Customer engagement platform
Digital-first, omnichannel platform built for enterprises
Digital-first, omnichannel platform built for enterprises
Agent efficiency, automation, and operational insights
Self-service support, education, and collaboration
Content management, publishing, and governance
Create a space for customers to get answers, connect with peers, and share new ideas
Connect with customers on SMS, Messenger, WhatsApp, & more
Chat with customers in real-time or anytime on your website
Start the conversation with automation, increase agent efficiency, triage, & more
Protect your brand & drive loyalty across social media and review site
Orchestrate social campaigns that drive business results
Understand social trends from customers, the market, and competitors
Find, curate, and share the best social media content
Deflect inquiries to messaging channels and self-service communities
Automate conversations with our intuitive drag-and-drop platform
Supercharge agents with AI tools & intuitive workflows
Build brand awareness with a user-generated knowledge hub
Drive higher conversion rates and more revenue
Secure solutions to keep customer information safe
Cutting-edge tech to innovate and inform your customers
Deep insights to keep a pulse on customer demands
Real-time capabilities to stay connected with consumers
An integrated platform to nurture the customer journey
Our in-house experts in social media and community management for Khoros customers
More than onboarding and implementation, this is where our partnership begins
Increase satisfaction and improve product adoption with complimentary training.
CX Confessions, the definitive podcast for digital CX leaders
Guides, tipsheets, ebooks, on-demand webinars, & more
Integrations to connect with your customers, wherever they are
Technical overviews and links to developer documentation
Join us for webinars and in-person events
Insights, tips, news, and more from our team to yours
Case studies with successful customers to see how they did it
Connect with 70K+ customer engagement professionals
A customer experience podcast with Khoros Customers
Check out our social content and follow us on every major platform
20+ years experience, built from Spredfast and Lithium
Meet the team that leads the team
Press releases and other announcements
Data integrations for better customer experience
We’re hiring — come build the future of customer experience
Need anything? We’re here for you
Our commitment to do more and do better
Digital-first, omnichannel platform built for enterprises
Agent efficiency, automation, and operational insights
Self-service support, education, and collaboration
Content management, publishing, and governance
Create a space for customers to get answers, connect with peers, and share new ideas
Connect with customers on SMS, Messenger, WhatsApp, & more
Chat with customers in real-time or anytime on your website
Start the conversation with automation, increase agent efficiency, triage, & more
Protect your brand & drive loyalty across social media and review site
Orchestrate social campaigns that drive business results
Understand social trends from customers, the market, and competitors
Find, curate, and share the best social media content
Deflect inquiries to messaging channels and self-service communities
Automate conversations with our intuitive drag-and-drop platform
Supercharge agents with AI tools & intuitive workflows
Build brand awareness with a user-generated knowledge hub
Drive higher conversion rates and more revenue
Secure solutions to keep customer information safe
Cutting-edge tech to innovate and inform your customers
Deep insights to keep a pulse on customer demands
Real-time capabilities to stay connected with consumers
An integrated platform to nurture the customer journey
Our in-house experts in social media and community management for Khoros customers
More than onboarding and implementation, this is where our partnership begins
Increase satisfaction and improve product adoption with complimentary training.
CX Confessions, the definitive podcast for digital CX leaders
Guides, tipsheets, ebooks, on-demand webinars, & more
Integrations to connect with your customers, wherever they are
Technical overviews and links to developer documentation
Join us for webinars and in-person events
Insights, tips, news, and more from our team to yours
Case studies with successful customers to see how they did it
Connect with 70K+ customer engagement professionals
A customer experience podcast with Khoros Customers
Check out our social content and follow us on every major platform
20+ years experience, built from Spredfast and Lithium
Meet the team that leads the team
Press releases and other announcements
Data integrations for better customer experience
We’re hiring — come build the future of customer experience
Need anything? We’re here for you
Our commitment to do more and do better
CX Confessions | Episode 6
Guest | LATANÉ CONANT
If you’re a CMO, you’re probably immersed in cold calls, spam, and forms. Unless you’re Latané Conant. In this episode, we dive into how Latané, as the CMO of 6sense, makes this a reality in her organization.
