August 8, 2023 • 21 mins
EPISODE SUMMARY
Marketing is often associated with creative visuals and compelling messages, but there’s a hidden side to it that’s just as crucial for success in the software industry. In this week’s episode of Scale Your SaaS, we’ll dive into key takeaways from Nathan Yeung, the Vice President and CMO at Find Your Audience, with Host and B2S SaaS Sales Coach, Matt Wolach. He shares insights on the often-overlooked operational aspects of marketing and how they impact your SaaS business’s growth. Explore some valuable tips below!
PODCAST-AT-A-GLANCE
Podcast: Scale Your SaaS with Matt Wolach
Episode: Episode No. 275, “What Your SaaS Marketing is Missing – with Nathan Yeung”
Host: Matt Wolach, a B2B SaaS sales coach, Entrepreneur, and Investor
Guest: Nathan Yeung, Vice President, & CMO at Find Your Audience
TOP TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE
- Recognize the Two Components of Marketing
- Embrace the Shift Towards Revenue Operations
- Focus on Revenue Generation, Not Just MQLs
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
- Hire Strategically and Consider Outsourcing
- Avoid Shiny Object Syndrome
- Leverage Practicality and Sustainability
TOP QUOTES
Nathan Yeung
[11:35] “Sales and marketing have a nasty back and forth. The smarter people are focusing on how to blend these divisions and departments and come up with the same goals.”
[13:24] “MQL is just incredibly frustrating. And I think people need to be more mindful. Again, it’s all about the revenue. So focus on that. And that could mean I’m just helping salespeople.
Matt Wolach
[3:12] “There’s a lot of bad things you can do tech-wise if you’re if you’re doing cold emails, but you said something in there, I think is really important that a lot of people don’t quite understand is that split between the operations side of marketing and the creative side.”
[7:57] “There’s kind of these blending of roles of sales and marketing into a CRO a conversion rate optimization role.”
LEARN MORE
To learn more about Find Your Audience, visit: https://findyouraudience.online/
You can also find Nathan Yeung on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yeungnathan/
For more about how host Matt Wolach helps software companies achieve maximum growth, visit https://mattwolach.com/
Get even more tips by following Matt elsewhere:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Wolach (00:10):
What do you think of when you hear the word
marketing? Do you think of coolads that have all these crazy
pictures? Do you think of greatemails that are composed just
the right way that get people totake action? If you think of a
website that looks awesome andgenerates leads, I bet you're
thinking of all those but I betyou also don't think of some of
the backend execution andoperations stuff that has to
(00:30):
happen. The dirty side ofmarketing the things that you
need to have, or else all thatawesome creative doesn't really
work. Well. Nathan Yeung camein, he's with fine your audience
and Nathan did a great job ofexplaining all the things you
need to have happen. So youdon't miss out on the benefits
of all that creative stuff thatyou did. Check it out. I think
you're gonna like this.
Intro/ Outro (00:49):
Welcome to Scale Your SaaS, the podcast that
gives you proven techniques andformulas for boosting your
revenue and achieving your dreamexit brought to you by a guy
who's done just that multipletimes. Here's your host, Matt
Wolach.
Matt Wolach (01:06):
Yes. Welcome to Scale Your SaaS. Very glad
you're here. And thank you verymuch for joining us. My name is
Matt. And our goal is to doexactly that to help you scale
your SaaS so you can understandthe right ways to generate
leads, close those leads. Havean amazing team do it for you,
and get to where you gotta getand I'm super pumped. Today
we're joined by Nathan Yeung.
Nathan, how you doing?
Nathan Yeung (01:26):
Doing? Well, Matt, thanks for having me on today.
Matt Wolach (01:29):
Awesome. You're welcome. I'm really excited for
our conversation. Let me makesure everybody knows who you are
Nathan. So Nathan is the VicePresident and CMO at Find Your
Audience. He has helped numerouscompanies build their marketing
teams from scratch deliveringsuccessful go to market
deployments and launching newproducts into the market. He
leads teams of marketingmanagers, graphic designers,
(01:49):
media buyer coordinators,freelancers, all the above it
sounds like he's a he's, he's arockstar. And he does this to
develop and implement marketingstrategies for organizations. So
when it comes to marketing andgenerating interest and demand,
Nathan knows his stuff. I'mreally happy you're here. Thanks
for coming, Nathan.
Nathan Yeung (02:08):
I'm excited for the conversation. And
especially, you know, we'regonna be talking about SaaS
today and we deal with a lot ofSaaS.
Matt Wolach (02:14):
That's awesome.
SaaS is such a great industry.
Before we get into that, justtell me, what have you been up
to lately? And what's coming upfor you?
Nathan Yeung (02:23):
You know, what's been lately, you know, I content
creation has been a huge thingas as of recently, I've
literally just been talking tosome of our organizations about
content creation. And you know,I think it's a buzzy word. It's
a super buzzy word. And I feellike, um, you know, our
organization really excels atwhat we call us marketing
operations, which is really theunsexy part of actually getting
the marketing done. And we'rereally trying to help companies
(02:45):
really understand how much ittakes to create content, I
think, I think a lot of peoplethink it's far easier than then,
you know, they kind of thinkit's quite difficult. There's a
lot of nuances, there's a lotchallenges, and also a lot of
emailing recently. So a lot ofemail infrastructure stuff. So
so really helping clientsunderstand that on a technical
perspective,
Matt Wolach (03:04):
I love that that's something I literally was just
talking with a client aboutright before this is making sure
that their emails are set upcorrectly for when they're doing
cold. There's a lot of badthings you can do tech wise if
you're if you're doing coldemails, but you said something
in there, I think is reallyimportant that a lot of people
don't quite understand is thatsplit between the operations
side of marketing and thecreative side? And sometimes
(03:25):
when people think marketing likeoh, yeah, I just come up with
like this really pretty pictureand we go put it in an ad and
it's great, right? But you'reright. There's there's an
operations component. That's,that's really important. Can you
kind of explain first for somepeople who don't know, what are
the two components? And really,how do you make sure that you're
allocating enough effort toboth?
