Mark Nardone, EVP at PAN Communications speaks with Joe Chernov who is VP of Marketing at InsightSquared. Watch the video, listen to the podcast or read the transcript below as they discuss the challenges marketers face today, including the use of martech and the new ABM direction.

Mark

What would your advice be for a marketer that’s inheriting a legacy environment versus a marketer that can start from scratch?

Joe

Chances are your tech isn’t your problem – I fundamentally believe this. Last year, we shifted from a heavy inbound strategy to a hybrid strategy that leaned in the direction of ABM. The first thing you do is you come up with a thesis, and you’ve got to prove out your thesis if you’re going to get the executive backing. So, we did that and then we raced to build our ABM stack.

We’re on calls with vendors and we’re designing what the stack would look like, and where information flows from, all of this stuff we talked about. You find all these cool tools and you make sure that they have APIs that talk to each other, and you get excited. You buy all your marketing gear, so to speak, and it turns out I can fix one problem – process, agreement on terms clarity of roles, clarity of purpose. I’ve lost really good people on my team because they said “I just don’t know what my purpose is in this new world order.” And that’s a failing on management – that’s a black and white failure on my part.

Technology wasn’t going to solve any of those problems. The best advice I could give, I would say: fix the problem internally with people, until the point that you earn the right to buy the technology. You have to take it 10 percent further than you thought you could with simple human power. Once you get there, then buy the technology. The easiest thing to do is to write a check with somebody else’s money, and that’s why we tend to turn to the tech stacks so quickly. We’re writing a check and we don’t even bear the burden of paying for it, our investors do.

I think that’s the best advice I could give. Now, that’s also a cop out from the question you asked. You asked a question about tech stack, assuming you do all of those things that I just suggested one does. I would look at Scott Brinker. He is the most durable influencer in marketing because he publishes good stuff. He’s genuinely a smart guy. He’s not in it for celebrity. He’s more of a student than a teacher. He’s the expert on this. Find a company that’s in a similar situation to yours, whether it’s market, budget, size of staff, whether there’s some incumbent technologies that you simply can’t rip out, and look at what Scott’s published on it, and find the one that’s most compatible to you in your situation.

Interested in learning more? Check out other sections from the conversation here:

• Insight from Experts: The Relationship Between Sales and Marketing with Joe Chernov
• Insight from Experts: The Evolution of ABM with Joe Chernov

What are your views on today’s top marketing challenges? Let’s continue the conversation @markcnardone.