#204: Inside the Exit Five Holiday Party | What’s Working in B2B Marketing and a Look Ahead to 2025 with the Exit Five Team

Summary

Episode #204: Inside the Exit Five Holiday Party | What’s Working in B2B Marketing and a Look Ahead to 2025 with the Exit Five Team

Release Date: December 23, 2024
Host: Dave Gerhardt, Founder of Exit Five
Guests: Exit Five Team Members (Ding, Patrick, Matt, Anna, Danielle, Ross Simmons)

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In episode #204 of "B2B Marketing with Dave Gerhardt," Dave hosts a vibrant and engaging virtual holiday party with the Exit Five team. This episode offers a comprehensive year-in-review, celebrates community achievements, includes interactive segments, and provides a sneak peek into the plans for 2025. Below is a detailed summary capturing the key discussions, insights, and conclusions from the episode.

Welcome and Introduction

The episode kicks off with a lively virtual gathering where Dave Gerhardt welcomes attendees to the Exit Five holiday party. The atmosphere is casual and festive, setting the stage for an informal yet informative session.

Notable Quote:

Dave Gerhardt [02:25]: "Everybody's rolling in. We decided to start it a little early because we got some good vibes. So come on in. Welcome to our holiday party."

Year in Review

Team Growth and Expansion

Dave reflects on the significant growth of the Exit Five team over the past year, expanding from a solo operation to a team of five members. This expansion has enabled the company to enhance its offerings and better serve the community.

Notable Quote:

Dave Gerhardt [06:04]: "We grew the team from one to five. And we spent a big amount of focus on content... it's not just my face out there, and that's made a huge difference."

Content Consistency and Achievements

Consistency in content creation has been a cornerstone of Exit Five's success. The team proudly released their 200th podcast episode, highlighting the importance of maintaining a regular publishing schedule.

Notable Quote:

Dave Gerhardt [12:15]: "A commitment to a publishing schedule... is an underrated hack in marketing."

Community Growth and Engagement

The Exit Five community saw a substantial growth of 79%, effectively doubling its size. This growth is attributed to the dedicated efforts of team members, particularly Matt, who treated the community as a product, fostering deeper engagement and participation.

Notable Quote:

Matt [15:11]: "Every new member that we're adding in is taking part in the community and being engaged."

Event Participation

The team hosted numerous events throughout the year, including over 200 attendees in Vermont and 110 in Austin. Virtual events also saw impressive participation, with a total of 12,000 registrations.

Notable Quote:

Dave Gerhardt [15:30]: "Having over 200 people come to Vermont for our first in-person event and 110 in Austin... it was a tremendous year."

Community Awards

To honor the active and valuable members of the Exit Five community, the team presented several awards recognizing outstanding contributions.

Top Community Contributors

1. Garrett, Head of Growth: Recognized for creating the most posts in the community.
2. Chelsea: Acknowledged for her active participation and recent job placement at Chili Piper.
3. Madav Bandari: Awarded Post of the Year for sharing valuable SEO insights.

Notable Quote:

Dave Gerhardt [21:19]: "Shout out to Garrett, Chelsea, and Madav for being such an awesome part of the community."

Momentum Makers

• Marin: Recognized for sparking great discussions with thought-provoking posts.
• Lindsay: Celebrated as a rising star within the community for her consistent engagement.

Notable Quote:

Dave Gerhardt [21:35]: "Marin and Lindsay have added a lot to our community this year."

Engagement Leader

• Craig Heron: Acknowledged as the most engaged community member, consistently active in posts and comments.

Notable Quote:

Dave Gerhardt [22:10]: "Craig's name is always on the leaderboard. He's super active."

Top Event Contributors

1. Kanika Sharma: Organized the community event of the year, focusing on LinkedIn profile and post teardown.
2. Ross Simmons: Recognized as Speaker of the Year at Drive for his energetic presentations.

Notable Quote:

Dave Gerhardt [23:33]: "Kanika and Ross have been pivotal in making our events successful."

Interactive Game Show: Countdown Quiz

The episode features an interactive "Countdown Quiz," hosted by Ding, adding a fun and engaging element to the session. Participants like Dave and Ross engage in lively marketing-related challenges, fostering community spirit.

Notable Moments:

• Dave Gerhardt [28:34]: Successfully names 16 B2B marketing tech companies in 30 seconds.
• Ross Simmons [37:02]: Participates humorously, showcasing his marketing knowledge.

Notable Quote:

Ding [27:00]: "It's the ultimate challenge for B2B marketers."

Looking Ahead to 2025

The team outlines their ambitious plans for the upcoming year, focusing on content expansion, community enhancements, and event planning.

Content Initiatives

• Launch of "Article": A new content product resembling a comprehensive blog with guides and playbooks.
• Exit Five Report: Scheduled for late February 2025, focusing on "The State of B2B Marketing Salaries."

Notable Quote:

Ding [46:10]: "We're finally investing in putting a lot of great content on our website... our new product called Article."

Community Enhancements

• AI Accelerator: A new program targeting B2B marketers to enhance their AI capabilities.
• CMO Club Expansion: Plans to open the CMO Club to more members, fostering tight-knit connections.
• Upgraded Matchmaking Programs: Leveraging AI to connect members with experts and facilitate meaningful conversations.

Notable Quote:

Matt [48:16]: "We're doing an AI accelerator to pack the most important things that B2B marketers need to know about AI."

Event Expansion

• Upcoming Meetups: Scheduled meetups in Boston (March), Burlington (September), and Austin (November).
• Future Plans: Potential international locations, maintaining exclusivity with limited attendees.

Notable Quote:

Dave Gerhardt [45:19]: "We're running it back in Burlington and expanding to Boston, San Francisco, and Austin."

Closing Remarks

Dave wraps up the episode by reiterating Exit Five's mission to support B2B marketers through a robust community, valuable content, and engaging events. He encourages listeners to join the Exit Five community and participate in upcoming initiatives.

Notable Quote:

Dave Gerhardt [53:16]: "Our mission at Exit Five is to help you grow your career in B2B marketing. There's no better place to do that than with us at Exit Five."

Dave emphasizes the importance of feedback and invites the community to continue sharing their ideas to help shape future content and initiatives.

