Saas Insider

Should salespeople blog and create their own content? How to leverage video to improve sales? What are some different types of content that you could be sharing? Kurt Shaver, the Chief Sales Officer (CSO) of Vengreso, talks to Shira Abel about social selling done right and where to begin. About Kurt Shaver • Kurt Shaver is the CSO at Vengreso, a Digital Sales Transformation company. As a former sales rep and VP of Sales, Kurt knows what it takes to reach B2B decision makers. • He is the creator of the Social Selling Boot Camp and has over 10,000 hours of social selling experience. • Kurt is a frequent speaker at events like Dreamforce, Sales 2.0, and LinkedIn's Sales Connect conference. His blog was named a Top Sales Blog and clients includes Hewlett Packard, CenturyLink, NetApp, Frontier Communications, Maritz Travel, and City National Bank. Key Takeaways: • Salesforce is the greatest potential content distribution force that B2B companies have. • While salespeople should be sharing company and industry co

How do you make a transition from a job at a startup to an enterprise? How to help sales and marketing departments work together towards one common goal? Can you get sales fight for MQLs? Where do you start when trying to sell to an enterprise? Dave Ewart, the Head of Digital Marketing at Oracle, shares with Shira Abel his experience of working for an enterprise, developing a collaborative workspace, and driving innovation. About Dave Ewart • Hailing from the 50th state, Dave is a SaaS Tech Marketer with few known predators but highly allergic to: poor customer experiences, stodgy corporate marketing and inferior faux-cloud software solutions. • 
Dave is a Full-funnel Marketing Exec and #Startup advisor with 20 yrs experience driving revenue and demand to scale SaaS companies from seed through acquisition & IPO. David has driven marketing teams and led demand generation for B2B brand leaders including: Tealeaf (acquired by IBM), SatMetrix, Saba, Loggly, Talkdesk and is currently Head of Digital Marketing

How do you enforce culture and set people up for success? How can you choose the right people to join your team? Can you make sure you have diversity? Shira Abel talks to David Cancel about having five successful exits, company culture, and the importance of building a startup around your customer. About David Cancel • David Cancel is a serial entrepreneur, podcast host (Seeking Wisdom) and angel investor/advisor. • He is best known for creating hyper-growth products and product teams at companies such as Drift, HubSpot, Performable, Ghostery and Compete. David has been featured by media outlets such as The New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, Wired, and Fast Company, and has guest lectured on entrepreneurship at Harvard, Harvard Business School, MIT, MIT’s Sloan School of Management, Bentley, and other universities. • His popular blog davidcancel.com has been read by 1M+ entrepreneurs, and his Twitter account @dcancel has 135k followers and is considered a “must-follow" account for entrepreneurs, executives and

Why you should have an even distribution of UX professionals and developers on your team? How do you fail before you write code? Shira Abel and Anders Härén talk about data, gamification, building an ideal customer persona for your business and much more. About Anders Härén • Anders Härén is the CTO of Leeroy – a Swedish retail tech startup that has been around for 8 years. • Previously Anders was the CTO at MittMedia – Sweden’s largest publisher of local news (28 regional newspapers, 22 free newspapers, 50+ sites and 50+ native apps) where he played an active and strategic role in MittMedia’s successful digital transformation and climb to top three newspaper groups in Sweden. As a CTO his two main passions are User Experience and Machine-learning. Anders was in charge of creating and scaling MittMedia’s development organization from 5 to 60 developers in three years. • In the fall of 2016 Anders joined Leeroy as a co-owner and CTO. His responsibilities are similar to the ones at MittMedia: Scaling product,

What is at the very foundation of any brand? What is a marketing system? Where does research come into play? Shira Abel and Elizabeth Harr talk about strategy, A/B testing, branding for professional service firms and more.  About Elizabeth Harr • Liz is an accomplished entrepreneur and experienced executive specializing in brand management for successful business growth.  • Prior to joining Hinge, Liz co-founded a Microsoft solutions provider company and grew it into a thriving organization that became known for its expertise in Microsoft customer relationship management.  • She has worked with clients in the for-profit, non-profit, and government sectors, helping them map out growth plans using technology adoption and now leads Hinge's practice that focuses on branding and marketing strategies for technology services firms. 

