Building trust in high-scrutiny markets

Kari Wiens

Good afternoon and good morning to some. I'm Kari Wiens. I'm a managing partner here at tmp. And I was just realizing the other day that it's been about a year since I started this series of women leading the way in B2B. And I'm incredibly thankful and very excited for how much it has grown. And we have now started to spread across multiple regions. So I know today we have a time zone that is helping us get not only the western half of the US, but a bunch of our friends over in APAC. So thank you all. If you're not familiar with the series, each session we bring together women leading marketing at top global organizations. And we just have a very candid discussion around lessons in leadership, practices that have shaped their careers, and just overall a good time. So today our theme is around building trust in high scrutiny markets, and I'm honored to be joined by our panelists. We have folks across Intuit, Autodesk, and Huntress, and I'm going to let them introduce themselves in just a minute. So to kick it off, we are going to start by doing introductions about who we are, where we're from, and a little bit of our career journey. But specifically, I'm going to ask each of our panelists, was there a moment in your career when you had to earn credibility in a room where you weren't immediately seen as an expert? And Kate, I'm going to hand it over to you first.

Kate Alderding

Sure, thanks Kari. So I lead the marketing team here in Sydney where my role is to grow our partner networking customer base across APAC for two brands actually. So QuickBooks Accountant as well as MailChimp, which you probably know. Both of those are owned by a global SaaS company, Intuit. So I've built the partner network from Near Zero across APAC to lead across demand Gen. advanced ABM, lifecycle marketing across the region. And absolutely love this topic because like for the last decade, I've been marketing to a customer base that has been over promised by tech vendors. So they've seen the demos, they've seen the roadmaps, they've read the case studies. And then they sign the contracts and then they watch that like reality just fall short. So I'm observing in B2B marketing that like that level of skepticism, it's not a personality trait, it's actually a professional survival skill. So, you know, to answer your question, like, well, the question was never like, how do we actually, you know, get customers to trust us, but it's actually how do we deserve to be trusted by the people who've been burned, to put it frankly. And consistently in these high scrutiny like categories, like you can't campaign your way to credibility. And at Intuit, we've built a program of over 150 events a year, which is not for the faint-hearted. But it's not to generate leads actually in the room, it's to demonstrate that we understand their world, that their workflows, we know their challenges, we understand their opportunities, and that's like long before we want anything from them. So we've showed up at the industry conferences, we've trained alongside them, we've sat next to them in the audience before we ever sort of stood on the stage. And then of course, like the commercial outcomes, they come later. And when they do, the conversion rates are incomparable. So it's not because they're cold, it's because we're known. So I think, yeah, having to demonstrate that trust in a high scrutiny market, it doesn't come from campaigns. It comes from the years of building trust before the campaign.

Kari Wiens

Love that. Aishwarya, please introduce yourself.

Aishwarya Balamuku

Thank you. Hi, everybody. I'm Aishwarya Balamuku. I'm the Senior Director of Marketing at Autodesk. I lead the marketing for the manufacturing organization. Autodesk is a leading provider of 3D design, engineering, entertainment software, and I head up the marketing for the manufacturing organization. I actually started off as an intern here and worked my way up through the corporate ladder, if you will. My path, I'll take a slightly different approach to the question from what Kate just shared. My path really has been shaped by sort of taking on challenges that really helped me grow into the next version of myself. One moment sort of that stands out is, I actually had no idea about marketing. I started off in analytics. I was farthest away from marketing as I could remember. But the more I worked on analytics and data, I realized it was adjacent. It was really rooted in how to help the marketing team, the go to market team sort of make decisions with more credibility. And that's why I think your question resonates a lot with me. The biggest learning, I think, for me was credibility is not really always granted by title or tenure. You have to build it real time. You have to stay grounded. You've got to be prepared. You essentially have to show up in rooms where people probably have far more experience. I've had to be in rooms where people have had many more years and deeper experience than I ever did. And I was not automatically viewed as the expert in the room. So I focus really on watching, learning, listening to how people show up and bringing sort of that clear point of view that's more often backed by facts, right? And over time, I think the conversation shifted because people saw that I understood sort of the root issue, was able to contribute there in my own way and not necessarily compete. So really that experience for me, taught credibility is really earned through consistency and substance. And of course, expertise matters, but so does how you show up.

Kari Wiens

Yeah, absolutely. And Amy, please introduce yourself.

