YouShouldTalkTo - Jamie Walker

[00:00:00] Jamie Walker: Being a B2B marketer my whole entire life, there is a point in B2B scale where you wanna bring in people with B2C experience because they just have the chops and they know all of the details on how to run certain kind of assets, for me, it's paid performance for marketing. 

[00:00:53] Daniel Weiner: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the YouShouldTalkTo podcast. I am your host, I am your sponsor, I am all the things. YouShouldTalkTo pairs brands and marketers, for free, with vetted agencies and, or freelancers for virtually any marketing or tech need because finding great partners is a pain in the ass.

[00:01:09] Super excited to be joined today by Jamie Walker, who is a friend, I think at this point, but also EVP of Marketing at Keyfactor. Jamie, how are we?

[00:01:18] Jamie Walker: We are certainly friends now, Daniel, but 

[00:01:20] Daniel Weiner: That's good. 

[00:01:20] Jamie Walker: thank you, I am doing well, it's so nice to be here today.

[00:01:23] Daniel Weiner: Awesome. Let's jump right in. What is an unpopular opinion, or a hot take of sorts, that you have in the, uh, the marketing world?

[00:01:31] Jamie Walker: I have a lot of opinions, so, I think naturally I have a lot of that.

[00:01:33] Daniel Weiner: We've got, we've got the rest, we've got the rest of the day. So, lay it on.

[00:01:35] Jamie Walker: We could talk all day about that. I would say an unpopular opinion that I have currently is that brand drives demand. A lot of people say it's brand verse demand, and I truly believe that's not the case and one feeds the other, and I think, traditionally, I think maybe five, ten years ago, it was all about demand,

[00:01:55] I think even a lot of people still look at it, early-stage companies that are growing, it's all about demand. But people want to have more of a positive experience, and that's where kind of brand and reputation comes in, and eventually, you'll, you'll, you concede so much demand, right, from your systems and processes and strategies put in place,

[00:02:14] but people wanna have something unique, and I think that's where kind of the brand element comes in, something that's memorable, something that is personable at the same time, and I think that's where, like, brand, voice, and tone, and all those important aspects of brand come into place.

[00:02:27] Daniel Weiner: You're in good company. The last episode that I did was with, uh, Bryan Law, who is CMO of ZoomInfo, billion-dollar company, a few people have heard of, I presume, and he, his whole thing, it wasn't exactly what you said, but it was about being distinctive, like, everybody tries to, like, differentiate, but he was like, "You just need to stand out,

[00:02:43] like, nobody cares about, like, your different features and stuff like that if you give that positive experience, and yeah, leave, leave people with a, uh, a memorable, uh, you know, experience with your brand in general." What, what's your 2 cents for a brand that doesn't have, 

[00:02:56] you know, I've heard of Keyfactor a ton, uh, you know, being here in Atlanta and stuff like that, but what's your, I guess, advice if a brand doesn't have name power, lean heavier into the experience?

[00:03:07] Jamie Walker: Yeah, you have to lean heavily into the experience, and I think it's a little bit, depends on the type of company you work for, what stage growth you're at because a lot of times marketing is very much measured on numbers, they're not necessarily me measured on more of the, the high-level metrics that brand is generally associated with.

[00:03:22] So, one thing that I've always done, I would say, being at Keyfactor is we, well, first of all, we heavily invest in our brand, over the past nine months here. So, that was an active project that we had not kind of gone as deep into as far as brand, voice, and tone, mission and vision. So, we have just kind of completed that before that.

[00:03:41] I would try to make sure that I was investing portions of our budget into making sure that we had more of the awareness kind of brand, brand-level messaging to support some of demand campaigns. So, I've always done that, but I'm, again, focusing on making sure that I'm meeting my demand metrics, if you're not meeting your demand metrics, it becomes very, very hard to vouch for why you should be spending money elsewhere, so.

[00:04:04] Daniel Weiner: Now I'm just curious, I, I, I know I didn't even mention this prior, but what's your, what's your thoughts on attribution? I, well, what you just said made me think, I'm like, I wonder if Jamie thinks it's all BS, I'm just curious.

[00:04:15] Jamie Walker: I don't, I don't, and that could have been another unpopular opinion 'cause most people think it's all BS and I, I really don't. Uh, here at Keyfactor we have, we have a pretty robust attribution model that we have built within Domo. So, we are not even using more traditional marketing, I would say, tool sets to do that.

[00:04:33] So, we use a BI tool, and we first started our attribution on kind of equally weighted channel distribution, we look at things over a, a very specific time period to look at influence on driving the opportunity. But, man, I just kinda lost my thought a little bit, but multi-touch, 

[00:04:49] but now we're into multi-touch and we're actually looking at, we have so much conversion history that we were able to go and kind of, uh, evolve our model to actually look at the indicators of in the buyer journey, where we were seeing the success,

[00:05:02] for us it's 90 days before an opportunity based on our sales cycle. So, I believe in it, it is what is our guiding principle to set quarter, quarterly targets against channel to hold the team accountable, and for us it's a system we've created that, that works well for us, it potentially couldn't work well for an organization, but it has not, our attribution model has always led me to success, is what I'll say.

[00:05:24] Daniel Weiner: That's great, I don't, to be clear, I don't think all attribution's BS, I think marketers that I talk to a lot are, like, obsess and they forget sometimes to do the cool stuff, like, if you just immediately try to measure legitimately everything, oftentimes, I don't know, you, the, the creativity dies if you think you can't track something, you know, or attribute it to a certain metric.

[00:05:44] But, um, you've spent the vast majority of your career on the B2B marketing side, the last few key factor, talk a little bit about that journey, and particularly, like, what's the biggest shift you've seen in the last couple years in terms of, like, consumer behavior?

[00:05:59] Jamie Walker: Yeah, no, that's a really good question. So, it's definitely been a journey to say the least, I think, uh, for any marketer, whether it's a journey in a year or a journey in, you know, 17 years, but, uh,

[00:06:08] Daniel Weiner: We had a pandemic in there at some point, too.

[00:06:10] Jamie Walker: there's a whole thing, that, that just is, the whole evolution of my time at Keyfactor has been in pandemic, post-pandemic, and now it's, like, post post-pandemic.

[00:06:18] So, there's a lot of, uh, a lot of involvement, but before I was with Keyfactor, I spent a lot of time, uh, in the healthcare IT space. And then, I shifted more into the SaaS kind of for high-growth companies. And I would say consumer behavior, in general, is completely different in healthcare IT than it is in the SaaS world.