Nathan Yeung (03:43):
Sure, and it really depends on the impact,
and then the spends right or thetype of campaigns but the
creative part of it is reallyjust making sure that one, your
messaging is very clear. Yourmessaging is on point in the
sense of, it's really hittingwhat your ideal customer profile
wants, in terms of pain points,making sure you're communicating
well. And then of course, takingthat messaging and communicating
(04:05):
that well inside of an asset. Sowhether that asset is audio,
whether that asset is video,whether that asset is just an
image, whether that assets alsojust like your sales enablement
tools, translating thatmessaging and making it that
into one cohesive package isreally the creative exercise.
Now, what ends up happening onthe back end of that is there's
the operational exercise, theoperational exercise could be as
(04:27):
simple as hey, so you got thisbrand new, amazing sales
enablement tool. How are youdistributing that amongst your
sales members? How are youmaking sure that everyone within
the organization is fully awarethat you have brand news case
studies that you just did, andyou spend $10,000 do videos with
your with your clients onthere's often this huge
disconnect of like salesenablement production, and also
(04:49):
the velocity to the salespeopleactually even knowing that they
exist. That's like a verynuanced operational thing. If we
really want to talk about theoperations in a different
format, I'll give two Greatexamples on a technology
perspective, I know that we'relistening to you, a lot of your
listeners are SAS people. Soyou're going to be like, hey,
Nate, how do I deal withinternational translation? Well,
(05:09):
I'm going to tell you, there'sno shortcut when it comes to
international translation, andif you have an active demand gen
funnel, and you're actively indifferent markets, I'm going to
tell you, your marketing team isgoing to hate you. Why? Because
Auto Translate does not work.
Okay, so whoever thinks AutoTranslate works fine. It maybe
works for the, the one marketthat like is 10th on your
priority scale, and you justdon't care. Sure, that's going
(05:32):
to do fine. But it's not goingto work for any country that
you're actively wanting to gointo market and actually
penetrate. So what doesmarketing have to do? Hey, hey,
we got a sales enablement tool.
Great. Let's translate this in10 different language, only, I
need a landing page. Okay, wegotta get that in six different
languages. Now, the time for usto produce all those things.
(05:52):
That's the operations part,right? And then making sure that
that's consistent because thelast thing you want, is your
head of Turkey going Hey, Iheard from the last meeting that
we've got this great new salesenablement tool, why don't I
have anything for me to use inmy in my deal, right. And that's
like a huge problem. And thatreally annoys salespeople. And
you know how valuable thosepeople are, right? So operations
(06:15):
of marketing, we have toactually stay on top of that, we
have to build the SOPs, thestandard operating procedures to
ensure the velocity of thatcontent being distributed fairly
amongst the team members. Theother part is just like your CRM
system, right? Ensuring thatyour CRM system even has proper
workflows. Yes, that does kindof bridge on the idea of sales.
(06:36):
But often, you know, I like tokind of in a pardon, stepping
mat your toes because you're asales expert. But you know, I
always envision salespeople arereally good at two different
things. One, having technicalsolution type sales,
conversations, three building,to building an amazing
relationship with someone. Andeverything else should really be
(06:57):
marketing. So I don't want mysales guy going into HubSpot.
Going into Salesforce buildingworkflows, building dashboards,
I kind of just, you know, maybeyou either pay like a Salesforce
consultant or HubSpot consultantdo that, or have marketing do
that, because I want them focuson what they do best, which is
just selling. And and so oftenon our operational standpoint,
(07:17):
marketing really takes care ofthat marketing takes care of the
nurturing marketing sometimeseven takes care of the funnel,
and the rules of the funnel,because when they go stale, we'd
actually need to pull that dataand put them into a nurturing
funnel. So that's all technicaloperations work. That's, that's
not creative work. That's justtechnical operations work. So
that's really like theclassification of operations.
Creative is honestly where everysingle person who wants to go
(07:40):
into marketing wants to bebecause it's sexy, and it's fun.
And you get to see it reallyquickly, right, but, but there's
really this unfortunate darkside, which is like, incredibly
critical to the success ofwhatever you're doing. And it's
kind of sits behind the scenes,so so we do a lot of that we do
a ton of operational work.
Matt Wolach (07:57):
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
It's completely vital toactually getting results and
making things happen. And, and Iagree with you, if you're gonna
pay a lot of money for thesesalespeople, and train them
really well to sell. You don'twant them doing anything else
like you. It's frustrating whenthey have to go into the CRM and
try and fix this workflow andupdate this or add this, like
(08:19):
stop that, like get somebodyelse to do that so that we can
have salespeople selling. And Ilove that I think you feel the
same as it same way as I do. Butsales and marketing I think
you've gotten too siloed in manyorganizations, and they're kind
of on their own doing differentthings. And we really need to
create this this meshing ofsales and marketing my friend
(08:39):
Dan tire, he's one of theleaders at HubSpot, he's he
calls it marketing. So it's allkind of together but it you
know, there's there's kind ofthese blending of of roles of
sales and marketing into a CRO aconversion rate optimization
role. You know, how do you seethis, this happening now in the
best way? And and how do you seethis impacting businesses going
forward?
