Episode 10: Dealing with tough and tricky verticals for customer advocacy

Host  0:01  
Welcome to The Advocast, where we discuss all things customer advocacy. Discover the latest trends, best practices, and tangible advice as we talk to some of the brightest and sharpest professionals in the industry. Learn how to turn your customers into advocates to drive sales leads and make a positive impact on revenue.

Host  0:28  
Hi everyone, this is The Advocast, and I'm Pablo, your host today. We have Alison Bukowski from Peer Spot on the show. She's a professional with over a decade of experience, and she's seen the practices of customer marketing change and evolve throughout the past years. Hi, Allison, how are you doing?

Alison Bukowski  0:46  
Hello, hi, Pablo. Thank you so much for having me. This is nice to be on the other side.

Host  0:52  
Exactly, I see your show as well, and it's amazing. At the end, I will ask you, please, to leave you how they came to your show and subscribe as well. About today, thank you for being here again. So we are very happy to have you on the show, and today we have a podcast that's filled with tips for everyone that's struggling with what we call the tough and trick industries, right, government, healthcare, financial services, cyber security, just to mention a few of them. We know that these are verticals that engaging with advocates has been extra challenging, right? So we have a full episode dedicated to that, and we have three moments. First, we start with an introduction, so we know a little bit more about you, Alison, and where are you coming from? Your career highlights, then getting a little bit of your experience. We'd like to see important things for success of every customer marketing professionals, which is the engagement with all the departments. So we will go through that a little bit as well, and talk about the tricky, tough, and tricky verticals that we have for this episode, is that okay?

Alison Bukowski  2:03  
That sounds good. Let's do it. 

Host  2:04  
Excellent. So, to start with, as I said, introductions, we'd like to know a little bit about you. How did you end up like in this industry, market, customer marketing, and advocacy? Little bit of your career highlights.

Alison Bukowski  2:19  
Sure, so I was very fortunate coming out of school to work within various industries, and I say that that's important because I was in nonprofit for a while, I worked within academia, and then ultimately landed up in what we'll call corporate, the corporate world, and that at least allowed me to know that academia was too slow, there wasn't enough excitement going on. Nonprofit loved, loved the work, but you had to wear 72 hats, which is kind of funny, because advocacy professionals actually do the same thing, but one of the things that was always important to me is being able to remain creative, I've just.. I love being able to add creativity into my work, but I'm also a type A personality, and I'm very, you know, process-driven and organized, and I found that marketing actually allowed the marriage of both of those worlds for me. So, working on, I started in marketing, actually, as a communications content writer, and writing has always been a big piece of my career, and then sort of worked my way through doing the communications campaigns, writing, and that part, when I got into customer stories, is when sort of the light bulb went on for me, and I also got to do some work in training and development, so when I was with customers I was at my happiest, and that really was kind of the spark, and once I had an opportunity to switch into a dedicated customer advocacy role, then that rolled into customer marketing, and I know we could talk about those words and what those mean, depending who you are, but it's been a very fulfilling place to land as an extrovert who's creative but needs to have the details and be organized as well.

Host  4:20  
Cool, and I think that it's there's so many programs right out there that they always started with an evidence or voice of the customer, just customer stories kind of program, and then as just as you said, then the light bulb comes right and you see the opportunity to do more with that voice of the customer, and you start this career in also pure customer advocacy, and doing more basically with the voice of the customer. Seen so many cases, it's so good to see that that's your case as well, and and I bet that you've seen a lot of changes right in this in this role of dealing with the voice of the customer. What can you tell us? Out, that's how it's changed. What, what, how you see, like, see the trains for the future, how it's changing now for everyone.

Alison Bukowski  5:07  
Right. I actually think right now we're at an extremely pivotal moment. I was fortunate about a year ago to come into my current role at Peer Spot, which means I get to talk to marketers, customer marketers all day long, and other marketing professionals, which is really a dream, but I think that this moment, I mean, we've seen so much, right, and even the last couple of years with, you know, just hundreds, the explosion of roles within customer marketing and customer advocacy, but I think that's wonderful, but I think what's more important is that there's traction around the fact that customer-led, customer growth, customer voice, whichever, customer-centric, whatever term you want to select, that's marketing, I mean, that really is marketing as a whole, it's not, you know, we're moving away from this segmentation of well, this is the demand gen, and this is the field marketing, and this is the, you know, customer marketing. All of marketing should really be customer driven, and I think that we're getting there, that that's that's happening, and I just feel it, that shift is going to happen, and I'll go so far as to say, even just organizationally, right, we've moved through different stages of growth, it's product-led growth, it's sales-led growth, but really customer-led growth, when we really think about it for a moment, isn't that really what it's all about? I mean, the thing is, if you don't have customers, you don't have a company, right?

Host  6:45  
How do you grow with it's not with customers, right?