Latané Conant tells us how she approaches creating a community for great customer experience. You don’t want to miss these important topics:
How she uses events as part of her CX strategy
How she maps the sales journey from the prospect’s perspective
Why she doesn’t believe in cold calls, spam, or forms
The “dark funnel” and her four rules of relevance
The most important data to consider as you build your tech stack
Latané Conant is the Chief Market Officer of 6sense and author of the bestselling book, “No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls”. She’s passionate about empowering marketing leaders to confidently lead their teams, company, and industry into the future. Latané is laser-focused on leveraging technology and data to build marketing programs that result in deals, not just leads. She’s known across the industry for her creativity, competitiveness, and boundless energy.
As humans, we have a fundamental need to connect. And so part of the experience is the connecting. And the more alike the community is, the more value they get out of connecting.
— Latané Conant
A lot of leaders say, ‘Don't sweat the small stuff, never sweat the small stuff.’ We sweat the small stuff. When a program comes together, the fact that every bit is branded and consistent... all those little things come together to make it a real thing versus just another program.
— Latané Conant
I think that the best thing you can do if you want to create community is to try to make it as alike as possible and help them find people that they really identify with that would be hard for them to find somewhere else.
— Latané Conant
INTRO:
You're listening to CX Confessions, brought to you by Khoros. In each episode, we’ll share the customer experience stories and insights you need — straight from the sharpest minds in CX — to better connect with your customers and create customers for life. Let's start the show.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Hello everyone and welcome back to CX Confessions. I'm Katherine Calvert, CMO of Khoros, your host, along with my trusty co-host, Mr. Spike Jones.
SPIKE JONES:
Still here!
KATHERINE CALVERT:
How are you doing today? Still here.
SPIKE JONES:
I'm good. How’re you doing?
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Pretty good, pretty good, very excited about our show today. We have one of my favorite people and an industry iconoclast, I like to call her: Latané Conant. Yes.
SPIKE JONES:
Whoa, wait wait wait wait wait, say your name again, say your name again.
LATANÉ CONANT
Latané Conant.
SPIKE JONES:
I think we can fight crime. We could fight crime.
LATANÉ CONANT
I know.
SPIKE JONES:
Latané and Spike. I could be your sidekick.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Latané and Spike. Katherine feels a little flat. But, anyway, it's not just a cool name. She is the Chief Marketing Officer for 6sense. We are a customer, as Spike knows. They are the leading account engagement platform. So they help us with ABM and intent data. She is also the author of a book that sits on my desk called, No Forms, No Spam, No Cold Calls: The Next Generation of Account-Based Sales and Marketing. She has a track record almost as long as mine. We've been around this game for a long time. She has amazing stories to share and, welcome to the show.
LATANÉ CONANT
Thanks for having me. Anything that has confessions in the title, like, let's go. This is great.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Well, I mean, and you and I have had many conversations on this topic and all of its many aspects, right? How do you think about CX? How do you think about — that can be this giant umbrella, when really what we've talked about, you and I, and I've admired what you've built at 6sense, we’ve tried to do this with our customers at Khoros, is create community, right? And I should say, I would, I'll start out with the reason I met Latané is because they invited me to a senior marketers event hosted by 6sense. And I never go to these things. As a CMO. I put them on all the time. And so I feel like I go to enough work events. But something about it was, really spoke to me. It spoke to me not as a prospect, but as a person. And I have never missed it since. That was your brainchild. Talk to me about what makes a Latané event so special.
LATANÉ CONANT
I do take my events very seriously. My mother in law is convinced I'm just an overpaid party planner, which maybe that's true. I don't know. I don't know. I really, for whatever reason, almost feel how other people are feeling. It’s very weird. I'm going to get very meta, but like when I walk into a room, I can almost see like the energy clouds.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Yes, you're an empath.