Aimee Schneider

Hi, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to join these lovely ladies today in this conversation. I'm based in the Bay Area. I head up Demand Gen. for Huntress. We are a cybersecurity provider, a hyper-growth startup. I've been here about a year. I did not start in cybersecurity. I actually built my career at previous smaller startups all the way to mid-size, larger enterprises and had held many different roles across my time in marketing, everything from field marketing to demand Gen. to public relations. I've really kind of done it all. I really love startups because you get to wear many hats and you get to flex different parts of your marketing brain. So if you are looking for a career into marketing, I highly recommend tech startups as a way to learn a bunch of different parts of the engine. In terms of, how to build credibility when you're not the expert in the room, I can think of many different examples throughout my career, ranging from when I was an individual contributor all the way to a leadership role. But one of my favorite things about my job is working on highly cross-functional projects. And often you're working on things that span beyond just marketing. It could be go to market, it could be product, it could be really anything. And each person in that room holds a certain level of expertise. But often when you're working in highly cross-functional groups, you aren't the expert. There's a challenge that you're working on, and you've got to bring a group of people along with you in that challenge. So my advice to someone that is in a situation with a aren't the most credible expert in the room is to not pretend like you're the expert in the room. Nobody likes to work with someone that is trying to be the expert on something that they don't know. I think stay humble and ask a lot of questions. It's okay to not have all the answers. Even at my level in my leadership, I don't always have all the answers. It's okay to say that. It's okay to ask questions. I would say another thing is, if you don't know, ask. I think more people are often willing to bring people along and it's okay to ask the question. Sometimes I feel like people don't feel comfortable speaking in meetings or raising their hand and ask the question, but maybe somebody else is also thinking that in the room and it's always kind of fun when you ask ask the question and they're like, I'm so glad you asked that because it creates more clarity and alignment. So it's okay to feel like you're not the expert and you should just own that and ask questions, stay humble and listen. I think, you know, God gave us two ears. So listen first and then ask second is probably my best advice in those situations.

Kari Wiens

I think that's great advice. And I echo too that credibility and questions can also be a thing. It helps show that you understand what the conversation's around and then you can start to use that to help open up others' voices. All right, so for those of you that are just joining us, the way this panel is structured is I will walk through a series of questions with our panelists. If you have immediate questions, please go ahead and put them in the Q&A. Otherwise, we will save a good chunk of time at the very end of the panel for open questions from the audience. So appreciate it. All right, so kicking us off here, I have a question that I want to ask you, Kate. Marketing leaders receive feedback from every direction. That can be from customers, sales teams, product teams, boards. When marketing is being questioned, that can sometimes feel personal. How do you separate the critique of the function from yourself?

Kate Alderding

Yeah, I love that question. I'll be honest, I'm not sure you ever fully separate them. I think pretending you do is actually a form of dishonesty is probably a bit strong, but it can cost you credibility with your team. And what I've observed is like the leaders who handle scrutiny the best aren't the ones who've mastered that emotional detachment. They're the ones that build enough trust in advance so that when those hard conversations come, it's actually, it just lands as information, not as an attack. A recent example of this for me is like many tech companies at the moment, I think we've had significant budget cuts earlier this year. And I'm hearing from industry peers, that's actually pretty widespread, like times are tight right now. And sort of it was mid-year, my budget was cut by an eye watering amount. And at the same time we were undergoing sales transformation, there were product challenges, it was peak season. And in the middle of that, it's a market that's already difficult. And I think as marketers, like our instincts can be like, okay, let's retreat into some brand activity. And I definitely felt it because, it looks and feels productive. It looks like there's momentum and it's almost impossible to measure, which is like safe harbor. But we did the opposite. We walked into leadership conversation and said, look, here are the three things that are genuinely moving the needle. And here are the five things we've been funding that aren't until we're not confident around. And here are the numbers and just coming really, really transparently to that conversation. And that includes some of the numbers that might reflect badly on decisions that I personally made in the name of test and learn, of course. But, you know, I think that that level of honesty, like offering it before anyone asks for it, it builds more trust with finance and sales than a year of strong results actually would. And I love what you said, Amy, that like two ears, one mouth thing. Like I always try to listen, listen, listen to the business, like actually hear what they're asking for before you come with the answers. Scrutiny is not like a threat to trust, it's an accelerator. And that's if you're willing to be honest first. So yeah, so I think the teams that get trusted in tough times are the ones who told the truth before they were asked to.

Kari Wiens

Aishwarya, same question to you. How do you separate critique of the function from yourself?

Aishwarya Balamuku

Yeah, I love Kate's response, definitely makes me pause. And I'm going to steal some of your words, Kate. I think the biggest thing for me is, marketing can feel personal because the work is so visible, right? Everybody thinks they can do marketing, of course, right? Words, the visuals, the channels, like timing, all of it. But I constantly sort of try to remind myself that the point isn't to sort of protect the work, right? The point of it is to really drive impact. And so when marketing is being questioned, I think what goes on in my head, and this is how I sort of, this is my general sort of operating principle is, there's a real concern underneath that. It could be sales saying, the message isn't helping them win enough, or the product saying, we're missing some nuance, or the exec team asking, is this clearly connected enough to growth? And that perspective sort of helps me move from a defense approach, right, defensive approach to more of a diagnostic approach. And the way sort of I separate the critique, right, of the marketing from the critique of myself is really just, similar to what Kate said, just focus on the shared intent, right? We're all here to try to create results for the business. At the end of the day, do the best thing for our customers. And personally, my role is to bring that judgment, expertise, and leadership to that conversation and not to take it as a personal attack. And honestly, it might be an unpopular opinion, but I think the best marketing gets even better through pressure. And that's what pushes you to differentiate between noise and signal. And you don't lose that sort of strategic thread.

