The Customer Engagement Lab: Recent Episodes
PandaDoc, Travis Tyler
Sales & marketing teams need a place to let their hair down for a good ol’ fashioned silly goose time. Laugh, learn, and (possibly) cry alongside Travis from PandaDoc as they navigate through the latest trends in customer engagement. Listen to the one business podcast that won’t put you to sleep with boring corporate jargon. Unless, of course, you have uncontrollable narcolepsy. Then good luck with that!
Today, we’re joined by Dr. James Janack. James is a communication professor at Eckerd College specializing in rhetoric and oral communications.
Have you ever listened to your voice on a meeting recording and immediately cringed? Us too. In this episode, Travis and James discuss all things vocal delivery, from the rate of speech to volume to tonality. They even listen in on a few product demos and cold calls to analyze what works and what doesn’t during this critical touchpoint.
You’ll learn about:
- What most people get wrong with the vocal image and how to fix
- How to give your audience a more active role
- Lessons learned from ancient Greek rhetorical theory
In this episode, Travis chats with Andrew Pearson, the co-founder of LiveNotary (now PandaDoc Notary), about his sales journey and what it takes to survive and thrive post-acquisition. Andrew shares his story about LiveNotary and what's made him successful as a seller pre and post-acquisition.
In this episode, you'll learn about the following:
- Major milestones to hit before getting acquired by another startup
- The framework for post-acquisition success as an "acquired" seller
- Why a 'land and expand' approach is the long-term play for this scenario
Attracting new business with your marketing or sales efforts is all about getting noticed.
And pattern interrupts are the best way to do that.
In this episode, Travis chats with Nick Cegelski, the host of 30 Minutes to President’s Club – the most popular sales podcast in the world.
Nick and Travis review pattern interrupts used in sales calls, emails, and content. If you’re looking for some new pattern interrupts to test out, tune in and take notes!
In this episode, you’ll learn about:
- The history of pattern interrupts
- Pattern interrupts you can try out for calls, emails, and content
- The framework for crafting new pattern interrupts
Today, we’re joined by Cassie Tucker. Cassie is the Founder of CAMM Media and co-host of the Marketing Happy Hour Podcast.
Ever wonder why the ONLY people interacting with your company on social media are the people that work there? Or maybe you’ve poured your heart and soul into a thoughtful LinkedIn post that completely flopped, and you just can’t figure out why.
We always blame the algorithm for poor engagement and stalled audience growth. But if we’re being honest, it might just be your content.
In this episode, Cassie and Travis discuss how you can use authentic content to break through the noise and build an audience of loyal fans.
By the end of this episode, you’ll learn about:
- How to use humor to engage your audience
- Why overly curated content flops and authenticity wins every time
- Finding the sweet spot between relatable and controversial content
Creating local buzz for your brand can be challenging if you don’t know where to start. We’ve got you covered.
In this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab, we chat with Zach Moore, Founder of Coastal Creative, to learn some of the creative marketing tactics his team leveraged to get people talking about their digital media agency at the height of the pandemic.
The Coastal Creative team used networking and events to draw positive attention and interest to their brand, and you can do the same. By the end of this episode, you’ll learn:
- How to come up with ideas to generate hype around your products/services
- Fast and simple ways to start networking in your local community
- The importance of balancing profit with community reinvestment
Kevin Kermes built a thriving online community in less than a year.
Seriously! He went from 0 to 300,000 subscribers in less than a year.
Developing a community is paramount to business success, but it’s no easy task.
Kevin shares tips on creating an online community and building relationships at scale in this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab.
We'll cover:
- Harnessing your Zone of Genius to kickstart your community building
- What’s the XYZ method, and how to use it to define your ideal audience
- Topic Selection 101
Podcasts have been growing in popularity over the past few years, and many brands are experimenting with podcasts to connect with and grow their audience.
When done right, podcasts can have a tremendous impact on your business.
But is it a good idea for every organization to start a business podcast?
Seth Kushner, radio veteran and the (former) host of the Tampa Bay Lightning Block Party podcast, joins the show to discuss who should and shouldn’t start a podcast.
Seth and Travis will also discuss alternatives for companies that don’t have the time or resources to invest in podcasting.
In this round-table episode, we test a free trial of the popular note-taking app, Evernote.
We’ll dive into it all – first impressions, what they’re doing right, and opportunities for improvement from a design and content point of view. Plus, the group shares what “marketing made me buy.”
Cat Lim, Creative Director at Pyper Inc, Anna Gallese, Sales Readiness Program Manager at PandaDoc, and Todd Clouser, Lead Brand Marketing Manager at Refine Labs, join Travis in the studio for this marketing roundtable discussion.
In this episode, we find out how and why Shawn Herring implemented a B2B secret shopper experiment at PandaDoc.
We uncover the biggest gaps and challenges that customers experienced when trying to buy PandaDoc's software. Shawn explains how beneficial it is to carve out a marketing role that is completely dedicated to fixing the buyers journey.
Shawn tells us about how coupling prospect and customer data with his secret shopper experiment allowed marketing and product teams to come up with lots of solutions to make buying and using PandaDoc as a first-timer simpler and more useful during a free trial.
In this episode, Travis explores one of the greatest PR comebacks in recent history. Airbnb laid off 25% of its workforce and then, 15 months later, IPO'd. And their numbers are better than ever because of really thoughtful and smart leadership. This is a lesson in how to keep your business resilient during tough times.
Later, Jed shares his tips for successful outreach when a prospect experiences both good and bad PR moments. He calls them outreach "triggers" that can be used for personalized targeting when building your prospecting lists.
Lastly, Carmen and Travis discuss how Better.com leadership failed to take corrective action when their CEO fired 900+ employees on a single zoom call. Consider it the opposite of AirBnb's story. We explore the difference between resilient products that can withstand bad press and those that can't bounce back.
If you think sales is an easy job, try cold calling an angry CMO at 1:22 in the afternoon.
If you’re not too busy crying afterward, it might be time to discuss what it really takes to be in sales.
On this episode, Travis speaks with Reid Anderson, Enterprise Sales at PandaDoc, about overcoming adversity in sales and how to be more effective at cold calls, demoing, and negotiation.
In this episode:
- How to detach from the outcome and make the next dial
- Pulling the truth out of passionate responses
- Facetime cold calling: genius or worst idea ever?
It’s the end of an era.
Patrick Downs, after discovering Chick-fil-a serves breakfast, is leaving to advance his sales career (and make a little more money) elsewhere.
But his legacy will live on.
In this episode, we say our ready goodbyes and share some of our favorite stories from that legacy, including:
- The time Patrick played hardball from Bikini Bottom
- Patrick’s SaaS-y insights on love and Kevins
- The lessons he’s taught us — from demos to strip-lining to the folly of blanket sales advice
In this episode, Travis sits down with "Ya Boi Tucker" a ridiculous persona created by Senior Brand Marketing Manager, Todd Clouser, from Refine Labs.
Together, Travis and Todd explore how Todd creates video content for Refine Labs to build an audience and brand awareness for the explosive marketing agency.
Todd explains how he creates his TikToks, what goes into the overarching strategy, and how to make it a genuine channel for audience growth.
In this episode, Travis, Carmen, & Jed focus on selling and advertising to unaware buyers that have never heard of you or your solution.
- How do you make them aware?
- How should you sell to them?
- How do you get them to notice you
- To remember you?