Nathan Yeung (09:01):
It's, it's getting weird, because I think so much
of marketing is bleeding intosales, especially on the
technology stack perspective,right? The sales stack and the
MAR stack, like, you know, youreally look at what each of
those stacks do, they're reallygetting blended like there, they
used to be kind of separate, butthey're very much not separate
at all anymore. So for me, Igenerally actually look at
(09:24):
marketing and sales becoming arev function, like literally
just a revenue operationsfunction. And the reason I say
that is because I and Icompletely agree with him that
like we're far too siloed I kindof always say, you know, a lot
of people like to pigeonholemarketing into like these MQL
and random KPIs because theyfeel like that's best in class
(09:44):
to use right now. But that'sjust because they're listening
to a whole bunch of people andthey're not really thinking
about the nuances. The nuanceis, is marketing is a function
that is meant to amplify revenueor sales. It does not matter
what our function does. So longmeans that is the outcome. So if
my function is is I'm creatingbetter workflows, guess what?
I'm not doing MQLs. If my job isto create better sales
(10:07):
enablement, guess what, I'm notcreating MQLs. If I am doubling
or tripling the productivity ofyour sales team that is
definitely not on my KPIstructure. So this whole idea of
like marketing, beingpigeonholed behind demand
generation, performancemarketing, inbound leads
content, whatever gated contentdownloads, like, well, whatever
term you want to quantify, it'sjust kind of short sighted. And
(10:31):
the reason it's short sighted isbecause you always end up
forgetting the game plan is youneed to have quality leads, and
quality conversions. If I wantto just again MQLs then I call
that amateur hour kind of KPIs.
Why? Because I can get 1000MQLs. And I can be wasting my
salespeople with a bunch ofunqualified people. So that's
not great for anyone, right?
(10:52):
That's not great for the stockrate for the salespeople. It's
not great for the organization.
But you know who it's great forme, because you gave me stupid
KPIs to follow. So so I'mincentivized to get you 1000,
you know, MQL, let me go do anewsletter. Let me go do a
webinar, right. So I find that,you know, if people are actually
really smart about approachingmarketing and sales, they are
(11:12):
going to come to the sameconclusion, it's very much a
revenue role. It's a revenuefunction. And our
responsibilities are uniquelydifferent. But they are all for
the same outcome. And so thisidea that sales and marketing
has to be separate entities, Ithink is very much going away.
And technology is really forcingthat matter faster.
Matt Wolach (11:35):
I think that's really insightful. I totally
agree. I've been in those rooms,where sales says, You pointed
sales, how come you're notclosing anything? Well, the
leads we're getting areterrible. We're getting you lots
of leads, marketing says, andyou have this back and forth,
and it gets nasty. And I agree,I think that the smarter people
who are being intentional aboutthis are really focusing on how
can we blend these roles, thesedivisions, these departments,
(11:57):
these people and come up withthe same goals, right? And I
think that that's where it hasto be is, what are the goals of
where we're trying to get as anorganization and I love it
revenue, we need revenue. And weneed to get those conversions to
get revenue. So let's make ithappen as a team.
Nathan Yeung (12:14):
Yeah. And that's kind of why I go to a lot of
companies and I sometimes go,you know, sometimes my first job
my first outcome, when we'rehired by companies, I might
actually end up telling them, Iwas like, Look, your demand
generation sucks. Your contentsucks. You don't have anyone to
produce content. So that's nothappening anytime soon. So what
(12:34):
I'm hearing is, is that you havean amazing sales team. And
they're running yourconferences, meaning they're
also the ones booking yourconferences. They're ad hoc ly
building out their sales stack.
So every single sales memberdoesn't have the same deck,
these are all using their own.
So how about this? Why don't forthe first month of six months of
my engagement, my focus isactually double or tripling the
(12:55):
productivity your sales team asa marketing function, so it's
less about brand, it's lessabout all these things. But
marketing's are really going tocome in there and support the
sales team in everything thatthey're not technically
sufficient to do. You want a newdeck, that's my job, you want a
new, you want a new enrichmentlist based on your Tam, that's
my job. You want a new cadence?
Well, we'll help you with thecadence, you can polish the
(13:17):
cadence, but don't write theCadence from start. Right. So
this this, this idea that wehave to produce MQL is I just I
really think is is incrediblyfrustrating. And I think people
need to be more mindful. Again,it's all about the revenue. So
just focus on that. And thatcould mean I'm just helping
salespeople.
Matt Wolach (13:36):
I love that. And as a CEO, That's music to my ears.
So when would a company whenwould a SaaS company say, Okay,
we need to have someone help uswith this when when is the best
time for that?
Nathan Yeung (13:47):
So that's a great question. And I you know, I
think every podcast I've everbeen the goal, like how do you
build like as a marketing team.
So here's, here's generally whatI'll say. Your first and second
marketing hire kind of sucks.
Why? Because generally speaking,the average marketer is likely
going to be wide in skill sets,and shallow in their technical
(14:09):
capabilities, or they're goingto be incredibly, not wide, but
narrow, and incredibly technicalonly in one skill set. So Jen, I
Matt Wolach (14:20):
would say, to interrupt you, I feel like most
of the time, early stagecompanies, when they make their
first marketing hire, look forthat person who's wide. They're
like, Hey, can you do thisthing? Can you do that? Can you
that can do that. And theythey're not really good at any
of them. But they have done orthink they can do all of those
different things. And that getstough.