Aimee Schneider

Yeah, what do they say? Pressure makes diamonds, something like that. That's right. I'll just kind of piggyback on that, actually. Just from my personal experience, I have to constantly balance not making the work personal. And I think for people that are very driven and passionate about their work, they can sometimes fall on the personal identity to their work. And sometimes I'm guilty of this. And if you are a type A, type person, you probably struggle with this yourself, but it's really important to try and separate this from personal critiques. I know that, you know, a critique or feedback should sometimes feel like a personal negative feedback on something that maybe you did or that you didn't do, but you really have to take it into stride because it could be an opportunity that maybe you're not seeing and that critique or that question that you're getting in a meeting may be just a signal to lean into something. I find strong candor and feedback as a moment to provide clarity and to priorities. and maybe get to exactly what the business is looking for. sometimes I'll come to a meeting and you think the expectation is, I'm going to deliver on this, and these are the metrics that I'm going to show, and I've done all the reporting, and then they'll start to ask other questions. those are really good questions. It's not that they're bad questions or that I didn't have that data prepared in my report. It's actually showing me a signal that, hey, the business cares about driving these outcomes. And it's more about shaping the way that the work that I can do can better align to business outcomes. And back to what Kate was saying earlier is just aligning around what those business outcomes. And at the end of the day, in our jobs, we are tied to driving business outcomes. That's what we do every day. And so making sure that those critiques are taken into stride and really more of it as a clarity provider, a feedback loop to help you maybe see your blind spots. That's the way I take it. And it just makes you better, right? Pressure makes diamonds. Pressure makes diamonds, yes.

Kari Wiens

I love the notion of the shared intent also as we talk about trust within an organization, but let's shift real quick and start talking about trust with customers. We know that buyers have more information than ever. Every company seems to be making all the similar claims around innovation, AI, transformation. Amy, I'm going to start with you on this one, just because I know you're in that cybersecurity world. And I was at RSA, and I've seen this in swards. So we're all operating in markets where every company is claiming to be innovative, AI-powered, transformational. In that environment, how do you make your message stand out without adding to the noise?

Aimee Schneider

I love this question because I'm sure it's in all of your industries as well, not just cybersecurity, but it is very prevalent here in cybersecurity. As you mentioned, RSA, you know, you could see it on everybody's booth. It kind of looked like the sea of sameness. But I think the reality is that buyers are just more skeptical now. And every company is saying the same thing, innovation, AI powered. And those words really feel meaningless if they're used by everyone to some degree. So for me, what cuts through the messaging is just proof. And it's showing customers what you actually do to help them get their jobs done. One thing at Huntress that helps us do this is that we do not try to win by sounding like everybody else. We truly try to sound like ourselves in terms of our messaging and making sure that we sound authentic. Because in cybersecurity, a lot of vendors in our space will lean on hype and fear in just kind of generic terms. But with our brand, we try to be more human and plain speak. If you ever go to huntress.com, you can just check out the way that we write our copy. It's very proof-led. It's written as just you and I are speaking to each other. And this is the way we like to talk to our customers, to make things very clear. So we speak to our problems and our outcomes, and we ultimately lead with real proof. And the way that we do that at Huntress is we often lead with what we call receipts internally. So we show real tradecraft, so real screenshots maybe from ransomware notes that we have uncovered in incidents or code or things that we find that are very unique to Huntress because we try to tell the stories that are only unique to us and leading with that proof. People really want to see that proof. And ultimately, if you're going to talk about AI, you have to talk about it in the way that customers actually want to hear it. Really at the end of the day, with all this hype of AI is taking over your job and we're all going to be replaced, it really is not talking about AI for AI's sake. It's about telling a different story and how humans can deliver better outcomes with AI is the story that we try and tell here at Huntress to stand out. That's a little bit different than you're going to hear the fully autonomous SOC and things like that in our industries, we tend to take a different, more humanistic approach to that. And that creates less of a black box, and that ultimately builds more trust.

Kari Wiens

Yeah. Kate, I'm going to ask the same question of you from the Intuit angle and more around like how do you actually build that belief with customers today?

Kate Alderding

Yeah, I think like we are all under a lot of pressure to say that we're AI powered now and like our customers have noticed that right across the board with our competitors too. And I think they're probably more skeptical of that claim than any other claim we make. And I think the marketers who will win in this environment are not the ones with the best AI story. They're the ones with the most credible relationship, because I think that's what makes a customer willing to try something new is that trust. And I don't think AI gets that trust bypass. We launched an AI tool into a customer base. This is particularly on the accountant side, but they're simultaneously afraid that AI is going to replace them. And they're also convinced that every vendor's AI claims are completely overblown. So we have like both problems at once. So the instinct is to lead with capability, like here's what it does, here's how it works, here's the demo. But we didn't do that. Like we led with the outcome for the customer, not AI is going to do your job or AI makes you better at your job. Like 1 framing positions the technology as a threat and the other positions it as an ally. It's the same product, just completely different relationship. But yeah, we make that pitch because the relationship exists before the product launches. And you cannot introduce something that requires that level of trust with a campaign, I would say. You introduce it through relationships that already exist through our sales team and our vendors and our partners and just many years of working really tightly with our accounting partners. I just try to think of AI as our wingman. It's not our pilot. It enables scale. It doesn't replace, you know, from the marketing perspective, it does not replace the judgment or years of experience that we have. So yeah, in scrutiny markets, I think AI, it earns its place the same way everything else does. It's through demonstration, not declaration.

