Called to Action

What's really common is this disconnect
between the marketing department,

sales department
and just kind of departments overall

and what we have heard constantly and like
struggles, especially like in person,

that these events throughout
the year was like marketers, one needs to

do a better job of communicating the value
and effectiveness of marketing to sales.

And but then on the flip side,
like sales needs to do a better job

at communicating like their insights
to the marketing team in this moment

when they were trying to rank fives
all the time and it's collaboration.

And if you just say you're aligned,
it doesn't hold you accountable

to saying that you're actually, like,
working together, just like we're aligned.

But it's like, are you really?

Hello, fellow marketers and listeners,
and Happy New Year.

Thanks for tuning in
to this episode of Call to Action.

I'm Janet Mesh and the CEO of Aimtal
and the host of the show.

Aimtal is the integrated marketing agency.

We specialize in building

marketing processes
and strategies for B2B companies.

And then we launched their first marketing
campaigns and programs.

So super excited this year
to do a lot of that in this show.

And each episode of Called to Action,
we analyze and discuss the latest trends,

and research in B2B marketing
and across the industry as a whole.

So we conclude every episode of Called
to Action

with one call to action to you,
the viewer, that means you'll get

some ideas and tactics from myself
and my, co-hosts and our guests today

on what you can do, in your own
marketing in 2025.

So I'm thrilled to be joined by my co-host
Tucker Delaney Winn, Growth

Marketing Lead at Aimtal,
and our special guest, Dylan Rhudd,

our integrated marketing strategies
that aim to sell.

Dylan, if you remember, he was in episode
three where we dived into all things

video marketing.

So if you didn't catch that episode,
definitely check it out.

We shared a lot of really interesting
insights across

creating a video series into webinars.

So it's a goldmine of, tactics
and, strategies

that you can apply to your own
marketing and plans this year.

But today we're going to be chatting
about some top highlights from 2024.

So, taking kind of a look back
and what that means of a look

forward into 2025,
and especially how marketing and sales,

leaders need to prioritize their own,
you know, plans,

their own strategies together
and what that will look like

for the growth of your business.

Awesome.

All right.

I'm going to pass it
over. Let's do some brief intros. Just.

There may be some folks listening in
who don't know who we are.

So we always like to share
a little context so you can, kick us off.

Tucker.

Hey there.

Tucker.

Delaney in Aimtal's growth
marketing lead and a name.

Telfer. Almost four years based in Boston.

Yeah.

Been, lately focused on creating marketing
strategies,

running lots of campaigns
and driving marketing and sales

alignment, which I know
we'll be talking a lot about today.

But yeah, very excited for this one
and very excited for Dylan

you to be back on the program.

I'll, pass it over to you.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Tucker.

Glad to be back as well.

Yeah.

My name is Dylan Rutt, and I'm Aimtal's
integrated marketing strategist.

Also just past my four year
mark back in November, I believe.

Yeah, time really flies.

Really pretty crazy stuff.

I work very closely with Janet and Tucker
and the rest of our internal team

to create full scale digital marketing
strategies for our clients, across

a variety of different service lines
email, social media, paid ads, and more.

And yet

2024 was a pretty big agency year for us
and for the industry as a whole.

So I'm really looking forward
to taking those learnings and using them

to, like, really strategize

and plan for 2025 with our clients
and our community overall.

So yeah, should be a fun episode.

Yeah, yeah, definitely a ton of takeaways.

2024 I think, you know, there's only
so much we can cover in less than an hour.

And so definitely check out past episodes
that we've,

this is episode six as of today,
which is really exciting.

2024 was a year of great change,
in my opinion, and and honestly,

I think a little bit turbulent
and a lot of uncertainty, unfortunately.

But there were a lot there was a lot of,
you know, innovation throughout the year.

So past episodes was an overall,
you know, the rise of AI and marketing.

I feel like, you know, generative
AI has been out for a few years, but

we really saw it come to people actually
like starting to use and apply it.

And really kind of

taking a more like critical look of how
to incorporate it into their marketing.

Video continue to be center stage.

I think we've been saying this for years.

I just like,
you know, you invest in video,

if you do invest
in video, it's pretty much,

integral must have of

any content strategy
and marketing strategy.

And I think it's we're seeing like there's
the search engines are changing

with the impact of AI
and just the traditional ways that we saw

that, things worked
kind of got a little bit

flipped on its head, especially with
the Google ads that came out this year.

Shout out is always a spark.

Toriel and the data team,
who did like, a lot of, analysis on that,

you can go like, take a look at all

the content they put out this year
for, like, a deeper dive into, well,

the kind of impact of SEO and,
website traffic.

So in terms of this episode, we'll,
we'll talk through some of our predictions

and share some of our lessons and stories
from 2024.

And from that,
what we're seeing will kind of

evolve and continue into 2025.

So, some areas
what we're going to cover today

are the continue to rise of in-person
events.

You know, it's four
years since we all survived,

global pandemic.

And, you know,
we really noticed that there's a

continued strong desire for more in-person
connection and community, very much

this kind of concept of personalizing
your messaging.

There's a little bit of a rabbit
hole will go into, when you're, you know,

connecting with your prospects
and customers.

And I think the third one here,
which will also share

kind of what I actually like, how and why

and what it actually looks like
to like align marketing and sales teams.

So I think we talk a lot
about like alignment, alignment.

But what do you actually need to do
for that to actually happen

for your team in 2025?

And then finally, which is one of my
I love this topic, is just,

you know, we all talk about the actual
like, technical aspects of marketing,

but really like what are the operations
people, communication channels

of these teams that are working together
and how that can lead to success.

So we're going to share a lot around that.

Excited to dive in.

But before we get there,
we'd love to hear from you both.

Tucker and Dylan.

What is your, like B2B
marketing resolution of the New Year?

Like, what's something that you're

is even something that you want to focus
on professionally going into 2025?

I'd love to

to hear from both of you of like,
kind of what you're thinking through

and what you're going to
prioritize in the new year.

Yes. I would

like to focus on creating HubSpot
AI agents,

and specifically ones that make sales reps
like, easier.

I'm still pretty fired up
by Dharmesh is keynote

from HubSpot inbound, even though that's
almost three months ago.

At this point, it's still ringing
in my ears, buzzing in my head where he,

we actually talked about this
on a past episode, Janet,

but where he talked about
there used to be that phrase.

There's an app for that,
but now it's there's an agent for that.

We've been poking around and HubSpot
starting to use breeze,

starting to play with HubSpot AI.

And I'm really fired up to start
building some agents for their team.

Of course, that can support the sales
team,

doing things like buyer intent,
competitive intelligence.

I think there's some great opportunities
there.

And we're going to get into
how marketing and sales can better

align
and better collaborate with each other.