Summary of Key Insights

1. Team Expansion: Growing the team has enabled more focused content creation and community management.
2. Content Consistency: Regular podcast episodes and newsletters have significantly contributed to community growth.
3. Community Engagement: Active participation and recognition of top contributors have fostered a strong, engaged community.
4. Interactive Engagements: Fun segments like the Countdown Quiz enhance community spirit and knowledge sharing.
5. Future Plans: Strategic initiatives for 2025 focus on content expansion, AI integration, and broader community interactions.

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This episode of "B2B Marketing with Dave Gerhardt" showcases the dynamic and collaborative spirit of the Exit Five team. By celebrating achievements, recognizing community members, and outlining future plans, Dave provides valuable insights into effective B2B marketing strategies and the importance of a strong, engaged community.

For more information and to join the thriving Exit Five community, visit exitfive.com.

Transcript

[Dave Gerhardt]

This episode is brought to you by RevenueHero. Our friends at RevenueHero recently did a lead response test of over a thousand B2B sales teams. And this is crazy to me still. I did a study like this seven, eight years ago when I was working at Drift. It's taking too long still to this day to follow up with leads. On average, it took one day, five hours, and 17 minutes to hear back from those companies on the website. It's 2024. Look, your buyer has probably already moved on to an alternative. A few minutes of not hearing from you, let alone 29 hours. What those companies need is automated scheduling for qualified leads. And that's where RevenueHero comes in. Their platform is the fastest way for qualified leads to schedule a meeting with your sales team. Plus, they have the most sophisticated matching algorithm, so all of your leads get booked with the right rep. Whether they're a new account or already a customer, hundreds of businesses automate their request. A demo workflow today with RevenueHero, including Freshworks, Nooks, Sendoso, Seamless AI and Customer IO. If you're in B2B marketing with an inbound sales motion, RevenueHero is a must have tool. You can check out this full lead response report, the latest version of it, which has plenty of other takeaways you should really know about so you can help your team drive more revenue with the people that are already visiting your website, the most valuable audience that you have. Go check it out. It's RevenueHero IE Exit 5. You can find the report and learn more about RevenueHero there. It's RevenueHero IO Exit 5.

You're listening to B2B Marketing with me, Dave Gerhardt.

[Ding]

Oh, we're live.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yeah, we're live. We're live. Look at that.

[Ding]

Oh, dang. That hat's so good.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Look at that head. Hey, look it. Everybody's rolling in. We decided to start it a little early because we got some good vibes. So come on in. Welcome. Welcome to our holiday party.

[Ding]

It really is a party. I love it.

[Patrick]

Are we supposed to have drinks?

[Dave Gerhardt]

What.

[Patrick]

What's on the menu?

[Ding]

I have a soda.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Can you. Can you all stop talking and let the vibes just roll right now, please? Just let the music. All right, so we got. We got. There's a couple folks in here already today. This is the. This is my dream. This is like my dream of being like a. A dj. Like, talking over music, right? Dang, this is it, man. This is the dream. So. Yeah, well, they got the trap. The trap. Christmas. This Is a very. A very trappy Christmas here.

[Ding]

I like it today. And you need to drop the playlist.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yeah. I got you.

[Patrick]

Patrick from Germany, 9:00pm thanks for joining, Patrick.

[Dave Gerhardt]

9:00Pm 9:00pm in Germany. That's common. PM. Yeah.

[Ding]

That is commitment. Thanks for being here.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Just holding her hand. We're gliding along with the song of a winter. We got a global audience right now. Everybody's here.

[Ding]

No, this looks great.

[Dave Gerhardt]

We're gonna get going in one minute.

[Matt]

Exit5.com where marketers level up. Exit5.com where members are never stuck. Connect you from A to B. Don't wait to see. Exit5.is the place to be. Exit5.com where marketers level up. Exit5.com where members are never stuck. Connect you from A to B. Don't wait to see. Exit5.com is the place to be. Exit 5 is where B2B marketing levels up. You seeking knowledge?

[Dave Gerhardt]

Well, awesome.

[Matt]

We got the most extensive to boost your metrics and numbers together. Take a step apart so your growth is steady enough and your budgets never get a secret weapon. When your B2B day begins. Engage and win. Don't make mistakes again. From AI to SEO to abm, make any marketing topic no longer alien. And if you need.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Hey, Sam's favorite guy is here. Ding.

[Patrick]

He's like, it's Ding.

[Dave Gerhardt]

All right. Hey, wake up, everybody. All right, we're gonna. We're gonna kick this off. Sam's here. It's the holiday season, and so we. We wanted to do something. Actually. I don't like when people talk about I when they're on a team, you know, but for this one, I'm gonna say I because about two weeks ago, I sent a crazy message to the Exit 5 team, and I said, I would like to do a holiday party. I would like to do a virtual holiday party. And everyone was like, oh, awesome. Great. We got more things that we need to do right now, but we're here. This is going to be informal session. I got the kids here right now, and they don't. They don't understand that this is how we pay the bills. But it's all good. Go see mom for a sec. So we want to do it. We want to do a virtual holiday party because our community. Look at Jay Schweddelson is in the chat. Shout out to you, Jay.

[Ding]

So we got, like a real VIP here.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yeah. We got the Exit 5 crew here. We got Ding and Eric here. We got Dan, we got Matt, we got Anna, we got Danielle. We got Ding and Eric, and we Wanted to just do a little informal, like, end of the year vibe virtual event because we wanted to. We wanted to give out a bunch of awards to awesome people among, you know, in our community. We want to highlight some of the awesome things that have happened this year. And then also we're going to give you a teaser about what's happening next year. Because we're a real team, we're a real company. We got everything planned for next year already. It's unbelievable. It's December 17th. We have real plans for the year. And so I'm super excited. And so the team is going to be a part of this. Ding. I just want to also shout out to Ding. Ding runs an awesome event and video production company called Event Shark. We've somehow become friends through our love of music. And then we found the overlap of B2B marketing. We did a workout together in Austin. He's been to a bunch of our events and we were like, ding, we need you to be a part of this in some way. And he's much more charismatic and fun than I am. And so Ding's got a little game for us to mix this up so it's not just us presenting and talking at you the whole time. So real quick, if you haven't already done it in the chat, just put your name in the chat. Let us know, like, who you are, where you're writing in from, and then also like, why did you come? I want to know why did you come to this? Just a quick one liner. Oh, Tass. Tas has had a big day today. You know, Tass is one of our 25 people on LinkedIn to watch. Right. Danielle, like jazz is riding high. So Chelsea. Oh, Chelsea's here too. Chelsea's in Asheville. Olivia is in Cape Town. Look at this man. Global. Vinny's in Sydney. Tass is in the house.

