Daniel: Hello and welcome to another episode of the You Should Talk To Podcast. I am your host, Daniel Wiener. You should talk to pairs, brands, and marketers for free with vetted agencies and or freelancers, because finding great agencies is a pain in the ass. Today, I'm excited to be joined by Jennifer Hopkins, who is SVP of marketing at Sonar here in Atlanta.
Jennifer, thank you for joining.
Jennifer: Daniel, thanks for the invite.
Daniel: Of course. Long time coming here. You know,
Jennifer: listen, you're everywhere. Uh, I'm just, I'm pleased to be here.
Daniel: I appre, yeah. Get me before I'm famous. You know, before this thing blows up, we're, we're at like 50 to a hundred downloads an episode right now.
So we're, we're right on that cusp of the Joe Rogan experience. So that's next. Uh, we'll dive in here in two seconds. What's Sonar for people who do not know what Sonar is?
Jennifer: Sonar is a software, is a Salesforce operations management tool. So we work directly with people in the ops business system space. To ultimately make sure that the changes that they're making in Salesforce don't break shit.
Daniel: That is, I love that explanation. I hope that's on the, I hope that's on the website just like that. I don't
Jennifer: know if you ever been on the go to market side and something breaks in Salesforce and your whole go to market team comes crashing down for 24 hours. It's not a fun, fun place to be sitting in. So we help avoid that.
Daniel: My biggest career flex is that I've never been inside of Salesforce ever once in my entire life or career. And I, Don't, I hope to not change that because everybody I talked to about Salesforce says it's a pain in the ass. So it sounds like you guys just
Jennifer: come on over to the office. We'll give you the full tour.
Daniel: I appreciate it. I may take you up on that. Uh, we'll dive in now to the fun of this podcast. What's your most unpopular or spicy take in the marketing world?
Jennifer: I deal with this every single day when I'm doing searches just as a consumer myself, but I absolutely hate with a passion mobile advertisement.
Daniel: In what capacity?
All of it?
Jennifer: Yeah. Mobile display. I just, I hate every piece of it. And I feel bad about saying that because I'm a marketer, right? And I should appreciate and really, you know, support all forms of advertisement, but there is nothing worse than mobile advertisements and me playing whack a mole on my phone just to be able to read one quick article that I'm trying to, to get to.
It drives me crazy.
Daniel: That's fair. I was hoping for some more controversy. I hate that too. I don't disagree with that in any capacity. It's pain in the ass. I mean, it's pain in the ass on, I don't know, it's pain in the ass on computers as well. But yeah, on mobile, I don't want to
Jennifer: It's just like you can't even see what you're doing.
Um, and every time I hit exit out of all of it without reading the ads, I feel bad. The market doesn't like me. You know, moment of silence for whoever put that great creative together.
Daniel: It's better than accidentally clicking and costing them like 70 cents or whatever, whatever they're paying for that thing.
You know
Jennifer: what? Those mobile ads, you accidentally click on it because, you know, they're there and you're not meaning to click on it. So I've probably cost a few brands a little bit of money by accidentally clicking.
Daniel: You're sending the children of Google employees to college. So you're doing, you're doing something right.
Uh, you've spent most of your career on the B2B side of the world. Uh, what's the biggest evolution you've seen in, I don't know, the last decade, uh, between consumer behavior, uh, in your world on the B2B side.
Jennifer: I mean, I think it's what a lot of people see, but, um, I probably sound like an old person by saying this, but it seems like more people have become recluses, you know, when I started my marketing career, people wanted to, to Talk to people, right?
Like they weren't deathly afraid to get on a sales call and see a demo. People actually answered email marketing. So, I mean, I think just the big shift is the purchasing, right? Uh, behavior of how consumers are interacting and converting. It's, it's 10 times harder today than it was back then. And, you know, people just want to do everything on their own and they only want to raise their hand at the last minute.
And it's a lot different than when I started my marketing career.
Daniel: Do you think it's just because there is just so much more now?
Jennifer: You know, I don't know. I think it's like the generation. They just don't want to, they're used to things right now, right? They don't want to get deterred from being able to get to exactly what they think they want right then and there.
