Jan 0:13
All right. All right. So So why don’t we start with with the first question, you read it out? And then then you go.

Konrad 0:22
Sounds good. Okay,

thank you. Um, so why did I choose to work in marketing, I would say I kind of fell into it, it was it fit my personality overall, you know, I’m very creative person and marketing demands, someone that’s able to see the big picture, work with the other frontline functions and help to develop ways to engage with the market. So it was very natural for me to to work in marketing, because I can tap into my creative side, you know, what it’s not worked for me to, to use my creativity skills, and it’s also very rewarding when you can do that day to day, and then also see the fruit of your actions in the end overall, you know, a new customer comes in. So on top of that, you know, being very analytical, and there’s two sides to that is I like to think I will Sorry, I tried to understand people the best way possible. So what are the mood motives that that move them? What How do they think what, how do I engage with them to, to sway them in the direction of my company’s offering. So that’s also very, very interesting to me. And of course, as a marketer, you need to understand personas, you need to build messaging on top of that, and then can campaigns on top of that, on the other side of the analytical aspect is like the data, especially when, when data meets technology. So using that, especially today, when so much is marketing world going, going digital is very fit very important in order to engage with the market further as we’re less and less offline. Brilliant. Yeah. Yeah, go, go go. Yeah, there we go. The last thing I’ll add to that is, you know, over the years, I’ve learned marketing is the most essential function of the business. So if the purpose of the business is to make money, the only way we can make money is to create a customer. And that’s marketing’s job is to whatever offering we have is to craft that in a way that it creates a customer so they come and buyer our technology or our product, and we build that that group. So marketing is at the heart of the organization and and builds the company and develops the market. And it’s just very rewarding to be a part of, you know, the most essential function of the business.

Marcus 3:04
Man, that was a fire answer. Cool. Let’s, let’s do the next one. Yes, your next one. Thank you. What’s the best piece of advice about.

Konrad 3:25
So what’s the best piece of advice about marketing I’ve ever received. I don’t know if I’ve ever read. I won’t, I don’t have any advice necessarily, but I have a learning I guess in a way of advice and that’s to not forget the emotional aspect within within your marketing. I find so often that messaging is so focused on like the product features and other like selfish needs of the company. And they forget that we’re dealing with people and humans and we’re thinking and personas and buying centers, but it’s still the b2b buyer is is the same person in the b2c world. So we have to remember and to incorporate their considerations to really engage them and not just try to sell sell sell to them. So that would be my best advice.

Jan 4:20
I heard that before and it makes so much sense. like

Marcus Svensson 4:24
yeah, it’s like, you know, playing an emotion selling on motion, you know, essentially that creating content around motion is a killer for short. I think that’s one like you know, whole big part of God’s whole like combo strategy is around marshals. Yeah,

Konrad 4:40
and, and I could, there’s one cool tool called a headline analyzer, it’s there’s one from the you know, I have, yeah, the American advances to and that’s great way to get started, and then integrate that as in within your skill set. Yeah. Thanks for sharing. Let’s do the next one. So what’s the crappiest way I’ve ever been prospected. I know it’s old news. But I still remember to this day, like five years ago, someone sent me a big yard, it was one of those gifts in the email, and they’re holding up a piece of paper with my name on it. So it really grabbed my attention. And they’re waving to me. And I was like, that was one of the coolest ways that someone sent me a cold email, you know, I clicked it, I watched it, I send it to everyone in my sales and marketing function. We all watched it. So if the purpose was to watch it and get my attention, I mean, basically, they more than succeeded, they got, you know, my old my colleagues attention. And I, and I did reply in the end. But more More recently, I had one engagement, which I thought was I don’t know if it was intended, but she, when I, she, she understood, I wasn’t in the buying cycle, and I wasn’t anywhere near a buying cycle, my budget was firm for that quarter, it was going to come open up in a later point, but she just kept in touch, you know, month by month inviting me to events that normally would cost me you know, a couple 100 to $1,000 where I can go and tune in talk to other marketers listen to other industry speakers, other vendors, and of course, she her company was there as a sponsor, but she was never ever trying to sell to me it was always trying to just develop a relationship and, and incorporate me in her community as well as the marketing community.