And this is one area where I feel like
marketing can bring some real value

that will really help sales in the sales
team.

And I'm excited, excited to explore that.

So, Dylan, what about you?

Yeah, I think you actually touched on this
a little bit earlier.

Jenna, in terms of like that urge

for like in-person connection
and connecting with community and stuff,

I definitely think that's something
I want to lean into a lot more in 2025,

just leveraging the marketing community
in my city more often,

you know, attending more events,
connecting with some of my alumni

from my school, connecting with Philly's
marketing experts on a more regular basis.

I think over the past couple of years,
I was really laser focused on building up

more of my online presence, you know,
because a lot of things did shift online.

So naturally there's that pivot of like,
okay, maybe let me be more active

on LinkedIn, more intentional
with my socials and things,

but I really don't want to neglect
the connections and the resources

right here in the city of Philadelphia
either.

So I really, you know, fired up about
just getting more involved in general,

you know, connecting with

maybe the chapter of the American
Marketing Association that's near me.

And, you know, overall, this is really fun
to like, learn from other marketers

and share some knowledge as well
is definitely the to insight.

But yeah, I'll pass it back to you.

Actually, Jen, I'm curious to hear
your answer to this question as well.

So I'm going to start with mine's
kind of similar to yours actually done.

I think I just sharing knowledge forward
and more expansively,

especially to larger audiences
like continuing call to action and civil

and professional and overall goal.

And also I would I would love

to speak at like in person conferences
and events this year.

So I think that's like
one of my goals is like,

if I can get, you know,

like a speaking or like a workshop
or something would be really exciting.

But I think a part of that too,
is not just like a

professional goal is like,
I want to help amplify

like other people in the industry to,
I think would be really exciting.

And that's what we're part of our vision
for call to action, as well as to bring on

some guests, industry leaders to like,
speak and share, like, their own opinions.

So, yeah,
I think I'm, I'm, I'm similar to you

or sharing
that knowledge forward and wider.

And if you're if you're listening
this watching I guess I got a plug.

Anyone who's listening,
watching, following us.

If you want to be a guest
and hang out with us for an hour and talk

shop, hit us up,
we would love to have you on on here.

Well, I guess in terms of

the trends, learnings from 2024
and then trends

we're seeing going into 2025,
I think a big one is, around

people want to connect with other people,
especially back to in-person.

And of course, it's like,
you know, there's very much

the online community is important.

And, you know, this is a where we focus,
but where we're seeing

is kind of that trend
and what's going to be really important

for marketing and sales teams
is that integration

between that online and in-person
experience, you can't just do

like one or the other really should
think of it like holistically.

It's like kind of where those keystone
moments of events that you have

throughout the year and then like,
how do you kind of do the before, during

and after as part of your whole, like
marketing campaign messaging and plan?

As well as on the sales team?

So, I mean, I guess in terms of
like what we did, like in 2025,

a that was I, we took some big
bets is what I'm referring to, what I am.

So like we attended a number of events.

I feel like I was traveling
for like straight up for like three months

straight, went from to Boston, New York
City,

California, Washington, all over.

We tended, Toronto with Toronto.

We went a lot of places.

And so everything we really saw that,
you know, across the HubSpot

inbound conference,
the B2B marketing process,

summit and then just a range of,

you know, events, small ones,
to where I'm based here in Boston.

So there's always a lot going on as well.

So as we saw this year,
there are a lot of events

we went to a lot.

I know, like

companies were investing a lot,
kind of this big return for years later.

And I think this is what we're just going
to continue to see this going into 2025.

So curious to hear what your thoughts
are around this as well.

Tucker.

And a little bit of, you know, from
your experience or what you're seeing.

And for you, Dylan too,
you guys can jump in and,

share what your predictions
are based on what we saw in 2024.

Yeah, I'm right there with you, Janet.
It was.

It was nice to hop around to different
cities, get on planes,

trains and automobiles
to, go to different events.

And just echoing your sentiment
that I think we saw and felt a real

a hunger from other people
to also be connecting face to face,

especially in the sales
and marketing world.

In the tech industry where we work,
there's a lot of people who work remote

or maybe work in hybrid environments,
but I think there was a real enthusiasm

and warmth that

I certainly felt from people to be like,
oh, finally, let's really connect again.

Let's get a drink,
let's talk to other people.

So that face to face time that people
are craving, I think is really happening.

And I just totally agree that I think

we're going to see more and more of that
as we head into 2025, as well.

Yeah.

Dylan,
I know you were at a few events as well.

Know if there's anything
you'd want to add.

Yeah, no, I would
I would absolutely agree with that.

I think just from the events
that I've attended

in the past couple of months,
I've definitely felt

a big difference between those in-person
interactions versus, you know,

being able to tune

into a webinar and kind of attend and get
that same information virtually, I think.

And as we'll talk about a little later,

there is value
in, you know, both approaches.

But I think there's definitely
just having that in-person

human interaction
is a huge, huge difference.

Being able to learn from other marketers
and have those conversations

face to face and, you know,
being able to exchange information,

I think there's just a lot of value there
that that just really doesn't

always translate fully

when it comes to like, online, events
and networking conferences and things.

So, I could see that being a huge, huge
surge going into 2025 as, people

kind of do a little bit more of a safe
way back into the in-person experience.

So, yeah.

And I applaud this, kind of first report

research from visible the event company.

They so they haven't come up with our 2025

trends report
as of the moment of us recording this.

So it might be live and we'll share it
in the show notes, once it is live.

But one of the they did do like a webinar.

So something they did like online
kind of to share some of the data already.

And the question is like what do you think
will be the top event trend in 2025?

And two of the ones of the five
listed here

that are like our standing out
are one networking opportunities.

So, you know, folks want to network,
create meaningful connections with others.

And then the other one is micro events.

So communities are more
you know, they want to

people want to be attending
almost like smaller, more local events.

So I think we're you know,
we definitely saw a lot of that.

And we even hosted some of that as well.

We'll get into in a moment,

and share some real lessons learned
and what people can do in 2025.

But yeah, I think what you're saying,
Dylan, is true,

like a hybrid or a hybrid approach
is still going to be a thing.

And you, you do really need to do both
because you want to

you can't just only,
you know, focus on a local community.

You you know, most companies,
they want to not across United States

but multiple countries.

So having that hybrid approach really does
help with that kind of convenience

of the virtual events, but also bringing
that in-person connection.

Yeah, it's

definitely really helpful to kind of
have the best of both worlds there

because there are pros and cons
to to both sides of the coin. Right.

But I will say
you miss that hybrid approach.

I think there's also going to be
an increased importance in

like the integrated communications,
you know, before, during

and after each event,
just to make sure that

the online experience and the in-person
experience, they all feel very seamless.