LATANÉ CONANT
And so I just, I think my deep down true superpower is to try to raise everyone's energy clouds. And that's so that's literally what I think about when I'm planning an event is like, how are they going to, and then the other obsession that like, so I think I just naturally have that and feel that and, and I, I want to uplift other people.
But I also have been, and we've talked about this, I've been really, one of my COVID guilty pleasures is designing. And so I've started to study design. And one of the things about great design is it's not just visual. It's, you know, you want it to be visually beautiful and stand out and be differentiated. But it needs to be really functional. You want to make sure that next to the chair is a place to put the drink and enough light to read and write. So there's all this like, functional that goes into it. And then there's the scale, right? Are you having a 30,000 person event? Or a 20 person program? Right? So thinking about the scale and what that means. There's the texture, you know, there's like invoking all different senses, sense of smell, sense of taste.
So, you know, I really just try to have things come together in a beautiful way. And it's really fun to like, I was advising a client earlier, and they're like, how do we make our webinar, you know, more jugge or whatever. And I'm like, well, delight and awe, delight and awe. Like what are you going to do that is unexpected and is going to create a little bit of delight, and a little bit of awe that you pulled it off?
And so I would say that's the other thing with, I talk a lot about with events, and with the team is I'm like, you know, a lot of leaders say don't sweat the small stuff. Never sweat the small stuff. We sweat the small stuff. Because the details when a program comes together, the fact that every bit is branded and consistent, all those little things come together to make it a real thing versus just another program.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Yeah, an experience. I mean, I think that's sort of the metaphor, right, for a truly connected customer experience. How do you, how do you make sure you're thinking through each of those moments? But you talk about them like you're throwing a party for your friends, and having been to a couple of them, that's sort of what it feels like. But you're a B2B tech marketer, doing these very special and bespoke events. How do you think about them as part of your strategy to help your business succeed?
LATANÉ CONANT
Well, I think people have a fundamental need to connect. Right? Think about when we were cavemen. You'd, rather than be by yourself, you got in a cave with a couple other people because it was safer, and warmer, and worked better. So I think, you know, as humans, we have a fundamental need to connect, and so part of the experience is the connecting, and what I’ve found, just in my life, is like if you make me go to a show floor and talk to every Tom, Dick and Harry and stand at the booth, I mean I, it's, it is so bad. It's so, so, so bad.
And I know there are people that get a lot of energy out of that, God bless them, but I don't think it's the vast majority of people. I think that most people, and we talked about this, because I think you were wanting to think about more community, and, the more alike the communities, the more value they get out of connecting.
So take a personal example for me. I am a working mom. That does not mean I don't appreciate moms that don't work. I think they're great. We don't have a lot in common. Typically. We just don't. It's a total, it's a very different world. And so if I'm going to go to a moms’ group, the first thing I'm going to look for is, do they work outside the home, you know, the other thing I'm gonna look for is what age kids, if they have babies. I love the baby-baby phase. But I don't need to relive that.
SPIKE JONES:
Nobody does.
LATANÉ CONANT
I mean, I don’t need to relive sleep training, you know. So I think that like the best thing you can do, as, if you want to be a community organizer and create community, is to actually try to make it as like, alike as possible, and help them find people that they really, really identify with that it would be hard for them to find somewhere else.
And that's probably why the one that, the one you were talking about, the empowered CMO one, which actually was originally Amanda's idea, one of our co-founders, because she has always believed in empowering women. But I think one of the things that makes it so unique is, it is all women. There aren’t a lot of, and it's not just all women, it's all B2B, because there's a lot of CMO events that are B2B and B2C. It's also typically CMOs who have some tenure being CMOs, versus new CMOs. So then it just again, it starts to get, these layers are actually what make the content and the connections more and more relevant.
SPIKE JONES:
But I love that you talk about connection points, because for me, those bring the little details alive. Those connection points. And those are the things I notice the most, whether it's, I'm traveling, or at a conference, or at again, an event or a gathering. It is those details, but those details that connect us, which I think is really cool.