[00:06:35] But if I were to isolate just kind of my, as I was sharing earlier my time at Key Factor over the past three years, I would say it's the attention span that's lowering, and you'll hear people talk about this all the time, the inspe, tension span that people have, everyone is so busy, everyone's in a very connected world in general

[00:06:51] where we're getting, you know, we're getting stuff fed to us at any given moment, that people want something new, they wanna feel a new experience, and I think that's something that through the COVID, error and then post, we saw, you know, people wanted a different experience from a virtual standpoint and that was completely new to marketers,

[00:07:07] and we all, you know, I think, for the most part, we did a pretty great job figuring out how to do that, and the birth of new companies and new opportunities to kind of tag along was also a benefit, uh, for us. But now it's more along the lines of how do we create these micro experiences in person? So, now that we're back in person, now it's all about what can we do, um, to stand away from the crowd?

[00:07:30] So, I guess to be a little distinctive against the masses 'cause, you know, we're in cybersecurity, there's a lot of, we have main players in our space, but that, the sector and it's, it's becoming very noisy. So, how can you differentiate yourself in a way that provides a positive experience that might not necessarily, and this is my caveat,

[00:07:48] be related to talking to the sales team right away. So, you gotta have that short-term game, mid-term game, and long-term game, and those have to be different experiences that you measure in a different way. So, that's what I would say, try to get people's attention span in different ways depending on where they're at and, you know, how they wanna be kind of associated with your business.

[00:08:07] Daniel Weiner: I think overall most, uh, companies I see suck at playing the game in general 'cause, to your point, they do, like, one thing and then they rush that like, "Oh, let's talk about sale," and like, they forget they did a good job to get them interested and stuff, and then they just shove sales down their throat.

[00:08:21] Uh, and I think overall, like, that's why I think it's harder at a company, truthfully, like, I have the luxury of being a one-person company, so I can think long term and for virtually everything that I want to, uh, at a company with quotas and boards and stuff, I feel for 'em, but like, I don't know how you can be successful like that if you are thinking short, like, once we do one thing good, we have to get them to sales.

[00:08:42] Jamie Walker: Yeah, I mean, that's just also your alignment with, like, your business leaders, your executives, and it's painting, you know, it's painting that vision, it's aligning on that vision, and so it's something we just have always done really well, we have great leadership over here, so being able to, I always speak and

[00:08:59] even when I do kind of my strategic planning for the year, there's, we have three different kind of subgroups of how goals fit into and how we're gonna measure whether it's short-term success and long-term success, and that's how I speak about it. So, just kind of laying the foundation for when you see these

[00:09:15] activities, this is what it's driving towards, and when you see these activities, basically a lot of our short-term things will go towards driving opportunities and long-term things about investing in over, in accounts over time. So, different tactics for different categories.

[00:09:30] Daniel Weiner: Sure. With economy and flux and, you know, the, the dreaded R word, uh, coming up a bunch, what's your overall advice to other marketing leaders, VPs, CMOs? Just how to get through this, you know, discretionary spending is potentially lower, people are maybe not looking at new things. What's the overall, uh, your 2 cents there?

[00:09:52] Jamie Walker: My 2 cents is always figure out how to focus on efficiency, and I know that's something that people say all the time, but being efficient with what you have because I think, in general, people aren't getting more, whether that's more budget or more resources, and if you're really lucky, which I feel really lucky, we're, we have stagnant resources, but we're not getting a lot of more resources to be able to, you know, and work within our growth, high-growth mode.

[00:10:18] So, we still have to drive more results than we did last year, which means we need to just focus on what's working really well and continue to focusing on what's working well. And so, a lot of times, and even me, like, the create, you talk, we talked about the creativity, sometimes you wanna be creative and experiment,

[00:10:35] and I think there's a place, there's always a place for experimentation, but in a world we're in now where you want your team only focusing on the things that are driving the right result for the team and the business, then you have to be micro-focused. So, for, for us, it's more about how are we getting the most out of our tools and systems,

[00:10:52] I know, I mean, maybe shameful to say that's not something we always had, like, the most, um, we were paying the most attention to, but these are the things as we're looking at everything we do, what is that return? How are we measuring it? 

[00:11:04] Because we can look at things and aren't driving the value that we need now, and we stopped doing those because it's just not a use of time. So, really working on efficiency and, and spend, but also efficiency and resources are the things I talk about every single day.

[00:11:19] Daniel Weiner: It's a good time for an attribution model to work, you know?

[00:11:21] Jamie Walker: Isn't it? I know, right? Because it, it's, it leads you to the water.

[00:11:26] Daniel Weiner: We, we joked about having a martini together at 11 in the morning for this, and if we were going to do that, which we're not, this would be the portion now, we get to talk some shit about agencies, uh, which is what I do most of the day, um, over, overall opinion, 'cause I know you got strong opinions and you've had a ton of experience with them. What's your overall opinion on agencies and how do they fit into the ecosystem of Keyfactor currently?

[00:11:47] Jamie Walker: Yeah, I think my overall opinion on agencies is that they are absolutely needed for any company that is in startup or scale-up growth mode, you cannot, back to efficiency, you drive efficiency when you work with efficient partners like agencies, so they're a big part of, I guess, the, there are extensions of our team here at Keyfactor, so, um, we've had some success.

[00:12:10] We've had some failures, I think it's the nature of the game, but my also, my thing was, it's always been is f, work with agencies that specialize in something really, really great, and I truly do believe, and maybe this is, an unpopular, another unpopular opinion that there, the, the vision of let's find one agency to be our full-service partner and they're gonna do X, Y, Z,

[00:12:31] I just don't nec, necessarily feel like that's the world in which marketing and agency usage falls into anymore. So, I've always been a promo, proponent to it, although it's hard to manage, like, we have multiple agencies and consultants that we need to manage at scale so that they can drive the results that we expect from them.

[00:12:49] So, you need to make sure that that, you have a person who's owning that, that they're building that relationship and that, um, they are aligned on the goals and the outcomes. So, they're a huge part of what we do here at Keyfactor. 

[00:13:00] I'm more involved, I would say at this time, I'm more involved on the, you know, being really in tune with our PR agency just because we're looking as we've kind of revamped our brand and we're looking at expanding within our category,

[00:13:13] those are the things that are a little bit more top of mind for me and making sure that I have strong alignment with our, basically, we have multiple peer agencies globally that I wanna make sure that everyone's kind of driving in line. So, that's where I've been focusing a lot.

[00:13:25] Daniel Weiner: Sure. Most folks with your title that I chat with are getting hit up legitimately every 12 seconds, um, is that the case for you, agencies, vendors, all the things?

