The Power of Brand: Angeley’s Brand Strategy for B2B Growth

GTM Tales Podcast: Angeley from Resourcify

[00:00:00] So hello everyone and welcome to GTM Towns. In each episode, you will meet a go to market leader. And the idea behind it is that there's some really great podcasts out there. There are a lot of podcasts out there, but there aren't any that are specifically focused on the growth stories in B2B. Stories that have helped bridge the gap between 10 customers and a hundred the path from series A to series B or how growth was achieved whilst bootstrapping along this journey, each stage and path is very different.

Ivor: And the greater market landscape has been totally upended with the AI [00:01:00] revolution. And this is our first episode. We've got some amazing guests lined up. And today I'm super excited to be talking to Anjali from Resourceify, where she's the chief commercial officer. Great to have you here, Anjali. How are you doing?

Angeley: Great to be here. Doing really well and excited for a nice discussion.

Ivor: Awesome. So obviously we know each other, but I think it'd be really helpful for the audience to understand your background a bit more and understand what's led you to where you are today.

Angeley: Absolutely. So I'm Anjali. I'm the chief commercial officer at Resourceify. We're a B2B sustainability platform. So all of those companies right now in the green tech, clean tech space, which is very popular and progressive at the moment. I have a background starting in sales and finance and then moving into tech.

Um, Amazon International [00:02:00] Expansion, B2B SaaS, et cetera, and have scaled companies all the way from C to Series A, B, C, and up through the stages of IPO and across many different continents. So I've seen quite a bit and excited to chat about how it's done.

Ivor: And I think your background is super interesting because, you know, Uh, the experience in the likes of Amazon, Intuit, GoDaddy, but also now combined with your experience with the seed to Series C as well. And so I think it would be a really good place to, to start to dig into your, you know, your startups and, and scale ups, like what are some, some key strategies you've seen, um, work really well?

When transitioning from, say, C to Series A and Series B.

Angeley: The best strategy is really to have focus and make sure that you have great product market fit. Um, there's been a real transition between now and 2024. And I would say. Three to four years [00:03:00] ago, when it was all about hyper growth and companies were scaling by any means. And then you saw companies that were even at a series C stage, and they had hundreds of millions, you know, in revenue, et cetera.

And then they were still closing their doors or still really struggling to continue to grow because they didn't have their scalable growth model in place. And what that means is that they really weren't scaling for scalability sake. They were scaling because they were just pumping more money. Into the situation, which just creates that hungry monster.

Um, and it is not sustainable. So I think what you're seeing now in 2024 is a lot of companies are really trying to focus on what I call what's that scalable black box or I'm from the States. You can tell from my accent. If you have like a bottle of Tabasco sauce, how can you continue to sell and replicate that same bottle over and over again?

Mm hmm. In a more, I would say, healthy and predictable way.

Ivor: Yeah, I think that's, um, [00:04:00] really, really rings true. A couple years ago, it was all about growth at all costs, and that was the, the trendy thing to do. And I think now, in startup land, it's all about profitability. That's the new trendy thing that everyone's after these days. What about, um, what not to do? What are some common pitfalls that you've seen Across this, this journey.

Angeley: You know, it's really interesting, um, especially because I have the experience of the United States versus Europe. I see a lot of cultural differences. So in the United States, I see a lot of companies focusing on individual growth and individualization. And in Europe, they have more of this risk aversion, which is A very interesting thing to see in the startup ecosphere, because it really is all about risk taking and how you hedge that risk.

One of the things I see, especially with series, I would say seed series A and B companies [00:05:00] is they tend to try to hire junior people. And they want those junior people to index at much higher levels, which just isn't happening. So they'll take their budget and they try to spread that budget to hire more people at a lower level, which is something that doesn't usually work because then those mistakes compound.

And what I usually end up telling founders and CEOs is take whatever budget you have and hire the absolute best people that you can find. Even if you have less people in your company, because those more senior people will end up outperforming and then they'll be able to get that revenue traction that then you can then fill in the layers.

But especially in Europe, I actually see founders and CEOs doing the opposite. They keep trying to hire junior people to try to get traction and then they can't. And then they keep going through like a hire and fire motion. Um, until finally they figure out that they We need more senior people in

Ivor: Yeah, hiring is absolutely critical. And I think, um, I've [00:06:00] actually just, um, finished reading Steve Jobs biography.

And one of the things he said was, you can do some amazing things with just a team of 10. So what you can actually do with quite a small group of individuals is actually quite amazing as long as those individuals are really, um, you know, professionals and also experts in exactly what they do.

