Episode 131: Revenue Ops, with Lawrence Quan

Lawrence Quan

Sales has been around forever. But how long have we had marketing? In North America, it’s the late 1800s and  early 1900s. 

You’d get an idea of what they were focused on by reading the journal of the US agricultural economics Bureau. In it, they chronicled the 1937 annual meeting the National Association of marketing officials (You may know it by its current name, the American Marketing Association). The proceedings were entirely about the marketing of… farm products. Producing and selling as many commodities as possible, to as many regions as possible.

Despite being in just one category, this assembly of academia and Industry was trying to formalize how this function would blend in with the other departments, like sales, within the average American business. Fast forward nearly a century, there seems to be a new framework on the horizon for how the marketing and sales functions should be organized – and it’s called Revenue Operations. The purpose of this four part series is to go inside businesses where it’s being used and listen to thought leaders who have written about it. 

For this first episode of the series, we going into the trenches with someone possessing a diverse blend of experience spanning Revenue Operations, Marketing, Sales, and Product, Lawrence Quan brings a holistic view of revenue to startups of all stages. 

He is Director, Growth Marketing with LTSE. He has also built growth teams at Rewind and led Growth Marketing at Clearco. On the side, Lawrence works with seed, Series A, and Series B SaaS companies to build and scale go-to-market engines.

 Listen to the various places he’s seen RevOps in organizations but wherever it sits, he stresses that it is a team sport. Hear how a revenue-focus gets infused into the Marketing Mix, and how the best marketing ideas don’t always come from marketing. 

People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

Lawrence’s LinkedIn profile 

Rewind.io

Clearco

Gong

Archival records from early days of marketing. The group working to advertise farm products here later became the American Marketing Association.

Episode 130: How to Interview Customers, with Ryan Gibson

Hot to Interview Customers with Ryan Gibson

We spend a lot of time demonstrating who our company is built around. We leave an open chair for them in board meetings. We put notices on the footer of our website, We provide automated feedback mechanisms so we can gauge how they feel, and when we hold in-person events or trade shows where they appear, we make every effort to give them swag and confirm their upcoming purchase plans (hopefully, buying from us). I’m talking about customers, of course, and though we do all these things, there seems to be one thing we dance around; the one simple  activity that could give the most intelligence –  talking to them. 

I’m not saying we don’t talk to customers. But most of that talk is anecdotal. I don’t know about you, but as a marketer, I wouldn’t go to the C-suite and defend a marketing program and budget based on a customer’s anecdotal comment. 

But done in the right way, that’s systematic and that follows qualitative Research principles, talking to customers can take the pulse of our market. We can analyze their experiences, making those findings available,  doing it in a way that would not only stand up to any Executive’s scrutiny, they’d insist on basing more corporate decisions on this information. 

Over his 20 years in marketing. Ryan Gibson has worked with dozens of businesses overseeing programs from the bootstrapped variety, on up to million-dollar budget variety.  

Using skills he got early in his career he worked in TV & Radio and film, doing a stint as reporter for Canada’s public broadcaster, CBC, which got him so used to interviewing, he kept doing it and figures that he’s now conducted over 1800 of them

He now heads up Content Lift, a Marketing Strategy consultancy centred around Customer Research. 

People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

Ryan is prolific on LinkedIn 

Ryan’s How to Run Customer Interviews course

Related show: “Lean B2B” with Etienne Garbugli

Wynter online panel

Respondent software

As you interview, pretend you’re detective Columbo

Episode 129: Marketing a SaaS product, with Mark Evans

Marketing a SaaS Product

Let me run a scenario by you: I want you to have something I’m not finished making, and I’m not going to let you buy it, but I will let you pay to use it. and you will continue to pay me over time to use this thing that I continue to work on. And while you use it, I will get to see what you’re doing with my product. And I’ll use that information to figure out how I can sell you new things.

It doesn’t sound like a very good deal for you as a buyer,  does it? But this is exactly how SaaS works, and most of the software in B2B and the world for that matter is now bought & sold this way, marketers don’t skip a beat explaining this aspect of their product. But surprisingly, some things about SaaS products do trip them up. And today we’re going to talk with someone who’s seen almost everything that can go wrong in marketing SaaS.