[00:13:35] Jamie Walker: All the things, all the things every day, I just, and I, you know, I'm also one that, if someone, if an SDR sent me a really great email or I got, I'm also like, because I always say I'm in the mind of a marketer at all times in any given moment of my day, I always think about the consumer behavior, but it's become a little, like, I just ignore it,

[00:13:55] like, I ignore my phone, I ignore my email, and to this point now even I have to say to people that I want to, like, please call me, please text me, because it's just one of those things where there's so much noise that I've gotten almost tuned to completely blocking it out.

[00:14:12] Daniel Weiner: The good stuff gets lumped in with the bad because there's so much bad, so even good outreach gets hidden.

[00:14:17] Jamie Walker: Yeah, but I'm also, like, it goes down to when people are, you know, prospecting me to look at, you know, a tool or something that, you know, my VP that I'm kind of like, "Well, you should, you know, don't you kind of have an idea of where I might be involved in that?" Versus "I'm not, you know, my VP, that's who you should be talking to." but at the same time, if you get your, you can get your, uh, your segments correct, you will definitely be able to get my ear.

[00:14:41] Daniel Weiner: So, I'm curious, to that point, is there anything, if you're not in buying mode, is there anything, somebody, particularly in the agency world, like, can some, that somebody can say in a cold outreach that, you know, I don't know, interests you enough to take a call even when you're not in buying mode? 

[00:14:56] You know, you brought a PR, could a PR agency send you something right now that would be so, I, I take the opinion usually not, like, there's not a wrong answer, but I hear from most, like, eh, not really, I'm getting 700 messages a day, like, until I'm in buying mode, it's just not gonna work.

[00:15:11] Jamie Walker: Yeah, not really, I mean, because not, no, because at this point, if I'm not in buying mode, I don't have budget, then I already have, you know, three meetings that are overbooked on my calendar that I'm trying to prioritize in any given day. So, it just doesn't necessarily makes sense.

[00:15:25] Daniel Weiner: That's what I'm here, that's what I'm here for, you're like, "Danny, Danny, who do we hire?" I'm like, "Hire these people, it's."

[00:15:29] Jamie Walker: I know, that's why we go to you, I'm like, okay, I need help, I need to streamline it, like, and, you know, that's the other thing, where do I, where do I find my agencies? I find my agencies mostly through word of mouth, right? It's like, I invest, um, some of the little time that I have into a couple different communities and the communities become kind of trusted allies into, 

[00:15:48] we all have issues that are generally surrounding the same thing and people are offering solutions, there's always, you know, we're all solution-oriented. So, I think that's kind of how I found you, I had, you know, someone had recommended we talk, I, we're both in Atlanta. So, that's kind of where, where it all began.

[00:16:05] Daniel Weiner: You made an interesting point, you came to the dinner that I hosted a couple weeks back, which, uh, was split 10 B2B, 10 B2C marketing leaders in Atlanta. And I thought it was interesting, you just mentioned people having the same problems, and I found it interesting at that dinner, uh, different companies, different verticals, B2B, B2C, significantly different stages of company and everybody's dealing with the same shit,

[00:16:24] it sounded like, you know, different scales, truthfully, but like, I thought that was telling, a lot of, like, the folks I chatted with prior, they were like, "Oh, I've never been to a dinner that really mixed B2B and B2C." Which I guess is just not the norm, um, and yeah, it was interesting to hear that. Can you talk about that a little bit? Just even that experience?

[00:16:41] Jamie Walker: Yeah. Well, first of all, the dinner was, that was the first time I had gone to an in-person kind of executive style function in probably two years. So, it's, but that's more on me and investing the time. So, it was wonderful, I would say I, I was speaking mostly on the B2B, B2B, I was kind of surrounded by, uh, other B2B CMOs, but for me, I'm always curious 'cause

[00:17:04] B2C CMOs, yes, we have, there's different levels of, you know, problems doing the business, whether it's cutbacks or, you know, budgets or whatever, buy-in, whatever it might be. But there's also, like, B2C, I'm always fascinated by listening to B2C marketing leaders because they are,

[00:17:20] they're probably in a digital space that's so much more in-depth than any B2B marker, uh, B2B CMO. So, it's really interesting, their consumer behavior and how they react has to be so much quicker, so much more relevant. And so, if anything, you should do another one maybe in, like, six months, and then.

[00:17:40] Daniel Weiner: I'm, I'm, I'm doing one, I'm doing one in June, Jamie.

[00:17:42] Jamie Walker: Oh, you're doing in June. But I also found myself, like, I had wished that I had done a little bit more networking, so listening to them speak as we were going on the table was just fascinating to me.

[00:17:50] But now I'm like, man, I would just love to, for me, I, I always learn through kind of listening to others and just through experience myself and reading, but, uh, it's always great to, there's, there's so much to learn, I think, from different side, from each side of the table.

[00:18:03] Daniel Weiner: Well, I think you have all their contact information, everybody's been connecting behind the scenes. So, truthfully, if you reached out to any of them, I presume they would, uh, be happy to have coffee with you.

[00:18:12] Jamie Walker: More coffee.

[00:18:13] Daniel Weiner: I know, or martinis, whatever you want to do.

[00:18:15] Jamie Walker: Martinis, coffee, wine.

[00:18:17] Daniel Weiner: I'm curious with, when you are in buying mode and you're looking for agencies in general, what are you looking for? Like, how can a vendor, you know, you've said you've roped in five agencies or three agencies or something, you have an initial chat? What are you looking for and how can they stand out during that process?

[00:18:34] Jamie Walker: Hmm, I don't know if this is unpopular, but for me, I always wanna find an agency where we have share, like, the goals that I'm trying to achieve, that they can communicate their success via working with companies like us that are in a similar space. And so, that's where the proof point comes in.

[00:18:53] So, I also think it's valuable when I'm, 'cause a lot of agencies are small. I like when an agency, they'll always bring their founder or their CEO, but I also get a little bit more vis, I like the visibility of someone who's gonna be working with me, like, kind of boots on ground, and seeing how they operate, because a lot of times, traditionally, if you go from a CEO, you CEO sales cycle all the way to a whole other new team, then it feels like you're starting the relationship from scratch and you didn't build that trust.

[00:19:21] And so, I definitely look for the, the team on the other side that they bring to the table and how they, how, how early do they bring those people in 'cause that tells me a lot about the involvement and kind of just how they work, um, behind the scenes, uh, as far as sticking out, I generally look to vet agencies that, again, proven past, past performance is a predictor of future behavior.

