The Clearing Model: A Framework for Having Difficult Conversations with Sydney Sloan, CMO of SalesLoft

This episode features an interview with Sydney Sloan, CMO of Salesloft, a leading sales engagement platform whose most recent funding round valued the company at over a billion dollars.

Sydney is a two-time CMO and seasoned marketer with more than 25 years of experience as an advisor, investor, and marketing leader for numerous companies, most notably Adobe, where she spent 15 years in product marketing, customer marketing, and demand generation.

On this episode, Sydney delves into the inner workings of SalesLoft’s website, explains how to personalize your marketing team’s communications, and shares the framework she uses for having difficult conversations at work.

Key Takeaways

• All marketing teams must use the communications holy-quad-fecta: email, phone calls, social touches, and direct mail.
• Your website is a direct reflection of your brand. Treat it that way.
• CMOs who are trying to rethink or figure out their demand gen strategy: don't try and fix it all at once. Find one part that you can focus the team on, fix that first, and then go to the next one.

Quotes

“You have to personalize your communications. Email is the primary channel, but you have to use more than email….When you're doing email, phone call, a social touch and a direct mail, that is the holy-quad-fecta. You'll get a 4.7 X higher lift than sending email alone.” 

“Everybody in SaaS knows that you have to continue to work really hard to maintain a customer, especially in a competitive marketplace. So having those programs where customers can come and learn about what we're up to and learn from others is important.”

“I love my website. First of all, I believe the website is the first door, the reflection of your brand. It should speak like a human and we've worked really hard to make it sound like a ‘Lofter’ and even our chatbot’s called Lofty. Just having that ability to communicate in the way that sellers want to be communicated to– that’s so important.”

“My one piece of advice to give to a CMO who's trying to rethink or figure out their demand gen strategy would be to don't try and fix it all at once. Try and find one part that you can focus the team on and fix that first and then go to the second one. Trying to do it all at once can be overwhelming and take too long. Get quick wins.” 

Sponsor

Demand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.

Links

Future Female CRO series

Hey Sales People podcast

Dare To Lead by Brené Brown book

How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Dare to Lead podcast by Brené Brown

Follow Sydney on Twitter

Connect with Sydney on LinkedIn

Follow Ian on Twitter

Connect with Ian on LinkedIn

www.caspianstudios.com