Listen, Listen, Listen | Amy Frampton

Justin Keller: Welcome to Revenue Talks, the show where we get real about what it takes to build pipeline and drive expansion as a go- to- market team. I'm Justin Keller, the Vice President of Revenue Marketing at Drift, and on this show, I'm here talking to folks across the entire go- to- market organization, which means marketing, sales, and customer success, about how these conversations, technology and cross- functional alignment to build more pipeline and drive expansion, because revenue, it's everyone's business now. Welcome back to another episode of Revenue Talks. My name is Justin and today I'm so excited to be joined by Amy Frampton, who is the head of marketing at BambooHR. I'm so excited to learn from her. If you're not aware, BambooHR is an all- in- one HR software platform for small and medium businesses. Amy joined them back in April of 2020 and she had the mission of better unifying all aspects of the marketing team, which is itself crazy, right? The pandemic had just started, and here's Amy who's trying to bring everyone back together while everyone's at home. So really eager to talk about what that process looked like. And then I think we'll learn just how BambooHR's team aligns with the broader go- to- market organization and tries to drive revenue, which is the name of this podcast. So Amy, welcome to Revenue Talks.

Amy: Thanks so much for having me. It's fun to be here.

Justin Keller: I think we'll have some fun. So if you don't mind starting us off, tell us a little bit about who you are. Maybe give us a little quick background to set the stage.

Amy: Great. So I am Amy Frampton, I'm head of marketing at BambooHR, you already said that part. I've been in tech marketing for 20 years, longer than I probably want to admit, and I came up in marketing at Microsoft for about 10 years. And Microsoft is a great bootcamp in all things marketing, I got to try... Gosh, almost everything. So that was great fun. I then took a little bit of a career detour and it was chief of staff at Hewlett Packard and their cloud unit. And that was great and worked for Paul Allen at his company while he was still alive. And then came back to marketing. So I was vice president of product marketing at Smartsheet. And then the last three years I've been leading marketing here at Bamboo. I'm a Seattle native. I moved to Utah during the start of the shutdown. Seattle was very shut down at this point and Utah a little bit lighter, but quickly did the same. So it's been an interesting experience to meet everyone for the first year over virtual.

Justin Keller: What's your yardstick? 20 years in tech is 20 years, but how long does it feel like? Because tech's crazy.

Amy: Yeah, sometimes it feels like 400 years. I feel 400 years old. And sometimes it feels like a blink. I'll go on LinkedIn and I'll think, " Oh, so- and- so has done so..." They've been around doing this for so long. And then I'll think, "Well, I've been around doing it that long too." You wake up every day and try to do the right thing, and earn your team's help and respect. So it's both fast and slow.

Justin Keller: Yeah.

Amy: And that's okay. I will admit there's moments where it feels like 20 times 20.

Justin Keller: That's exactly why I ask, because I think the swirl tech is just so insane, it ages your career quite quickly. And you've got such good experience-

Amy: It does, in fact-

Justin Keller: I cannot wait to... Oh, go ahead, sorry.

Amy: I was going to say, I remember my first day at Microsoft, a long time ago, almost 20 years ago, someone handed me a USB stick. I don't think people even use USB sticks anymore.

Justin Keller: Nope.

Amy: But I've been at a creative agency before that and I'd never seen one. And I was like, " What is this crazy technology?" And of course now, you just text your phone to the next person's, or walk by them, and exchange files. So it's definitely a different world.

Justin Keller: It really is. I remember when I transitioned into the workforce and I got a Blackberry and I was like, " Oh my God, I am at the peak of tech."

Amy: Yes.

Justin Keller: And now I just can't imagine how ancient those look, in retrospect.

Amy: I still miss my Blackberry though. I got to admit I miss the keyboard.

Justin Keller: Me too. I could write an entire email without looking. It was a great device, but all things move on. So we were doing some research on you and we were listening to the Marketing Trends podcast, and you said that when you joined Bamboo, there was the sales team, and there was the marketing team, and then there was the SDR team, and all of them reported to your CEO, Brad Rencher.

Amy: Yep.