For our middle segment, Jed Mahrle distinguishes between emailing aware vs. unaware prospects. We learn why his strategy for the unaware works so well for him and his team and how you can do it too.
Last on this episode — Travis chats with Carmen Zita, PandaDoc’s Brand Ops Manager, about Super Bowl commercials. She goes over the secret formula of successfully nailing a $6.5 million ad. Together they preview 3 Super Bowl ad teasers and predict which ones they think will do well and which ones will do poorly based on this formula.
Travis focuses on a perfectly executed publicity stunt from the now-popular dating app, Thursday. And how an intern with a $35 budget helped the company become one of the top 100 social media apps in the world.
Travis sits down with Nick Cisko, Customer Experience Lead at PandaDoc to talk about how he works to create a better buying experience for PandaDoc prospects.
They discuss how if businesses want to really see, understand, and fix areas of customer friction -- then they need a dedicated CX person with no biases.
Stick around for the end of the episode when Nick and I play a fun game to see where he stands on some of the hottest topics in CX.
Travis, Jed, and Carmen give tips and examples of how to research, sell, and advertise against the big competitors in your industry.
Travis shares competitive intelligence best practices and PandaDoc's alternative SEO campaign.
Jed covers his framework for how to respond to prospects that bring up competitors, and Carmen opens our eyes to real-world examples of when Davids beat the Goliaths with really clever and fun commercials.
Travis sits down to interview PandaDoc's (former) CMO, Nate Gilmore.
They talk about why this change happened and what it means for the future of PandaDoc's marketing efforts.
Nate details his perspective on his mistakes, lessons learned, and what he believes the short and long-term marketing plans are for his team moving forward.
Together they watch a clip of Dave Gerhardt talking about marketing guardrails and react to what they believe are PandaDoc's marketing guardrails.
Travis interviews the CEO & Founder of DRINK KATY'S, a hand-crafted coffee + tea company.
Their company motto is "Love is brewing," and Katy is a dynamite entrepreneur who shares the ins and outs of starting her business.
She went from a $5k loan to 2 Million in sales in a year and a half.
She's the queen of caffeine and teaches us how to overcome challenges faced by E-commerce SMBs.
Travis interviews Veronica Swiatek, the CEO & Founder of Massage Studio.
Veronica gives Travis details on how she opened her first hospitality business location during a recession.
She discusses the strategies and tactics she used to keep cash flowing during tough times to come out on top.
Veronica now has two brick-and-mortar locations that are thriving, along with 10 new stores at Tampa International Airport.
Travis chats with Eckerd College Environmental Studies Professor, Joanna Huxster, about how she makes skeptics into believers.
Talking about environmental protection and climate change is tricky, and tone is everything.
Learn to fix your storytelling abilities, so you inspire hope (rather than fear).
Getting a haircut can be awkward because getting touched and pruned by a stranger while forcing small talk is annoying.
But when you meet Nicholas Bellaro -- you'll get why his barbershop is growing so quickly that he can't seem to scale fast enough.
In this episode, you'll learn how to turn strangers into lifelong customers through nifty customer experiments, lessons, and tactics that Nick's accumulated while cutting hair for over a decade.
By the end of the episode, you'll have tactics to:
- Ensure a thoughtful and seamless booking process
- Improve your conversations with authenticity & empathy
- Build rapport quickly through trust, observation, and vulnerability
Travis, Jed, and Carmen are all about finding and unlocking the power of patterns.
Travis dives into how PandaDoc uses customer data to improve customer engagement, Jed covers his prospecting pattern identification process, and Carmen explores the best co-marketing tag-team patterns.
Travis interviews his former CEO, William Volmuth of PowerChord, Inc.
They recount Travis' last day when he quit his job and what that was like with a fun TikTok reenactment.
Bill gives Travis tips and advice for businesses looking to improve their in-store traffic with hyper-local digital marketing.
They dive into the importance and prioritization of Google My Business verification, SEO audits, and PPC.
For most marketers, planning in-person events is not fun.
Unless you're Jacob Browne, Dean of Admission at Eckerd College, he lives and breathes marketing events.
From campus tours, college fairs on the road, or open houses -- Jake knows all the tricks for crafting memorable in-person events that convert. In this episode, you'll hear both
Jake's mistakes and lessons for meeting face-to-face to make a lasting impression that helps close a deal.
By the end of the episode, you'll have tactics to:
- Creatively ensure more RSVPs for your next in-person event
- Effectively plan your next event with unforgettable fun & learning
- Thoughtfully intertwine various audience interests inside one event
In this special edition of The Customer Engagement Lab, our host, Travis, assembles a panel of marketing professionals for our first-ever Lessons From the Lab.
Cat Lim, Creative Director at Pyper Inc, and Jan Aclan, Marketing Operations Manager at Multiverse.io, join Travis in the studio to discuss recent purchase decisions.
For this Lessons from the Lab, we’re going to look at the popular meditation app, Headspace. We’ll dive into it all – first impressions, what they’re doing right and opportunities for improvement from the perspective of three marketing professionals.
In this month’s Lessons from the Lab, we try the popular language learning app, Duolingo.
We’ll dive into first impressions, brand affinity, microtransactions, and the growing popularity of Kawaii illustrations in tech apps.
Cat Lim, Creative Director at Pyper Inc, Jan Aclan, Marketing Operations Manager at Multiverse.io, and Todd Clouser, Lead Brand Marketing Manager at Refine Labs, join Travis in the studio for this marketing roundtable discussion.
Reid Anderson, Enterprise Sales at PandaDoc, is back, and this time he’s giving us an inside look at how to successfully sell and work with legal teams. In this episode, we’ll discuss:
mistakes companies make when trying to persuade lawyers to ditch their legacy tools for new technology
why it’s vital to understand the different types of legal teams to solve their specific pain points
the importance of being upfront and HONEST about your products and services
Travis and Reid will also commemorate the 22nd Anniversary of the ESIGN Act by debunking the top eSign myths and answering questions about signing documents electronically.
Are capitalism and creativity in total opposition to each other? Can organizations deliver beautiful, high-quality experiences while rapidly growing?
It’s the age-old battle of quality vs. quantity.
In this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab, Travis Tyler and Carmen Zita Alayeto-Moore look at both sides of the debate and try to determine how businesses can balance quality and quantity to become more sustainable in the market.
Amelia Taylor is (a former) account executive at Carabiner Group with over 10+ years of sales experience.
In this episode, Amelia sits down with Travis Tyler to talk about how she remains optimistic, innovative, and creative in cold outreach and follow-up. The seasoned sales vet will evaluate creative outreach approaches like cameo videos and quirky gift-giving and listen in on a few cold calls.
By the end of this episode, you’ll learn:
- How to book more meetings and standout with creative follow-ups
- Best ways to shrug off rejections from cold calls
- The benefits of joining the right sales community
Successful nonprofits do something that most tech startups and entrepreneurs try to do but rarely succeed.
They tap into genuine human emotion.
In this episode, Travis chats with Rachel Barrett, Director of Marketing at Shorecrest Preparatory School, about how she connects the emotional dots of her audience through storytelling, authenticity, and mission-driven messaging.
Rachel shares her tips and a few examples of how to connect with audiences on a deeper, more meaningful level.
Between record-high inflation, supply chain issues, and rapid market changes, to say money is top of mind for consumers and business owners would be an understatement.
So, what can businesses do to address their customer’s concerns about pricing without compromising their bottom line?