Kari Wiens

I love that, demonstration, not declaration. Aishwarya, anything to add from the Autodesk angle? Is that similar?

Aishwarya Balamuku

Very similar. I think the framing we sort of operate by, especially now, the way to stand out is not just make that louder claim, right? And historically in marketing, we've sort of really thought about brand promise as sort of center to everything we do. Shifting that from just brand promise to also include specific proof is something that we are incorporating in our marketing as a charter as an entire company. The only thing I think all the key points I would make are already been made. The only thing that is advocacy has always been sort of centered to how marketing, operates because, buyers trust evidence more than sort of, taglines and slogans. I think it's the... where you stand out now is not just clarity and not just specificity, which have always been the case, but it's that additional credibility, right? And I'm based on the Bay Area here and what I sort of always think about is when you go from. the airport downtown to San Francisco or vice versa, you see all the billboards there and everything's AI powered X, AI powered Y, I native Y, right? And you know, I think about it, right? Like I look at all these billboards and you know, I drive by this fairly frequently. How many actually sticks in my brain and where's the proof point, right? And the only ones that I can remember are the ones that where there is a proof point attack. So that's where I think you stand out and back it up with evidence, right? And should make the buyer think, right, and see why this would matter for us, right? And having that path to claim is super important now.

Kari Wiens

I'm going to take a step back and have each of you share more of a use case on this next question so that we can get to know a little bit more about your worlds. So back to pressure makes diamonds. As leaders, we're constantly balancing short-term business pressure with long-term brand building. So tell us about a time when you had to choose between a decision that would drive immediate results and one that you thought was better for the business over the long-term. And how did you make that call? And Aishwarya, I'm going to start with you.

Aishwarya Balamuku

Yeah, I mean, balancing short-term and long-term, I think, is one of the hardest parts of leadership, because usually short-term needs are, they tend to be louder, right? They come with visible urgency, they come with, deadlines from across the room. My principle is, sort of start by asking, like, what outcome are you optimizing for, right? And when you think about outcome, you also have to have an honest conversation about what trade-offs are you actually willing to accept at the end of the day. A time that comes to mind for me recently is we had some pressure to move quickly with messaging that would sort of grab immediate attention and generate near-term goals. we were talking about AI earlier, it was on paper, it would have absolutely helped us stand out, create momentum fast. But we also wanted to make sure we were ready, right? Like if we over rotated towards what would perform well in that moment, we would have created some confusion in the market about the broader story that we were trying to build. So, you know, we had a choice, right? Do you do something in the short term to capture the attention, eyeballs, and lead the market in some ways? Or do you think long-term? And the way, and my team jokes with me about this all the time, instead of choosing one versus the other, I reframed the decision, right? So the decision wasn't so much about short-term versus long-term. I sort of reframed it as, how do we meet all of those near-term expectations, near-term business need, without compromising that long-term brand promise? So in some ways, yes, I do like to have my cake and eat it too. So when I reframed that way, we focused on really sharpening that message for that was still actionable for that immediate campaign, but it was still grounded in a much more durable narrative longer term. And that meant there were guardrails, right, being very disciplined about what we said, who we were talking to, what proof points we actually needed. And after a lot of debate, it came down to alignment, right? And we brought the team back to the business goal, the customer, and that long-term perception that we wanted to make sure we aren't in the market. as a result, we were still able to drive the impact that we needed. We didn't cater to every single audience, but we catered to the audience that mattered the most at that time while still keeping that long-term brand promise and strengthened the broader story. And much to my team's delight, I think we avoided creating that one-off message that we probably wouldn't have been able to hold up later. And that's where I think my sort of learning from it was It's not about conflict between long-term brand building and short-term performance. The best sort of decisions, try to do that trade-off in order to achieve that middle ground and deliver something useful now while reinforcing that credibility, trust, and clarity that you want to build over time.

Kari Wiens

Amy, same question to you, especially knowing how fast cybersecurity can move. So Short-term, long-term.

