Episode 16
Transparency, technology & trust: The inside track on 6Sense's marketing strategy, with CMO Saima Rashid
In this episode of the Trust and Influence in B2B podcast, host Joel Harrison speaks with Saima Rashid, CMO of Sixth Sense, about the multifaceted challenges of building trust in B2B marketing. They discuss the role of the CMO in establishing credibility, the balance between brand and demand, and the importance of sales and marketing alignment. Saima shares insights on navigating intent data while respecting customer privacy, leveraging customer advocacy, and making informed martech decisions. The conversation also touches on the impact of AI on trust, the significance of post-sale trust, and the importance of transparent reporting and metrics in building trust within teams.
Takeaways
- Marketing must show the value of its contributions.
- Strong brands lead to lower customer acquisition costs.
- Sales and marketing alignment is crucial for success.
- Intent data should be used responsibly to build trust.
- Customer advocacy is a powerful tool in B2B marketing.
- Transparency in reporting builds trust within teams.
- AI can create trust issues if not used properly.
- Choosing the right martech partner is essential.
- Post-sale trust is vital for customer retention.
- Building a culture of trust starts with hiring the right people.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Trust in B2B Marketing
02:09 The Role of the CMO in Building Credibility
05:52 Balancing Brand and Demand in Marketing
09:50 Sales and Marketing Alignment for Trust
12:14 Navigating Intent Data and Customer Privacy
14:55 Harnessing Customer Advocacy in Marketing
17:06 Building Trust in Martech Decisions
19:46 AI's Impact on Trust in Marketing
25:06 Post-Sale Trust and Customer Retention
28:00 Building Trust Through Reporting and Metrics
30:57 Personal Trust and Team Dynamics
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Trust and Influence in B2B podcast.
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:I'm your host Joel Harrison.
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:Thanks for joining us again for another exploration of some of the issues relating to
trust in the whole world of B2B, as the name suggests.
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:It was a multifaceted challenge, one that's very pressing in today's world.
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:And we are looking forward to getting into our conversation today, who is with our guest,
who is Saima Rashid, who is a five-time industry-winning marketer with nearly two decades
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:of experience and most recently and currently a CMO of Sixcent.
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:one of the most prominent and fastest growing martech companies operating in B2B today,
which is our mission to transform our businesses by products and services through cutting
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:edge AI infused technology.
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:As a former Sixth Sense customer in a previous role, paid the company the ultimate
compliment by coming to work for them.
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:And since she's doing that, she's been laser focused on ensuring marketing is achieving
its potential as a growth driver and embracing creative and strategic approach to
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:marketing campaigns.
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:So I'm looking forward to talking to Simon about the importance of trust and all aspects
of the marketing of martech.
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:and generally in MarTech.
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:So, Sema, welcome.
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:Thank you so much.
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:I'm so excited to be here, Joel.
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:and it's great to have you on here, because actually it's a fortuitous time to talk to
you, because last week, and I'm not quite sure when this is going to go out, but just last
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:week when we recording this, we had the Sixth Inspire event in London.
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:So we got to hang out with you and the rest of the Sixth Sense crew, got to present with
you, and I to get a sense of what Sixth Sense is talking about at the moment.
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:So it was a great day, and I got the sense you all enjoyed it as well.
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:Oh my gosh, we had a great time.
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:It was wonderful to have over 300 brilliant marketers in Europe join us and contribute to
the conversation.
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:Yeah, it was a really nice vibe, a nice buzz.
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:It was good for networking, good to learn, good to see what people are doing in that kind
of revenue space, particularly in that kind of revenue ops space.
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:So some really good presentations and it was good.
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:It's very good to get a sense of culture of the organization.
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:So I think with the Martek brand, the culture shines through in terms of how they deport
themselves at the event and the feel of it.
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:It's an intangible vibe thing, but it was good.
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:It was really good, enjoyed it.
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:I'm so happy to hear.
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:And we put a lot of effort into obviously the internal culture, but then providing
customers and prospects with a similar experience.
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:Yeah, and you can definitely tell that.
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:Okay, so lots to get into here, lots to talk about.
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:And the first thing we'll talk about was the role of the CMO in terms of credibility
because CMOs often have an uphill struggle uh earning trust in rest of the C-suite,
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:especially in firms selling marketing services.