You know, like what
with your in-person interactions,

the online interactions
shouldn't feel siloed from those

you really want it to feel, again,
very seamless and personable in order

to really have the desired impact on,
you know, both sides in-person and online.

And there's actually some, research
from McKinsey and company.

I go ahead and pull up that well,

they mentioned that 78% of consumers
have already said that, like, personalized

content makes them more likely to revisit
and repurchase from a company.

So, you know, the way that people
are communicating, it influences not

only their initial decision to purchase
to engage with the organization,

but also can lead to long term
brand loyalty.

And even,
as you can see in the bottom left, like,

you know, referring and recommending
to other employees

to their, family
and to other lender, networking thing.

So there's a lot of, value that comes from

just really being intentional
with your communication.

When it comes to events
like audiences can really see through

the more generic responses.

If you think about like, you know, like
the automated message you might get after

an event or something like that,
or if it just feels very copy paste.

Thank you blank for attending blank.

You know, like audiences are really
starting to see through that a lot more.

So I think, you know, going back to kind
of what we're seeing going into 2025

for the event experience,
I really believe that words

are going to matter a lot more
in the follow up correspondence.

And, you know, being able to take the time

to personalize that experience
a little bit more

is definitely going to go a long way.

Yeah, we have some examples
because I feel like I've experienced that

firsthand, attending other people's events
this year and I know talking to.

But the personalization thing,
I want to sit here for a moment

because the personalization, topic
is an important one

because this is a trend that is confusing
in my opinion and contradictory.

So, for example, I'll pull this up.

This is from, Qualtrics.

They did a 2025 Global Consumer
Trend report.

And yes, it is true that consumers

want personalized interactions
with brands.

So 64% of consumers
prefer to buy from companies that tailor

their experience
their wants and needs, however,

and they call this the personalization
paradox, which I love. And

on of so 64%
of people say they want personalization.

However, 53% of those same people
surveyed are concerned

and not willing to share information
about themselves

in order to receive
that personalized experience.

So it's really interesting because,

you know, on the one hand,
people are saying like, no, I want this.

It needs to be personalized.

You need to know who I am and get me.

But then with data privacy laws,
I'm just not even sharing this data.

People.

There's no way for brands

even have that information
to be able to like personalize.

We do have some ideas in mind.

I don't know how like
I think this is a scalability issue.

I think the trend that we're going to see
and the challenge

that brands will navigate is that it's
going to become harder and harder

to navigate this kind of personalization
paradox at scale, you know,

and making sure that you're kind of,
you know, hearing and understanding what,

the person you know, your prospect

or your customer really does want
without them giving you that information.

And so I think, you know, unfortunately,
we're kind of almost maybe

we're going into the dark ages
a little bit.

Oh, lot more guessing it's 2025.

Could be the dark ages.

Unfortunately.

I like medieval history,
so I'm okay with dark.

Yeah, right.

Well, there are pandemics.
And now look at that.

We're just pretty much reliving history.

Friends circle like themselves.

Yeah, yeah.

Pretty much. Yeah.
That's what we're going to.

We're going to learn from it
and not repeat the mistakes.

Yeah.

I mean,
I was on the receiving end of this lately.

I think if you start
with a personal connection,

you have to kind of keep it personal

for a little while before you go into,
like, the branded experience.

So I went to a marketing conference,
recently, attended a great presentation

from this guy once I who okay,
keep names out of the situation.

Loved his presentation.

Yeah, me hook, line and sinker.

I was writing down notes.

I was ready to go, so I sent him
a LinkedIn message afterwards.

Been like, hey, I loved your presentation.

That was awesome.

And the only thing I got back

was, it's just a thumbs up emoji.

Those are like not no, no lines of text,
just a thumbs up emoji.

And it it brought me back to
maybe my like high school and college days

where you're texting someone
and they text you back just the letter K.

Yeah. Like, you guys have got that right.

You know, you're like,
I okay. So we're like, not friends.

Like you and offender conversation.

And the conversation is okay,
we're never texting again.

You're not going to come to my barbecue.

So yeah.

But then the funny thing
is, the very next day, after my

my thumbs up emoji message back,

I got a marketing email
from the same company,

this person's company
asking me to request a demo.

And I was like, come on, you know,
I think that's your email.

Did you give your email from the event?

That must have been it.

It must have been from me. Okay.

But it was just such
like a cold experience.

Like, I think I wanted to connect a little
more with this person, or at least.

And I actually did this with several,

several events
that I went to or several sessions.

And I was just like,
hey, loved your event,

you know, connection request on LinkedIn.

And the other even just a simple like,
thanks, like, great seeing you

makes me totally happy.

But just something about
just the thumbs up emoji just basically

felt like I was getting ghosted.

Followed up by this like very branded,
not personal request a demo.

I'm definitely not ready
for that kind of thing.

I think to what you're saying, Janet,
it's like if you

we know
we need to create a personal experience

and if you want to do that,

you have to put in some human effort
in there and some human communication.

It can't just be, you know,
oh, immediately put them into this list.

That's an automated email from the brand
that really rubbed me the wrong way.

And I know that a lot of other people
would feel the same way.

And I know, Janet,
that you've had similar experience.

Yeah, yeah,
I did have a similar one in the

like the event season this fall.

It was in between inbound
and the marketing Profs

conference here in Boston
and a company read.

So actually it was like
so the thing that was interesting is like,

I mean, as a marketer,
I can tell obviously,

the 1 to 1 email looks like a real person,

but it's kind of a mass email,
which we do as well.

Like obviously like you're
sending it to multiple people,

but it was like a plain text email
that was like an invitation to a dinner.

And so I, I was pretty excited.

I was like, oh, cool.

Like I go to a dinner like,
that's really nice.

And so I responded.

So the, the messaging I would say in
the invitation was confusing

where it was like, hey, you're invited.

And then like the landing page
was also like, you're invited.

Register here.

It didn't say to the effect of like, it
didn't give any like context of thought,

like you need to be like approved for
it was the dinner like real?

It was like the invited. Yeah.

But then like, I didn't
get any other communication after that.

And to be honest, like I'm busy
and I didn't really like

I just kind of assumed like,

I mean, I can think this has happened
to me before, so I do have the context.

But when I think of someone
who's never experienced

something like this, you're
kind of like waiting around, like,

am I invited to this dinner?

Should I block off my calendar
for Tuesday night?

Like trying to arrange for childcare,
like what's going on?

And then what happened
was that the day of the

morning of the event,
I got an email that said, like, hey,

unfortunately like this, due to demand
and like, like capacity, like we can't,

have you like, you're like pretty much
like you don't have a seat at the table.

And it was like, okay, interesting.

But it was like
the communication wasn't like that.

It was like,
you're going to like, analyze the list.

And it's like you reach out to me
and kind of situation.

And it's one of those things
where they're like,

you know, they're looking at,
I think like title and location

and probably like mass send it out.

