May 13, 2025 • 17 mins
In this special episode of Sales Pipeline Radio from the Forrester B2B Summit 2025 marketplace floor, Matt spoke with Karen Budell, CMO at Totango.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Heinz (00:16):
Coming to you live from downtown Phoenix, Arizona
at the Forrester B2B Summit.
I was trying Karen, todo my radio voice there.
I don't know if it really came through.
Karen Budell (00:24):
I think you started off strong and then you were
conscious of it, so, no, I was,
Matt Heinz (00:27):
that's exactly what happened.
That's exactly what happened.
Right before we went live KarenBudell, the CMO at Totango, she
mentioned that she was a college DJ.
Can we talk about that first, please?
Karen Budell (00:36):
Yes.
I will tell you, I start offwith the worst time slot ever.
Some might call it Saturday night.
Others might call itSunday morning at 5:00 AM
Matt Heinz (00:44):
5:00 AM
Karen Budell (00:45):
5:00 AM
Matt Heinz (00:46):
Oh my God.
Karen Budell (00:46):
Five to eight 30.
Wow.
Yeah.
Matt Heinz (00:49):
This is like gospel brunch or what did you do?
Karen Budell (00:51):
I mean, there were times that I would come straight from a party.
Yeah.
And just keep the beats going.
I'm really into Brit Pop, so I playeda lot of stuff from the archives there.
But eventually got smart andbrought a co-host on to help
keep me awake for that session.
Matt Heinz (01:06):
Can I tell you that when we do like the regular recordings of Sales
Pipeline Radio remotely, we hardly everhave the time to get into this kind
of stuff 'cause we just, I don't know.
Yeah.
This is amazing.
Like Forrester, pleasebring us back next year.
This is fantastic.
Yeah.
So excited to be here.
We are recording a series ofSales Pipeline Radio episodes
live on the marketplace floorof Forrester, B2B summit.
So excited to be here and excited tohave Karen Budell here as our guest.
(01:29):
She is the CMO at Totango.
Former college DJ.
So I was not a college DJ.
I have one step below that.
I was in my high schoolradio broadcasting club.
Ooh.
There were five of us.
Okay.
And basically what we didis we just practiced reading
commercials into a tape recorder.
It was just about practicingthe voice and the cadence Yes.
And everything.
But I really liked it.
And then when podcasting came along,I'm like, finally something I can do.
(01:52):
With some of that radio voice.
That's amazing.
We also bond here aboutour reMarkables, right?
Yep.
So like, I got my reMarkable taking us.
You pulled yours out.
What is one of your like power functionson the reMarkable for those that are
listening that are also reMarkable fans.
What's a power tip?
Karen Budell (02:06):
Well, I'm a former journalist.
You're gonna learn a lotabout me in this 15 minutes.
Yeah.
Former journalist, formercontent marketing practitioner.
So I love importing PDFs.
And doing markups.
Yeah.
And sharing that with the team.
Okay.
Hard to sometimes decipher,handwriting, but that's a quick tip.
And then I have a runningweekly to-do list.
So start your week on ThereMarkable, on the reMarkable.
(02:29):
It's a template and thenI can just fill it in.
This is what my focus is for eachday of the week, and I just keep
adding a new page every week.
I'm gonna need to see this.
We were talking about handwriting withyour colleague here before we got started.
Mine is also terrible.
My first grade teacher told my parents,and I still remember sitting there
where she told my parents that Iwas gonna have terrible handwriting.
And I'm like, how dare she?
And she's an oracle becauseif very clearly, I can barely
(02:50):
read this half the time.
Yeah.
My first job outta school, I wasa reporter for the Bremerton Sun.
I studied journalism, politicalscience, and was sure I wanted to be a
journalist for the rest of my career.
And guess what?
Journalism beat it out of me.
Yeah, same.
I resigned on my one year anniversaryafter being a police reporter in the
city of Chicago at the City News Service.
Matt Heinz (03:08):
I didn't even last that long.
I literally didn't last that long.
And then I remember callingmy parents and telling them.
I found a PR job.
I got an intern job at a PR firmthat does mostly Microsoft work,
and I was terrified anyway.
I wanted them to be supportiveand my parents bless their hearts,
Midwestern, same job for 35 years.
They're like, but you chose journalism.
This is what you chose to do.
What are you doing?
And that was the downward spiralto where we are sitting here today.
(03:31):
It still comes in handythough, and you, gosh.
You know, I like to talk about journalismgave me my foundation as a marketer
because it helps you be innately curiousand ask good questions and get to the
why and find different angles of a storyto piece together the full narrative.
So I credit that it was one year inpolice reporting and then I pivoted
to entertainment, which is a lotmore fun in my early twenties.