[Ding]

Zach's here. Zach's great.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Jess is in Buffalo. Pete's in. Nate's going too fast. Nate's in Denver. Uma's in San Jose. Vancouver, Canada. Stand up. Petra's in New York City. Stand up. Ross. My guy Ross is here. Ross, right. You know what? You know what I love about Ross? What did he do at Drive? Not only was he one of the best speakers, but he sat in the front row for two days. He wasn't on his phone. He was hanging out. He had a great sweater on and he just was a part of the crowd. And I love that. So, yeah, well, you know, they had an inside track on why we're doing this. So they're here, so. All right, I'm gonna drive. I got some stuff that I'm gonna talk to you about. Hang out. Look at this. This just looks amazing. So. Welcome to the exit 5. This is not a webinar. It's a holiday party hosted by us. The Exit 5 team with Ding usually goes by the sales rapper, but I have taken the liberty of rebranding him to his. He's the marketing rapper. Uma wants to know when the Bay Area event will be. Uma, relax. We got you. Just hang out, hang out for a little bit. Have some eggnog. All right? And if you're on this webinar right now, actually, someone's going to be showing up to your door any minute. There should be a knock at every one of your doors with a customized glass of eggnog from Exit 5. So you're. You're welcome for that.

[Ding]

I wish. I love eggnog.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Do you? It kind of weird to me. It's kind of weird.

[Ding]

One glass is great.

[Dave Gerhardt]

I don't know, maybe it's because I didn't. I didn't grow up in a Christmas household. I'm more of a menorah guy myself. But the eggnog thing never really. Never really did it for me. Dimitri's here. Dimitri makes a mean matzo ball soup. I know that for a fact. So, all right, so here's what we're gonna do. We're doing a year in review. We're gonna do community awards. We got game show with Ding. Now we're tell you about what we're gonna do in 25. 20. 25, right. And by the way, if you are watching this, I don't want anything else other than like maybe take a screenshot and Post it on LinkedIn at some point today or tomorrow just to show people that you're here. That would make my day. All right, so it was amazing year for Exit 5. We went from Dave's solo business. Many of you here, I'm sure, remember a year ago, following my obnoxious self online, talking about the joys of solopreneurship and how the only way to have a company is to have a one person company and la la, la. You know, obviously I changed my mind. We've had an amazing year. We brought in Dan, we brought in Matt, we brought in Danielle, we brought in Anna. We're going to turn the corner in January and open up another role. And I've told this team so much, but I'm going to say it again, like, I'VE had so much fun the last year. I was basically burnt out talking about marketing. I've been doing this for a long time, back when I had hair and the team has given me so much energy. It's so much fun to be working on this together. Like today we did this launch, we did 25 people to launch on LinkedIn. Just to be in Slack and working with other people. I think humans, I think we were meant to work with other people and to share in victory and defeat and give feedback and work as a unit together. And so just, just in chat real quick, I just want to shout you all out one more time. I love this team. I'm happy to be here. I'm proud to have you all and I'm having a blast. So we grew the team from one to five. That's number one. And we spent a big amount of focus on content. Our newsletter, we almost doubled the newsletter this year. We. We put out our 200th episode of the B2B Marketing Podcast with me, Dave G. And that's a lesson in marketing consistency right there. By the way. I almost gave up on that podcast twice. I stopped and started, stopped and started. And then when I committed to doing Exit five, I said, you know what? No matter what, I'm going to put out an episode every single week. Obviously we have an amazing team and our brand has grown, but the consistency of just picking that every Tuesday we're going to put out a new episode. Now it's multiple episodes a week. That is such an underrated hack in marketing is committing to a publishing schedule. And it's amazing. I mean, you all see it on the team, right? Like we have. We see new members that sign up for our community. Almost every member is like, I've been listening to the podcast for six months and I finally decided to take the plunge and join the community. The podcast is the. The tip of the spear. By the way, in three meetings this week, I used the phrase tip of the spear. And my. I said tip of the sphere each time. Like Dan. Like Dan would tip of the sphere. But it's tip of the spear. We had 12, 000 people register for our events this year. So we did drive anybody in the chat come to drive shout out. I know a couple you are in the B2B marketing. The B2B marketing Mecca, that is. Where is that coming from? We gotta have a DJ for from now on. We're not doing anything without a DJ ever again. So we, we had over 200 people come to Vermont for our first in person, event and drive. We had 110 people in Austin, and we did a bunch of virtual events where we've had 12,000 people for the year. And then, most importantly, the thing I care about the most is our community. We have grown the community 79%. Great stat. Not 80%. Not 78%. 79%. If I was in a board meeting, I would say this is double. We doubled the community this year. And the big reason why is we brought in Matt. Where's Matt? Matt, wave to your friends and family out there. So we brought in Matt. Matt has been, you know, the community was honestly an afterthought for me. I would, you know, post there, right there, and then kind of post and ghost. We hired Matt to come in, and Matt has truly treated the community like a product. He acts like a product manager. He's on calls every single week with members. He's taking notes. He's looking at what other people are doing. He's deep in feedback and data and analytics, and he's really brought an awesome level of focus to the community. And there's been no growth hack that has grown the community. It has just been about treating the community like a product. And one thing that we've learned, a hypothesis that I had last year was like, we need more content in the community. We need videos, we need AMAs. No. Do you know what people want in the community? What do they want in the community, Matt?

[Dan]

Connections.

[Dave Gerhardt]

They want connections. You all want connections. You want to meet other people who are doing the same things you're doing. You want to build your own network. And that is what we want Exit 5 to be a lot of love, rightfully so, in the chat for Matt. But, I mean, what's cool about this team this year is you can see, you know, that Danielle's doing the content. You know, Anna's put on our events and been behind the scenes in a bunch of stuff. You know, Dan is crunching the numbers somewhere in a spreadsheet and making this thing run on time. Everyone, it's not just my face out there, and that's made a huge difference. So some quick highlights. All right, so that's us. You know, us. Okay, Matt, want to hit on some of these community stats real quick? I'll let you just riff on this. I know we didn't really prep for any of this, but let's have each one of you talk over these real quick just to get. Get me on. I need to take a drink of water.

