This episode features an interview with Leslie Henthorn, CMO at Ironclad. Ironclad is the world’s #1 Contract Lifecycle Management platform and provides a simple, secure way to create and collaborate on contracts. Leslie has over 16 years of experience and has held multiple leadership roles in marketing, partnerships, and go-to-market program management. On this episode Leslie shares her insights into mastering brand momentum, the role of your website in guiding the customer journey, and why marketing needs to be data-driven.
This episode features an interview with Leslie Henthorn, CMO at Ironclad. Ironclad is the world’s #1 Contract Lifecycle Management platform and provides a simple, secure way to create and collaborate on contracts. Leslie has over 16 years of experience and has held multiple leadership roles in marketing, partnerships, and go-to-market program management.
On this episode Leslie shares her insights into mastering brand momentum, the role of your website in guiding the customer journey, and why marketing needs to be data-driven.
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“When it comes to brand don’t just think about what you’re super close to. Think about the rest of the world, and where are you there.” - Leslie Henthorn, CMO, Ironclad
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Episode Timestamps:
*(02:43) -Leslie’’s role at Ironclad
*(07:24) - Segment: Trust Tree
*(14:46) - Mastering brand momentum
*(20:59) - Segment: The Playbook
*(23:59) - Why marketing needs to be data driven
*(27:33) - The role of your website in guding the customer journey
*(33:17) - Segment: The Dust Up
*(33:49) - Segment: Quick Hits
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Demand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.
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Links
0:00:05.7 Ian Faison: Welcome to Demand Gen Visionaries. I'm Ian Faison, CEO of Caspian Studios. And today I have a special guest. Leslie, how are you?
0:00:12.8 Leslie Henthorn: I'm doing great Ian. How are you doing?
0:00:15.3 Ian Faison: I am thrilled to have you on the show. Excited to chat about all the cool stuff you all are doing at Ironclad, talking about 90 days in the role, what is up with you and your background and much more. So let's get into it. What was your first job in demand?
0:00:28.5 Leslie Henthorn: Actually, my first job was at Twilio. I just left Twilio after being there for 8 years, but I had been doing partner go-to-market strategy at Cisco Systems and I found that I really loved the marketing pieces of working with partners. And so I decided to take that experience building go-to-market programs and start building demand with partners working at Twilio in San Francisco. That was 12 years ago now, I think, is when I started working on good partner go-to-market and then working in the marketing.
0:00:56.8 Ian Faison: And fast forward to today, tell us what it means to be CMO at Ironclad.
0:01:00.8 Leslie Henthorn: Oh man, it means exciting things. I really was in the point of my career where I was lucky enough to leave Twilio, I was the interim CMO before they decided to hire a CMO. So I got the great experience of leading the organization and I loved it, Ian. I loved getting to bring all the functions across marketing together. And so the Ironclad role popping up and them selecting me was a gift. Because it's a really cool industry. It's something I never thought I'd be working in, but when I was looking for my CMO gig, I really wanted to find a place that, one; had product market fit and I knew we had a real shot at doing something great. And two; as a marketer, I wanted to be in the customer's shoes and understand their pain points and what really drove them. And as a marketing leader, when you think about contracts and digital contracting and procurement and law, it's one of the hardest pieces of your job to maintain that demand and that spend and get it out the door every quarter.
0:02:03.5 Leslie Henthorn: So this company really spoke to me personally and makes me really excited to talk about how we're gonna power the world's contracts, how we're gonna be that solve for so many business leaders.