Um, and I think sometimes a salesperson, right? Or a gated form can be a deterrent from that. And they're just not interested in it.
Daniel: I actually saw this morning. He's been on the podcast, Kyle Lacey, uh, who's CMO of Jellyfish. Uh, I didn't, I didn't get a chance to watch the whole video yet. So I hope I'm getting his point correct here.
I'll have to, But he was basically saying like, I do not want AI in any capacity in my sales process, like from a, from an S replacing an SDR and stuff like that. He's like, I want the human touch. Like, it sounds like he was saying kind of the opposite.
Jennifer: I mean, it's a big thing with AI, right?
I think it only gets you so far. You hear that from a lot of people. It's a great starter. I don't think it's at the point where it can completely take over that human interaction. I think people can see through a lot of the AI generated stuff, at least from right now where it's at. I think you lose credibility with your audience if, um, if you lose that humanity and one to one interaction with people.
Daniel: Yeah, I agree. What's your best piece of advice? They do
Jennifer: finally raise their hand. Um, you know, they want it to be authentic and genuine, I think.
Daniel: Yeah, no, I tend to agree. I talk about it all the time in the context of agencies. They're all trying to like, figure out, you know, I and how to inject it into their teams and all this sort of stuff.
And I'm like, you guys should really just figure out how to reply to emails faster to the people that are talking to
Jennifer: you. Yeah, just be real. I saw your post this morning where you're talking about all the fluff agencies show on their website and you're like, really brands want to know, you know, timeliness, responsiveness, you know, how agile are you?
How can you solve their specific problem? Um, just be real. It's amazing how far that can go, but people overlook that often.
Daniel: Well, there was an ad age art. I think it was at age recently. And this, I feel like the article gets rewritten and re like agitated, like every six months where people were saying like, Oh, like people don't like the word agency.
And like, you know, so then they're people like, Oh, we're not an age. So we're a consultancy. I'm like, I don't think anybody really gives a shit. If I
Jennifer: laughed and we really don't.
Daniel: Yeah. I hear that all the time. I'm like, Oh, we're, we're not an agency, which is funny. Cause usually I'm like, Oh, I only work with agencies and people are like, Oh, we'll, we'll be an agency of like, you'll, you'll send us, you know, like we can be an agency, I'm like, you just said you weren't
Jennifer: agencies of like generated a negative connotation, kind of like the salesperson persona and people are trying to get away from potentially that negative, uh,
Daniel: Sometimes I think it has become, there's different numbers, you know, one of the sources I use often, I can't think of who the actual source is, but they say there's 90, 000 agencies or companies who identify as agency in the U S alone.
I think the word agency has gotten muddied of like what actually is an agency. So I know people again, like I have sometimes conversations where people are like, Oh, we're an agency. And I'm like, cool. Tell me about like how many employees. And they're like, Oh, it's just me. I'm one, like I'm an agency. And I'm like, I don't, I was like, I don't even think this is like a put down, but like, you're not an agency.
So I think, um, the deaf, everybody has a different definition of what an agency is and yeah, like generally folks in your role who've been in there for any sort of period has sort of, uh, I don't know, visceral response to the word agency or it's like, Oh, and they're like brought back to which we'll chat about later in this recording of, you know, a negative experience.
So I don't know. I think it's just one of those things. Like people try to stand out by calling themselves something different, but it doesn't achieve what they want to, because there's plenty of consultancies who suck and there's plenty of collectives. I don't
Jennifer: care what you call yourself. I just need you to do this specific job for me and do it really well.
Daniel: I tend to agree. That's why I try to have like a wide swath of types of agencies or freelancers or collectives. Cause yeah, like an agency isn't the right fit for everybody. Truthfully,
Jennifer: what is
Daniel: your best piece of advice for other folks in your role for how to, uh, I say survive as well as thrive in 2024.
Jennifer: Well, I mean, I think the big theme, especially on the B2B tech side, and you've seen this, is growth efficiency, right? It's not growth at all costs, it's being able to do it with an efficient mindset and looking at the numbers. And it reminds me of when I started my career, our CEO at the time, I'll never forget this, we were in a meeting and we were talking about launching some campaigns and someone threw out an idea.