Alison Bukowski  6:49  
Exactly. So, I think that, that, that's the future, not only of marketing, but you know that we're moving beyond this, you know, marketing is simply a tactical sales support function, and doing much more with it, which is exciting, because I think we're pretty great, and I know our community knows that we're pretty great. So it's time that that that scene at the from the top down,

Host  7:17  
and even though it sounds very logical, right, customer marketing, what I think personally is that I mean logical that marketing in growth is through customers, right? It should be always with customer like part involved, but what I've seen, and I'm sure that you have seen that as well, is that so many marketers are far away from customers, right, they are just doing things in the small table, designing campaigns, and they are doing webinars, they are doing, you know, social amplifiers, they are doing lots of things without any voice of the customer at all. It was like that, many companies that were driven by engineering teams, sometimes, right, and it was maybe it's logical, but it was good to just say, hey guys, look, you know you can cut the marketing promise and just get directly to a customer that will tell you how your product works, instead of using that promising, let's just a customer say that, instead of you, right? Yeah, and I'd like to see your opinion on these, would you, and because that will also connect to the next question we have about already getting to this interdepartmental function of customer advocacy. Do you think that every one on the company doesn't matter, the title doesn't matter, the department doesn't need to be marketing if they are leveraging the voice of the customer, are they customer marketing roles? What's the extent of customer marketing roles in different organizations? What are the other roles that we could also consider customer marketing?

Alison Bukowski  8:55  
I would say that, well, and let's, let's all of them, is the is the easy, the short answer, but there's a lot to to unpack there as well, right? You know, I'm certainly not the first one to say that all of the roles are customer roles or customer-facing roles, and I think you could make, you know, the leap to customer marketing, right, because that's, or even customer advocacy, if we want to take it down another level, as far as the relationships, right? I mean, that's we're all there again. You don't have customers, every role either touches the customer or they're there to support the customer. So, if you're, you know, most obviously sales and CS, and you know, well, marketing, as you pointed out, not as aligned to the customer as they probably should be. Those are easy, they're customer facing, but your engineering team, your product team, those are all roles. The support team, they're working directly with customers, or they're supporting them. The, you're not building a product, who are you? Building it for, and so that's where I think we've kind of back to your earlier question about maybe what has been the evolution of marketing. Think the building blocks have stayed the same, right, as far as the stories and the activities and the webinars and things like that, but the way that to your second question about connecting to other parts of the organization, that's where those connections need to happen, and your product team, for example, is so much stronger when they put on a customer marketing hat, right, and they're thinking about it, well, let's hear directly from the customer, or do I have a partner in the organization, aka customer marketing or customer advocacy, that can deliver that to me on a silver platter, so I'm not creating something in a vacuum, and I think that's something that a lot of orgs are they fall into that trap where things are just being created without really being influenced with any customer evidence.

Host  11:04  
Yeah, so what I'm hearing, I mean, the customer experience is everything, right? We are, we are dealing with somehow with the customer experience, and how we, they go through different departments and navigate through different departments, and I think that this is this is also a big portion in many advocacy programs, of course, the customer experience, the journey. Some SaaS companies will invest a lot on basically activation, let's say, of new functions and new functionalities, and adoption of features of your product, right? And you can design all these, depending, of course, it's depending on the strategy you have for your program, have so many different operational models, as we say, I was recording it for you that will put emphasis or not in customer experience or right or in social in communities that different operational models, and we said already that a customer marketer should not be alone, because it's an interdepartmental function by nature, right. So, how advocacy manager should create bridges with all the internal organizations, since it's in you have this shared experience across our department.

Alison Bukowski  12:17  
I think that first, first and foremost is understanding, and I think a lot of that falls on the customer advocacy professional to understand those other areas of the business, you know, you need to know your, your customers, because when you're in this particular role, we, we talk a lot about external customers, right, but the internal customers are just as important as those external customers. So, knowing who they are, what makes them tick, and their goals, I think that's a piece that is often overlooked. We don't spend a lot of time trying to understand, well, what is sales really focused on what are the goals, and then also what are their stressors? What is keeping them up at night? Right, you know, for sales, it's a.. I don't want to.. I'm not trying to oversimplify, but very revenue focused, right? You know, they're looking at bringing in the next deal, but what about the product team? Right, where are their pressures coming from? And then what are their KPIs, you know, MBOs, OKRs, whichever acronym you want to use, and then figure out how to align to that, and once you have that piece, then I think it gets into the getting, I'll call it, it's almost like dating, the getting to know you stage, right, and framing those conversations appropriately, you can't walk into a conversation with a sales executive and talk about what's in it for me, the advocacy for that, it will never work, what's in it for you, and knowing how to frame those conversations. So, I think that's that's first. You won't get anywhere if you don't do your homework, and if you don't frame the conversations appropriately,

Host  14:04  
Totally, and I completely agree with you, and that reminds me that every customer will be, will be driven, right, will be motivated by different activities, and so what I'm hearing is that, correct me if I understood it wrong, but what I'm hearing is that we have to listen to the customer and then align internally, right? So you have different programs, so as a customer marketer, you need to have that menu of options, right, different kind of activities, maybe it's a cab that you motivate specific roles of, you know, inside your, your customers, maybe it's something else, right? Maybe it's an exclusive, let's say, meeting with the executives of your company, like a one on one.