0:02:13.4 Ian Faison: Oh my gosh, I feel the same way. And it was one of the reasons we're excited to do the interview other than your stellar reputation and background. But I feel the same way as a marketer. And like I'm watching my money go out every month and managing all that stuff, contracts is just this thing that is in freaking behemoth. And I always talk about this because Caspian is a vendor and we also use a lot of vendors. That is like how you manage your contracts is like this bastion of customer experience that is so forgotten and it's so important. How many times do you like onboard a new vendor and you have to go, "Oh my gosh, our process is a while, so hold on, just strap in, get ready." And you're like, "Give me a break. What are we doing here?" [chuckle]
0:02:57.1 Leslie Henthorn: You're so right. I cannot think about the times that I was like, "So just bear with us. It might take 60 to 90 days," and then like you're starting the whole thing again over when you have to pay them depending on how long your organization is. So they've waited to become an approved vendor and then you're trying to pay them. That's where I think to your point about this behemoth of an issue. I think Ironclad is so sexy, that digital contracts are sexy because when you can move quickly, when you can accelerate the process for business users to get their contract through but you can also understand everything inside that contract and leverage the insights that you get from that contract data and then also make sure you manage compliance and risk because you've got all of these things set up for the folks that really care about that, executives, legal, finance, procurement. It brings that whole motion together as a happy family versus like arch rivals inside your organization. And I will tell you, honestly, I'm really grateful for the folks that have helped me in my career get through those processes because it is a beast and now look to them for advice on how to market to them because no, that's not easy. [chuckle]
0:04:12.1 Ian Faison: Yeah. Well, you know what? Funny story, I actually I haven't told you this, when I first met Leyla as COO, is how we got connected, one of the things that she said to me because we're a vendor of Salesforce, my old company, and one of the first thing she said to me is she was like, "How are you all doing? Any issues that I need to address?" And I was like, "Honestly, the payment terms are absolutely brutal. Floating this amount of money is like pretty crazy." She's like, "Oh, I'll look into it." And I just think that funny that she's COO Ironclad now with that sort of mindset. It's always great when people can figure out their contract process because it is so so painful.
0:04:44.9 Leslie Henthorn: I agree. And I think things that I've learned in the first 90 days of being here really to or that a lot of times internally look at that legal department as the department of no or that finance department. Like their goal is to say, "No, you have to do it this way." And it's just time and time and time and what I'm finding working with our community and the stakeholders, especially inside legal that I've gotten to meet is that they want so badly to be the partner of yes and show real business value and help business leaders get their contracts through and that's one of the things I see inside the company. But also what our customers and prospects are really looking to do is how do we make these faster? And how do we not have our vendor struggling to survive in a world where like fronting hundreds of thousands of dollars waiting to get paid for 90 days is ridiculous. I love that it's a solving product like it solves these issues across your internal stakeholders, but also obviously helps you move faster.
0:05:42.2 Ian Faison: It's a great segue to our next segment and it also speaks to just going into a new role like how much you need to live the problem. All right, let's go to the trust tree. This is where you can go and feel honest and trusted, share those deepest darkest demand and marketing secrets. Tell us a little bit more about Ironclad. What does the company do for your customers?
0:06:00.8 Leslie Henthorn: Ironclad's basically the smart way to make and manage digital contracts. And what does that mean? I think when you think about digital transformation and you think about that last era of transformation to our earlier conversation, contracting has been super archaic and you're thinking about sending documents back and forth and editing them. This platform changes all of that and it helps accelerate contracts and helps your business move fast. So we really started with building a platform that surrounds the contract and pulling contract data out. So not only can you move faster with how we build workflows and approve contracts, but you can also understand what's in your contracts and leverage that for business data. What vendor renewals are coming up? What salesperson is sending the most contracts through Salesforce? A sales leader to be able to look into Salesforce and go, "Okay, all of these are out at the end of the quarter. I know we're out for signature." It's these powerful things that typically you're trying to track an email that are huge for business users, but on the backend too, also save lawyers, procurement and finance time, money, and give them visibility into what's happening and mitigate risk and compliance across what we wanna do.
0:07:08.7 Leslie Henthorn: So we have anyone from like Glassdoor to MasterCard to L'Oreal, Asana, Lyft, these are tons of different sizes companies, historical, digital innovators to large-scale enterprises. And that's what's exciting about working for Ironclad too, because you get to be a part of a lot of different business solutions when you're coming at it from the contract, because contracts start everything.
0:07:31.6 Ian Faison: Yeah. And so I'm curious, what does that buying committee look like? Obviously, the CFO and finance is gonna be involved. Who else is involved there?