Now, you're a CMO. But you are a CMO that does not believe in cold calls. You do not believe in spam. You do not believe in forms. You wrote a whole book about it. But what I love about the book is not only do you go, all right, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you how we do these things, but also I'm going to take you through this journey from your prospects’ perspective, which I think is fantastic. Let's go walk a mile in the shoes of these folks, when you put them through what you call the dark funnel. The dark funnel. I'm gonna use that forever now. So thanks for that. Can you talk a little bit about that journey from the view of the prospect?
LATANÉ CONANT
Yes. So I, you know, think about yourself when you go to buy, right, and it's just like when we're talking about events and communities and stuff. It's not like all of a sudden when I'm at work I'm like do-do-do I'm going to be a totally different person. And, you know, if I am going to make a big purchase, I'm going to do some research. I'm going to talk to people. I'm gonna, you know, I can't go buy a car without asking my husband. He'd freaking kill me. You know? I mean I can sneak some things by him — a lamp here or there. But not a car.
But especially, even more so I think at work, you know, if I'm going to make a purchase, there's a lot of personal risk and business risk to a lot of big purchase decisions, right? And, you know, Katherine, you and I didn't get where we were, we are, you know, not being, we have to be really buttoned up to be a CMO and not get fired after like a month. So you know you're going to be buttoned up, you're going to do your research, and the first thing that we tend to do is we put up a form, so that you can't do the research. And, you know, think about the experiences we just talked about, I think that's just a really poor experience like and I want you to, you know I'm the leader, I, why wouldn't I want you to learn from me and learn from my customers, and learn our point of view on it and why we've been able to make people successful. Like I'm creating equity and investing in you from the very beginning, when I just put that out there. And then, you know, I was on Instagram last night and someone said there's two types of people, there's the zero inbox, and the 15,000 inbox.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Oh that hurts, that hurts.
LATANÉ CONANT
And I’m at 57,267. I'm red.
SPIKE JONES:
Holy smack. I got zero unread and I'm at 44.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
3400 I feel so good about myself. Thank you.
LATANÉ CONANT
I know, You're winning. You're totally winning. But the reality is, you know B2B marketers send 3 billion emails a day and there's only 7.7 billion people on the entire planet. So, like, that's just a lot. And it's kind of annoying. And, you know, are you necessarily hurting people viscerally with it? I don't know. But I just think that people are going to tune you out. And then when you do have something really important to say, you're dead.
And so I just, I feel like we've like over-rotated on the form so that we could get the email so we could just ba-ba-ba. And that isn't a good experience. And then the cold call, you know, I, if someone calls from my area code, I think I've screwed something up with school. And yesterday it happened. I didn't buy Catesby a yearbook so I had to like, in between calls like run over with $23 so my kid wasn't like the only person without a yearbook. Because I'm a mother of the year. But anyway, so like, you know, as soon as that 847 comes up, I'm like, Oh, my God, it's like anxiety. Right? So but and these people are trying to spoof my area code, and then they're trying to sell me something. And it's just, it's like, I don't need more anxiety in my life.
So I just think that stuff doesn't really work very well. And I think if you play a longer game, and if you have the right insights — I get it, you can't do nothing, right? We all have to go out and create revenue, right? You can't just do nothing. But the reality is, and I'm working on this slide deck, where I have a picture of the dark funnel, because the reality is we all buy this way. We all try to stay hidden. Don't want to give our email away. And don't listen to someone until we're like, okay, now I'm, now I want to buy you, I want to meet with that rep. I'm going to buy you and somebody else. And these are the features I think are important. I don't care what features you think are important. So when all this stuff is happening in the dark funnel — I'm doing my research. I'm talking to Katherine, doing this and doing that. And because we don't see it at all, Spike, you have to work so hard. I have to work so hard. We hire more AEs, we do more calls. And we just throw it all at the dark funnel.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Sorry, I'm going to interrupt you. When you talk about the dark funnel, to help our listeners, what does that mean? Like we B2B marketers think about the funnel, I get your, I get your inquiry and I'm working you all the way down through SAL to SQL to opportunity, blah, blah, blah. What is the dark funnel?