Nathan Yeung (14:39):
Yeah, and it's and it's an overestimation of what
people can do. And it's alsojust like a general under
appreciation of like, howcomplicated marketing is,
because that's like our problem,right? Marketing. People make
marketing easy. That's our wholeshtick, right? Like, we've made
things simple. And so so weinherently have people who
undermine marketing because theythink it's actually Easy because
(15:00):
it's the it's the outcome ofother great marketers making it
sound easy. And so you generallyspeaking, you're probably better
off hiring someone who's narrow,and what narrow are we looking
for, then I'm gonna say someonewho's very good at product
marketing. And to me, the way Idefine product marketing is very
much being accountable andresponsible in ensuring that
(15:22):
your product or service actuallyfits a very large whitespace
that's worth your time actuallyhas features or benefits that
really hit pain points, andensuring a constant feedback
loop from the sales team back toeither the product team or the
service team or the executiveteam to ensure that your
services and products are beinginvolved with the market. So
(15:42):
their entire role is really justfocused on making sure you have
fit. So that's that's what Ithink is great. Why, because
everything that they do directlytranslates into sales
enablement, tools, and that'ssomething that they can do. Now,
they're not probably going to bean amazing graphic designer, but
you're going to have all thegreat context, your salespeople
don't have to write this out.
And ultimately, this productperson can do it. Now, if you
(16:04):
don't want to hire just aproduct person, my honest
suggestion is, don't bothertrying to find an individual
until you can afford about threeto four marketing people, you're
probably likely better off withan agency. And the reason I say
that is just because an agencyis going to have the wide kind
of breadth of skills, but theywill have the technical depth in
(16:27):
all those skills because theyhave scale, right. So for
example, I have 2526 employees,I have a full time developer or
multiple full time developers, Ihave a professional media buyer
who specializes in particularplatforms. So when you go on
these, these, these tangents, orthese these campaigns, some
(16:48):
companies like to call it, youwill get proper execution,
instead of your poor marketingmanager who claims to know SEO
media buying content writinggraphic design, who's probably
going to do honestly a piss poorjob. So So you really don't
benefit from trying to find thatperson to do at all, you end up
just kind of shooting yourselfin the foot, because you need to
(17:09):
execute on what limited tacticsyou can execute on, and you need
to execute on them well, soyou're not going to find that on
your first employee. And you'rereally not going to find that on
your second because generallyyour second is either going to
be a coordinator, or maybe likea content writer of some sort.
So you're really just going tobe stuck with these kind of
mediocre executors. So you mightvery much are better off hiring
(17:35):
an agency to do it. And thenwhen you get big enough and you
can actually hire four people,then you then you scrap the
agency and you build a team
Matt Wolach (17:44):
makes a ton of sense. So that's one big mistake
that SaaS leaders are making.
What would you say other thanmistakes that they're making
with regards to marketing?
Nathan Yeung (17:53):
I'm spreading yourself thin I think that's
that's like that's like numberone, right? Every every SaaS
leader wants to jump on everyshiny object. And this is like
the one thing I've heard onmultiple calls. You know, people
are always go what's working inyour industry. Now, I do think
there's a propensity for somecategories or into industries to
have tactics that work better.
So I'll give you a greatexample, cybersecurity sales.
(18:14):
Cybersecurity sales notoriouslydifficult, notoriously
difficult. Why? Because like,like, chief security officers,
chiefs, like technology officersare like, incredibly skeptical
of anything cybersecurity, andof course, if you think about
the, like, the manner of thatbusiness, it is meant to be
skeptical, like, you have to behyper skeptical. So so the
chances of you selling somethingthrough an email, which is, you
(18:36):
know, predominantly a form ofphishing for a lot of people,
especially in this industry,they just don't like it. So in
the in the cybersecurityindustry, the tactic that
generally works are associationsand conferences. Why? Because
you actually need to be inperson. So if you're a
cybersecurity company, andyou're predominantly selling in
cybersecurity, guess what yourmain function should be a
(18:57):
corporate and events function.
Why? Because generally, that'swhat this market needs and this
and that ICP wants. Now, ifyou're in other industries,
right, other tactics work alittle bit easier, like email
will work or phone will work.
But it always comes down to whatcan you actually do? Well, this
is what I always end up saying,right? So you know, you you can
try to force the issue in thesense of like, I want to do tik
(19:21):
tok because Tik Toks the coolestthing. But if you don't have
someone who is you know,proficient and creating content,
who actually has a role and whocan do it sustainably, then
you're just gonna have piss poorexecution. So it doesn't matter
that you're doing ticked off,you're just doing a bad job. So
I always tell people that it'salways about sustainability and
practicality. Your whatevertactic it is, you just have to
(19:42):
look at your organization andreally go What can I do
sustainably and practically,what can I do for a long period
of time without worrying aboutit, and what can I do well, and
if you can't do it, don'tbother. Not until you have scale
not until you have budget. Why?
Because you don't have by Sostop thinking you do, you don't
have time. You don't have youdon't have time budget, you
(20:04):
don't have money budget, youdon't have human capital budget.
So whoever is doing whateveryour marketing tactic is, they
gotta focus on at least only oneor two things Max and it has to
fit under that sustainable andpractical principle.
Matt Wolach (20:19):
I love it. Super, super good advice, something
that people definitely need tolisten to. And Nathan this has
been awesome I really appreciateyou coming on and sharing all
your knowledge. Where can peoplelearn more about what you're
you're doing and of course ofwhat you guys are doing it find
Nathan Yeung (20:32):
Yeah, awesome. So I have like an Instagram real
your audience?
channel you can find me atFYA.marketingbites and that's
with a Y you can also find me Ofcourse on LinkedIn Nathan Yeung
spelt ye U ng or of course mywebsite
www.findyouraudience.online.