Alison Bukowski  14:54  
Yep.

Host  14:55  
yeah, you'll see sweet,

Alison Bukowski  14:57  
Just like that... Exactly, and, and looking at, and you can draw parallels between your advocacy activities, right? I think that, you know, one of the things that I will, I will go to the grave, that I think an advocacy program, it should be more beneficial to your customers than it is, you know, for you, and I mean both, both sets of customers, so you might have a - I'll call it a menu, right? Here's your menu for customers. How can they engage? Because not all customers are comfortable with different activities, or they're not as interested in certain activities. The same is true internally, so when I'm doing different advocacy and you know activities and ways for external customers to engage, it's pretty easy to draw a line to an internal partner and be like, oh, a cab, for example, right? Well, that's my C-suite cares about that, and my product team cares about that. So, let's make sure that I'm working with those internal partners, so that they feel they feel included, right, because it's not, you know, we all know that we're more invested in something when we've been included and we're a part of it, so making sure that they're part of those discussions as well, so that's kind of after the getting to know you, understanding the goals that goes to the alignment that you were just talking about, and inclusivity is a very quick way to continue to learn, but then also find your champions. I always call them the internal champions.

Host  16:32  
Perfect, perfect. I completely agree, and hopefully they are also, as in your advocacy council, right? If you, if you need some services from that department, meet time to time, make sure that you are delivering something that's as you said, it's not for you, it's not only for the advocate, but it's for all stakeholders, right? Everyone will be interested in something that we're doing, and what I usually describe the customer marketer role as a shopper in the organization, that will be just asking, give me two kilos of product roadmap, give me, you know, like influence, give me some webinars, give me some of that, and then you make thinking on the customer, listening to the customer, what makes sense, and you have this menu, as you said, this structure of gives and gets that needs to be always in the positive side for everyone playing the game, maybe with the summary

Alison Bukowski  17:27  
And capture it, right? And I'm not lying. I have slides that I keep for stakeholders where you can, you can capture the goals, and then you get to go back to them, you know, at least quarterly, have that kind of check in and showcase what, what happened, what did you do, and it's, it's fairly impressive when, and if you do that kind of along the way, you're not sitting at your desk, now I have to figure out, you know, what did I deliver for sales, so keep, keep track of it, and celebrate the wins.

Host  18:05  
Celebrate the wins, totally. And so, since you are talking about shared experience of an advocate, the cross-departmental nature of an advocacy program, or customer marketing programs as a whole, right, we are talking also about customer or advocate lifecycle, I'd like to go enter a little bit on this since we're getting into the tough and tricky industries, and we know we need extra customization to this kind of customers and departments. So, what about the life cycle? What do you think that should be like the ideal life cycle when your problem is really truly running across apartment.

Alison Bukowski  18:45  
It's interesting that you bring that up, because I would love to do just get a group of us together in this community and have a big discussion around customer journey, customer life cycle, and where advocacy has a has a place, because it's interesting. I don't think we often have a seat at that at that table, right. And there's a flywheel graphic that I use sometimes in presentations that showcases, you know, where you're using advocacy in. I'll take it from, from sales, for example, right. And then you're using advocacy at the conceptual stage. Let your sales team lean on the fact that you have an advocacy program, right, that this is something exciting to participate in. I have sales use that in finalist decks to talk about as a customer of our company, you can participate, and this is exciting. Obviously, then we use advocates, references, and things like that, so they're all part of that now. And I'll just kind of walk through the basic stages, but implementation, right, of, you know, the product or the service. I'm a big. Fan of kind of mentor mentee type things, where you can leverage advocates, and some of them get very excited about doing that and work with a new customer. What better way, right, to learn than from somebody who's participating, and that kind of ties back to what I was saying about that menu, right, of different options and letting customers engage in the way that they want to, and then, of course, you get to that place where you introduce the advocacy program, right? You have a deployment, so now we're having a successful deployment, and this is a great time to tap into that, and I think what's important on the journey is that advocates are going to engage in different ways at different points in their relationship or their life cycle with your organization, and you should really structure your program and its benefits to match that. Nobody's going to raise their hand and say, "Please put me on the big stage and let me talk about your company when the ink has barely dried right on the contract, so allow them to participate in networking events, experience the program, and then they move into, well, now they could, their story should be captured, right? They've got six months and they're seeing great results, and so on and so forth, and then they are at that place where these are the rock stars, you are confident and comfortable on the stage, and they want to promote their own professional brand, right, that's important as well, so just how they're, how we leverage the program and the people in it all over the place in the life cycle, that was probably a longer answer than you wanted to that question. 