(03:52):
Yeah.
But yeah it's a strongfoundation to build upon.
So.
Yeah I totally agree with you.
Like I tell people, it's one thing tolearn how to write, but what journalism
taught me was how to tell stories and tellstories succinctly, a hundred percent.
Like when I went to the BremertonSun, we'd have these complex issues
happening in state government, andI'd have like four inches for the kids
listening, four inches, basically, youliterally measure the amount of space
(04:12):
you have in the printed newspaper.
I know a lot of what I just saidis foreign, but basically like,
think about it as like a characterlimit and a very small one, and
you had to summarize complex issuesinto something that made sense.
In, I dunno, what is that, like 150 words?
Yeah.
It was like ridiculously small.
And so being able to storytell in a format like that I
think that's a great skill.
Anyway, all right.
(04:33):
So we've already wasted five minutestalking about all this thing,
but hopefully that's interesting.
That's the fun stuff.
That is the fun stuff.
Absolutely.
I did wanna talk about a coupleother things that I know you're very
passionate about and I've done agreat job on and are really important.
I think to everybody listening,the first one is just.
Cross-functional alignment.
Karen Budell (04:49):
Yeah,
Matt Heinz (04:50):
we can sit here and have all the plans we want in the world, but we're
not gonna tell anyone else what to do.
And if we're building our plans andthen forcing other people, we're
kind of doing it backwards anyway.
Talk about, the importance of crossdepartmental integration, but what
are some of the keys that have madethat successful for you at Totango?
Karen Budell (05:07):
Yeah, part of it I have to say is how I'm wired.
So if anyone follows Pat Lencioni'sFive Dysfunctions of a Team and
Working Geniuses, I'm a galvanizerand I'm also strong in tenacity,
so I really work hard on.
Focusing on that alignment with team one,your executive team, who's leading sales,
customer success, product marketing.
(05:28):
We should all be in sync.
We should be on the same song sheet andmaking sure that our teams are working in
alignment and interlocking their plans.
So part of that comes with buildingpersonal relationships with those
individuals and then it is infinding points of alignment between
the teams, what projects crossover.
For example, we have a great customercommunity and we engage a lot of folks
(05:52):
through ongoing education and resourcesthat might also come to life in a webinar,
and marketing is playing a role in that.
So there's initiatives and programs.
That naturally allow for thatcross-functional collaboration, but
I think you have to model it withyour peers on the executive team.
Matt Heinz (06:07):
I love that you bring up sort of that team one, which is
the peers, which I think a lot ofpeople, it takes a while to learn.
Great book called Team of Teamsby Retired General McChrystal that
talks a lot about how to integratethose teams and build that trust
and alignment from the top down.
One of the other places that I know youhave focused a lot, I don't wanna come
back to that in a minute, but I wanna talkabout your focus on customer community.
(06:29):
Our first episode here on the floorwas with Conga and their customer
success marketing team, and they won anaward here, the Return on Integration
award for the work they're doing.
And one of the highlightsfor them was community.
And you mentioned community as well.
What are some of the keys to buildingstrong community for Totango today?
Karen Budell (06:47):
Yeah, it feels weird talking about this with you 'cause
you're an expert in community andI'm part of the CMO Coffee Talk
community, but I often talk aboutcommunity with a big C and a small C.
So you can talk about the bigC with a community platform
and that organized function.
You can also talk about allof the different touch points.
That create community amongstyour buyers or your customers.
(07:09):
And so with that, we havea few critical elements.
We do have a community platform.
They're able to engage inconversations and content.
We also have a customer advisoryboard that helps create connections
with our key accounts at thatexecutive level and their peers.
And then we like to engage inthe broader community of customer
success and go to market so thatwe're fostering conversations and
(07:31):
connections about what are the painpoints people are grappling with.
I mean, in the age of AI and in themarket that we've all been dealing with,
there seems like there's a new challengepopping up every day, like whack-a-mole.
And so finding ways to bring folkstogether for a virtual round table or
grab a table at a live industry conferenceand just fostering that and connecting
the dots for people is really key.
Matt Heinz (07:52):
And I think one thing people don't realize is that if you
create a community that is aboutthe community and not about you.
It still reflects on you, right?
And it sometimes seems counterintuitive.
When I talk to people about buildinga community and say, well, we really
wanna bring our product into it.
I'm like, take your product out of it.
Create a community of your customersand let them commune with each other.
Like the most successful, sustainedcommunities I know are those.
(08:14):
That foster that connection andcare amongst community members,
and there isn't a single communitythat does that well, that doesn't
directly benefit from that people.
People don't want to leave thecompany because they don't wanna
leave the community, and they valuethat as part of their connection
to the product or service as well.
Karen Budell (08:30):
Yep.