Jan 6:43
Oh, man, that desk is a really good one as well, like nurturing and so forth, like meaningful nurturing, right shit, like value, like true value that that you can use? Amazing. Yeah. Cool. And the next one I’m really, really interested

Konrad 6:59
to is my favorite one. So what are the three tips I would give other marketers to try to break down their silos between marketing and sales, I would say that the first one would be to speak to to your sales people every day. And not just in a not just in formally, like in pre scheduled meetings, but more informally. So if you have a break in your day from from calling your other meetings, just know, see who’s available, give them a ring or stop by their office and just have a chat, understand, you know, how their day is going, what they’ve learned, it doesn’t always have to be about business, either it could be personally, and just in just creating that relationship bit becoming a friend. So that they you know, like you as a person, and then they can like you as as as your marketing or sales support. So that would be number one. The second one would be over communication, and not just saying, you know, what is marketing doing in terms of activity or planning, once in your weekly update calls, but but over communicating it and, and putting it in the context of how does this help you as a salesperson? And also how can you as a salesperson, help me in the marketing to make this an even better campaign overall, so constantly iterating so they understand what how marketing spends their day to day. Now, the third one, and this might sound funny, but it’s bowed down to the requests. So sales, of course always comes like I think we should do this, I had this idea, can you do it like this. And as a marketer, you may not feel that it’s the best use of your time, or it’s out of the scope of with of your responsibilities. But but sometimes it’s just worth it to show that you’re there for them that you’re a team player. And it helps with that that relationship. So those would be my my three tips. Conrad, do you like like, I would love to have you as a marketer? Oh my god. You could feel that like the AP that the salesperson is speaking in, you know, a lot of the things that Marcus is also doing it’s so cool. Yeah, I can tell I get that vibe from Marcus. Brilliant. Now, last one for the quickfire. Sure. So what’s in my tech stack and what tools helped me most in my day to day? I’d say it’s all the typical stuff, you know, Sales Navigator, CRM system, Salesforce, HubSpot, marketing tech solutions, like like marchetto I’d say something that’s that’s really missing. And especially as we’re big something even more digital today and the buyer. And as sales marketers, we have less influence on the buyers journey less of the buying activity is done offline, within their, within their meeting rooms and internally or on searching over over the web. So what I would like to see more of is like this, this buying intent data. So where are people searching offline? What publishers? Are they looking at? What are they reading? And also, if they’re on my website, who’s on my website? How long are they spending there? And knowing like, who actually has this intent, you know, that’ll help me to prioritize my day to day and if I see a company XYZ is searching a term that is relevant to my company, you know, I’ll I’ll spend a few hours trying to find out who that is and engage the company because that there could be a deal there. Man, I thought I would add that last bit for you, especially.

Jan 11:03
That’s kind of you. I thought you would go work fast. Like, for the plug for workforce, man.

Marcus Svensson 11:12
This video is not sponsored, right? Oh, no. I mean, they’re all genuine answers. Joking around.

Jan 11:43
Let’s maybe go into a bit like getting getting through through so to say, I think, like one, why you are a fantastic guest to have is that you really have seen and worked in both sides. I think that’s, that’s pretty rare. And like, like, I am super interested, because you are one of the few people that I know that have seen both marketing and sales. So what do you think are like, like the benefits that you have seen both sides? And what have you learned, so to say from that.

Marcus 12:19
I actually want to ask one more thing here, like on this topic, Boogie? You do influencer marketing sales, but almost like the opposite, right? How do you think like, both transitions?

Konrad 12:33
I’d say the first one was, salespeople are short term relative to marketers where marketers think more long term, right? Because the the activities and campaigns that marketing run today don’t have impact immediately. And it takes more time, it takes months depending on which area of marketing we’re talking about. But salespeople think month to month or quarter to quarter. And so they want results now. And so that’s where I see a lot of the conflict between marketing sales is marketing and say, yeah, we’ll have results for you next year or in two quarters. That doesn’t help me meet my my quota by end of this quarter. So that’s one of the major differences I see between them. So having coming from marketing, going to sales, I really have this perspective of how marketers think. But also going into sales from developing such a marketing mindset, I think in personas, and I think about different types of personas in the buying committee, who they are, what their day to day looks like, what their challenges are, what their pains are, what they want to get out of their professional career. And that’s made me a better salesperson, I won’t even say I’m a salesperson, I’m, I’m a marketer, that understands the buying journey, and I understand how to influence it in the right ways. And then I also know how to develop relationships. So I would say that’s one of the major benefits of moving from marketing sales is understanding both sides of the marketing functions and of the customer. And the last thing would be, I like sales, because it has a direct impact on on company goals and performance. So you can see, I opened this deal and I closed it and it had, you know, you can quantify using the monetary value of how much you’ve added to the company performance. Yeah, the last thing is money. There’s more money in sales.

Jan 14:31
Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, I think that there’s a lot of talk about like the, the str so the the the a is they actually just like elongated inbound channels, right. And sort of create their, their own landing pages with with the content they create. So they are actually the best marketers right now because they, they speak the language of the customer, and are just sort of micro marketers in their field. I think That’s something that, that maybe you have, like touched upon really interesting.