And I think that's, um, quite a nice segue into a topic you're going to be speaking about at SAS Doc in Dublin this year. So brand, why is brand important and why is it key for seed stage startups, series A stage startups and, and beyond?

Angeley: my favorite topic. So brand, um, I really call it the og of awareness, the og of demand generation [00:07:00] and revenue generation. But it's something that I would say over the past five years or so in the scale up community that a lot of scale ups have just forgotten about. And they've tried to replace it with traditional performance marketing and all kinds of different channels.

The reason why it's important is because it is the feeling that your consumers have. About your company, about your product and your services. And there is nothing that can substitute that feeling or belief. So the example I always give is for any of the listeners, um, on this podcast, you take your Apple Mac book versus your Microsoft surface.

It is the ultimate example. Microsoft surface actually has. Better tech in it actually has better hardware, better specs. However, people keep buying Apple MacBooks and there's one reason for that. So it is basically the ultimate example, but a lot of brands, I would say a lot of companies don't understand how important investing in your brand is and [00:08:00] investing in it early.

So this is one of the things, again, I always advise founders to do at the early stages, but it's quite interesting because a lot of them don't. Um, and then I call it the rollercoaster ride, right. Of, of demand gen and their budgets.

Ivor: Yeah, I, I really learned the importance of brand when I was head of marketing at a FinTech called Tokeney. So it was kind of super early days of the company first year and, and we were stepping into a really complex world. Selling emerging technology to traditional financial institutions. And, you know, if you know anything about that space, you know, that trust isn't just important, it's.

everything. And when you're walking into a room with the likes of HSBC, City, you know, State Street, you have to bring more than just a good product. You need credibility. And that really comes from the strength of your [00:09:00] brand. And so from the start, we, we built a reputable brand and we made that a priority.

And instead of kind of, The usual maybe, you know, flashy ad campaigns or big budget campaigns. We took a different route. We were focused on becoming educators In what we were doing and we released tons of content, you know, white papers reports deep dives into the technology Uh, we were developing and things like no one else was actually talking about in the industry And we wanted to be known as as the experts and we also worked with the press to get our story out there Um, not just as like a fintech startup, but as thought leaders in the space And yeah something actually really interesting happened.

It wasn't just You traffic that grew and, you know, leads that came flooding in, it was something more, I guess, intangible and it was more powerful and it was all that, that trust [00:10:00] that came. And so when we walked into meetings with, um, those financial kind of Goliaths, they'd already seen our content.

They'd read our interviews, maybe even cited our reports in their own discussions. And. The brand had preceded us and trusted us. So it did all the hard work for us. And because of that, we were able to, you know, sign deals with them. And yes, not just the building brand is not just about recognition. It's about trust and trust really compounds over time.

Angeley: Yeah. It's, it's the essence of storytelling and the storytelling resonates. And, you know, one of the things that I'll be talking about at SaaStock as well is 70 percent of your sales funnel is done before your SDRs or even talk to your clients. And that 70 percent is all about brand and marketing and storytelling and content.

And for anyone that might challenge that assertion, I would say, think of any product or [00:11:00] service that you've purchased in the last 12 months. What's the first thing that you probably did? You took out your mobile phone, you got onto Google or whichever search engine and you're typing, you know, your product or service, and you're looking at G2 reviews, you're looking at whatever reviews there are, what content there is, what the story is, and you already have a preconception in your mind about that product or service.

So this is something, especially e commerce is a little bit different because. Transactional a little bit more tactical, but especially in B to B sass and go to market that branding storytelling content. Like you were saying, becoming kind of the expert in your field. I just I can't advocate for enough.

And it's one of the go to market motions that most founders and CEOs wait. Way, way, way too late, um, into their scaling journey to do

Ivor: Yeah, and I think there's something that you touched on before when you were talking about [00:12:00] the Microsoft versus Apple and it's, Also in the article that I read of yours, which is all about how you can evoke that feeling from, the people that are discovering what you do. And I think that's something that's pretty difficult , to do.

So have you got any kind of, tips or, strategies in, in how you can actually evoke a strong emotion?

Angeley: So I would say be authentic. So really make sure like some of the best brands out there, they've taken their story and they've tried to attach it to something that's happening in society. So one of the key examples I give is the Colin Kaepernick sports player. Taking the knee, you know, in the middle of the game, basically, you know, trying to stand up for social justice, him basically getting booted and or not selected kind of outed.

Um, and then he signs on with Nike for this great, you know, grant a brand campaign. Um, [00:13:00] it basically, you know, fight for everything, even if it means, you know, you risk everything. And with Nike, people thought that Nike was crazy. They thought that their brand and marketing team had finally lost all their marbles.