And I forget the specific number, but let's just say it was 100, 000. And he looked directly at the person and he said, if this was your 100, 000 check that personally came out of your checking account, is this where you would allocate it? And it stuck with me throughout my entire career, because I just think that's just a responsible mindset that marketers, really anybody, but marketers who own such a significant piece of, you know, the, the company budget, uh, should look at everything that they're doing.
Um, if this would, if this were your money, right, is this where you would double down on is this where you have the data to prove that it's best served at? So I think the growth efficiency mindset and just always being responsible about where you're putting those resources,
Daniel: I think that's awesome. I love that.
And I just wrote that down. I've never heard that before. Phrased like that. It's funny, when I was at my old agency, I won't say who the client was, but we were, um. working with several teams and there was turnover and we kept doing all of this, like we were like redoing work that was already done essentially.
And I remember calling at one point, it was a big company, uh, you know, uh, Fort fortune 500 for sure. Uh, and saying like, Hey, like we're happy to bill you, but this is like an egregious use of funds. Like it's, you know, like again, we're, we're, we're, I just wanted to bring it up and they were like, yeah, like, no, or it didn't even didn't even care.
And there's a line I say, Oh, I feel like I say it like 20 times a day when I'm talking to brands of like, what I'm saying is a lot easier when it's not my own money. Uh, cause it is, you know, it's, it's easy to think, yeah, like we have this money and I've been given this budget, let's spend it. But yeah, it's a different framing when you say, if this was your, uh, your hard earned cash, would you spend it that way?
I'd be curious, uh, what most of the marketers I'm helping with, uh, would answer to that question.
Jennifer: Yeah. And especially on the tech startup side, I mean, there's just much more of a magnifying glass on, you know, on resources, I would say, than there were. Three years ago.
Daniel: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, my favorite question of the entire podcast that I'll ever ask in all of these interviews, uh, most folks I speak to in your role, VPs and above.
So VPs and CMOs are getting hit up 700 times a day on LinkedIn, text, email, phone calls, all the things by agencies and vendors, uh, is that the case for you as well?
Jennifer: It is. Yes.
Daniel: How do you feel about it?
Jennifer: I mean, I appreciate it. Right. Cause I'm on, on the marketing side. Right. And I understand the, the need to do prospecting and, and to grow your business.
Um,
Daniel: have you ever once purchased something from an entirely cold outreach agency or vendor?
Jennifer: You know, that's, I don't think anyone's ever asked me that question before, but no, would be my answer.
Daniel: I love it because I don't think anybody has.
Jennifer: Which is bad, I guess, when you think about it. I know. I'm being approached, right?
And how, how great technologies are these days with like intent signals. Um, but no, I think people just, um, have learned to tune it out. You know, I think the one thing I would tell people is like, don't call my cell phone. Don't call my cell phone. Don't call my cell phone. It's just, um, maybe it's a personal preference.
I don't know if other people agree. But like. the right outlet. Um, and I despise when vendors, uh, try to do the cold approach, uh, on my cell phone. And even I've noticed a new technique where people will call two or three times in a row. Uh, and I don't know about other people, but in my family, like if, if someone I know calls me two or three times in a row, like it's somewhat of an emergency.
So I've actually been tricked. Um, you know, this number unknown number calling two or three times in a row and I answer it and then it's a sales guy and I'm just like, Oh, you've just, you've lost me before you've even said hello, uh, on, on picking up the phone.
Daniel: It's so funny. I've been on calls. My parents assume since I'm self employed that I'm like just available at their whim.
And I've been on calls where like they've called like two or three times in a row. And I've been like, Hey, I'm sorry. Like my parents just called me three times and you called him back and I'll call and they're like, Hey, what's up? Like, what are you doing? Like you called three times. Everybody. Okay.
