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In this episode, Arthur Castillo and Tom Hunt share field marketing secrets. Learn about dark social, peer-to-peer events, content capture, revenue tracking, employee retention and product expansion.

Field marketing is a term that is used to describe the marketing tactics that are employed by companies in order to reach their target audience in the physical world. These strategies include things like experiential marketing, event marketing, and product demonstrations.

However, in today's digital age, it's important for companies to also consider the role of dark social and peer-to-peer environments in their field marketing strategies. Dark social refers to the social sharing of content that occurs outside of public social networks. This includes things like sharing links through email, instant messaging, and private social media groups.

Peer-to-peer environments, on the other hand, are social settings where individuals have direct communication with one another, such as at a party or in a small group setting. Both of these environments have become increasingly important in field marketing strategies because they offer a level of intimacy and trust that can be difficult to achieve through traditional marketing channels.

In this blog post, we'll explore why dark social and peer-to-peer environments are so important in field marketing and how companies can leverage them to their advantage. The Power of Dark Social Dark social is a term that was coined by Alexis Madrigal in 2012 to describe the sharing of content that occurs through private channels. According to a study by RadiumOne, 84% of all social sharing now occurs through dark social channels.

This means that the majority of people are sharing content through private channels like email, instant messaging, and private social media groups. The power of dark social lies in the fact that it is a more intimate form of communication. When someone shares content through dark social channels, they are typically sharing it with a smaller, more targeted group of people.

This means that the content is more likely to be relevant and interesting to the recipients, and it is more likely to be acted upon. For example, if a company is promoting a new product through a traditional marketing channel like a billboard or a TV commercial, the message is being broadcast to a wide audience.

However, if someone shares information about that product through dark social channels, they are likely sharing it with people who they know are interested in that type of product. This makes the message much more targeted and effective. The Importance of Peer-to-Peer Environments Peer-to-peer environments are social settings where individuals have direct communication with one another. This can include things like parties, small group settings, or even one-on-one conversations.

Peer-to-peer environments are important in field marketing because they offer a level of intimacy and trust that is difficult to achieve through traditional marketing channels. When someone is in a peer-to-peer environment, they are more likely to trust the information that they are receiving. This is because they are receiving the information from someone that they know and trust, rather than a faceless corporation.

This makes it easier for companies to build relationships with their target audience and to create a sense of brand loyalty. For example, if a company is hosting an event where people can try their new product, they can use peer-to-peer environments to their advantage. By having people try the product in small groups, they can create a sense of intimacy and trust.

This can lead to people sharing their positive experiences with their friends and family, which can then lead to more sales. Leveraging Dark Social and Peer-to-Peer Environments in Field Marketing Now that we've established why dark social and peer-to-peer environments are important in field marketing, let's take a look at how companies can leverage them to their advantage.

1. Create Shareable Content One of the best ways to leverage dark social is to create shareable content.

This can include things like blog posts, videos, and infographics. The key is to create content that is interesting and relevant to your target audience. When someone shares this type of content through dark social channels, it can lead to more targeted and effective marketing.

2. Host Events or Experiences In order to leverage peer-to-peer environments, companies can host events or experiences where people can try their products or services in a small group setting.

This can create a sense of intimacy and trust that is difficult to achieve through traditional marketing channels.

3. Encourage User-Generated Content Another way to leverage dark social and peer-to-peer environments is to encourage user-generated content. This can include things like customer reviews, social media posts, and testimonials. When people share their positive experiences with your brand, it can lead to more sales and brand loyalty.

4. Use Influencers Finally, companies can leverage both dark social and peer-to-peer environments by using influencers. Influencers are people who have a large following on social media and who are trusted by their followers. By partnering with influencers, companies can reach their target audience through dark social channels and create a sense of trust and intimacy through peer-to-peer environments.


Dark social and peer-to-peer environments are becoming increasingly important in field marketing.

These environments offer a level of intimacy and trust that is difficult to achieve through traditional marketing channels. By leveraging dark social and peer-to-peer environments, companies can create more targeted and effective marketing campaigns that lead to increased sales and brand loyalty.

Thanks for listening and hit me up if you have any questions!
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Episode Transcript

The medium of content is now really driving forward these buying journeys for customers combined with peer to peer recommendations. And before, I would have just said, Hey, it was word of mouth, but really, we are moving into this age of content.