 • She has co-authored several Hinge research books and reports, including two of their more recent books, The Visible Expert and Inside the Buyer’s Brain. Key Takeaways: • Build a ma

How does learning affect the kind of leader you are? What is the most important skill you need to have to efficiently learn? What is Account-Based Marketing? The host Shira Abel and Venkat Nagaswamy share their thoughts on learning, ABM, and converting leads into customers. About Venkat Nagaswamy • As co-founder and CEO of MarianaIQ, Venkat Nagaswamy brings a long and diverse background in high technology to bear on applying artificial intelligence and Deep Learning to help marketers make account-based marketing (ABM) an at-scale reality. • "Big Kat," as he was nicknamed by friends and colleagues, has led teams in creating analytics, technology and business development solutions at McKinsey, Juniper Networks and GE Plastics, among others. He's worked in enterprise and digital consumer hardware, SaaS, corporate and business unit strategy, market entry strategy, product development, marketing planning and more, allowing him to understand martech challenges from both the CTO and CMO's point of view. • A proud g

Why do marketing departments fail? What should your plan consist of? Where to start when evaluating a campaign? Shira Able and G Leavitt get into a discussion about effective marketing, building a successful company, the truth about direct mail and more. About G Leavitt • Gaydon Leavitt (or “G” as he is called), a marketing scientist, has helped over 1,000 businesses with their marketing strategy and execution in nearly 200 industries. G is devoted to helping organizations build marketing departments that produce profitable growth. • The models and software that G has developed are unprecedented for small business. They produce growth and profit by creating alignment between an organization’s strategy, plan, management, advertising, and measurements for success. Gaydon combines a technologically-focused marketing approach with marketing strategies that have worked for hundreds of years. Key Takeaways: • Most people don’t know what a marketing plan consists of or what it even is, but it’s necessary if you wa

Is it possible to get customers before you have a product? How do you bring large corporations together and at the same time create new products in a startup like environment? Shira Abel discusses innovation and working with enterprises with Oren Goldschmidt, the President of Pivotus Ventures. About Oren Goldschmidt • Oren is a visionary technologist and innovation expert with twenty years' experience building technology companies and developing models for corporate innovation. • He is President of Pivotus Ventures, a corporate innovation organization in the Bay Area. Pivotus brings financial institutions from different geographies together to create technologies that transform traditional banking business models by re-imagining how we interact with money and transact commerce. • Before setting up Pivotus, Oren was a General Partner and Chief Strategy and Technology Officer at Frost Data Capital, a venture fund and incubator based in California enabling large-scale corporate innovation and transformation. He

How do you increase conversion? How do you create an experimentation program? What are the most important aspects of building a site? Shira Abel discusses web design, copy, and research with a champion of conversion optimization and testing Peep Laja. About Peep Laja • Peep Laja is the Founder and Principal of CXL. He is from Estonia, but lives in Austin, TX (still spends summers in Europe to escape the Texas heat). • He’s an entrepreneur and a conversion optimization champion. He’s passionate about driving change and growth through digital optimization. • He was voted as #1 most influential conversion rate optimization expert in the world. He is devoted to growing the size and quality of the whole conversion optimization community. You can always rely on him for help, and to call bull****. Key Takeaways: • It’s not about what’s happening on a competitor’s website and its data, it’s about your site and what your users think about it. • When designing a website start with the user in mind, where they are co

Is your company enterprise-ready? How do you define customer success when creating a product that doesn’t exist on the market? Why is it important to have mentorship programs? Today Shira Abel sits down with Eileen Carey to talk about becoming a global company, diversity and inclusion as a macroeconomic strategy, and the importance of choosing the right partners. About Eileen Carey • Eileen Carey is the ­Founder & CEO of Glassbreakers, a diversity and inclusion enterprise software company. Eileen has spent the majority of her career in corporate communications and public relations. • She was previously at Citigroup and MarkMonitor, a part of Thomson Reuters. She holds an MBA in International Marketing from Fordham and a BA in English from The University of Maryland. • Eileen grew up in Dobbs Ferry, NY and is currently based in San Francisco. She is passionate about social impact entrepreneurship, philanthropy and the future of inclusion technology. Key Takeaways: • Glassbreakers’ greatest success has be