Why were they doing this? Why were they telling the story? It was so controversial. Um, you know, president Trump at that time even had something to say that they were losing their minds. And then what happened is you saw the results. It just created a phenomenon. And for any of the listeners, I would just say, go into YouTube and just, you know, type in that campaign.

You'll find it, watch it. The video is just so moving and so compelling. And when you look at the actual results, It's the single best performing ad campaign that Nike has ever done in the history, basically of its entire company. Um, and when you talk about brand value and add value through the roof, you're talking billions.

So take what you do as a product or [00:14:00] service and try to attach it to that. You want the feeling that you want consumers to get. If you can attach it to something that's happening in. World news, world media, even better. But even if that's not relevant for you, just think about what's the feeling that you want.

And it's quite interesting. Now you see B2B SAS companies kind of doing similar tactics to e commerce companies, so it's something to watch. So

Ivor: Yeah, I think, um, also you touching something quite interesting there with, uh, understanding the, the performance of, say, brand. And I think brand can be, um, something that's intangible sometimes and a little bit nebulous. And so I wonder how you approach, you know, measuring the impact of, of brand, you know, all of these investments that, uh, you have to make with, you know, time and resources of your own team, but also, uh, maybe some, uh, [00:15:00] campaigns as well with advertising and so on.

So how do you understand like the impact of all the effort and time you're putting into brand?

Angeley: it's very interesting. So in the article that I think that you referenced before that I wrote for CMO Alliance, it's basically like the roller coaster. So a lot of companies will do demand gen, and then it goes up and down and up and down. But then brand is something that is consistent over time, and that graph in the curve goes up into the right, but it's slower.

So this is where you have a lot of CEOs, founders and investors saying, Oh, don't do it because you can't get that direct ROI calculation. And in the days of. You know, data driven marketing or even you put in X euros, X dollars, whatever currency you're in, and you want something out at the end immediately.

That's why they're not doing it. So this is where I really challenge anyone that's listening to this, um, and say, it is a longer term investment. Think about buying a house for long term retirement. [00:16:00] Whatever stocks, portfolios, whatever you're doing. So you need to think of it like that. How do you actually measure it?

Um, there's a lot of different ways to do that. If your company has enough awareness in the market, you can do a traditional brand tracker. So brand awareness tracker, where basically they do a survey, they will, you know, take back results and you can measure the awareness in your market. So. The problem with a lot of earlier stage scale ups is they don't have enough awareness for those trackers, you know, to be relevant.

Um, so in this stage you just do the old fashioned way. If you have SDRs, you know, calling out to particular clients and a targeted account list, let's say just do like a very anecdotal. How many of those clients have. I'm not sure that I've ever heard of your company. What's the perception that they have?

What are the top phrases, key words? So you can kind of do it the old school way, some napkin math, and just get back some anecdotal, um, you know, kind of evidence. But over time, it will build and build and build. Once your company gets to the point where you do have enough [00:17:00] awareness in the market, then you can go with some more traditional brand tracking or brand awareness services.

Ivor: Yeah, I think often with these things, it's best to, Um, start with a simple solution, especially if you're starting from zero and just getting the results from, yeah, say anecdotal evidence from, uh, people that you're calling up or maybe from, um, other people in the industry, maybe an event that you're attending that's relevant to your audience and just understanding how, um, how many people have heard of you and are they aware of I think, um, depending on also the channels that you're Employing as well.

You can understand exactly how many times perhaps your, your brand is actually mentioned on, on social media. Maybe you could do some listening as well. Um, perhaps also. You can understand the impact of all the kind of content and articles as well that you're, you're pushing out on your website and how many more impressions [00:18:00] and how much click through rates you're getting as well.

And so there's really a ton of different data you can use to really understand and measure the impact of brand and the campaigns that you're inputting there. So I think we're, we're about 18 minutes in and I can't believe we haven't said the A word yet. So AI is everywhere now. Um, we need to employ it if we're not already.

And how does that work in terms of go to market and how are you looking to Uh, employee AI in, in your strategy. Yeah, it was also,

Angeley: So I would say AI is something that's here to stay, and it's only going to become more and more impactful as time goes on. But what I always. Kind of put the word of caution out to founder CEOs and operators is [00:19:00] don't forget your critical thinking. AI is a tool to support you. It is not to replace your critical thinking.

And I think that's the most important thing to say. And I think maybe it was with you. I'm not sure. But I always give the example of Google Maps, which most people use. And I grew up in the days when you had the old school maps on paper, and you actually had to know where you were going. And you had to know north, south, east and west.