People aren't just buyingyour software these days.
They're buying the experience,the expertise that you provide,
and some of those communityconnections that you offer as well.
Matt Heinz (08:39):
Talking on this episode of our Special Sales Pipeline Radio at
Forrester, B2B Summit with Karen Budell.
She is the former college DJ and current.
CMO, chief Marketing Officer at Totango.
Let's talk about anotherelement of community, which
is customer advisory boards.
Yeah.
I talked to a lot of companies thatwanna do it and then aren't necessarily
sure how to invest in it or sustain it.
(08:59):
Talk about the importance ofthat at Totango, how that got
started and how you sustain that.
Karen Budell (09:03):
Yeah.
Well, I was lucky when I joinedthe company almost three years
ago that there was a CAB in place.
But what I wanted to do was reallycreate more of a mission and a purpose
for the customer advisory board.
You touched on it.
This should be about them.
This is not about us.
Sure.
We wanna bring them in on theconversation early, show them a sneak
peek of the roadmap, get their input.
But at the end of the day, it'screating a community to connect
(09:27):
these executives that are focusedon driving the industry forward.
And that's all about how do we deliverrecurring value to our customer base?
How do we invest in our customersto ultimately drive growth for them?
And for us.
And so that's what reallybrings us together.
At the end of the day, we went throughand formalized a charter that details
the mission, the purpose of the CAB,the expectations for attendance.
(09:50):
We have quarterly meetings, threevirtual one a year is in person
and the topics that we'll cover.
And so that charter goes out everyyear when we invite members to rejoin
or when we invite new ones to jointhe cohort so they know there's a
little bit of a contract in place.
And I think that helps set everyoneup for open discussions for really
being a little bit vulnerable insome of those community discussions.
(10:13):
And we learn so much from each other.
And I love seeing when twoCAB members connect offline
and carry on the conversation.
'cause they found a way to helpeach other through a situation.
Matt Heinz (10:23):
I love all that 'cause I feel like a lot of customer advisory
boards are somewhat performative.
That they're set up as a, PR thing, right?
Where we just wanna have a nicedinner and talk about things.
And what is talked aboutisn't activated afterward.
There isn't a direct connectionyou create amongst those customers.
And so those elements we talked aboutearlier of a great customer community
(10:44):
or great industry community, you wantto have that amongst your CAB as well.
Not only so you build that trustedrespect, but also so that you
get the real actionable insights.
Out of it.
'cause if you're not getting like hardtruths out of that group, like this isn't
a everything's hunky dory thing, you wantthem to bring up those hard conversations.
I think sometimes I tellpeople, think of this as like a
different board meeting, right?
When you go to the board, like you don'twant this to be, everything's fine.
(11:07):
You want the hard questions to come up.
You want to grapple with things togetherin a collaborative, constructive way.
I think CABs need to belike that too, right?
Karen Budell (11:14):
A hundred percent.
And they should really be a bellwetherfor you and your teams on what's happening
in the industry within your productbase, within the way that those CAB
members and their teams are interactingwith folks across your company.
What is the collective brand and customerexperience that they're going through?
The perceptions of you that they see andmarket, but also what are they seeing
and hearing in the way that their owncompanies are navigating challenges
(11:38):
outside of your products relationshipthat you might have with them.
Matt Heinz (11:42):
So you're now a member of a customer advisory board as well.
I know you work with G2.
What have you learnedfrom that experience?
What has that specific experience helpedyou think about what you might wanna do
differently for Totango's CAB as well?
Karen Budell (11:52):
Yeah, it's fun to sit on the other side of the table.
I will say that, and we just had ourQ1 virtual meeting, which was awesome.
Mm-hmm.
It was nice to learn a littlebit about G2's research and what
they're seeing in the marketplace.
That teed up a really rich discussionwith our peers around the impact
of SEO and the age of AI and howcompanies are dealing with that.
So we had an incredible discussion, andI loved how open it was and how engaged
(12:17):
every member and the G2 execs thatshowed up were in that conversation.
Mm-hmm.
It had nothing to do with productsand you know what you were gonna buy.
It was what are we grappling withtoday and tomorrow, and how can
we help each other be better?
Matt Heinz (12:31):
So we're sitting here in Phoenix.
We're past sort of calendar Q1.
We're well into the year so far.
What are you seeing in the market as aB2B seller, as someone who's managing,
cross-collaborative go-to-market teams?
What are we seeing in the marketoverall and what do you expect
to see the rest this year?
Karen Budell (12:47):
I am seeing still a lot of challenges with driving that
alignment across the go to market org.
But what's been interesting is.