Justin Keller: And now the SDRs report to you, which I'd love to have a side note on this. I think there used to be a very valid debate on where the SDR organization should live, but I am now of the opinion that I will die on the hill that SDR should live in the marketing team. So hey, what's your opinion on that? Where do you think they should live? And now that they live with you, what was that process like? Did you have to wrest control of them, or did it seem like a pretty fluid decision to make?

Amy: Well, I guess a couple things. First of all, let me tell you about how it happens. So I've been at Bamboo maybe, not quite a year, nine months. And I am really lucky because I have an amazing partner in sales leadership. And he and I started talking about would we be able to help the SDRs more if they reported into one of us, versus reporting into the CEO, who is also great but doesn't have a lot of time, and would it help them be more connected into our groups? And he and I... It's funny, we didn't really debate, but we just brainstormed. I'm lucky that I've got a really good partner. And at the end of the brainstorm he said, " Frampton, I think these go to you." And I said, " I do too." It feels funny to say, " This group should move to me." Because that's not really how you want to be as a leader. But at the same time I saw the reasoning. And so we went together to Brad and said, " Hey, your call, but this is what we're thinking. We think they should go into one of us. We think it should be marketing." And then he thought about it for not very long and made the call. I think when the SDRs moved over to me, there was a little bit of, in the SDR team, " I wonder why this is happening this way." SDR, a lot of them, it's their first professional gig, or it's their first time being in SDR. And I think there was some question, but we have found tremendous value in looking at our pipeline, and our potential customers, all the way from the top of the pipeline, till they get handed off to our sales team. And our SDRs are amazing at understanding what our campaigns are doing, why they're calling people, what really resonates. And we've found it to be lifting, both for them and their training and their careers, which we care just a ton about, because we want them to grow as SDRs and then if they want to come into marketing, or go into sales, or do implementation and stay as Bambooligans. And so they learn a lot, and then we also find that it helps their conversations.

Justin Keller: Yeah, I-

Amy: So we like both parts.

Justin Keller: You just rattled off almost all of the reasons I think that the SDRs are such a good part of a marketing team, because they are the front line of your brand and they need to be aligned to the campaigns. And I think especially now, and interested on your take on this, I feel like the B2B buying dynamic has changed so much. Buyers are so much more well- educated that that volume game just doesn't work like it might've used to, when it used to be a sales, a boiler room kind of situation. You need to have that nuance and that creativity, and be aligned to the broader corporate message, right?

Amy: I think that's exactly right. And people are getting pickier, because dollars are tight right now. And so the combination of a more educated community that wants to have deeper conversations right off the bat, whether it's on your website, or whether it's through an SDR, that's really important. And then for a lot of these companies, all these companies, dollars are short. And so man, you want to make the right technology choices, and you want to get into it. And so I love that our SDRs can have deeper conversations and that that's important to us. It also helps the marketing team, what we call the non- SDR marketers, to think about how campaigns will flow all the way through to the conversation. And I think it helps them be better marketers. We have someone on the team, his job is specifically to think about that connection. He's on the marketing team, his name's Johnny, he's awesome. And so he's listening to calls, and seeing how marketing is resonating, and doing all of those things. And so I think it makes us better at the message as well.

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Justin Keller: I love what you just said. Well, I've loved everything you've said so far, Amy. But if the SDRs are on the marketing team, they're on the marketing team. So I love calling the rest of the marketing team, non- SDR marketers. I think that is very clever in a way of just enshrining how important they are to the marketing organization. When you get those richer conversations started, they're still a handoff, which is always a tricky thing. And that's one thing I think that does become a little more difficult when the SDRs live in marketing, is they're very well under the marketing, but then they hand off to the sales, and sales takes the ball at that point. What does that look like for you all as you... What does a handoff look like to you guys? First of all, define what handoff means to you at Bamboo, and then how does that process work tactically?

Amy: Sure. Well, we're a 90% inbound business, hand raisers, and what a glorious thing to be able to be in the tech space. Most of our folks that SDRs are calling, have asked for engagements, like 90/ 95%. And so once they make sure they're ready to go and answer any initial questions, we do almost always a live transfer.

Justin Keller: Okay.