LATANÉ CONANT
Yeah, so you have data in your CRM, right? And I don't, you know, maybe, and then you also probably have data in a marketing automation solution. Okay, so, yes, when you do have someone's email, you maybe create some sort of funnel out of that, and call. So that's your known funnel, right? And then your sales reps maybe put stuff in, maybe don't, I don’t know, but that's also known funnel, but like, let's be honest, I mean only 13% of sales and marketers have a lot of confidence in their CRM and map data so it's only, I mean, and it's, it's old, you know, it's kind of static-based data. It's only showing us a very small sliver of what is our true funnel. And a lot of times it's too late, right, because if you think about when I typically do fill out a form and come in like hot inbound with you, I've already really decided what I want to do.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Right, it's down to one or two.
LATANÉ CONANT
It's two levels too down. Yeah.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
So the dark funnel is like the parallel universe. It's all the stuff happening that you can't see, because it didn't get captured by your marketing automation system. But you know it's happening.
LATANÉ CONANT
Yeah. And it's just swirling, boringly evil vortex. But there's gold in it.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
There's gold in there. Right. And that's what 6sense helps companies to do, right?
LATANÉ CONANT
It is.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
How do you, though, in that model, right, if you're not following a traditional path where I'm out to capture your information, how do you get in the conversation? How do you stay in the conversation so that you are on somebody's consideration set before it's 60% down the decision process?
LATANÉ CONANT
Yeah, so it's a good question. So what I think about it as a lot of the things that we already do, we just do a lot of somewhat randomly, because we're just throwing it all against the dark funnel. And what happens is a bike pops out, and a tire pops out, and a fishing rod, and then some chunks of gold, right.
So, what I want to do is I want to say, okay, now that I've lit up the dark funnel and I can see the best accounts for me, I'm gonna go I'm, I'm probably still gonna use a lot of the same things but I'm going to be a lot more targeted and like surgical with proactively going after the best accounts at the right time with the message that's relevant, because that's all the signal that's there. Right. So if you're not a great account for me to sell to, and I don't have a lot of case studies about you, you're kind of small, kind of big, or whatever, like, I don't want to spend a lot of time, or if you're a great account for me and I know that you care about sales and marketing alignment, or I know you care about predictive analytics, or you care about your target account list, why would I talk to you about ABM? You don't really care about them. You know, I might bring it up later, but I'm going to hit you with something that I know you're researching.
And so that's like it so it's just sort of like being more targeted and more relevant. And so I have these like kind of four rules that I think about for relevance, which is like account fit, you know, and have the story, like you should know that they're a good fit for you, but also what like the why they're a good fit for you because often that's like, important for your messaging that you've gotten proven success or whatever, right.
And then the persona, and in B2B we know this is so so so important. You know if an intern wants a demo, that's cool, I mean whatever they can see the recorded demo I don't know if I need to like, have them have time with my AE that makes $500,000 a year to see a demo. Like, I think I should wait until it's, you know, an executive, right. So it's like that profile fit is really important too, not only not to waste my team's time, but also again, if you're a head of sales for me, you care about different things, a little bit, than a head of marketing. So that's the second level of relevance.
To me, the third rule of relevance is like, what is your behavior? Do you want to binge on content? Do you want to connect in the community? Do you want to talk to analysts? And I can see all that different behavior and help guide you to what is most relevant.
And then last is the timing, right? Because we know and we've always done this as marketers, you know, our favorite thing to do is journey map, right? We love the journey map. Right? And then if they're early this is what they're thinking and feeling. And if they're late, this is what they're thinking and feeling. But like, we kinda just barf it all out there and hope that they like identify themselves as early or late, which is not super realistic.
Whereas when you have the timing, then you know, I can give you the ROI calculator, because I know kind of where you are versus you're just trying to figure out if you have a problem or not. And that's gonna be something different. So that's what I love about the approach is like, yes, I do call BS on a lot of the things that we do, but most of what we do is really, really good and positive. We make persona maps, we want to understand the journey, we want to connect with our audience. The problem is we haven't had great insights, and the ability to like, orchestrate and connect those insights with an audience.
