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Galen Ettlin:
Welcome to the Rebel Instinct Podcast everybody. I am your host, Galen Ettlin with Act-On Software, and our guest today is Esther Flammer, CMO for Wrike, which is a work management platform. Esther is an award-winning marketer with 20 years of experience spanning B2B tech and nonprofits alike. And I know it’s not everything Esther, but I got to welcome and applaud the fellow summa cum laudes in the building. Thank you so much for being here.
Esther Flammer:
Thank you. Happy to be here and happy to be on the podcast.
Galen Ettlin:
Yes. I have so much I want to talk to you about, so I’m just going to jump right into it. I want to start with where you are right now. I know Wrike is pretty big. It’s a really cool platform. Act-On is actually a client. We use it for our project management. Tell me a little bit about your journey to heading up the marketing efforts there. Probably an exciting rollercoaster the last couple of years.
Esther Flammer:
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been in marketing for about 20 years. Most of my experience has been in high growth SaaS companies. I love to build foundations and revenue generating programs that can scale basically. And so the last few companies really built out kind of a lot of the, I would say the infrastructure, the frameworks, the campaigns, the programs, building revenue, generating engines and customer lifecycle programs that allowed for high growth within those companies and eventually acquisitions. And then when I joined Wrike, you’re right, it has been quite a roller coaster. I joined shortly after the acquisition by Citrix, so Wrike became part of the Citrix family, and then last year Citrix actually was acquired and was taken private and we spun off essentially and became a separate entity at the end of last year. So it’s been quite the rollercoaster, but we’ve been really focused on driving, again, high growth, taking market share within a really competitive industry. So it’s been a fun but wild ride.
Galen Ettlin:
So yeah, like you said, lots of transition and a lot of companies, especially in tech are experiencing those transitions because of the economy, job changes, the acquisitions as you have gone through, as someone in leadership working through and navigating some of that right now, what is one of your big takeaways for success when trying to get that high growth?
Esther Flammer:
Yeah, good question. It’s not really been new. I know it’s kind of a crazy market right now, but especially at high growth companies, change is inevitable and there’s acquisitions and there’s mergers and there’s spinoffs and there’s just constant pivots on business strategy. So I guess a couple of my secrets that have allowed for me to navigate a lot of change and just varying environments, for me it’s about very quickly establishing a reputation and building value within your organization. And so for me, I have built out my career by focusing on looking at building solutions for major gaps in the organization. What are those core problems that are holding the business back that are not allowing the business to move forward that maybe have never been built? And then how do you tie all of your work to those business drivers and then at the same time grow in the breadth and depth of your experience and skillset? It allows for you to be able to prove value to the organization to make an impact and to honestly have a level of marketability and job security because you’ve shown a lot of, you’ve proven a lot of that value, but also you’re able to adapt in very quickly changing environments. And so that’s how I’ve really built out a lot of my career and that would be, I guess a top tip on how to navigate this specific crazy market that we’re in.
Galen Ettlin:
Connecting to that a little bit, company tech stacks are also pretty tall these days. A lot of competition out there on the market for any various service, and I know marketing budgets are often slashed in tough times like these. How do you and your teams work to stand out to both win new business and maintain existing customer loyalty so that you stay on the roster through this?
Esther Flammer:
Yeah, this is top of mind. I would say tech consolidation for sure is top of mind for literally every business leader out there who’s trying to potentially look at how do we save some budget and put it elsewhere, which then makes it top of mind for every marketer in tech. In a down market, you typically tend to see companies that shift their focus from new customer acquisition, which is really, really costly, sometimes hard to scale, and obviously that cost of acquisition continues to go up and they start to shift more towards our customer base, which is how do you get better net retention? How do you retain and expand the customers that you already have that are happy that are adopting and that could potentially buy more? And that’s absolutely a trend that we’re seeing in the industry. I would say that a couple of things that as I think through kind of customer loyalty, as I think through how to balance new business acquisition with customer expansion, there’s a couple of things that we’ve been doing at Wrike.
So number one, we focus a lot on positioning and differentiation. So that messaging strategy, which is as a work management platform, we’re actually very well positioned when budgets are slashed because when you have less budget and resources, you want to maximize every single dollar. You want to maximize every single person on your team. And so focused alignment and execution is absolutely critical to be able to do more with less. And so we’re focusing a lot on really driving home the value of not only our platform for new customers, but also existing customers and really focusing on how is our platform helping deliver business outcomes, helping your business stay stable in an unstable environment or continue to grow even in a down market. And then that differentiation piece and a really competitive market is important because we’re the only platform that can help you scale and align those teams.
