Trisha Navidzade00:02 — Yeah, so I think you have to flip the script a little bit when it with sales and marketing. Usually with sales and marketing, sales says, hey, I need more brand awareness. Like, how are you? You're doing X, Y, Z. But you got to flip the script and ask your sales folks, hey, are you actually talking to the customers that matter? And are we giving them the solutions to their problems?
Benjamin Ard00:51 — Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Trisha. Trisha, welcome to the show.
Trisha Navidzade00:57 — Hi, Ben. Thanks for having me.
Benjamin Ard00:58 — Yeah, Trisha, I'm excited. This is going to be a ton of fun. I feel like this is relevant more now than ever. I think especially as marketing teams are constantly trying to prove their value, all sorts of things are going on. So I'm excited for this. I think marketers are getting a lot of value out of this. But before we dive into that, Trisha, tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, work history. Let the audience get to know who you are.
Trisha Navidzade01:21 — Yeah, hello, hello audience. So, you know, my elevator pitch as a marketer, I started my career in the surf industry, various brand and sales roles. It was a super fun time, really understood how to sell directly to the consumer. And I transitioned into the aerospace industry about 17 years ago. Sold space tickets, tried to sell trips to the moon, and worked in the satellite industry on the B2B, business to business, and then business to government. And so today, I've made a transition recently into the drone industry, which is just one of the hottest places to be. I'm the vice president of marketing for design technologies. And we are the cost disruptive leading autonomous defense contractor that makes drones, larger drones and counter drones, all designed to protect, defend and save lives. And I've really been having a blast working with the team on doing that. So yeah.
Benjamin Ard02:26 — I love it. And everything with what you're doing right now at the business that design technology sounds so cool. I'm so jealous. It's such an interesting industry. A ton of fun. So Tricia for today's episode, what we talked about an email back and forth about you have the coolest title for this ever. And I was so excited for this. Why your KPIs aren't relationship material. I love this. This is so good. This is talking about the metrics that matter, all that kind of fun stuff. And you also have another term, man, I'm stealing everything from your email to me, but KPI fluff. And I think that that's such a cool term that goes right there with AI slop, KPI fluff, it's all good stuff. So what do you think the biggest offenders are on the marketing side when it comes to tracking that may or may not actually generate revenue or things that matter to the business?
Trisha Navidzade03:17 — Yeah, I think the title of the show, Your KPIs Aren't Relationship Material and Why, I think really the big picture here is, why are you chasing the customer? Why isn't the customer chasing you? And by chasing the customer, I mean, are you too focused on your KPIs for trade shows or your KPIs on views and likes on your videos and content that you put out there and should you be more focused on the bottom line which is what is the revenue goal for the company for the year and how do we work backwards to get that. And so I think a lot of us in marketing get the feedback from business development, from sales of like, hey, you guys need to work to bring more brand awareness to the products and to the services that we offer. The sales folks are always going to say that, but brand awareness doesn't always translate into sales. And so that's really the gist of what I want to talk to you about today.
Benjamin Ard04:15 — I love it. That's cool. So we also focus on content as well and everything with marketing. And you also have this element in here that activity doesn't always equal demand, content doesn't always equal demand, but we need to focus on the revenue. So how do you tell the difference between activity or content and actual impact? Like how are you distinguishing those? What are you tracking? What does that look like?
Trisha Navidzade04:39 — Okay, so at the end of the day, all that really matters is qualified leads. How many are you getting is sufficient? Do you have a machine that's generating good qualified leads on the daily? Are customers coming to you? And the second part of that is when the customer is coming to you, are your sales and BD folks closing on those customers and closing on that transaction? So I think those are predominantly a difference between results driven and activity. Whereas like if you were activity driven, you'd be presenting a PowerPoint to your leadership or your CEO on, how many views we got, how many folks stopped by our booth, like trying to show numbers game what you were able to attract to yourself. But at the end of the day, who is asking you to marry them? That's really what the bottom line I think is.
Benjamin Ard05:36 — And I love that. And I love the analogy there. So as you're looking at these metrics, and obviously there's a ton of them, these vanity metrics, it sounds like your KPIs are revenue driven. And I want to dive into that in a second, but are there leading indicators, leading metrics that you do like to look at that kind of give you good signs that things may happen later on in the journey that it's revenue based? Or are you 100% focused on the revenue generating metrics and how much that you're able to produce?
Trisha Navidzade06:03 — Yeah, so a lot of companies even design our sales cycles are really long. It could be a year, it could be two to three years. And sometimes, you wonder, you know, how do I set us up for success in 2027 or 2028? And so, you know, to answer your question, I would say I guess some of the leading metrics would be, are we getting leads, qualified leads today? Because some of those won't translate into sales a couple of years down the line. So still the activities in your inbox, on the daily matter for anything in the future.
Benjamin Ard06:41 — Love it. Very cool. So when you have this situation where your KPIs are very revenue driven, I sit on the marketing side, I'm creating content, I'm doing all of these things to generate leads, but my KPI is still focused on how much revenue are we producing? Are we hitting those numbers? How does the relationship between sales and marketing change? What's the impact there? What does that start to look like and how does that kind of shift in this kind of a model?