Amy: And we can set up a future appointment, but why stop the conversation? And so we do a very high rate of live transfers. Let's make it as easy as possible. These people are busy, they got to solve this problem and think about how they better support employees, or this opportunity. But they also are thinking about 10, 000 other things as they work to grow and sustain these businesses. And so let's get the conversation rolling, get them to see a demo and they can see how we help.

Justin Keller: A hundred percent.

Amy: So once they are handed off, or transferred live, then the sales team takes them on, and they don't loop back to the SDRs or anything. But we track all of that, so that we can see what conversations are working, what works best in terms of connecting with the sales team, et cetera.

Justin Keller: Gotcha, and-

Amy: And they work really, really well together with the sales team. So it's nice. You don't have to be in the same work to work well together of course.

Justin Keller: Which is exactly the whole point. There needs to... And what I've heard was you keep it focused on the customer, what they need, which is often the right message. And I think if you're delivering on that point, then the rest of the stuff kind of takes care of itself.

Amy: Yeah.

Justin Keller: And when organizations get hung up on themselves first, that's when the customer experience breaks down and turns crappy. And so I think any number of obstacles can be overcome by that.

Amy: I used to have a mentor that said something. He said it a lot, I hope he is listening and he can hear me make fun of him, but it's stuck with me and he was right. He said, " In business, you always have to think outside in, inside out just doesn't work. They don't care about our org structure, nor should they have to, this is about optimizing around the customer." And that definitely stuck with me.

Justin Keller: I think that's right on. That is right on. If you're listening to this podcast, you're aware of BambooHR, because it's just a huge hyper- growth company. How big was Bamboo when you joined Amy, and how big are you now?

Amy: Sure. We were just hitting about 500 when I joined, about three years ago, and we are well above a thousand now. And so we hit a thousand, I'm trying to remember, we sent out these really fun hats that said 1K on them, to all the... We had all sorts of fun LinkedIn posts. Gosh, maybe eight or nine months ago. So yeah, we've grown really fast, but tried to be really thoughtful at the same time. And that's always the challenge.

Justin Keller: It's really, really tough when you're growing that quickly. You make great plans and you hire against them, but reality does not like your plans more often than not. How much have you scaled the marketing team, since you've joined, in relative to that thousand employees. And then what was your thought process, if you're being thoughtful about it? How did you think about that? Because that is such a tough thing for marketing leaders to figure out.

Amy: Well I was really lucky because when I came in, the founders, Ben Peterson and Ryan Sanders, of Bamboo, Ben was running marketing, and he and Ryan really were thoughtful about who to hire, but also the culture that we wanted. That they wanted, and that I got lucky enough to inherit. So when I came, I don't know the exact number, I want to say 45 or 50, really amazing demand gen engine, terrific creative team. We do all of our creative in- house, 99.9% in- house, with an amazing creative director and brand lead. So I was one of the lucky ones. So often you go into a role, and either the team isn't built out, which is fun in and of itself, or you kind of have to do some rip and replace. I didn't have that. I had a great marketing team. And so my thinking was around, " Where are we not yet in market?" Because maybe we've been smaller scale, not ready to invest yet. And, " Where are the customers or prospects that we're not talking to just because we haven't gone there yet?" And so as I built out the team... I'm a product marketer by background. Everyone really at Microsoft is, every marketer, we're trained to be product marketers. So I really built up product marketing, because I think that storytelling is really important. I added a bunch of customer voice stuff. And then I looked at, " Where do we not have capacity to reach people that maybe we should?" And I have about 85 marketers now.

Justin Keller: Okay.

Amy: 85 non- SDR marketers.

Justin Keller: Thank you. Thank you for that clarification.

Amy: Yes.

Justin Keller: So it sounds like you're taking your mentor's advice. You're still thinking outside in, " Who do we need to service and then how do we build the team to do that?"