Small business expert Gene Marks joins the show to discuss shrinkflation and other tactics you can use to combat high inflation and protect your profit margin.
In this episode, we cover:
- How shrinkflation works for subscription business models?
- Lessons small and mid-sized businesses can learn from bigger brands during economic uncertainty.
- Best practices for reevaluating your business costs and profit margins before increasing prices for existing customers.
In this episode, Travis is joined in the studio by his former co-host Patrick Downs, Mid-Market Account Executive at Kallidus, and Ryanne Koch (Doumet), Sr. Manager of Customer Success at PandaDoc, for a "healthy" conversation around sales and customer success alignment.
We dive into:
- How to break silos between sales and customer success teams
- Why you shouldn’t make sales teams responsible for churn
- Best practices for improving the customer handover process
We have the first true software engineer, developer, and software architect on the show today.
And no, we’re not going to talk about tips for API products, but we will discuss changing tool providers, a distrust of advertorial websites, and the importance of quality materials in your swag.
In this episode, Travis speaks with friend and former colleague, John Adams, Principal Engineer at Fanatics, about awareness and expectations for post-purchase.
In this episode:
- Discussing awareness and product awareness w/ Twitter
- Important steps to take post purchase
- Distrusting advertorial websites
In this episode, Travis speaks with Jack Shonkwiler, (former) Director of Brand and Digital Marketing at PandaDoc, about the limits of copy, website features that should never be used again, and tips to building a brand while also enabling demand gen.
In this episode:
Pushing the limits of copy
The worst B2B website features
Building a brand & enabling demand gen
Non-profit vs for-profit marketing
Travis catches up Sally Weiss, Sales Enablement Program Manager at PandaDoc , to find out what really goes into successful sales enablement.
In this episode:
- The true meaning of sales enablement
- The plot of Sally White and the Seven Sales Dwarves
- The need for a therapy channel on Slack
In this episode, we’re giving marketing some love. We don’t have a guest, just your loveable hosts, Travis Tyler, Digital Content Producer, and Patrick Downs, Team Lead and Outbound Account Executive, at PandaDoc.
In this episode:
- The trials and tribulations of creative pitching
- Why copywriting is so important in selling
- In the name of marketing, Patrick goes Hollywood and lands a commercial… in New York
- The moment everyone has been waiting for — our hosts face off in an epic freestyle rap battle
On this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab, we talk seriously (for once!) about addiction and mental health. Our guest is Tim Clarke, Marketing Leader at Salesforce and Co-Founder & CEO at UNCrushed.
We discuss:
- The reasons Travis first went to therapy at age 25
- The impact storytelling can make on your career and your mental health
- Why Tim got so passionate about mental health that he made it a side hustle
- Getting people to talk about mental health in the workplace
In this episode, we had such a great talk with Jason Bay, Chief Prospecting Officer at Blissful Prospecting (and fellow podcast host). As usual, we just threw him straight into posts and clips to get his take on all things prospecting.
In this episode we discuss:
- The magic multichannel sequencing hack
- Doing work on your personal life (because it’s affecting your professional life)
- Baby steps to overcome mental hurdles
- Why we should maybe stop being so nice
- Deep dive on Haley’s video prospecting
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
- Book Yourself Solid
- No More Mr. Nice Guy
Pricing needs to equate to value gained.
Throwing in something free that your customer doesn’t want?
Yeah, it makes them think they’re overpaying.
So says today’s guest, Matt Price, who joins the show to talk acquisitions and pricing.
- A very French welcome
- Important considerations in acquisitions
- Poor pricing plans and how to fix them
So a client comes to you and says they found a cheaper offer.
Now what?
Do you send them on their way with hopes for the best? Or is this the beginning of a deeper conversation around the customer’s needs, finding the missing value point, and introducing the bucket tip?
When a customer approaches you with a cheaper option, it’s typically just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to keep the sale, you have to find the root of the cause.
Stop solving ghost problems and start dealing with the corpse in the ground.
Luke Ruffing, Co-Founder of SalesCast, joins to show to discuss:
- Ghost objections and how to dig deeper
- Negotiating an insane commission structure
- Roleplaying part-time sales & part-time golf
When was the last time you celebrated your wins?
It’s easy to get so stuck on your new problems that you completely forget about how far you’ve come.
And that can contribute to productivity dysmorphia — an unhappy junction where anxiety, impostor syndrome, and burnout intersect.
In this episode, your hosts, Travis Tyler, Sr. Digital Content Producer, and Patrick Downs, fly solo to discuss:
- The lost art of stripping line
- Nickelodeon’s brilliant nostalgia marketing
- Productivity dysmorphia
If you’re timely, you’ve got the right targets and you can cut through the noise to reach the right buyer.
This then allows your outbound to succeed without you ever even needing to mention your product, service, or company.
That’s some outbound-avocado wizardry today’s guest, Kristina Finseth, Director of Growth Marketing at Interseller, shares with Patrick and Travis in today’s episode.
Along the way, the three:
- Tackle a Tiktok talker
- Pick apart a podcast product demo
- Share some secrets on social selling
Why would you ever ask your prospect what their use case is?
Does your doctor ask you to tell them what virus you have? Of course not.
Be the doctor: Find your prospects problem — and solve it.
If you don’t approach your prospects this way, it’s probably best not to tell today’s guest, Becca Holland , CEO and Founder of Flip the Script , because she’ll let you know: You’re doing it wrong.
In this episode:
- Becca receives a personalized message from the one and only Sailor Twift
- Becca breaks down our outreach copy
- We discuss the keys to personalization at scale
Contrary to popular belief, the customer is not always right.
But that doesn’t mean you don't stop treating them with empathy.
That’s something today’s guest, Megan Bowen, COO & CCO at Refine Labs, learned early in her career.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why penicillin can’t cure a TBI
- Why the customer is not always right
- Why honesty really is the best policy
In your sales proposals, do you spend pages and pages talking about how great your own company is?
Before you get to the price, do you make your customer wade through a bog of legalese so deep that it’s sure to give flashbacks to that scene with Artax in The Neverending Story?
Sales proposals are hard and if either of these sound familiar, yours probably needs rescuing.
But have no fear —if anyone can save it, it’s today’s guest, Pete Nicholls, Founder and CEO of HubDo.
He joins Patrick and Travis to discuss:
Why you should lead with value in a sales proposal
The difference between a differentiator and a discriminator
How being a Lord of the Rings nerd can land a tricky sale
How do you make sales content so good that your competition invites you onto their podcast?
Well, this week we’re hanging out with Will Aitken, Account Executive at Proposify – AKA: the enemy — because he’s been doing exactly that. And he was nice enough to join us to share what makes his sales content so compelling.
Keep your friends close and enemies closer, right?
In this episode, we cover:
- Will’s hurtful comments about us
- Effective strategies for making viral sales videos
- How to stay consistent and get results with your content
- The worst car negotiation of the 21st Century
Travis and Patrick are joined by Ian Koniak, Strategic Account Director at Salesforce, to discuss the many ways sellers overcome.
They cover:
- Internet advice on overcoming objections
- Getting to the true reason for buyer hesitancy
- The 4 D’s of time management
- The unseen obstacles many sellers face
You know what everyone loves when reading a good book? Getting to the end of a chapter and being told that the author will get in touch about the next chapter.
Yeah, you’re right. No one would buy that book.