[00:19:42] Um, I do my own kind of vetting behind the scenes, too. And so, a lot of times it's helpful if they recommend that I talk to someone, talk to a client, so it's not just a case study or PDF that is put over that I can read about a success story, I can actually talk to someone, and not everyone does that, and I think that's more of a

[00:19:59] truthful proof point than anything, than you could ever get when you're in the vetting process. So, those are kind of the things that I, that I look for. And again, making sure that transparency is another big time, I'm a very, very direct person and I can see through anyone trying to sell me something.

[00:20:16] Give me FOMO, though, give me FOMO on that, I mean, that's probably the trick to selling to me is just make me feel like everyone else is doing it, so I wanna do it. But no, jokes aside, uh, transparency is really key, and you can see when someone's very genuine and transparent about their capabilities through a sales cycle, you're not just going through some standard pitch deck that isn't customized to your needs and what you're looking for.

[00:20:37] Daniel Weiner: It's funny, your episode, I think this will be 27 by the time it airs, and like, I get such different answers, split down the middle for certain things that you mentioned. The first one, I'm just curious 'cause I take, I know I look at it from a different lens of you being in it. There's two things you mentioned that I'm just curious.

[00:20:52] Like, one was when they put you on the phone with clients 'cause my, my question to that is, what are they gonna put you on the phone with people who hate them, you know, like, of course they're gonna send their praises.

[00:21:00] Jamie Walker: Yeah. It's like a resume.

[00:21:02] Daniel Weiner: The thing on the first part I'm curious, like, is, I talk about it a lot in particular with, like, performance marketing with folk, they're like, oh, and they, like, lay out what they want, and I'm like, that defines, like, three companies and it's your competitors, like, do you want an agency that's worked with? 

[00:21:16] And they're like, yeah, who've done the exact thing. And I'm like, you know, genuinely I want, like, platform experience as it pertains to performance marketing, and it just depends. I'm curious, that, some people really want it, like, when I'm talking to B2B, they want folks who have such specific experience.

[00:21:31] I think a lot of the stuff starts looking and feeling the same, like, if you're working with only call, like, cybersecurity companies, I'm curious, like, do you feel you're not getting, to your point of, like, interacting with B2C

[00:21:43] marketers and stuff. Do you feel you're not getting like a breadth of experience potentially from an agency if they only work with a particular vertical in a, in a specific space?

[00:21:53] Jamie Walker: Yeah, I think I just, you and I don't have to agree to disagree on that because

[00:21:57] Daniel Weiner: No, we can, that's, that's good, I don't want everybody to agree with me, that's a good thing.

[00:22:01] Jamie Walker: uh, I think it depends on your space, cybersecurity, like, so, we're, we're, you know, we're in the digital identity space, so we're in a very small niche of a, we're on the, the identity of the identity and access management spectrum.

[00:22:13] So, very small subset. So, when it comes to targeting those people, it becomes a very niche thing. And so, I do want people that, like, when I went to go, I think it's different on performance marketing than versus a PR agency. Do you want a PR agency that has a lot of 

[00:22:27] Daniel Weiner: Who has the connections, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[00:22:27] Jamie Walker: deep, wide experience in cybersecurity because they know the reporters, they know the analysts, they know, they, they know, they,

[00:22:34] Daniel Weiner: We, we agree there. I'm with you there. 

[00:22:35] Jamie Walker: we have a footprint, on the digital performance side, I, I guess from my viewpoint, I always want people with experience.

[00:22:42] Daniel Weiner: It feels, it feels, it feels safer, yeah, it feels safer as well.

[00:22:44] Jamie Walker: I guess it feels safer, but it feels safer, but it also, but I, one, I think the caveat to this, it's not just cybersecurity, it's a company that has, they've worked with, that they've scaled and they've grown with, they've grown with, because it's not just okay, I mean, you could have another, like, company and an, an adjacent space in cyber that isn't growing, that doesn't help what I'm trying to achieve with working with an agency or a partner to support my, my growth goals.

[00:23:09] And so, I think that's the other thing I'm always a little bit of, like, I, I like to look at, like, I'm in, we're in the process of actually starting with a new paid, paid agency for social, very micro niche, it's like, okay, before we were looking for some, someone that kind of did both segments and some advertising.

[00:23:26] Now we want just one thing because, you know, luckily I was able, I, we hired someone with a really, really strong skill set that came from the agency background, which I will say, as being a B2B marketer my whole entire life, there is a point in B2B scale where you wanna bring in people with B2C experience because they just have the chops and they know all of the details on how to run certain kind of assets.

[00:23:49] For me, it's paid performance, uh, for marketing. But anyway, I went and I found them through a community, um, through a recommendation, and it was what, their credibility, I think, to me before I even, my team got on the phone with them, was the companies that they worked with that I have seen grow in away from, like, their social footprint to over time,

[00:24:13] like, that's exactly what I want, and I've actually seen it proven through looking from a very, very open lens viewpoint that I have to their company 'cause I'm not completely immersed in their company. But that's what, visually that's what I see us, me wanting Keyfactor to be. So, they've already kind of proven that they clearly have doing something well to achieve those outcomes.

[00:24:34] And then when I back channel and I talk to their VP who've said they're amazing, then it kind of already, like, again, word of mouth is what really sells these days, and it's, 

[00:24:44] Daniel Weiner: I'm with you.

[00:24:44] Jamie Walker: you know, a lot of people don't have a lot of time to, you know, invest a lot of time, money 'cause, again, you have to invest in an agency relationship from the vendor side just as much from the agency side for it to be successful. So, now it's like, time is money, right, for anyone, now it's really money, so.

[00:25:00] Daniel Weiner: I think the biggest interesting point, like, there's not a right or wrong, it's knowing your audience, like, what you want is different from another VP, from another VP, from another CMO, and it's interesting, there was a thread on LinkedIn recently and I heard from other people as well that I help.

[00:25:12] You had mentioned, like, you like when multiple team members come to a call, which I am a huge proponent of on the front end, I want you to think that they want your business as an agency, you know, I think it's a good. I hear, the, the thread on LinkedIn was from a CMO, I can't remember where,

[00:25:27] I wanna say it was B2B, but it was, like, if an agency brings multiple people to a first call, I assume they're bad at, like, resource allocation and they're, like, wasteful with time spending and stuff like that. And I was like, I think that's a bit of a stretch.

[00:25:41] Jamie Walker: That's a viewpoint.

[00:25:43] Daniel Weiner: I know, I hear, I do hear mix, so, I do hear, like, oh, on the first call sometimes, like, I had a recent thing where, uh, I introduced three agencies and one of them brought the five members of the executive team, they were really pumped about the opportunity, and the brand had mentioned something about like, "Oh, it felt like a little thirsty."

