MarTech360 Interview With James Bishop, Vice President Of Marketing at VanillaSoft

“Who are your customers, how do you reach them, and what do they need to hear? That will drive your marketing message and where to put it.”

How do you prioritize multi-channel marketing efforts in VanillaSoft’s strategy to resonate with diverse audiences across digital and traditional channels?

I believe in the fundamentals — starting with the customer, knowing who we want to target and why, and understanding that market’s behaviors, wants, needs, and barriers. That helps us to understand where our customers are, where to reach them, and what to say to them. It’s easy to get trapped into a channel-first behavior, but ultimately working to the customer first – what they need to hear, when, and where – should ultimately be our goal and our practice.

Additionally, could you elaborate on how your leadership has fostered the development of geographically diverse teams, ultimately driving the achievement of goals and objectives within the organization’s dynamic landscape?

Over the last few years, geographically diverse teams have become the norm rather than an emerging trend. I started seeing the spread out team years ago when I was working in telecom, and big “telepresence” rooms were expected for any meeting with groups of people dialing in.

Today, managing remote teams is a leadership essential, no matter how far apart your team members are. My team members are as close as a 15 min drive away, and as far away as a 15 hour flight. That said, using whatever video call platform you choose, it does feel like a flattened playing field, where we are all the same distance away when we are on a video call. The hardest part for me is managing time zones. We all work to our local time, so our teammates overseas and our teammates on the west coast have vastly different availability. I keep apps on my phone and web browser to tell me what time it is wherever my team lives, and I block a window of “free” time in my work calendar that tells me when all the calendars overlap for a reasonable time for all of us to meet. I think starting with that due respect that we are all working on a different time of day is important. No one likes meetings at 8:00 at night or later, nor at 5:00am. I hope that fosters a sense of respect in the team – that I respect their boundaries.

That said, it’s hard and I will be honest, I am not positive that I am perfect at fostering development across a spread out team, but we try hard. It’s still a relatively new practice for all of us. I believe in this case as well – that methods boil down to fundamentals. In many ways beyond the practicalities of dinner times and meeting times, managing spread out team members is still about setting clear expectations, managing those expectations appropriately, and ensuring that development happens to meet objectives more effectively, as well as development to build career and personal growth. These things are all the same no matter where a team member lives. This is another case where we need to be sure we are not distracted by technology, and instead focus on what is important. Clarity of objective, transparency of performance, and development that builds both performance and trust.

James, can you tell us about your professional background and your current role at VanillaSoft.

Sure, I am the Vice President of Marketing at VanillaSoft – I have been here for about a year and a half. I have been working at the intersection of software and technology as an industry, and across a handful of verticals. I came to marketing in a very non-traditional way, with a degree in English Literature, and a career previous to marketing that was all in tourism operations. I had a lot of fun as a mountain bike guide and rafting photographer for a long time. I sort of fell into marketing, and it stuck. I went back to school a couple of times to study database marketing, and later for an MBA in Management Consulting. I have been working in marketing now for almost 25 years.

Also tell us how VanillaSoft differentiates itself from other companies in the same space?

VanillaSoft is unique in a number of ways. Most importantly though, we understand that what is most important to enterprises, especially those with a motion where SDRs and BDRs play a significant role, is that customer leads are really valuable and that high value leads need to be treated with “white gloves”. As it becomes harder and harder to reach prospects, our customers need to make sure that the right lead is contacted at the right time, in the right way. VanillaSoft has a unique set of features and functions in our routing and queue that approach that workflow of which record to contact, that the call, text or email is the appropriate method for that lead, and that it’s delivered. We have a real-time evaluation of those records against a variety of criteria to ensure that outreach is compliant with both internal and external rules.

How can businesses effectively implement robust lead management strategies to prevent leads from going cold, ensuring inside sales teams prioritize, nurture, and follow up efficiently to maximize productivity and close more deals? Furthermore, how can VanillaSoft’s lead management solutions guarantee that valuable leads are never neglected by your sales team?

Reps can spend a lot of time parsing their list of prospects, cherry-picking, or worse, by running their prospect outreach alphabetically each day and week. A large number of records to look at can lead to a cognitive overload – not knowing which to hit next, and ultimately procrastination and a drop in activity. We ask the question, “what if reps were only served one record at a time to work?”. They don’t need to prioritize, they just need to work the record in front of them. The records that need immediate attention, that need to be nurtured, that need to be followed-up on, will get served up to the rep in due course. When reps only need to work on what is in front of them, they can spend more time and energy on the conversation so that it’s higher quality, and so that the conversation is more productive with outcomes that better impact revenue. By taking the guesswork and consideration time out of which lead to contact next, it also ensures that the best leads are always served next and never neglected.