Mark Evans has worked in & written about the SaaS space for his whole career.  He began as a technology journalist for the Globe & Mail, National Post, and Bloomberg News. Moving on from there, he co-founded what ended up being a wildly unsuccessful startup. Some of the mistakes you’ll hear are ones that he himself has made.

He now helps B2B SaaS companies accelerate growth with rock-solid marketing foundations underpinned by positioning, messaging, brand storytelling, and go-to-market plans. 

Through his consultancy Marketing Spark he works with B2B SaaS companies as a fractional CMO, strategic advisor, brand strategist and coach.

he spends a lot of time focused on positioning, strategy, and systems that drive consistent and successful marketing, 

We spoke to him in his hometown of Toronto, where in off-hours you can find him playing hockey and tennis.

People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

Mark on TikTok

Mark on Twitter

Mark’s Marketing Spark podcast

Mark’s book: “Marketing Spark”

Eric Ries, author of “Lean Startup”

Rand Fishkin

Episode 128: High Tech Marketing Simplified, with Ted Marena

High Tech Marketing Simplified, Ted Marena

This is the last episode we’re covering in our series around product marketing books. The books in the three previous shows gave foundational advice that would benefit any product manager or  product marketing manager in their career. But there’s a single vertical that has idiosyncrasies setting it apart from other industries, and you should know about them if you’re going to market these kind of products. 

The industry that does things differently is High tech – and today’s book not only explains how to market these products, it boils it down into simple steps that you can apply on the job.  

Ted Marena has been in the tech sector for  over 25 years, working his way from engineering to sales and onto marketing roles.

Marena came out with the book “High-Tech Marketing Simplified” in 2022. It builds upon his initial book “Marketing Simplified.” He earned a BSEE from the University of Connecticut and a MBA from Bentley University. I caught up with him in the High Tech mecca of Silicon Valley where he lives with his wife & sons. 

People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

Ted’s email: ted.marena@gmail.com

Get EducaTed by Ted – YouTube channel

High-Tech Marketing Simplified book on Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/High-Tech-Marketing-Simplified-Insiders-Experience-ebook/dp/B0BC83D4PC/

High-Tech Marketing Simplified book on Kobo – High-Tech Marketing Simplified eBook by Ted Marena – EPUB | Rakuten Kobo United States

If you are a fan of Tesla, check out Ted’s product reviews – Tesla Owners Silicon Valley – YouTube

Moore’s Law” coined by Gordon Moore of Intel

Raspberry Pi

Avoid the problem of marketing “Trombone Oil” or a product with too small a niche audience (illustration used with permission).

Episode 127: The Launch with Yasmeen Turayhi

The Launch with Yasmeen Turayhi

Product Marketing Managers go through trying times, but possibly the moments where these stresses are most concentrated are when their function is initially being formed, and of course when a new product is being launched. Key decisions are made at these times, and they are extra stressful when you have to make those decisions in a vacuum, without a formulated strategy to guide its development.  

Our guest’s book takes you through a dry run of this whole process. It gives you questions that begin at the genesis of a product, following through topics that you ought to readily answer at that particular stage. 

By testing how well you’re able to answer those questions, you can catch any gaps before they turn into stress-inducing all-night work marathons.

Yasmeen Turayhi is an authority on  product management. She’s taught Bootcamps and workshops for Global companies and universities such as Harvard and MIT, and been a mentor at Founders Institute.

In addition to her three books on this subject,  she has also written dramatic screenplays, one of which was feted at International Film Festivals in Beirut and Hollywood. She is the host of “Gateways to Awakening” a podcast dealing with wellness, personal development, and higher consciousness.

People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show

Yasmeen’s twitter profile

Yasmeen’s LinkedIn profile

Yasmeen’s Instagram profile

Yasmeen’s Medium profile

Yasmeen’s book “The Launch”

Yasmeen’s Latest book, “Breaking into Product Marketing”

Jobs To Be Done framework

Ed Catmull’s book Creativity, Inc.

Evelyn Watts