Hello, team. Welcome to this episode of Confessions of a B to B Market. And today we're joined by Arthur Castillo, who is running dark social and evangelism at Chilli Piper. So in this episode, we jump into what Arthur calling field marketing 2.0. And this was a real gold in the episode.

If you're going to events or if you're considering going to events and you're a B to B company, then you definitely need to listen to this. Also dig into a little bit more about why markets should be focused more on revenue now and then. Also a little bit about how Chilli Piper or an awesome business.

Now, before that, we have to give a massive shout out to our incredible sponsor hockey stack.

Now what?

I want to talk to you today about the LinkedIn campaign attribution And so what hockey stack have actually enabled you to do is sign up. Connect your LinkedIn ads account, connect your website, and essentially, what's gonna happen is that you'll be able to see you'd be to track the people that come to your site and they opt in, etcetera on your side, back to impressions on a LinkedIn ad campaign.

So what we're doing here is making dark social lighter. So let's say somebody came into your funnel they bought, but you had no idea where they're from. Maybe you've asked them, and they actually didn't know themselves. If you had hockey stag running, you better to see which campaign which ad they looked at, in order or prior to coming to your site. And that is absolutely massive.

So go to hockey stag dot com. It'll be linked below. Check out the live demo and then let me know or let them know that I sent you. Now let's jump into the chat with Arthur Arthur. Welcome to the show.

Thank you, Tom. It's an honour. I was I was creeping you a bit before this, and I saw how many incredible podcasts you've had the honour of growing. So it's cool to be on this one. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I've probably hosted Oh, I don't know. 3 to 400 maybe more. And so hopefully this is gonna be good. This is gonna be good, Arthur, But first to kick off.

So I've seen you all over my LinkedIn feed with a new approach, I believe to field marketing that we're going to dig into, I think a bit later on And what seems to me to be a very innovative strategy, But that's for later. Because first we need to dig more into air your job title on LinkedIn and then be your views and your thoughts around dark social.

So first question is, um, obviously anybody that doesn't know Chilli Piper the link below go and check them out. I'm quite like, intrigued by your guys' culture.

So anyway, we'll get to that later as well, and I'm going to stop talking so much. So you recently put a post on LinkedIn about how you're changing the way you think about dark social. So I'd love just to kick off a day, if that's OK.

Yeah, yeah, great place to start.

So originally, I know it's been quite the buzzword these days, and people are asking What the heck is dark social?

And the Post talked about how I typically would have said what in true marketing fashion, it's another rebrand right. It's word of mouth rebranded with the dark aspect being that attribution Software can really only tell you the last touch of that customer's journey, and they put all the weight into that. That's how I typically explain it.

I, um, listened to Chris Walker on his podcast, and I think he was actually on the Challenger podcast, and he kind of pushed back on this notion of It's a rebrand of word of mouth. He's really big on self reported attribution And when you hear people talk about your brand or how they discovered you, I think the difference is that emphasis on content and their own journey in discovering that content.

Right?

So, I mean, you mentioned it already at the beginning of this call. I've seen you all over LinkedIn. Maybe that's got you to check out Chilli Piper and you've seen what we've done there. So I think the biggest difference is like the medium of content is now really driving forward. These buying journeys for customers combined with peer to peer recommendations.

And before I would have just said, Hey, it was word of mouth.

But really, we are moving into this age of content in what's dominating and typically more and more natively in our in our feeds, wherever we happen to be doing social media that's now starting to kind of dominate our mind share and maybe lead to reaching out to a peer and asking about a certain thing, maybe leading me to going on to your website and further and more so the biggest difference, I'd say is, rather than just relying on word of mouth, almost creating these word of mouth experiences through the content that you share the role of content in word of mouth is bringing around this new phenomenon called Dark Social.

Is that a good summary?

Yeah, yeah, I think so. It just in in terms of how people talk about when they actually ask.

Hey, where did you first hear about my company?

It's Hey, I saw you on LinkedIn or hey, I heard you through this podcast or I was speaking with a bunch of peers and they kept bringing your company name up. I think that is the focus of where the buying triggers are starting to be generated.

Obviously, the frequency at scale at which this happens where we have daily avenues, whether it's through LinkedIn or slack communities or whatever to have access to these peers. But I think it's the sharing of content within these journeys and how much it's affecting these buyers who are wanting to do more and more the buying process on their own.