0:07:38.4 Leslie Henthorn: Yeah, it depends on the segment, obviously, and the company size. But I think one of the things we're finding, and obviously being a new CMO, this is somewhere where I'm spending a lot of time. Who are our personas? Who's engaged? And historically for Ironclad, we've been starting really with legal and legal ops being our champions. Trying to understand how to streamline contract review and workflow inside the company. But we also have procurement, a lot of procurement titles looking at us, GCs, head of legal. And more recently, as we've done some studies, also folks driving business transformation, digital transformation coming out of the pandemic. So digital transformation titles, those are also showing up a lot. We have business use cases. HR contracts are growing. I think we have a 230% year-over-year increase in HR, 285% year-over-year increase in sales workflows that are being launched. So we're expanding that audience more and more as we show value across those customers.
0:08:38.6 Ian Faison: And what does your org structure look like? Is it marketing and sales or is it a little different?
0:08:43.8 Leslie Henthorn: It's not typical right now. I'm coming into a situation where we kind of are bringing the marketing team together as a whole for the first time this year. So we've had DG and Growth reporting into sales in the past. We've had product marketing reporting into product and we built a corporate marketing team ahead of myself joining that's basically brand and comms and events. And we're starting to restructure to be more functional expertise focused.
0:09:08.5 Ian Faison: I love that. I shouldn't even say challenge. That's just fun.
0:09:11.3 Leslie Henthorn: Well, it's fun and I'm really excited that I have the ability to do so. I have some great leaders, but also we have so much opportunity right now. We have an amazing community team that doesn't report into marketing and they've been huge on the street building a community following an influence. Mary O'Carroll, for those that are listening and don't know who she is, she's basically our community influencer who just amazing motion in the legal ops community. She built CLOC, which is a huge industry awareness event that brings people together. And I am very lucky to be coming into the seat where that existed, but we haven't been doing a lot of things that will help us move into the next phase. Customer marketing, field marketing, understanding a corporate event strategy, industry event strategy. So there's a lot functionally we've gotta build and then we're not a small team, but we're not a large team, we're about 30 people. And so when I look at that, it's really what are the little collectives inside the team that will be focused on seeing how our enterprise is doing, seeing how our mid-market segment is doing and really like sharing and caring across the team. Teamwork will make the dream work as we figure out this structure.
0:10:16.5 Ian Faison: Do you have coming in first 90 days a strategy that you're ready to employ? What's your marketing strategy?
0:10:22.3 Leslie Henthorn: I think my first strategy is just data. I know it sounds like super generic, probably, but I think especially getting into a team that's becoming formed right now and getting to know each other, it's really what is the data telling us we're doing well, what is the data telling us we're not doing well, and then how do we focus? And that's just like high-level business strategy. I don't even think that's marketing strategy. But what it tells me is where I need to go in that marketing strategy and I'm seeing things in our funnel now lead me to believe we went away from doing things like industry awareness events and weren't really showing up where our customers were towards the end of the year. And it's that phase of company growth where what got you there won't get you to the next place.
0:11:06.0 Ian Faison: Yeah.
0:11:06.4 Leslie Henthorn: So how do you think about adding these motions into a team that in full transparency is an awesome team. They're doing a lot of work, but I think when you're in this place, you kind of have to go, "Okay, everyone's doing everything that they're supposed to do because they didn't have a marketing leader," so everyone was saying yes to everything across the internal work group. And it's that change in strategy to say, "Hey guys, sometimes saying no actually helps you bring more value," because we're gonna align the motion with sales. We're gonna make sure we've got a really good competitive focus in the first 90 days I've been here because that's been one of our business needs based on the data and it's been amazing to watch our win rate go up because of the sales and marketing coming together. So I use that data to really drive focus, Ian, and then determine what comes next.
0:11:53.6 Ian Faison: As you come in with that type of strategy in mind, how do you think about brand?
0:11:58.4 Leslie Henthorn: Brand is playing a huge part in our strategy and I think people talk about brand and they think that it's just like billboards and really great ads and...