The rise of rev ops that I've been seeing,whether the Rev ops team is rolling up
through a CFO to play Switzerland with theGTM team, or they might roll up through
A CRO Increasingly, because data's soimportant and how we leverage AI and
(13:09):
automation, the rev ops leader is reallythe glue that helps everyone stay in tune
get ahead of problems before they come up.
And so that's been interesting.
I don't know if we found the magicsauce for that one yet though,
because I think it really doesdepend on where that team sits.
And go back to our previousconversation on is there alignment.
Matt Heinz (13:30):
Well, part of the reason why we continue to struggle with fixing
that is the rules continue to change.
Yeah.
And you think about layers ofa, I dunno if it's layers of the
cake or just parts of the matrix.
You need all that data to talk together.
Right.
I need data from my different marketingcampaigns to talk to each other.
I need data across sales andmarketing to talk to each other.
I need all that data to be leveragedby the CS team immediately to
seamlessly onboard customers.
(13:52):
Yes, and that's just the data you have.
Now, let's talk about the dataexists about your customers, your
prospects, your market, your partners,et cetera, out in the ecosystem.
Let's talk about how AI can like,translate that into insights that
didn't exist elsewhere, but wheremachines can see some of that and
how do you integrate that together?
Literally in the last interviewwith Conga, Nora brought her
Cs ops counterpart and talkedabout the same challenge, right?
(14:14):
Yeah.
And I think that, to me, solvingthat problem has to be a very high
priority for go-to-market teams.
Data is the new coin of the realm in B2B,it used to be how much budget do you have?
How much media are youbuying, how well we.
Capture, activate and leveragethat data feels really, really
important moving forward.
Karen Budell (14:31):
A hundred percent.
And there's too, you know, you'vegot your structured data and
your unstructured data as well.
So if you think about all the peoplein your company that are engaging with
a customer account at different pointsin their journey, you need to stitch
together not only the utilizationand consumption but sentiment.
You need to understand if someoneemails a CSM or an AE on your
(14:53):
team and drops a hint that they'reunhappy this isn't, how do we feel?
This is the data.
Surfacing those insights, stitchingit together with some of your
other metrics, and finding a wayto get ahead of signaling your team
that there's risk in the system.
That's right.
So it's gonna help us all get moreproactive, but right now I think we're
all swimming in this murky sea and tryingto figure out how it all works together.
Matt Heinz (15:17):
Last question for you here as we kind of wrap up.
Have Karen Budell, the CMO at Totango.
Why do you come to events like this?
I feel like since, you know, sinceCovid happened, like all of a sudden
video conferencing is everywhere.
The keynote you could watch onYouTube, why is getting out of the
office or getting on a plane andcoming something like this continue
to be so important for folks?
Karen Budell (15:35):
This stuff energizes me.
Mm-hmm.
And gives me that boostthat I need to keep going.
I was never built to work from home.
For the entirety of my career.
So I do come to get energized, getinspired seeing people in real life,
bringing that LinkedIn profile picor a one inch zoom thumbnail to life
is so magical and I think that ithelps us all take a big leap forward.
(15:58):
When our executive team gets togetherfor a couple of days to have a
discussion, or if I get to see myteam like I am today, I think we are
able to just take a huge leap forwardthat could take two, three weeks over
coordinating calendars and Zoom calls.
Matt Heinz (16:12):
I completely agree.
I am an introvert.
I consider myself a fairly sociallyanxious person and somehow I get to
places like this and I do feel energized.
Like you get to see people.
And I think even for those of usthat like are comfortable like
working with sweat shorts at home ourlizard brains wanna see other people.
Yes, our lizard brains want toconnect with other people and just
doing it on a screen isn't enough.
(16:33):
Like literally seeing people shakinghands, seeing the whites of our
eyes in person, it is meaningful.
It doesn't mean I wanna be onthe road every week, but it means
things like this where a group likeForrester can get like this many
people with the same job together.
Yep.
Really, really valuable.
Karen Budell (16:46):
I'll say one more thing if I can.
Yeah.
When you hit leave on that video call.
You're probably alone in yourroom or your home office.
Yeah.
You come to an event like thisand you find community in a shared
challenge and it's validating.
And I think it gives us all thatconfidence that we're not alone and
we're gonna find that solution together.
Matt Heinz (17:05):
Well, I used to think about like, we're about to click
stop here on this recording.
Right.
And normally if we were doing thisremotely, we'd be like, okay, great.
We're off to our next meeting.
We're probably gonna talk a littlebit about journalism and reMarkables
and other things again, right?
Yeah.
And so it's that connection andthat is the connective glue.
That I think is like, forget business.
That's just at the heart of being alive.
I don't mean to make this tooexistential, but I think, the longer
I live, the more mistakes I make.
Those connections are everything.
(17:26):
So Karen Budell, CMO, at Totango.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Thanks for stopping by.