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:how does that, what's that challenge look like for you?
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:You're not selling services, you're selling a product obviously, but what does that kind
credibility issue look like um in a martech firm?
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:I guess the fact that you're selling what you do is enabling martek should put you on a
quite a good standpoint, but I guess there's no easy rides here.
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:No, but you're absolutely right, Joel, because marketing is our key target persona.
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:We sell to go-to-market teams, and so that includes marketing, sales, and CS.
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:And so we're just intimately in tune with the challenges that marketers face today.
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:uh So as a marketer, marketing to marketers, which that was a bit of a tongue twister
right there, uh it's fun because not only am I the target persona, but I'm...
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:I'm facing the same challenges every day.
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:And so as customer zero of Sixth Sense, I work more closely with the sales team and the
product development team than I think maybe other marketing leaders would, right?
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:We have so much research that Sixth Sense produces internally across the industry.
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:And so I don't have to explain to our C-suite, you know, that 81 % of the time,
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:buyers have already picked out a winning vendor through their marketing journey.
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:So much of that marketing journey is uh anonymous.
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:It's fragmented because there's so many individual buyers in a buying group.
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:And so because this is who we sell to and talk about day in and day out, our executive
leadership team is very much in tune with it as our sales leaders and CS leaders.
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:uh
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:Beyond that though, I think the same rules apply that apply everywhere else, right?
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:Marketing consistently has to show the value of what we're producing, right?
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:At the end of the day.
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:And uh that comes with delivering a great brand experience, great messaging, really crisp
messaging for the market.
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:But it also comes down to owning a number and marketing owns the pipeline number at Sixth
Sense.
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:So there's uh a real sort of we're in it together because our North Star is qualified
pipeline.
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:And so we work hand in hand with the sales team to ensure that we're providing that.
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:Another unique point I would say is BDRs also sit within the marketing org.
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:So we really are taking that initial top of funnel messaging through to qualification for
the organization.
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:And so we have a big seat at the revenue table.
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:And does that focus on revenue, which is very 2025, does that mean that you don't have
time to focus on some of more creative aspects of marketing or your kind of very kind of
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:more marketing machine?
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:do you still are you able to make time for perhaps more creative, emotive expressions of
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:I think in today's world, any company that is not focusing on brand along with demand is
frankly missing out.
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:uh We do not set anything live without a full brand to demand process behind it.
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:uh That starts from identifying who our ICP is and meeting every person and every account
within that ICP where they are in the journey.
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:Only about 5 to 7 % of an ICP at any given point is in market.
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:which is great for that pipeline side of the machine and generating demand.
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:But what about everyone else?
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:If we are not actively getting in front of them, making sure that they understand what we
do, what problems we solve for, how we might address certain pain points that they're
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:having, frankly, we're missing the boat.
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:And so I would say it's crucial for every marketer to be thinking about a brand to demand
journey.
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:Lucky for us, Sixth Sense as a technology solves for that.
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:And...
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:us as customer zero of Sixth Sense ensure that every single campaign that we set live is
looking at that full journey.
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:And so, ah you know, to answer your question, while we are a pipeline driving engine at
Sixth Sense, we put equal, if not more, effort on actually cultivating the brand and
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:bringing our buyers along the journey with us.
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:It's great to hear um people even in that revenue orientated environment, still a message
is landing.
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:I guess you've got to exemplify the best in B2B.
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:People have got to relate to your marketing, otherwise then they're sophisticated
consumers.
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:So they've got to buy into it.
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:They have to, just to add to that point, strong brands have lower customer acquisition
costs.
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:They have shorter sales cycles.
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:It benefits the other side of the equation, right?
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:And so you have to be providing a rich, personalized, curated experience for your ICP.
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:Your prospects and customers are getting that at every other point in their life, right?
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:They're all, I know we talk about B2B sometimes as though it's this unique thing.
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:No.
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:Our customers and our prospects are living it in the B2C world.
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:And so it's incumbent on us to really give them a similar experience on the B2B side.
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:That's great to hear.
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:The other side of the equation that you touched us a bit in your previous answers is that
relationships in sales and marketing.
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:You talked about BDRs being part of your team.
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:You talked about that kind of cross-functional revenue team.
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:But besides that, tell us a bit about what great sales and marketing alignment looks like
at Sixth Sense.