However, similar thing happened to you
that happened to me.

I received the pretty much like the know

that morning and then three hours later
from the same company,

I received their email newsletter
promoting,

like all the things that the company
and all their product stuff.

And I was like, that's a poor experience.

Like, I agree, like we need to automate
and like do things

at like scale,
but just like think for a moment.

Like what?

That like

take an empathetic approach of like,
what is that experience for that person?

Like, you can't, you know,
it's like this fine balance.

I think in 2025 people
you need to figure out.

And if anything, it's
just like having a conversation

with your internal team,
like what time is that going out?

Should we, you know, like,
are you like that?

Just show to me that, like regardless
of the size of the company, big or small,

they're just not connecting the dots
between like they're event people

and then like their email, whoever's
writing their email newsletter of like,

when are we sending these things out?

Is it the same day or not or whatever?

Absolutely. Yeah. Pretty pretty. And

that is a wow.

It's there. I feel like. Yeah.

But as you both kind of alluded to it,

it's those little details
that really go a long way.

You know,
you can't overlook the small things,

even down to the timing of when certain
correspondence is going out,

as you mentioned, Janet, like,
you know, with the whole paradox idea,

I think that's definitely important
to keep in mind,

like personalization is getting harder
just because of like the general lack of

voluntarily, like share data and stuff.

But like as you can see from both,
your example is like when that like

one on one interaction and that like post
impacts online experience.

When they don't agree with one another,
you're left

with like this weird awkward communication
that just misses the mark when it comes

to like interacting with someone
who could have been a hug, you know?

So I think and one thing you mentioned,
Tucker, that I wanted to circle back too

quickly was just the idea of like starting
and leading with personal connection.

I think that's a good way to circumvent
that paradox a little bit.

You know, even just calling back
to one of our previous call

to action episodes where you kind of get
that balance between like, automation

and the human touch, I think that's like
so, so important to kind of find

that like, you know,
fine line between the two because again,

it's impossible
to personalize everything at scale.

But you also don't
want to just like hit the button

and send the same thing
to everybody on your list.

Like there's

some there's like a happy medium
that you really want to hit

in order to really, like,

get a good balance and get some good,
consistent communication out there,

I totally agree.

I mean, I think I've heard this phrase

before that like sales is 1 to 1
and marketing is one to many.

But I think even like

even just getting rid of the sales versus
what sales versus what the marketing.

But think about that 1 to 1 versus
one to many.

And maybe a good way of thinking about
it is like, well,

how did they come to interact
with your brand initially?

Did they meet a certain person
because you might want to keep that 1 to 1

connection and conversation
going a little bit,

or did
they come and sign up for our newsletter?

That's kind of a one to many interaction
that they're finding you.

Maybe that's okay

to kind of first keep interacting
with them from a one to many standpoint.

But regardless, I think

the thing we're thinking about here
is that you have to be really thoughtful

about when to do 1 to 1 versus
when to do one to many.

Otherwise, you can very quickly
make people upset and a little bit,

just disenchanted with, with your brand
and your personal brand too.

So yeah. Absolutely. Great point. Yeah,

I wanted to share.

I can show ask about a little
because I wanted to show how we did this

at Ames Hall, actually.

So we did host our own events
and, this year.

So we attended a lot of conferences
and events.

What we did

was like the first time this year
we like like I said, we did some big bets.

We hosted a mixer, inbound.

And then we also did
a mastermind dinner here in Boston

as well by in
November of this year of 2024.

So I wanted to kind of show
you kind of just concerns

we're talking about like what
that follow up looks like.

So we realized that,

like it's a little hard
to read here, but like,

so we obviously like as you can see, like
this is a branded email that we send.

It's like from me, but it is like stylize
and our brand and everything.

However,
like we didn't send it like automated like

thanks for attending our event.

Like great to see you took the time to

like we
built it out, but then the next day

we like thought about like, okay,
how like it wasn't even the next.

I think we sent it out like 1 or 2 days
later.

Like,
I think that's something to keep in mind.

Like, it doesn't always have to be this,
like, immediate.

Like the person walks out of the room,
they get an email from your company.

Like you can give it a little space
to be honest.

But also like what I wrote in here
was like for the dinner was like,

thanks for attending.

Like our dinner debates on everything
from thought leadership to brand vision

to reducing reducing friction
between sales and marketing.

We're full of laughter
and helpful solutions.

I hope you're fired up about 20, 25.

You know we are.

And then, you know,

we just add a little bit more like first,
like we even added pictures on the event.

Like we want to be able to do any of that
or like do a little bit of a recap

of the discussion
or what was talked about, unless we like,

took a moment, met internally again
as a team and then revised this and like

shared it out from after the call,
like after the event in person.

So I guess the point is like we didn't
schedule out everything.

There was obviously reminder schedules,
but then the follow up

we made sure this is another one was our,

B2B marketing and sales mixer
we did at the inbound conference.

And I also added in here
and wrote like a very specific thing

to the topic of what
what came out of the how spot conference

and also the conversations
we had in person.

And for example, I wrote here, I was happy
to hear many conversations about

I focus on the concept of the quote
unquote human touch.

Like AI isn't going to replace the role,
the marketer or the sales leader founder.

It's really going to help, like,
you know, make things,

you know, more efficient
and really bring our expertise forward.

So we wanted to be able to do something
like this and personalize it without,

you know,

taking a moment to like, pause and then

like having a discussion internally
and making sure also making sure

that other emails weren't going out
to the same people at the same time,

because that's just confusing there.

People will expect you
to give them something as a follow up,

but if you're hitting them like

we experienced with like a product demo
or totally different

email newsletter, you know, it's
just going to kind of go a little.

It just it's confusing.

It's confusing, and it just seems
a little tone deaf in a way.

Yeah. No, I totally agree.

Well, and I think as we're talking
about this, it's like personalization.

How do you how do you actually make
personalization happen.

We're talking about it.

You're mentioning it in the communications
Janet,

both before and after to make sure
that it feels personal.

I think even in the networking itself
in the report, one of the reports

we looked a little at a little bit
earlier, the concept of micro networking,

has really stuck out to me.

I think that's what we did
with our mastermind dinner.

There was another larger event,
hundreds of people going,

I'm kind of getting into this phrase
of bio networking, right?

If you want to have a little more
of an intimate networking experience,

go out and create that.
That's that's exactly what we did.

And shout out to to you, Janet
and the email team for making that happen.

But that's one trend that I really see
happening more and more.

And I think it's a really good opportunity
for marketing and sales teams

to start thinking about,
even at HubSpot, inbound,

within inbound,
they had these smaller meet ups.

There was a small but mighty
marketers meetup.

There's a working parents meetup
I loved, you know, get some tips on

what to do when your baby naps,
how to get some work done, then,

and, you know, inbound to it's crazy.