[Dan]

Yeah, for sure. So, first one, you already talked about, you know, community membership double this year. And then also our monthly active members doubled as well. It actually doubled, which is great to see. It means that as the community grew, engagement scaled with it. So that was really cool to see. So every new member that we're adding in is taking part in the community and being engaged. We had obviously a lot of great posts and content in the community, but what I'm really happy to see is how many comments we've had. You can see there's an outsized number of comments to posts. And I don't know about you guys, but a lot of communities that I've been part of, Slack communities, whatever it is, a lot of people post, but not a lot of people comment and engage in the community. So you can see for us, it's almost the opposite. So that's been really great to see. And then, last but not least, two big things. We launched the CMO Club privately about a month ago. We have almost 70 members today, and we're going to go bigger with it in 2025. So we're going to make it. We're going to invest more there, get more members, but that's been going really great. You know, if you're in the CMO Club, let us know in the chat. I think I've seen a couple people in here that are part of the CMO Club. And then we also did the Marketing Leadership Accelerator this year. So we did our first accelerator type course. I think, Dave, you did one a couple years back, but this was the first one as at Exit five with the team, which was really great. I think we got a 50 NPS score on it as of yesterday. So a lot of people really happy with the program. And this is another area we're going to invest more in in 2025. So all good stuff.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Beautiful. Tas. This is not a roast. You can't roast us.

[Ding]

Yeah, you took her off the list already.

[Patrick]

Dan, why is Tess on events? We do the same stage with us.

[Dave Gerhardt]

No, no, no. Relax, relax. Careful. What you need. So events was a big focus for us this year. We're running it back with drive. We got more to talk about on. On events. Danielle, can you just talk about the newsletter in the podcast real quick?

[Ding]

You mean my baby? The newsletter. I love the sound effects. I feel like I need you to just, like, follow me around. It's great.

[Danielle]

Yeah.

[Ding]

The newsletter it is then. Probably one of my favorite things I get to do every week. We've grown subscribers 92%. There's still time left this year. So if you are not subscribed and you should be, head on over to the page, subscribe. And we've sent about 65 this year. I've written a little less than half of them. So I took it over in June and just kind of dove right in. And I'm very grateful that Dave and the team have trusted me to do that. And we've written some bangers this year. How to write a B2B newsletter worth reading. I mean, that's kind of meta, but promise. I didn't, you know, just do my own tips. I looked at other ones. A really good one. This was from Dave Kellogg. If you don't follow him, he writes kelblog. He had this awesome podcast episode on High Performing Traits of a cmo. So we turned that into a nice little issue, Guidelines for building a Marketing Org. But the backbone of the newsletter is the podcast. And I would say that if you are looking to get into content, this is like a great way to do it because the backbone of the newsletter, like I said, is the podcast. I take those transcripts, I mine them for the little insights like a little gold miner in the California in the 1800s, and then I get them into the newsletter and bring them to you. So that's really the definition of content distribution and repurposing. So yeah, that's me. That's newsletter and podcast.

[Dave Gerhardt]

I love the newsletter. Love. Just because I hadn't said it yet, founder mode for anybody wondering. But I love the newsletter. Love. Danielle's another. Another example of like the newsletter. The newsletter taking my stuff that I wrote on LinkedIn and turning it into a newsletter because I wanted email addresses. And then another example of perfect example, like Dave does a kind of shitty V1 and then we hire someone to make it better. So brought in Danielle, treated it like a product. And obviously the numbers speak for themselves. But the meta marketing lesson is like the level of care that you put into this stuff, that is the ultimate growth hack. It's like we're always searching for the shortcut for the optimization. What was the tweak? What's the subject line? It's like how would just put more effort and care and dedication into the things that you're creating. And we've seen that across the board. Going from a solo business to a team of five.

Hey, it's Dave. Quick interruption of this podcast to tell you about my friends at Compound Growth Marketing. They're sponsors of Exit 5. They're an amazing agency and I've worked with them not once but twice. Hired Them at Privy, hired them at Drift. They are the go to growth partner to help you figure out demand generation. They've managed over 50 million in ad spend working with everyone from fast scaling mid stage startups to publicly traded companies. But what really sets them apart from the other agencies out there, they were built by someone who has actually done the job that you're trying to do. John Short, founder and CEO, was a VP of marketing in B2B SaaS. Like many of you that listen to this podcast, he worked at companies like Log Me in workable and monster.com and he's built this company through that lens so they can focus on accountability, delivering results and being an extension of the marketing teams that they work with. So many B2B agencies that we see are B2C firms in B2B clothing. They focus on cost per lead. Not pipeline, but CGM Compound Growth Marketing. They don't just run campaigns. They engineer compound growth strategies that turn your dollars into measurable roi. They know how to talk about it. They know how to help you present to the CEO, to the board to do it all. I've seen it firsthand. They take the time to understand your business, your goals and your challenges and they execute with precision. They are truly a growth partner. I can't say enough good things about John and the team at Compound Growth Marketing. And I'm pumped that they signed up to be a sponsor of Exit 5 because I think they can provide a ton of value back to you as a listener if you're looking for an agency. So if you're ready to unlock your next level of growth, head over to compound growth marketing.com and tell them you heard about them on the Exit 5 podcast. Hashtag attribution. Compound Growth Marketing.