Your buyers’ journey is like a story — and if they request a demo, that’s exactly how most companies conclude that chapter.
Your buyer would be much better served by a choose-your-own-adventure novel.
That’s how today’s guest, Kaylee Edmundson, Director of Demand Generation at Chili Piper, is approaching product demos. She joins Travis & Patrick to discuss this and other sales insights.
Also in this episode:
- Travis makes a musical mea culpa
- Patrick performs in a PandaDoc production
- Kaylee explains why measuring marketing in MQLs might be a mistake
Travis and Patrick talk with Cat Lim, Creative Director at Pyper, Inc., about sales strategies for creative agencies.
Specifically, we discuss:
- How creative agencies can stand apart in cold emails/cold calls
- What intrigues and annoys us in outreach
- How a creative agency sold PandaDoc
- What a mood board even is
- What creatives should remember when pitching designs to customers
- Patrick’s closing strategy of screaming “Sign it!”
What would you say to an account executive who is afraid to do goofy, wacky, funny, interesting, outlandish stuff?
I'd say, "Dude, watch this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab."
Travis and Patrick talk with Mark P. Jung, VP of Marketing at Dooly, about how to be funny in business.
Why be funny? Because people buy from people — even in B2B. And you might as well have fun with it.
Specifically, we discuss:
- Don't be too safe, but draw your line
- The rule of threes in comedy
- What’s Gucci and what’s not Gucci when it comes to comedy (it's not Gucci)
- Why you should end on a big moment
Before Zoom and LinkedIn, sales pros rode dinosaurs to meet with prospects face to face. Other than technology, nothing's changed since those days.
Don't believe us?
Fine. Believe Travis' dad.
On this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab, Rich Tyler gave dad-worthy advice about sales careers before exiting stage left and leaving flames in his wake while an electric guitar exploded in the background.
So that was kinda cool.
Then, Travis and Patrick talked with Nate Gilmore, chief revenue officer at PandaDoc, about why you should not follow your passion.
Specifically, we discussed:
- How to discern your purpose
- The one key ingredient to any successful relationship
- Why LinkedIn isn't working for you as a prospecting tool and how it could
- Our ideas about the afterlife and infinite consciousness (worth the price of admission right there)
If you’re trying to get ahead in sales — which would probably make sense if you’re tuning into this show — you don’t need magic beans or mad hypnosis skills…
You just need 3 simple things.
You need to be high-value. You need to be low maintenance.
And you need to demand opportunity.
Oh, and it never hurts to be confident…
Troy Barter, former Director of Sales Development at PandaDoc, knows what it takes for a rep to move up.
In this episode:
- Travis and Patrick discuss the finer points of pattern interrupts
- Performative wokeness is dissected
- Troy shares the secrets to killing it in sales
In this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab, we talk about lateral job hopping, why we do it, and how to stop. Our guest is Josh Gillespie, Sr. SaaS Executive who's currently building PandaDoc from zero to infinity.
Specifically, we discuss:
- Why do we get bored at work?
- RepVue — it's like GlassDoor for salespeople
- Why you shouldn't pick what's behind Door C
If they start out hissing, things aren't gonna end well.
It's true for pet cats, podcast hosts, personal relationships, and business relationships.
In fact, Jeremey Donovan, SVP of Revenue Strategy at SalesLoft, compares sales prospecting to picking out shelter cats:
Bad start; bad end.
On this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab, we talk about how to quit hissing at your prospects and get picked from the litter.
Specifically, we discuss:
- Secure attachment at work
- The power of community and social media managers
- How to stop missing the point of personalized outreach
- Taking the time to add value (yes, everyone else tells you this; but we tell you how to do it)
Patrick loves product marketing. (Sounds like the title of a kids' book, doesn't it?)
He thinks he knows a lot about it.
Really, he doesn't know sh*t. (We'll leave that line out of the kids' book).
But that doesn't mean that he lacks a valuable opinion.
Today, let's talk about brand affinity and product marketing — but with an expert.
On this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab, our guest is Daniel Murphy, director of marketing at Privy.
Together with Dan, we discuss:
- What buying a house taught Dan about B2B branding
- The value of taking a simple position
- Why facts and research-based content aren't driving your sales
- Who's winning in brand positioning right now… and how you can win, too
Remember when your teacher announced an "educational" game? You knew the word "educational" was school-code for "boring."
It's the same with "B2B content."
Why is B2B content always so damn safe, boring, and predictable?
If you've ever seen our show, you know we don't do predictable things. We're not safe, and we're never boring. We eat stuff that'll kill you just to get clicks.
But we still struggle with the temptation to create one more "educational" webinar and call it B2B content.
In this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab, we talk about how to create B2B content that doesn't suck. Our guest is Margot Mazur, Principal Marketing Manager, of Strategic Partnerships at HubSpot.
We discuss:
- The alternative to simple, broad, and boring
- What Patrick has learned since turning 29
- The most creative marketing outreach Margot has ever seen
- What beats creative videos when doing B2B marketing
If you don't know your PLC from your OPC, and you're about to meet with an SME, then you need an LOA.
Anyone got a corporate translation guide handy? We do. Try this:
Fast-paced work environment = you will work weekends
Relaxed atmosphere = we give you a crappy t-shirt
Huge opportunity for growth = we pay in food scraps
Get rid of your jargon. Talk to people like they're people. Send them cool stuff.
SaaS startup advisor Belal Batrawy likes it when you mail him creative things such as volleyballs or Monopoly money. And yes, that's the whole point of this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab — acronyms and genius marketing ideas.
We talk about:
- Digital outreach that's different (like, really different)
- Interviewing with acronyms
- Ways sales leaders can improve how they treat their SDRs and AEs
- Belal's advice for living your best life (drink water is one part)
If you've ever said, "When I go to a sales podcast. I want to watch someone eat sardines," then today's your lucky day!
You get to do that on this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab as Travis goes for a true Belarussian experience by consuming canned Ukrainian fish on the show.
We're not just weird guys behind podcast mics, though. We're actually talking with Sergey Barysiuk, a native of Belarus and co-founder of PandaDoc.
Sergey's an expert on product-led growth. He says it's the fuel that powers your startup when you step on the pedal.
We talk with Sergey about:
- Two components of successful product-led growth
- How PandaDoc rolled out its brand
- The difference between working in the U.S. and in eastern Europe
- What's the next iteration of the sales role
What’s the strangest interview you’ve ever been a part of?
Have you ever interviewed anybody who’s been in the middle of ordering a sandwich or taking a shower? Probably not.
Lately, we've been talking about interviewing revenue roles. There’s so much information out there about how to ask the right questions and make yourself look professional, but where do we start?
So we recruited a new hire. Jared Franklin is in his fourth month as an account executive here at PandaDoc, and we wanted to get the low down on interviewing from someone who had just gone through it.
We talk all about:
- How to research your interview
- The deciding factors that should play into a new sales role
- Why you should ALWAYS ask how many sales people are hitting quota
- Why you should believe in the product you're selling (seems obvious, we know)
In this interactive live stream, Travis and Patrick are joined by multiple panel guests as well as live-chat listeners to discuss:
- What biological and psychological factors play into sales tactics
- Revenue “would you rather?” scenarios
- Lessons learned in podcasting
Engaging your customers takes a village — or at least, several different people who used to work in an office together before the world changed.
But it’s not their titles that make them fit for the job…
It’s their skills.