And now I don't. I just rely on Google Maps. So, um, you know, I would just say to people, keep your critical thinking skills. Now, with that said, there are tons of great AI tools for go to market, and For prospecting and reaching out. There's AI tools now that will basically type your emails for you. Um, you know, internally, uh, gong is a great tool, um, you know, to use for your sales conversations that will report and then we'll break out your sales conversations.

Um, there's lots of AI tools now that are helping on the [00:20:00] marketing front. Um, you know, chat GPT is, you know, the obvious one that everybody knows and loves. But I would just say, you know, use it wisely. It's it can create content for you and it can people use it for product marketing as well. But if you start to see that your content and your product marketing starts to look like everyone else's because you're using the same chat, GBT and you're typing in the same prompts, I would just caution people again.

Um, use these things as a tool and not as a complete replacement. However, I think some of the news I saw, if you, I don't know if you saw it going around the LinkedIn stratosphere. Is it, was it Klarna? Which company has just basically gotten rid of Salesforce?

Ivor: I saw that. Um, was it Klarna have reduced a lot of their workforce because they're, um, now utilizing open AI, but I'm, I'm a bit skeptical of this. I [00:21:00] wonder if this is a, um, a PR play from OpenAI and, and Microsoft, um, to use them as a kind of case study on how teams can actually really leverage AI within the whole organization and all the efficiencies there.

So I'm, I'm a little bit skeptical. I think we've seen these, types of announcements before and they don't seem to, snowball, and have the impact across other companies as well. So I'm a little bit skeptical on that.

Angeley: Yeah, we're gonna see. I was just looking at the headlines. It says Klarna cuts 50 percent of workforce, ends partnerships with Salesforce and Workday. So a CRM tool and an HR tool. I mean, Salesforce is such a juggernaut in the industry. Let's see. I don't know. Let's see if it's a PR stunt or if it's Um, and it's, you know, kind of the first bellwether sign of, you know, what's to come.

Um, let's see how it works first. Um, but yeah, interesting note.[00:22:00]

Ivor: Absolutely. Um, so we're coming up to, I think we're nearly at the end of quarter three and coming up to the last quarter of this year. Uh, what are you focused on, uh, as we, we come to the end of, of 2024? What's like the key, um, areas that you're focused on throughout the rest of the year, Anjali?

Angeley: I mean, yeah, resourcify. We're continuing to focus on our scaling motion. Um, we're looking at launching in the United States in 2025. So I think this is exciting for us to get that all prepared. Um, and then from there, just getting budgets and everything ready. I mean, you know, Q4 is really the time when you start for your 2025, uh, kind of GTM takeoff.

So everybody wants to start January strong. So this is what we're focusing on.

Ivor: Awesome. So before we wrap up, something that's a ritual here at GTM Tales, is we close [00:23:00] every episode with each guest recommending a book for the next guest. With a short reason why now, because you're the first guest, Anjali, I'm recommending a book to you, and it's called Stories Sell by Matthew Dix. The reason why I think storytelling is still massively underutilized, and I think especially more so here in, in the UK and also Europe, when we compare to, to America.

I think in America, there's a kind of culture of, um, you know, telling stories more when, um, show and tell, for example, you do that much more at an earlier stage, and I think that culture is much more adopted in the US, but I think it's really important as we enter this era of AI. the impact of, of stories [00:24:00] and, and how that can make us stand out, um, and our brand stand out.

So what's your, um,, recommendation to pass on to our next guest, which I'm actually recording later today.

Angeley: Nice. So for the next guest, I have a very interesting book. Um, when people ask me, you know, what's your favorite business book or go to market or SAS book, actually tell them something different. It's the alchemist. It's the alchemist. Um, and it's really the story of somebody is self discovery. And the reason that I think this is a fantastic book is because leaders need to understand themselves and understand their journeys of growth so that they can teach and inspire others.

And the more that you learn and grow and improve yourself, the better leader that you become. So for me, this is absolutely one of my favorites. I know that, you know, there's technical books on how to scale from one to 10 million and, you know, 10 to 50, 50 to 100, like, [00:25:00] and those books change and there's new books about that every single year.

But I feel like, you know, like the book you read recommended to me about storytelling. I think that's a fundamental. And so the book that I'm recommending, The Alchemist, I also think is a fundamental.

Ivor: Awesome. I love it. I'm definitely going to check it out. Thank you so much, Anjali. What an absolute pleasure. Thank you for listening to everyone that's tuned in and be sure to tune in to the next episode.