0:12:09.8 Ian Faison: Yeah, they think it's advertising.
0:12:11.1 Leslie Henthorn: Yeah, yeah, they think advertising. I don't look at it like that. I think it's about building kind of a movement across your organization and we are gonna really think about brand in a couple ways and that is ensuring that our connectors and our community like they talk to each other about who we are. And so we will probably be looking at a city tour to bring awareness to our most populated customer cities and leverage brand around that. So yeah, they'll be advertising but it's also SEO and paid on top of that. It's also sales reaching out to build relationships on top of that. Giving folks a shared experience with your brand, to me, really helps and then there's a ton of community efforts and press and things that go along with that. So for me, brand is momentum. And if you're building that momentum and getting an aligned go-to-market motion, that's gonna be more successful long-term in my opinion than just hitting it with an advertising campaign. And you're all speaking the same language, you're doing it around the same time and I'm really hoping that that's gonna be a big part of Ironclad's brand moving forward.
0:13:14.1 Ian Faison: Any other thoughts on strategy or demand or anything else before we go to the playbook?
0:13:19.6 Leslie Henthorn: The strategy is always evolving. It's always the brand.
0:13:21.8 Ian Faison: Sure, yeah.
0:13:23.9 Leslie Henthorn: It's funny because I would love to go... Here's exactly what I do to make sure that we have a great brand, but I think you learn so much. And one of the things that I found out at Twilio when we were there, we did a brand awareness survey and you just realize like you haven't even penetrated. But when you're in San Francisco Tech, you think you're a big kid on the street.
0:13:42.7 Ian Faison: For sure.
0:13:43.9 Leslie Henthorn: That's one of the things that I would just always hold dear for folks listening is don't let that fool you. And so that's what I'm thinking about when it comes to brand. Don't just think about what you're super close to, think about the rest of the world and where are you there. One thing I love from a brand strategy perspective I didn't bring up is YouTube. I'm like just getting some really high brand awareness content. It's funny, I came into Ironclad and we were doing some of those tests, but we were maybe miscommunicating our strategy around what should come from those tests. And I think that the team thought that we might get pipeline from those tests right away and that was not gonna happen. This is a long game, but you're just reaching views and maybe some interactions and getting your name out there and hopefully targeting the right personas to just be something in the ether. So just knowing what you're going after with brand I think is also really important.
0:14:34.7 Ian Faison: I think that part of the thing with brand we talk about your message, Scott Holden said on the show that it's about getting your brand message out in front of as many people as possible, if there's any channels possible and I think that that's what people kind of miss sometimes. It's like it's about getting your message in front of all those people regardless of what channel it is. You're just as the CMO trying to find the channels that work. And like at the end of the day, you still gotta get to the 13 impressions equals a sale thing. You gotta get there when no one really knows what you are or you're not on the consideration phase or you're not in the budget for next year. It's like you got to get there.
0:15:10.7 Leslie Henthorn: Totally. Any channel everywhere with whatever you can give them, I totally agree. And hopefully, we'll be doing more of that next year.
0:15:17.7 Ian Faison: Not mentioned coming in and being like, "Hey, we're using Sarah font."
[laughter]
0:15:25.5 Leslie Henthorn: No, so that's the funny thing for me. I am a creative person, but I also really like to let creative be creative. I care deeply about the overall image that's out there, but those little details are not my sweet spot. I am the person that will really get the feedback across the stakeholder and not have a strong opinion. Or I will have a strong opinion, but it'll be loosely held on those certain things. Now don't get me wrong. I remember doing a brand campaign where the red was so red at Twilio that I was like, "This is like... "
0:15:54.7 Ian Faison: Yeah.
0:15:55.7 Leslie Henthorn: This is way too much. I do care about some details. But yeah, it's funny, I think we're still in the building phases, too, so I'm having fun with that right now. Talking to the team and seeing where we go, strong font. I don't have a strong opinion on that. And do you have a strong opinion on your fonts when you're going out?