They're like, yeah, fine. Just didn't, didn't know why you didn't pick up. I'm like, Oh my God, like you, you gave, you gave the PSA. I think, uh, that I generally ask for like, what's the PSA you would give to agencies? You said, don't call your cell phone, but I'm curious. Like, is there something, cause I take the opinion, maybe not.
Like there's two weird universal truths. I think one is that I don't know a single person after like the director level and above who has ever gotten a job from applying to a job. Just like applying. I don't know anybody who's got a job that way. I don't know if you do. And I don't know of an agency who gets, again, unless you're like a high volume, super low, um, dollar amount, which I could argue isn't an agency.
If you're a quote unquote normal agency, I don't know anybody who gets business from cold.
Jennifer: No
Daniel: outreach. I feel it does the opposite. It actually tarnishes your brand. People are just inherently annoyed by it. Is there something somebody could say to you? Like, Unless you were in the market and it is perfectly timed and, you know, positioned that can make you take a general call.
Jennifer: Yeah. I mean, I think it's, uh, for agencies and vendors, right. It's all about timing, especially on the agency side. They have these statistics. I mean, you know, that when a CMO comes into a role, right, you've typically got 30, 60 days to make an introduction because they're coming in and they're shifting a lot of their agency and vendor relationships, right.
They're kind of going with their tried and trues. Um, or they're evaluating, uh, incumbents or even, you know, new people on the block. So timing is really important in my opinion on the agency side. And then I think, you know, it's the messaging again. It's not the fluff of, you know, don't tell me you're not an agency or something else.
Like tell me what I need to hear knowing that I'm a CMO coming in on my first 60 days, right? You know, I've got to change things around. You know, I've got to show quick results, right? To my CEO and the leadership team. Um, and I think it's diving in on those, those things in the messaging and the timing that I think could really stand out from an agency approach and some agencies do it well, but a lot of people fail miserably at it.
Daniel: So that's why I think it's increasingly more difficult in 2024 because people know that. So like when a CMO comes into the role, everybody is like, Oh, now's the time. And you get. You know, lumped into 700 different messages. And I think there's also the assumption, I don't disagree. I know plenty of CMOs who come into new roles.
I also know plenty of CMOs who come in and are like, I'm not immediately spending a bunch of money or like changing shit before I like evaluate. So like for them, like again, everything I generally like preach to my partners is like, you should know your audience and what they want, you know, rather than saying, I know you're based on these intent signals, like you're changing everything.
I'd rather somebody asked, like, are you even interested in changing anything? Like, what do you think about, what do you think about gifts?
Jennifer: Uh, I've seen you ask this question on some of your other podcasts. I mean, listen, I'm a woman. I love gifts. I love great gifts.
Daniel: Name them. People reference in most of my pod.
You'll get a sales outreach at some point like everybody else about whatever you answer here. So be whatever you want. If it's expensive bags or food, just make sure you, this is your chance.
Jennifer: No, I love gifts. I think it's all in, uh, in the timing of it. Right. Um, like I worked with, uh, an agency. I won't, I won't name them.
Um, but they did a phenomenal job of gifting, um, you know, throughout the kind of prospecting phase. And then later on, as I became a customer, I mean, they were, they were really, um, mindful before
Daniel: you knew them at all, though, or like,
Jennifer: yeah, in the initial kind of prospecting conversations, when we were evaluating, like they would pick up on certain things of like, Oh, I know you're having a baby soon.
Right. So they would send like a really thoughtful little onesie with their logo on it. So, you know, I think it's, um, are you listening in our conversations? Are you not being creepy about it? Right. And are you doing it at the right time? And it can't feel like you're buying. You know, if they had sent me a Rolex, right, that might have been, uh, you know, a little bit too far.
But if they sent something that was thoughtful from a previous conversation, those stand out, I think.
Daniel: So I totally agree on that front to be super clear. Like I think sometimes people are like, Oh, like you hate gifting. I'm like, no, but I see people sending still like, Hey, here's a 15 Amazon gift card. I'm like, nobody wants that.
Also, like, I feel like it's also like insulting a little, the dollar amount matters like to you. Yeah. A Rolex is too much over the top 15 bucks. I want to be like, that's like,
Jennifer: you're going to know your audience. I think you said that a few times on this call, like knowing your audience is really important
Daniel: for everything.