Karen Budell (17:29):
Thanks so much for having me, Matt.
This was fun.
Coming to you live from downtown Phoenix, Arizona
at the Forrester B2B Summit.
I was trying Karen, todo my radio voice there.
I don't know if it really came through.
Karen Budell (00:24):
I think you started off strong and then you were
conscious of it, so, no, I was,
Matt Heinz (00:27):
that's exactly what happened.
That's exactly what happened.
Right before we went live KarenBudell, the CMO at Totango, she
mentioned that she was a college DJ.
Can we talk about that first, please?
Karen Budell (00:36):
Yes.
I will tell you, I start offwith the worst time slot ever.
Some might call it Saturday night.
Others might call itSunday morning at 5:00 AM
Matt Heinz (00:44):
5:00 AM
Karen Budell (00:45):
5:00 AM
Matt Heinz (00:46):
Oh my God.
Karen Budell (00:46):
Five to eight 30.
Wow.
Yeah.
Matt Heinz (00:49):
This is like gospel brunch or what did you do?
Karen Budell (00:51):
I mean, there were times that I would come straight from a party.
Yeah.
And just keep the beats going.
I'm really into Brit Pop, so I playeda lot of stuff from the archives there.
But eventually got smart andbrought a co-host on to help
keep me awake for that session.
Matt Heinz (01:06):
Can I tell you that when we do like the regular recordings of Sales
Pipeline Radio remotely, we hardly everhave the time to get into this kind
of stuff 'cause we just, I don't know.
Yeah.
This is amazing.
Like Forrester, pleasebring us back next year.
This is fantastic.
Yeah.
So excited to be here.
We are recording a series ofSales Pipeline Radio episodes
live on the marketplace floorof Forrester, B2B summit.
So excited to be here and excited tohave Karen Budell here as our guest.
(01:29):
She is the CMO at Totango.
Former college DJ.
So I was not a college DJ.
I have one step below that.
I was in my high schoolradio broadcasting club.
Ooh.
There were five of us.
Okay.
And basically what we didis we just practiced reading
commercials into a tape recorder.
It was just about practicingthe voice and the cadence Yes.
And everything.
But I really liked it.
And then when podcasting came along,I'm like, finally something I can do.
(01:52):
With some of that radio voice.
That's amazing.
We also bond here aboutour reMarkables, right?
Yep.
So like, I got my reMarkable taking us.
You pulled yours out.
What is one of your like power functionson the reMarkable for those that are
listening that are also reMarkable fans.
What's a power tip?
Karen Budell (02:06):
Well, I'm a former journalist.
You're gonna learn a lotabout me in this 15 minutes.
Yeah.
Former journalist, formercontent marketing practitioner.
So I love importing PDFs.
And doing markups.
Yeah.
And sharing that with the team.
Okay.
Hard to sometimes decipher,handwriting, but that's a quick tip.
And then I have a runningweekly to-do list.
So start your week on ThereMarkable, on the reMarkable.
(02:29):
It's a template and thenI can just fill it in.
This is what my focus is for eachday of the week, and I just keep
adding a new page every week.
I'm gonna need to see this.
We were talking about handwriting withyour colleague here before we got started.
Mine is also terrible.
My first grade teacher told my parents,and I still remember sitting there
where she told my parents that Iwas gonna have terrible handwriting.
And I'm like, how dare she?
And she's an oracle becauseif very clearly, I can barely
(02:50):
read this half the time.
Yeah.
My first job outta school, I wasa reporter for the Bremerton Sun.
I studied journalism, politicalscience, and was sure I wanted to be a
journalist for the rest of my career.
And guess what?
Journalism beat it out of me.
Yeah, same.
I resigned on my one year anniversaryafter being a police reporter in the
city of Chicago at the City News Service.
Matt Heinz (03:08):
I didn't even last that long.
I literally didn't last that long.
And then I remember callingmy parents and telling them.
I found a PR job.
I got an intern job at a PR firmthat does mostly Microsoft work,
and I was terrified anyway.
I wanted them to be supportiveand my parents bless their hearts,
Midwestern, same job for 35 years.
They're like, but you chose journalism.
This is what you chose to do.
What are you doing?
And that was the downward spiralto where we are sitting here today.
(03:31):
It still comes in handythough, and you, gosh.
You know, I like to talk about journalismgave me my foundation as a marketer
because it helps you be innately curiousand ask good questions and get to the
why and find different angles of a storyto piece together the full narrative.
So I credit that it was one year inpolice reporting and then I pivoted
to entertainment, which is a lotmore fun in my early twenties.
(03:52):
Yeah.
But yeah it's a strongfoundation to build upon.
So.
Yeah I totally agree with you.