There's a DJ going,
you feel like you're in a club.

So to have a little bit of a smaller,
kind of meetup is really nice.

And I actually made
some of my best connections and,

contacts that I've continued
to have relationships with afterwards.

So I think that's structured networking,
that micro networking

is something that we're really going
to see, moving forward.

And they even that these meetups
had some kind of cued up questions for us,

which as a Virgo,
I love some good structure.

So that was really nice.

The one other thing that I wanted to say,

you know, you're talking about Janet
spending some time

afterwards to think
through the conversations that you had

at these meetups and, you know,
right out a little bit of what happened,

but that also requires
people at the meetups to go

and really have
a personal connection to say, hi.

So you and I went to a couple parties
this year, a couple of mixers, Janet,

where the the hosts of the party
never even went and talked to us.

Yeah. Crazy, right?

We were so we were standing in there
like a networking.

It was like a happy hour,
but it was like small.

It was like,
not that it was like a small space.

Like you could see
everyone in the room, right? And

we like we were saying there for about

I think it was like at least ten minutes,
maybe not more.

Yeah.

And like someone didn't from that

their company didn't walk up
and like greet us and say like, welcome.

Do you get a drink?

You know, and we only ended up
like talking to someone.

The first person we talked to

is like, because they walked in
and they were from that company,

but it's because, like,
they kind of walk in the space

when we were in that general area. Yeah.

And then I think they, you know,

kind of start a flow a little bit,
but it just it's something

that's like that makes a difference,
like feel, make people feel welcome.

Like you went well
and there was another party

where there was probably 4
or 5 people from the company hosting it.

There were like checking us in

and they were all clumped there and said
like a two second hand walked in,

and then no one from that group
ever came in and talk to us.

We played darts for like an hour.

I would have loved to
for someone to come in.

I was very interested in this company.

What they did right,
never given and talk to us.

And so it's kind of like, well,
why are you even hosting this mixer?

Why are you spending money?

Yeah, they sent me an email
the next day to request the demo, but

there was such a great opportunity
to forge a real connection,

to build some trust and to share,
you know, some actual real info

and gather some info
about the people who are attending.

None of them.

I'm not just talking about work either.

Like, it's not just about like,
what's your pain point

solution challenge show
like your day to day job.

It's like,
do you want to talk about darts?

Like you want fact?

I was I was in a dart league.

Like, you want to figure that out
if you play darts with me now you know,

what's your dart strategy.

What's your dog walking strategy.

What's your favorite musical
theater number?

If it's not defying gravity,
what's wrong with you?

You know, these are the kind of things
that you're not going to get

from a schedule a demo with us
marketing email the next day.

So yeah,
I think it's a real lost opportunity.

So understanding how to approach
these structured networking,

these micro networking opportunities
is going to be key for both marketing

and sales, as we for sure that.

So that brings us to our next topic.

And I think what we've seen
in 2024 industry and for 2025, I find that

unfortunately this is like always
like something that everyone really like

says and needs to happen.

But I think it's gotten like worse
and worse over the years, unfortunately,

which is marketing and sales alignment
in an organization.

So let's switch gears to this.

And kind of

we can kind of we started touching
on some tactical things.

I think that some of the issues that

they're people maybe it's like very kind
of this like high level conversation,

but people are like, well,
what do we actually do together?

Like, how does this actually work?

So hopefully that's we want to share
some ideas for 2025 for you,

and reflection of the past year as well.

But I think what, you know,
what's really common is this disconnect

between the marketing department,
sales department

and just kind of departments overall.

And what we have heard constantly
and like struggles,

especially like in person at these events
throughout the year, it's like marketers,

one needs to do a better job

of communicating the value
and effectiveness of marketing to sales.

And but then on the flip side,
like sales needs to do a better job

at communicating
like their insights to the marketing team,

but can't really communicate the value
without understanding

what are these conversations like?

What I, you know, the sales
salespeople are having those like direct

conversations
with prospects and customers.

Sometimes marketing doesn't
even have access to that information.

So it's a two way street.

And it's something

becoming more and more of a priority,
and like necessity of 2025.

So yeah, let's open up to you guys
of kind of what your, what you've seen.

I think, Dylan, you wanted to pull up
a little research from Data Box.

Just to emphasize
what we're talking about.

Absolutely.

They actually just had a great deep
dive into this same topic.

They surveyed over
like 170 different companies about like

how they approached their sales
and marketing, alignment on their own.

And they compiled a bunch of key takeaways
from their teams as well.

I do agree, by the way, Janet,
that just like that

alignment is more important than ever.

That's like the real foundation of strong
synergy between sales and marketing team

to just really make sure
that that and marketing decisions

are able to impact the bottom line,
but also that, like any sales insights,

are helping
to inform the marketing efforts in return.

It definitely is a two way street,
so I don't know, maybe we should change.

I think like in this moment, we need
a safe return to if it was on alignment.

It's collaboration. Yeah.

And if you just say you're aligned,

it doesn't hold you accountable to say
that you're actually,

like working together,
just like we're aligned.

But it's like, are you really.

That's true. Just understanding it.

That's a good point.

I like collaborating. Yeah,
I mean me anyways.

But everyone uses the word alignment.

But it's like it
almost is like to surface level in a way

that's that's a good like global of 2025.

Yeah. I think everyone should. Yeah.

Use that one for sure.

But yeah, looking into some of the data
that we've seen from data backs here,

one that really stood out to me as like,
you know, a very common strategy

that a lot of people are using is,
you know, the idea of data platform

and CRM sharing as a strategy for sales
and marketing alignment.

You can see here that integrated CRM
and marketing automation tools,

I think that's a huge one,
because being able to have the same data

between the two departments

just really allows for a more cohesive
performance tracking and goal setting.

We're all working towards
the same thing that way, you know,

you don't get stuck in the silos
between marketing and sales.

Everyone's looking at the same information
and reacting to the same information.

In that same vein, just having shared
goals and metrics, you know, like when

when sales and marketing teams

have different ideas of the right path
to take or what

their goals are, it just really becomes
challenging to please both sides.

So being able to mitigate this issue
by just

from the very beginning, giving both teams
the same KPIs to work from.

I think that's a huge, huge step towards
making sure that companies can,

align their sales and marketing efforts
with one another.

And the other one, okay.

The other ones are interesting
because, like, regular sales and marketing

means isn't the top then collaborative
content creation and cross-departmental

training sessions, collaboration, like
people just need to talk to one another.

It's not groundbreaking.

It's not innovative.

You just need to like, talk in person
and online and just make sure

everyone is on the same page
in the same CRM as you just described.

Dylan.

Like, I feel like sometimes I'm like,
this is not

this shouldn't be that difficult.