0:16:11.7 Ian Faison: No, I mean you want to be consistent, but I think that there's like the Apple and the IBM school of thought and I did a print campaign with Apple one time and they literally scrapped half of the campaign and paid for it. And they were just like, "Yep, we're just like couldn't risk having the colors in the campaign not show up." Like they just wanted 100% control. Again, I get that if that's your thing for Apple and IBM and those sort of people, but for the rest of us, I think it's about how you make people feel and again, what the message is that you're repeating over and over again and that message should be like how you're helping people. I think also, too, I think people go so overboard with brand consistency, it's just my opinion.
0:16:48.7 Leslie Henthorn: Yeah.
0:16:49.2 Ian Faison: That then every post that they put on the internet looks the same. I'm like, "You use the same three colors over and over and over. You use it for a webinar, you use it for your podcast, you use it for your... " So nothing ever stands out.
0:17:02.3 Leslie Henthorn: It's totally good with you, though. I think it's a funny thing to talk about, too. Because I actually think like in the digital world that we're in now, of course you want consistency around who you are and your values and color schemes, sure. But if you're not having any fun and trying anything new, you're also not gonna keep engagement with your channels, it becomes super bland. I love seeing like we have someone on the team now who's really doing a lot of TikToks and that wouldn't necessarily be aligned to the brand of the company, but it's so great and it gets so much engagement from business users on LinkedIn that I'm like, "That's where you gotta just have some fun, too."
0:17:40.7 Ian Faison: I wholeheartedly agree. I think the biggest thing that people miss with that is, like this user-generated content stuff, which is like super rewarded by LinkedIn and obviously by TikTok and like those algorithms don't favor brand sharing, they favor people sharing. So if you don't have like a people sharing strategy, but at the end of the day, if Leslie's only sharing brand-safe content, if Ian's only sharing brand-safe content, then they're not putting their personality into it. And it's okay for that person who has their own personality. They're into to put their personal spin on stuff. That's what makes a company feel like a company and not just a product. Your product stuff can say your product.
0:18:20.1 Leslie Henthorn: No, I totally agree. I think that that experience, too, like folks will look at you differently if there are people in their community using you and loving what they're doing. And in this day and age like not one person on a podcast looks the same or thinks the same, why would we all share the same exact pose and run over again? I'm always thinking about what reacts on my own network and it's funny. The ones that I'm the most vulnerable on and just say the truth and just put it out there are the ones that always get the most engagement.
0:18:50.0 Ian Faison: Especially in B2B.
0:18:52.1 Leslie Henthorn: Yes.
0:18:52.7 Ian Faison: And the secret in B2B that we've all known forever, which is like your sales rep actually matters, right?
0:18:58.6 Leslie Henthorn: It's true. That is a human being who is going to deliver the message a certain way. And the kind of experience that comes with it.
[music]
0:19:04.4 Ian Faison: Let's get to the playbook, where we open up the playbook and talk about the tactics that help you win.
0:19:09.0 Speaker 3: You play to win the game.
0:19:11.8 Speaker 4: Hello, you play to win the game. You don't play to just play it.
0:19:21.8 Ian Faison: I know you're only 90 days in, but what are some channels or tactics that are either your uncuttable budget items or items that you're investing in for next year?
0:19:30.9 Leslie Henthorn: In my first 90 days, there's a lot that I'm super grateful for that the folks on the team did ahead of me being here. And I think it's made me kind of rethink what my top three are just in general. But I think great SEO is probably the one that I'm most grateful for right now, if I'm being honest, because it drives a lot of the other tactics and channels in, that come with it, whether it's content marketing or a paid social, like website optimization. Like SEO for me is where it's all starting and I'm coming into a place where they've done it very well and I feel super grateful about that. And I love what it's driving for us to take a look at across the website and all of those kind of things. So I think that's a huge piece of the tactics and strategy in terms of where I start. But I'm going to throw on an X Factor one here that I think most people probably don't say. And depending on your company, your strategy, who you're going after. I'm going to put up their industry events, because it's an interesting one. And that the reason I put it out there is because I've seen this for the last... Even in... Even during the pandemic, it is where your most qualified prospects are and customers are, if you are choosing them correctly and it also helps you drive a motion that can include all of those other things that create demand in a really awesome way.