Konrad 15:05
Everyone in regardless of who you are, what your job is, everyone is a marketer. I mean, you had to sell yourself to get to where you are today. So you have developed a marketing skill set is just how, how often do you practice it? So, salespeople are just as much marketers, but not vice versa. So, the best salespeople will be great marketers, in my opinion. Oh, yeah, that’s,

Jan 15:33
that’s a really interesting take. That it’s Yeah, I, I agree. Like, I think, yeah, you you have to sell yourself to sell as human. I think it’s one of one of both of our favorite books, Conrad. And so it’s like, natural, I love it. Like, it’s just the time perspective that you’re addressing, right. It’s like short term and long term and how, how you sort of getting not making this a clash, but like, aligning that. I think that’s, that’s a brilliant take. Cool. So I know, Conrad, you’re super competitive, like your top performer, you try to constantly improve, and you read all the books. So what are the ways that you would try to stay competitive and like top of the game? For for other people out there?

Konrad 16:19
Yeah, I would say I’m always exploring new tools and tactics to help me engage the market or increase my productivity in some way. So I actually sign up for blogs, and newsletters and such to get all those cold emails from SDRs. And salespeople, because first, I want to know what’s available out there. So I can, you know, potentially test it and see if this could help me engage the market. The second part of that is, I get to read how other people are cold calling cold emailing, you know, I get to steal their tactics in the end. And nine out of 10 times you’re not, you know, it’s just another automated email. But you do get the, you know, one out of 10, you’re going to meet someone that really teaches you something a new way to engage or appeal to you. So always try new tools and tactics overall, I read a book by Jeb blunt called Virtual selling, and I found it really interesting how he compared videocard to Microsoft PowerPoint, in the 1990s. So when when the when PowerPoint was launched in the early 90s, it wasn’t a sales tool, no one it wasn’t adopted. And that was one of the first tools for us to help articulate the value to his clients. And he attributes that to his sales success, which was which was, which is apparently quite immense. So finding, you know, the PowerPoints of the early 90s, which may be vid yard or something else, but we just don’t know about and using that, to, to engage our market and sell more. The other thing would be, you know, talking to other sales people, so like, kind of what we’re doing now, but most of my, my friends are all sales or marketeers. I’m constantly sending voice messages, you know, this is how I was cold calling someone today, this is what what I think worked and vice versa. So always, you know, sharing, sharing learnings overall. And, and the last one, which is probably my favorite is reflection. So I do a lot of you know, I say about six hours of reflection a week, you could call that like meditation in a way. And it takes different forms. So I do a lot of like running and biking. And during that time, I always I say I never leave the house without a straw to chew on. So and that straw is a metaphor for, you know, a failure I had that day or a success or a situation that I just want to analyze. And the goal of that is to understand how I can always be marginally better in the next time. And the problem behind that is because, you know, as a salesperson, I share the same target list as so many salesperson people out there just like you on this call and other people listening, we have the same top 500 we’re all emailing and cold calling them but I just need to be marginally better than everyone else in order to cut through the noise and get their, their attention to engage with them.

Jan 19:27
I love that. I think the last one was really like,

Marcus 19:30
I think that we turn something grateful that I was actually good, you know, good metaphor and almost like in a good way of saying something does actually means. I mean, I get your point, right. And I haven’t never heard it before. So even this means a unique unique, it’s great.

Jan 19:46
Yeah, excellent. Oh, it’s like it’s true. Like when you go running or on bicycling like you your thoughts aren’t. You’re not thinking you’re not thinking right. So you always have something and I love that. I think Maybe you’ve read deep work or something, the book where he also goes, like with one thought problem for 20 minutes, and absorbs it and read it the other month. It’s it’s really, really good. Yeah, man.

Konrad 20:14
I mean, I recommend that for you know, anyone, anyone like in any situation is always you need to reflect to think I mean, it’s good for your mental health and your performance.

Jan 20:27
Yeah. Do you have an example of that? Conrad, thank you so much. One of the things that keep you up at night, when you’re not reflecting

Marcus 20:38
if there are if there are n hours left, right.

Konrad 20:41
There are not many hours left, but I can say the the one thing that keeps me up at night is pipeline, there’s nothing else. It’s always How can I keep this goal? This opportunity moving? How can I add this prospect to an opportunity phase? And? Yeah, that’s what really keeps me up at night is always How can I be marginally better? and improve my my pipeline? There’s never enough pipeline?

