So fun to speak with Refine Labs’ Cassidy and Carl about how we’re using generative AI for ads, the website, videos, and more!
Generative AI should become a big part of your workflow. Otherwise, you’ll likely get left behind…
Give it a listen and comment / DM us with any questions or ideas!
Exciting news: I’ve joined HST Pathways as the VP of Marketing!
HST is a ~$50M Bain Capital-backed software company focused on helping surgery centers.
A few of the reasons why I joined:
-Great and growing company (size, growth rate, profitability, culture, etc.)
-Strong alignment on marketing philosophy with my new boss, Nick Latz
As an example, even the job description mentioned demand creation and capture and said “You are a continuous leader, seeking out peers and thought leaders like Chris Walker and Dave Gerhardt to learn from.”
-Team and culture – the Marketers & execs I met all seemed sharp, engaging, and collaborative. The kind of people who I want to spend many hours with.
-Products & industry – Being able to help people provide better care for surgeries is very motivating. Plus HST’s products are game-changing for surgery centers (especially for those moving from on-premise solutions).
It’s going to be a fun ride! I’ll continue to build in public and provide actionable strategies and tactics.
Building trust is critical, especially when you start a new job. Here’s a tactical way to foster that:
In your next team meeting, have everyone answer these 5 questions:
1. What was your first job? 💼
2. How many siblings do you have? 👨👩👦👦
3. What were the places you grew up in? 🌎
4. Share a challenge you faced growing up. 🚧
5. Share something no one knows about you. 💡
This helps people open up about their personal life a bit & creates a better connection.
Someone has talked about battling cancer while others have talked about their guitar collection. To each their own level of comfort.
I do this every time I join a new team.
Also, whenever a new person joins my team, they answer the questions in their first team meeting, and then I have others on the team share something no one knows about them (so it’s not just the new person sharing).
Shoutout to Chris Duncan for first suggesting these questions to me!
I’m hiring a Brand Designer. Do you think this person should report to me or to the Sr. PMM?
Pros for it reporting to me:
– Gives the Sr. PMM more time to be executing herself
– Easier setup to scale Design for more senior growth in the future
Pros for it reporting to Sr. PMM:
– She gets opportunities to grow in people mgmt more
– I get more time b/c I’m managing one less person.
Todd Barr or others, thoughts?
Are your ads scroll-stopping? Or do they just blend in?
Omar and I spoke with Cassidy Shield and Carl Ferreira of Refine Labs about how we think about creating scroll-stopping ads & how we used Generative AI to do so.
Watch the full episode link in the comments.
Me: “Are you good with ungating the new ROI calculator? I think this will get us the most people to go through the whole process & share the PDF with their colleagues.”
CRO: “Yep.”
Me: “Great, next topic.”
So nice to have Marketing philosophies aligned in a new job rather than need to persuade people of a modern approach to Marketing. Thanks Nick Latz!
Save this post for when you’re interviewing: 46 questions to ask the people interviewing you.
Now you’ll never run out of things to ask when they say, “Do you have any questions for me?”
This has a Marketing focus, but it can be applicable to other jobs too.
1. Where do you go to learn more?
2. What does the reporting structure look like?
3. How big is the Marketing team today? What is the team makeup? Are there agencies, freelancers, or consultants in use too?
4. What % of pipeline & revenue is sourced by Marketing?
5. What is the company growth rate?
6. Why are they looking to hire this position now? Is it replacing someone or a net new hire?
7. What’s the culture like?
8. How is the podcast going?
9. What % of ad spend is spent on demand capture vs demand creation?
10. How much have they implemented demand creation?
11. What’s interesting or unique about [your potential new boss]?
12. What responsibilities or teams fall under them?
13. What kind of feedback have they given you?
14. How do you like to give feedback?
15. From what you know so far, what do you see as my biggest fit and biggest gap to overcome?
16. How do the company financials look? How has the economic slowdown affected [company]?
17. Are they profitable? If not, how much runway do they have?
18. What is the annual budget for Marketing? How does that compare to last year’s?
19. What % of the company is fully remote?
20. How many physical offices are there?
21. How large is the TAM?
22. What countries / regions are you in? What is the rev split btwn them?
23. How much [type of mktg] are you doing right now?
24. What % of revenue is from self-service vs sales assisted?
25. What % of revenue is from expansion vs net new?
26. What % of revenue is from outside the US [or replace main country]?
27. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the hiring manager?
28. What motivates you to wake up in the morning?
29. What makes you question if I’d be a good fit or are you still wondering about?
30. What is the vesting schedule for the equity?
31. Can I see a quick demo?
32. Why did the last person leave?
33. What is the sales cycle length?
34. What is the ACV?
35. What does the competitive landscape look like?
36. What does a potential future exit look like?
37. What do you see as the biggest risks to achieving the vision?
38. Can you tell me about how you review company metrics and marketing metrics and on what cadence?
39. How often do you talk to customers and prospects or listen to meetings with them?
40. What are the conversion rates from demo request to opportunity and opportunity to closed won?
41. How many Sales people are there?
42. What are the biggest company goals?
43. Where do you think marketing needs to improve the most?
44. What is the current lead quality?
45. What does lead follow up look like?
46. What are the most common reasons HST loses a deal?
What’s your fav?
The latest creation from Aria Hamann Duncan and me: The Little Puzzle Library 🧩
Take a puzzle, leave a puzzle!
Take a puzzle. Try doing it. Bring it back. Repeat! 100% free.
Leave a puzzle. Share the love by donating your puzzles to the library 🙂
Each puzzle has a library slip attached to it that shows:
– The # of missing pieces
– A record of who has successfully completed the puzzle (first names or initials)
– The date they completed it
– Notes they leave
This was a fun project to work on! Thanks to the friends & family who also helped in building it.
Listening to what your ICP says is 🧠 food.
One way we’re doing that: I got the whole Marketing team set up on Gong and Evan Patrick Shaffer is training us today on it. Next quarter, everyone will have a goal to listen to 10 Gong meetings and/or speak with 10 ICPs, customers, or prospects on their own.
Then we’ll be sharing insights we learned in our weekly team meeting with each other to cross-pollinate ideas.
How have you gotten Marketing regularly hearing insights from your ICP?
If you can swap your competitor’s name onto your web pages & nothing changes 😳, you probably don’t have unique POVs.
Here are 5 prompts to help create them & stand out: 💡
1. What do we believe that our competitors would disagree with?
2. What are things we believe are true but others would view as non-obvious, an interesting insight, or different from the norm?
3. What do we take a different angle on compared to our competitors?
4. If you were giving a talk, what would be new or unique concepts for the audience to hear?
5. For a certain product, what are our unique points of view on the market based on understanding 100s of customers?
How to take action on these:
1. Make a list of answers to questions like this
2. Brainstorm them further with others
3. Choose one to write up some notes about and explore it further
4. Turn it into an article or a video talk
>>> What are other questions you like for creating unique POVs?