GTM Tales Podcast: Angeley from Resourcify

[00:00:00] So hello everyone and welcome to GTM Towns. In each episode, you will meet a go to market leader. And the idea behind it is that there's some really great podcasts out there. There are a lot of podcasts out there, but there aren't any that are specifically focused on the growth stories in B2B. Stories that have helped bridge the gap between 10 customers and a hundred the path from series A to series B or how growth was achieved whilst bootstrapping along this journey, each stage and path is very different.

Ivor: And the greater market landscape has been totally upended with the AI [00:01:00] revolution. And this is our first episode. We've got some amazing guests lined up. And today I'm super excited to be talking to Anjali from Resourceify, where she's the chief commercial officer. Great to have you here, Anjali. How are you doing?

Angeley: Great to be here. Doing really well and excited for a nice discussion.

Ivor: Awesome. So obviously we know each other, but I think it'd be really helpful for the audience to understand your background a bit more and understand what's led you to where you are today.

Angeley: Absolutely. So I'm Anjali. I'm the chief commercial officer at Resourceify. We're a B2B sustainability platform. So all of those companies right now in the green tech, clean tech space, which is very popular and progressive at the moment. I have a background starting in sales and finance and then moving into tech.

Um, Amazon International [00:02:00] Expansion, B2B SaaS, et cetera, and have scaled companies all the way from C to Series A, B, C, and up through the stages of IPO and across many different continents. So I've seen quite a bit and excited to chat about how it's done.

Ivor: And I think your background is super interesting because, you know, Uh, the experience in the likes of Amazon, Intuit, GoDaddy, but also now combined with your experience with the seed to Series C as well. And so I think it would be a really good place to, to start to dig into your, you know, your startups and, and scale ups, like what are some, some key strategies you've seen, um, work really well?

When transitioning from, say, C to Series A and Series B.

Angeley: The best strategy is really to have focus and make sure that you have great product market fit. Um, there's been a real transition between now and 2024. And I would say. Three to four years [00:03:00] ago, when it was all about hyper growth and companies were scaling by any means. And then you saw companies that were even at a series C stage, and they had hundreds of millions, you know, in revenue, et cetera.

And then they were still closing their doors or still really struggling to continue to grow because they didn't have their scalable growth model in place. And what that means is that they really weren't scaling for scalability sake. They were scaling because they were just pumping more money. Into the situation, which just creates that hungry monster.

Um, and it is not sustainable. So I think what you're seeing now in 2024 is a lot of companies are really trying to focus on what I call what's that scalable black box or I'm from the States. You can tell from my accent. If you have like a bottle of Tabasco sauce, how can you continue to sell and replicate that same bottle over and over again?

Mm hmm. In a more, I would say, healthy and predictable way.

Ivor: Yeah, I think that's, um, [00:04:00] really, really rings true. A couple years ago, it was all about growth at all costs, and that was the, the trendy thing to do. And I think now, in startup land, it's all about profitability. That's the new trendy thing that everyone's after these days. What about, um, what not to do? What are some common pitfalls that you've seen Across this, this journey.

Angeley: You know, it's really interesting, um, especially because I have the experience of the United States versus Europe. I see a lot of cultural differences. So in the United States, I see a lot of companies focusing on individual growth and individualization. And in Europe, they have more of this risk aversion, which is A very interesting thing to see in the startup ecosphere, because it really is all about risk taking and how you hedge that risk.

One of the things I see, especially with series, I would say seed series A and B companies [00:05:00] is they tend to try to hire junior people. And they want those junior people to index at much higher levels, which just isn't happening. So they'll take their budget and they try to spread that budget to hire more people at a lower level, which is something that doesn't usually work because then those mistakes compound.

And what I usually end up telling founders and CEOs is take whatever budget you have and hire the absolute best people that you can find. Even if you have less people in your company, because those more senior people will end up outperforming and then they'll be able to get that revenue traction that then you can then fill in the layers.

But especially in Europe, I actually see founders and CEOs doing the opposite. They keep trying to hire junior people to try to get traction and then they can't. And then they keep going through like a hire and fire motion. Um, until finally they figure out that they We need more senior people in

Ivor: Yeah, hiring is absolutely critical. And I think, um, I've [00:06:00] actually just, um, finished reading Steve Jobs biography.

And one of the things he said was, you can do some amazing things with just a team of 10. So what you can actually do with quite a small group of individuals is actually quite amazing as long as those individuals are really, um, you know, professionals and also experts in exactly what they do.