Okay, now we got awards. Virtual drum roll please. Maybe some dj. All right, so we want to hand out awards. We got our top community contributors for this year. We got Garrett, Head of growth. Garrett has created the most posts in the community. Looking back, I'm not sure that Volume Award is the right award, but Garrett, we love you Anyway, just most posts shout out to you, Garrett. Thank you for being in there. Love that. The Spark Award. Chelsea, our new friend from. We met in Vermont. She landed an awesome new job at Chili Piper. She's super active in the comments. If you write a comment in there, you know Chelsea's probably going to have your back and have something to add or something to say. So shout out to you, Chelsea. And then post of the year. This is a new award. Well, they're all new Awards new award by the Exit 5 committee this year. Post of the award Madav Bandari. This is what it takes. People want to know like how do I participate in. How do I participate in Exit 5? Well, talk about the stuff you're doing and don't promote your company and add real value and share results. Madav wrote about basically how they created this SEO playbook at Storylane that grew traffic over the course of six months and he was very specific and useful. It wasn't like here I wrote this blog post, I'm going to promote it, go get traffic to my website. He wrote a legitimate article inside of Exit 5 just to share his SEO lessons and that's the stuff that I want to see more of. And so I want to shout out people like Garrett and Chelsea and Madhav for being such an awesome part of the community. So shout out to you all. Then we have the Momentum Maker award in True Momentum Maker and Rising Star Award. So Marin is the member who has sparked a bunch of great discussions and brought people together with thought provoking posts this year. And Lindsay who is an up and coming member, a newer member who I see in there all the time. She's in the chat right now. She's in our CMO club. Shout out to Marin and Lindsay. And then we got Craig. Craig is the most engaged community member. If you hit the leaderboard inside of Exit 5 that we have, you'll see Craig's name there always. He's always in the comments, always adding new posts, always writing back. My inbox is full with like you have a notification from Craig Heron. Super active.

[Ross Simmons]

Yeah dude.

[Dave Gerhardt]

And then Matt, Matt Cerna who's a CMO of Replicant. They're really cool AI customer service company in the AI space doing customer service for the enterprise. And he is a new member of our CMO club and he's already been in there super active, adding a bunch of value, helping each other out and so I just want to shout out those people. Great, thank you for you get what you give and those folks have added a lot to our community this year. So virtual shout out to to you all now our top event contributors of the year. So we got Kanika Sharma who put on the community event of the year. She did a LinkedIn profile and post tear down for us and man, if this isn't a topic that you all want to know more about, like what does it take to be great on LinkedIn? What does great copy look like? How do I write good posts? Kanika is an awesome SaaS copywriter. And as task says, Kanika, she's amazing. She is amazing. So that was a top community event we did of the year. Top speaker of the year. He. I don't know if he's still here or not, but if he was, he'd be sitting in the front row. Ross Simmons, he brought the energy to drive. He sat in the front row. He handed out books. He had great jokes and stories and anecdotes and specifics. Ross killed it at drive speaker of the year. And then top podcast guest of the year, OG friend. We go way back on the Internet. I haven't talked to her in a little while, but I wonder if she's here. Amanda. Amanda Natividad from Spark Toro. She was on the podcast to start last year. It was like, in February. She had just come back from maternity leave. We were talking about coming back from maternity leave, deciding do you want to be CMO or not? The path to marketing leadership and what things she was doing as the solo marketer at Sparkturo. And if you follow her on LinkedIn, you already know that she's awesome. And so that was no surprise to me to look back through the podcast analytics and see that that is the most downloaded episode of the year. All right, and then two newer. So newer events. Two weeks ago, we did this. You know, we make it. We make up the rules here. So we did this session with Kip. Kip's a friend of mine, CMO at HubSpot. He is probably the second longest public SaaS company CMO he's been. You know, we always talk about the short tenure of CMOs one to two years. Kip's been the CMO of HubSpot going on nine years running now, and we had him in our CMO club. Something that we're doing is bringing in amazing CMOs like Kip once a month to talk to our CMO club members. And the response was amazing. Like, Natalie Taylor called in from the airport because she had to get her question asked to Kip. The feedback of that was amazing. And so I just want to shout out Kip for being a part of that. And then Virtual event Speaker of the year, Diane, who has become another LinkedIn friend of mine, she gave an awesome presentation, just was an awesome contributor to our ultimate roast to B2B websites. And she's another person that's worth following on LinkedIn, especially if you're in the messaging, copywriting, product marketing position space. Diane rocks. And this is a great. A great list of folks to build your kind of virtual Digital network around. So now, now that our QBR is over. Thanks, Tas. I want to call up my friend Ding. We got a little game show. This guy's great at this stuff. I love these little things. So, Ding, I'm going to pass it over to you. Let's have some fun. Yeah.

[Ding]

How's it going, y'all? First of all, huge shout out to exit 5. Shout out to Dave. I remember back in the day, I was in the the Facebook group, and then years later, here we are at the qbr. And that was a bar. We're all stars.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Hey, look, look. When you're in founder mode, when you're in founder mode, sometimes you get to pull the founder mode card and you get to do whatever you want. And I'm doing an event today to talk about my company. Damn it.

[Ross Simmons]

That's right.

[Ding]

So for today's episode of Countdown Quiz, I'm sure some of y'all have seen this on LinkedIn. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. It's the ultimate challenge for B2B marketers. And since we have the community of the best B2B marketers in the world, we're gonna do this live. And to get us warmed up right now, we're gonna have Mr. Dave Gearhart himself in the first round. So everyone give a round.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Let's go. Let's go, Dave. By the way, and we're gonna bring somebody up next. So, like, if you want to participate in this, you get to prove it. So task you talk a big game. Let's get you. We'll see who's next. All right, let's go, let's go. I'm ready.

[Ding]

All right, let's do this. So next slide, please. So the game right here is Dave, you're gonna have 30 seconds, and you're gonna have to name as many B2B March tech companies as you can in those 30 seconds. So are you ready for this? I'm gonna start the countdown timer.

[Dave Gerhardt]

For the fact, for the record, I'm honest. I'm an honest man. I could easily go to Chad GPT. This is off the top. So I'm here, I'm gonna and where we can see. I don't have pants on, but other than that, I'm happy to participate. All right, so let's start. Let's go. Oh, we're starting already?

[Ding]

All right, we're going. 3, 2, 1.

[Dave Gerhardt]

HubSpot Salesforce Loom Knack Vimeo Paramark Zeld Slack Atlassian Notion Qualified Chili Piper Demand Base Clary Copy AI Jasper. Oh, my God.

[Ross Simmons]

Time Is up.

[Ding]

All right, y'all, everyone give a round of applause for Brave here. I've counted 16. That's almost.

[Dave Gerhardt]

That's.

