Happy Sunday everyone. I hope you survived April Fool’s Day and had a great week. The weather’s been scorching in Singapore, so I’ve spent a lot of time indoors reading and watching videos. Here’s this weekend’s list:
What I’m excited to share this weekend
Tomorrow I’m going to be featured on a fireside chat with CXOtv news for their Marketing Monday series. It’s been several years since I’ve done any formal public speaking, so I’m looking forward to this opportunity. The theme is “Accelerating Growth Through Strategic Engagement”, where I’ll be delving into how B2B marketers can partner more closely with both internal and external stakeholders to drive greater results.
What I listened to this weekend
One of my favorite podcasters is Dan Carlin, his show “Hardcore History” is some of the most interesting and in-depth media (including books), on historical topics I’ve ever consumed. The only bad part is it takes months or years for him to get his shows put together because he goes so in-depth and crafts the show so carefully. Luckily he has a side-podcast that is shorter and often features expert guests. This week he put out The Handmaidens of the Apocolypse with investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen. The episode covers the dangers of nuclear war, how it might unfold, and how quickly we all might be wiped off the face of the planet due to a mistake. Scary stuff.
Marketing trend I noticed this week
Executive roundtables have been around for a while but they really took off during the pandemic. Webinar fatigue was kicking in, and companies needed a way to engage with prospects in an interactive format. I ran my first roundtable in 2020 and have found them to be a strong tactic ever since. The value of a roundtable to the attendees is that they get to network with, learn from, and share with their peers. Who is sponsoring and moderating the roundtable is almost secondary compared to who else is attending. Unfortunately, a lot of sales folks and even marketing organizations don’t understand this, they want to get in front of prospects and pitch their solution. This week I got 3 invitations to marketing roundtables, I only accepted one, the other two were standard seminar affairs with keynote presentations and panel sessions under the name of a roundtable. Fellow marketers, please don’t do this. It makes it harder for me to get registrants when they have been talked at for two hours at every other “roundtable” they’ve attended.
What I watched this weekend
Netflix has been streaming Dinner Time Live with David Chang since late January this year. The format is pretty simple, he has two guests on and they chat and eat while Dave cooks dinner for them live. I love seeing the variety of dishes and the blend of professional techniques with cooking hacks that he employs. It’s also cool that we get to see his mistakes and mess-ups, which there are plenty of. So far my favorite guests have been Steven Yuen, Terry Crews, and Seth Rogan. It’s a perfect show to have on in the background while you’re cooking dinner or doing chores!
Marketing book I’m reading this weekend
I have been preaching about the importance of the relationship marketing has with the BDR team and Busting Silos by Hillary Carpio and Travis Henry demonstrates this perfectly. This great book deep dives into how data powerhouse Snowflake won many of its top customers through ABM campaigns that a united marketing and BDR function executed together. My biggest takeaway so far: spending time and energy tracking and being measured on which team sourced an opportunity is counterproductive and inaccurate. With the size of buying committees and number of touchpoints needed to win a deal in an enterprise organization, it takes the whole GTM team, marketing, biz development, and sales. Whichever attribution model you use, it won’t show the full picture and causes undesirable silos between teams.
My lessons from Muay Thai this week
On Friday night I had my bi-weekly sparring session and it was a tough one. I felt like I was getting hit more often, and harder than usual. My gym has a fun crew that are regulars at sparring class, and I’m definitely one of the worst ones, so I’m used to getting hit, but on Friday I was feeling on my backfoot the whole session. However after class, one of our coaches who was watching told me that he thinks I’m improving and I was flowing better than the last time he saw me. The lesson this reminded me of is that progress is hard to see when you’re in the thick of things, in challenging situations, you’re too close to the fight. You’re just focused on what’s happening there and then, trying to survive. But from an outside perspective, others can see the progress you are making. So next time you feel like you’re taking too many hits, take a step back, change your perspective, and you’ll be able to see how far you’ve come.
That’s all for this week, have a great week ahead!
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