So we need to feed them the content so that they can come to their own conclusions and maybe reach out to their peers for that final piece of final hump. Push over that and for you, then because I believe your LinkedIn job title right now is dark social and evangelism at Chilli Piper.

Is that right?

That is correct.

Yes, head of dark social evangelism. Got it. And so this is like your full-time job.

Yeah, yeah, it is. And I think we might talk about it later, but humming, starting up the field marketing department at Chilli Piper. I feel like I've taken a little bit more of an a dark social angle through field marketing and events, whereas maybe some people would have taken it more through communities or content, whatever it happened to be. So it's still rooted a little bit in our event strategy.

But the idea is, how do we almost create these peer to peer environments?

Right?

So it's not me standing up on stage and telling everybody how great Chilli Piper is. It's actually coming with somebody that has the exact same title that's going through the exact same challenges as they are, and they're coming out the other side with your product.

If that message were to come from a peer or in our case, a happy customer to another peer, that's way more valuable than us than anybody in our company standing up and singing the praises of Chilli Piper.

So that's what I've aimed to do in this role is like, How do we create more of these environments where it can be this peer to peer networking, sharing, knowledge, sharing, discussing of challenges and opportunities and having it come more organically through their peers than a message from us?

And, like tactically, what does that actually mean?

That could you give an example?

Of course.

Yeah, so one thing we really do double down on over the past probably year and a bit is these micro in person executive dinners, 20 to 30 attendees. Where we get them together.

We try and create a theme around, and typically we do this by serving the people at the dinner as well, right?

What is something that's top of mind for you right now. Often five or six of them seem to have the same challenge or whatever is top of mind for them, and we use that as a discussion. Now. I think really, where we try and create this peer to peer environment is how we see them at these dinners. So typically we're setting our best prospects next to our best customers.

And I think that's where we're trying to create this dark, social peer to peer environment where any discussion that's happening, of course, where or maybe trying to give them a nudge into what we hope they discuss. But they're they're gonna discuss whatever they want, especially at the V, P and C suite level. But just by putting a peer beside them, one that we know has been successful with their product.

If it so happens that they happen to talk about whatever it is inbound conversion.

We'd rather sales and marketing alignment, right?

We're hoping that maybe that that customer starts talking that prospect and saying, Oh, well, we use chilli pipe for that.

What do you use?

Well, I don't OK, maybe you should look into it. So those are the an example of the types of environments we're hoping to create by bringing our customers together, obviously giving them a great night, but also getting them involved in terms of target accounts we have and maybe in some cases, in off deals. That's been a really nice for us as well. Where maybe they started to check out Chilli Piper.

It stalled a little bit, but hearing from their peers of what they were able to do, I've seen it reinvigorate deals and push them across the line. So that's been one example of how we aim to create kind of these peer to peer dark social environments. I think that's, uh, absolutely genius, and I assume this can also tie in with your events, Shi, because you can.

When there's an event, all these people are going to be in town.

I assume you guys organise a party or dinner to do this at that same location?

Yeah, so you're absolutely right there in terms of how we've typically gone about it or the major trade shows. We typically would take this three pronged approach of exhibiting at the trade show, maybe having a larger offsite activation where, let's say, up to 200 people can kind of mingle network snacks and drinks and then having a more targeted A B M, if you will.

I know we like to toss out those terms of OK, who do we know is going to be at this type of event?

And can we get them more in an intimate setting where we can actually have these discussions?

And it's not just, like, blow by pleasantries, type of thing. So that's what we would do for, like major conferences like Inbound or Dream Force. We don't necessarily do that for all of our conferences.

Then maybe it's a tradeoff between Do we just host like an executive dinner?

And do we try and do an offsite activation?

Now we're even exploring, eliminating, exhibiting and maybe doing these offsite activations in executive dinners, so I'll report back on how that goes. But typically, it's some mix of those three types of events that will play out when we do exhibit at a trade show. It is gonna be interesting to try and or to recalculate the R Y.

If you take out the big chunk of spend that you may be currently spending on exhibiting right, I assume that's maybe be the argument for taking it out.

Yeah, I think that's safe to say.

It's a huge, large upfront capital investment now, Typically, when we've measured in the past, let's say in 2022 we've kind of gone across all of these events knowing that they play on to each other, right?

Maybe it's somebody that we engage with at a booth, and we say, Hey, it's been a really conversation we're actually having I don't know some sort of party tomorrow, or by the way we think he'd be a great fit for a bunch of heroes that are sitting down together, and we're talking about this specific topic.