Host  21:46  
Totally, no, no, this, this could be a whole show only for that question, right? And I would just like to add a little bit also, and build on top of what you, you're saying, there is this what I've seen from my experience, as well, it is one of the good things to showcase internally. Now, talking about internally, it's when you can see that customer that started, not with buying, you know, signing the contract, but before, right? I mean, receiving another customer, yes, to get a, to get inspired, right? And say, okay, you know, when you have a prospect, of course. One of the, one of the things that advocacy, very basic things advocacy program is doing is, you know, your sales teams, you just open a ticket, or you know, try to find someone that's in the same industry as your prospect, and say, I would like to have this customer, or a customer available to talk to my prospect, right? That moment you start already, that maybe the life cycle writing the pre sales and they get this call with another advocate they they they are convinced that your products right product they go ahead sign the contract and as you said you have you should have a different set of activities based on the experience with the product, right, give allow it to have time to experience to build a story, as you said, right, capture that, and then package that in different ways that you can use internally in organization, that voice of the customer, because a customer story, as we usually say in Wins for you, is just one of the ways that you can pack the voice of the customer, but then we have, we can prepare the advice of the customer to connect with different, different packagings, right, different ways inside the organization until the moment that they are again an advocate, and they help another prospect on another call, and then you can showcase how many cycles from pre sales, you know, to get a new customers, and that virtuals, like virtuous cycle, I think that's one of the one of the great ways to showcase internally how successful is, right?

Alison Bukowski  23:55  
Yep, and that's a great point too, from a metrics perspective as well, right, because we, you know, it's not optional anymore, you know, have to be able to to showcase that, and it's a really cool story when you can, it's speaking of stories, it's your own story, it's your own success story to show how that worked and the revenue gained from that customer before they signed, you know, right before they signed on the dotted line, and then the revenue they're bringing in as an advocate when it's really working, you know, as a well-oiled machine, and and also getting through reference activity, I'll use that as an example, getting prospects and then customers excited about the fact that you know, because if it's a good experience, it's one of my, my favorite stories. And, oddly enough, it was a government customer, and I know we're going to talk about about government, but I helped secure a reference, so we could close a deal, and it was a very large deal, and they found that experience. To be such a pleasant one that once they signed they proactively, how often does that happen? The customer said, I liked that. How do I get involved in participating in that? That's a big win as well.

Host  25:17  
That's, that's amazing. Yeah, that's another metric as well. How many times that happens, if you can get all the kudos and all the customers that are just by participating in the process, right? As you say, they see it and say they want to do that as well. Yeah, that's amazing. That's amazing when that happens. I really love it as well. And also, just to mention when, when you, as a customer market marketer, help write sales teams to close a big deal, and they just go to that email, right, this, the wing wire, and they mention you and your team, those things we should also be measuring, because it's so, so great, it's so great, it's so great to receive those kind of kudos, and good, and just one comment before we go now to the tough and tricky industries. I think that this is this that we're talking right now is one of the reasons that many customer advocates would like to see what you think about that, but it sees that many evidence programs or customer story production, let's say departments, they start to think about customer advocacy because of that as well, because of the metrics. How can I measure? They are sometimes investing any amount from ranging from 4000 to $20,000 sometimes in videos, in some right paid media to amplify things, and they say, okay, how can you calculate the ROI, right? And they start looking at stuff, and they just find out this whole new world of customer advocacy opens in front of them, and they can see that, okay, invest $4,000 here, I capture that story, but then I will do 10 calls in the next 43 years, two years of this year, we do once a recorder. I will do analyst relations like Gartner Quadrant Magic Quadrant of Gartner in October. Then I would do this event, and then you get all that, and you can measure, let's say, the influence pipeline, influence revenue, and just say, okay, invested this $4 but see, just, just in, just in influenced pipeline could be millions of dollars, that somehow it's, it's not, of course, it's not a hard ROI, but it's a way to demonstrate how the customer is paying back, of course, it's not a one to one relations, not directly, because of that, we know that sales is a, as some of touch points, right. It's a journey, it's a sales journey as well, until the moment that they sign a contract. It's because of many factors, not only one.

Alison Bukowski  27:50  
Right. And I think that that is a metric that deserves a seat at the table, influenced it, because are there exceptions, sure, but I would argue that that influence is really how most of us make decisions, you know, it's really one source that, yep, that absolutely made the difference. So I encourage everyone to, however you're tracking metrics, don't sell yourself short, right? Make sure there's a way to check that box to know that that story is being used, that replay of the webinar on the website, right? Look at all of that and include it in the metrics. So, yeah, that's a good call out.

Host  28:39  
Cool. Now, so far, think that's pretty much easy to do these things with customers from retail, right? Some industries, but not always. It's easy to keep customers engaged and highly motivated and sharing if they are coming from tough and tricky industries, as you are calling it in this episode, let's start by naming some of them. So we said finance, financial services. What else you'd consider?

Alison Bukowski  29:10  
Government is a tricky one. Healthcare comes with its own red tape.

Host  29:19  
Yeah, what else? 

