’s a daunting task.

Jenn: 00:22:23

Yeah. And I [sigh] —yeah. It’s definitely a big one. And I think that the challenge that we’re having right now is not that no one is super. It’s that it’s impossible to differentiate between the ones that are and the ones that aren’t. So I think there are some companies that are very differentiated in terms of how they’re approaching generative AI and how they’re building it and leveraging it versus the ones who are just building APIs with ChatGPT. The problem that we’re facing—and this, honestly, isn’t limited to AI. It’s any buzzword in the industry that we’ve had ever.

Lenny: 00:23:01

Sure.

Jenn: 00:23:01

Everybody says the same thing. So...

Lenny: 00:23:04

Right. Automation, you know—

Jenn: 00:23:05

Right [laugh] .

Lenny: 00:23:06

—was the last great, big one. Yeah.

Jenn: 00:23:08

Yeah.

Lenny: 00:23:08

Yep.

Jenn: 00:23:08

We’re faster. We’re agile. We’re, you know, faster, cheaper, better. You can’t have all three, and now you can, right? Like, how many people in the industry say the same things. I did an evaluation at a conference this year. I took a photo of ever booth, and then I took it home with me, and I analyzed it to find the similarities. And we had, like, several people, several companies, claiming to be number one in the same area. And that, in and of itself, was a finding for me. You know, everybody is talking about—it was—everything was in one of five categories: AI, global. Off the top of my head, I can’t remember the others. I can send it to you. The...

Lenny: 00:23:47

Quality?

Jenn: 00:23:48

[laugh] Yeah. Quality is probably one of them, yeah. Automation was definitely one of them. So, in a sea of, like, everybody saying the same thing, how do you, as a buyer, differentiate? And how do you, as a business, let the industry know that you’re doing something different? Like, the positioning work is so important. And that is, I think, something that companies in our industry are really struggling to do. And, for me, the key to positioning that really resonates is that it has to be more customer centric. We spend way too much time talking about our products and our services and what we do and our company story, and it’s all kind of ‘let me tell you about me.’ But, the reality is, the people that we’re speaking to—I hope nobody’s offended by this—they don’t care about you [laugh] . They care about what’s in it for them, right? So...

Lenny: 00:24:42

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:24:42

We have to do a better job of telling the story of ‘here’s what I can do for you’.

Lenny: 00:24:48

Yep.

Jenn: 00:24:48

It doesn’t matter what tech I have or what product. Like, that’s table stakes. It has to be good. That’s your baseline. Telling everybody how good it is isn’t going to differentiate you because everybody is claiming that their product or their service is good. So I think we’ve got a positioning problem and not necessarily an innovation problem because there are—I know because I see these companies kind of in-depth and behind the scenes sometimes on—you know, I’m like, “You’re doing something that is way different than what everybody else is doing, but nobody would know because you’re not telling your story properly.” So I think there’s a huge opportunity for companies to slow down and take a really good look at their positioning and see how they’re differentiating themselves in the marketplace, especially when it comes to generative AI.

Lenny: 00:25:35

Yeah. I couldn’t agree more. You know, my—when my kids ask me what I do for a living, I just say, “I just help people.” That is my job is to help people. That is my differentiator. Everything else is just ‘how’. So lots of different ways to help people. But the tip of the spear is ‘to help’. And kind of echoing that comes from centricity, you know, type of idea. But, you know, it’s challenging, though. Because we are, as an industry, we’re very categorical. So, I mean, you know, Greenbook, the taxonomy, the Directory, right, it’s done well. It continues to do well for 60 years because people think, “Here’s my business issue,” or, “Here is my methodology that will help solve this business issue.” And we categorize and create taxonomies and compartmentalize because of that structured way of thinking about what our industry does, inherently. Do I want to do quant or qual? And, within that, then here’s my selection set of solution providers to address that. We even built a private platform for P&G years ago. It was basically a white-label version of the Greenbook Directory that was called Scout. But we—it was different because we built a decision tree for them, you know, of “Okay. What’s your business issue? What are you trying to solve for? Now, do you want to do quant, qual?” You know, and it just went down that path because that’s how people think about this. And, when I hear you talking, you got to get to the struggle point of—in that paradigm, how do you break out and stand out in an industry that inherently thinks categorically?