And I think that's, um, quite a nice segue into a topic you're going to be speaking about at SAS Doc in Dublin this year. So brand, why is brand important and why is it key for seed stage startups, series A stage startups and, and beyond?

Angeley: my favorite topic. So brand, um, I really call it the og of awareness, the og of demand generation [00:07:00] and revenue generation. But it's something that I would say over the past five years or so in the scale up community that a lot of scale ups have just forgotten about. And they've tried to replace it with traditional performance marketing and all kinds of different channels.

The reason why it's important is because it is the feeling that your consumers have. About your company, about your product and your services. And there is nothing that can substitute that feeling or belief. So the example I always give is for any of the listeners, um, on this podcast, you take your Apple Mac book versus your Microsoft surface.

It is the ultimate example. Microsoft surface actually has. Better tech in it actually has better hardware, better specs. However, people keep buying Apple MacBooks and there's one reason for that. So it is basically the ultimate example, but a lot of brands, I would say a lot of companies don't understand how important investing in your brand is and [00:08:00] investing in it early.

So this is one of the things, again, I always advise founders to do at the early stages, but it's quite interesting because a lot of them don't. Um, and then I call it the rollercoaster ride, right. Of, of demand gen and their budgets.

Ivor: Yeah, I, I really learned the importance of brand when I was head of marketing at a FinTech called Tokeney. So it was kind of super early days of the company first year and, and we were stepping into a really complex world. Selling emerging technology to traditional financial institutions. And, you know, if you know anything about that space, you know, that trust isn't just important, it's.

everything. And when you're walking into a room with the likes of HSBC, City, you know, State Street, you have to bring more than just a good product. You need credibility. And that really comes from the strength of your [00:09:00] brand. And so from the start, we, we built a reputable brand and we made that a priority.

And instead of kind of, The usual maybe, you know, flashy ad campaigns or big budget campaigns. We took a different route. We were focused on becoming educators In what we were doing and we released tons of content, you know, white papers reports deep dives into the technology Uh, we were developing and things like no one else was actually talking about in the industry And we wanted to be known as as the experts and we also worked with the press to get our story out there Um, not just as like a fintech startup, but as thought leaders in the space And yeah something actually really interesting happened.

It wasn't just You traffic that grew and, you know, leads that came flooding in, it was something more, I guess, intangible and it was more powerful and it was all that, that trust [00:10:00] that came. And so when we walked into meetings with, um, those financial kind of Goliaths, they'd already seen our content.

They'd read our interviews, maybe even cited our reports in their own discussions. And. The brand had preceded us and trusted us. So it did all the hard work for us. And because of that, we were able to, you know, sign deals with them. And yes, not just the building brand is not just about recognition. It's about trust and trust really compounds over time.

Angeley: Yeah. It's, it's the essence of storytelling and the storytelling resonates. And, you know, one of the things that I'll be talking about at SaaStock as well is 70 percent of your sales funnel is done before your SDRs or even talk to your clients. And that 70 percent is all about brand and marketing and storytelling and content.

And for anyone that might challenge that assertion, I would say, think of any product or [00:11:00] service that you've purchased in the last 12 months. What's the first thing that you probably did? You took out your mobile phone, you got onto Google or whichever search engine and you're typing, you know, your product or service, and you're looking at G2 reviews, you're looking at whatever reviews there are, what content there is, what the story is, and you already have a preconception in your mind about that product or service.

So this is something, especially e commerce is a little bit different because. Transactional a little bit more tactical, but especially in B to B sass and go to market that branding storytelling content. Like you were saying, becoming kind of the expert in your field. I just I can't advocate for enough.

And it's one of the go to market motions that most founders and CEOs wait. Way, way, way too late, um, into their scaling journey to do

Ivor: Yeah, and I think there's something that you touched on before when you were talking about [00:12:00] the Microsoft versus Apple and it's, Also in the article that I read of yours, which is all about how you can evoke that feeling from, the people that are discovering what you do. And I think that's something that's pretty difficult , to do.

So have you got any kind of, tips or, strategies in, in how you can actually evoke a strong emotion?

Angeley: So I would say be authentic. So really make sure like some of the best brands out there, they've taken their story and they've tried to attach it to something that's happening in society. So one of the key examples I give is the Colin Kaepernick sports player. Taking the knee, you know, in the middle of the game, basically, you know, trying to stand up for social justice, him basically getting booted and or not selected kind of outed.

Um, and then he signs on with Nike for this great, you know, grant a brand campaign. Um, [00:13:00] it basically, you know, fight for everything, even if it means, you know, you risk everything. And with Nike, people thought that Nike was crazy. They thought that their brand and marketing team had finally lost all their marbles.