How to decide what type of content to produce for your SaaS business? Should you do it at all? What is a great way to find out more about your customer and how they feel about your company? How long before you see the results from your blog? Shira Abel chats with Emily Triplett Lentz about customer success, quality content, and how Help Scout built their blog to grow their business. About Emily Triplett Lentz • Emily Triplett Lentz is the Blog Editor and a content strategist at Help Scout, which makes customer support and email management software more human for more than 7,500 companies in over 140 countries. • Since Help Scout is a remote company (as is Basecamp, where she worked previously) Emily recently relocated to northern California by way of Austin, Texas, Costa Rica, and Anchorage, Alaska. • Outside of work she enjoys playing bluegrass music with her husband as well as traveling, often with their two boxer dogs in tow. Key Takeaways: • Customers don’t really care about your product. They want to s

How to warm up the chill of cold conversations with your prospects? What phone habits increase your chances of booking the first meeting? Where do metrics come into play? Today Shira Abel and Marylou Tyler discuss the book Predictable Prospecting, cold calling, the biggest mistakes at the top of the funnel, and how to use marketing in sales to your advantage.       About Marylou Tyler • Marylou Tyler is a sales process improvement expert, author, speaker, and as CEO of Strategic Pipeline, she has helped companies like Apple, Bose and UPS consistently grow revenue by increasing their sales pipelines. • Marylou's passion is helping B2B sales professionals advance sales conversations from cold to qualified opportunities. • Marylou also co-authored the #1 Bestseller Predictable Revenue (sold over 60,000 copies), and has included her latest prospecting and sales strategies learned from spending the last five years in the field with clients in her newest book, Predictable Prospecting. Key Takeaways: • Never be af

What are the biggest mistakes that SaaS companies make? What is Account Based Marketing and is it right for your SaaS business? Should Martech and Customer Service Tech expect a massive shake out? Today Shira chats with Jay Baer, the President of Convince & Convert, about investing in SaaS, the future of Martech, and what SaaS companies need to concentrate on to be successful. About Jay Baer · Digital marketing and online customer service are broken, and Jay Baer brings the repair kit. Jay has created five multi-million dollar companies, and was recently inducted into the Word of Mouth Marketing Hall of Fame. · He is the President of Convince & Convert, a consulting firm that helps the world’s most iconic brands like The United Nations, Nike, 3M, and Oracle use technology to gain an unfair competitive advantage. · A New York Times best-selling author of five books, Jay is also the host of the acclaimed Social Pros podcast. He’s also an avid tequila collector, and a certified barbecue judge. Key Take

Pekka Koskinen has started several companies. Some of those companies have been set up, and then he's set management in place and he stays on the board. Another has been sold. With Leadfeeder, he plans on going to the next level. On today's show Shira Abel talks with Pekka on analytics, how to know if you're measuring the right things, and why you should focus on your strengths (Pekka stays with the companies he starts till they get to a certain size - instead of growing it huge himself.) About Pekka Koskinen Pekka is a serial software entrepreneur. Since 2002 He’s founded four companies and made one exit. Pekka founded Snoobi, a web analytics company, in 2004 and sold it to Fonecta in 2012. He’s also the founder of Solinor, Fraktio and Leadfeeder. Currently he’s the CEO of Leadfeeder - which takes all of his time. He’s placed management in his other companies who run those companies. Please rate this podcast. About Shira Abel Shira Abel is the CEO and Lead Strategist at Hunter & Bard (http://www.hun

Using humor in marketing is an art, and doing it well means more loyalty, word of mouth, and a higher bottom line. Ryan is a very funny guy who knows how to sell, and he's used that combo to build marketing at LeadIQ. About Ryan O'Hara Ryan O’Hara is VP of Growth and Marketing at LeadIQ. Ryan’s has been an early employee at several startups helping them with marketing and prospecting tactics. Most notably, did marketing and prospecting at Dyn, who was recently acquired Oracle Ryan specializes in branding, business development, prospecting, and coaching people on how to make good digital first impressions. He mentors for The Iron Yard, The AlphaLoft. About Shira Abel Shira Abel is the CEO and Lead Strategist at Hunter & Bard (http://www.hunterandbard.com), an inbound marketing and branding agency. Clients include: Folloze, Totango, Cyara, Sarine Technologies, Pushbullet, AXA Tech, CloudEndure, AppsGeyser, Pitango VC, Allianz, and more. Creator and host of the SaaS Insider podcast. Creator of the Behavio