Like I tell people, it's one thing tolearn how to write, but what journalism
taught me was how to tell stories and tellstories succinctly, a hundred percent.
Like when I went to the BremertonSun, we'd have these complex issues
happening in state government, andI'd have like four inches for the kids
listening, four inches, basically, youliterally measure the amount of space
(04:12):
you have in the printed newspaper.
I know a lot of what I just saidis foreign, but basically like,
think about it as like a characterlimit and a very small one, and
you had to summarize complex issuesinto something that made sense.
In, I dunno, what is that, like 150 words?
Yeah.
It was like ridiculously small.
And so being able to storytell in a format like that I
think that's a great skill.
Anyway, all right.
(04:33):
So we've already wasted five minutestalking about all this thing,
but hopefully that's interesting.
That's the fun stuff.
That is the fun stuff.
Absolutely.
I did wanna talk about a coupleother things that I know you're very
passionate about and I've done agreat job on and are really important.
I think to everybody listening,the first one is just.
Cross-functional alignment.
Karen Budell (04:49):
Yeah,
Matt Heinz (04:50):
we can sit here and have all the plans we want in the world, but we're
not gonna tell anyone else what to do.
And if we're building our plans andthen forcing other people, we're
kind of doing it backwards anyway.
Talk about, the importance of crossdepartmental integration, but what
are some of the keys that have madethat successful for you at Totango?
Karen Budell (05:07):
Yeah, part of it I have to say is how I'm wired.
So if anyone follows Pat Lencioni'sFive Dysfunctions of a Team and
Working Geniuses, I'm a galvanizerand I'm also strong in tenacity,
so I really work hard on.
Focusing on that alignment with team one,your executive team, who's leading sales,
customer success, product marketing.
(05:28):
We should all be in sync.
We should be on the same song sheet andmaking sure that our teams are working in
alignment and interlocking their plans.
So part of that comes with buildingpersonal relationships with those
individuals and then it is infinding points of alignment between
the teams, what projects crossover.
For example, we have a great customercommunity and we engage a lot of folks
(05:52):
through ongoing education and resourcesthat might also come to life in a webinar,
and marketing is playing a role in that.
So there's initiatives and programs.
That naturally allow for thatcross-functional collaboration, but
I think you have to model it withyour peers on the executive team.
Matt Heinz (06:07):
I love that you bring up sort of that team one, which is
the peers, which I think a lot ofpeople, it takes a while to learn.
Great book called Team of Teamsby Retired General McChrystal that
talks a lot about how to integratethose teams and build that trust
and alignment from the top down.
One of the other places that I know youhave focused a lot, I don't wanna come
back to that in a minute, but I wanna talkabout your focus on customer community.
(06:29):
Our first episode here on the floorwas with Conga and their customer
success marketing team, and they won anaward here, the Return on Integration
award for the work they're doing.
And one of the highlightsfor them was community.
And you mentioned community as well.
What are some of the keys to buildingstrong community for Totango today?
Karen Budell (06:47):
Yeah, it feels weird talking about this with you 'cause
you're an expert in community andI'm part of the CMO Coffee Talk
community, but I often talk aboutcommunity with a big C and a small C.
So you can talk about the bigC with a community platform
and that organized function.
You can also talk about allof the different touch points.
That create community amongstyour buyers or your customers.
(07:09):
And so with that, we havea few critical elements.
We do have a community platform.
They're able to engage inconversations and content.
We also have a customer advisoryboard that helps create connections
with our key accounts at thatexecutive level and their peers.
And then we like to engage inthe broader community of customer
success and go to market so thatwe're fostering conversations and
(07:31):
connections about what are the painpoints people are grappling with.
I mean, in the age of AI and in themarket that we've all been dealing with,
there seems like there's a new challengepopping up every day, like whack-a-mole.
And so finding ways to bring folkstogether for a virtual round table or
grab a table at a live industry conferenceand just fostering that and connecting
the dots for people is really key.
Matt Heinz (07:52):
And I think one thing people don't realize is that if you
create a community that is aboutthe community and not about you.
It still reflects on you, right?
And it sometimes seems counterintuitive.
When I talk to people about buildinga community and say, well, we really
wanna bring our product into it.
I'm like, take your product out of it.
Create a community of your customersand let them commune with each other.
Like the most successful, sustainedcommunities I know are those.
(08:14):
That foster that connection andcare amongst community members,
and there isn't a single communitythat does that well, that doesn't
directly benefit from that people.
People don't want to leave thecompany because they don't wanna
leave the community, and they valuethat as part of their connection
to the product or service as well.
Karen Budell (08:30):
Yep.
People aren't just buyingyour software these days.
They're buying the experience,the expertise that you provide,
and some of those communityconnections that you offer as well.