So we're almost trying to create multiple touch points throughout this trade show experience where one is at the booth, maybe a little bit more solicitation. Another one is with their peers, and then maybe they can get into more in depth conversations with that executive dinner. Now we haven't really.

It'd be really interesting to go back and see and attribute our own field marketing events to say, Hey, is one working out more than the other?

We've kind of known that a lot of these play into each other. But to your point, the trade show obviously is a big capital investment.

And as we start talking more about field marketing two point Oh, and I guess where we see the value in trade shows and even looking at some of our own numbers, can we afford to maybe trade off this large upfront capital investment?

Still have some of these offsite activations capture content at the event?

And if we look at it through a year's timeline of investments, is that gonna net out maybe similar results that we saw in 2022 without having to exhibit at trade shows?

I guess that's the hypothesis. We'll come back and report on that. So I think one thing we might be missing is what you do at these events and the content that you're able to produce from that.

Yeah, that's been a little bit newer. And I guess adding on to our approach. And I think this is when we mentioned or I mentioned to you, Field Marketing two point.

Oh, that's how I see it. So first coming in from sales, they actually Oh, man, it pains me to say this, but we're at this whole last touch attribution model to the point where we weren't even inviting sales to these trade shows.

They said, Arthur, you have sales skills. Maybe bring a couple of people from partnerships.

But you can probably pull this off, right?

We don't We want to give marketing the credit over time. We did change that. We got sales involved.

Obviously, our events got much more successful, but I think on one hand, and I'll never forget one sales Rep said this, and I still laugh to this day when he said, Have you walked through the conference with Arthur?

He's like walking through the conference with Arthur is like going to church with my grandpa on Sunday. This guy knows everybody. So then it became more about OK, why are we kind of gating Arthur just at our booth. Maybe he can just walk the floor. And this actually happened last year at Dream Force where we didn't exhibit and it was me and our head of video.

We were planted there and he said, Why don't we start shooting some content?

And we didn't really put a lot of thought into it. We didn't try and match up narrative. We saw a couple of customers. We knew we'd be speaking with sales and marketing folks. We had a question for each of them, but it was fascinating to actually see people months down the line, both internally and externally, saying, Hey, I caught your coverage of Dream Force.

Hey, you killed it at Dream Force like that was really entertaining.

Hey, that one clip had me laughing for days, and now I'm thinking, Huh, This is a little different than what we've traditionally done. Where I feel like the shelf life of an event is typically just that day. There's a lot of prep and work that goes into it.

Uh, we're all trying to reach out to people to get them to come by our booth, but after that, it events up until the next trade show. And speaking with some other folks, Nick Bennett, I heard Chris Walker say this time and time again, they were saying that the value of these events is this, like, conglomeration of talent that is coming together.

And nobody seems to be taking advantage of this of shooting content with them, maybe doing a couple of podcast episodes. So I had the luxury of maybe not necessarily being trained as a marketer or having a playbook, and this made a lot of sense to me.

I was like, Yeah, why aren't we?

These are people that are getting flown down here that are very influential. If we can even do bits of content with them and post it back on our LinkedIn, I'm sure that'll have some good effects on us. So it really came from just OK, we don't have a booth.

How can we get creative?

We started interviewing customers, but it was the feedback we got from that, and months after the trade show actually ended, people were even coming up to me at different events in December, being like, Hey, I got that dream force coverage.

I'm like, this is really extending the life of that huge investment we made back in dream Force. So how do we now start to build this into our field marketing playbook where it's not just the one day, but we're actually capturing content.

And then I had a video had this idea of, like, what if we're almost the curators of this trade show experience for those that don't happen to be there, and now we're almost creating some fomo, right?

The fear of missing out and we've had tonnes of people say, Oh man, I wish I was at that trade show looks like a great trade show lots of cool speakers whatnot, but that has now slowly start to become a big focus of my job When I guess I attend trade shows is not only the networking piece, but can we capture content at these events of our customers of maybe some target accounts of some major influential people and at the same time, try to release it pretty quickly while the conference is going on?

So people look to us as, Hey Chilli Piper is almost curating this entire event for us. Maybe we even have some questions. Then we started getting into setting up this content at events where we're leading with a hypothesis or a narrative where we might say, Hey, we're There's a bunch of marketers here where our hypothesis is that they might not be tying themselves to revenue and they're still pushing M. Q.