That’s why Patrick and Travis were happy to sit down with Tara Horstmeyer, Communication Strategist, to learn how she has used her unique set of skills to engage customers across a wide range of titles.
In this episode:
- Patrick and Travis dissect major marketing fails
- Patrick decodes an angry email
- Tara explains her many titles and skills
- Tara shares her insights on how to better engage your customers
On this episode, Patrick and Travis catch up with Gemma Cipriani-Espineira, Vice President of Customer Success at Chili-Piper, for her thoughts on the ins and outs of all things Customer Success
In this episode, they discuss:
- Their dreaming up the ultimate “revenue road trip”
- Why every department is a revenue department
- How the B2B space can mirror the B2C in-store experience
- Why “cutting the salesperson out” might not be the worst idea
For most of you, one thing is killing your engagement:
Your emails are ugly.
But they don’t have to be.
That’s why today, Patrick and Travis catch up with Will Allred, Co-founder at Lavender, to learn how to stop sending ugly emails that prospects immediately delete.
How do you stand out from the crowd to grab a decision-maker’s attention?
Voice memos? Silly voices? Probably not. You stand out with creativity and personalization. And maybe a $50,000 Venmo request...
At least, that’ll get Adam Swartz’s attention. Adam is the Director of New Business at Multiply and he joins Travis and Patrick today to discuss the outreach and the channels that can cut through the noise to reach him.
In this episode:
- The guys discuss why “Hey” is perfectly fine in a sales email
- Patrick explains why sales statistics would be laughed at by real statisticians
- We learn more about Travis — his first memory, the last time he cried, the fact that he isn’t a true *NSYNC fan, and how he knew he wanted to be a marketer
- Adam reviews Travis’ LinkedIn Voice Memo outreach
- Adam shares the story behind an audacious job applicant’s $50k Venmo request
Travis and Patrick kick off the very first episode of The Customer Engagement Lab discussing how LinkedIn is such a cringe-fest. They share two cold emails that recently hit their inbox and what worked well to get a response.
The guys also react to KFC's bold marketing campaign from back in December (A Recipe for Seduction). They bring on PandaDoc CEO, Mikita Mikado, to bust open some myths on digital outreach to CEOs. Patrick and Travis are excited to hear that one salesperson used a plush panda to create a puppetry video to successfully break through Mikita's inbox.
Many sales leaders landed their cushy role by being the best rep.
So, it makes sense why they are often so resistant to sales frameworks…
And why their sales success never scales.
Overcoming this impediment is something today’s guest, Scott Leese, CEO & Founder at Scott Leese Consulting, realized was absolutely critical after releasing his own framework Addicted to the Process — along with the verbiage on a book’s subheadings.
He joins Travis and Patrick to discuss:
- His addiction-based sales framework
- The least-bad YouTube openers
- Stock tips for new employees trying to cash in on their organization’s success
Travis, Jed, and Carmen are all about finding and unlocking the power of patterns. Travis dives into how PandaDoc uses customer data to improve customer engagement, Jed covers his prospecting pattern identification process, and Carmen explores the best co-marketing tag-team patterns.
Travis interviews his former CEO, William Volmuth. They recount Travis' last day when he quit his job and what that was like with a fun TikTok reenactment. Bill gives Travis tips and advice for businesses looking to improve their in-store traffic with hyper-local digital marketing. They dive into the importance and prioritization of Google My Business verification, SEO audits, and PPC.
Travis chats with Eckerd College Environmental Studies Professor Joanna Huxster about how she makes skeptics into believers. Talking about environmental protection and climate change is tricky, and tone is everything. Learn to fix your storytelling abilities, so you inspire hope (rather than fear).
Travis interviews Veronica Swiatek, the CEO & Founder of Massage Studio. Veronica gives Travis details on how she opened her first hospitality business location during a recession. She discusses the strategies and tactics she used to keep cash flowing during tough times to come out on top. Veronica now has two brick-and-mortar locations that are thriving, along with 10 new stores at Tampa International Airport.
Travis interviews the CEO & Founder of DRINK KATY'S, a hand-crafted coffee + tea company. Their company motto is "Love is brewing," and Katy is a dynamite entrepreneur who shares the ins and outs of starting her business. She went from a $5k loan to 2 Million in sales in a year and a half. She's the queen of caffeine and teaches us how to overcome challenges faced by E-commerce SMBs.
Travis sits down to interview PandaDoc's CMO, Nate Gilmore. We talk about why this change happened and what it means for the future of PandaDoc's marketing efforts. Nate details his perspective on his mistakes, lessons learned, and what he believes the short and long-term marketing plans are for his team moving forward. Together they watch a clip of Dave Gerhardt talking about marketing guardrails and react to what they believe are PandaDoc's marketing guardrails.
Travis, Jed, and Carmen are giving tips and examples of how to research, sell, and advertise against the big competitors in your industry. Travis shares competitive intelligence best practices and PandaDoc's alternative SEO campaign. Jed covers his framework for how to respond to prospects that bring up competitors, and Carmen opens our eyes to real-world examples of when Davids beat the Goliaths with really clever and fun commercials.
Travis sits down with Nick Cisko, Customer Experience Lead at PandaDoc to talk about how he works to create a better buying experience for PandaDoc prospects. We discuss how if businesses want to really see, understand, and fix areas of customer friction -- then they need a dedicated CX person with no biases. Stick around for the end of the episode when Nick and I play a fun game to see where he stands on some of the hottest topics in CX.
Heya CEL Podcast friends!
Out of respect to our friends and colleagues in the Ukraine. We are taking a brief pause on posting new content for our show.
We hope you understand due to the circumstances.
You'll be hearing from us soon -- stay tuned.
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If you'd like to support a humanitarian effort please do so here: https://novaukraine.org/
In this episode, Travis, Carmen, & Jed focus on selling and advertising to unaware buyers that have never heard of you or your solution. How do you make them aware? How should you sell to them? How do you get them to notice you To remember you?
You’ll hear from Jed Mahrle, PandaDoc’s Global Manager of Outbound Sales Development as he distinguishes between emailing aware vs. unaware prospects. We learn why his strategy for the unaware works so well for him and his team and how you can do it too.
Also, on this episode — Travis chats with Carmen Zita, PandaDoc’s Brand Ops Manager about something that’s very relevant right now — Super Bowl commercials. She goes over the secret formula of successfully nailing a $6.5 million ad. Together they preview 3 Super Bowl ad teasers and predict which ones they think will do well and which ones will do poorly based on this formula.
Travis focuses on a perfectly executed publicity stunt from the now popular dating app, Thursday. And how an intern with a $35 budget helped the company become one of the top 100 social media apps in the world.
In this episode, Travis sits down with "Ya Boi Tucker" a ridiculous persona created by Senior Brand Marketing Manager, Todd Clouser, from Refine Labs.
Together Travis and Todd explore how Todd creates video content for Refine Labs to build an audience and brand awareness for the explosive marketing agency.
Todd explains how he creates his TikToks, what goes into the overarching strategy, and how to make it a genuine channel for audience growth.
In this episode, I explore the greatest PR scandal comeback story in recent history. Airbnb laid off 25% of its workforce and then, 15 months later, IPO'd. And their numbers are better than ever because of really thoughtful and smart leadership. While this is less of a scandal and more of a PR hardship, it's a lesson in how to avoid a scandal and keep your business resilient during tough times.