Matt Heinz (08:39):
Talking on this episode of our Special Sales Pipeline Radio at
Forrester, B2B Summit with Karen Budell.
She is the former college DJ and current.
CMO, chief Marketing Officer at Totango.
Let's talk about anotherelement of community, which
is customer advisory boards.
Yeah.
I talked to a lot of companies thatwanna do it and then aren't necessarily
sure how to invest in it or sustain it.
(08:59):
Talk about the importance ofthat at Totango, how that got
started and how you sustain that.
Karen Budell (09:03):
Yeah.
Well, I was lucky when I joinedthe company almost three years
ago that there was a CAB in place.
But what I wanted to do was reallycreate more of a mission and a purpose
for the customer advisory board.
You touched on it.
This should be about them.
This is not about us.
Sure.
We wanna bring them in on theconversation early, show them a sneak
peek of the roadmap, get their input.
But at the end of the day, it'screating a community to connect
(09:27):
these executives that are focusedon driving the industry forward.
And that's all about how do we deliverrecurring value to our customer base?
How do we invest in our customersto ultimately drive growth for them?
And for us.
And so that's what reallybrings us together.
At the end of the day, we went throughand formalized a charter that details
the mission, the purpose of the CAB,the expectations for attendance.
(09:50):
We have quarterly meetings, threevirtual one a year is in person
and the topics that we'll cover.
And so that charter goes out everyyear when we invite members to rejoin
or when we invite new ones to jointhe cohort so they know there's a
little bit of a contract in place.
And I think that helps set everyoneup for open discussions for really
being a little bit vulnerable insome of those community discussions.
(10:13):
And we learn so much from each other.
And I love seeing when twoCAB members connect offline
and carry on the conversation.
'cause they found a way to helpeach other through a situation.
Matt Heinz (10:23):
I love all that 'cause I feel like a lot of customer advisory
boards are somewhat performative.
That they're set up as a, PR thing, right?
Where we just wanna have a nicedinner and talk about things.
And what is talked aboutisn't activated afterward.
There isn't a direct connectionyou create amongst those customers.
And so those elements we talked aboutearlier of a great customer community
(10:44):
or great industry community, you wantto have that amongst your CAB as well.
Not only so you build that trustedrespect, but also so that you
get the real actionable insights.
Out of it.
'cause if you're not getting like hardtruths out of that group, like this isn't
a everything's hunky dory thing, you wantthem to bring up those hard conversations.
I think sometimes I tellpeople, think of this as like a
different board meeting, right?
When you go to the board, like you don'twant this to be, everything's fine.
(11:07):
You want the hard questions to come up.
You want to grapple with things togetherin a collaborative, constructive way.
I think CABs need to belike that too, right?
Karen Budell (11:14):
A hundred percent.
And they should really be a bellwetherfor you and your teams on what's happening
in the industry within your productbase, within the way that those CAB
members and their teams are interactingwith folks across your company.
What is the collective brand and customerexperience that they're going through?
The perceptions of you that they see andmarket, but also what are they seeing
and hearing in the way that their owncompanies are navigating challenges
(11:38):
outside of your products relationshipthat you might have with them.
Matt Heinz (11:42):
So you're now a member of a customer advisory board as well.
I know you work with G2.
What have you learnedfrom that experience?
What has that specific experience helpedyou think about what you might wanna do
differently for Totango's CAB as well?
Karen Budell (11:52):
Yeah, it's fun to sit on the other side of the table.
I will say that, and we just had ourQ1 virtual meeting, which was awesome.
Mm-hmm.
It was nice to learn a littlebit about G2's research and what
they're seeing in the marketplace.
That teed up a really rich discussionwith our peers around the impact
of SEO and the age of AI and howcompanies are dealing with that.
So we had an incredible discussion, andI loved how open it was and how engaged
(12:17):
every member and the G2 execs thatshowed up were in that conversation.
Mm-hmm.
It had nothing to do with productsand you know what you were gonna buy.
It was what are we grappling withtoday and tomorrow, and how can
we help each other be better?
Matt Heinz (12:31):
So we're sitting here in Phoenix.
We're past sort of calendar Q1.
We're well into the year so far.
What are you seeing in the market as aB2B seller, as someone who's managing,
cross-collaborative go-to-market teams?
What are we seeing in the marketoverall and what do you expect
to see the rest this year?
Karen Budell (12:47):
I am seeing still a lot of challenges with driving that
alignment across the go to market org.
But what's been interesting is.
The rise of rev ops that I've been seeing,whether the Rev ops team is rolling up
through a CFO to play Switzerland with theGTM team, or they might roll up through
A CRO Increasingly, because data's soimportant and how we leverage AI and
(13:09):
automation, the rev ops leader is reallythe glue that helps everyone stay in tune
get ahead of problems before they come up.