L s and leads into the funnel, Let's see. And now all of a sudden, people are like, interested to see the result of what these interviews are gonna happen.

Like Oh my gosh, how many marketers is he gonna interview?

Are they actually gonna say, Hey, we're not tied to revenue into leads?

And is it gonna fulfil this hypothesis that we had?

So it's been really cool how it's evolved. But I think we got those early signals from the audience that this was pretty captivating, pretty entertaining to them and obviously bringing eyeballs and impressions towards us that we started to build on it.

And, yeah, it's been a pretty fun part of my job so far. So before you got into that thought, leaders like having your own opinion. It's almost like Chilli Piper, and you were the like a journalist covering the event and the up side of you doing that is you're gonna meet all these people and then also the brand is exposed as you distribute that content.

Yeah, that's exactly it. And in some cases, we're even sending these capturing these videos and sending them to our S d. R team to follow up and say, Hey, by the way, Arthur from our team, looks like he met up with your v p of marketing caught some interesting content. And that was such a nice follow up compared to hey, heard somebody from your team came by our booth.

Are you interested in a demo?

Right. So it has helped in that sense, create more unique opportunities to follow up after the trade show. But even I know it's led to like partnerships for us as well. So everybody's always looking at that Net new revenue. We haven't been as focused on, let's say, customer marketing and expansion as we are now in 2023. But I'm sure if we look back those interactions, it just helps people feel closer to brand.

It makes the brand feel more human. I can't necessarily say, Hey, I met with 10 customers and eight out of 10 happened to expand because of this interaction.

But yeah, as we're starting to see this strategy evolve, it really helps us in so many different facets that now we have the support of our leadership team and really the LinkedIn community being like, Hey, what event are you guys gonna go to next?

And I guess now even more people recognise you when you walk through the sales on market conference, I will say, for the first time ever, Tom, the last conference we were at at Adobe Summit, we did get called out me and Nolan.

We were walking the trade show looking for people to interview, and one guy said, Hey, are you the guys that do content out events and throw it on LinkedIn?

We're like, Yes, we are. And he's like, let me go grab my V p of marketing. So it's cool.

Yeah, exactly. We're like, this is great, and this is really only happened from us doing it at three trade shows. But I feel like we're already starting to develop this association.

This brand of Hey, is Chilli Piper going to be here?

And will I get interviewed?

So that's been pretty cool to see it happen. So you mentioned the narrative that you were going to explore at one of these events, which was marked as being tied to revenue. My question.

I think this is something that you have an opinion on is why now, more than ever, should maxes be tied to revenue?

Yes and no. This is interesting. I had a conversation with Ed Durani where he's thinking, like on one side.

This is good, right?

The job of marketing, maybe traditionally has been almost to be this sales assistant, right?

Oh, they need a presentation or they need emails of people to go called outbound and do sales to OK, Well, marketing will step into that. I feel like now is maybe one of the most exciting times to be a marketer. On one hand, I think that the M Q.

L playbook is being exposed, and it sucks when marketing is like, Hey, I crushed my lead goal of I don't know, 3000 leads I put pushed over 5000 leads to sales and sales is hitting maybe 50% of their quota.

Gone Are those days right?

It's conflicting. K P I s just because marketing is successful in tossing over these leads doesn't mean that they're gonna lead to anything. Not to mention oftentimes, the most expensive asset of any company is their sales team.

So can you imagine?

Marketing is thinking they're killing it and they're really all they're doing is wasting the most expensive asset of a company saying, Hey, go talk to these people that probably will never end up buying. I think that's becoming more and more evident in what's led to this whole sales and marketing alignment.

Right sales saying, Hey, your lead suck in marketing, saying Hey, you've never followed up with them type of thing Now on the other side, I don't think everything marketing should do.

I think in some cases they almost get misconstrued in terms of marketing, doing digital sales, and then it becomes all about direct response and hey, how quickly can we get them into the phone?

I don't think that's a good idea for marketing, and I think that defeats the purpose of marketing to me.

It's like, what is the message you're sending out to the mass markets?

In my mind?

Can you talk about the status quo and maybe tease out a desired future state to get people that are getting from point A to point B to think. Hm. Maybe there's a better way. To me. That's like one of many marketing jobs to do. It's not enough to just say, Hey, I found an email and let me push it over to sales.

So I don't want marketers to get stuck in a trap where everything has to be direct response and tied back to revenue.