Alison Bukowski  29:20  
Those are the big, the big four.

Host  29:23  
Yeah.

Alison Bukowski  29:24  
Yeah, I'd be curious, of course. Well, your listeners will, they can let you know if there's another one, but I think those are the big four, because there are typically sensitivities around sharing information, or there are regulations around the way that they do business, which makes it a little more difficult to shout from the mountaintops as an advocate how you feel about a product or a service.

Host  29:52  
It's like just to give an example, how, how you know we cannot expect that someone from security, like a Cecil, right, you. We will just share all of the strategies and everything they are doing, and name all the products they are implementing, their security right step of a company, they cannot, they will not be comfortable sharing that. Let's say sometimes, right, but...

Host  30:15  
And I think that you agree with me, but even though we have these situations, it doesn't mean that we can just ignore them, right? Sometimes you don't have any, any, any option. You have to work with those guys, because maybe your company is a pure cyber security company, and you need advocates, right? Who don't need, and so how would you create confidence to get those customers open to share their experiences, and which activities you think that would be suitable to these kind of industries and roles,

Alison Bukowski  31:02  
I will first say that my, let me make sure, quick math check, nope, my entire career in customer marketing and advocacy has either been in cybersecurity or healthcare, working for those types of organizations, so I've had to have had to kind of just figure it out, right, because you can't figure out how to work with these organizations. Well, you know, you don't have a job any longer, and I think there's a couple of things that have has to be done, regardless of which industry, and then maybe we can unpack the the individual industries, but the first being you have to know it, you have to know the the industry, and I know that that sounds so simplistic to say that going back to kind of do your homework, right, do your research, but have conversations with your your sales executives that you know are in those particular if they're selling to those industries and usually that's usually the case at least for government right there's usually a dedicated because it's such a unique animal and that can be very enlightening to understand what makes these customers tick right that's first and foremost, I think, and then understanding some of the specifics about those industries, like in government, they work, they only deal with each other, so that doesn't mean that you can't engage, but they'll only, you know, deal with with each other, and I think you also have to, one other thing is set the expectations internally and set those expectations very clearly out of the gate, because just, and I'd speak from experience, I took a job and they, you know, executive leadership said, "Great, you're here, advocacy is here, we need these five top banks, and I need these, you know, government agencies, and I need a case study. That's what your first job is, a named case study. So come in and set the expectation that that is not always how this is going to work. It does not mean that we can't have meaningful and engaging relationships, and we can't leverage these customers, but you, you need to play ball on their field, and that's just the way of working with them. So, I think those are a couple of things that you can do across the board.

Host  33:33  
Totally, and a few things that I'm just thinking out loud here, and from best experiences I've seen sometimes customers that would say I will never write a story or shoot a video, but I would speak on your events and I said, okay, you know, voila, that's one of the ways that is, you know, you can share the voice of the customer, right? Do sometimes a webinar, there will be also a case, you just share, and as you said, internally, of course, if it's government, it's internally with all the prospects in the same area, let's say federal government, they would feel comfortable, so we have to explore those things, right, that's one of the, not the things that you said that I'm hearing, and the other things that since you were talking about customer stories and there's this odd thing, odd situations, in my opinion, odd of how to say white label customer story, you know, that kind of kind of story that we'll tell, it will be anonymous, no names or company will be mentioned, there's another thing that I don't call it customer evidence, because there's no customer, there's no evidence of a customer, it's anonymous, so it's a marketing promise, right, but if you use that wisely, meaning that you can release that kind of white label story, but then. Go to your sales teams and say, hey, use that to leverage right sales, and tell your prospects if you are interested in knowing who is the customer behind this story. I could maybe arrange a one on one call, right? As you said, maybe they would be comfortable with one on one calls. It's not shouting from the top of a mountain, as you said.

Alison Bukowski  35:19  
Exactly. And that, and usually it comes down to logos, right, Pablo. I mean, a lot of it comes down to nope, we're not going to put, you know, and sometimes the names, okay, but the logo is not okay. There's, there's all kinds of different things, but what you're describing, called, you know, like the white label stories, that's that's a perfect way of leveraging that content or for example, and I think that goes back to him, just refer.. I didn't intend to refer to the menu this many times, but when you have a menu of activities, you can slide these industries kind of under which ones are going to work, so I'll just let me run, let me run through them, and I think that'll spark some. So, for government, they.. it's not that they won't, but they keep it. They keep it very like in their world. So, feds talk to other federal agencies. States like to talk to other states. It's just kind of how it goes. Now, I have had luck with municipal governments. They don't have quite the same red tape, and I have done public facing, you know, customer stories with more local level government, but for the federal and the state level, what you described is a great way of doing it. They will often speak at their own events again, they keep it in the family, but the nice thing about government is that it's a domino effect, so they tend to buy the same way, they tend to advocate the same way, and what I mean by that is that they're always nervous to be the first one, but then once somebody buys something, and then, oh, proof of concept, okay, great, and I've seen that as well. In it was with Centers for Medicare Services, was one of the government customers that I worked with. And then all the agencies within that, when one of them goes, then they're all cool with it. So, if you can, what I'm trying to say is, if you push in one door, chances are you're going to be able to knock on several others, and the non-print is the other big one. Panels, I've had tons of luck with doing panels, like have a webinar, and they'll, because then they're together, right? That domino effect, but you're actually just applying it to a singular event, so that for me those are some of the things in government. I don't know if you have some other tips.