Later, Jed shares his tips for successful outreach when a prospect experiences both good and bad PR moments. He calls them outreach "triggers" that can be used for personalized targeting when building your prospecting lists.
Lastly, Carmen and Travis discuss how Better.com leadership failed to take corrective action when their CEO fired 900+ employees on a single zoom call. Consider it the opposite of AirBnb's story. We explore the difference between resilient products that can withstand bad press and those that can't bounce back.
In this episode, we find out how and why Shawn Herring implemented a B2B secret shopper experiment at PandaDoc.
We uncover the biggest gaps and challenges that customers experienced when trying to buy PandaDoc's software. Shawn explains how beneficial it is to carve out a marketing role that is completely dedicated to fixing the buyers journey.
Shawn tells us about how coupling prospect and customer data with his secret shopper experiment allowed marketing and product teams to come up with lots of solutions to make buying and using PandaDoc as a first-timer simpler and more useful during a free trial.
We are entering a very interesting time in regards to how brands communicate with their audience, opting for a much more casual tone.
The brand ads of today wouldn’t have stood a chance at being approved 30 years ago.
On this episode, Travis speaks withJack Shonkwiler, Director of Brand and Digital Marketing at PandaDoc, about the limits of copy, website features that should never be used again, and tips to building a brand while also enabling demand gen.
In this episode:
- Pushing the limits of copy
- The worst B2B website features
- Building a brand & enabling demand gen
- Non-profit vs for-profit marketing
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab here and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Engagement Lab in your favorite podcast player.
We have the first true software engineer, developer, and software architect on the show today.
And no, we’re not going to talk about tips for API products, but we will discuss changing tool providers, a distrust of advertorial websites, and the importance of quality materials in your swag.
On this episode, Travis speaks with friend and former colleague, John Adams, Principal Engineer at Fanatics, about awareness and expectations for post purchase.
In this episode:
- Discussing awareness and product awareness w/ Twitter
- Important steps to take post purchase
- Distrusting advertorial websites
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab here and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Engagement Lab in your favorite podcast player.
If you think sales is an easy job, try cold calling an angry CMO at 1:22 in the afternoon.
If you’re not too busy crying afterwards, it might be time to discuss what it really takes to be in sales.
On this episode, Travis speaks with Reid Anderson, Enterprise Sales at PandaDoc, about overcoming adversity in sales and how to be more effective at cold calls, demoing, and negotiation.
In this episode:
- How to detach from the outcome and make the next dial
- Pulling the truth out of passionate responses
- Facetime cold calling: genius or worst idea ever?
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab here and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Engagement Lab in your favorite podcast player.
Sales enablement is often misunderstood — which probably explains why sales reps never stop yelling at enablement teams.
So, what is sales enablement, really?
In the first episode since we bid farewell to Patrick, Travis catches up Sally Weiss , Sales Enablement Program Manager at PandaDoc , to find out what really goes into successful sales enablement.
In this episode:
- The true meaning of sales enablement
- The plot of Sally White and the Seven Sales Dwarves
- The need for a therapy channel on Slack
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab here and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Engagement Lab in your favorite podcast player.
It’s the end of an era.
Patrick Downs, after discovering Chick fil A serves breakfast. is leaving to advance his sales career (and make a little more money) elsewhere.
But his legacy will live on.
In this episode, we say our ready goodbyes and share some of our favorite stories from that legacy, including:
- The time Patrick played hardball from Bikini Bottom
- Patrick’s SaaS-y insights on love and Kevins
- The lessons he’s taught us — from demos to strip-lining to the folly of blanket sales advice
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab here and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Engagement Lab in your favorite podcast player.
Pricing needs to equate to value,
Throwing in something free that your customer doesn’t want?
Yeah, it makes them think they’re overpaying.
So says today’s guest, Matt Price, who joins the show to talk acquisitions and pricing.
- A very French welcome
- Important considerations in acquisitions
- Poor pricing plans and how to fix them
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab here and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Engagement Lab in your favorite podcast player.
Many sales leaders landed their cushy role by being the best rep.
So, it makes sense why they are often so resistant to sales frameworks…
And why their sales success never scales.
Overcoming this impediment is something today’s guest, Scott Leese , CEO & Founder at Scott Leese Consulting , realized was absolutely critical after releasing his own framework Addicted to the Process — along with the verbiage on a book’s subheadings.
He joins Travis and Patrick to discuss:
- His addiction-based sales framework
- The least-bad YouTube openers
- Stock tips for new employees trying to cash in on their organization’s success
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab here and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Engagement Lab in your favorite podcast player.
So a client comes to you and says they found a cheaper offer.
Now what?
Do you send them on their way with hopes for the best? Or is this the beginning of a deeper conversation around the customer’s needs, finding the missing value point, and introducing the bucket tip?
When a customer approaches you with a cheaper option, it’s typically just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to keep the sale, you have to find the root of the cause.
Stop solving ghost problems and start dealing with the corpse in the ground.
Luke Ruffing, Co-Founder of SalesCast , joins to show to discuss:
- Ghost objections and how to dig deeper
- Negotiating an insane commission structure
- Roleplaying part-time sales & part-time golf
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab here and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Engagement Lab in your favorite podcast player.
When was the last time you celebrated your wins?
It’s easy to get so stuck on your new problems that you completely forget about how far you’ve come.
And that can contribute to productivity dysmorphia — an unhappy junction where anxiety, impostor syndrome and burnout intersect.
In this episode, your hosts, Travis Tyler , Digital Content Producer, and Patrick Downs , Team Lead and Outbound Account Executive, at PandaDoc , fly solo to discuss:
- The lost art of stripping line
- Nickelodeon’s brilliant nostalgia marketing
- Productivity dysmorphia
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab here and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Engagement Lab in your favorite podcast player.
You know what everyone loves when reading a good book? Getting to the end of a chapter and being told that the author will get in touch about the next chapter.
Yeah, you’re right. No one would buy that book.
Your buyers’ journey is like a story — and if they request a demo, that’s exactly how most companies conclude that chapter.
Your buyer would be much better served by a choose-your-own-adventure novel.
That’s how today’s guest, Kaylee Edmundson , Director of Demand Generation at Chili Piper , is approaching product demos. She joins Travis & Patrick to discuss this and other sales insights.
Also in this episode:
- Travis makes a musical mea culpa
- Patrick performs in a PandaDoc production
- Kaylee explains why measuring marketing in MQLs might be a mistake
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab here and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Engagement Lab in your favorite podcast player.
If you’re timely, you’ve got the right targets and you can cut through the noise to reach the right buyer…
Then your outbound can succeed without you ever even needing to mention your product, service or company.
That’s some outbound-avocado wizardry today’s guest, Kristina Finseth, Director of Growth Marketing at Interseller, shares with Patrick and Travis in today’s episode.
Along the way, the three:
- Tackle a Tiktok talker
- Pick apart a podcast product demo
- Share some secrets on social selling
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab here and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Engagement Lab in your favorite podcast player.
Why would you ever ask your prospect what their use case is?
Does your doctor ask you to tell them what virus you have? Of course not.
Be the doctor: Find your prospects problem — and solve it.
If you don’t approach your prospects this way, it’s probably best not to tell today’s guest, Becca Holland , CEO and Founder of Flip the Script , because she’ll let you know: You’re doing it wrong.