[Ding]

That's more.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Kicked ass. Out. I'm tired of her nonsense that. Tasks, you're gone.

[Ding]

I'm gonna bring her on stage. Task request to join.

[Dave Gerhardt]

All right, let's go.

[Ding]

All right, Taz, we got more.

Yeah, I don't see her requesting.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Where's the request at?

[Ding]

I see Jot John talking about no Pants founder. Let's go, everyone.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Let's go. Welcome. Welcome to the spotlight. Oh, this is.

[Tass]

I'm more of, like, a keyboard.

[Dave Gerhardt]

We know.

[Patrick]

Oh, we know.

[Dave Gerhardt]

That's why you're here. Yeah, I can't do.

[Tass]

I can't do this on the spot.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Let's go, Ding.

[Ross Simmons]

Yeah.

[Ding]

All right, Taz, set of questions for you. So this format is called the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Countdown Quiz. So I'm going to be asking you to name five things from a category, four things from a category, so on and so forth. So this is the ultimate test. Taz, I know you talk a big game, but now is your time to shine. Now is your time to prove yourself. And I know that the chat's going crazy. How we feel in chat. You think Tas is going to complete the task?

[Tass]

I'm just going to leave if this gets too embarrassing. I can't lose all the clout I got from today.

[Ding]

All right, let's go. So if we get the. The next slide up as we're about to get into it, hopefully you don't get one of these.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Wait, hold on. Zach. Zach said. Zach said when the teacher calls you out from the back of the classroom, you remember, like, in class, the two kids just, like, talking nonsense and ding, ding. You got something to say, and you. Then you get called on, and it's your turn. That's what this is.

[Tass]

No surprise. That was 100% me in school. And every, like, parent teacher conference was. She talks a lot. My mom's, like, grades are up. Like, I don't really care what she does anyway.

[Dan]

Sorry.

[Ding]

All right, Taz, so we're gonna get started in five seconds. Ready? All right, five, four, three, two, one. All right, Taz, name five B2B marketing buzzwords that people overuse.

[Tass]

I love this. Okay, Streamline, revolutionize AI boosted. Shoot Is increased growth or increased revenue. Buzzwordy. I don't know if that's buzzworthy, but those are the three that I see the most.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Dang it.

[Tass]

Give me some more. Who wants to help me? Quirk.

[Ding]

Come on chat, you got.

[Tass]

Come on, come on.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Synergy, Craig.

[Ding]

Sahil, Jetta.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yes.

[Ding]

Turnkey.

[Tass]

Yeah. Industry leading. My favorite.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yeah.

[Tass]

Unified circle all in one. Yeah.

[Dave Gerhardt]

By the way, I've never. I've hosted these things for a long time. I've never seen the chat light up so fast. Everyone has a buzzword. You want engagement in the chat, you just ask the people to put in a buzzword. Seamless.

[Tass]

Seamless.

[Ding]

All right, all right. Solutioning. Or it's a verb now. Founder mode. All right, Taz, I think you passed round one. Let's ask the chat because that last one is a little bit iffy with the revenue.

[Dan]

All right, Chat.

[Ding]

Are we accepting those answers?

[Dave Gerhardt]

No.

[Ding]

No, hold on.

[Dave Gerhardt]

No. Dang. Remember. Remember whose company this is? It was not. This is my company. We're doing this for me today. I'm in charge here. By my estimation, my homie task, and I love her, she got like three out of five.

[Tass]

That's the honest answer.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Who's in? Who's got the math on three? Let me ask Chat. GPT. What's three divided by five? That's her grade. It's not gonna cut it.

[Tass]

It's like a B. Yeah, it's a.

[Dave Gerhardt]

C. All right, that's round one. That's round one. What's next?

[Ding]

All right, Taz, name four Martech tools. This should be easy because.

[Tass]

Can I just take it from what Dave said or no. Okay, maybe we should do some new ones. Okay, so Martech tools. Let's see, what do I use? Is. Okay. Ga. Does GA count? Ga four. I'm gonna just name all, like, website related stuff. Okay.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Dang it.

[Tass]

This is like I'm so on the spot right now and I'm just like losing my mojo. I'm better in the mobile.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Oh, wait, this is. So what you're saying is it's easier to be pithy behind the keyboard than it is to be on camera?

[Tass]

Yes. Like the guy today who was on Danielle's post. Right. It's much easier to be Mr. Keyboard Warrior.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Haha.

[Tass]

Pointing fingers.

[Ding]

Actually, she's my LinkedIn bouncer.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Taz, you can phone a friend too. We could bring somebody else to name for martech tools to get another person up here. I'm okay with that.

[Tass]

Oh, okay, wait. Lachey can get up here, but I'm going to say semrush before she does and ahrefs before she does and then we'll see what she. Which she actually comes up with. Can I say HubSpot again? Like, I feel like you said HubSpot Everyone says HubSpot.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Feels like you're failing right now, if I'm being honest.

[Tass]

My mouth's falling down the stairs. Okay, get Lachey in here.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Look at her. No, she doesn't want to do it. It's all good. It's all good. All right. We did this one. Okay. Oh, wait. All right, Task. Thank you. I'm kicking you out. We need another voice up here. All right, who wants to be our next participant? We need a new, fresh voice by task.

[Ding]

I'm removing you. Love you.

[Dave Gerhardt]

How do we. How do we do it? Danielle? Somebody raise your hand.

[Ding]

Yeah, you gotta just request to join, and then we'll pick someone. We got three people right now. We got Vinnie, we got Sahil, we got James.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Put Sahil up there, all right?

[Ding]

So he'll get ready.

[Dave Gerhardt]

All right? And then Sahil. Good to see you, brother.

[Patrick]

Next.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Next event, we're gonna. I love the DJ play, but Sahil plays in a rush cover band, and I think. I think there's a play with us in that for an extra event. Just saying.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Dave Gerhardt]

All right, Go ahead. Ding. Let's. Awesome.

[Ding]

Sahel, welcome to the stage. So now we have our next question. We got a little sneak preview of it, but Anna, we can get that on the stage. So are you ready? Boom. That Dave Geart has worked at drift exit 5.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Are we counting the Facebook group? That's not a company, bro. I need two out of three.

[Ding]

Exit five and trips.

[Dave Gerhardt]

The correct answer.