0:20:56.0 Leslie Henthorn: Whether that's content whether that's social whether that's PR. There's a lot that goes into industry events if you're doing that motion correctly, but most importantly you're building your brand with your community and you're giving them a shared of experience of who you are and what you do and I see it every time. It's not a return on investment within the first six months. It's definitely a nine month to a year play but you can see it if you're looking at attribution, you can see what comes from that motion.
0:21:24.5 Ian Faison: I'm curious on this because that is one that a lot of people say that they're cutting. I think that the reason why people are cutting it, part of it is the ROI conversation for sure. But it's also just that the pricing is so crazy for these things.
0:21:36.8 Leslie Henthorn: It is.
0:21:38.2 Ian Faison: They don't know how they're doing it or they're doing it in a way that is perhaps old-fashioned or the event is being put together by someone who is little old-fashioned the way they think about stuff, 'cause I hear this all the time like personally like people like, "I got this 250,000 event sponsorship. I'm cutting that for sure next year and I'd rather spend that on content." Like I hear that, no joke once a week is that exact thing. I'm curious to your thoughts there.
0:22:04.6 Leslie Henthorn: Here's my counter to that. I look at the data a lot and when you think about getting in front of people if you're selecting them correctly and you do have to have a review process on these and you're right like some will not make the cut going into the next year, but it's also like, it should never be a one-and-done. You should never just show up with a booth and follow up. If you're doing it that way, it's never going to work for you. But if you're thinking about how you're even promoting paid ads on meeting with us in the booth, putting another strategy together for dinners, understanding of your customers who's going to be there, working with sales to invite prospects to specific activities and events there, getting good content while you're there, researching your competitors, having great alignment, follow-up after and very personalized follow-up and experiences. There's so much here that goes into it, that is a great go-to-market aligned motion, if you do it correctly. And it has to be reviewed, you got to be willing to take all the feedback from all your stakeholders that need to be there.
0:23:07.2 Leslie Henthorn: But if you're not showing up weeks a weeks ahead of time with a digital strategy around that industry event and then a follow-up strategy and nurture program then it's not going to hit you well. And that's just my belief. The other thing I will say is if you just do the minimum viable product on site, that's probably not going to work for you either. So it's what's creative there? What are the pain points? You're trying to solve. How are you going to demo that experience? How can you use your own technology to give those people on site an experience that they'll remember? When I was at Twilio, we used to do text-in orders for coffees and it sounds simple, but people are leveraging your tool right then and there, right? They're saying, "Oh my God, this is so easy. This is the customer engagement experience that I would hope for and it just texts me when my coffee is ready." So I don't even have to wait in line if I don't want to like those kind of pieces of how you show up, It's really powerful and people stick with it. It's also a great way to get people on your team aligned with how they pitch your company, how they differentiate. There's just so much in this that I feel like it's a big win. But again, that investment is heavy, so you've got to actually put the resources and the plan around it.
0:24:17.0 Ian Faison: I love it. I agree with everything you said. I've run a big event. It absolutely sucks. I've been there and I know and like that's why I don't do events anymore. That's like, we personally don't create events anymore. I don't know the answer for that industry, but if they were thinking of more creative ways to do productize what they're doing to offer those things for you all, then that's where I think the value really is and like just figuring out ways to get stuff more engaged. And the same thing with the impression thing is like how many times can you get in front of one person at one event and the answer right now is like they see your logo a couple places and maybe they do one event. But if you have a little bit more of a strategic thing we're like, hey, can we hit this account 20 times in this event?
0:25:01.2 Leslie Henthorn: I agree with that. That's a huge power play right there. It really can't happen quite easily. And if you've got that strategy going in where you're trying to get across the buyer circle, what's the executive strategy there? What's the product manager strategy there? The line of business buyer strategy and hit it.