Um,
Jennifer: and being, um, being real, I think we've also said that a few times on this call that goes a long way, especially when you look at gifting.
Daniel: Kaylin from Aaron's, their CMO who did this podcast, talked about, you mentioned not being creepy. She got a, an iPad in the mail, fired it up, and it was a video of the salesperson saying, go dogs.
Oh, I knew she went to Georgia. Huh? Thoughtful, but kind of weird. And also an iPad, so it's like,
Jennifer: yeah. Yeah. Vetted out with a few people before you said just to, you know, get general consensus on if, if it's, um, if it's good, it's creepy, maybe, maybe
Daniel: that's my next tech foray or next company. Send me your gifts.
I'll tell you if it's creepy or not.
Jennifer: Yeah. Crowdsource your idea and we'll give you a quick answer on if it's creepy or not.
Daniel: I think that's a good thing. Uh, I've seen a big shift, especially since Covid. Brands moving away from bigger agencies to smaller, more targeted, especially independent agencies who are good at like one to two things and their agency roster went from full service to more agencies who are specialized.
Do you see the same? You like that? Depends. What do you think of it?
Jennifer: I do. Again, I think maybe because I come from the B to B tech space, kind of more on the startup side. Um, I enjoy smaller, more focused agencies. And I enjoy working with consultants as well too, right? But, I mean, think of like, 50, 100 person agency.
Um, that focuses on something really specific. Um, I think, you know, from my perspective is, I am always moving fast. I always know specifically what I need from people. Um, and I've been able to find that with the smaller, more specialized agencies. There's not as much red tape, not as much fluff. Um, I feel like there's more expertise.
You know, I've worked with some agencies who are on full service and it's like, um, I'm getting high level. I call it kindergarten ideas and strategies, right? That I could Google myself. Um, and, and I think it's because they don't specialize in something. I've just had more, um, I've had better experience with the smaller, more focused
Daniel: groups.
Can you think of a particular, like really positive agency experience you've had at some point in your career and what made it positive?
Jennifer: Um, yeah, I think. One of the most successful agency experiences I had were a few years ago. I hired a paid media agency, um, and what I appreciated about them, but I think it can go across any agency, even, you know, creative full service branding is that.
I gave them a specific number, right? I said, I'm bringing you in because I have to achieve this, which was a specific revenue number from that channel. And, um, at the time that I hired them, there just weren't a lot of agencies that were focused on a North Star metric, right? A lot of agencies come in with fluff metrics of like, Oh, we did this and we did this and we did this.
I'm like, that's not what I hired you for. This is what I have to achieve. And I will say that paid media agency did a really good job of always aligning everything that they were doing, you know, in our biweekly meetings of, Hey, Jen, you said we have to hit this number. Here's where we're pacing. So I appreciated that they were aligned on that North star metric that I hired them for.
And then I also appreciated that they didn't give me any BS in meetings. So if they came to a meeting and they were behind target, they called it out. And, um, that goes such a long way, right? Cause then it builds trust. I think with, with the brand marketer side and the agency. So if you've got a, if you've got a bad result, owning it and presenting the plan on how you're going to correct it.
I think those were the two things that stood out.
Daniel: There's two things you said though, that I love. One, uh, I, I can tell we're, we're kindred marketing spirits. Uh, I say Northstar metric all the time because I think oftentimes, uh, brands give like a fine, they're like, we need this. And I'm like, they're like, do you think that's reasonable or achievable?
And most of the time I'm like, I have no clue, but it's something to work towards. I use it as a North star. I say that with RFPs too, I'm like RFPs are too rigid. Use it as a North star. Like you're working towards this scope and this, you know, these parameters and stuff like that. The second thing you said was calling out the negative.
I think there's like this connotation that like everything needs to be positive and like, it's almost more alarming in my opinion. From a reporting standpoint, if everything is always like everything is just going right, I'm like, no, no, it's not like I think it's how you to your point, owning it and being like, yeah, like every week is just not going to be the best, especially in performance marketing.