But I understand, like,
it can be like there's, you know, politics

and turf wars and confusion and time
zone issues and all that good stuff.

But it's like there's one thing

get people in the same room
physically or virtually, to talk

and look at the same information
and plan together.

For sure.

For sure, it is
easier said than done, to your point.

But I do think that like taking that
step back and just realizing like,

oh, it's just about having a conversation
to start instead of thinking like

to granular about like how to solve
this big issue

really is just about communication,
as you mentioned.

And I think it's a good
way to frame it for sure.

And, Tucker, I
know you actually had a lot of information

coming from the marketing perspective
before, about this same topic.

So if you want to talk us through
some of those key

takeaways, we'd love to hear from you
on that topic as well.

Absolutely. Yeah.

And I think as we're like,
I think everybody listening

would probably agree with us or like, oh,
we need to align, we need to collaborate.

But I feel like so

got to go to the Marketing Profs
B2B forum.

Shout out to and Hanley
for just created an incredible,

an incredible conference and really
bringing in tons of great speakers,

including this guy named Kyle Lacey,
the CMO of jellyfish, who had a lot to say

on how to get marketing and sales
to collaborate more effectively.

So Kyle had this quote,

pretty straightforward, kind of aligned
with what we're saying.

But sales and marketing
alignment is built around revenue.

So just to make things really concrete
here, using revenue as the primary metric,

primary thing that sales and marketing
teams are aligned on.

And he said, look,
the ultimate goal of marketing is the same

as the ultimate goal of sales,
which is the same as the ultimate goal

of every single business side
from non profits, which is to make money.

So you should align yourselves around
the largest business outcome you can.

Right.

And I think when marketing and sales
are tracking different metrics,

we know that that causes huge frustration.

And honestly,
when marketing isn't analyzing,

revenue isn't even trying
to make those connections.

It makes marketing look really bad.

We talked a lot about transitioning
marketing from being seen

as a cost center to a profit center.

Start there.

Start with trying to analyze
and show the impact on revenue.

I know it can be hard,
especially in big organizations.

I know it can be hard, but it is possible
and you really have to do it.

So just
to help make this a little more concrete,

the other thing that that Kyle said
that I thought was so interesting

is, yes, of course, sales and marketing
should be meeting either

weekly, bi weekly or monthly.

But who owns that meeting?

This is where it got interesting for me,
he said the team that should

actually own and lead those meetings
isn't marketing, it isn't sales.

It's the ops team.

So that would be marketing
ops or rev ops revenue operations

because that team typically owns the CRM.

They're the ones we're kind of in charge
of setting up the processes,

and they're also going to be
a little more objective.

I think sales is going to bring their own
biases.

Marketing is going to bring
their own biases to those meetings.

They might be jockeying for credit and
their armor, like the different, you know,

marketing aspect.

A diplomat at the table, pretty much.

Yeah, ops is the diplomat.

Ops has a little bit more clear headed
objective view of this is what's going on.

But I will say that I think
is we're going to get into

marketing teams, have an opportunity,

to be a little more in the operations,
starting to really take charge of the CRM.

We know sales teams don't necessarily
want to be,

you know, messing around in the CRM
all day.

They want to be going out and doing sales.

So if marketing teams can get a little
more savvy, a little more technical,

that may be an inroad for them
to start collaborating more effectively

with sales teams. Yeah.

Oh, I feel bad though, on the sell side,
honestly.

Like if you're out all day
having these in-person conversations

or like on calls all day, like

you don't want to turn around
and having to like

do a bunch of like data management,
uploading, cleaning, all that.

There's two different brains I was there
to keep keep track of your stuff.

But I love that concept of like
marketing us being that kind of like

linchpin of the teams
and driving that collaboration

and bringing the full picture together.

Yes. Absolutely no, of course.

And I think marketing really should be
helping sales make their lives easier.

Kind of like what I was saying
at the beginning of the call.

One other great speaker
I really loved was,

was this guy a judge who had an awesome
presentation, similar things.

You know, how do we make this concrete?

How do we make marketing and sales
collaboration actually concrete?

He also talked about using the CRM as that

command center where marketing and sales
is collaborating.

Obviously, that means they're
both using that CRM, not different CRMs.

He also talked about how do we transition
marketing from a cost center

to a profit center.

I loved what he said to that.

As marketers, you need to push yourself
into sales meetings.

And it reminded me of the latest Batman
movie where he's talking about

got push myself. I felt all fired up.

But, you know, push

yourselves into those sales meetings,
understand what's driving revenue,

share your prospects pane their language,
how they're talking about things.

The one other little nugget that
that Ali Judge said that I thought was so

good was if you're trying to figure out
how to show marketing's

impact on sales, start
with a sales report.

Take an existing sales report.

If you can add a column
into that spreadsheet,

or add a widget into that dashboard
that's already exists that the sales team

already looks at, that starts to show

what was going on earlier up
in the top of the funnel in that journey,

what website pages
were they visiting, what,

you know, whitepapers
where they're downloading that

that eventually, you know, this person,
then, you know, signed a deal.

Also you what is like a timeline to where
it's like what events are be hosted.

Then we saw this like increase here.

Like where where those buttons come from.

Oh, because a lot of people like the sales
team was talking to a bunch of people.

If you were going to a website

that were hitting all these other channels
and like showing that correlation.

Yeah, absolutely.

Another one comes to mind is like
when we were talking about events earlier.

Right.

So sales teams were like, oh, you know, we
we met these people, this event.

Awesome.

Did you know that this person, you know,
had opened and clicked

and read seven emails prior to the event?

Did you know that they booked a meeting

from an email
to meet with you at the conference?

That's just helpful things to bring
in the full picture of that journey.

And it's not a marketing journey. It's
not a sales journey.

It's a customer journey,
you know? Right. Exactly.

What was interesting about that
too, though, like kind of is,

I think, you know, talking about like,
marketing is help sales,

but sales also needs to help marketing
and understand that, like, not everyone is

ready to be like,
pitch to and ready to buy.

Like we just explained that like we met
someone for the first time, we weren't

ready for a demo of their product.

Like, we didn't even really have
a full conversation or anything.

And there was another at the B2B marketing
forum conference by marketing process.

There was another,
I think it was in the keynote.

Tucker. Right.

Hi ho from the B2B Institute,
like LinkedIn's think tank,

they were sharing this or this,
which we, we we grabbed that.

You're a future buyers like 95%.

It's like they call the 95 to 5 rule.

And 95% of your potential buyers
aren't ready to buy it.

And that just comes back to like,
there's why you need to, like, nurture

and create content
and educate them, entertain them.

And then you can activate them into,
you know, a sales qualified lead

and pass them over to sales.

But just because someone takes
some sort of action, like one

action
does not mean that they're ready to like,

I mean, there will always be, I think an
anomalies like someone might see something

and they they're ready to buy,
but that's very rare.