Why were they doing this? Why were they telling the story? It was so controversial. Um, you know, president Trump at that time even had something to say that they were losing their minds. And then what happened is you saw the results. It just created a phenomenon. And for any of the listeners, I would just say, go into YouTube and just, you know, type in that campaign.

You'll find it, watch it. The video is just so moving and so compelling. And when you look at the actual results, It's the single best performing ad campaign that Nike has ever done in the history, basically of its entire company. Um, and when you talk about brand value and add value through the roof, you're talking billions.

So take what you do as a product or [00:14:00] service and try to attach it to that. You want the feeling that you want consumers to get. If you can attach it to something that's happening in. World news, world media, even better. But even if that's not relevant for you, just think about what's the feeling that you want.

And it's quite interesting. Now you see B2B SAS companies kind of doing similar tactics to e commerce companies, so it's something to watch. So

Ivor: Yeah, I think, um, also you touching something quite interesting there with, uh, understanding the, the performance of, say, brand. And I think brand can be, um, something that's intangible sometimes and a little bit nebulous. And so I wonder how you approach, you know, measuring the impact of, of brand, you know, all of these investments that, uh, you have to make with, you know, time and resources of your own team, but also, uh, maybe some, uh, [00:15:00] campaigns as well with advertising and so on.

So how do you understand like the impact of all the effort and time you're putting into brand?

Angeley: it's very interesting. So in the article that I think that you referenced before that I wrote for CMO Alliance, it's basically like the roller coaster. So a lot of companies will do demand gen, and then it goes up and down and up and down. But then brand is something that is consistent over time, and that graph in the curve goes up into the right, but it's slower.

So this is where you have a lot of CEOs, founders and investors saying, Oh, don't do it because you can't get that direct ROI calculation. And in the days of. You know, data driven marketing or even you put in X euros, X dollars, whatever currency you're in, and you want something out at the end immediately.

That's why they're not doing it. So this is where I really challenge anyone that's listening to this, um, and say, it is a longer term investment. Think about buying a house for long term retirement. [00:16:00] Whatever stocks, portfolios, whatever you're doing. So you need to think of it like that. How do you actually measure it?

Um, there's a lot of different ways to do that. If your company has enough awareness in the market, you can do a traditional brand tracker. So brand awareness tracker, where basically they do a survey, they will, you know, take back results and you can measure the awareness in your market. So. The problem with a lot of earlier stage scale ups is they don't have enough awareness for those trackers, you know, to be relevant.

Um, so in this stage you just do the old fashioned way. If you have SDRs, you know, calling out to particular clients and a targeted account list, let's say just do like a very anecdotal. How many of those clients have. I'm not sure that I've ever heard of your company. What's the perception that they have?

What are the top phrases, key words? So you can kind of do it the old school way, some napkin math, and just get back some anecdotal, um, you know, kind of evidence. But over time, it will build and build and build. Once your company gets to the point where you do have enough [00:17:00] awareness in the market, then you can go with some more traditional brand tracking or brand awareness services.

Ivor: Yeah, I think often with these things, it's best to, Um, start with a simple solution, especially if you're starting from zero and just getting the results from, yeah, say anecdotal evidence from, uh, people that you're calling up or maybe from, um, other people in the industry, maybe an event that you're attending that's relevant to your audience and just understanding how, um, how many people have heard of you and are they aware of I think, um, depending on also the channels that you're Employing as well.

You can understand exactly how many times perhaps your, your brand is actually mentioned on, on social media. Maybe you could do some listening as well. Um, perhaps also. You can understand the impact of all the kind of content and articles as well that you're, you're pushing out on your website and how many more impressions [00:18:00] and how much click through rates you're getting as well.

And so there's really a ton of different data you can use to really understand and measure the impact of brand and the campaigns that you're inputting there. So I think we're, we're about 18 minutes in and I can't believe we haven't said the A word yet. So AI is everywhere now. Um, we need to employ it if we're not already.

And how does that work in terms of go to market and how are you looking to Uh, employee AI in, in your strategy. Yeah, it was also,

Angeley: So I would say AI is something that's here to stay, and it's only going to become more and more impactful as time goes on. But what I always. Kind of put the word of caution out to founder CEOs and operators is [00:19:00] don't forget your critical thinking. AI is a tool to support you. It is not to replace your critical thinking.

And I think that's the most important thing to say. And I think maybe it was with you. I'm not sure. But I always give the example of Google Maps, which most people use. And I grew up in the days when you had the old school maps on paper, and you actually had to know where you were going. And you had to know north, south, east and west.