Jenn: 00:27:25

Hmm. So, yeah. I think that this is going to shock everybody. Not only do we, in the market research industry, not do a great job at marketing, we do an even worse job at market research [laugh] . And the difference between being able to tell that story—and from a problem solving perspective as opposed to a methodological prospective— is we need to do a better job of interviewing our customers or our potential customers and doing research on how—what problems they’re trying to solve. Even some of the research that I’ve seen done, you know, or interviews I’ve seen done with research technology companies is they want to ask buyers or potential buyers or customers about their product. What do you think about my platform? Or would you buy something like this? Are you having this problem? And everybody tells them what they want to hear. That’s the best-case scenario is, like, this sort of, again, very internally focused way of doing research. And I think what we need to do is try to ask better questions in—like, first, we have to engage in that process. I’ve actually had CEOs of research companies say, “What if we skipped the customer research step? What would you do first?” And I’m like, “We can’t skip the research step [laugh] . That is the most important step to building your positioning and your messaging is understanding who your buyer is and understanding who they are, not just as a buyer or potential buyer of your technology and services, not just as a user of a particular methodology. You have to understand what broader problems they’re trying to solve in their day-to-day. You know, where do they sit? Who do they report to? Who are their stakeholders? What is the thing that is going to make the difference between them having a good day at their job and a bad day at their job?” And the thing is that you won’t be able to solve all of their problems, but you need to understand what they are. And, if there is a problem they have that you solve, is it their first problem or their ninth problem or their twelfth problem? Understanding where you fit in their priorities will help you to help them make better decisions based on problem solving as opposed to more functional ‘I need to do this type of study,’ or ‘I need to’... You know, you need to achieve a goal, and we don’t understand what those goals are all the time. So, like, we’re almost kind of perpetuating the, you know, the methodology side of the decision making as opposed to the more strategic.

Lenny: 00:30:16

Okay. I’m thinking of GRIT data where we, you know, ask the drivers of client satisfaction, the buyer satisfaction, as well as the drivers of partner selection. And, you know, invariably—I don’t want to overly simplify it—but it still comes down to, like, what you said. Do you understand me? Do you understand my business, and you provide good service, and we have a good relationship? Now, those other—and the other components about methodology, cost, speed, you know, quality, all of those things are absolutely baked into that as well, right? That’s kind of a given. We expect those things. But, when you dig down a little bit more, it about those very basic fundamentals that you’re describing. And I think that’s particularly challenging for technology business that are, you know, “We’re a SaaS company.” It’s all—you know, it’s all inbound. It’s all about ARR. And I think that’s been a real struggle for many companies to navigate, to find that balance between, you know, service and relationship building while also, you know, yes, having recurring revenue via software licensing. And I think that’s somewhat unique to this industry to navigate through that. When I think of—even as other software that I use and with marketing or productivity, I don’t need to talk to your sales rep. I [laugh] , you know, I’m just going to pick what I need, and I’m just going to use it. And, if I have a problem, I’ll reach out. That’s not the way our industry operates. So do you find that challenging as well in—with some of your clients—for that they have to kind of adapt, not just their marketing strategies, but also their internal processes and even their position overall to get to that level of customer centricity?

Jenn: 00:32:10

Yeah. I think that there is definitely a—there can be a disconnect between who you want to be as a business and how your customers want to interact with you. And so that’s—step one is understand what that gap is. And then you do have to fill it. And even the most kind of technology heavy tech companies in the space have big service divisions and, you know, customer success teams. Like, that relationship is so key in this industry. I think there are some—there are definitely some business out there who would love to be, like, a Martec platform, where, you know, marketers do buy that way. They’re like, “I don’t want to talk to you. I want to do a free trial by myself. And I want to put my credit card in, and I’ll see you in 12 months.” But researchers are—this is definitely a relationship industry, whether you have a platform or not. And so I think that it’s important to remember that. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have ARR or you aren’t a product-led growth business if you have a service layer. But it is important to understand the customer needs and then build processes to meet them. And, on the marketing side, I mean, like you said about the decision making criteria, like, yeah, price and those other things, like, those are all a factor. But I think it’s Seth Godin quote. It might be some other famous marketer who said like, “People make decisions emotionally, and then they justify it later.” Like, that is exactly true. It’s especially true of our industry. People are going to make an emotional decision to buy from you, and then those other things come into play after. Well, how much is it? Well, how long is it going to take? Blah, blah, blah. But they’ll use that to justify not to make the decision initially. So I think understanding that and really leaning into that as a positive is something that would benefit any company who is kind of wanting to be a little bit more low touch.