Host  37:49  
Yeah, that's just maybe I can share another one that could be valuable in some cases. Some cases, depending on the country, of course, we're talking about global customers, right? Not only United States federal government in United States, but it could be different countries, and sometimes they are afraid to do that, even though it's not illegal, it's not against regulations to do that, and what we, I did in other companies in that I worked for, I had the I had a slide in an option to talk to legal, let's say, when I had this conversation, I had someone in the legal department that we prepared, like a kind of speech, five minutes moments on the beginning of, you know, the mu, on on the conversations during the recruitment of a customer, we tried to come, you know, to get a customer aboard the program, and we would use that just to explain that that's not that's not a problem, you know. In a legal guy saying there's no regulation because of this, this, and that. So someone with experience to say that, and that will just open the doors, you know, like have a green field, so the customer will just comfortably go ahead and do it, that happened as well, that maybe that's...

Alison Bukowski  39:05  
That's a really good, that's a good call out as well, and yeah, people take that, take that idea, that's a good one, because sometimes they don't, they don't know, and to provide that level of comfort, I think, and so if I pivot to healthcare, I think that one is maybe a little easier than like cyber and financial, I'm kind of keeping to the end because I think those are the trickiest, but there's still a lot of red tape, right, with with healthcare that comes with it, I think what you just described would be really useful to kind of educate on what is okay, what what's not okay, as far as participating, and one thing that I found worked very well was playing to the to humanizing it, obviously that's big in our world. Right, as as an advocacy professional, relationships and things like that, but it also works well for for healthcare, because I think that they struggle sometimes with humanizing the stories, because maybe they're they're they're data and analytic analytics, right, big thing in healthcare, you know, they're helping with coding and services like that, but if you can find a way to help them tell their story and have them look amazing, they really tend to just grab onto that with both hands, and I've had three instances where healthcare customers immediately told me, nope, not going to do it, can't do it. Rethought it came back to them and said, but what if I just want to focus on, you know, maybe how you're using our tool, but we do this, and so then you're not so much talking, you know, you're making it about them, right? That's the angle and the suggestion I have for that particular industry, because it's worked for me in the past. I don't know if you've worked with healthcare before and had other experiences. Pablo,

Host  41:09  
I think that healthcare is maybe the easiest of the list we have. Government, I think at least my experience was tougher, cyber security, as you said, financial, but healthcare, I had similar similar situation that I said that I use legal, but I agree with you, it's all about hearing, listening to the customer, making sure that you can present that menu that we've been mentioning few times, and even start a conversation, picking those easy kind of activities, right, that you feel like they will feel more comfortable, and once you get them to listen to the options they have, and how to participate, and of course you need a good structure of gives and gets, right? If you don't have a clear value for them, it's, I mean, things that they will get out of that, right? Do you ask them, "Hey, please do these activities, and that's important. Otherwise, that would be not advocacy. If you just give gifts, it's maybe a loyalty, but not necessarily advocacy, right? Program. So, here's what I'm going to ask from you. From time to time, we like to hear, you know, how often you would be comfortable doing those things, but here's everything you get as well when you have these gives and gets really strong and clear for them, meaning the first questions that we're having on the beginning, the first part of the conversation, which is good friends in the company, now the people from webinars, people from that have budget for gifts, right? People that we will have will own, maybe it's not you, maybe it's you, maybe it's not. They will own the cap, the customer advisory board. So you are shopping, getting part of that to make your structure right, your menu of advocacy activities, and what we call recognition activities. So we have this complete menu, and if, in my opinion, in my experience, when I was able to show that clearly, even in these tough industries, like the healthcare, I was able to pass through that, because it's usually not a big problem of regulation, right? It has a lot of this fear as well. Am I really allowed to do that? We have time to do that, then it comes that.