[00:25:58] I'm like, I'd rather thirsty than not prepared, and like, not acting like they want your business, it's a slippery slope. But yeah, to your point, like, knowing your audience is crucial.

[00:26:09] Jamie Walker: Yeah, I mean, well, I might have to agree if they, you brought five executives to a paid performance intro call then, but if you brought your account manager

[00:26:18] Daniel Weiner: It's a big brand with a

[00:26:19] Jamie Walker: and front lines people, then it changes a bit, so.

[00:26:23] Daniel Weiner: Yeah, I think with what I see with big brands and big logos, they get pitched so much that, that people want to stand up by showing how much they do care about potentially winning it. So, I don't know, I have mixed, mixed feelings on that, I'll, I'll have to report back on that as I, uh, I do this more. How do you think that you get the best out of your agencies in general?

[00:26:44] Jamie Walker: Well, again, my judge of, if something's going well, generally goes down to the goals that we set together and our ability to achieve them. So, I think that the beginning part as, and this is more in the onboarding phase, I mean, we vet how do you, how do you, what metrics do you track? What are the, what are the sort of reports we're gonna get?

[00:27:04] Visibility, like, you do all those things kind of in the sales cycle and make sure that you're aligned on, do our systems match with each other? Can we integrate together to be able to get the visibility we need? So, then it becomes into setting the stage for what those goals are and what it takes to achieve those goals.

[00:27:20] And I think this is, you know, pretty standard stuff in getting any engagement, but it's also, for a vendor, I would say the vendor has to kind of meet an, an agency halfway. So, we need to educate the agency in our space, especially in the world I'm in now, it's not just cyber, it's, it's the niche that Keyfactor's in specific, it's very, very technical sales cycle,

[00:27:39] it's not something that anyone, even, even when we hire people into the business, there's a learning curve to learn what Keyfactor does to be able to sell it, to market, to, to write content about it, all of that is a learning curve. So, imagine an agency who's only spending a fraction of that time to be able to drive the success you want.

[00:27:54] So, we have to learn and share. So, we have to provide that guidance and make sure that they have the understanding, so that means bringing time and resources, potentially that aren't even part of, paid performance to the table to make sure that we're doing our part by 

[00:28:07] educating our agency what our buyers need, how they relate, um, what are our use cases and where do we win so they have an understanding at the highest level so that they can build programs that kind of feed into that.

[00:28:19] So, I think there's a, there's definitely an education point aligning on goals and then, for me, for an agency to be successful because I, I guess I'll take learnings from where I, I didn't feel like the relationship went that well was, oh, there's a lot of talk, but not a lot of action that follows, them saying, "Okay, we're gonna do this,

[00:28:39] and here's a strategic." A lot of people have these, they build these strategic plans and their PowerPoints, and they look beautiful. And then there's the reality of executing against those and making changes and making recommendations and having real-time, and I think sometimes there's a little bit of a disconnect between the vendor side and the agency side of

[00:28:57] how much should you be spending into, you know, working on the account when you have a, you know, five other accounts that you're in charge of. And so, I think vendors always want more than they're probably paying for, but I think it's the agencies that at least keep top of mind and try to do the work that it takes to drive the program to be successful upfront so that there's a lot of work upfront,

[00:29:17] but if you do that right and you're aligned with the company, then, then I feel like that's, that's what a vendor needs from the beginning, because again, you're not, you're not hiring an FTE, there's a reason why you're using an agency to support this segment of, of your team, but you also wanna make sure that they're working with you,

[00:29:33] you wanna make sure there's a partnership there, and it's not just a, you know, I think you should do this, but I'm not gonna support you and you to, you know, it, it becomes from just being really transparent about what the goals are and how we're gonna get there.

[00:29:45] Daniel Weiner: Yeah, you will get into the positive, negative experiences here in a sec. I'm curious, you alluded to it earlier in the beginning, I've seen a big shift, especially since COVID, a little before, probably because I came from a small agency of, uh, call it, quote-unquote, bigger, which is relative brands moving towards specialized agencies that do, like, one to two things really well.

[00:30:04] You know, you mentioned you guys are similar to that. I'm curious, is it like just the, to wrap your arms around it, is it, it's, it's worth it it sounds like for you all in that context to have multiple specialists, even though it might take more to manage multiple partners.

[00:30:18] Jamie Walker: Yeah, I think, depending on the team, I mean, my team, there's, you know, there's the campaigns team that might need an agency to scale a certain aspect of campaigns, it's completely different than our needing a, a, a performance agency to run our, uh, PPC or our paid social. So, to me it's more of using it within, like, we even use consultants to, to, to add onto our, our, we have a high volume of campaigns that are going on compared to people.

[00:30:45] And so, we use consultants and agencies to scale those. But you got, you, you ha, as much as it is more, you have to, I assign people to manage those, I assign, it's part of their rules and responsibilities to, yeah, because you can't, it's, it's also on that person who, who guides the agency, I don't wanna say manages,

[00:31:06] they guide the agency to success, it's their job to do that. So, I think there's a lot of, even when we have spend on marketing technology here, like, someone owns it, yes, marketing OP owns it, but then there's another person or another team member that kind of owns the success, it's a shared success within the tools, just like it's shared success within making sure that

[00:31:27] the agency partner is managed. So, I'm definitely a proponent, I don't, we wouldn't be able to, you know, we've been in 50% growth mode for the past three years, it's almost, like, hair on fire, crazy growth, but we wouldn't be able to do that with our partners, with our agency partners, we just absolutely would not be able to do that, um, with just FTEs, so.

[00:31:45] Daniel Weiner: I like the distinction you made, too, I don't hear that often of guiding the agency versus, uh, managing the agency, uh, semantics. But I think that's actually a really good point of, uh, how to get good out of your agency is to not necessarily manage them and to mutually guide each other towards, uh, shared goals and success.

[00:32:03] Jamie Walker: Yeah, I think it's being, like, really, really open about your expectations. And so, even just in leadership, like, you have to, I always feel you guide and shepherd people's success and in multi, in multiple different ways if you set the right objectives and you're transparent about what the outcomes, 'cause sometimes I can't just say I want this outcome and I'm not willing to, to at least educate and be part of shepherding, at least to a point where there's a handoff to be able to drive that.

[00:32:30] So, I always, I guess, for better or for worse, I always take ownership into, I'm always the one that wants to start new things and new initiatives that I can't just say, okay, I wanna do this, and I step back, okay, I wanna do this, and then here's where I'm along,

[00:32:43] so that the, the, the idea, kind of the expectations are set, we're aligned, and then it kind of takes off from there, whether it's within my team or within an agency, I do believe that there's guiding that always needs to be done.