Lenny: 00:34:08

I think that’s important. Now, and so I want to be conscious of your time and, you know, kind of connect the dots because this—you know, the intention going in was this was kind of our ‘year in review’, and we’ve talked a lot of into the weeds around marketing. But, from my perspective, that’s been a huge part of the story, right, of the industry. We’ve had a lot of disruption. We’ve had head winds. We have, you know, all of these changing dynamics that we’ve been talking about in terms of the profile of buyers changing, organizational structure, different key stakeholders, you know, lots of bright, shiny objects to chase. You know, it’s been some ultras from that standpoint, macroeconomic factors not helping the cause either, so lots of stuff. And what I hear from you is that in that time of chaos that we’ve been experiencing so far that it really comes down to you know who you are, engage with your customers, support them, and do the groundwork that’s necessary to build those relationships that then drive business success. Is that a good summation?

Jenn: 00:35:16

Yeah. I think it is. I think it’s, you know, shifting focus from internal KPIs to customer-led KPIs, right, like, thinking about how am I driving value or how am I being helpful. Like you said, “What I do for a living, I help people.” Great. That is exactly the positioning that we should all be striving for. Really simple, how do you help your customer achieve XYZ goal? And you’ve got to do the research to figure out what that goal is that you’re helping them to solve. And, if you can move away from that, like—you know, I’m a big believer that, if you drive value for your customers, then all of the other metrics that you’re trying to hit internally will come, right? If you do a good job of meeting customer needs, then you’ll hit your revenue goals and your lead goals. And you just got to be really, really focused on what’s happening outside of your business and how you fit into that. So... And I think that is, actually, like you said, like, it’s a combination. It’s the sort of environmental factors, understanding where you fit in the changes in the industry and in the world and then how you’re serving your customers. And that external focus is very hard to get to, but it is really valuable and can make a really big difference, not just in marketing performance but in business performance as a whole.

Lenny: 00:36:42

So my next question was going to be, as we look at the year ahead, would anything change? And my guess is ‘no’. The formula remains the same no matter how things shift, no matter what weirdness happens. I mean, I’m still waiting on the aliens to land, right, any day now—Godzilla to rise from the ocean. I don’t know. Who the hell knows? But, you know, we live in a period of massive, rapid change and disruption from every angle, and the fundamentals remain the same. Would that be your advice as we look at the years ahead of, like, it doesn’t matter? We still—this is what we got to do.

Jenn: 00:37:18

Totally. And I hate to break it to you. I think the aliens already landed. It might have gotten buried under news stories.

Lenny: 00:37:25

Oh, Jenn...

Jenn: 00:37:25

But...

Lenny: 00:37:25

Oh, we could have a whole other conversation about that, my friend. I’ve been following that news this week.

Jenn: 00:37:30

That’s—

Lenny: 00:37:30

Oh, there is some—

Jenn: 00:37:31

That’s—

Lenny: 00:37:31

—there is some bombs this week. So [laugh] ...

Jenn: 00:37:33

[laugh] [unintelligible] So Lenny and I talk about aliens. But no [laugh] .

Lenny: 00:37:40

I keep telling the Greenbook team, “Look. Soon enough, we are going to have to talk about XO research. It’s going to be a real thing. And we’re going to be the first ones to talk about it.” So...

Jenn: 00:37:49

There you go. I look forward to tuning into that one [laugh] .

Lenny: 00:37:52

[laugh] .

Jenn: 00:37:53

But I think you’re right. The foundations do stay the same—and those kind of core strategies. I think the important thing to maybe think about shifting or changing is just your ability to be flexible because things around us are changing so quickly. And I think that open-mindedness, that building a culture of curiosity and experimentation and trying new things and looking more outward, you know, that’s the way to go. If you haven’t been doing that this year, that’s your change for next year. Try to embody that. Try to create that more agile environment to do things a little bit differently and look a little outside the business. But, if you already are doing that, that foundation should remain the same regardless of how the environment around you is changing.