Alison Bukowski  43:29  
Yes, and that's a big one. Do I have the time? And they will shut down before you're even able to to get there. So, and that goes back to also what I was saying about how well two things, doing your homework and knowing your customers and knowing the industry, and I'll come back to that in a second, and then also the mutually beneficial but extra beneficial to the customers. I actually refuse to make an ask of customers when they come into the program for three months. I want to use that time to show them how engaging and beneficial the program can be, and you're building the relationship right, because you're much more likely to to say yes when the relationship is strong, and I think back to what I said about knowing these industries, so take cyber security and take financial, right, those are those are tough ones, you. I think it's okay to be very upfront and let them know that you get it. I actually lead most of those conversations with, hey, I understand you. There are things you cannot do, and that is not up to you. Those are just the way that the world works, so I'm not even going to go there. I'd rather talk about the things we can do together. Don't waste your breath sitting down with one of the huge financial organizations and ask them for a named case study on your, because you probably will never get it, and if you are going to get it. Going to, it's going to be a while, right, but instead, you know, focus on the things that they can participate in, and appeal to, let's use security CSOs or CTOs, right, that are that might participate in your, your program. Now, that group, they love exchanging information together, but they don't want to be, you know, on video. They don't want to necessarily be named, because they just.. they can't. It's an actual, like, security risk for them to share some of that. But I have had success saying, "Let's just.. I just want to get you guys together, so you can talk. And we had these coffee chat topical conversations, and I would record, but I then take the transcript, and my product team is over the moon, because they're getting all of this information. I can share it, you know, with them, and then also some of the snippets, and you can pull out themes that are very useful, right, for marketing purposes, so that that's one way they do that. They love collaborating.

Host  46:08  
Yeah, yeah, I think that's there's so many things that you can get that is not, it's non-invasive, let's say, like quotes, right? Not, not every quote will be just a security, let's say problem, right, from the cyber security industrial vertical, and the other thing, just to mention one last thing on my side as well, that I, that worked was these small events, as you're saying, with a MO, like memorandum of understanding, you know, in place with everyone signing that, you know, like a privacy kind of agreement, right, that nothing will go out of that meeting, and that also worked, and since usually when you are connecting those prospects and advocates, those are peers, right, the same industry, and they usually feel comfortable, you know, to talk to another CISO, signing the correct agreements, and just share that, and that works, but as you said, you need to have the opportunity to, to, to say, articulate the value proposition of your program, right? Tell them something that we interest them, right, and the other thing that I heard you saying with different words, but that's I really love that is that you need to give them time, right? It's not that from the first time, first relationship, first call, you have the customer gonna say, 'Hey, are you going to do all this for me? No, no, calm down, let's go progressively, right? Give them something, ask them something, then you give them something, and you go like that, keeping the balance on the green side, right? The the balance of the benefits and the the of yeah, and then you can get this relationship going deeper and deeper slowly, and you get going to get probably everything you need,

Alison Bukowski  48:03  
Exactly. It's the analogy of meaning again. You're not proposing marriage on the third day, typically. Yeah, and you can't do that with, you know, with your advocates either. And, and all, and I know we've said it before, but where they're going to shine, security CSOs, they're amazing on a cab, because they just, they're, they're analytical, they give great, you know, feedback, and strategic and innovative advice that wait in, you know, in gold as well, whereas financial, just a quick, I've had the opposite. They don't like being in a room, in my experience, with a whole bunch of other financial institutions, but if they're the only one, and then they're with some other industries, some great conversation happens. So, again, it's it's knowing, knowing those audiences, and being able to put them in the right place at the right time with the right engagement opportunities, and I recommend, like, kind of have a cheat sheet, map it out. There's nothing wrong with, with doing it that way. I did it early on, so that I didn't, oops, I didn't make a mistake and approach one of them in a way that would, would kind of shut down the conversation.

Host  49:21  
And I think that somehow we are talking about the last two questions, and with this conversation already, which is how to keep them highly motivated and engaged, right. We've been talking about a number of things, and also for the last question, maybe you can talk about this a little bit, just to complement what we've been talking already, which is how to prepare, right? As you said, you write down, so you make sure that you are offering the right set of, you know, you probably what I do, at least my side, I always, of course, try to see the LinkedIn profile, see what they are, how they are motivated, talk to the account executives. What do you do? You, Alison, in those situations, what are the tips you have for people preparing to have this conversation with those tough and tricky customers from tough and tricky industries? Better say,

Alison Bukowski  50:12  
Yeah, the account owners, I think that always should be your first, you know, whether it's an account executive, a CSM, depending on your structure, and have the questions you know ready, you know, have your list of like digging in and figuring out not only the customer background as a customer, but what they know about the personality, that that's a big one too. If you can know going in where you might step on a landmine, that's incredibly, you know, useful LinkedIn. I mean, use the tools that you have available, just as you said. That's a great way to take a look and see, are they - do they speak regularly? I mean, is that something they're interested in? Are they, or do they not really engage on social? Okay, that tells you a lot about what you know what a customer might be interested in. I think that transparency during your conversations with the customers that we've, we've talked about letting them know, showing your knowledge that you understand their world and where they're coming from, and you're not looking to ask for something that you know won't work. Focus on what will work, maybe you'll get an opportunity down the line to to focus on something else, and I find that that that resonates right with with customers, and then closing the loop, making sure you go back to your internal stakeholders, kind of taking us back to the very beginning of our conversation, Pablo, where crossing the bridges, right, the interdepartmental, you're going to break down barriers, or any, maybe I don't know if I want to share my customer, should I really let them let advocacy in? If you close the loop and share, because your conversations are going to be totally different than a CSM conversation with a customer, so keep that loop, that communication loop going, capturing and documenting to customer preferences. If you don't have somewhere to keep track of that, figure it out, so that the next time you talk to them, you remember exactly what they told you the first time, so that you can keep the conversation moving.