When ROI is key, so that’s one thing is really that messaging, the positioning, the differentiation. A second key piece for us is just being smarter about company or customer acquisition. And so when you think about who you have limited dollars, limited resources, you have to be very selective about who are you trying to target and what are the types of customers and prospects that are most important for the business. And so for us, it’s not necessarily about volume, even though that’s that’s important, but for us, we actually can do a level of predictive expected lifetime value of these are the types of customers, these are the types of companies, the types of buyers where we know not only will they buy, but they will potentially expand. And so that’s where we target a lot of our advertising dollars and a lot of our new business acquisitions, just being smarter with the acquisition dollars that you have.
Then the third is really around, again, the customer loyalty piece. I would say the companies that have always invested in really great customer experience and customer lifecycle obviously have a leg up in a downmarket when everyone started starting to turn their attention over to their existing base, but really thinking again strategically about where are they in the customer lifecycle, how do we get them to see value as quickly as possible within the platform? How do we get them adopting, integrating, and really loving the product? And then how do you start to build out really, really explicit paths for them on here’s kind of your upgrade path, here’s your upsell path, here’s your cross-sell path of here’s kind of the next best thing that you should be doing to actually get more value out of the product that you have. And so those are just some of the things that we’re doing to make sure that we can continue to grow even when times are hard and budgets are being slashed.
Galen Ettlin:
You’ve been talking about how marketers are really trying to prove and demonstrate value right now. How do you feel marketers can strategically steer organizations toward revenue based on those industry insights?
Esther Flammer:
Yeah, absolutely. I think one reason why I love being in marketing is because to me, marketing is at the center of business strategy. Companies cannot thrive and survive and grow unless they understand the market that they’re in, understand how do they shape the market, where should they be going after, what are the markets that they can dominate that they can be differentiated in? And then how do you actually then go and deliver on a go-to-market strategy? So I think marketing is huge and should be part of pretty much every discussion in every functional group and every core, I would say overall strategy for the business, whether it’s what does product development look like, where should we be innovating next? What’s the next market we should be going after? Is there a new market that we should maybe be disrupting or maybe there’s a level of product innovation that we could start to build out that would disrupt our current market.
There’s obviously the go-to-market with sales, which is how do we better deliver the right buyers? How do we go after the right buyers and what’s the right approach? The messaging strategy, the channel mix, sales enablement and what we should put in the sales toolkit, it should all be aligned. Customer strategy is another one where, again, marketing should be at the core of a lot of what’s happening within those customer cohorts. Where are they in their customer lifecycle? What’s the next best product or next thing that they should be doing? How do we showcase value? There’s hr, how do we continue to market ourselves as an employee brand to capture the best talent out there? So there’s so many aspects. I think that marketing can help drive strategically of an organization, and it’s, again, it’s what I love about being marketing, that it’s not just like, here’s the leads, here’s the brand, but it’s actually everything that really moves the business forward.
Galen Ettlin:
And what you’re saying, I’m hearing a lot of sales driven, results driven marketing campaigns, and I think that brings us to a good question of how sales and marketing get along and can really collaborate to bring those deals across the finish line. And I know in a lot of companies that’s the age old give and take. It’s hard to get sales and marketing often on the same page and delivering that same message and getting the results that ultimately you both need and want to achieve to prove that value in your job. What is your approach to cross-functionality and how those two separate teams can better do that business together?
Esther Flammer:
Yeah, I think it starts with being aligned to the same targets and goals. You have to incentivize people in the same way. And sales is a department that is very used to incentives. I mean, pretty much most of their comp is based off of quota, and if marketing is not aligned to the same targets, that’s where the misalignment starts. If marketing is like, well, we just care about leads, we’re always in green, we’ve delivered the leads, we’re good, we’re getting paid, our jobs are safe, we’re celebrating, and meanwhile sales targets are not being hit or overall company bookings are not being hit. That’s a huge misalignment. So I think a lot of it honestly starts with making sure that you have the same goals as a company. Actually marketing being tied to bookings, essentially bookings and revenue, but also pipeline. I care way more about pipeline of what’s actually happening from the leads that we’re generating.
Are we actually creating predictable pipeline and making sure that that can close into revenue? Those are a lot of the conversations I have both with marketing and with sales and just aligning goals. We’ll get sales very much aligned to what marketing is doing. I think the other piece that we always talk about is kind of taking it back to ROI and being able to, again, showcase that we’re driving bookings and driving pipeline from the campaigns that we’re doing. And then you get better alignment with sales of if you want us to invest more in these field events, if you want us to invest more in a b m or in the advertising that’s driving a lot of these leads that you love and that is essentially filling your book of business, then you need to work with us and here’s the ask. So those are just some of the things that I think are really critical to sales and marketing alignment.