Matt Wolach (20:49):
Okay, cool. And we'll make sure we put that all
into the show notes. Soeverybody listening, you'll be
able to see it there andYouTube. If you're on YouTube.
You'll see it down below in thedescription. Nathan, this has
been awesome. Thanks so much forcoming on and sharing all this
with us. Thank you, Matt.
Appreciate the time. Absolutely.
And everybody out there. Thanksfor watching. Thanks for
listening. We really appreciateyou being here. Make sure you're
subscribed to the show. Hit thatsubscribe button so you don't
(21:11):
miss out on any other amazingleaders like Nathan, giving you
all their best wisdom. Hit thatup and then we will see you next
time. Take care.
Intro/ Outro (21:21):
Thanks for listening to Scale Your SaaS.
For more help on finding greatleads and closing more deals go
to Mattwolach.com
What do you think of when you hear the word
marketing? Do you think of coolads that have all these crazy
pictures? Do you think of greatemails that are composed just
the right way that get people totake action? If you think of a
website that looks awesome andgenerates leads, I bet you're
thinking of all those but I betyou also don't think of some of
the backend execution andoperations stuff that has to
(00:30):
happen. The dirty side ofmarketing the things that you
need to have, or else all thatawesome creative doesn't really
work. Well. Nathan Yeung camein, he's with fine your audience
and Nathan did a great job ofexplaining all the things you
need to have happen. So youdon't miss out on the benefits
of all that creative stuff thatyou did. Check it out. I think
you're gonna like this.
Intro/ Outro (00:49):
Welcome to Scale Your SaaS, the podcast that
gives you proven techniques andformulas for boosting your
revenue and achieving your dreamexit brought to you by a guy
who's done just that multipletimes. Here's your host, Matt
Wolach.
Matt Wolach (01:06):
Yes. Welcome to Scale Your SaaS. Very glad
you're here. And thank you verymuch for joining us. My name is
Matt. And our goal is to doexactly that to help you scale
your SaaS so you can understandthe right ways to generate
leads, close those leads. Havean amazing team do it for you,
and get to where you gotta getand I'm super pumped. Today
we're joined by Nathan Yeung.
Nathan, how you doing?
Nathan Yeung (01:26):
Doing? Well, Matt, thanks for having me on today.
Matt Wolach (01:29):
Awesome. You're welcome. I'm really excited for
our conversation. Let me makesure everybody knows who you are
Nathan. So Nathan is the VicePresident and CMO at Find Your
Audience. He has helped numerouscompanies build their marketing
teams from scratch deliveringsuccessful go to market
deployments and launching newproducts into the market. He
leads teams of marketingmanagers, graphic designers,
(01:49):
media buyer coordinators,freelancers, all the above it
sounds like he's a he's, he's arockstar. And he does this to
develop and implement marketingstrategies for organizations. So
when it comes to marketing andgenerating interest and demand,
Nathan knows his stuff. I'mreally happy you're here. Thanks
for coming, Nathan.
Nathan Yeung (02:08):
I'm excited for the conversation. And
especially, you know, we'regonna be talking about SaaS
today and we deal with a lot ofSaaS.
Matt Wolach (02:14):
That's awesome.
SaaS is such a great industry.
Before we get into that, justtell me, what have you been up
to lately? And what's coming upfor you?
Nathan Yeung (02:23):
You know, what's been lately, you know, I content
creation has been a huge thingas as of recently, I've
literally just been talking tosome of our organizations about
content creation. And you know,I think it's a buzzy word. It's
a super buzzy word. And I feellike, um, you know, our
organization really excels atwhat we call us marketing
operations, which is really theunsexy part of actually getting
the marketing done. And we'rereally trying to help companies
(02:45):
really understand how much ittakes to create content, I
think, I think a lot of peoplethink it's far easier than then,
you know, they kind of thinkit's quite difficult. There's a
lot of nuances, there's a lotchallenges, and also a lot of
emailing recently. So a lot ofemail infrastructure stuff. So
so really helping clientsunderstand that on a technical
perspective,
Matt Wolach (03:04):
I love that that's something I literally was just
talking with a client aboutright before this is making sure
that their emails are set upcorrectly for when they're doing
cold. There's a lot of badthings you can do tech wise if
you're if you're doing coldemails, but you said something
in there, I think is reallyimportant that a lot of people
don't quite understand is thatsplit between the operations
side of marketing and thecreative side? And sometimes
(03:25):
when people think marketing likeoh, yeah, I just come up with
like this really pretty pictureand we go put it in an ad and
it's great, right? But you'reright. There's there's an
operations component. That's,that's really important. Can you
kind of explain first for somepeople who don't know, what are
the two components? And really,how do you make sure that you're
allocating enough effort toboth?
Nathan Yeung (03:43):
Sure, and it really depends on the impact,
and then the spends right or thetype of campaigns but the
creative part of it is reallyjust making sure that one, your
messaging is very clear. Yourmessaging is on point in the
sense of, it's really hittingwhat your ideal customer profile
wants, in terms of pain points,making sure you're communicating
well. And then of course, takingthat messaging and communicating
(04:05):
that well inside of an asset. Sowhether that asset is audio,
whether that asset is video,whether that asset is just an
image, whether that assets alsojust like your sales enablement
tools, translating thatmessaging and making it that
into one cohesive package isreally the creative exercise.