[00:32:54] Daniel Weiner: Sure. Fill me in on a positive agency experience you've had, either at Keyfactor or previous, and what made it so positive for such a positive experience, I should say.

[00:33:03] Jamie Walker: I would say, I've had a long, I mean, I guess I'm probably gonna go on, on, I'm less in the paid side just because I'm not the one that has, you know, owned that through and through.

[00:33:13] Daniel Weiner: Any, any, any agency, any service.

[00:33:15] Jamie Walker: I guess a positive experience I've had is more on the PR side and it's just, there's, we ha, I have a, and I think it's why it's been so positive, is I have a monthly or quarterly touchpoint with my, basically SVP that's on the account, on the, on the agency side, and

[00:33:32] that person and I, I think our, our mindsets align very well, to begin with, on kind of, like, a no BS, there's a no BS, there's no sugarcoating, we call a spade a spade, is like, the, uh, epiphany of what I believe at all times in my business and personal life because sometimes you need to sugarcoat something in order to not offend people, but then that just comes to be able to do it tactfully, but

[00:33:56] Daniel Weiner: That's why we, that's why we get along, Jamie. 

[00:33:57] Jamie Walker: Yeah, right? But I think that we have a touchpoint so that she can share, like, it's important that I am a listener, you gotta be a listener, you can't, I always take ownership for myself and our team and what we're bringing or not bringing into the table that's causing something to be great. 

[00:34:13] So, for this instance, there's, you know, we're, I'm being receptive to how my, myself or my team can be better to even drive that 'cause we're driving really great results.

[00:34:22] So, it's a positive relationship because the money we're investing is going, and it's driving the outcomes that we want. And now we're expanding with them and we're giving them more ownership of our program at a global scale. And so, there's trust, and there's just trust that needs to be developed,

[00:34:37] and I think that trust has been developed and it's been a positive relationship because that SVP has really done a great job in just making sure that she's transparent on how we can be better, and I always, like, I'm always in a game of how to win, like, I think I have a very much of a winning mentality.

[00:34:52] So, to have a winning mentality, you always have to understand where you can be better. And so, I want people to always tell me where I can be better, or my team can be better, or where I can help drive more strategic alignment in the company so we as a company can be better in this certain thing. And so, I think without having transparency and directness out of those key relationships, I don't think that we would be where we are now.

[00:35:13] So, it's being able to have those, those feedback loops, um, that has been, why the engagement has been just a success from the beginning, and I think we're going on, we've been a year and a half and everything is kind of up and to the right as far as, you know, how we're working together to drive the outcomes that we need for Keyfactor.

[00:35:31] Daniel Weiner: I think it's interesting, I won't put you on the spot and directly ask it, but I had posted yesterday actually about, like, how, you know, you can back channel, you can do all the things we talked about when hiring an agency, you can look at case studies, all the things, but ultimately it just comes down to who do you trust, right?

[00:35:44] And it's usually, like, one person or a couple people who you trust to do what they say 'cause a team's executing and, and that's your person, you know? And I hear most of that from people, like, you know, when people change agencies, oftentimes it is like, to your point, which is why I won't directly ask you, like, that SVP, you know, like, oh, they left, and yeah, everything just changed.

[00:36:02] Which is why, like, I don't know if it's an unpopular opinion to me, like, I don't think any agency is, quote-unquote, the best, uh, there's better for you in specific situations, but it's people in process for everything, like, the people you're working with, 

[00:36:14] Jamie Walker: Everything.

[00:36:14] Daniel Weiner: the people you trust, like, if that person, you know, if they decided to move on somewhere in their career, like, your experience doesn't necessarily change for the words, but it changes a hundred percent, maybe there's somebody who's better or the exact same, right? But like, I think people or agencies I talk to, new ones when I'm vetting them oftentimes,

[00:36:31] they over-index for the actual work, which is my unpopular opinion, like, they tell me about how good these res, I'm like, If I can't have a normal conversation with you, you think I'm gonna put you on the phone with a client, like, or a prospect, you know, like, that's what I'm thinking in the back of my head half the time, like, man, Jamie would hate this person,

[00:36:47] or like, they wouldn't get along, personality, you don't get good work out of people you don't mesh well with, and to your point, you said you all are on the same, you know, wavelength and you think the same and you, or you're honest with each other, like, all of those things are how you get to the really good work, so.

[00:37:02] Jamie Walker: Yeah, I mean it's, yeah, trust is, if there's no trust, you're not going to get very far with, I don't wanna say anything, but with a lot of things in life.

[00:37:11] Daniel Weiner: When people are evaluating multiple agencies and they get to the end, and they can't make the stead, you know, like, they're not a hundred percent sold in one direction, I'm usually like, who do you trust to pick up the phone at, like, eight o'clock at night on a Friday? If I also believe there's presumably, usually no marketing emergencies, but I don't know, let's call it an e-commerce thing, and the website goes down or something crazy like that

[00:37:30] Jamie Walker: Could be, it could be an emergency, yeah.

[00:37:31] Daniel Weiner: A hundred percent. Who do you trust to pick up the phone? If you shoot him a text and say, "This thing occurred and our business is in trouble," like, who do you trust to, to get back to you and not say, "We'll hit you up on Monday," you know?

[00:37:41] Jamie Walker: Yeah, and I, yeah, I tr, and, and now that you, I, after saying that, I think about the vetting process 'cause, you know, finding a peer urgency is no slow process, I will tell you that, especially at the scale we were looking for. But there were parts when we were going through that phase where I was like, we had some really great candidates,

[00:37:57] like, I, even to this day, I'm like, oh, you know, they would've probably been great to work with, but there was something about the one we chose that, and I think it was through, it was the transparency through the process of, like, this is what we do and this is what we do well. If a lot of people will say this and this is what you're look, this is what we don't do,

[00:38:17] being very clear about what you don't do is also, to me, very valuable and it sets the expectations early and on. And so, It's been very much, like, I think back to almost, what, two years ago when we first met them, that what they said is their work, and it's exactly how they work with them and exactly what you can expect 

[00:38:36] Daniel Weiner: That's great.

[00:38:37] Jamie Walker: and how, and especially in that, that form it's like, they're interacting with my CEO, they're interacting with, like, very high-level executives here, I also need to make sure that those personalities are a good fit and the expectations, um, how they work together,

[00:38:51] I can build the trust in the beginning, but they have to build that, that nether, that next kind of length of trust, esp, that's more on the PR world, I would say the digital world, you're not gonna be talking to the CEO, so it's a little bit different.