Galen Ettlin:
Taking a step back and looking at your success personally, you’ve accomplished a lot heading up marketing for a multi-billion dollar tech company. That’s no small feat, and I think a lot of people are really trying to figure out how can I align myself to reach that peak, that level, not a peak. I’m sure you’re going to do even more, but for those marketers out there listening, they want to know the secret sauce. What was maybe a defining moment in your journey toward these marketing leadership positions?
Esther Flammer:
Yeah, it’s a good question and it was absolutely a journey. It’s been a journey and I’m still on that journey because I’m still growing and learning. But I think as I think through back at my journey, and I mentioned this a little bit earlier, where finding your sweet spot, finding specifically some of those core competencies and those unique skills that you bring to the table and that is your unique perspective and the solutions that you drive from them, and then actually the output of delivering on results, the more that you can hone that and own it and build that brand, not just for yourself of this is my sweet spot and this is where I really thrive, is building these foundations and really connecting the dots to larger business strategy, but then starting to build, I would say a reputation or your own brand within your organization with your team of being that person that can go in and fill in a gap and be able to build solutions that can drive business growth.
Those are things that really make you valuable and it also gives you that ability to be able to add on more experience and that breadth of experience that is really critical as you continue to drive forward in your career. So for example, we didn’t have customer marketing at one of my early companies and it was a gap that the company just hadn’t really thought through it. And so me thinking through what is the customer lifecycle? How can we build out a longer standing kind of the longevity program that can essentially onboard everyone but get to, again, showcasing value, showcasing tips and tricks to get better adoption, but also showing those customers where they can start to drive the value from that product and potentially uplevel themselves or uplevel themselves in their career and starting to build out those types of programs. It allowed for me to expand my skillset and it allowed for me to think more in a customer’s shoes of what would they care about and how do I help them in their careers or in their day-to-day responsibility.
And then being able to apply that, whether that’s partner marketing and thinking through from a partner standpoint of how do we engage our partners or grow or acquire more partners or grow and acquire more business through our partners, or whether that’s demand gen of I’m trying to get in front of new prospects or whether that’s product marketing, just really thinking through some of that approach to how do I drive value for them? What would they care about and how do I start to bring a message of what we can do for them and help them better understand the product better, understand how they can do better in their roles. So those are things that I think are really critical that have been critical for me in terms of expanding my breadth and depth of just general marketing that I’ve also utilized as I’ve gone up in my career as well.
Galen Ettlin:
This may be along those lines, but we always like to ask this question of people on the Rebel Instinct podcast. What would you say is one of the most out of the box projects that you worked on or something that you are really proud of and how did it perform?
Esther Flammer:
I mean, again, that’s one reason why I think we’re in marketing is because the art and the science of it, and I guess some of the innovations and fun campaign ideas that have happened over the years, there’s plenty, but at one of my last companies, we supported basically our target audience was essentially Salesforce users. And so one of our biggest events of the whole year was around Dreamforce, and it was actually in 2020 when everything went virtual, and instead of doing our multimillion dollar headquarters outside of Moscone and doing a silent disco that we were very well-known for, because we had done it for the three or four years that I’d been there, it was the party of the year, we actually did the virtual element of it, and we did a virtual 5K as part of our Dreamforce road to Dreamforce and driving a lot of the buzz around our event alongside Dreamforce, and that was just super fun.
I feel like the pandemic and having to switch everything to virtual made everyone actually a little bit more creative and really, I feel like it was kind of a shining moment for marketers on what can we do when we don’t have an in-person experience? And it was actually super cool. We went from driving a big party in person to doing actually a 5K event that people could do wherever they were. They could go on a walk outside and still be essentially six feet apart from other people, but we made it super fun where people could win awards and they could kind of cheer each other on During that. We had dance parties in between, and so it was very out of the box where I feel like a B2B tech marketer
Galen Ettlin:
Way to flex those creative muscles when you really needed to in a way that was safe as well. So that’s really fun. Well, for you, Esther, how are you a rebel in your non-work life?