Now, what ends up happening onthe back end of that is there's
the operational exercise, theoperational exercise could be as
(04:27):
simple as hey, so you got thisbrand new, amazing sales
enablement tool. How are youdistributing that amongst your
sales members? How are youmaking sure that everyone within
the organization is fully awarethat you have brand news case
studies that you just did, andyou spend $10,000 do videos with
your with your clients onthere's often this huge
disconnect of like salesenablement production, and also
(04:49):
the velocity to the salespeopleactually even knowing that they
exist. That's like a verynuanced operational thing. If we
really want to talk about theoperations in a different
format, I'll give two Greatexamples on a technology
perspective, I know that we'relistening to you, a lot of your
listeners are SAS people. Soyou're going to be like, hey,
Nate, how do I deal withinternational translation? Well,
(05:09):
I'm going to tell you, there'sno shortcut when it comes to
international translation, andif you have an active demand gen
funnel, and you're actively indifferent markets, I'm going to
tell you, your marketing team isgoing to hate you. Why? Because
Auto Translate does not work.
Okay, so whoever thinks AutoTranslate works fine. It maybe
works for the, the one marketthat like is 10th on your
priority scale, and you justdon't care. Sure, that's going
(05:32):
to do fine. But it's not goingto work for any country that
you're actively wanting to gointo market and actually
penetrate. So what doesmarketing have to do? Hey, hey,
we got a sales enablement tool.
Great. Let's translate this in10 different language, only, I
need a landing page. Okay, wegotta get that in six different
languages. Now, the time for usto produce all those things.
(05:52):
That's the operations part,right? And then making sure that
that's consistent because thelast thing you want, is your
head of Turkey going Hey, Iheard from the last meeting that
we've got this great new salesenablement tool, why don't I
have anything for me to use inmy in my deal, right. And that's
like a huge problem. And thatreally annoys salespeople. And
you know how valuable thosepeople are, right? So operations
(06:15):
of marketing, we have toactually stay on top of that, we
have to build the SOPs, thestandard operating procedures to
ensure the velocity of thatcontent being distributed fairly
amongst the team members. Theother part is just like your CRM
system, right? Ensuring thatyour CRM system even has proper
workflows. Yes, that does kindof bridge on the idea of sales.
(06:36):
But often, you know, I like tokind of in a pardon, stepping
mat your toes because you're asales expert. But you know, I
always envision salespeople arereally good at two different
things. One, having technicalsolution type sales,
conversations, three building,to building an amazing
relationship with someone. Andeverything else should really be
(06:57):
marketing. So I don't want mysales guy going into HubSpot.
Going into Salesforce buildingworkflows, building dashboards,
I kind of just, you know, maybeyou either pay like a Salesforce
consultant or HubSpot consultantdo that, or have marketing do
that, because I want them focuson what they do best, which is
just selling. And and so oftenon our operational standpoint,
(07:17):
marketing really takes care ofthat marketing takes care of the
nurturing marketing sometimeseven takes care of the funnel,
and the rules of the funnel,because when they go stale, we'd
actually need to pull that dataand put them into a nurturing
funnel. So that's all technicaloperations work. That's, that's
not creative work. That's justtechnical operations work. So
that's really like theclassification of operations.
Creative is honestly where everysingle person who wants to go
(07:40):
into marketing wants to bebecause it's sexy, and it's fun.
And you get to see it reallyquickly, right, but, but there's
really this unfortunate darkside, which is like, incredibly
critical to the success ofwhatever you're doing. And it's
kind of sits behind the scenes,so so we do a lot of that we do
a ton of operational work.
Matt Wolach (07:57):
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
It's completely vital toactually getting results and
making things happen. And, and Iagree with you, if you're gonna
pay a lot of money for thesesalespeople, and train them
really well to sell. You don'twant them doing anything else
like you. It's frustrating whenthey have to go into the CRM and
try and fix this workflow andupdate this or add this, like
(08:19):
stop that, like get somebodyelse to do that so that we can
have salespeople selling. And Ilove that I think you feel the
same as it same way as I do. Butsales and marketing I think
you've gotten too siloed in manyorganizations, and they're kind
of on their own doing differentthings. And we really need to
create this this meshing ofsales and marketing my friend
(08:39):
Dan tire, he's one of theleaders at HubSpot, he's he
calls it marketing. So it's allkind of together but it you
know, there's there's kind ofthese blending of of roles of
sales and marketing into a CRO aconversion rate optimization
role. You know, how do you seethis, this happening now in the
best way? And and how do you seethis impacting businesses going
forward?
Nathan Yeung (09:01):
It's, it's getting weird, because I think so much
of marketing is bleeding intosales, especially on the
technology stack perspective,right? The sales stack and the
MAR stack, like, you know, youreally look at what each of
those stacks do, they're reallygetting blended like there, they
used to be kind of separate, butthey're very much not separate
at all anymore. So for me, Igenerally actually look at
(09:24):
marketing and sales becoming arev function, like literally
just a revenue operationsfunction. And the reason I say
that is because I and Icompletely agree with him that
like we're far too siloed I kindof always say, you know, a lot
of people like to pigeonholemarketing into like these MQL
and random KPIs because theyfeel like that's best in class
(09:44):
to use right now. But that'sjust because they're listening
to a whole bunch of people andthey're not really thinking
about the nuances. The nuanceis, is marketing is a function
that is meant to amplify revenueor sales. It does not matter
what our function does. So longmeans that is the outcome. So if
my function is is I'm creatingbetter workflows, guess what?