And now I don't. I just rely on Google Maps. So, um, you know, I would just say to people, keep your critical thinking skills. Now, with that said, there are tons of great AI tools for go to market, and For prospecting and reaching out. There's AI tools now that will basically type your emails for you. Um, you know, internally, uh, gong is a great tool, um, you know, to use for your sales conversations that will report and then we'll break out your sales conversations.

Um, there's lots of AI tools now that are helping on the [00:20:00] marketing front. Um, you know, chat GPT is, you know, the obvious one that everybody knows and loves. But I would just say, you know, use it wisely. It's it can create content for you and it can people use it for product marketing as well. But if you start to see that your content and your product marketing starts to look like everyone else's because you're using the same chat, GBT and you're typing in the same prompts, I would just caution people again.

Um, use these things as a tool and not as a complete replacement. However, I think some of the news I saw, if you, I don't know if you saw it going around the LinkedIn stratosphere. Is it, was it Klarna? Which company has just basically gotten rid of Salesforce?

Ivor: I saw that. Um, was it Klarna have reduced a lot of their workforce because they're, um, now utilizing open AI, but I'm, I'm a bit skeptical of this. I [00:21:00] wonder if this is a, um, a PR play from OpenAI and, and Microsoft, um, to use them as a kind of case study on how teams can actually really leverage AI within the whole organization and all the efficiencies there.

So I'm, I'm a little bit skeptical. I think we've seen these, types of announcements before and they don't seem to, snowball, and have the impact across other companies as well. So I'm a little bit skeptical on that.

Angeley: Yeah, we're gonna see. I was just looking at the headlines. It says Klarna cuts 50 percent of workforce, ends partnerships with Salesforce and Workday. So a CRM tool and an HR tool. I mean, Salesforce is such a juggernaut in the industry. Let's see. I don't know. Let's see if it's a PR stunt or if it's Um, and it's, you know, kind of the first bellwether sign of, you know, what's to come.

Um, let's see how it works first. Um, but yeah, interesting note.[00:22:00]

Ivor: Absolutely. Um, so we're coming up to, I think we're nearly at the end of quarter three and coming up to the last quarter of this year. Uh, what are you focused on, uh, as we, we come to the end of, of 2024? What's like the key, um, areas that you're focused on throughout the rest of the year, Anjali?

Angeley: I mean, yeah, resourcify. We're continuing to focus on our scaling motion. Um, we're looking at launching in the United States in 2025. So I think this is exciting for us to get that all prepared. Um, and then from there, just getting budgets and everything ready. I mean, you know, Q4 is really the time when you start for your 2025, uh, kind of GTM takeoff.

So everybody wants to start January strong. So this is what we're focusing on.

Ivor: Awesome. So before we wrap up, something that's a ritual here at GTM Tales, is we close [00:23:00] every episode with each guest recommending a book for the next guest. With a short reason why now, because you're the first guest, Anjali, I'm recommending a book to you, and it's called Stories Sell by Matthew Dix. The reason why I think storytelling is still massively underutilized, and I think especially more so here in, in the UK and also Europe, when we compare to, to America.

I think in America, there's a kind of culture of, um, you know, telling stories more when, um, show and tell, for example, you do that much more at an earlier stage, and I think that culture is much more adopted in the US, but I think it's really important as we enter this era of AI. the impact of, of stories [00:24:00] and, and how that can make us stand out, um, and our brand stand out.

So what's your, um,, recommendation to pass on to our next guest, which I'm actually recording later today.

Angeley: Nice. So for the next guest, I have a very interesting book. Um, when people ask me, you know, what's your favorite business book or go to market or SAS book, actually tell them something different. It's the alchemist. It's the alchemist. Um, and it's really the story of somebody is self discovery. And the reason that I think this is a fantastic book is because leaders need to understand themselves and understand their journeys of growth so that they can teach and inspire others.

And the more that you learn and grow and improve yourself, the better leader that you become. So for me, this is absolutely one of my favorites. I know that, you know, there's technical books on how to scale from one to 10 million and, you know, 10 to 50, 50 to 100, like, [00:25:00] and those books change and there's new books about that every single year.

But I feel like, you know, like the book you read recommended to me about storytelling. I think that's a fundamental. And so the book that I'm recommending, The Alchemist, I also think is a fundamental.

Ivor: Awesome. I love it. I'm definitely going to check it out. Thank you so much, Anjali. What an absolute pleasure. Thank you for listening to everyone that's tuned in and be sure to tune in to the next episode.