0:25:18.4 Ian Faison: Yeah. Okay. Any other uncuttables or stuff that you might cut going forward or maybe might not invest in?
0:25:24.7 Leslie Henthorn: Brand awareness with PR is always big. I think like our AR strategy is going to be a lot bigger and I say that because we're going into an economy that is unknown. Like what is going to happen next year? What's happening now? You're hearing about a lot of restructuring and I think like really investing in value for your company and different benchmarks with analyst teams and understanding the market even more is going to be a place where we probably go harder. That's something we should all be thinking about next year. How are you going to stand out and show value? What is the real data for those buyers coming in?
0:25:56.4 Ian Faison: How do you think about your website?
0:25:57.9 Leslie Henthorn: For me right now, I think about it a lot. I'm talking to people a lot. We're doing like an outside analysis of what's working from a website conversion perspective and heat map and what's working, but I also just am thinking about that story and message and how do we want to evolve it as we go in. Customizing landing pages more really thinking about the offers and our customer journey. It's data and it's also just analysis there. So I'm still in that process, but I would say to any person that's in the CMO spend a lot of time there 'cause it's the front door and the front door needs to look good and work, needs to open. That's just where I'm at with it right now.
0:26:34.9 Ian Faison: Love it. Okay, let's go to the dust up. This is where we talk about healthy tension, whether that's with your board sales team competitor or anyone else. Have you had a memorable dust up in your career, Leslie?
0:26:43.6 Leslie Henthorn: Oh, I've had a couple. Yeah, I think as a younger woman leader, I had dust ups that are very typical in tech which are like, you could be deemed emotional or there's just, it's a different communication style that I've had to work through. But I think the one I'll tell you about most recently is actually not getting the CMO role at Twilio and being the interim CMO for six months and the healthy tension was really a great learning experience. I'm happy to share it even though it's more of like a raw moment in my career, which I grew up on the inside. And I think folks had a hard time viewing me as that next level leader and I think even the sales leader that I had at the time who I've been at the company with for years really was looking for someone who had been leading 20,000 person marketing teams or much bigger enterprise than I had the experience and what I did and what I will always do is we got to honor who you are. Be open and honest and direct about I'm sensing this, is this actually true, asking for feedback, understanding where you sit but also listening to what people say to you in those moments and time.
0:27:51.5 Leslie Henthorn: I was going through being interim taking on a lot and folks were telling me my coaches advisors people in my network, "They're not going to give you that job. They're not going to give you that job." And I am a forever optimist Ian. It's one of the things that like I hold true to as a characteristic. I really thought I might get that job. [laughter] It was such a gift to not get it because I learned so much about listen to what people are saying to you like especially folks that you care about and trust and also ask why. And if you can't get an answer as to why run for the freaking hills. That was something for me that I've always learned is like if you're having a dust up with somebody and they can't tell you why they feel a certain way or they won't be honest or direct with you then get out of there because at the end of the day, there's nothing there for you anymore. They're not investing with you and enough to tell you the truth. I think Twilio was wonderful place to work. They loved me and I loved them.
0:28:52.4 Leslie Henthorn: That's not representative Twilio, but just in general. If you're working with a couple of people making decisions around your career or on your campaign or your strategy and they won't give you the why, for me, that's like you can't work to fix that anymore. Be open and honest and if people are open to ask with me back. Yeah, feedback might hurt but it's still a gift and you got to take it.
0:29:13.7 Ian Faison: Yeah, and I think that it's really tough anytime that you're the insider when they want someone with experience that like, there's no way that you could have... There's nothing I can change about me other than leaving and then coming back with said experience. So if that's non-negotiable then why are we negotiating at all?
0:29:33.9 Leslie Henthorn: 100% and you gotta think about what you want. I felt so grateful for the promotion opportunities and for the titles and all that kind of stuff. But when you want something different go get it. I think we're seeing that right now, obviously. This is a really interesting time in everyone's career. It's like you have a great resignation. Now you have the quiet quitting but you also like lays off and all these other things. And so I think everyone just needs to figure out like, "Do I want to be here?" And then commit and that happens a lot in your career, but I'm a big committer. So I'm hoping Ironclad wants to commit to me 'cause I definitely am committed to them.