I'm not doing MQLs. If my job isto create better sales
(10:07):
enablement, guess what, I'm notcreating MQLs. If I am doubling
or tripling the productivity ofyour sales team that is
definitely not on my KPIstructure. So this whole idea of
like marketing, beingpigeonholed behind demand
generation, performancemarketing, inbound leads
content, whatever gated contentdownloads, like, well, whatever
term you want to quantify, it'sjust kind of short sighted. And
(10:31):
the reason it's short sighted isbecause you always end up
forgetting the game plan is youneed to have quality leads, and
quality conversions. If I wantto just again MQLs then I call
that amateur hour kind of KPIs.
Why? Because I can get 1000MQLs. And I can be wasting my
salespeople with a bunch ofunqualified people. So that's
not great for anyone, right?
(10:52):
That's not great for the stockrate for the salespeople. It's
not great for the organization.
But you know who it's great forme, because you gave me stupid
KPIs to follow. So so I'mincentivized to get you 1000,
you know, MQL, let me go do anewsletter. Let me go do a
webinar, right. So I find that,you know, if people are actually
really smart about approachingmarketing and sales, they are
(11:12):
going to come to the sameconclusion, it's very much a
revenue role. It's a revenuefunction. And our
responsibilities are uniquelydifferent. But they are all for
the same outcome. And so thisidea that sales and marketing
has to be separate entities, Ithink is very much going away.
And technology is really forcingthat matter faster.
Matt Wolach (11:35):
I think that's really insightful. I totally
agree. I've been in those rooms,where sales says, You pointed
sales, how come you're notclosing anything? Well, the
leads we're getting areterrible. We're getting you lots
of leads, marketing says, andyou have this back and forth,
and it gets nasty. And I agree,I think that the smarter people
who are being intentional aboutthis are really focusing on how
can we blend these roles, thesedivisions, these departments,
(11:57):
these people and come up withthe same goals, right? And I
think that that's where it hasto be is, what are the goals of
where we're trying to get as anorganization and I love it
revenue, we need revenue. And weneed to get those conversions to
get revenue. So let's make ithappen as a team.
Nathan Yeung (12:14):
Yeah. And that's kind of why I go to a lot of
companies and I sometimes go,you know, sometimes my first job
my first outcome, when we'rehired by companies, I might
actually end up telling them, Iwas like, Look, your demand
generation sucks. Your contentsucks. You don't have anyone to
produce content. So that's nothappening anytime soon. So what
(12:34):
I'm hearing is, is that you havean amazing sales team. And
they're running yourconferences, meaning they're
also the ones booking yourconferences. They're ad hoc ly
building out their sales stack.
So every single sales memberdoesn't have the same deck,
these are all using their own.
So how about this? Why don't forthe first month of six months of
my engagement, my focus isactually double or tripling the
(12:55):
productivity your sales team asa marketing function, so it's
less about brand, it's lessabout all these things. But
marketing's are really going tocome in there and support the
sales team in everything thatthey're not technically
sufficient to do. You want a newdeck, that's my job, you want a
new, you want a new enrichmentlist based on your Tam, that's
my job. You want a new cadence?
Well, we'll help you with thecadence, you can polish the
(13:17):
cadence, but don't write theCadence from start. Right. So
this this, this idea that wehave to produce MQL is I just I
really think is is incrediblyfrustrating. And I think people
need to be more mindful. Again,it's all about the revenue. So
just focus on that. And thatcould mean I'm just helping
salespeople.
Matt Wolach (13:36):
I love that. And as a CEO, That's music to my ears.
So when would a company whenwould a SaaS company say, Okay,
we need to have someone help uswith this when when is the best
time for that?
Nathan Yeung (13:47):
So that's a great question. And I you know, I
think every podcast I've everbeen the goal, like how do you
build like as a marketing team.
So here's, here's generally whatI'll say. Your first and second
marketing hire kind of sucks.
Why? Because generally speaking,the average marketer is likely
going to be wide in skill sets,and shallow in their technical
(14:09):
capabilities, or they're goingto be incredibly, not wide, but
narrow, and incredibly technicalonly in one skill set. So Jen, I
Matt Wolach (14:20):
would say, to interrupt you, I feel like most
of the time, early stagecompanies, when they make their
first marketing hire, look forthat person who's wide. They're
like, Hey, can you do thisthing? Can you do that? Can you
that can do that. And theythey're not really good at any
of them. But they have done orthink they can do all of those
different things. And that getstough.
Nathan Yeung (14:39):
Yeah, and it's and it's an overestimation of what
people can do. And it's alsojust like a general under
appreciation of like, howcomplicated marketing is,
because that's like our problem,right? Marketing. People make
marketing easy. That's our wholeshtick, right? Like, we've made
things simple. And so so weinherently have people who
undermine marketing because theythink it's actually Easy because
(15:00):
it's the it's the outcome ofother great marketers making it
sound easy. And so you generallyspeaking, you're probably better
off hiring someone who's narrow,and what narrow are we looking
for, then I'm gonna say someonewho's very good at product
marketing. And to me, the way Idefine product marketing is very
much being accountable andresponsible in ensuring that
(15:22):
your product or service actuallyfits a very large whitespace
that's worth your time actuallyhas features or benefits that
really hit pain points, andensuring a constant feedback
loop from the sales team back toeither the product team or the
service team or the executiveteam to ensure that your
services and products are beinginvolved with the market. So
(15:42):
their entire role is really justfocused on making sure you have
fit. So that's that's what Ithink is great. Why, because
everything that they do directlytranslates into sales
enablement, tools, and that'ssomething that they can do. Now,
they're not probably going to bean amazing graphic designer, but
you're going to have all thegreat context, your salespeople
don't have to write this out.