Jennifer: No owning it and then presenting the plan to right. I think some people make the mistake of owning the number, but then not completing the sentence with like, here's what we have lined up to get us back on track. So the proactiveness is equally as important. I think. And owning, you know, maybe a misperformance somewhere.
Daniel: Let's give you some PSD or PTSD. Uh, what's a negative, uh, agency experience you've had in the past and what made it so negative without, without naming names?
Jennifer: Um, I think sometimes agencies get in their own way and this was one of the larger agencies that I had worked with. And the funny thing is I had worked with them on multiple occasions in my career and they were a little bit smaller when I started.
And then in my last engagement, they had gotten a little bit larger. And, um, and they were making me fit into their onboarding process, which I appreciate, right? Like, you want to get the full scope, you want to get all of your questions answered before you can start actually working on the project. Um, but, uh, but it was unnecessary.
I mean, we spent almost like 30 days of me answering questions and going through hoops of what their management team had said. Their reps needed to do in the onboarding process. Right. And so at the end of the 30 days, I was like, listen, we could have had a two hour meeting, right. And I could have answered all of these really quickly and we could have just gone ahead and got to the work.
So we've lost 30 days of you achieving this target. So again, I think sometimes, um, the larger agencies, maybe where I've been burned as they get in their own way. Um, you know, don't forget what your client asked for and what they hired you for. And if I said, time is of the essence, we need to get started quickly.
Don't make me sit through a rigorous 30 day onboarding that benefits you and not me as the customer.
Daniel: Yeah, there's two things basically everybody in your role tells me that they want when they move away from a big agency. It is timeliness and just nimble like flexibility in general around scope, but also yeah, the only the only I take the side or it being tough with agencies.
I don't know the context of that one. Every agency, uh, search I help a brand with, like the SEC, they sometimes drag their feet on selection, not all the time, but like the second they award the business, they're like, great, let's go. Yeah. Agency's like, Whoa. Like, I think that's a really important, um, Expectation setting, uh, period of the relationship to be like probably prior to that to be like, Hey, like one, if you select us, like, here's what we need to be successful and like the time that will take so that you could say no, like if they were going to tell you, yeah, we need this 30 days in this, you know, workshop, you could have been like, yeah, that probably doesn't work.
Like, what about this? You know, and you talk about it beforehand.
Jennifer: And then make sure you're not repeating the information. Cause a lot of time, you know, when you're talking to the sales team, right. Or the new business team on the agency side, you've given a lot of information that they should be passing through internally.
Right. So then you get to the onboarding with who you're actually account manager is, and then you're repeating everything. And I'm like, Oh gosh, I wish you guys could have listened to a call recording, uh, and been up to speed. So I'm not wasting another hour saying the exact same thing.
Daniel: It's why one of my unpopular opinions is that I, I don't think real agencies have sales teams.
Jennifer: They struggle. Yeah.
Daniel: Because of that, like real agencies should have like account and client people from the first meeting if it's possible, you know, like, I don't think there should be like a sales person and a say, like, if I hear an agency has like a 10 person sales team, I'm like, What are they doing?
You know, like that's not I don't know that it rubs me the wrong way And it rubs a lot of people I talk to the wrong way
Jennifer: I'll say the other thing and I'm sure this comes up a lot on your podcast is I hate it When an agency tells me that we've hit a cap on hours And I'll say I haven't run into that as much the past few years as I did earlier on but And I specifically ask that question when I'm vetting agencies, right?
Like, are you going to hold me to a specific number, right? And then you're going to say, Hey, Jen, we've, we've reached our cap. We can't do anything else this month because that's the biggest turn on. Cause that tells me that you haven't done a really good job of scoping my project and pricing it the right way in the beginning, because I'd rather you just kind of make a broad estimate of like how much, how many hours this is going to take and then give me a number.
Versus you giving me a slightly lower number and then telling me I've reached a cap. It's the biggest turnoff for a marketer.