I think overall like what you see more
so is that you really need to nurture,

build that relationship, plant
those seeds, educate them,

and then they'll be ready
to like talk to sales like people.

We talk about this in other
call it action episodes.

Like it's a known fact that like buyers
want to educate themselves.

They want to come to these meetings
feeling like they can, like,

pretty much meet the salesperson
at the table and have like a next level

conversation about, like the solutions
and offerings of your product or service.

They don't want to like go through the
like introductory pitch or you know what,

they can just get on YouTube from a video
they want to like go right into it.

So I think this is,

something that we constantly see.

And, you know,
if you can start to try to build out your

you can build these things out with, like,
visualize your pipeline in HubSpot

and start to show this,
like we have 75 marketing qualified leads.

And out of that
we have five sales qualified leads

and that we got one opportunity
or whatever.

Like it is bringing that together.

And like visualizing
that as a team will be really important.

In 2025.

Totally agree. Absolutely.

Yeah.

So I love this is you
talk all day about this but I think recap

in this this section, when we think about
the three priority areas for marketing

sales teams to prioritize and focus
on, we head into 2025.

Let's facilitate consistent meetings
to like a pipeline to review activities,

really connect between marketing
and sales, have those consistent meetings

weekly, biweekly or monthly.

Number two, using one collaborative space.

Ideally, that's one CRM for marketing
and sales to use together.

Could be HubSpot.

Could be others.

But that way we're making sure everyone's

looking at the same data in the same
place, talking about the same things.

And then finally, I think
especially for marketing, being able

to measure and even, well,
just as importantly, measure and show

how marketing is affecting
and impacting sales.

Really?

Yeah.

Like the goals, the KPIs.

So like I think what we're saying is like
it shouldn't

be like just marketing versus sales goals.

It should be like business goals,
like what are the business goals

and how our teams like

individually and collectively
helping to influence and achieve those.

All right.

Our final like observation from 2024.

And then just like I think priority goal
like maybe priorities

for 2025 also like trends.

But you know we always think about
and talk about like the very tactical

like specific things

you can do in your pipeline
and your strategy and in person online.

But I think what we see
is one of the most integral

things and needs to be prioritize
and try to drive is like

the collaboration, communication
and even like technology

that supports that teamwork
and that you can actually like operate

as these teams together and as a business.

So I like to kick it over to you, Dylan,
just to share and kind of

get your thoughts
like you have a lot of our clients

also think through the kind of

the process side of how we're going to do
and achieve these things together.

And a lot of the time we find that
they're just

they're using they're
they're all over the place sometimes.

So let's jump in and kind of conclude
this, call it action episode of all around

the collaboration, communication

and teamwork necessary
to achieve this level of success.

Absolutely. Yeah.

This is actually something
I know we touched on this a little bit

earlier as well, but I think just the idea
of clear, intentional collaboration,

even outside of just sales
and marketing teams,

that's a priority across all departments
in order to make sure that the work

is just being done in a consistent
and seamless way.

I think, just as you mentioned,
with the strategy work

that I've done,
this is something I've definitely realized

over time in our collaborations
with our clients that like the operations,

the people, and the collaboration tactic
that really serves the foundation

for success, across all departments
of any organization, really.

Again, we mentioned it a little bit
in the context of marketing and sales,

but going into 2025,
I definitely think that this is something

that all organizations

should think of at scale in terms of,
just like how departments can work, with,

with one another,
in the most seamless way possible.

I know there's a report from Gartner,
actually,

that I definitely wanted to pull up
because they do a great job of that,

breaking down three key priorities
that people can kind of consider

for how they will look to deliver market
excellence in 2025.

You can see there's like all three
different parts of the same machine.

All of these cogs like, work
within one another,

which I thought was a really cool way
to illustrate it.

Number one, you can see the idea
of bridging marketing strategy

and operations by really dedicating
resources to strategy management.

I think that's a huge one, just like
the short term and long term approach

to how you get the work done,
you really want to bridge

that gap between the marketing strategy
and the operations.

And, I think you just mentioned this
earlier as well.

Kind of having that is like the linchpin
between two teams.

I think that's like a really great way
to think about things in terms of making

sure that the work is being done
in an efficient way on a consistent basis,

leading marketing to

deliver differentiation
as well by really infusing

like brand and customer insights
into the strategic business decisions.

Again, something that we kind of saw with
that marketing and sales conversation,

like making sure that sales was able
to bring their insights back to the table

for marketing teams, the same goes
across multiple different teams as well.

Just having those brand
and customer insights

at the center of your strategy
is always going to be vital to make sure

that your audience
is consistently being seen and heard.

And then finally prioritizing customer
journey investments is a huge one as well.

You really want to audit
those existing touchpoints and understand,

like what can be improved,
what needs to be polished a little bit

more to make the work, happen
a little bit more seamlessly?

This is something you say a lot, Janet,
that always resonated with me

since I kind of started with the team.

Like if you are kind of looking
at a process, you're like, oh, that's it.

We've always done that.

Your first time to say like, okay,
let me visit this

and see what can be changed a little bit,
you know?

So, yeah, I think that's really,
really important as well

to just have those existing touchpoints
audited on a regular basis and understand,

like how you need to work
cross-functionally to really deliver that

value to, to your team
and to, external parties as well.

So, yeah,
this is a great, great find from Gartner.

I thought this was a great graphic that,
you know,

teams should always kind of have
in the back of their mind going into 2025.

Yeah.

We brought this up in the call to action.

Someone actually,
our first ever episode was all about this

cross-functional collaboration.

And this was a report by CMO.

So curious.

Tucker, going to kind of like, elaborate
on this one as well, because I think

this was very much
kind of like a prediction for 2024.

Definitely.

We saw that, with our clients and,
and it's going to definitely continue

into 2025
as like something that's overlooked

but really integral
to the success of a company.

Yeah.

And I think about the word
cross-functional collaboration.

I feel like a through

we all love where it's,

you know, it's just thinking about that
specifically cross-functional.

I feel like teams understand
and team leaders understand, like my team

needs to have great processes.

My team needs to, like,
really be structured really well,

but they don't necessarily
think about how their team

needs to work with other teams,
and that your cross-functional cross team

collaboration needs to have the same level

of processes and structure
that you've developed for your own teams.

And so I think one of the big takeaways
from this report that we had looked at,

Janet,
was that marketers have the opportunity

to be the pioneer
for developing and shaping and driving

cross-functional collaboration

so that it's not just
a beautiful structure within your team.

It's a beautiful structure
that's happening across teams.

And they, you know, they had this phrase
to collaboration drag.

And it made me think of teams I've worked
with where, you know, there's a demand

gen team
that's doing ads and they're driving leads

and they're driving mql, but then they're
not really talking to the sales team.