In this episode:
- Becca receives a personalized message from the one and only Sailor Twift
- Becca breaks down our outreach copy
- We discuss the keys to personalization at scale
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Contrary to popular belief, the customer is not always right.
But that doesn’t mean you don't stop treating them with empathy.
That’s something today’s guest, Megan Bowen, COO & CCO at Refine Labs , learned early in her career.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why penicillin can’t cure a TBI
- Why the customer is not always right
- Why honesty really is the best policy
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
It’s common knowledge that a salesperson has to sell themselves, in addition to the product, as part of the process — people buy from people they know, like and trust, right?
But an often overlooked side of marketing is a similar job requirement — the constant creative pitching that goes into the job.
This week, we’re giving marketing some love.We don’t have a guest, just your loveable hosts, Travis Tyler , Digital Content Producer, and Patrick Downs , Team Lead and Outbound Account Executive, at PandaDoc .
In this episode:
- The trials and tribulations of creative pitching
- Why copywriting is so important in selling
- In the name of marketing, Patrick goes Hollywood and lands a commercial… in New York
- The moment everyone has been waiting for — our hosts face off in an epic freestyle rap battle
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
In your sales proposals, do you spend pages and pages talking about how great your own company is?
Before you get to the price, do you make your customer wade through a bog of legalese so deep that it’s sure to give flashbacks to that scene with Artax in The Neverending Story?
Sales proposals are hard and if either of these sounds familiar, yours probably needs rescuing.
But have no fear —if anyone can save it, it’s today’s guest, Pete Nicholls , Founder and CEO of HubDo .
He joins Patrick and Travis to discuss:
- Why you should lead with value in a sales proposal
- The difference between a differentiator and a discriminator
- How being a Lord of the Rings nerd can land a tricky sale
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
How do you make sales content so good that your competition invites you onto their podcast?
Well, this week we’re hanging out with Will Aitken, Account Executive at Proposify – AKA: the enemy — because he’s been doing exactly that. And he was nice enough to join us to share what makes his sales content so compelling.
Keep your friends close and enemies closer, right?
In this episode, we cover:
- Will’s hurtful comments about us
- Effective strategies for making viral sales videos
- How to stay consistent and get results with your content
- The worst car negotiation of the 21st Century
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
There is no magic sequence of activities that works every time, okay? There just isn’t.
What there is, is continuous personal and professional improvement, the daily baby steps we take to put ourselves in second place. (Because the other person should be in first.)
In this episode, we had such a great talk with Jason Bay, Chief Prospecting Officer at Blissful Prospecting (and fellow podcast host). As usual, we just threw him straight into posts and clips to get his take on all things prospecting.
In this episode we discuss:
- The magic multichannel sequencing hack
- Doing work on your personal life (because it’s affecting your professional life)
- Baby steps to overcome mental hurdles
- Why we should maybe stop being so nice
- Deep dive on Haley’s video prospecting
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
- Book Yourself Solid
- No More Mr. Nice Guy
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Customer Engagement Lab in your favorite podcast player.
Objections, obstacles, time-wasters and even addiction…
Selling is all about overcoming.
It’s the secret to finding success — and giving yourself a real shot at happiness.
That is, of course, assuming you don’t want to splurge on a Wave Runner…
On the latest episode, Travis and Patrick are joined by Ian Koniak, Strategic Account Director at Salesforce, to discuss the many ways sellers overcome.
They cover:
- Internet advice on overcoming objections
- Getting to the true reason for buyer hesitancy
- The 4 D’s of time management
- The unseen obstacles many sellers face
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
A mood board can be a challenging thing for a client to understand… especially when your face is splashed all over it.
For a creative designer, it’s important to get outside of your head and remember to walk your client through what could very well be a traumatic experience (if their face looks like Patrick’s, anyway).
(Just kidding, but you should see him in that hat.)
Today, Travis and Patrick talk with Cat Lim, Creative Director at Pyper, Inc., about sales strategies for creative agencies.
Specifically, we discuss:
- How creative agencies can stand apart in cold emails/cold calls
- What intrigues and annoys us in outreach
- How a creative agency sold PandaDoc
- What a mood board even is
- What creatives should remember when pitching designs to customers
- Patrick’s closing strategy of screaming “Sign it!”
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
What would you say to an account executive who is afraid to do goofy, wacky, funny, interesting, outlandish stuff?
I'd say, "Dude, watch this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab."
Travis and Patrick talk with Mark P. Jung, VP of Marketing at Dooly, about how to be funny in business.
Why be funny? Because people buy from people — even in B2B. And you might as well have fun with it.
Specifically, we discuss:
- Don't be too safe, but draw your line
- The rule of threes in comedy
- What’s Gucci and what’s not Gucci when it comes to comedy (it's not Gucci)
- Why you should end on a big moment
- ….And one more that's not fit to print (but it'll save your bacon)
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Before Zoom and LinkedIn, sales pros rode dinosaurs to meet with prospects face to face. Other than technology, nothing's changed since those days.
Don't believe us?
Fine. Believe Travis' dad.
On this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab, Rich Tyler gave dad-worthy advice about sales careers before exiting stage left and leaving flames in his wake while an electric guitar exploded in the background.
So that was kinda cool.
Then, Travis and Patrick talked with Nate Gilmore, chief revenue officer at PandaDoc, about why you should not follow your passion.
Specifically, we discussed:
- How to discern your purpose
- The one key ingredient to any successful relationship
- Why LinkedIn isn't working for you as a prospecting tool and how it could
- Our ideas about the afterlife and infinite consciousness (worth the price of admission right there)
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
If you’re trying to get ahead in sales — which would probably make sense if you’re tuning into this show — you don’t need magic beans or mad hypnosis skills…
You just need 3 simple things.
You need to be high-value. You need to be low maintenance.
And you need to demand opportunity.
Oh, and it never hurts to be confident…
So says today’s guest, Troy Barter, who, as Director of Sales Development at PandaDoc, knows what it takes for a rep to move up.
In this episode:
- Travis and Patrick discuss the finer points of pattern interrupts
- Performative wokeness is dissected
- Troy shares the secrets to killing it in sales
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Bored at work?
It's probably not your job.
It's you.
Travis used to cry in his car at lunch. It wasn't the job. It was Travis being unprepared for the job.
Bored sales pros never cry. They just switch companies. Pretty soon they've done commercial sales for 7 organizations and are trying to jump to an 8th because — get this — they're bored again.
Quit that sh*t!
It's bad for you, worse for your company, and a disaster for your personal life.
On this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab, we talk about lateral job hopping, why we do it, and how to stop. Our guest is Josh Gillespie, Sr. SaaS Executive who's currently building PandaDoc from zero to infinity.
Specifically, we discuss:
- Why we get bored at work
- RepVue — it's like GlassDoor for sales people
- Why you shouldn't pick what's behind Door C
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
If they start out hissing, things aren't gonna end well.
It's true for pet cats, podcast hosts, personal relationships, and business relationships.
In fact, Jeremey Donovan, SVP Revenue Strategy at SalesLoft, compares sales prospecting to picking out shelter cats:
Bad start; bad end.
On this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab — What other biz podcast would give you original content of this caliber? — we talk about how to quit hissing at your prospects and get picked from the litter.
Specifically, we discuss:
- Secure attachment at work
- The power of community and social media managers
- How to stop missing the point of personalized outreach
- Taking the time to add value (yes, everyone else tells you this; but we tell you how to do it)
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Patrick loves product marketing. (Sounds like the title of a kids' book, doesn't it?)
