Interview with Tom Boston, Salesloft

Yes, so my name is Tom Boston. I'm the brand awareness manager at Salesloft. So right now, a huge trend, and it's something that I've been working on myself for a few years, I think is humor in video content, right? Where we're seeing it more than ever on LinkedIn, the influence of things like TikTok, YouTube shorts, where this short form video is doing really, really well. B2B has started to kind of pick up on that a little bit. And we're seeing especially at Salesloft, huge engagement and interaction from these shorter forms of of video content. It's a trend that I see right across the market and something that really excites me because maybe 5 or 6 years ago when I started in the B2B world, if you were going to see a video on a B2B company, it's probably going to be about five, six minutes long. There might be some bar charts in there or some graphs, but I feel luckily we've now moved away from that. And yeah, brands are trying to make entertaining content, right? Content that people love to consume. And as we've learned from an event like this, you know, we are all on that human level. The conversations happening behind me are probably not going to be about data points. They're probably going to be about the exciting conversations that they've heard happen, all the things that excited them about the talks that we've already had, you know? So yeah, things that spark that excitement, they're the things that you remember. And we see that with video content all the time. So it's a really interesting one, right? Because I started in sales and video was a daily thing for me, but that was direct to prospects. So I was making video just for my prospects to try to kind of make them smile and hopefully book a meeting. But with my role that I'm in, at the moment, I managed to take that and also use it in other aspects of the business. So I now sit within the marketing team, but I feel very lucky that I get to pair with lots of different members of the team. Right? So even the C-level team have been involved in my recent video series, which I really, really loved, right? Getting them to be involved, enjoying the humor and kind of bringing the Salesloft story to life. So we very much see it as everyone should be involved in it, right? As a company, we understand that, especially on social, which you know I love, video is going to win. So as an organization, yeah I feel like everyone gets it, which I think it's just great. Well that's the big question, isn't it? And it's a question I get asked a lot. How do you know if this works? So we look at things like vanity metrics, as they call them, right? The metrics that are like, oh, this went viral, or this got tens of thousands of views, but especially in the SaaS world and the B2B world, people like to know, they want some hard figures. Well, how many deals did this influence, Tom, or how much revenue can we attribute to that video, Tom? The truth is, unfortunately, we can't, right? And one of the factors of me stepping into the role I'm in at the moment and one of the reasons it was so easy to do so, was that everyone I spoke to in the business had mentioned that, their deals, I'd kind of come up in their deals. So maybe they've seen some of my content, or their team had received some of my content or they love the kind of stuff I was doing. So it became a very easy conversation to have, almost a no brainer that I would kind of lean in to that. And I'll tell you this story. I've had two conversations with people at this event and they've both said to me, I send your content to my team all the time. Now I can't track that. I can't measure that unless they like or engage, you know? And that's what we call dark social, right? This inability to see how far and wide our content is traveling. But as I've just said, it is happening. People are seeing the content. So you can't rely too much on those vanity metrics. But I think if you just put as much effort into your content as possible, make it resonate, add the value that will hit home with an audience and it will travel far and wide, especially on LinkedIn. It's that kind of penny drop moment, right? So when I was an active seller, it used to happen to me all the time. I'd reached out to someone and they kind of go, Oh yeah, I think I've seen some of your content or like, Oh yeah, maybe I got sent that once upon a time, but now I get that from our SDR team, right? So they're able to have conversations with their prospects, who may be enjoyed content that I've created or we as a marketing team have created, and they're able to leverage that to book a meeting and to have a better conversation. Which is what it's all about, right? Video is ever expanding and ever changing, right? Having created video for lead generation purposes and now creating video for brand awareness purposes. I think I really want to lean in to that kind of brand awareness piece, right? I mean, it's in my job. It's in my job title, so it makes sense for me to kind of really focus in on that. But ultimately, I want to encourage others, not only on my team, but on other teams to replicate that, right? So to empower them to go, look, you can be the voice of your sector, even though you might think, well, I could never do that, right? Even though you might think, well, I'm just in sales, because I was just in sales a few years ago, right? But actually, if you're consistent with the content that you're creating, you're passionate about it, you have fun with it because again, my rule is if I have fun doing it, they'll have fun consuming it. You can become a real powerhouse in your organization. So yeah, of course I want to continue doing the brand awareness piece at Salesloft, but ultimately I want to inspire others to do the same, to have a voice and to ultimately have fun with it. Because let's not forget video, social media. It's all fun at the end of the day, right? A lot of us are on social to have fun and have a good time and we can get so caught up right with like, Oh, is this perfect or is this right? But actually it's more important that you're enjoying the process of creation. You're in it for the long haul, right? If I didn't enjoy doing video, it'd be a long, old career because I'd be thinking, Oh, here we go again. But I love it. I absolutely love it. And I think that comes across hopefully. I think when I was creating videos for lead gen, I would only have one purpose, and the single purpose of video that would go straight to a prospect was to make them smile. I didn't really care about telling them about the product or how I could help them, and I knew they'd get a phone call from me probably the next day because that was a step in my cadence so I could have that conversation. So the only thing I wanted to get out of that 32nd video was, Can I make them smile, Will they relate to me or will they think, Oh, I think he's quite an interesting person. That was it. Right? And that was quite a liberating thing. I didn't have to go through the features. I didn't have to try to book a meeting. I just had to create a connection. Now with the brand awareness piece, I can't just do that, right? I can't just make videos to make people smile. I do have to bring in the value and I need to come across as knowing about the products, giving a feature update, maybe a series of webinars that were creating anything like that, right? So that has very much been a big change, but I've also enjoyed that change, right? And I love it when my team come to me and they'll say, Tom, we've got this coming out in three months. How could you bring video? And to promote it and to celebrate it? I absolutely love that. So yeah, a little bit different, but I certainly enjoy it a lot more now. Yeah, well, I mean, it's how we tell stories, right? It's how we bring those stories to life. So there's a lot going on with Salesloft this year. I won't give too much away, but we have some big announcements in 2023 that are really going to change the world of sales forever. And I do say that quite boldly. And AI has been a huge topic at this event. And that really excites me because we have a few tricks up our sleeve, let's just say, with how sellers can utilize AI in 2023 and video is going to be a huge part of us telling that story. So I have some projects coming up to help bring that to life. I've had a lot of fun on social already, kind of poking fun at the world of AI. I'll still continue to do that, right, because at Salesloft, we understand that to connect with customers and connect with potential customers, it's all about being relatable and creating content that they will get and understand. So yeah, with our platform changes this year, video is going to be huge in regards to helping us tell that story. Yeah, I mean I think a lot of organizations will find this, right? Their team, especially the sales team, very happy to send a video to a prospect and they'll film themselves for maybe 30-60 seconds and be confident and bright and happy. But if you ask that same sales person to put that video on the Internet. Oh, I could never. There's no way, right? My face doesn't look right. My hair doesn't look right. The background doesn't look right. I think it's really important to break through all of those challenges. Okay. As a bald bloke with a ginger beard, I kind of just used what I'd got, right. This is the face that I have. I'm going to put it out there. And I think confidence is a huge thing. A lot of people that I work with, it's not even about the content. It's not about the message. They know the message. They have that conversation with people every single day. It's hitting that record button. It's playing it back and going, Oh, I can't even listen to myself, never mind, watch myself, and there's no way I'm going to post that. So yeah, I think that like the shift needs to be confidence. Confidence in your in your message. If you're actively reaching out to people every day with a message in their inbox, leaving them voicemails, leaving them voice notes, why not bring that message to life on social and video is a really quick and easy way to do that. But yeah, you just have to shake off that confidence and go for it, you know?