Amy: Yeah, that's right. That's right. And we're lucky, because we've got a great product and customers love it. This is maybe a little bit of a side note, but I think most people listening will understand. When I went to Smartsheet, I went out to one of our first user groups, I think that they'd ever had, it just happened. My coming to Smartsheet, it aligned. And I flew out to one. And the customers love Smartsheet. Smartsheet customers, they're crazy for Smartsheet. And I understand why, it's a great product. And I remember texting my CPO, who was my boss at the time, and saying, " I will never again work for a product that isn't loved this much. It's just too cool." And so when I was talking to Bamboo, they have the same customer love as Smartsheet. Customers just... We set people free to do great work, and that's what they love. And so for me as a marketer, and I don't share that just to brag on Bamboo and Smartsheet, although I'd love to do that too, but it's about how do you decide where you want to be and spend your time? And where I want to be and spend my time is to really understand the customer feeling on a product. And that's really important to me.

Justin Keller: Do you find that... Because I've had that privilege too, working for companies whose products were admired and loved inside and out. And don't you feel like... I think it sets you up to be not just a good marketer, but a great marketer. When you have that kind of momentum-

Amy: Yeah.

Justin Keller: That wind at your back. The delta between being a really good B2B marketer and being just legendary is so much easier. And it's one of those things, if you can be so lucky to work at a company that has a product like that all day. And I often feel for B2B marketers, because so many of these companies are... I mean, good products, they help solve issues, but are not something that necessarily gets people really fired up about their job, that marketers aren't super passionate about.

Amy: That's right.

Justin Keller: And I think that's why we end up with so much very bland B2B marketing, which is-

Amy: Oh, I think so too. And our CEO, Brad Rencher, often will say, " We are so lucky to be at a company with a product and a culture that makes us all look amazing." You know what I mean? This is a place that a dumb- dumb like me can come in and look like a really good marketing leader, and I appreciate that.

Justin Keller: Yeah. So I love what you said about when you got there, you did a lot of voice of the customer work. And I feel like your day- to- day, your boots on the ground, your ear to the ground is the SDR team. How do you collect that feedback from the SDRs? Because they're having more conversations than you or I will ever be able to have with prospects and customers, and I think it's such valuable content. But they also don't necessarily have the wherewithal or the context that they need to say, " Hey, here's what I'm hearing and here's how it can help product marketing, here's how it can help demand gen, here's how it can help the entire company." How do you guys think about that?

Amy: Yeah. Yeah our SDRs know the customers so, so well, and I'm grateful for it. They may not know, " Hey, what team put this out?" Or, " Here's how you talk about a messaging framework." But man, do they know our customers. And so we have a couple ways we do this. First of all, our SDR leader is in all of my leadership meetings. And so he's giving feedback all the time to his peers. And that's awesome, because we'll go through what's going on each team and what's working, what's not, all of those sorts of things. And all of that is shared on the daily. We have Slack channels and meetings and all of that. But we also have a couple more, maybe, process- oriented ways. We have a content council, we have SDRs that attend that. And so we're talking about, " What content do we want to think about? What message do we want to work through?" And they actually just came, they've changed our H1 2023 themes. Because we thought we were such smart marketers, we knew exactly what they wanted, exactly what customers wanted. And they came in, they're like, " Here's the three questions I'm getting right now." We're like, " Oh." And it wasn't a black to white, or white to black sort of thing, it was more in the gray, but it was definitely a change. And we changed our whole content strategy based on it, because they're talking to customers every day. And what a cool thing, what a cool thing. And so we really appreciate them. That's going to be a Calendly meeting moving forward that they'll be in. And then we have a system that we can listen to calls. And so we also listen to calls on the regular all the time, and we'll share them, " Hey, listen to how this was done. This looks like this is working." And so that's a very active... Not monitoring to make sure the SDRs are doing their job, but trying to understand the nuance of those conversations.

Justin Keller: I think you're totally right. And it is easy to think, " Oh, we're these smart marketers." But honestly, no, often we're chasing our own tails, and we think this sounds good, and we have our own bias towards making sure it works. But getting all that cross- functional feedback is so hard. Actually, I'm really interested to hear your take on this, because you spent a lot of time as a chief of staff. Do you have... So it's the beginning of the year, a lot of us are working on our H1 and our new fiscal year plans. What's your approach generally to, I don't know, creating the right groups, or starting the right conversations, or whatever it is that connect the dots between disparate teams, or even internal marketing teams, in a way that is one plus one equals three, for I guess the whole marketing organization, but really the whole company, if able?