Esther Flammer:
I feel like people, when they hear what we do with our family, people are like, I feel like people probably think it’s pretty rebellious, but we’ve been traveling with our kids internationally since they were babies. So when my first son was one, we did a one month trip to Asia, so we spent a month in Asia, in Korea, Japan, with a stop in Hawaii and took him on that 14 hour flight, which was pretty crazy. But we really love traveling and we love to take our kids. When our kids were, gosh, I’m thinking I think four, two and four, no, sorry, four and six, we rented a camper van and went all around New Zealand. We love to explore the world with our kids even when they’re two young to travel according to probably most standards, but they’ve grown up going to really, really cool places and having really fun experiences. So I guess that’s a way that I rebel.
Galen Ettlin:
That’s great. And it’s what a cool opportunity for them too, to grow up feeling like that’s normal. I get to see the world and learn about everything outside my bubble.
Esther Flammer:
Yeah.
Galen Ettlin:
Well, speaking of other places, other cultures, our culture, whatever you want, what rebel do you feel needs to be celebrated and why?
Esther Flammer:
Where we are as a world and a society today is there is more of a push for work-life balance for people where people want to, I think especially with remote work, hybrid work, being able to work from everywhere, there’s absolutely a push for work is not everything I say a lot of times to my team, we’re not saving lives here. It’s important. And you had mentioned a give and take earlier with sales and marketing. I think everything is a give and take. I think work-life balances is a give and take, and I think the relationship with your company is very much a give and a take where again, I’ve built out a lot of value for my company and I give a lot to my company and I’m an asset, and a lot of our people are our employees. They’re assets to the company and they give a lot.
And so I think that it’s fair to take some as well, but again, it needs to be a balance. You can’t be all about taking of like, I’m just going to work whenever I want and not really sign in and not be available or let my team down. You can’t just take, because then you probably won’t have a job anymore. But if you are really producing and you are a business critical person and you’re really showcasing the value, and again, driving and tying to business outcomes, I think it’s fair for you to set boundaries around. I’m going to take PTO and I’m going to try and be off the grid here, right? So I’m going to set things up. I’m not going to leave my team hanging. I’m going to deliver on everything that I need to before I go, but I am, I’m going to go unplug. So I do love that rebellious, and it’s sad that that’s rebellious.
Galen Ettlin:
I hear ya.
Esther Flammer:
But I think, again, when there’s that give and take, I think that that can absolutely work for both the company and for the employee.
Galen Ettlin:
We, I think could all take a leaf from your ‘put more stamps on the passport’ advice.
Esther Flammer:
Take your kids. Take your kids.
Galen Ettlin:
There you go. Yeah, don’t hold back. Just do it.
Esther Flammer:
Yes.
Galen Ettlin:
It’s time for a fun segment we like to call ‘Honey, I don’t think so.’ I’m going to give you 60 seconds for you to tell me something that’s annoying you lately that needs to stop in the marketing or MarTech space. So whenever you’re ready, let me know.
Esther Flammer:
And I was thinking about this. I get way too many emails and I can never find the unsubscribe button, or I feel like it doesn’t work half the time, or I never know if I’m unsubscribed, but I just think email is a channel. There needs to be a strategy and it needs to be utilized in a really thoughtful and intentional way. I think especially now, it’s hugely overused, especially because budgets are tight and it’s a free channel, but the pressure is on. People are starting to try and I think prioritize activity over strategy, and email is just one of those where it’s too much. And I get that you have goals to hit, but if you’re not being thoughtful and intentional and really showcasing the value of why am I reaching out? What does this look like? It’s just going to be a one-sided conversation. You’re going to get unsubscribed. You’re not going to engage with your audience. So that’s my thing. That’s annoying me. I think I get too many and I just ignore email now. So that’s I think my soapbox.
Galen Ettlin:
Amen. I’m there with you, and we’re a marketing automation company that specializes in email, but it really comes down to deliverability and making sure it’s something that’s worth someone’s time and what they actually need or want. Right? Otherwise, it’s just clutter.
Esther Flammer:
Agreed.
Galen Ettlin:
We’re there with you.
Esther Flammer:
More to delete.
Galen Ettlin:
Exactly. Well, Esther, thank you so much for joining us here today on the Rebel Instinct Podcast. It has been a joy. Where can people find you?
Esther Flammer:
So they can find me on LinkedIn. That’s probably the best. And our company is wrike.com.
Galen Ettlin:
Excellent. Well, thanks again.
Esther Flammer:
Yeah, thanks, Galen.
Galen Ettlin:
Thanks everyone for listening to the Rebel Instinct Podcast. Be sure to follow Act-On Software for updates and upcoming episodes, and remember to always act on your rebel instinct. Until next time.
Check out the next episode of the Rebel Instinct Podcast, featuring Tejas Manohar, co-founder and co-CEO of Hightouch.