They're not having

cross-functional collaboration
and conversations with the sales team.

So you've got thousands of Michaels,
but you're not really understanding

that none of them are very effective
for the sales team.

And what's happening in sales is just
like, all these leads are terrible, right?

And why?

Because those two teams
are not in the same platforms.

They're looking at data in different
places, and they're not meeting regularly.

So suddenly the Demand Gen team is getting
a ton of scrutiny, a ton of frustration,

understandably, because they're cold,
because it's kind of not working

and budget pulled.

Ultimately, the end of the day,

six months down the line, CFO comes
along is like, well,

I don't see how this is resulting in
anything because it does often end up

looking at sales numbers,
which are more hard and concrete.

And if they're not seeing anything,
then boom, budget gets pulled away.

So that to me, I think as the marketers
like we said, have the opportunity,

but maybe even the necessity
to drive cross-functional collaboration.

And and I do love,
I think the, the following,

another graphic
that was from this same report,

you know, looking at these, these leaders
who are standing next to their,

you know, their direct reports and chairs
and helping drive strategic clarity,

helping them drive strong processes,
not letting them take it for granted.

Because as we've seen,
you know, if, if, if,

collaborative processes get neglected,

that can be a real negative impact
on revenue and profits.

So those marketing leaders can really be
the ones who are giving their teams,

given entire departments, the tools
and processes to work effectively

and cross-functionally.

And that's that is absolutely paramount
for avoiding that collaboration.

Drag 100%. Now, I like this
this one a lot.

Definitely shout out to Gartner.

I really like how they think
about the idea of,

organizational barriers
and how teams can work.

Cross-functionally I would say definitely
this third bullet stands out to me

a lot about the idea of aligning
your rules, roles, and processes to like,

really reinforce
that desired culture change.

And I think that also speaks to the idea

of keeping that tech stack
consistent across departments as well.

I've seen so many different organizations

have like one team using one tool
to track their work in progress.

Another team is facilitating their day
to day within a completely different tool.

You know,
like having that really help. Like not.

I've come across a lot of companies.

I have different knowledge bases,
which is insane.

Like your knowledge is in different places
in the same company.

Exactly.

How to how to make Janet's head
explode at multiple.

It's I it's like really hard for me
to fathom.

Yes. I got multiple knowledge bases.

You're off base.

Well, it's funny, because then there's
a tool to then connect all of them.

So it's like instead
you could just have the one tool

instead of having, like multiple tools
with another tool on top of it.

Exactly.
Like why even add the extra layer?

Exactly, exactly.

It just makes it such a pain to, like,
find information and like.

Yeah, to that point, I think just having
that shared collective visibility,

it's the best way to prevent
any communication from getting trapped

in those silos again,
you know. So for sure.

All right. Well, we covered a ton today.

I think there's like so much that changes
in marketing.

And sales in the industry
as a whole and B2B.

And so we try to just give a little bit
of focus and prioritization

of where you should look.

So we hope you all have a very successful
year.

Definitely let us know.

Like what you want to see this year.

If you want to be a guest on the show,
we will be inviting us to join Call

to Action and share your industry
knowledge and insights.

But as we always do,
we're going to conclude

the episode with one call to action.

So, I'll kick it over to Tucker to,

let us know,
what's your call to action for viewers

and really, what should they prioritize
across marketing sales this year?

Okay, so it is garlic season.

And while I haven't seen Gladiator two,
one of my favorite things

from Gladiator
one was the strength and honor.

So shout out to Russell
Crowe. Let's tag him on LinkedIn.

But I think about

marketing and sales unity needs to happen.

Gotta make sure that we're not working
in silos, that marketing and sales teams

have shared insights

and shared KPIs and are working
in a shared collaborative space.

That's key. That's my call to action.

Whether you're on a marketing team
or a sales team.

Make it happen.

Dylan, how about you?

This one is not from Gladiator,
but, with that,

I think my big takeaway from this,

this whole episode would be
just not neglecting your operations like

that has to be the foundation
of everything you do.

How you do the work is, in my opinion,
just as important, if not more important

than simply being able to like,
finish and complete the deliver.

You need to make sure that,
like each segment, each

handoff, within a process
is as seamless as possible.

Everybody within your workflow
knows exactly what they're jumping into.

They have all of the full context
behind the project you're working on,

just really making sure
that your operations

are the centerpiece of all of the work
you do.

I think that's going to be a vital part
of a really successful, operation

going into 2025, and I'll pass it to you.

Janet, would love to hear
your takeaway as well.

All right.

My call to action to the audience,

I think it's

I think this is my call to action
for episode one.

So I'm start trying to find
five of the similar.

I want to just talk to each other.

Yeah. Talk to people.

Not just like internally either.

I think talk to the people who were like,
if you're going to events this year like

get in the same room
as them, like go up to people like

get out of your comfort zone.

Like, don't be the people who had
a bunch of folks showing up to happy hour

and never even introduce themselves.
You know?

But also like

kind of put yourself out there
trying to make connections internally.

Like if you're doing off
sites like as an internal team,

make sure that you're like setting up
time to like,

strategize, get to know one another.

So it's it's a little bit easier online

once you go back online
if you're doing a hybrid work or whatever.

But really, at the end of the day,
I think it's just like

making sure you're having the right
conversations and the right people are

in those rooms as well.

And I think that

touch on all

the trends that we talked about and all
the priorities across marketing and sales,

your own internal operations
and just events as a whole, as a

pick up the phone, pick up the response,
but don't give, don't give.

Tucker. Okay. Text.

No. Yeah.

Okay. Well, thank you for listening.

Have you been with us
till the end of this episode?

We really appreciate it.

Do let us know in the comments.

Like, what's working for you?

What do you plan
to take action on in 2025?

Where do you need to prioritize
and what are you planning?

We'd love to hear it,
so reach out in the comments.

Reach out to us directly.

We have an exciting year coming up
for Call to action, as I already mentioned

that have been teasing
throughout the episode.

We are planning to bring on guests
this year.

So an industry leader.

So if you have like research reports
or trends that you're seeing that

you really want to bring forward to
an audience of marketers and sales leaders

like we would, this is your invitation
to reach out to us.

We would love to have you on the show.

Thank you, Tucker,

and thank you, Dylan, for joining me
on this first episode of 2025.

I feel feel confident and excited,
with a little bit

of undertone of still, you know,
a little like, how's it going to go?

But I think that's kind of the point.

And why we created
this show is to keep a pulse.

To really have is open
conversations, share what we're seeing

and hope that you all share that back
with us as well.

So share the knowledge,
like and subscribe to, the channel.

We're going to be sharing episodes
every month.

And we don't want you to miss one.

So until next time, we'll see you
on the next episode of Call to Action.

Thank you.