[00:39:01] Daniel Weiner: Usually, yeah. Talk me through a negative

[00:39:02] Jamie Walker: And if you are, it's a little 

[00:39:03] Daniel Weiner: experience, yeah, maybe you've done something right if you've got the CEO, yeah, yeah. Fill me in on the negative side. We will, uh, try not to cry here.

[00:39:09] Jamie Walker: Oh, the negative side is 

[00:39:11] Daniel Weiner: I know.

[00:39:12] Jamie Walker: just overpromise, underdeliver, changing people on the account. So, some of the times it's, like, and that happens, and I get it, but I think when

[00:39:22] Daniel Weiner: Not your problem, that's, that's,

[00:39:23] Jamie Walker: you are looking for 

[00:39:23] Daniel Weiner: that's a them problem, not a you problem, would be my answer. 

[00:39:26] Jamie Walker: I know, if you're looking, looking for, like, generally you're hiring an, you're hiring an agency for scout, or you're hiring an agency because you don't have that talent or that direction in, internally to be able to guide, but you can't just ignore it.

[00:39:37] So, I would say, earlier on, when we were looking for someone, we just didn't have someone in, in-house to be able to guide that, you know, to know to be the smartest person in that kind of specific area, I needed to lean to an agency in order to be that person. And so, where it hasn't worked out is when they had, just have

[00:39:53] very junior, and again, I don't know if there's any way, there's just very junior people that are learning and it's great, I always wanna, like, help and learn and grow people in their careers, but sometimes when you're working at a company that I need you to be moving as quick as we're moving or else isn't gonna work.

[00:40:10] And so, that's generally what's more about the person that's running and mana, not just managing the account, but actually managing the program, like, tactally man, tactically manage the program. When that person isn't as well versed and they're trying to overcompensate it for just saying all these words and coming up with all these plans to fix it, but it's not working,

[00:40:28] that's generally when I feel like I get to the place where I'm saying I never feel like I'm the smartest person in the room, ever, and I never generally wanna be the smartest person, I always wanna learn, grow, but if my spidey senses are telling me something's off, I guarantee, Daniel, I mean, I've been around the block long enough and the spidey senses in your gut and tuition is telling you something's not right.

[00:40:49] Daniel Weiner: I wouldn't dream of, Jamie, you scared the shit outta me, I wouldn't dream of messing with you, I've, I wouldn't even dream of trying to, to sugarcoat or bullshit something past you.

[00:40:59] Jamie Walker: I'm not scary.

[00:41:00] Daniel Weiner: You're not actually scary, but, you, you, you command a room, I wouldn't mess with you. Uh, the, the question to that, though, which is my favorite question this podcast, honest answer, please. Can, once the seed of doubt has been sewn, can a negative agency scenario be salvaged?

[00:41:20] Jamie Walker: Uh, only if it, there's the optimistic hat coming on. I mean, I think anything, there's some things that are, I would say maybe nine times outta ten, and that ten, that one time, uh, that 10% of the time I would say is when they can salvage it quickly.

[00:41:38] Because generally when things are going south, you, like, I'm always willing, like, just with anything, give people a chance, give a ch, chance to prove themselves that they can salvage it and show outcomes quickly, then yes, I truly do believe that it's salvageable, but I just haven't seen that happen really ever.

[00:41:56] Daniel Weiner: That's fair. What is the biggest thing you think agencies get wrong or something you wish they got right more times than not?

[00:42:04] Jamie Walker: I don't know, I would say, again, I just hate when agencies try to sell me for full service services 'cause I don't really, I just don't, where I'm at with the company I'm with and what we need, I just don't think it's full service, even though I know that's great to go, cast a wide net and, you know, try to get as much business you can, but I think that's, so people when they go too far umbrella, um, are a little too much.

[00:42:30] Just like, I mean, I went and I recently hired a brand agency and we were going through this brand project and it was just someone trying to sell me this and then this and this, and I ended up, and again, it's very niche, I want someone who's done just this really, really well, hopefully ever,

[00:42:44] it's not too ungodly expensive, but sometimes when you really want something and you want it to be done well, I mean, there's, there's, there's value in spending the money to get the, the, the result that you want. So, um, I think, I guess a long way of saying, Daniel, my answer is I think they get it wrong when they try to sell the whole kit in caboodle.

[00:43:03] Daniel Weiner: I like that answer. Uh, what are you most excited about or bullish on in the marketing space? You mentioned in-person events coming back, artificial intelligence is taking over the universe, apparently we're all jobs tomorrow.

[00:43:15] Jamie Walker: The universe,

[00:43:15] Daniel Weiner: What are you most excited about?

[00:43:16] Jamie Walker: you know, that's a, I'm actually, I'm ex, I don't think, I don't, I agree that artificial intelligence probably will eliminate jobs, we're seeing it all over the place, right? Big companies are already eliminating jobs, you know, just from the use of AI. But I, again, it goes back to the beginning when I was talking about efficiency.

[00:43:34] So, I'm super, I guess, bullish on how to drive more, how to get my team to drive more efficiency by educating them, uh, or providing, like, I've actually was thinking about this, you know, over the past week, uh, 'cause I think it was on a coffee talk, a community coffee talk about bringing in someone to kind of teach the, my team,

[00:43:53] like, here are these different tools you've using to maximize your, your output, I guess, 'cause again, I mean, we're in a scale up mode, it's some really high output and, you know, our, everyone's working really hard and they're just trying to get people to work more ef, uh, efficiently so they're not stressed and not kind of burnt out,

[00:44:08] and that's, I think a constant challenge that any marketing leader has is managing to outcomes, but also, you know, managing through, you know, stress and anxiety that just kind of a lot of people are experiencing in the world today.

[00:44:21] Daniel Weiner: That leads perfectly into my final work-related question of what keeps you up from my, uh, marketing or business standpoint at night?

[00:44:28] Jamie Walker: Oh, my gosh, I, I feel like I'm always wanting to be one step ahead and I think the mentality of being one step ahead is becoming a little bit more harder because you're just trying to do more with less. And so, I think it's just, goes.

[00:44:41] Daniel Weiner: It's also impossible, most. 

[00:44:42] Jamie Walker: I know, but I think I always

[00:44:44] Daniel Weiner: Probably not, probably not healthy as long, yeah.

[00:44:46] Jamie Walker: No, I always say my, my habits might not be healthy for everyone. But I don't know, it's just, um, you know, we're in, we're in interesting times, I'd say, in the market, there's a lot of, you know, companies where, you know, a lot of companies are, you know, mo, reversing versus moving forward and we're trying to just keep the same momentum and it just comes down to the efficiency piece,

[00:45:06] it's like, maintaining efficiency and maintaining stress at scale, we have to maintain scale, uh, and growth with the same amount, you know, that we've ha, that we had before when our, you know, the growth numbers were, were smaller. 