And so that's been interesting.
I don't know if we found the magicsauce for that one yet though,
because I think it really doesdepend on where that team sits.
And go back to our previousconversation on is there alignment.
Matt Heinz (13:30):
Well, part of the reason why we continue to struggle with fixing
that is the rules continue to change.
Yeah.
And you think about layers ofa, I dunno if it's layers of the
cake or just parts of the matrix.
You need all that data to talk together.
Right.
I need data from my different marketingcampaigns to talk to each other.
I need data across sales andmarketing to talk to each other.
I need all that data to be leveragedby the CS team immediately to
seamlessly onboard customers.
(13:52):
Yes, and that's just the data you have.
Now, let's talk about the dataexists about your customers, your
prospects, your market, your partners,et cetera, out in the ecosystem.
Let's talk about how AI can like,translate that into insights that
didn't exist elsewhere, but wheremachines can see some of that and
how do you integrate that together?
Literally in the last interviewwith Conga, Nora brought her
Cs ops counterpart and talkedabout the same challenge, right?
(14:14):
Yeah.
And I think that, to me, solvingthat problem has to be a very high
priority for go-to-market teams.
Data is the new coin of the realm in B2B,it used to be how much budget do you have?
How much media are youbuying, how well we.
Capture, activate and leveragethat data feels really, really
important moving forward.
Karen Budell (14:31):
A hundred percent.
And there's too, you know, you'vegot your structured data and
your unstructured data as well.
So if you think about all the peoplein your company that are engaging with
a customer account at different pointsin their journey, you need to stitch
together not only the utilizationand consumption but sentiment.
You need to understand if someoneemails a CSM or an AE on your
(14:53):
team and drops a hint that they'reunhappy this isn't, how do we feel?
This is the data.
Surfacing those insights, stitchingit together with some of your
other metrics, and finding a wayto get ahead of signaling your team
that there's risk in the system.
That's right.
So it's gonna help us all get moreproactive, but right now I think we're
all swimming in this murky sea and tryingto figure out how it all works together.
Matt Heinz (15:17):
Last question for you here as we kind of wrap up.
Have Karen Budell, the CMO at Totango.
Why do you come to events like this?
I feel like since, you know, sinceCovid happened, like all of a sudden
video conferencing is everywhere.
The keynote you could watch onYouTube, why is getting out of the
office or getting on a plane andcoming something like this continue
to be so important for folks?
Karen Budell (15:35):
This stuff energizes me.
Mm-hmm.
And gives me that boostthat I need to keep going.
I was never built to work from home.
For the entirety of my career.
So I do come to get energized, getinspired seeing people in real life,
bringing that LinkedIn profile picor a one inch zoom thumbnail to life
is so magical and I think that ithelps us all take a big leap forward.
(15:58):
When our executive team gets togetherfor a couple of days to have a
discussion, or if I get to see myteam like I am today, I think we are
able to just take a huge leap forwardthat could take two, three weeks over
coordinating calendars and Zoom calls.
Matt Heinz (16:12):
I completely agree.
I am an introvert.
I consider myself a fairly sociallyanxious person and somehow I get to
places like this and I do feel energized.
Like you get to see people.
And I think even for those of usthat like are comfortable like
working with sweat shorts at home ourlizard brains wanna see other people.
Yes, our lizard brains want toconnect with other people and just
doing it on a screen isn't enough.
(16:33):
Like literally seeing people shakinghands, seeing the whites of our
eyes in person, it is meaningful.
It doesn't mean I wanna be onthe road every week, but it means
things like this where a group likeForrester can get like this many
people with the same job together.
Yep.
Really, really valuable.
Karen Budell (16:46):
I'll say one more thing if I can.
Yeah.
When you hit leave on that video call.
You're probably alone in yourroom or your home office.
Yeah.
You come to an event like thisand you find community in a shared
challenge and it's validating.
And I think it gives us all thatconfidence that we're not alone and
we're gonna find that solution together.
Matt Heinz (17:05):
Well, I used to think about like, we're about to click
stop here on this recording.
Right.
And normally if we were doing thisremotely, we'd be like, okay, great.
We're off to our next meeting.
We're probably gonna talk a littlebit about journalism and reMarkables
and other things again, right?
Yeah.
And so it's that connection andthat is the connective glue.
That I think is like, forget business.
That's just at the heart of being alive.
I don't mean to make this tooexistential, but I think, the longer
I live, the more mistakes I make.
Those connections are everything.
(17:26):
So Karen Budell, CMO, at Totango.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Thanks for stopping by.
Karen Budell (17:29):
Thanks so much for having me, Matt.
This was fun.
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