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:Great sales and marketing alignment, I think starts and ends with a shared goal.
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:We are all in it together, right?
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:Marketing is not celebrating hitting a pipeline number if sales is not hitting a bookings
target.
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:At the end of the day, it is a true one team mentality.
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:uh That starts with shared goal setting right at the beginning.
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:And that starts with us all aligning around.
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:the similar ICP.
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:What is ABM or ABX, I guess, at the end of the day, it is about focusing the entire
go-to-market org on the most winnable accounts.
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:That doesn't mean that marketing has a list over here and sales has a list over here,
right?
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:So technology and data can be a great unifier across teams.
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:And we see that in how we run our business with the shared ICP, with the shared goals, but
then also shared metrics.
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:There's no sales pipeline number and marketing uh source number.
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:there's one pipeline number for the company and we're all gonna make it or break it
together.
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:And it's fantastic when we exceed it and we've done it as a shared org.
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:I think, em you know, I've talked about the data and the alignment around ICP, but also
our job, I mentioned that our North Star is qualified pipeline, but marketing's role
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:doesn't end there.
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:Marketing is providing air cover campaigns and running excellent events like you just saw
it inspire in UK.
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:where we're helping accelerate deals.
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:are helping ah take insights from what the data is showing to curate and craft really
great campaigns, really crisp messaging.
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:Part of my team, I have an ABX function on my team that is directly aligned to our sales
leaders, commercial, enterprise, and strategic sales leaders to provide personalized
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:one-to-one experiences for deals that they might be in, right?
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:So we're supporting sales.
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:throughout the journey and our sellers at the same time are giving us really great
feedback of what they're hearing on the ground and what we need to be incorporating in our
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:messaging.
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:And so it really is a one team mentality, but it goes beyond just kind of saying that
we're in the trenches together every single day.
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:And if you do all those things, does that naturally facilitate trust?
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:Or is there other things you have to do to have that?
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:I guess it's walking the walk and talking the talk.
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:You've got to believe that you're one team and you're on the same wavelength.
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:You have to, um you have to walk the walk.
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:And whether that means my team last year did over a thousand sales calls with our sellers.
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:It's unique for us because again, we run Sixth Sense for Sixth Sense and so there's a
great sort of value to us speaking with prospects about how they can quickly scale their
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:programs.
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:But again, a thousand calls outside of our day job.
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:with customers and prospects is just another example of how we, you know, we walk the
walk.
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:think, you know, involving our sellers, keeping them informed of all the little things
that marketing is doing to support them, whether it is a webinar that we want them to
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:invite our prospects to, whether it's a customer story ever where we are having a customer
of ours share their success.
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:and giving them information that this might be great for a prospect in this industry, or
this might be great for a prospect who is on this specific piece of technology, right?
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:Making sure that we're giving them not just the fact that we're throwing an event or we're
running a webinar, but explaining to them who this might be best suited for and why, and
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:giving them the opportunity to really curate their um guest list accordingly.
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:Okay, all right, that's great.
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:Thank you for that.
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:So I think one of the things we've got to talk about, we're trying to tie this
conversation back to trust wherever possible, and it does relate across all aspects of B2B
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:marketing.
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:One of the challenges essentially in what you're selling is intent.
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:And that is something which is an interesting topic.
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:I think it's very established in marketing right now.
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:I think there's still a little bit of residual concern about intent, about the data
signals and what it allows you to do in terms of your...
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:It might be described as very similar to stalking your customers.
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:Now, I appreciate different companies are going to different perspectives on this, but how
does Sixth Sense deal with this?
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:How do you make sure that you kind of, as with what you're marketing, you're doing crosses
the line between being helpful rather than being kind of perhaps overly present and even
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:borderline stalky?
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:No, it's a great question, Joel.
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:And know, Sixth Sense is unique in way that we are very compliant.
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:We're compliant with all privacy laws and we guide our customers to build trust and stay
compliant as well.
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:It's just part and parcel of who we are as a company and where our beginnings were as a
data company.
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:It serves nobody to be a creeper.
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:And with Sixth Sense, nobody really needs to, right?
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:It's so critical in the buyer's journey.
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:to be guiding them and uh we need intent signals to help direct that effort, right?