Without growth your company will die. Growth for an Account Based Marketing methodology is a different kettle of fish than your normal spray and pray technics though. Today's show Shira talks with Brandon about ABM, and how to be effective. About Brandon Redlinger Brandon Redlinger is the Director of Growth at Engagio, the Account Based Marketing and Sales platform that enables teams to measure account engagement and orchestrate human connections at scale. He is passionate about the intersection between tech and psychology, especially as it applies to growing businesses. He’s lead growth and demand gen teams from NYC to Denver to the Silicon Valley. Brandon is also a certified health coach and personal trainer. About Shira Abel Shira Abel is the CEO and Lead Strategist at Hunter & Bard (http://www.hunterandbard.com), an inbound marketing and branding agency. Clients include: Folloze, Totango, Cyara, Sarine Technologies, Pushbullet, AXA Tech, CloudEndure, AppsGeyser, Pitango VC, Allianz, and more. Creat

Sales. Max Altschuler doesn't just run Saleshacker, a company that teaches people how to sell. He has conferences, a book, and a sales community. If you have sales questions, or want to learn more about how to sell - this is the episode for you. About Max Altschuler Max Altschuler is founder and CEO of Sales Hacker, the leading community for modern sales professionals. He’s the author of Hacking Sales: The Playbook for Building a High Velocity Sales Machine. A widely recognized thought leader on sales and technology, Max has been been published by the Harvard Business Review, cited by Forbes, and named a top sales expert by both Salesforce and Inc. He keynotes conferences around the world and is an investor and advisor for startups. Previously, Max held top positions at Udemy and AttorneyFee. An avid traveler, he has visited 79 countries. He lives in New York City, but also spends time in San Francisco. He loves to play hockey, visit his nephews, and hang out with his dog Brie. About Shira Abel Shira Ab

How do you decide which way to go with your product? What problem are you solving? How do you rank your priorities? Shira talks with Danielle Morrill, the CEO and founder of Mattermark on brand, product, and how veering off from what Sales is telling you is always the wrong way to go. They also talk a bit about account based marketing. Danielle Morrill Danielle is CEO and Cofounder of Mattermark, and formerly led Marketing at Twilio. She is a graduate of Y Combinator, named to Forbes 30 Under 30 and is an angel investor in several companies including Boom Supersonic, Estimate and LeTote. She loves to cook, paint, and explore the world from her home base in San Francisco, California. About Shira Abel Shira Abel is the CEO and Lead Strategist at Hunter & Bard (http://www.hunterandbard.com), an inbound marketing and branding agency. Clients include: Folloze, Totango, Cyara, Sarine Technologies, Pushbullet, AXA Tech, CloudEndure, AppsGeyser, Pitango VC, Allianz, and more. Creator and host of the SaaS Inside

Maybe you are an executive who is looking to start your own company. Or maybe you're a bootstrapped startup and you're looking for a different kind of exit. Eric Giesecke has run a number of Search Funds - funds that look for a single company to focus on and grow. In this episode Shira talks to Eric about Search Funds, and how he found and grew Planet DDS. About Eric Giesecke Eric is the CEO of Planet DDS, responsible for operations, technology, finance, customer success.. Prior to joining the company, he co-founded District Line Partners, a private investment fund created to acquire and operate a single attractive business in a growing industry. He also ran Onesource Water, a bottleless water cooler firm where he nearly doubled the size of the company in less than three years. Eric has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia. About Shira Abel Shira Abel is the CEO and Lead Strategist at Hunter & Bard (http://www.hunterandbard.com), an inb

Partner and Affiliate programs can be a brilliant way to grow your business without a huge marketing and sales spend - when it's done properly. In today's show Shira talks to Jeff Epstein from Ambassador on Affiliate and Partner programs, Jeff's philosophy on hiring, and how to interview for culture. About Jeff Epstein Jeff Epstein is the founder of Ambassador -- a 40 person, venture-backed startup headquartered in metro Detroit. Ambassador provides relationship marketing software to some of the world’s most recognizable brands. Jeff is also an investor, mentor and advisor to several startups, including the Techstars Detroit program. A lifelong entrepreneur, Jeff’s first internet startup was in 2000 and provided online food ordering for college students. Jeff ran this startup while earning his BA from Michigan State University. While earning his J.D from Chicago-Kent School of Law, Jeff started an affiliate marketing company which he later sold before graduating to allow himself to pay off his law school