Trisha Navidzade07:06 — Yeah, so I think you have to flip the script a little bit when it with sales and marketing. Usually with sales and marketing, sales says, hey, I need more brand awareness. Like, how are you? You're doing X, Y, Z. But you got to flip the script and ask your sales folks, hey, are you actually talking to the customers that matter? And are we giving them the solutions to their problems? And are you having any issues closing? Like, what are your blockers on closing. And sometimes they'll come back and say, hey, we can't close on these customers because they don't think our product is available in the market or has these capabilities or whatever. OK, well, let's launch a press campaign or an advertising digital campaign to address that. So I think instead of going to sales with, hey, here's all the views, here's the KPIs on the Trade Show, we're doing great, it's sort of just like asking them, going like, Are you closing? What are some of the blocks you're having to closing and accessing that customer? Do we even know where the customer is? So I think you gotta turn the tables just like in a relationship.
Benjamin Ard08:13 — What I love is, and you're talking about longer sales cycles, and so it almost sounds like you flipped the script where you say, when we create content, it's based off of needs today that will actually drive revenue because I know they can be applied to specific accounts, specific opportunities. Is that how you're finding content opportunities right now? Is that how you know what press releases, what content you're creating to build the trust that will actually close these specific deals.
Trisha Navidzade08:39 — You know, the press relationship and the opportunity to be in the press is my number one source to get qualified leads coming in. Now, selling to the press isn't always easy. Selling your story, your value proposition to the press is easy. You're gonna have to figure out how to bundle your news so that it's relevant to what's going on today, what's coming down the pipeline, so that your product or solution has a value for that need that's either now or in the future. So I hope that answers your question.
Benjamin Ard09:12 — Yeah, I love that. So with the press, I'd love to learn a little bit more about your process. I'd love to learn a little bit about like how does that turn into lead generation? What are you doing there? What's that playbook? Like if you don't mind sharing some stuff.
Trisha Navidzade09:27 — So with the press, you want to definitely have a press strategy, a PR strategy that addresses your milestones met, your successes, maybe your big customer transactions that you're able to announce. But you also have to read the room. The press, doesn't matter what kind of relationship you have with them, they still have to get something to their viewership that it's of value. And so is what you're telling in your press release of value to the end user for those publications. And I think it's just as simple as that. I think sometimes in marketing, we try to take on too much. Guilty of that myself. And I think it's just like, sometimes you just gotta get rid of the fluff and go, okay, what are we trying to sell this year? How many units are we trying to sell? How do we work backwards from that? Maybe you need to sell 100,000 units. And you kind of have to dissect, I think backwards from that. Now the press is kind of a little bit in the unknown territory. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. Well, you have to keep going out there and putting out your news, your successes, your milestones, you just have to keep bringing awareness to the fact that your company is making things happen. And you can't pretend, you can't pretend, right? It has to be authentic to some degree. So if there's nothing happening at your company and you have nothing to talk about and the press could not care less, you have to take a different strategy. Maybe you need to go to the digital ad space and really do a super targeted approach to getting a hold of your customers.
Benjamin Ard11:03 — I love it. That's amazing. And I think that's an area where a lot of us have turned away from and where we could lean into for not only content marketing, but the revenue generation, things like that. Trisha, we're almost out of time and this has been awesome. I love the whole theme of this episode, driving revenue, focusing on what matters. For anyone listening and saying, okay, I get it. I need to focus more on revenue. I need to change my KPIs around. I need to do that. Any tips and tricks or ideas for a strategy that people can start implementing today? Things that they can start doing that they would push them in the right directions and help them do the right things. Even maybe just like questions they should ask themselves to understand if they really are aligned with those, those correct KPIs.
Trisha Navidzade11:46 — Yeah, so my tip and trick is go sit by yourself for a weekend, meditate, and ask yourself, how do I get the customer to come to me instead of me chasing the customer? And what kind of information do I need to put out there? Where and how targeted can I get to that for the customer to come to me? Is there pain points in the marketplace that I have a solution for? You know, what is the block that my BD team is having in closing deals? Sit with yourself, ask those questions, and figure out a way to get customers to come to you just like you would hopefully in a relationship, right? Where you're not chasing all the time. And I think it's just as simple as that, hopefully.
Benjamin Ard12:26 — I love it. That's amazing. Trisha, that is a great way for us to end this episode. This has been amazing for anyone who has listened today that is so interested in would like to reach out and connect with you online. How and where can they find you?
Trisha Navidzade12:39 — Yeah, I'm only on LinkedIn. So hope to connect with all of you out there, out there.
Benjamin Ard12:44 — Love it. For anyone listening today, scroll down, regardless of what platform you're on, look at the show notes and there'll be a link directly to Trisha's LinkedIn profile. Go ahead and click on that, connect with Trisha right there. Say you came from the podcast, that'd be amazing. Trisha, this has been great. Thank you so much for the time and insights. Really love the conversation. Thank you for everything.
Trisha Navidzade13:03 — Thanks so much, Ben. Have a good one.