Host  52:24  
Totally, and they would also say something that don't ask questions that you know already, the answer you should know, right? Let's say I've seen some programs that they would even ask the customer, what are the products that they're using, what product do you have? You should, you should be right. I mean, how much you're using? What are the features they are, you know, they activated, they are using actively. Those are questions that you should ask your CSM, your account manager, right? To get reports, the limit product telemetry reports and product usage reports in your organization should give you this information, and unless, of course, you don't have all of that, because I've seen also companies that they don't have at all this kind of telemetry, and they don't have CSMs, they usually don't have CSMs for all segments of customers, right? Let's say SMB customers would not get a CSM, just the higher segments, and sometimes you have to do those things, and but let's try to avoid if it's avoidable, right? And I think that's it. We covered a bunch of things. I think it was very interesting conversation about the tough and trick industries. It's possible, so I hope that this is this will help our colleagues, and to just go ahead with those industries, be creative. Don't forget that we have many ways, many ways to different operational models of customer marketing program or customer advocacy program. If the only thing you do is sit behind a desk waiting for tickets, let's say from your sales team, say, "Hey, I need this customer, then it's going to be very hard to proactively go, you know, and and have this conversation with customers, and and offer them opportunities to speak like proactively, so one of the things that I would maybe this is for the next step, so that listen, we can talk about different operational models of customer advocacy. How you can be reactive, waiting for a ticket, or proactively looking for opportunities of your best advocates, right? So they keep them engaged, even if you don't have someone asking in the first place, let's say, but this is for another episode. Do you have anything else in the end, like tips for people starting out or people in this industry, besides what we've talked so far?

Alison Bukowski  54:55  
We've, we've unpacked, we've unpacked a lot, so. But I will toss it out there that I love connecting with this community. I know you do too, Pablo. So, it's always an open invitation. If something we talked about, like, oh, I would love to dig more into that, into financial services or something like that. I'm always happy to, you know, find me on LinkedIn and connect and chat more, but I think that you know, kind of the do your homework customer first, you know, all of those sorts of things are the most important to set you up for success. But yes, I agree, we could, we could do six more episodes with some of the stuff that we started talking about today, but I appreciate you allowing me to share and hang out with you for a while.

Host  55:46  
And Alison, the very last question is a fun question. You don't need to explain if you don't want to, but the question is basically this: if you had the opportunity to write to put any text on a shirt or mug about customer marketing and advocacy, what would be that text, that phrase?

Alison Bukowski  56:07  
Only one? Let's see, you know, I will, the one that I think, because we always talk about metrics, right, and reporting is I would love to see something that is relationships equal revenue, because I think sometimes we overlook how important, because it's soft, you know how important that skill is in what all of us do, and I would have dollar signs for the S's, by the way, if we're starting to talk about the design element of the shirt, but just to hammer home that that part matters, because I, I do it on LinkedIn, but I always say that, like the hashtag, I want it, the people before professionals, so are our customers, but we also need to prove that we do impact the bottom line, so that's what I would want, relationships equal revenue.

Host  57:04  
Love it, and I think that's the only way our profession, our area will just grow and grow, is if more people like us will be able to showcase that internally, right? And keep getting investments, and the whole industry just grow. How can people, how can our audience find you, Alison? What's the best place to contact you, send you a message, follow up with something you said here?

Alison Bukowski  57:28  
LinkedIn is probably the easiest, you know, simple search. I'm not under any code names or anything like that, just Alison Bukowski, or it's alison.bukowski@peerspot.com. You can certainly send an email, but and I truly, I mean it. I mean, having been in this community, it has supported me. It's a, you know, I want to support this community, so keep the conversations going. That's the best part.

Host  57:56  
And can you tell how a little bit about your show? You have a podcast as well, right? You post somewhere...

Alison Bukowski  58:04  
Thank you for allowing me to shamelessly, yes, plug that. So, the Customer X-Files is the name of my podcast, and it's kind of a... it's a two-part approach to the podcast, so like you, Pablo, right? I'm having just conversations about topics that come up that I think are interesting, or guests that want to talk about something interesting, and we have the sentence very much like this. It's a conversation, and then afterwards, about 10 days after the episode releases, we do an open Q and A, a live Q and A forum called Pure Perspectives, so it's a way for listeners to absorb information, but then also come to the conversation and have live networking take place, because I'm such a big believer in the connections. Yeah, thank you.

Host  58:55  
Thank you very much. And see you next time, Alison. 

Alison Bukowski  58:58  
Sounds good. Take care.

Host  59:00  
This episode was brought to you by Wings for You, helping global B2B tech brands unleash the power of their customers' voice. Wings for You customer stories and advocacy programs help you deepen customer relationships, increase retention, and close more deals faster.