Because then I think we're blurring the lines of like, Are we just doing digital sales, direct responses and that sales job?

But at the same time, I think too often is that main marketing K p I a form fill. Or maybe it's even a demo booked, but not enough marketers are looking down funnel to say, OK, that demo was booked.

Did they even show up?

And from our stats, it's pretty alarming.

And I've heard some people call this The biggest unknown problem in B to B is that for every 100 demos that these are high intent, right?

They've come on your website. They've said Hey, something is here. I'd like to speak to someone about potentially purchasing it. For every 100 demos we see, marketing teams only get maybe 30 of those in front of sales. So if you think about that, you're leaking out 50% of your high intent pipeline Just because you can't get them in front of sales quick enough.

But if you're marketing K p I s leads or form pills or demo booked, you're not really looking down funnel and saying, Hey, did they actually have a meeting?

Hey, did they have a second meeting?

Hey, did it turn into close one revenue?

So I think that part is really important. I think marketers need to look at the entire customer journey. We also need to see where our best customers are coming from.

And how can we double down on those programmes and get more happy customers that are referring us?

If you know that as a marketer, then you know what programmes are working and then you have more of a strategic seat at the table saying, Hey, these are whatever five campaigns that we've run this one, we're gonna excel because it actually brought us two opportunities that didn't close. But this one over here looks like they're closing out a 30% win rate. That's pretty good.

How do we do more of that?

Right?

So I guess that's the caveat of, like not blurring the lines too much to the point where marketing is just direct response. Everything is tied to revenue, but at the same time knowing your role and looking further down funnel in just your main K p I of cool at lead submitted their email or lead filled out a form, or they even requested a demo.

What's happening after that first initial touch?

Basically, after marketing, hands off the prospect of the customer to sales?

That's where I think a lot of marketers can become more strategic partners and earn a seat at the table, because now they're following it all the way through revenue. And not only that, if you're a land and expand company, these are the customers that you should really be focusing on to see.

Hey, you use this product, but you might be a great fit for products two and three.

How do we get them closer to that?

What?

I've heard being called second order revenue right that metric of like Oh, we've got them as a customer.

But how quickly can we expand them across other product lines, which I think now in 2023 is becoming even more important?

Yeah, I got it. So not necessarily having Hall marketers like that performance measured against revenue, but it seems like a lot of actors now can be more aware of the revenue impacts of their actions.

It's always gonna be a lagging indicator, right?

Like they come into the funnel.

It might, depending on your sale cycle, it might even be 6 to 12 months. If you're in an enterprise sale before you can say, Hey, I actually contributed to revenue.

So there should be other, I guess, leading indicators or funnel metrics that you're looking at to understand OK, after they've gone through the whole sales process, What does that look like?

Where did they originate from in terms of a marketing campaign?

But yeah, I think it becomes dangerous when everything you're trying to do is get them. Let's say from point A to point B, which is I never even knew of your company, and now I'm requesting a demo or I'm supposed to be buying your product. There's different steps that need to take place.

And I think if we keep saying tie yourself to revenue, maybe we might start to forget those steps and really stop to, like, think and say, What is the job of marketing here?

Is it just to get them to convert to revenue?

Or again, are we doing digital sales?

So, yeah, there's a fine line there that marketers should be looking further down funnel. But not everything needs to be tied to revenue. Makes total sense. Let's switch gears. And as I mentioned, I'm curious about the company Piper. So you started as an account manager, moved into marketing and then the current role, which I guess is kind of aligned with marketing.

But what I find is that the best companies will a keep great time around for a while, like years and then also they have internal mobility and a lot of hiring from within. So you've clearly gone on this journey within the business.

So my question is, what do you think enables pit to keep great people?

Yeah, well, this is a good, introspective question. I think coming into this role, I knew from a sales lens. I wanted to go to a company that had a really strong coaching and training culture, and at the time I remember seeing Michael Toussaud Post on LinkedIn about it, and it just seemed like a really good culture after I, I guess, got the job and even started speaking with other folks.

This was the first time I ever heard of a company taking the onus on the success of their sales reps. And what I mean by that is they actually didn't even put them on a performance enhancement plan.

They said, Look, you passed our hectic, challenging interview process we gave you the stamp of approval of you are the type of sales rep that we want at this company, and it's on us to extract what we know you can become. I've never seen that in any other company where it was like we know you have what it takes.