Jan 21:09
I love it. I know it’s straight to the point like Yeah, same like agree. And also something marketers and salespeople revenue team share, right? It’s like, revenue like pipeline, like how fast can we close deals? How many of those can we actually close? so brilliant. You like to buy software from time to time Konrad? So there’s a lot of talk, like how should it be? Should a demo be free? Should the demo like not be free? How far should an AE maybe go into the discovery? What should you do? So if you could improve the way you buy software right now? Or are getting sold to? what and how would you change?

Konrad 21:53
Um, yeah, whether demos free or not, I would say don’t offer a demo until they ask for it. I think that and that’s what i would i would I practice as well is, I want to be, I want that to be one of the last steps I want to spend as much time that I have with you. And our initial call is to understand your business. how everyone done talking to you is connected what you all care about, so that I can create a schematic and the right way to offer my value. And, and one of the things that I just started doing is building like schematics of how this would work in practice. So if I if I sell you my software, or if I’m buying your software, I want to know how this fits in my day to day, who else has to be involved? And what they what are their responsibilities? week by week? The problem is that technology, our tech tax, tech stacks are getting so crowded or so so stacked, that it’s becoming more about, do I have the time to manage this this new tool? Can I really, truly integrate it with anything else, rather than what value would bring me day to day? So I think the better way to to buy software is to understand how this fits in practice, who’s responsible for what, what are the projected results? So of course, we’re all talking about revenue marketing, or how can I help my sales team quarter by quarter? But But yeah, again, the responsibilities in the effort required overall, because I bought software before very expensive software before that was in touch for a year. And we never realized the value that would that was pitched to us. So that’s one one takeaway.

Jan 23:45
Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. Like, as a sales rep, you don’t want to work in another tool, right? You want to work in the things you already have, like, learning a new thing is like, Oh, no. learning curve. I don’t need a learning curve. I already have so many everyday with the rejections we get. Yeah, thanks for that. Great, great imports, markets. The last question, that’s your favorite one, so go get it. So be ready for this. Okay. Yeah.

Marcus 24:17
No, but the thing is, as I said, like, you know, sales marketing have kind of different timelines, you know, sales, quote, works a lot, month by month, quarter by quarter, in marketing, in many cases, a lot loaner. So consider most more employees take some time to get the result. How do you convince your stakeholders to like buy in on these kind of projects?

Konrad 24:37
Yeah, my, my favorite method is the minto Pyramid principle, or it’s also known as like, top down communication. So I’m very clear and concise on on, on what’s at hand, you know, what we can expect from such a tool and what timeline now I’m not trying to Sell it oversell it internally, I’m trying to be realistic so that I can set expectations, right. So using this principle, you start, you know, at the top with your argument or your hypothesis, and then you give you go one level lower to give three points support it. And then you allow them to engage you and ask you questions, and and then you focus on what they care about most and what’s important, so then you, you become more productive in your conversation. So it’s just all about being very clear and concise. And selling internally, because you have many stakeholders, you know, I have to sell this to my cmo to the VP of sales, my SEO manager, my marketing operations manager, maybe the sales operations manager, they all they all see it very differently. So you start at the top and let them pick what’s the most important to them? And then, and then focus on that point,

Marcus 25:58
how do you handle this when you’re like, you know, looking for new, new, new kind of product? I haven’t really run before, so you’re not 100%? certain about the outcome? You have, like some idea behind it. But it’s something you probably should be able to do, but you haven’t done it yourself before. Right?

Konrad 26:17
Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing, you have to be very frank with them, like, this is what we project when we did the analysis, I’ve worked with their team. This is the optimistic side, this is what the realistic side of what we can do with this with this project. But it’s not guaranteed, of course, just like nothing’s guaranteed, so but to to make a bigger impact, we have to always try new things. And that’s the point here is running things as normal will only achieve what’s what’s, what’s typical, or what’s normal, or what’s average. So, the only way to break through and achieve higher than expected results is always try out new technologies, new tactics, new tools, and see how it goes.

Marcus 27:09
Okay, thank you so much. And super, super last similar question. Like, what attribute attribute on the market that you think is like, you know, most important when you’re recruiting a new person, like one single thing, they think, like, this is what I’m looking for?

Konrad 27:25
Yeah, so when I interview marketing people, it’s, it’s, it’s not about like, what technologies you know, or how much experience you have. Because a lot of that can be learned, you know, especially if marketers are digital natives, that that can it’s a shorter learning curve, but what I look for is someone that has brainstorming skills or creativity skills, and that’s not necessarily learned or as easily learned as others because, as I said, the beginning, the marketers need to be creative, they need to find new solutions constantly find innovative ways to engage the market, because it’s it, the marketing industry just changes so fast. every six months, it’s it’s different. So I want people that are creative, or really have the brainstorming skills to sit down and and have an open conversation and build a dream space. And then and then just try it, try something out and iterate from there.