And ultimately, this productperson can do it. Now, if you
(16:04):
don't want to hire just aproduct person, my honest
suggestion is, don't bothertrying to find an individual
until you can afford about threeto four marketing people, you're
probably likely better off withan agency. And the reason I say
that is just because an agencyis going to have the wide kind
of breadth of skills, but theywill have the technical depth in
(16:27):
all those skills because theyhave scale, right. So for
example, I have 2526 employees,I have a full time developer or
multiple full time developers, Ihave a professional media buyer
who specializes in particularplatforms. So when you go on
these, these, these tangents, orthese these campaigns, some
(16:48):
companies like to call it, youwill get proper execution,
instead of your poor marketingmanager who claims to know SEO
media buying content writinggraphic design, who's probably
going to do honestly a piss poorjob. So So you really don't
benefit from trying to find thatperson to do at all, you end up
just kind of shooting yourselfin the foot, because you need to
(17:09):
execute on what limited tacticsyou can execute on, and you need
to execute on them well, soyou're not going to find that on
your first employee. And you'rereally not going to find that on
your second because generallyyour second is either going to
be a coordinator, or maybe likea content writer of some sort.
So you're really just going tobe stuck with these kind of
mediocre executors. So you mightvery much are better off hiring
(17:35):
an agency to do it. And thenwhen you get big enough and you
can actually hire four people,then you then you scrap the
agency and you build a team
Matt Wolach (17:44):
makes a ton of sense. So that's one big mistake
that SaaS leaders are making.
What would you say other thanmistakes that they're making
with regards to marketing?
Nathan Yeung (17:53):
I'm spreading yourself thin I think that's
that's like that's like numberone, right? Every every SaaS
leader wants to jump on everyshiny object. And this is like
the one thing I've heard onmultiple calls. You know, people
are always go what's working inyour industry. Now, I do think
there's a propensity for somecategories or into industries to
have tactics that work better.
So I'll give you a greatexample, cybersecurity sales.
(18:14):
Cybersecurity sales notoriouslydifficult, notoriously
difficult. Why? Because like,like, chief security officers,
chiefs, like technology officersare like, incredibly skeptical
of anything cybersecurity, andof course, if you think about
the, like, the manner of thatbusiness, it is meant to be
skeptical, like, you have to behyper skeptical. So so the
chances of you selling somethingthrough an email, which is, you
(18:36):
know, predominantly a form ofphishing for a lot of people,
especially in this industry,they just don't like it. So in
the in the cybersecurityindustry, the tactic that
generally works are associationsand conferences. Why? Because
you actually need to be inperson. So if you're a
cybersecurity company, andyou're predominantly selling in
cybersecurity, guess what yourmain function should be a
(18:57):
corporate and events function.
Why? Because generally, that'swhat this market needs and this
and that ICP wants. Now, ifyou're in other industries,
right, other tactics work alittle bit easier, like email
will work or phone will work.
But it always comes down to whatcan you actually do? Well, this
is what I always end up saying,right? So you know, you you can
try to force the issue in thesense of like, I want to do tik
(19:21):
tok because Tik Toks the coolestthing. But if you don't have
someone who is you know,proficient and creating content,
who actually has a role and whocan do it sustainably, then
you're just gonna have piss poorexecution. So it doesn't matter
that you're doing ticked off,you're just doing a bad job. So
I always tell people that it'salways about sustainability and
practicality. Your whatevertactic it is, you just have to
(19:42):
look at your organization andreally go What can I do
sustainably and practically,what can I do for a long period
of time without worrying aboutit, and what can I do well, and
if you can't do it, don'tbother. Not until you have scale
not until you have budget. Why?
Because you don't have by Sostop thinking you do, you don't
have time. You don't have youdon't have time budget, you
(20:04):
don't have money budget, youdon't have human capital budget.
So whoever is doing whateveryour marketing tactic is, they
gotta focus on at least only oneor two things Max and it has to
fit under that sustainable andpractical principle.
Matt Wolach (20:19):
I love it. Super, super good advice, something
that people definitely need tolisten to. And Nathan this has
been awesome I really appreciateyou coming on and sharing all
your knowledge. Where can peoplelearn more about what you're
you're doing and of course ofwhat you guys are doing it find
Nathan Yeung (20:32):
Yeah, awesome. So I have like an Instagram real
your audience?
channel you can find me atFYA.marketingbites and that's
with a Y you can also find me Ofcourse on LinkedIn Nathan Yeung
spelt ye U ng or of course mywebsite
www.findyouraudience.online.
Matt Wolach (20:49):
Okay, cool. And we'll make sure we put that all
into the show notes. Soeverybody listening, you'll be
able to see it there andYouTube. If you're on YouTube.
You'll see it down below in thedescription. Nathan, this has
been awesome. Thanks so much forcoming on and sharing all this
with us. Thank you, Matt.
Appreciate the time. Absolutely.
And everybody out there. Thanksfor watching. Thanks for
listening. We really appreciateyou being here. Make sure you're
subscribed to the show. Hit thatsubscribe button so you don't
(21:11):
miss out on any other amazingleaders like Nathan, giving you
all their best wisdom. Hit thatup and then we will see you next
time. Take care.
Intro/ Outro (21:21):
Thanks for listening to Scale Your SaaS.
For more help on finding greatleads and closing more deals go
to Mattwolach.com
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