Amy: Yeah. Yeah we do a waterfall goal setting at Bamboo with OKRs that works really, really well. That all of leadership signs off on, and we start early fall doing those, and those waterfall through. But then we also have a set of marketing KPIs. And we build our plans together as a group. And I think we've gotten better and better at this. If I was to say three years ago, did we plan together as a group? No, we really didn't. But this year I feel like we've got that perfect synergy where... And it's them. This leadership team has come together as a marketing leadership team in saying, " How do these things connect?" Joint calendaring, planning and joint KPIs, that we all sign up for and we enroll our teams on. And it's so easy for the product marketing team to be thinking about the launches and the messaging framework. And then the content team is doing this other thing, and the, " You're on charge of the webinars." But I think we've gotten better and better. And as I say, certainly not perfect, but so much better. As we've planned for 2023, we spent most of Q4 just talking, and then reviewing results, and setting out joint KPIs that we all sign up to. So they're not your goals, they're not my goals, they're not his or her goals, they are our goals. And I think that's super, super important.

Justin Keller: I think that's so important. And again, just getting those conversations started, breaking down those walls and just taking the ego out of the room, makes those conversations easier to have.

Amy: Yeah.

Justin Keller: And it's one of those things where it's getting the right people in the room, but making sure everyone's got a part of that conversation, in my experience, always ends up with a better result.

Amy: Yeah.

Justin Keller: It's easy to have an ego and to... Like we were talking about with the SDRs, having an opinion on it, but when you open it up, it's always a better output.

Amy: Exactly. That's exactly right. And they're so stinking smart. And I meet with them, their leadership, every week and yeah, I'm really grateful to have their inputs.

Justin Keller: So talking about all this planning, what are the big blockers? What are the things that you guys do get tripped up on as you're thinking? Because it's one of these things where we said earlier, you make a plan and then pretty quickly that plan falls apart, and so you always have to pivot. How do you think about it in a longer term framework? Do you think about it in the year? And if so, is it kind of like, " Generally, here's the guidepost we want to hit, and if we don't, then here's where we're going."? How do you lead your team through a year when you make a plan upfront?

Amy: We have built a plan for the year with a monthly review. That we are actively testing, working, learning, evaluating, changing, and then repeat. One of our themes at Bamboo is choose, focus, finish, repeat. And so we set a plan, but my guess is by Q2 it will have been really changed. And that's good, because we'll have learned things. So I want people thinking long term for sure, and how things will roll out. But I also want there to be a clear understanding that if we're not learning and changing, then we're not doing it right. And it might be something really worked and let's do more. And it might be, " Wow, that did not go like we thought, that did not at all resonate with what we were trying to do, or trying to help, and let's pull the rip cord on that one." So that's how we plan. We plan as a group. And then we do some fun awards around our goals. So it's not just, " Hey, we wanted to get to 105%, and we did." But people that are living our values in the way that supports the corporate goals, we honor them in marketing every month. And they're picked and they're surprised, and we do something fun for them that they love. So if you love skiing, you get to go skiing for a day. It's dumping snow outside my window right now, so I thought of that one. Or if you love spa day, or whatever it is, we honor that and try to really help people understand the connection between the cool stuff they're doing and the hard work they're putting in, and the goals we're trying to reach.

Justin Keller: So are these predefined awards? You get an award for hitting your pipeline goal? Or is it like, " Hey, this person was really a star this month and I want to shine a light on exactly what they do."

Amy: That's what it is.

Justin Keller: Okay.

Amy: Yep.

Justin Keller: Got it.

Amy: So we pick two or three a month. Highlight them in our team meeting, which are now virtual, or have been ever since I've been at Bamboo. And also we're in 20 states, and so we're virtual anyway at this point. And yeah, we honor a few people and it's a surprise, and have quotes about them, that their peers have said. So it's not just, " Hey, you reached the sales goal. This numbers goal." It's more about how are you doing your job that lifts the goals of the company.

Justin Keller: Gotcha.

Amy: And each other.