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:When 70%, over 70 % of that journey is happening without them ever talking to sales and
with 81 % of prospects having identified their top vendor before they are ever gonna speak
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:to a seller, the role of marketing becomes crucial and there's best practices in there,
right?
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:Let's not uh gate every piece of content.
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:We have to give.
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:more than ask, especially in that early part of the journey.
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:so intent data can allow you to direct the effort of which pain points uh to highlight,
how to uh let prospects know that you solve for that.
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:Now, intent is just one of many signals at the end of the day, right?
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:We have what we call 6AI, which analyzes data and provides uh really rich sort of insights
into which accounts are in market.
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:Again, I'm speaking about accounts and not individuals.
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:And this intelligence really helps teams prioritize accounts, know what's important to
them, how to engage with them, be super relevant in messaging.
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:And what ends up happening when you do that is our recommendations often end up feeling
like the right message at the right time for prospects.
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:So we want to be less of pushing anything down anyone's throat and on the flip side,
really providing a message that resonates with the prospect where they are in the journey.
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:So it kind of comes back to brand, right?
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:You want to position yourself in the right place at the right time.
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:You're not doing anyone any good if you're kind of pursuing somebody with something
they're not interested in.
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:So why do this?
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:I I guess what I'm taking from this is you're seeing intent as a tool and it's up to you.
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:You'll only benefit if you use it responsibly and you'll only be penalized if you use it
irresponsibly.
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:Absolutely and brand and trust is hard earned but easily lost and so you have to have it
front and center no matter um what specific marketing activity or sales activity you're
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:running.
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:Okay, great, great.
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:Thank you for that.
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:think it's important to address that topic.
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:So another aspect of trust is around advocacy in B2B marketing, because it's a really,
really powerful tool.
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:And since I've been talking about trust, I've become aware of how powerful advocacy can
be, but at the same time, often how it's using a kind of piecemeal scatter gun
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:inconsistent, know, pick your own description there, oh and it's not leveraging the
consistency or the power it could have.
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:I mean, obviously your event, I guess, was there's a lot of advocacy going on there.
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:Is that the mainstay of how you use advocacy or is there any other activities that you do
to try and re-leverage that strength of customer relationships in terms of drawing,
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:creating new customers?
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:Yeah, it's a good question.
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:And um events are part of the strategy, Joel, but our customers are our best advocates.
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:And so we want to give them every opportunity to do so, whether that is curating case
studies, whether that is giving them opportunities to network through our user groups,
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:which we host in a number of cities.
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:We actually held one in London just a few weeks ago.
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:Whether it is our community, we have a community called RebCity where we have 13,000
marketers and sellers uh engaging day in and day out.
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:And so our goal is to facilitate, to help them make connections, to help them share their
best practices.
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:We're lucky to be a leader in analyst reports, but third party review sites as well.
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:It's great when our customers are seeing value and then sharing that value.
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:And so...
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:I'm always happy to get up on a stage, but it doesn't lend the same credibility as it does
when our customers are doing so.
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:And so we always try to encourage them, whether it's an event, whether it's a webinar,
whether it's reviews, whether it's user groups, whether it's having a reference call,
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:right?
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:And I think the best companies need to obviously drive great success for their customers
because then there will be great stories to tell, but then provide them with the right
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:forums to do so.
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:Okay and that's really fascinating, you've got a really rich multifaceted, multi-layered
kind of advocacy set of activities whether you call it that or not, that's really really
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:great.
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:I guess when you've got people who using it day in day out you really want them to feel
supported and all.
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:So, but also to think about using Martech, every uh marketing practitioner and CMOs
particularly are under pressure to choose the right Martech, the right solutions, create
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:the right stack and ROI can be hard to come by or it doesn't necessarily happen as fast as
possible.
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:How do you build and maintain internal trust in the Martech decisions that you champion?
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:I guess you're using your own suite of solutions as well as Sixth Sense itself.
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:How do you manage that particular challenge internally?
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:Yeah, I think I'll speak maybe internally and generally as well.
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:think, you know, I've been in this space for over 20 years now.
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:At the end of the day, you want to choose a partner as opposed to just the technology
because this is a long-term relationship, right?
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:And so you want to choose a partner whose values and uh processes align with what you as a
business are trying to do.
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:So I would just say that regardless.
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:And that is true for us at Sixth Sense as well when we're looking to evaluate technology.