Daniel: It's another opportunity to use it as a Northstar number of like, Hey, this is like roughly a wee bucketed stuff changes. There's, you know, it's a six cents a little bit. I can remember being at an agency and being told by one of my, uh, clients at the time, uh, I think the exact words were, if Danny brings up scope again, uh, We're going to fire you guys or something like that.
And I was like, you guys have changed the scope every single call.
Jennifer: I will say this with the fine print of, I know there are some marketers who, who don't do right by this, which is why there are those parameters in place. But there's,
Daniel: there's also 700 other things to say that we've reached a cap. There's,
Jennifer: but for the, for the marketers who behave ourselves and respect agencies and do everything right by you guys.
I mean, it's, it's a big turnoff to say, Oh, we've, we've reached the cap.
Daniel: The episode before this was Nicole Dubose, who is CMO of pliables. If you've ever read one of those, uh, shout out pliables. Uh, she said her negative agency experience was going through a robust, uh, RFP process, selecting an agency warm and fuzzy three months in without notice.
We've used all of your hours for the entire year.
Jennifer: Isn't that crazy?
Daniel: I don't again with all of these conversations. I preface that. I don't know 100 percent of the context, nor do I. That's why I asked people not to name agencies because I'm like, you know, who knows? But yeah, that would be, um, that got quite a few comments on linked in of like
Jennifer: But a bad way, right?
Three months into a 12 month contract. Talk about customer experience.
Daniel: Yeah, we didn't talk about it. I want to know what happened the next nine months, if anything happens. So,
Jennifer: but like also like, was there a conversation of like, Hey, we're kind of reaching, we're reaching maximum capacity here. Um,
Daniel: I don't know.
That's why I'll have to, I'll have to bring her back. I think eventually I'll just do like a therapy session with everybody where we all could cry about all these things. So, What are you most excited about or bullish on in the marketing space at the moment? Uh, I'll say outside of AI, cause I'm sick of hearing about AI.
Unless it's really, unless it's really AI, then you can say AI.
Jennifer: No, I mean it, I mean AI is I think incorporated with everything. Um, you know, I think it's, it's events. I mean, I enjoy that people are getting back out. I think everybody is, uh, it was kind of sad to be a marketer during the past couple of years of, of everybody being behind computer screens.
So, um, you know, at Sonar with our audience and our big, uh, WizOps community of, of ops professional, people are just really excited to get back and interact face to face. So we're really leaning in on that and, uh, you know, trying to provide those opportunities as much as we can.
Daniel: Yeah, you all have quite the community.
Go ahead and give it a plug, actually. Yeah,
Jennifer: Wizards of Ops. It's a community of over, we've got 7, 000 members right now. Again, within the RebOps business systems kind of ecosystem. And it's a community that our co founder Brad Smith started, and it's just organically grown to 7, 000 people. Um, but it's the power of community being able to rely on your peers and having that human, genuine, candid approach, I think, and in questions and advice that has really made it successful.
Daniel: Yeah, that's awesome. Shout out, Brad. Uh, what keeps you up at night slash stresses you out from a marketing or business standpoint?
Jennifer: So I think it's tied with AI. I think AI stresses a little bit of everybody out, right? Just the fear of the unknown. I think my thing is, is not getting my arms around everything I need to before the last shoe drops.
And I'll give you an example, right? So like AI is shifting so many things, but for me on the B2B side, like SEO is a huge portion of my pipeline. Uh, and the way AI is interacting, uh, you know, with the search generative experience and the snippets, you know, that first few rankings on your results page, um, it's transforming all of that.
So from a marketing standpoint, we've really got to change our SEO content strategy. And so for me, it's just, am I getting everything set up in the time before AI makes the big shift? And are we ready to compete with kind of this new space?
Daniel: By the time, by the time you do, something else will change.
You'll have to get your hands around that.
Jennifer: Yeah, but listen, marketing is nothing other than keeping you on your toes. When you get used to one thing, then it's on to the next.
Daniel: This is why we all drink, you know? Well, we will finish with some fun ones. What was your very first job?
Jennifer: I was actually a hostess.
Daniel: Love it. Where at?
Jennifer: I'm a bit, Taco Mac.