Aimee Schneider

Yeah, for me, it's not always a trade-off. And one thing that I've learned in leadership is to parallel path. And what I mean is sometimes you can't make the decision of short-term wins versus long-term. Every day you have to get incrementally closer to that long-term goal, but also maintaining short-term wins. And this is something I deal with every single day, leading demand Gen. at a very fast growing startup is, you know, we have to maintain inbound volume. We are a high velocity sale. We look at our business on a daily, monthly, not quarterly. We have a very short sales cycle. So we have to be maniacal when it comes to hitting our inbound, what we call QAs, which are essentially demo requests, trial requests. And so I have to maintain that, but also think about long-term. So one of the situations that comes to mind is something that we are working on right now here at Huntress is you know, while maintaining parallel pathing, that inbound volume is also ensuring the health and sophistication around a re-nurture plan for our database. So while we are acquiring all of those leads and inbound requests, how do we also maintain the long-term vision of ensuring that those leads and that investment is protected, and even though they don't convert, they will eventually. And I'm not talking just e-mail nurtures here. This is a go-to-market alignment between sales and marketing on how we nurture, warm, reactivate dormant accounts, but also maintaining that new account growth, maintaining those leads that does not end, that never sleeps, but making sure that we have that long-term engine here. And I think that that's that inflection point we are at Huntress where it's not just about that inbound, it's also about maintaining those investments Because if we don't do that, we have to reacquire those leads, reinvest in those. So we're ultimately losing money at that point. So for me, it's always been about parallel pathing because you have to hit those short-term wins, but drive towards that long, vision and you have to think about being a strategic leader for that and learning how to balance that is really important as you get to a certain level in your career. So not always, you don't always get to choose. Sometimes it's both. And most of the time it is both.

Kari Wiens

Okay, I see you nodding along, so.

Kate Alderding

Yeah, I was loving that, Amy. I think both seems like a bit of a cop out, but it's true. Like, but I think it's, It's framing it as a choice, like short term versus long term. I think that's where a lot of marketing leaders actually get themselves into trouble because when the pressure is on, like framing that gives us, framing it that way gives us a permission to retreat. Like, oh, we're playing the long game and suddenly that brand activity becomes genuinely hard to connect to an outcome and it becomes a strategic position rather than a hiding place. So if I think about a use case and reflecting like the best decisions that I've made under pressure, they were not actually choosing between speed and sustainability. They were finding that mechanism that delivered both because they were built on that trust infrastructure that was already in place. And back to that sort of peak season budget cut, I was talking about before, we are very much a challenger brand in APAC. There's a majority of customers that are locked into one or two other competitors, and they're not happy enough to leave. They're not even really curious enough to look around. And so the short term play, which we are definitely guilty of in the past, and my sales team will laugh if they watch this, it's to offer a discount, it's an offer, it's creating that urgency and manufacturing a reason to switch. But where we've seen real success, and shout out to Kirsty Hollis, our brand lead, we run this campaign that was built around one question. Like, when did you last review your platform? So there was no offer, there was no urgency. It was just an honest question aimed at people. We'd been showing up for for years in their industry events, at their training programs, in their professional communities, just being part of the conversation. And that campaign posing that question, we actually did have discovery calls come through where the customers were literally saying to us, yeah, your ad made me realize it probably has been years since I've looked at other options. And that's all we needed to do. There's no discount, there's no deadline.

Aimee Schneider

I'm taking that, Kate.

Kate Alderding

Yeah, it was honestly really effective. And you just get that cut through because you're not doing what everyone else is doing. It's just posing the question, when was the last time you looked around? And yeah, the relationship played into that, the trust factor played into that, and we did see some success and the long game, you know, and the commercial outcome, they're not in opposition. The long game is the mechanism. So if you start early enough. So yeah, I think trust is so important and it's not the alternative to revenue, it's the compound interest.

Kari Wiens

Yeah, and we did have a question come in between when, both Amy and Kate were talking. And Amy, I think it's aimed more at you. A little getting towards your trade secrets, so you don't have to like say the whole thing on the call, but they were wondering a little bit more about when you say it's not just e-mail nurture, how are you reading through your database?

Aimee Schneider

Yeah, it's a great question. So we've actually chopped up our database into various segments based on high intent, based on low intent. There's a bunch of stuff that we put in there like engagement scores, which is kind of like an MQL model if you have one, and what they're doing, what that last action that they took. So we basically put them from like least engaged to highest engaged. We created a bunch of sub-segments, and then we are building distinct plans across sales and marketing for those, depending upon where they are. For an example, for our high intent segment. It's almost like an ABM play. It's a smaller segment where ultimately all we're trying to get them to do is take a high value action or get them to take a meeting. So they've already downloaded pieces of content. They're already warm. So the way that we're thinking about that one in particular is activating other channels through our sales team with direct mail, doing dedicated ABM plays, more of a classic ABM play for those where we can get more personalized and do some field marketing stuff. So we're treating each one differently based on what we know about them. What's their most recent action? What did they not engage with? We've got some colder, more dead leads that are like the zombies that we've got to bring back. They're not responding to e-mail. So we have to be a little bit more creative in terms of our levers. So we don't even include them in our e-mail as a channel for that one because we know they're not being responsive there. So it kind of depends on each segment. But we use lots of different channels from the website to paid media to direct mail, SDRs are a big part of that, sales, events. So it kind of depends on the segment. Great question though.