0:30:07.5 Ian Faison: I think that's a two-way street and thanks so much for sharing that. That's the sort of stuff that sometimes I'll share those type of stories as I hear them of those type of situations where it's like, "Hey, we wanted someone with public company CMO experience or we wanted someone who had investors that are blank before." You know, there's no such thing as that five-star CMO, it doesn't exist because they are already working somewhere else. So go pry them away from wherever and get the golden parachute over their way.
0:30:34.3 Leslie Henthorn: At some point you're not going to have what somebody wants, you know what I mean? And that's okay. If your career is long and you're doing the right things like it's okay to not be the person they want. And it doesn't mean the next person coming in is bad. It means they're probably great and sold themselves maybe even better than you did and there's things you can learn in that too. So I'm grateful for it. It doesn't mean it's not hard to go through but I'm really in a much better place having had that experience. So.
0:30:57.8 Ian Faison: Thanks again for sharing. Okay, let's get to our final segment. Quick hits. These are quick questions and quick answers just like how you can go to qualify.com get helped quickly so you can generate pipeline faster, tap into your greatest asset your website to identify your most valuable visitors and instantly start sales conversations. It's quick and easy just like these questions go to qualify.com to learn more quick hits Leslie. Are you ready?
0:31:24.8 Leslie Henthorn: Let's do it.
0:31:24.9 Ian Faison: Number one. What is a hidden talent or skill that's not on your resume?
0:31:30.9 Leslie Henthorn: I am an amazing holiday decorator. Do not come to my house during the holidays if you don't want to be wowed 'cause you will be wowed.
0:31:38.2 Ian Faison: Are you available for rental because...
0:31:41.7 Leslie Henthorn: No, but that might be my side business in retirement because they charge a ton of money. [laughter]
0:31:45.8 Ian Faison: There you go. I'm ready to pay. Do you have a favorite book podcast or TV show that you checked out recently?
0:31:51.7 Leslie Henthorn: This podcast is a good one. I have listened. So hey, just want to throw that out. I also will say, right now, I'm reading Miracle Mornings. I actually really like that book a lot. I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to get more growth time out of my day being a new CMO and not having a lot of time left. So figuring that out. But I'm a big self-helper. I also for fun love listening to Smart Lists. I will just say it's not a business podcast, but I'll just put it out there. If you haven't listened to it, it definitely makes me crack up and it's a great one to throw on for some comic relief.
0:32:22.1 Ian Faison: So good. If you weren't in marketing, what do you think you'd be doing?
0:32:24.8 Leslie Henthorn: Oh my gosh, such a great question. I was a high school teacher before I went into tech and I think that might have been a path that I took. I really liked teaching. But as I get older, it is something more like owning my own business that I can like have my own hours, my own destiny a little bit probably interior design, now. I love holiday decorating. I love just thinking of how you put a space together. I've been a huge remodeler of our 1991 home that we live in. We're done now. My husband's super grateful, but I think that would be like the creative part of my life would be something I'd probably want to go into more.
0:33:02.9 Ian Faison: What is your best advice for a first-time CMO trying to figure out their demand strategy?
0:33:09.2 Leslie Henthorn: I'll go back to my original answer. Get as much data as you can get as much data as you can about that funnel what's working and what's not and then think about your strategy from that perspective.
0:33:19.7 Ian Faison: Leslie, it's been absolutely awesome having you on the show. Thanks so much for joining. For listeners, you can go to ironcladapp.com to learn more. If you're in marketing, you should check it out 'cause you know, you work with creative agencies and SEO consultants, Instagram influencers, and you don't want to slow those contracts down. Go check it out, tell your CFO, tell your legal team, tell them all.
0:33:42.2 Leslie Henthorn: Thank you, Ian.
0:33:42.6 Ian Faison: Thanks so much and take care.