And when all of a sudden you have that, then it's like, okay, I don't need a form. I don't have to spam people. And you know what? I don't, I don't want, like the rule of no cold calls for me is not that they don't use the phone. They can use the phone. It's just, is it the right time and have I warmed that up enough? Like, it's my job to get accounts and market for sales.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
I love those rules. Sorry, Spike. I was just gonna say, I love those rules. We talk to both B2B and B2C, I should say, we serve both B2B and B2C companies. And those rules of relevancy apply to whoever you're selling to whether we had, you know, we've talked to retail companies, we've talked to B2B marketers, like that is, those are applicable, because we're talking about people, right? It's your time. It's your inbox. It's your phone.
LATANÉ CONANT
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And like, B2C is so good at it with a lot of the algorithms and stuff. And you know, we can start to get better and learn from that.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Right, but the principles are universal.
SPIKE JONES:
So we typically ask our guests: what's a commonly held belief in your industry that you disagree with? Well, I think we know what the answer is for that for you. So I would like to pivot and actually ask you, you know, when you go down a path to just fundamentally change how this thing has been done forever, and, you know, still changing the world, probably one customer at a time. What was that aha moment? What was that big light bulb that went off, or a series of little ones that went off, that led you to where you are in this belief system that you have now?
LATANÉ CONANT
So my last job, I was the CMO at a company called Aperio. And one of the big transformations I led there with a bunch of folks was, we started out as a cloud deployment partner, right? So you want to move to Salesforce, you know, moving to the cloud was a thing. And then it was kind of like, okay, why? Why are people moving to the cloud? Like, what's the point, you know? And so that was kind of an aha, is like, what, why are we moving all these people to the cloud, other than Dreamforce is cool, and Marc Benioff's like the man and we like the concert?
So, and then the other thing we did is we moved employees to the cloud. So we did a lot of work around things like success factors, and workday, and, you know, cloud kind of employee type systems and so I had an aha there. Like, it's about experience. Like, no one just wants to move to the cloud because we are moving to the cloud. Moving to the cloud because our customers expect a consumer-grade experience from B2B, you know, they have way higher expectations, and we need this technology.
And guess what? Our employees, again back to work, they don't show up on their phone and then come to work and want to see green screens, right? Like, we have to make it easy for them too. But then we did a lot of research on the connection between customer experience and employee experience. And the fact that if you want to deliver these great experiences, your employees have to have great data, have to have great insights.
And so we have these two businesses that we thought were somewhat separate, and we're like, oh my gosh, there's this really cool connection that we should just go out and talk about. And so I lived that. I did road shows. I stood up on many a stage. I did a lot of research. So I in my core believe that, right?
And then I got to 6sense. And I think, you know, the scale of the job at 6sense was way different than what I had been at before. There was only one marketer there and me and it is an AI-based intent data orchestration I mean, embedded, I mean, it’s a lot. There's a lot. Like if you want a buzzword-off I, literally this guy on my team, we created a glossary — we now call it talking nonsense — of all these terms, cause I'm like, I have no idea what these people are talking about.
And it was kind of, it was not kind of, it was like totally intimidating. I'm like, what am I doing? I feel like this is ridiculous. This, I need to go back. Aperio, take me back. And, but then I was like, you know what, I’ve got to put my big girl pants on, and I got to kind of go back to my beliefs, and what I've seen play out over and over and over again. And I'm like, okay, what do I believe in? You know? Many soulcycle classes. And I'm like, I do believe in customer experience. I do believe in that employee experience. I do believe that technology and insights are catalysts for change and that's how you're going to compete. And ultimately, that's what I'm doing here. It's just a different medium. And so then I said, what does a typical marketer do? What does a typical seller do? And does it work? Does it deliver a good experience? And then I sort of start to unwind the sweater and you're like, I think that we have an opportunity to make a pretty significant impact on B2B.
SPIKE JONES:
Yeah. Good Weezer reference. But keeping the experiences in the center, and having that as the most important thing above all else, and your North Star, everything you do, I think is such an interesting way to look at the world.