He thinks he knows a lot about it.
Really, he doesn't know sh*t. (We'll leave that line out of the kids' book).
But that doesn't mean that he lacks a valuable opinion.
Today, let's talk about brand affinity and product marketing — but with an expert.
On this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab, our guest is Daniel Murphy, director of marketing at Privy.
Together with Dan, we discuss:
- What buying a house taught Dan about B2B branding
- The value of taking a simple position
- Why facts and research-based content aren't driving your sales
- Who's winning in brand positioning right now… and how you can win, too
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Someone told us we need therapy. Imagine that!
But he was right. We do need therapy. So do you probably.
One out of every five people in American is living with a serious mental health condition.
Even if you're normal (you're not; you hang out with us), shit still happens. People die. Divorce looms. Financial trauma hits hard.
Pretty much none of us were taught how to handle the gritty side of life. Too many of us just fold under its weight.
On this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab, we talk seriously (for once!) about addiction and mental health. Our guest is Tim Clarke, Marketing Leader at Salesforce and Co-Founder & CEO at UNCrushed.
We discuss:
-The reasons Travis first went to therapy at age 25
-
The impact storytelling can make on your career and your mental health
-
Why Tim got so passionate about mental health that he made it a side hustle
-
Getting people to talk about mental health in the workplace
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
Remember when your teacher announced an "educational" game? You knew the word "educational" was school-code for "boring."
It's the same with "B2B content." Why is B2B content always so damn safe, boring, and predictable?
If you've ever seen our show, you know we don't do predictable things. We're not safe, and we're never boring. We eat stuff that'll kill you just to get clicks.
But we still struggle with the temptation to create one more "educational" webinar and call it B2B content.
On this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab, we talk about how to create B2B content that doesn't suck. Our guest is Margot Mazur, Principal Marketing Manager, Strategic Partnerships at HubSpot.
We discuss:
- The alternative to simple, broad, and boring
- What Patrick has learned since turning 29
- The most creative marketing outreach Margot has ever seen
- What beats creative videos when doing B2B marketing
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
If you don't know your PLC from your OPC, and you're about to meet with an SME, then you need an LOA.
Anyone got a corporate translation guide handy? We do. Try this:
- Fast-paced work environment = you will work weekends
- Relaxed atmosphere = we give you a crappy t-shirt
- Huge opportunity for growth = we pay in food scraps
Get rid of your jargon. Talk to people like they're people. Send them cool stuff.
SaaS startup advisor Belal Batrawy likes it when you mail him creative things such as volleyballs or Monopoly money. And yes, that's the whole point of this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab — acronyms and genius marketing ideas.
We talk about:
- Digital outreach that's different (like, really different)
- Interviewing with acronyms
- Ways sales leaders can improve how they treat their SDRs and AEs
- Belal's advice for living your best life (drink water is one part)
Subscribe to The Customer Engagement Lab and never wake up in a cold sweat worrying you missed an episode ever again.
If you've ever said, "When I go to a sales podcast. I want to watch someone eat sardines," then today's your lucky day!
You get to do that on this episode of The Customer Engagement Lab as Travis goes for a true Belarussian experience by consuming canned Ukranian fish on the show.
We're not just weird guys behind podcast mics, though. We're actually talking with Sergey Barysiuk, a native of Belarus and co-founder of PandaDoc.
Sergey's an expert on product-led growth. He says it's the fuel that powers your startup when you step on the pedal.
We talk with Sergey about:
- Two components of successful product-led growth
- How PandaDoc rolled out its brand
- The difference between working in the U.S. and in eastern Europe
- What's the next iteration of the sales role
What’s the strangest interview you’ve ever been a part of?
Have you ever interviewed anybody who’s been in the middle of ordering a sandwich or taking a shower? Probably not.
Lately we've been talking about interviewing revenue roles. There’s so much information out there about how to ask the right questions and make yourself look professional, but where do we start?
So we recruited a new hire. Jared Franklin is in his fourth month as an account executive here at PandaDoc, and we wanted to get the low down on interviewing from someone who had just gone through it. We talk all about:
- How to research your interview
- The deciding factors that should play into a new sales role
- Why you should ALWAYS ask how many sales people are hitting quota
- Why you should believe in the product you're selling (seems obvious, we know)
In this interactive live stream, Travis and Patrick are joined by multiple panel guests as well as live-chat listeners to discuss:
- What biological and psychological factors play into sales tactics
- Revenue “would you rather?” scenarios
- Lessons learned in podcasting
Engaging your customers takes a village — or at least, several different people who used to work in an office together before the world changed.
But it’s not their titles that make them fit for the job…
It’s their skills.
That’s why Patrick and Travis were happy to sit down with Tara Horstmeyer, Communication Strategist, to learn how she has used her unique set of skills to engage customers across a wide range of titles.
In this episode:
- Patrick and Travis dissect major marketing fails
- Patrick decodes an angry email
- Tara explains her many titles and skills
- Tara shares her insights on how to better engage your customers
A while back, Travis put out a LinkedIn question:
He wanted to meet people in Customer Success who were fun to talk to, had seen some crazy things, and had some cool stories to tell
And they were quickly pointed to one of the best in the game.
On this episode, Patrick and Travis catch up with Gemma Cipriani-Espineira, Vice President of Customer Success at Chili-Piper, for her thoughts on the ins and outs of all things Customer Success
In this episode, they discuss:
- Their dreaming up of the ultimate “revenue road trip”
- Why every department is a revenue department
- How the B2B space can mirror the B2C in-store experience
- Why “cutting the sales person out” might not be the worst idea
For most of you, one thing is killing your engagement:
Your emails are ugly.
But they don’t have to be.
That’s why today, Patrick and Travis catch up with Will Allred, Co-founder at Lavender, to learn how to stop sending ugly emails that prospects immediately delete.
LinkedIn is becoming as overpopulated as Facebook. So, how do you stand out from the crowd to grab a decision-maker’s attention?
Voice memos? Silly voices? Probably not.
You stand out with creativity and personalization.
And maybe a $50,000 Venmo request...
At least, that’ll get Adam Swartz’ attention. Adam is the Director of New Business at Multiply and he joins the Travis and Patrick today to discuss the outreach and the channels that can cut through the noise to reach him.
In this episode:
- The guys discuss why “Hey” is perfectly fine in a sales email
- Patrick explains why sales statistics would be laughed at by real statisticians
- We learn more about Travis — his first memory, the last time he cried, the fact that he isn’t a true *NSYNC fan, and how he knew he wanted to be a marketer
- Adam reviews Travis’ LinkedIn Voice Memo outreach
- Adam shares the story behind an audacious job applicant’s $50k Venmo request
Travis and Patrick kick off the very first episode of The Customer Engagement Lab discussing how LinkedIn is such a cringe-fest. They share two cold emails that recently hit their inbox and what worked well to get a response.
The guys also react to KFC's bold marketing campaign from back in December (A Recipe for Seduction). They bring on PandaDoc CEO, Mikita Mikado to bust open some myths on digital outreach to CEOs. Patrick and Travis are excited to hear that one salesperson used a plush panda to create a puppetry video to successfully break through Mikita's inbox.
Are you working in sales, marketing, demand gen, or customer success but you’re easily bored by business podcasts? This is the show for you.
Hang around and let down your hair! You're in for a silly-goose time.