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:uh There was a Gartner CMO spend survey this year that flagged the top three things that
CMOs are struggling with.
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:And it actually revolves so much around this question because it was around delivering a
personalized experience, multi-channel marketing and enabling that in a really seamless
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:way and delivering on a customer journey.
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:Tech enables all of that, right?
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:And so this is a huge responsibility for us.
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:to make sure that any technology that we're bringing in is really allowing us to build on
the promise of what we always want to be delivering, which is a rich customer and prospect
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:journey, meeting the prospect where they are.
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:Any tech that we do bring on board, we don't do it lightly.
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:typically will, number one, make sure that it integrates with what we already have,
because again, a little sort of siloed tech stack doesn't help anyone.
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:I do think the platform story becomes really important, mainly because you can unbundle
and go get point solutions.
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:But again, going back to what we want to deliver, a cohesive customer journey, a cohesive
uh integrated personalized journey, it's very difficult to do that when you're stitching
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:these end point solutions together.
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:So some things that are part of a platform and that integrate well with our platform of
choice, which is Sixth Sense, is really, really crucial.
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:uh Finally, I would say I have a data and analytics background and an operations
background.
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:So for me, any technology investment, we really will be uh cognizant and aware of the ROI
that it is delivering.
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:And so any use cases that we start to set live, we always have a measurement plan in place
to understand what is the incremental lift, what is the value that this is driving.
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:And I think savvy buyers today do the same thing.
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:Okay, that's a great answer and it's great to have, guess you've got to that knowledge of
how these things, experience of how these things work, helps you make decisions and
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:validate in future.
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:uh So we're talking about Martech, we're talking about marketing in 2025, we've got to do
AI, right, because it's omnipresent on everyone's lips, right?
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:You know, got to go there, whether we like it or not, we've to go there.
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:No, it's a fascinating, multifaceted thing going on.
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:So
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:What about is AI having impacts on how on trust in marketing?
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:Are we becoming more and more cynical?
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:And I guess this has all kinds of implications, particularly from the mind of the buyer,
but also in terms of how we're using it as internal marketing teams.
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:What do you think?
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:Is AI causing trust issues in marketing?
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:It is causing trust issues in marketing, think, especially when it's not used well.
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:And there was an article in The Economist just last week, so this is very timely, where
this hype cycle for AI, I think the title was something around, know, AI is entering the
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:trough of disillusionment.
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:And there was a stat in the article that blew me away that 42 % of companies are
abandoning their AI pilot projects.
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:because they're not seeing meaningful, well, impact being driven from it.
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:And so I think you have, for AI to be successful, I guess the best AI starts with the best
data, right?
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:Just AI developing content and turning out content uh in seconds is not helpful if it's
not driving value and if it's not meaningful and personalized to the intended audience.
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:And so having the best data that your AI is being run off of,
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:And then making sure that it is still tied to all the other data sources and all of the
other pieces of content that are meaningful for you as a business is crucial.
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:In a world where content can be created in a matter of seconds, it really is the context
that is the value that you're able to give to your prospects.
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:so applying an AI strategy that allows you to deliver a contextualized rich experience is
the only way because that's what will
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:help you stand above AC of AI generated content that uh is frankly a lot of what we're
seeing out there.
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:I think also partnering with companies that have a rich AI native experience is helpful
because so many companies out there are putting a little wrapper around, uh know, their
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:existing offering and calling it saying we have AI.
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:I think it's really important to understand which companies have been.
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:working with AI and incorporating it into their product and platform for decades.
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:And then, you know, just being really aware of where you're using AI.
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:I have someone on my team and she said it best.
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:let humans do what humans do best and let AI handle the rest.
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:so personally at Sixth Sense, obviously AI, we are an AI native platform.
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:And so we use Sixth Sense in everything we do, but
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:Even for our content team, if they're using AI, they're using it strategically.
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:If our BDRs are using AI writers, which Sixth Sense provides, you know, a sales co-pilot,
it's still sitting on the rich CRM, marketing automation data, oh our own sort of
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:contextual and valid data.
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:And so we're not just doing a mass produced...
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:um
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:communication.
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:It doesn't help our prospects and customers if we do that.
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:And so use AI to simplify, to streamline processes, but make sure that the humans are
still at the heart of it.