LATANÉ CONANT
Yeah, it's, it's been, it's working so far.
[Laughter]
SPIKE JONES:
I’d say so.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
I actually took a note because I love the way you said technology and insights can be the catalysts, right, for those experiences — for great customer experience. So when you think about that, technology can enable it, but what's the data that really matters? When you build your own tech stack, what are the things you really need to know about your customers and your prospects?
LATANÉ CONANT:
Oh, there's so much. And that's, I mean, that's part of our challenge, and actually one of the premises, we just got a round of funding because a big part of what we do is we break down data silos and then break down execution silos. So think about how many third-party vendors there are for data. There's tons. Think about how many sources of like, of your own tech stack that are just spinning off data. Your drift box spins off data, your content hub spins off data, your gain site spins off — like all these little pockets of data, data, data, data, data.
And, while at the same time, what we talked about earlier, where there's tons of data that you just won't have, because it's on the broader, you know, web. And so, a big part of what we do, probably the biggest part, and in our history, is being able to bring in your data from all these different sources, marry it with, call it a data lake, you want a good buzzword, right, but you know, all the data that we bring, and then you have to like make sense of it, right? And so that's where tying it all to an account — and that's why B2B is actually like, one of our biggest challenges is, there's accounts and then there's all these people, and then the people have different roles. And so like, you know, and their subsidiary —
KATHERINE CALVERT:
And the accounts have subsidiaries and parents and children.
LATANÉ CONANT:
Yeah, so you can see why it gets, it starts to get complex really fast. And so taking that complexity out, so that someone like Courtney Smith on my team, who is our field marketing team, and when she wants to see where should I run a field marketing program, show me accounts that are you know, in the retail sector, on the west, what city — you know, getting it from the spaghetti to walk up someone like Courtney, being able to sit with sales and make good decisions about our field marketing programs and where we're going to run events, or Nicole on our content team to be able to see what should we write ebooks about, what do our customers care about in different segments? That's where I think the elegance comes in.
SPIKE JONES:
Yeah, we're really good at collecting data, but knowing what to do with — like the old Seinfeld, oh no, I just dated myself. Anyone can take the reservation, but you don't know how to hold the reservation. For sure, and sometimes it's like that with data. It’s like, we're really good at figuring out ways to get information but then we sit around and go, what do we do with this? And what's the story that it tells? For sure.
LATANÉ CONANT:
Yeah.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Drowning in all the lakes, all the lakes.
LATANÉ CONANT:
Lot of lakes.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
So many lakes.
SPIKE JONES:
Confession time. So I love to hear about people's triumphs. But I also know that the hard lessons that are delt us, sometimes along that path, they turn into the things that make it so much more successful the next time, because it's better and you've thought through it and what happens. So what is a hard lesson along this journey that you have learned? Can you share that with us, please?
LATANÉ CONANT:
I mean do you want one from an hour ago, or I mean, it's like all day every day. But I mean, I think one that haunts me is we had a really high stakes meeting. And you know, the head of sales and I got along amazing. Like we were so aligned. Right? No one would have looked at us and said we weren't aligned.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
No daylight. No daylight.
LATANÉ CONANT:
Yeah. But we had a marketing ops function. And we had a sales ops function. And so we get up in this high-stakes meeting, and we're talking through our numbers. And like, nothing was adding up. Even though both of our numbers were right, it just, you know, how you calculate a conversion, how you calculate a win rate, how you cap. And, and so then, you know we got into this total rat hole of like how we're calculating it and it just, it was such a disaster.
And so, and I think everyone here knows that, that it's just, and like still my CFO will do his own calculations and send stuff out and I'm like, oh my god, show me your work!
KATHERINE CALVERT:
I can't replicate it.
LATANÉ CONANT:
Right. So when I came here, our head of sales and I said, we're gonna have like one revenue operating tool. And we're gonna have one dude and his team. And the way they want to calculate conversion — because I don't have a dog in that fight. Like I don't really care how you want to calculate it. I get that there's pros and cons. I just want to know that I can, I understand it and can trend it. So we just came together and were like, one set, when we talk about a win rate, typically, this is what it's going to be unless it's footnoted that it’s some other one that we want. But fine, but footnote that.