[Ding]

There's another one.

[Dave Gerhardt]

The correct answer would have been privy. There was also HubSpot. Nine months. Nine of the most glorious months of my life spent at HubSpot. There's also a constant contact would have been an acceptable answer. They were an email marketing software company that got their lunch eaten by mailchimp. And then I started my career at a PR agency called Low as Paul and Partners. But, Sahil, good to see you. Always. Great hair. Great job. Thank you for everything you do. But I really. I'm in on serious. This is it. I enjoy seeing your face everywhere in Exit 5. And thank you for. Thank you for being a part of this thing. All right. Okay. How many more we got? We got another one. Oh, yeah.

[Ding]

Let's round two. Let's get a new set of questions up.

[Dave Gerhardt]

All right.

[Patrick]

All right.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Maybe it's a little harder than we're going around two.

[Ding]

All right. I'm bringing Ross on stage.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yes.

[Ding]

He wants to come.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Perfect. Bring him up.

[Ding]

If you get these wrong, I'm gonna violate you with the sound effect.

[Ross Simmons]

I'm Ready for him? I'm ready for it. I'm nervous.

[Dave Gerhardt]

All right, let's go. All right, Ross, let's do it.

[Ding]

So round two, Ross Simmons. And guess what? If you mess up here, we're going to distribute this clip forever.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Distribution. We're going to distribute this clip everywhere.

[Ross Simmons]

Let's do this.

[Ding]

All right, Ross. So let's. You ready? Five.

[Ross Simmons]

I'm ready. I'm ready.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Three, two, one.

[Ding]

Let's hit it.

[Ross Simmons]

That's.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Dude, I'm gonna give you one to get you started. Your favorite company. Reddit.

Red logo.

There's one.

[Ross Simmons]

Reddit. That's fair. That's fair. Reddit. Let's go with Toyota. President's Choice. Adidas. Santa.

[Dave Gerhardt]

You'Re a Canadian. Guys.

[Ross Simmons]

Important Hortons in the mix. Yeah, I don't know.

[Dave Gerhardt]

This is.

[Ross Simmons]

That's a tough one. Red logos. The psychology of red. Nobody uses it.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Big company.

[Ross Simmons]

Black Space. Rack. Space is rack.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Sure, sure. We'll give it to you.

[Ross Simmons]

Wwe. Nwo. Wolfpack. Anybody? Nothing. No, that's it.

[Dave Gerhardt]

All right. He did it. Thank you. That's a hard man.

[Dan]

That's tough.

[Dave Gerhardt]

All right, let's keep it. I'm keeping him up. I'm keeping him up. Dang. Oh, I got this.

[Ross Simmons]

We've got Rudolph. We've got Blitzen. We've got Comet. We've got Cupid, We've got Donner, Prancer. All of them. And some people would even say olive. Get it? All of the other Raiders.

[Dave Gerhardt]

We also have all of them.

[Ross Simmons]

All of Olive.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yeah.

[Ross Simmons]

That's the dad.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yeah. Good job. All right, can you name three holiday classic holiday ad campaigns?

[Ross Simmons]

Coca Cola, Santa. That's the best. Then we've got. That's probably all I've got. Let me think. Coca Cola.

[Dave Gerhardt]

What do you got? Dang. You wrote these questions, so give us the other two. I'm. Put you on that. Wow.

[Ding]

You put me on the spot. So here's the part where I get exposed. I actually only knew that one. Hey, we got in here. Rachel says the car with a big red bow. Any car brand that is. That's factually correct. I see. Budweiser, Hershey. These aren't very specific chat. We gotta do a little better.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Damn. What do you tell them?

[Ding]

What, you want a John Lewis ads every year. So emotional.

[Dan]

Volcano.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Volcano.

[Ross Simmons]

Volcano ad.

[Dave Gerhardt]

That's a great one.

[Ross Simmons]

The volcano he wants for Christmas.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yeah, that's what he wants for Christmas. Nice. All right, we got one more. All right, Ross. Name two things that make a perfect B2B. Marketing.

[Ding]

Oh, I got one. It's sent from me.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yeah, real good.

[Ross Simmons]

One that's sent from Danielle. One that seems personalized, really comes off as if it's human. One that doesn't say in the ever evolving world of aka not written by chatgpt. And one that has a PS. You got to throw the PS. And people are sleeping on the PS's these days.

[Dave Gerhardt]

I love that. Big fan of the PS. Put the content in the email, then do a PS is where you can reference the link again. You can tell another story.

[Ross Simmons]

What does PS stand for?

[Dave Gerhardt]

Parlez vous? Si vous play?

[Tass]

No.

[Dave Gerhardt]

No. Damn.

[Ross Simmons]

Postal script.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Postal script.

Yeah.

I don't know. I don't even use my brain anymore. Just ChatGPT does everything for me.

[Ross Simmons]

That's hilarious.

[Dave Gerhardt]

I love it. All right, Ross, good to see you. Good job.

[Ross Simmons]

Likewise. Thank you all.

[Patrick]

Have a great next year being an.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Awesome member of our community.

[Ross Simmons]

Thank you all.

[Dave Gerhardt]

All right. Love the crowds. Crowds going nuts. Okay, let's keep it moving. We want to do another guest. I want to put. I want to make Dan our next guest actually right now, so. All right, round three.

[Ding]

Just have a bunch of names.

All right, Dan.

[Patrick]

Yeah, just give me names.

[Ding]

Corporate gifts that people give during Secret Santa.

[Patrick]

Candles, candle holders, video ipods, ties and shot glasses. Shot glasses being the only legitimate answer.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Someone gave him a video iPad one year and he hasn't been the same since.

[Patrick]

No, the Office. No, it gets that reference. Come on.

[Dave Gerhardt]

No, no, wait. Tell me the Office reference. I'd love a show.

[Patrick]

The Secret Santa episode where I don't.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Want to ruin it.

[Patrick]

I mean, it is like 15 years old. So everyone hopefully has seen at this point.

[Dave Gerhardt]

But that's okay.

[Patrick]

Dwight and Michael argue over the video. IPad or ipod.

[Dave Gerhardt]

No, I need to read Classic.

[Patrick]

You gotta watch that one this time.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Here.

[Danielle]

It's perfect.