[00:45:21] So, I think those are the things, it's just, I always care about people's wellbeing, um, as anyone on my team, as employees, as people, and so, I say that's for my more emotional side of my personality, kind of leans in more, and what probably keeps me up and just making sure, I wanna keep people happy, motivated, and positive. And sometimes, that can be challenging.

[00:45:41] Daniel Weiner: I know some of your employees and they've always told me good things, so unless they're lying to me, uh, never

[00:45:44] Jamie Walker: Well, that's good. That's good.

[00:45:47] Daniel Weiner: heard anything bad. So, um, yeah, we, I hope you have boundaries in some capacity, I have terrible boundaries, but I hope you're at least sleeping well, uh, at night, but we'll finish with a, a couple fun ones. Uh, what was your very, very, very first job?

[00:45:59] Jamie Walker: Door-to-door insurance sales in rural, in rural Vermont.

[00:46:05] Daniel Weiner: How did that go? Is that why you're such a good salesperson now?

[00:46:08] Jamie Walker: Well, I'm not a really good salesperson. I'm just really good at making people...

[00:46:11] Daniel Weiner: What are you talking about? You're a world-class marketer, that's a good salesperson.

[00:46:14] Jamie Walker: Well, I'm good at influence, I'm good at influence.

[00:46:16] Daniel Weiner: Okay. There you go.

[00:46:17] Jamie Walker: But I don't, I'm not good at asking for, for the money, I'm not good at asking for the money, but, 

[00:46:20] Daniel Weiner: No? Okay.

[00:46:21] Jamie Walker: but, um, yeah.

[00:46:23] Daniel Weiner: That's the fun part.

[00:46:23] Jamie Walker: If I, I think if I was, if I was really good in sales, I'd probably be in sales.

[00:46:28] Daniel Weiner: I intertwine marketing and sales, truthfully, it's some, we're all selling something, so.

[00:46:32] Jamie Walker: Yeah, I guess so. Um, but yeah, door-to-door sales for 18 months, and then I transitioned into marketing.

[00:46:39] Daniel Weiner: Okay. That's good. I like that. Uh, what would your final meal be?

[00:46:43] Jamie Walker: A bottle of wine probably, I don't know, 

[00:46:46] Daniel Weiner: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:46:46] Jamie Walker: or like, a bloomin' onion from the Outback, something...

[00:46:49] Daniel Weiner: A bloomin' onion, Jamie? You've got one meal left and you chose a bloomin' onion and a bottle of wine? I like that, that's a hell of an answer.

[00:46:56] Jamie Walker: I, um, there's just some things, like I, even now my husband, he's just, whenever, like, you know what Outback Steakhouse is, it's like the most, like, traditional chain food restaurant.

[00:47:08] Daniel Weiner: Maybe I can get Outback to sponsor this episode. I'm gonna reach out to them,

[00:47:11] Jamie Walker: I know, right?

[00:47:11] Daniel Weiner: I got a good excuse

[00:47:13] Jamie Walker: Are you, now I feel a little embarrassed, but whatever, I love a good, I love a good outback bloomin' onion with a salad any day.

[00:47:18] Daniel Weiner: We are not here to food shame, I was just expecting something a little, I don't know, I figured more items maybe other than the bloomin' onion, you don't even want the steak with it? Just the bloomin' onion? You're just having a quick snack and then you're out. Okay.

[00:47:29] Jamie Walker: Well, you can't go to the Outback and go to get steak, you go to the Outback to get a good bloomin' onion only, like, you go to a really good steakhouse to get a good steak. So, you can't, you can't have it all, just like agencies can't sell the full service, you gotta go for exactly what you like at the restaurant.

[00:47:42] Daniel Weiner: What a way to close it out and tie it to food. My fi, my final, my final question. Who is somebody who inspires you personally or professionally, and why?

[00:47:52] Jamie Walker: One person. I mean, I feel like I'm inspired by lots of people, but, um.

[00:47:56] Daniel Weiner: You can reel a couple, you can, you can reel a couple off, this is my podcast, I make the rules.

[00:47:59] Jamie Walker: Yeah, that's true. I think two that come to mind. I think Serena Williams is always just someone, she, again, my daughter's a tennis player and we're kind of growing some, you know, I travel a lot, too, so I'm always watching, uh, any, lots of movies on my Delta flights, but I don't know, she's just inspiring from her

[00:48:15] passion and her grit to succeed through obstacles. And so, I watched a few of her documentaries, uh, over the past couple years, and just someone my daughter idolizes and just someone who's been a little bit more front and center with us. 

[00:48:27] So, I'd say her is just, like, a strong, professional athlete, um, and a challenging world that she's not, I would say, you know, she's unique in herself. So, I've liked, I've just loved her journey. I think professionally, you know, I had the opportunity about a month ago to meet Ginni Rometty from the ex, uh, CEO and chairman of IBM, I met her in person

[00:48:51] and I always followed her on LinkedIn for two years prior to that, just kind of watching her growing and just kind of, she was this interesting person you always, you know, I always saw and to meet her in person and I'm reading her book Good Power right now, and it's more, like, her story, her success,

[00:49:07] and I think just the aura around her and watching her and talking with her husband was mind-blowing to me, as far as, like, how someone can have so much power in general as a human, how she, if you read her book, she talks a lot about doing things that could be controversial, like making the hard decisions,

[00:49:27] and I feel like I've always aligned myself with, like, have a strong heart, but I'm always from a bus, do things that could cause controversy, but for the better good or, you know, I've always say, like, call a spade a spade, if something's not going well, make sure you, make sure you dissect it, make sure you change it.

[00:49:46] And I think a lot of people are, you know, scared to make change, especially when they're in high-level positions and just, you know, I'm in the beginning stages of reading her book, but to me she's very inspiring and being a female leader in a, in a male-dominated world, what can I say? That's just what it is.

[00:50:01] Daniel Weiner: That's awesome, maybe I'll give her, I gave a coffee table book at my dinner, maybe I'll give her book at the next dinner, which I won't invite you to unless it's in six months, so.

[00:50:09] Jamie Walker: This is six months, I'm, I'm, we got the digital trust tour in June, I'm gonna be traveling the US, I'm busy.

[00:50:14] Daniel Weiner: Well, we appreciate you taking the time to come chat with, uh, me on my lowly podcast, but, uh, no, this was awesome, super insightful and, uh, yeah, can't wait to see the finished product. Thank you for joining.

[00:50:26] Jamie Walker: Yes. Always a pleasure hanging out with you, Daniel. Thank you so much.