Kari Wiens

Well, and that just shows too the engine that you've built and how you're trying to balance all those things working together constantly in that engine. I'm going to shift us a bit. We've talked a little bit about trust within the organization, trust with customers. Let's talk about our teams a bit more. So confidence doesn't just happen. Leaders create the conditions for it. So what have you learned about building a team culture where people feel confident enough to take risks and make decisions and learn from their mistakes, especially in today's environment where there is just a lot of pressure as we've talked about, but also we want to make sure we're experimenting. And Amy, I'm going to start with you.

Aimee Schneider

So my number one thing in terms of, what I try and instill in the people in my team is trust. I feel like if you don't have trust with your leader or, amongst your team, it really is hard to achieve anything. So it ultimately comes down to cultivating that trust and creating an environment around calculated risks. I think, I mentioned about being maniacal in terms of hitting our targets. There's a little bit of trade-off with comes with that because there's only so much risk-taking given that you have to hit a target every month, every quarter. So we have to be very calculated in terms of picking what those risks are, but those risks are really important because that creates a space for learning. And if you're not learning, you're not moving the business forward. So that's really important to create that. One of my favorite things that my current CMO here at Huntress instituted was this concept around the beautiful oops. It's a book. If you didn't know about it, it's written by Barney Salzberg, I think if I'm saying that right. check it out. But the concept is all around getting our hands involved in something, getting your hands dirty and being okay to share about mistakes. And so one thing that she instituted was called the beautiful oops, part of our marketing all hands, which I think is great. You know, we as marketers love to be the ultimate cheerleaders showing up, talking about how we're hitting our targets, doing such amazing stuff. And we don't talk enough about the stuff that we're learning and the mistakes that are made because That actually is where growth happens. And so creating that environment where you can celebrate risks versus thinking about it as an opportunity risk where you've lost something is a really important framing for leaders and to create that space and trust for people to want to take those risks. That's the hardest part. I think being a leader now is being able to create environments with that, but it's more of an approach. And so that's what we do here at Huntress. And I think it was actually passed down from a previous CMO of hers, where they had the beautiful oops. So you guys should all put that in your all hands or in your team meetings to talk more about that. Because I don't think that we do enough of that in marketing.

Kate Alderding

Yeah, I think, I love all of that, the beautiful, oops, Amy, writing that one down. I think I've observed that like the leaders who conflate to things that are actually quite distinct, and when you conflate them, you tend to get neither. The first is clarity, which Amy touched on, but the second is safety. So, and you need both simultaneously for a team to be genuinely confident and safety without Or clarity without safety, I think becomes a bit of a culture of compliance. And then safety without clarity becomes a culture of really good intentions, but they go absolutely nowhere. So for me, like what I did with my team in the last year or so, which has been really, really effective, is building out the clarity side. I ran my team using a framework called V2 Moms. I don't know if anyone's heard of that. It's created in Salesforce, and I think they use it for absolutely everything. But it's a framework that sort of articulates your vision, values, methods, obstacles, and measures, and it's all on one page. And additionally, I had the team put their individual objectives for each quarter, and no person was allowed to have more than two or three, and it would link into that framework, you know, using a SMART framework, so it's all very measurable and achievable, et cetera. And like I like quite a big team and every person could point to that V2 mom and say, here are the two or three things that I'm like solely accountable for. And exactly how those things are connected to the commercial outcomes that we were working towards. Not some 40 page strategy deck, we probably had that as well. But one page, you know, one page that made the strategy absolutely impossible to misread. And then the test is simple. It's like, if I can't ask anyone in the team and they can't play that back to me and summarize it, repeat it in their own words in under a minute, then I haven't done my job. And that strategy that's sort of complicated and living in my head just becomes a document rather than something that's living and breathing. So yeah, so I think I've learned that like equally clarity only works if people feel safe enough to tell you when you're wrong as well, like you can't, You can't manufacture that in a workshop. You build it by responding really, really well, like consistently and visibly. The first three times someone tells you something that you don't want to hear. So yeah, so I think strategy, it can't survive being repeated. You know, if the person below you can't repeat it, then it's not a strategy. It's just a PowerPoint. I love that.

Aishwarya Balamuku

I love the psychological safety point. I think that's so important, right? And make sure that people on the team, they know when to take a risk and feel safe about doing that. I think that's a make or break moment for building trust. I think the other part, if I look at sort of moments in my own career where, a leader sort of trusted me before I was fully sure that I was ready, I think that trust sort of has definitely helped me grow. So, I try to do the same for others, give them, enough context, enough support, tell them you're there, but then also give them enough space to sort of make the call and, have them feel that their judgment matters, right? You don't make confident teams by just telling people, hey, be more confident, right? They're only created when people feel clear, trusted, supported, you know, all of the great points Kate and Amy mentioned here. I think when that exists, people are more willing to take those risks. And then of course, agency, high agency matters, right? I think when people feel like they have That's an individual trait, right? When they have an ability to make impact and there's a decision or there's a business impact to what they're driving, I think that high agency sort of stirs that sense of confidence in them as well.