And this sounds so basic, but this, I sleep much better at night, just knowing that I feel like we have a fundamental understanding of what these things mean and how to react and like sometimes he'll call me and he'll be like, did you see? And I’m like, oh yes, I saw. We know where we're red. We always know where we're red. And you're always going to be red somewhere. And we don't have to sit there and argue about what's working and what's not working, we can just like get after making stuff happen.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
So important to stay aligned. We have been in that movie so many times. And we do have separate teams, but we built our model together. So we have one pipeline contribution model that we built with marketing ops, and sales ops, and we all look at the same page and the same reporting. And it. It doesn't mean there isn't red, to your point. But it means we all know what we're talking about when we're looking at the red that we need to go fix. So, game changer.
All right. We are reaching the end of our show. Thank you for sharing these, these triumphs and lessons learned. We've talked a lot about experience and connecting and creating community. And we all believe, I know you share this belief, that that's because we're all just people trying to — whether you're a working mom or not. We're all just trying to figure our way to helping our companies do great things.
So we want to learn a little bit more about you. We have a little game we like to play: our favorite five questions. So it's confession time. The last five questions. Mine, I'll start: What was your first concert?
LATANÉ CONANT:
Steve Miller band.
SPIKE JONES:
He used to live down the street from me. Yeah, in Dallas. That's awesome. That's a good one. That's a thing, that's a good, that's hard to top. Your first job?
LATANÉ CONANT:
Lifeguard.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Ohh.
LATANÉ CONANT:
That was my favorite job ever. If I could go back to being a lifeguard —
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Well, then maybe we know the answer to this one: But if you — what profession would you attempt today, if you couldn't do the job you're doing now?
LATANÉ CONANT:
I really did like lifeguarding, but a big part of the lifeguard job was teaching swim lessons. And I loved teaching people how to swim. It was really, really rewarding.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
That feels like a big metaphor.
LATANÉ CONANT:
So anything like that. I like teaching people how to do stuff that they don't think they can do.
SPIKE JONES:
And seeing that confidence, I'm sure, is rewarding. For sure. Your favorite app on your phone?
LATANÉ CONANT:
Well, I'm hoping it becomes SoulCycle, you know?
KATHERINE CALVERT:
I know.
LATANÉ CONANT:
I got to get back. It's affecting everything.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Well, speaking of taking a break from exercise, what — our last question is always: what is your biggest indulgence?
LATANÉ CONANT:
Oh, I live a life of indulgence.
So my mother in law has this saying — I'm totally changing the subject. I don't know why. But my mother in law has this saying: this or something better. And so I guess I think of, any time, I never think of something as, like, bad or whatever. I'm like, Okay, well, this or something better. And, I don't know. I was the oldest child and I just sort of marched to the beat of my own drum. Like everything's an indulgence.
SPIKE JONES:
That's obvious.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
I love it.
LATANÉ CONANT:
Never a dull moment.
KATHERINE CALVERT:
Get it. You have earned it and you have earned our thanks for being our guest on our show. Thank you so much for sharing your story. You are welcome back any time. We've loved having you, and thanks to everybody who dialed in. We will see you next time on CX Confessions.
KHOROS
Your customers expect to be understood — their likes and dislikes, their history with your brand, and their communication preferences. But so many companies struggle to connect the dots of the interaction across their own teams and channels and its creating customer experience challenges and disasters. That's where Khoros can help. Khoros is the award-winning customer engagement platform built to turn those siloed interactions with your customer into enterprise value. Khoros works with more than 2,000 of the world's leading brands and powers more than 500 million digital interactions every day. Khoros is the award-winning platform for digital-first customer engagement. Ready to create human connection across the digital customer experience to create customers for life? Learn more at Khoros.com.
Thanks for listening to CX Confessions, brought to you by Khoros. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure the hit subscribe in your favorite podcast player and give us a rating. See you next time.
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