Justin Keller: Yeah. I love that very, very much. So this might be a loaded question, given your background as a product marketer. But I also think that based on your willingness to change and adapt really quickly, belies your background as a product marketer. I feel like product marketers are like, " No, this is the way we're doing it. We're sticking to it at least for the next two quarters, because I don't want to do all this stuff again." But how do you, when you think of Bamboo-

Amy: I'll share that with my product marketing team.

Justin Keller: Bamboo, do you think of it as product- led? Is it marketing- led? Or can both be true? And it is a virtuous cycle? How do you think about that and how does your role play into it?

Amy: Yeah. So we are product- led for sure. Our product is the number one thing, that we think about all the time. That said, our buying cycle is marketing- led.

Justin Keller: Okay.

Amy: And so we don't, right now, have sign up online stuff. You're going to talk to a salesperson and we're going to figure out what's best. And that experience with us is really important. Whether it's with sales, or implementation, or success, or support, that connection is really important to us. So sometimes when people say product- led, it's literally product- led in the sense that you're on your own. I would say Bamboo is product- led in that how the product can serve and help the customer is what we care about the most. And then marketing helps make those connections for folks.

Justin Keller: Which is where you want to be, as a marketer, right? To be... And we were talking about it earlier.

Amy: Oh yeah.

Justin Keller: It's an amazing product. And so being able to just put the wonderful experience on top of that is a blissful place to be as a marketer.

Amy: For sure.

Justin Keller: Envious of that, for I'm sure on behalf of many of our listeners, that's a really cool place to be. Okay, Amy, we're heading up to the end here. We have a signature Revenue Talk question we ask every single guest every single time, and that is this.

Amy: Okay, I'm going to try to get it right.

Justin Keller: It's a toughie. And there's no right or wrong answers.

Amy: Okay.

Justin Keller: And that's why I like this question. But it's, what is... We're at the beginning of the year. What's the number one thing that you, your team are focused on, to accelerate revenue for the rest of this year?

Amy: Sure. Talking to the right people and you're going to say, " Well, duh." But what I mean by that is how we think about where our product fits in market is by employee size, because we really can help certain sizes of companies. And so we want to make sure that we're doing that, we build for that, we love this SMB space. And so sometimes when you go out as a marketer, it's hard to reach those certain folks. Breadth is easy.

Justin Keller: Yep.

Amy: Connecting with the exact right folks that you can help the most is harder. And so this year and last year, but I think every year we take it up a notch, how can we find the people that we can really help, and that we can really lift, and that we can set free to do great work using Bamboo products? And how do we do that, and often what is in the SMB space, a digital motion. In the enterprise space... And when I've worked, most of my career, at least part of my work was enterprise. You could have a meeting with 12 CFOs in New York. And that's not our business. We're looking to reach enterprise CFOs, we're looking to reach CFOs, COOs, CEOs, and CHROs across this SMB space. And so reaching them in a digital way is the most efficient and the most effective, but you can always get better at that. So that's our number one focus. And we also, I'll just tease a little bit, we've got some amazing product launches coming out this year. And so we're very focused on landing those with our audiences as well.

Justin Keller: Amazing. I love the theme of just listening. And I think, people, don't listen to yourselves, listen to other people. Make the time, because it's such an easy thing to cross off your to- do list and just say, " I don't mean to do this." I think it is so critical. And Amy, you're a wonderful reminder of just how powerful that is. And I love, " Always think about marketing," kudos to your mentor, " outside in. Always." It's not you, it's everyone else that matters. And I think that it is important for us marketers to remind ourselves that we're in the service of the sales team yes, but our customers. Ultimately, we want to create really great experiences for them.

Amy: Yeah. Our customers and our mission.

Justin Keller: Yep.

Amy: So yeah, absolutely.

Justin Keller: This was absolutely wonderful. I learned so much from you Amy. Thank you so much for joining us on Revenue Talks.

Amy: So great to be with you. Thanks Justin.

Justin Keller: Thank you so much for listening to Revenue Talks. If you liked this episode, please consider leaving a review wherever you're listening. You can connect with me on Twitter @ justinkeller, and with the entire Drift Podcast network at @ DriftPodcasts. Remember, revenue, it's everyone's business now.