Kari Wiens

Yeah. Okay, I know we're getting down to our last 15 minutes. So I'm going to ask a couple more and then open it up to audience. But the series is all about women redefining leadership. And I love all the advice you guys have been giving out already. So Shwarya, I'm going to start with you on this next question. As women leaders in B2B, what perspective or leadership strength do you think is often underestimated? And what advice would you give someone who aspires to lead at this level?

Aishwarya Balamuku

Yeah, I mean, I think I've heard this question being asked and answered. And my version of sort of how I think about this is the biggest sort of underestimated sort of trait, especially as you think about women leading, is the ability to sort of lead with both empathy as well as accountability. And somehow I think empathy sometimes gets misunderstood as being soft. But in my experience, it's always been one of the most strategic sort of leadership tools, right? Because it's all about how do you navigate ambiguity, pressure, being able to listen, being able to connect with people on that human level and understand sort of the different perspectives. And that's incredibly powerful. I think that the ability for particularly women leaders to read the room, create that alignment, build trust, I think it just can sometimes be undervalued because it's not your traditional version of authority. And the reality is that's actually what moves the work forward, right? That's what helps people feel understood, helps stakeholders feel invested in the outcome. But at the same time, I'm also a firm believer, like, you can't do empathy on its own. It has to be paired with conviction. So, you can listen deeply, but you can still make that hard call. You can create that space for multiple perspectives, but you still hold a high bar, right? And that balance, figuring out that balance is, I think, the moment where you're really challenged as a leader. And that's where you start and start getting to the next level. My advice, I mean, I'm no expert, I'm still learning, so take advice with a grain of salt. I think don't wait till you feel like you're completely ready, right? A lot of growth actually happens when you step into rooms where you're not the expert, right? You're still building that confidence. Be prepared, you know, put in the work, build in Building the plan to show up in that room and own the room, if you will. But it's okay to not feel 100% ready and build credibility back to sort of the beginning of this, the panel question. And that will improve your quality of thinking and your follow through as well, right? And just be, don't feel like you have to lead by copying somebody else's style. You don't need to be louder or different or forceful version of yourself. The goal is to be a more courageous version of yourself in a way that feels authentic to you.

Kate Alderding

Yeah, can I just jump in with probably what isn't your typical leader's answer, but we're seeing mass layoffs at the moment, particularly in big tech and Intuit was not exempt from that. And in fact, I was one of thousands that was made redundant a few weeks ago. after a decade of being a top performer in that organization, like it doesn't really feel like an opportunity at first, it feels like the rug is being pulled. And I think we do each other a little bit of a disservice, particularly in rooms like virtual rooms, like this one, you know, when we skip straight to that growth narrative or the pivot or the silver lining, like everything happens for a reason, but the honest middle part, the bit where you question everything you've built, like that's where the real work happens with yourself. And what I know, I probably knew a little bit before, but I definitely know, and I'm glad it's my learning out of this whole experience is like the trust that you build, it doesn't live in the org chart, it lives in your relationships. Like every customer I've sat next to at an industry event, every vendor I've engaged over the years, like every single team member I've fought hard to give proper recognition or proper development or a proper shot. Like none of that disappeared when my role did. And the last few weeks have been a real testament to that. And the structure has, you know, dissolved essentially. But, But the work didn't. And I think that is the thing that is probably most underestimated about women in leadership. It's like not that empathy or collaboration, although both very much matter. It's that long-term relationship capital that we build, often without being told to, and often without showing up in any of the metrics. But that itself actually turns out to be a really durable commercial asset in the room. So I think like my advice, and I mean this as practically as I can, it's like invest in the relationships before you need them, show up before you have an agenda, because trust belongs to you like it always does and it always, always will. And yeah, own it accordingly.

Aimee Schneider

Yeah, beautifully said on both. I'm just listening to both of you. And the main thing that I can think of that's like this red thread is this being the connector. And I think that that is an underrated skill set. And when I say being a connector, it is connecting with the relationships and the people that you work with because they do carry. with you. They have my whole career. That helps you get your next opportunity. But also being the connector internally. I think one of the really wonderful skill sets of being a connector is being able to see the work and the relationships that should be connected and make something else better. I have always been thought of myself as a connector running integrated marketing. How can a collection of things be one big great thing? And I always approach problems like that. And being able to see the organization from where I sit now today allows me to be that connector because I do have my hands in a bunch of different things. So there is that advantage, but I would say the skill set is not always on the resume of being a people connector, a project connector, a communication connector. That's the kind of the red thread that I'm seeing here amongst all of us. And I would definitely echo that as an underrated strength that you need in leadership. Yeah.

Kari Wiens

I have a couple of questions coming in. So I'm going to turn to those. So here's a great one. Who are the women leaders you've looked up to during your careers?

Aimee Schneider

Oh, good one. I would, you know, this is going to sound really cliche. But my mom, my mom actually was a business owner. She built her own business from the ground up. She did not work in tech. She worked in construction, actually one of the only females in her industry. She worked in commercial construction and started her own business. And I always admired her. She was a single mom, raising me, an only child. And she really was a great example that you can have it all, you can do it all. It's not easy. But she was always a great inspiration for me from a leadership perspective. And among wonderful managers that I've had along the way, some good ones and bad ones, but I would definitely say my mom for sure.