We're going to put it on our training and coaching to get the best out of you. We're not gonna say, Hey, this was a mistake on our end in terms of the hiring profile. So even that mindset shift of we're not necessarily hiring you for what you are now.

But what you can become is so freaking empowering as an employee, right?

Everybody kind of comes into it as imposter syndrome or oh, my gosh, what if I'm not as successful here and they're telling you, Hey, it's on us because we know you have all the raw materials and it's on us to get that out of you. That is super empowering.

So I think even from the mindset of that perspective, you're given, like this new, I don't know, empowerment, sense of liberty of like I can go down this journey and not have to feel like my performance has to be tip top shape three months in. Otherwise I might be getting the boot. They're giving you this time to develop.

I don't know who set the path for this, but there was a programme right around when I started stepping into marketing. It was almost like this test drive programme where if you had an interest, maybe in a different department, you could test drive the rule for 1 to 2 months before committing fully. And that's what I ended up doing.

So I think they're just like very understanding of where you came in now might not be where you're trying to get to or maybe your interests just change or you have a conversation with a colleague and you say, Wow, you're working on some really cool stuff over there. I'm intrigued. Like I want to explore that further.

So I guess it is a little bit ingrained in their DNA of like we know wherever you kind of break into Chilli Piper isn't gonna be your end goal. And because of that, these different test drive programmes they let you experiment across the entire department. But I think there's also something to be said about the value trying to think.

Does this happen more in sales than in any other department?

And I think it does. So they really value kind of the S D. R. The a e role where you're cutting your teeth in sales and understanding your buyer and knowing how the product works. I think they find that if you have that, that's gonna help you in other areas of the business as well, whether it's in CS or in marketing. So I don't know.

It's always been a little bit ingrained in that company, DNA. And it's given me the liberty to explore this marketing career and hopefully make something good out of it. And I've seen a lot of other employees that have started out maybe as an S. D r.

And yeah, I have now come across to CS, and they're really liking it as well.

Well, it must be something going on. That's great over there, Arthur.

Yeah, I would definitely call this Field Marketing 2.0. I think this is the best thing I've taken away from this conversation. I would had a marketing at house company, and I mean, actually looked at Piper. I don't think we bought you guys in the end, but this was back, like, four years ago, and I was responsible for events.

And my events actually was horrendous compared to what you got what you were sharing today. So this is like, the big thing for me. And the way you're then also using the events to leverage social both on chilli pipers and your own profile, I think is awesome. And so those were the key insights for me. Yeah.

No, it's Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. It's I've been lucky, I think. What is that classic code where, like luck is where preparation meets opportunity. I know we've done things a little bit untraditional here, maybe coming in and marketing, having this new revolution of not being kind of under sales wing and tying more of their efforts to revenue.

Maybe it's a really good time to join, but I've been super lucky of like getting to experiment with this and being supportive and all of that. So I'm glad that Field Marketing two point oh, is is giving you new insights into maybe what you did in the past and haven't been changing. Sure.

OK, so we're gonna link to Chilli Piper below.

Obviously, we'll link to your personal LinkedIn profile below.

Is there anything else we should link to?

Oh, gosh, there's a community that like we started and funny enough, it was like helping marketers tie more of their impact to revenue. We we're calling it revenue era. It's a pretty like smaller community.

At first we had huge plans, and I think over time it's maybe 100 to 100 50 marketers that are just ask their questions in there, And me and Nick Bennett also have, if you're interested in maybe some of this field marketing two point Oh, and how we've Gone about It, a newsletter called The Marketing Evangelist that you can check out that gives you more tactical play by play of what we're experimenting with in the field and how it's working out for us.

So those are the other two links. I love it. I didn't know about the newsletter, but I will get subscribed after this.

Arthur, Thanks so much for coming on.

Um, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Alright, guys, how was that big?

Shout out to Arthur for coming on and sharing his with them. If you have any feedback for the show, go to Apple Podcast and leave a rating and review. Here's one from Newtonian 54. I got great insights into B to B marketing from Tom's impressive range of guest. Thank you so much. You have another one huge insights and must listen show for every market in the business. That's from J M MC G 87.

Now, if you don't want to be anonymous, you can screenshot the review. Ping it to me in a LinkedIn d. M. Send it to me via email and I'll get you and your business a shout out in the out to a show. So thanks to Arthur, thanks to hockey Stack.

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