Lenny: 00:38:41

Well said. Well said. And I would echo that as well. So...

Jenn: 00:38:47

Amazing.

Lenny: 00:38:47

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:38:47

We didn’t disagree on anything, Lenny.

Lenny: 00:38:50

Ugh. All right. Well, come on. Okay. We got to find something. Um...

Jenn: 00:38:54

[laugh] .

Lenny: 00:38:55

Uh, no, no. It’s the holidays.

Jenn: 00:38:57

Next time. Next time.

Lenny: 00:38:58

We’ll keep it all nice.

Jenn: 00:38:59

Yeah.

Lenny: 00:39:01

Yeah [laugh] . Jenn, this has been great. And congratulations on the success. I mean, obviously, you know, I’ve known you forever. I’ve known Kristin forever—a big fan of all the work that has been happening over years kind of through the Kristin orbit. Is that a safe way to say it, right?

Jenn: 00:39:18

[laugh] . Yes. Yeah. I think she’s got one of those for sure.

Lenny: 00:39:24

Yeah [laugh] . And it’s needed. It’s needed. It is interesting, the growth—I mean, again, I think of the Gen2 business. Often, we function as fractional two-strategy officers with suppliers or—and we certainly engage with the marketing stuff. And, of course, Greenbook, you know, is a marketing platform, so we, you know, eat, breathe, and [laugh] constantly is all we think about. But that role for having somebody that can step in, in a fractional way, right, and help, is hugely important. And it’s been cool to see other companies emerge over the past few years—stepping up to that plate. So it’s a—we have a nice little college industry really happening. I mean, when I first started doing this stuff, it was, like, me and Cambiar, right? That was it as far as kind of the consulting side. And now there’s tons of different companies that are specializing and doing great stuff like you. And it’s—I think that’s just part of the growth of the industry. It’s great to see. It’s a sign of health.

Jenn: 00:40:20

Yeah. I would agree. I think it’s a sign that there’s a lot of opportunity, and there’s a lot more fun stuff we can all be doing and just sort of that rising tide. And so, yeah, thank you for your support, you know, all the support around the industry. We’re having a good time. We’re doing some good work. So, yeah, we’re thrilled.

Lenny: 00:40:39

Cool. All right. Where can people find you?

Jenn: 00:40:42

You can find us on LinkedIn. You can find us at our website growgetter.io. We have a weekly podcast, Marketing, Demystified, that is live streaming and on all of your podcast channels. So, yeah, reach out to me anytime or anybody on the team, and we’re happy to chat.

Lenny: 00:40:59

Very cool. So, for our listeners, listen to the Greenbook Podcast, and then listen to Jenn’s podcast. So...

Jenn: 00:41:05

Yeah. Amazing.

Lenny: 00:41:06

Yeah. It’s a two-for. So... All right. Now, final question, since you are also a podcast host, how’d I do?

Jenn: 00:41:16

Oh, fabulous. Yeah.

Lenny: 00:41:17

Ah, thank you.

Jenn: 00:41:19

We just had maybe a very easy, casual conversation, which is my favorite kind of podcast—and ask good questions. That’s the key. So thank you so much for being a great host.

Lenny: 00:41:29

That means a lot. I don’t think I’ve had another podcast host on as a guest, so I’ve never been able to ask that question from, you know, from a real pro. So...

Jenn: 00:41:38

I love interviewing other podcast hosts because I just feel like the conversation flows so, so well. It’s a lot of fun. So I’m happy to be your first.

Lenny: 00:41:47

[laugh] All right. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. I think this is going to air, well, year-end, so holidays. So Happy Holidays to you. And Happy Holidays to our listeners. And I want to give a big shout out to Natalie, our producer. She is the one who makes it all happen behind the scenes. Our editor, James Carlisle, we always give him lots of fun and interesting challenges, and he just knocks it out of the park every time. And then, of course, to you, our listeners. So, without you, Jenn and I wouldn’t have found the time to chat about this. And I’m really glad that we did. So that’s it. Thanks for being here. And that’s a wrap for this edition of the Greenbook Podcast. Everybody take care. Bye-bye.