Also Read: MarTech360 Interview With Hikari Senju, Founder & CEO At Omneky

James, can you tell us the benefits of integrating SMS and email marketing into your sales strategy, and how can tools like VanillaSoft help in optimizing prospect communication through automated messaging, personalized content, and seamless integration with other systems such as CRM?

More and more, the value that SMS and email play, especially in the enterprise space, is to help get the phone call for a rep, not to replace the phone call. Sure, there are some transactional things such as, “sign this document” or “here is a reminder for our call” that can be all about the SMS or email by itself, but voice is on the ascendency to get real business done.

Voice can still be about automated customization though. Having branched scripts and supporting content served to a caller alongside the record to call and action to take gives callers the ability to customize their conversations easily and effectively. Automated messaging can play a powerful role in follow-in up on missed calls or other ways to get to the phone call.

Seamless CRM integration is essential. While it’s the bane of many reps to hear their sales manager saying over and over to, “update your activity in the CRM; log your calls!”, it is about more than just activity reporting. Having the details, dispositions, and other crucial data about a call or message is essential to know when to call that person back; to know when to follow up and how. Personalization is only as good as the data that supports our knowledge of what the prospect actually LIKES. VanillaSoft users can’t move on to the next record to contact until the disposition is logged and notes are recorded. The activity is automatically pushed to the CRM record where it is available for the constant “next best lead” evaluation.

In terms of streamlining sales processes, could you provide specific examples of the time-consuming tasks that VanillaSoft’s platform effectively automates for sales teams? We are particularly interested in understanding how VanillaSoft’s automation features alleviate the burden on sales representatives, allowing them to focus more on engaging with leads and closing deals.

VanillaSoft effectively gives the gift of time and focus to sales teams. As we have discussed, a large amount of time and effort is spent just deciding who to call next, and another amount of time and effort on deciding what to say, or write, and where to write it. This hugely increases the amount of time between calls. Instead of making a call and engaging with a lead, the rep is studying and pondering their lists. Because VanillaSoft only serves one record at a time, there is no decision-making time or effort required by the rep. The sales leader and their sales operations team work with our onboarding and success teams to create a set of rules that defines the order that leads are served, and VanillaSoft constantly parses the list based on those rules. Reps can then focus solely on who to call and on creating powerful, valuable conversations.

Additionally, this is done all in one screen so callers don’t have to bounce between the CRM and the dialer and the reporting app – an additional benefit to time and focus. After the call, time is traditionally (or hopefully) taken to record the outcomes, dispositions and next steps for a call. VanillaSoft automates this step as well. While the rep needs to click a button or two to select disposition codes, data is fed back directly to the CRM where it is recorded for activity reports as well as routing planning for future outreach. The automation that VanillaSoft puts in front of sales reps in essence removes everything EXCEPT the high-value calls and the texts and emails that help get that call scheduled. More time is spent closing deals.

What advice do you have for other leaders who are looking to drive growth for their brand?

Like we discussed at the top, focus on the fundamentals. Who are your customers, how do you reach them, and what do they need to hear? That will drive your marketing message and where to put it. Focus on your customers and how to have a high quality conversation with them – that is what we are paying sales reps to do, it’s what we need them to do. Automate the stuff that gets in the way of that.

I listened to a great podcast from a leading analyst who covers the sales software space as well as the AI space. Part of his message that I took away was this – there is a lot of flash and noise around AI (and technology in general) these days. Instead of focusing on the tool, instead of saying “OMG we need to use AI”, pay attention to the main drivers of your business and how AI or other technology can make that easier, can make that driver more efficient. We like to make it more efficient to get to a high value call with a high value lead. That can play out in a bunch of different ways for leaders, but to do so, you need to stay focused on the fundamentals of what is going on with your customers, and what you are trying to accomplish.

What is the biggest problem you or your team is solving this year?

It’s not a new story, but keeping up with change. While keeping to the fundamentals of what customers want and need, and what their barriers are, is essential and reasonably universal, the other lens that we look at is, “what is changing in the environment that affects the customer and what we want to accomplish”? THAT lens is changing constantly. Regulatory changes that impact both our business and our customers’ business are happening constantly.

Is there anything that you’re currently reading, or any favorite books, that you’d recommend?

I read a lot, lots of fiction and non-fiction books (Dave Ghrol’s bio is a recent favorite). But to stay on topic, I certainly have some sales and marketing favorites too. I say this with, as I say above, a degree in literature so am a touch of a book snob. My go-to’s are often the “For Dummies” series. ABM For Dummies? Loved it. Lean for Dummies? Loved it. Statistics for Excel for Dummies? LOVED it. I love the classic ‘CliffsNotes’ summary to an often complex topic. When things get to the market and into the zeitgeist and take off quickly, it can be hard to catch up. No one can stay on top of everything. These help me get a leg up!

Thanks, James!