Marcus 28:23
What’s the best way to seeing that an interview? That’s good question.

Konrad 28:33
I mean, being very frank, asking questions, are you? How do you brainstorm what methods do you use to brainstorm? I mean, I have my own, I would ask for examples of that. But

Marcus 28:44
that would be the best way. I got you, you know, so much. So that was like, you know, surprise questions here. But I mean, I agree with you Like, it’s hard things I do a lot, a lot A lot myself in creativity, because like, you need to come up with some new things. And like, the shape, the space is changing so often, so you need to be like, you don’t need to be like a coolest guy in the block, right? coming up with a new thing. But you need to understand the market is shifting, right? Like BTC, we are way behind, come on, step up the game going in that direction, you know, these kind of creativity is a must, if you want if you want to be on the front line. And you know, I agree with you like trying to find out the problem is finding those kind of things, in a view is hard, right? Because everyone can learn about the tech and we can learn like, you know, how to do these kind of things, right? So yeah, I fully agree on your day. But yeah, thank you so much. I’m so happy. I’ll try to do something cool with this. I would like transcript everything so I can like you know, actually read through it, and then get some pictures and like, you know, highlights these kinds of things. And that was really rock somfy right.

Konrad 29:43
Yeah, cool. Well, thanks. I enjoy I mean, for me, it was it was fun. I writing stuff down learning everything.

Jan 29:50
Yeah, yeah. conrod like applause from both of us. Were the first one and like I I loved it. Like honestly, I learned so much. from you, and we only spent, like a couple of minutes, like the straw thing is like, Man, that’s so true. But you were able to, you know, that’s the difference, right? Like, having a gut feeling, but actually being able to explain it and make sense out of it. So when I’m like, wow, this dude. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much Conrad. And I think the way we will do it, like we will very, like, just try to create some really cool content out of that like is like a LinkedIn video, maybe like, write some posts about it. And then equally, like, share this, you know, you can share this on your social media, whatever you want. And the goal is, honestly, you can run a win win.

Marcus 30:43
Deal with it, especially for you for everyone. Yeah, yeah, let me know. Like, right. As you go through everything, let me know, if you want to re record some, you know what, like, the thing is, like, I really want to, you know, we don’t need to record videos, like the point here, we want to have like, you know, authentic, right. And we don’t make it too fancy when beat making look good and sound good. And all these kind of things and to is need to be honest. And to that’s where what I’m trying to achieve with this project. There.

Jan 31:10
That’s good point. Thanks. All right. Anything else you would like to say like something that maybe it’s the first time we do this? So I know that you like to always improve? You know, what are the things that you maybe would change with with that? Like, when was there an awkward moment? Or was there like anything unclear or? Because it’s the first time and we literally trying to make the best experience for the people that we bring in as possible.

Konrad 31:38
So if you have something feel free, like, no, I would say I mean, yeah, for me, it was my first time doing it this format. So I mean, I’m not the greatest at it yet. But like, for the part two, when we have like questions, where you’re asking what are three ways? What are three things? I would, I would make that more conversational. So like, because I felt like after I, I kind of discussed my three points, I just thought I was rambling on a bit. People weren’t digesting it. So maybe I would talk about one and then you would come in and comment on in some way. And then I would go into Okay, any point to but to break it up a little bit more and take it?

Jan 32:21
Yeah. Yeah. That’s the only time I was a bit, you know, in between, like, Can I jump in? I was like, Yeah, great. But I wanted to make like a follow up question on that. But I didn’t want to like interrupt you as well. And your flow. You know, I didn’t want to be impolite. So, yeah, I was blocking your face. It’s

Konrad 32:38
hard to read the questions and have a zoom on the same screen so I can see your face if you’re ready to jump in. So I shouldn’t Yeah, next time. I’ll. I’ll do that.

Jan 32:49
Yeah, that will be next time. We would love to have a follow up with you for sure. Cool. All right. expected a lot.

Marcus 32:55
And we still need to have some coffee. We’ll send it to you so you can actually see it before we go live. So you don’t get you know, surprised? Yeah. Okay. Nice. Well, thanks, guys. I hope you Yeah. was

Jan 33:08
happy selling happy closing end of month. I wish you tough nerves. Yeah, thank you so much. I would send some regards to to Johnny boy here over the pipeline tonight. Yeah, I have a nice weekend.