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:Do you think as a martech vendor that you're under more pressure to demonstrably use AI
proactively and show a path towards its adoption, perhaps more than in another category,
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:for example?
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:Perhaps.
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:think marketers in general have typically been the ones leading the gauntlet to
incorporating AI in companies.
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:The CMO tends to be picking up that because some of the early and most, em you know, most
sensible use cases are around creating content.
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:And so I see that a lot, but it goes well beyond just content curation and content
creation, right?
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:So much of this is around synthesizing so much data and deriving value from it.
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:making your seller's lives uh easier.
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:And so as a Martech vendor who started 11 years ago with AI, think absolutely we feel more
pressure to do that, but we were already using it.
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:And our first generative AI product was launched over three years ago.
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:So we've been in it for a while now.
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:uh It's showing the value and showing best practices, absolutely, I would say is part of
our responsibility.
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:I think it's actually quite interesting in some ways quite powerful quite helpful that
economists have kind of called the trough of despondency or whatever it is is because I
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:think I think it gives us a allows us to be cynical about it because I think there's been
a lot of pressure from people to be feel like they've been pushed onto the bandwagon and
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:pushed downhill fast so to kind of like to call that and have kind of a
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:from that August organisation, think is somehow quite a helpful thing to have.
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:We've all got to be cynical, but we've also got to embrace it.
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:So, find the right balance for everybody, isn't it?
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:Totally.
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:So let's talk about um a bit about um other aspects of trust.
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:And one of those is post-sale trust.
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:you because you, and you talked a bit about your community that you work with and your
existing customers.
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:I guess that, actually, do know what, we started this.
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:I think you've answered this question already.
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:I don't think, is there anything more you've got to say on post-trust?
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:will say something about retention.
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:think customer marketing organizations play a huge role in driving adoption.
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:Okay.
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:started and I thought, hang on, you've answered that, but actually that's really good.
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:I've got, I think I've got a couple things to say there.
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:Okay, great.
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:All right, so I'll start again.
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:let's talk about another aspect of trust, which is in terms of post-sale trust and
marketing's role in retention.
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:Because trust doesn't actually end at the sale, what role do you see for marketing in
reinforcing a trust in a post-purchase environment, particularly around driving retention
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:and also more importantly, expansion?
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:I think it's huge and I hit on so many points already, but the additional things that I
would call out is customer marketing teams play a huge role in driving adoption, allowing
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:for forums to your customers to tell those stories and being a really great feedback loop
back to product as well as the sales org.
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:So a great customer marketing org will do all of that, right?
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:Build your luminary program, build your reference program.
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:provide rich opportunities for your customers to tell their story and also digital
lifecycle campaigns that will allow you to get customers up and running fairly quickly.
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:All really important roles.
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:But beyond that, I think when we think about retention and expansion, your initial ICP
definition needs to be including those criteria as you're defining which customers and
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:which prospects you really want to bring on board.
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:And as companies grow, as Sixth Sense itself has grown, we've really gone in and honed our
ICP criteria to reflect our most successful customers because we want to find more and
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:more prospects that look like that.
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:Whether that's incorporating certain technographic pieces into your ICP definition,
firmographic criteria, whether that is using something like a Sixth Sense predictive model
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:to find other companies that look like the best companies that have bought from you,
right?
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:taking it all the way back to the beginning of the funnel and making sure that once you
know what good looks like from a retention and expansion and successful perspective,
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:making sure that that's being uh informing the very top of the funnel.
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:So that's a great answer.
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:Lots of nuance in that as well and how it plays all the way through.
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:So another aspect of marketing in terms of the internal dialogue in marketing where
there's often a challenge for practitioners in terms of reporting and metrics, right,
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:demonstrating success.
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:And, you know, there's lots of challenges around that.
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:Sometimes in a really worst case scenario, marketers get accused of spinning the numbers.
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:So how do you build trust in your reporting, both internally and with the external
stakeholders as well?
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:Really important and something we could do a whole other podcast on Joel because the first
20 years of my career were around building and leading analytics teams, including for
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:marketing.
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:ah I will say credibility and integrity with the numbers is crucial.
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:And the way I have done that is always by having
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:the same metrics and the same numbers that anyone in the organization would be using.
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:So there's not a marketing pipeline number and dashboard that marketers go to and then
like a real official dashboard that sellers go to, right?