Kate Alderding

Yeah, my mind jumped to when I first joined Intuit. I had come from, I worked for BCG, consulting firm for many years. So very male dominated partnership. and then came to Intuit. And the leadership team was almost, bar the marketing director who was male, almost entirely female. And I remember just walking in and seeing them in the boardroom together on the first day, and they were laughing hysterically. And they did a fantastic job of growing that company in the early growth stages. But what I thought was so special about their leadership sort of dynamic was how much they truly enjoyed each other's company. And the trust was there and that trust filtered down throughout the organization because the leadership was, it was led by Nicolette Morey at the time. They were so in lockstep with each other and just created such a fantastic energy in the office that it just, it touched every person. And I always think back to that and I honestly dream about a day, I'll be at an organization again, where I have that level of connection in leadership and hopefully I'm the one to bring it. But yeah, definitely think about that as a bit of a golden era and something that was very inspiring for me sort of early on in my career.

Aishwarya Balamuku

I think I would say for me, I don't think I would pick one. I'm just lucky to get to work with a lot of my peers, a lot of people at Autodesk. I've been here for 12 years at this company. So over time, I've met some tremendous leaders that I've just had a chance to learn from and exchange not just ideas and the work stuff, but challenges, right? And how to work through it. Especially if you think about an industry like manufacturing, pretty heavily male-dominated. And how do you navigate that? How do you, going back to earning trust in the room? I've just been lucky to be around so many women that have sort of paved the way, right? And in some ways have made my journey a lot more easier, given they've sort of navigated to navigate this for me. So yeah, plenty, plenty to pick from.

Kari Wiens

Right. Another question for the group. What belief about B2B marketing has changed over the course of your career?

Kate Alderding

I was going to say, I think it's becoming sexier. I think B2B used to feel like the less cool sibling, but we're starting to really own it, I think. And for me, it's sort of What has become prevalent in the last couple of years is like that customer intimacy piece, right? Like you don't just sort of put out a digital ad to the minions and see how they respond digitally and say, yep, okay, let's run another one. It's knowing their journey. It's being with them every step of the way. It's multi-year relationships. Like I realize now why I love B2B. It's that community aspect. And I think that is becoming more and more important and prevalent over the last few years.

Aishwarya Balamuku

Yeah, I would, I mean, I was going to say something very similar. I actually think, B2B is similar to B2C in that you're still marketing to humans. I think you're not marketing to this giant monolith of a company. It's still the same people and I think there was a period where it just felt like B2B marketing was similar to what Kate said, became boring. And it was more about following a playbook. And I think the last several years, because of tech and because of all the other things happening around us, the playbook's out the window. And we sort of have to go back to the basics of human-centric sort of instinct, which is very similar to B2B. And so at the end of the day, I think we're back to the basics of marketing and building that, converting that desire into action, if you will.

Aimee Schneider

Yeah, it's funny. I've always been in B2B. But I love the way you said it's almost like B2C. And there was a point in my career where I was like, I'm going to go work in B2C because I've never done that. And I'm with you guys. It's almost like we are doing that now. And there's not much difference per se between B2C and B2B. So I think that that's, I would totally agree. That's what makes this fun now. And I think people are taking more risks. I think that because it's so crowded and so AI-centric and everyone has the same rented channels, it presents an opportunity to be really creative. And I hope everyone works at an organization where you can stretch yourselves and be creative and try new things because I think we are in that space where creativity is really what's leading the pack because we all have the same access to the same things. So. Well, we have time for one more.

Kari Wiens

This one is going back over to Kate. Kate, somebody resonated really well with what you were talking about around clarity and safety, and they wanted you to elaborate on that a little bit more. Specifically, what does that mean when there's one without the other?

Kate Alderding

Yeah, I think with clarity, you know, Without clarity, I think people can run off in different directions and you're just losing that momentum and the impact of what you're trying to deliver. And without the safety, I'm not sure, the direction is always right. as a leader, you have a certain perspective on what's happening on the business, but those on the ground, particularly when you're leading a bigger team, you need that shared collective knowledge to really hone the craft, hone the strategy, and make sure that you're delivering on the business outcomes. And without the safety piece, you're not getting that feedback loop. And I always say, the vendor that's going to win is the one with the tightest feedback loop. And without the safety, you're not going to be receiving those messages. So you need clarity to make sure you're all moving in the same direction, and you need the safety to be able to make sure the direction is the right one.

Kari Wiens

That's great. All right. Well, thank you, everyone. I'm so excited that our panelists were able to join us today. Thank you each for taking the time out of your busy schedules. And then for everybody who has listened in, we will be putting out a recording of this. And we'll do that for all the folks that might have missed out today as well. And if there's anybody you would like to nominate to be on a future panel, I would love to hear from you. So thank you all.