Daniel: Which I loved, God.
Jennifer: Taco Mac and Woodstock. Okay.
Daniel: Best queso in the game.
Jennifer: Listen, wings and the queso, you know, it's gone a little bit downhill.
Daniel: They've lost some quality.
Jennifer: I hate to say it, especially on a podcast like this, but it's gone downhill since I used to work there.
But I will say, I think working in hospitality is so important for people.
Daniel: Did you work
Jennifer: in hospitality?
Daniel: I did. I was a food expediter at Ippolitos in Alpharetta.
Jennifer: I think everybody needs to do it. Some, some, some job within the hospitality space. I think it makes you a better person. It helps you behave more when you go out to restaurants later on in life.
Daniel: I agree. I think Taco Mac will be fine. Not enough, not enough people listen to this podcast for this to have a, have a dent in, sadly. I don't know
Jennifer: if you're bringing on the CMO of, um, Taco Mac, but. for opportunity.
Daniel: I'll send them this podcast. Okay. You should, you should come refute this live on air. What would your speaking of food?
I think I know the answer, but what would your final meal be? My guess would be sushi based on my sushi experience, but I could be wrong.
Jennifer: This is like probably your most popular question on your entire podcast.
Daniel: Everybody cares about this. Yeah. Nobody gives a shit about what I actually do.
Jennifer: That I would actually say a dessert for my last meal.
Daniel: Okay, well it depends. I don't know. I can't answer that yet.
Jennifer: I used to work at a French restaurant in Atlanta. It was called Joelle. And I dream about this dessert that we used to have. It was a Grand Marnier souffle and it had the creme anglaise that you would just kind of pour on it. And they light
Daniel: it on fire?
Jennifer: No, no,
Daniel: no. No?
Jennifer: No, you put it in the oven and it's the souffle that rises. And then you put the creme anglaise and it kind of sinks in. And it's just like this gooey
Daniel: Okay. If it's your last meal, you can hypothetically have dinner first and then finish with the dessert if you
Jennifer: Okay, I didn't know if there were multiple options, but if I only had one option, I'm gonna go for the dessert.
Daniel: Okay. Sushi would be the meal? If you had? I'll go
Jennifer: with sushi. I do enjoy sushi.
Daniel: Okay. And the final question, who is Sushi
Jennifer: followed by the souffle.
Daniel: What's that?
Jennifer: Sushi followed by the souffle.
Daniel: Okay. That's fair. Uh, who's somebody who inspires you personally, professionally, or both?
Jennifer: This is a nice question that you asked.
Um,
Daniel: thank you. I appreciate it. I can't came up with myself.
Jennifer: Uh, my, my husband actually inspires me and personally. So he was actually in the Marine Corps for 13 years. He said,
Daniel: is he sitting there? Like,
Jennifer: no, but I'm going to make sure to send him this record. This makes it on there. Um, but he served in the Marine Corps 13 years.
He did four tours. But more importantly, he used to work in the, um, in the op space and got out of it and started his own veteran owned business. Um, you know, there's a personal story there, but he's really passionate about being able to put other veterans back to work. Um, I love him personally. And then professionally, I think just the, uh, the ability to, to go out on your own and try something new for the betterment of, of a bigger purpose is admirable.
Daniel: Yeah, it makes me feel like sometimes I'm like, what am I doing? Like, seriously, I feel like everybody has that
Jennifer: existential.
Daniel: Everybody has that existential like, am I doing anything that like contributes to society in some regard? So
Jennifer: I think you do, Daniel.
Daniel: Thank you. I appreciate it. I like therapy sessions for people almost.
So I am a licensed marketing therapist. That was the final question. Thank you. For anybody interested. Who is your exact target? And how can they find you?
Jennifer: Yeah. So again, if you work in the rev ops or business system space, and you're looking for, uh, you know, some extra eyesight on the changes that you're making in the Salesforce ecosystem and your integrated tech stack, uh, Sonar is definitely a platform I'd recommend checking out and I'd be happy to show you around.
Daniel: Love it. Thank you for joining.
Jennifer: Thank you for inviting me.