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:There is a single source of truth, one dashboard, one set of KPIs.
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:Will they be perfect?
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:Maybe there's three different ways to calculate pipeline, but we all need to align on the
one that makes sense for us and that we're going to use consistently.
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:So having a single source of truth that is real time,
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:in context, meaning if there's a number we are able to quickly discern is this good or
bad.
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:Because five might mean different things to different people.
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:So putting it in context to a goal, to historical trends, right?
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:That becomes crucial.
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:And then finally, making it available to anyone.
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:So our pipeline dashboard at Sixth Sense, and I've actually got webinars out there that
people can go and find where I actually show you our dashboard.
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:It is used by all of sales and by all of marketing.
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:as the single source of truth.
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:Anyone in the company can go and take a look at it.
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:So the consistency of the metrics, making sure that there is shared definitions and then
the numbers are put into context is crucial.
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:And then I think finally just having really honest uh forums where we can as a team review
those numbers and come up with action plans.
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:Because the most perfect dashboard means nothing if nobody's using it.
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:And so having an operating rhythm where
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:the CMO, the CRO, the sales leaders, the marketing leaders are in a room looking at the
dashboard, identifying and diagnosing areas of softness, and then coming up with joint
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:action plans to address them.
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:Putting that data into action is really the key, and that helps build trust and integrity.
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:So I think it's obviously the metrics themselves, but then the usage of the metrics that
really allow you to build trust and build...
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:a shared understanding of where we are today and where we need to be going.
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:That transparency seems absolutely fundamental to building, particularly if you've got a
cross functional revenue area like you have at Sixth Sense.
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:So I can see that.
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:So a kind of final, but probably one of the most fundamental aspects of trust is that kind
of personal aspect of trust in terms of how you deal with your peers and your team and the
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:people you report up to.
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:I guess we're going to talk, we're going to ask you about...
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:whether it's an area of where you've actually that's been challenged or tested but perhaps
before we do that let's just talk about you what's your you're such a very open person
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:very candid person I guess building trust is really about that honesty and integrity as
you is and and how you deal with people would that be a fair assumption?
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:It's a fair assumption and it's not, know, trust is not built by having a performance
conversation at the end of the quarter, right?
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:This is something we're living and breathing every single day.
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:And whether it's with your peers, whether it's with your direct reports or whether it's
with your leaders, I think showing up every single day in a way that is transparent, in a
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:way that is honest, in a way that you're able to speak about your own shortcomings.
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:and then how we're gonna address them and how we're gonna move past them, it's crucial.
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:And I know we're talking about work, but I would say in life too, whether it's with my
kids, with my husband, with my parents, I mean, we're all in it together.
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:And as long as we have clarity that we have each other's back and we're here with the same
shared goals and we all want the same thing, I think approaching your day-to-day
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:conversations in that way, giving people room to also be vulnerable.
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:and share maybe their challenges or come to you with a problem.
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:It's so crucial.
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:We have this saying at Sixth Sense in the marketing org, we want to find the red.
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:I would rather know something is not trending right beforehand so that we can address it
as opposed to finding out at the end of the quarter, at the end of the month.
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:so building a culture where it's okay to raise those challenges so that we will address
them as a team.
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:It's crucial.
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:It starts with trust and it starts with, I think, a shared respect across the
organization, which we try really hard to cultivate.
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:And that starts with hiring, too.
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:I mean, you know, really making sure you've got the right people on the team.
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:The culture thing comes through in that again, doesn't it?
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:Does somebody fit in this organisation out of the right kind of person?
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:So Simon, I think it's a very good place to leave it.
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:I could talk to you all afternoon because I think your story is great and you're a great
communicator.
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:So thank you so much for your time today.
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:I really appreciate it.
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:it's so much fun.
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:Always great to chat with you, Joel.
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:Thank you for the opportunity.
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:You're absolutely welcome Simon and and so if you've enjoyed this conversation today
There's lots more like this with great marketers inspirational markets across b2b
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:marketing So if you enjoyed this, please take a take a moment to rate the podcast It would
really mean a lot to me to help me understand that you're enjoying the content and more
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:importantly also to subscribe as well I hope you can get to join us for others other
conversations like this very soon So thanks for your time today and thanks again to Simon
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:and hope you enjoy this again very very soon