[Dave Gerhardt]

All right. Two of his five answers. Two of his five answers were about candles, which, you know, someone said in the chat, why that's a real life experience. But why would candles hate? All right, go ahead. Ding.

[Ding]

All right, Dan, name four content formats on LinkedIn.

[Ross Simmons]

Okay.

[Patrick]

My guy Matt has taught me a lot about this this year. First one, text post, video post. Matt, don't get mad. I'm gonna screw it up.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Is it a.

[Patrick]

It's a document, but it's a sliding document. It has a name. It's like a slideshow.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Rhymes with schmaracel.

[Patrick]

Yeah, yeah, that one. And is that three or four?

[Dan]

Three.

[Patrick]

Carousel. Yeah, and then a bro tree. Yeah, that's the fourth.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Good job. All right, I'm tagging in Anna next. I'm tagging in Anna Next. Anna, you're next on the hot seat with. You know this is a holiday party with Dave and Ding and. And team. All right, here we go. Go ahead. Ding.

[Ding]

All right, Anna, name three B2B influencers. And you can't. You can't say Dan. You can't say Dave Geart. You can't say Anna Vermilion. You can't say Matt. Can't say Daniel.

[Danielle]

Okay, this is easy. I'll say Tass. Lachey and Ross. There we go.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Love it. Perfect timing. We released a list today.

[Ding]

I know.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Obviously we all know that I'm the only thought leader worth following. But separate. All right.

[Ding]

The best hair.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Thank you. Appreciate that. Actually, I had to go sign up for volunteering for my kids school today. I had to go to the police station. I had to get fingerprinted for like a non supervised volunteer. And the policeman asked me my height, my eye color and my hair color. For hair color. I said none and he just giggled. That is an option. All right, Anna, good job. Most effective, most efficient answer. All right, here we go. What's this one? Ding.

[Ding]

All right, name two holiday movies that feature work or corporate life. You can't say Die Hard.

Ooh, the holiday.

[Danielle]

Holiday party. That's one. Office party or something. Can't say. What about Die Hard too?

[Ding]

We'll count it.

[Dave Gerhardt]

That's like dancing Candle and candle holder.

[Danielle]

Elf. That's a good one. Okay, that's my answer. That's you.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Yeah.

[Ding]

I just watched the holiday two nights ago. Hot chocolate. It was great. I love that movie.

[Danielle]

Yeah, that's one of my favorites.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Good one. Daniel much?

[Ding]

I'm sorry. Much better than love, actually.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Okay. All right, Danielle, I know you want to answer one right now, so I'm putting you where you're up next. Name one way to celebrate a team win this year.

[Ding]

Ooh, shout them out on LinkedIn.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Very on brand. Very good. Yeah. Okay. All right, give it up. That was fun. Fun little segment. So I'm gonna wrap us up. I said we were gonna spread this around, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna see if I can do this real quick and get. Hold on. I'm having technical difficulty. So. Okay, Anna, you tell us dates and events. So we gotta. We're gonna just quickly share what we got coming up in 20, 25 and then we're gonna. We're gonna get. We'll let you get out of here. But for events, what do we.

[Danielle]

So we have a couple more meetups next Year. So we're coming to Boston at the beginning of March. We'll be in the barrier and we'll be back in Austin in November for our three meetups next year. Stay tuned for the dates. We're still locking that in, but we're excited for that. And then we'll be back at Drive in September back in Burlington, Vermont. So stay tuned for whenever that releases as well. Well, but there will be a wait list and early bird tickets. So stay tuned, keep your eyes peeled. And we're excited about that for next year.

[Dave Gerhardt]

We went back and forth. We, after telling everyone we weren't going to make Drive any bigger, we were like, we're going to make it bigger. We need to go bigger. We're going to go somewhere else. We came back full circle. We're running it back in Burlington. We'll have, we'll have room for like 20 or 30 more people, max. We're probably going to have to raise the ticket price a little bit to keep it exclusive, to keep it feeling good. If you came last year, we're gonna, you'll know early and then, you know, we hear you that there's lots of places we could go. We could go to London, we could go to Chicago. But we're just, we're starting small. It already feels like a lot of travel after being like, I don't want to travel for work again. Here we are. But we're gonna go to Boston, San Francisco, Vermont and Austin. That's gonna be great. All right, Danielle, my friend Danielle, you got a glow today. Tell me about some of the things that you're excited about from a content standpoint in 2025.

[Ding]

Yeah. So the big one is we are finally investing in putting a lot of great content on our website. We have launched Soft Launch. I'll say Soft Launch. Our new product called Article. It's our spin on a blog. But basically we're taking all those awesome insights and putting them into guides, playbooks, things that you can reference on there. So very excited about that. Yes, Ross. And maybe we'll even end up on Reddit. Who knows? And then super fun sneak peek because you guys are here. We're doing Our first ever Exit 5 report coming late February. It's going to be the state of B2B marketing salaries. So very excited for that. I'm using my political science degree chops, qualitative methods, putting those back to use.

[Dave Gerhardt]

For the first time in my career, AKA Chad GPT.

[Ding]

Yes, I see SGP and bothering Dan.

[Dave Gerhardt]

That's half of my day. Those Two things.

[Ding]

And then we're doing some more virtual events. So if you were an attendee of the ultimate roasted B2B websites, we're doing something very similar. Come March around email. It's going to be fun. We're going to bring the heat. It's going to be a great time. So that's what we got coming up.

[Dave Gerhardt]

For content just to echo, like just to go deeper on that for a second. Like we've seen so much traction with our private paid community. I want us to think about, like I want us to think about having a free lever of all this stuff and we've seen a tremendous amount of attention and awareness and success with the podcast. And so the, the hypothesis is like whether you pay us a dollar or not to join the community or to go to an event, that's okay. How do we make Exit5.com the number one resource for B2B marketers? And so you're going to tell your friends, oh yeah, hey, you want to know how to like structure your marketing team, go to Exit five. They got an article about that, right? And so that's the big thing. It's like, how can we get more really thoughtful resources created for free on the Exit 5 website? And I think that that's something that's going to really play out, play out well over the next year. Okay, Matt. Mr. Community, what are you excited about in the community?

[Dan]

Yes sir. So of course my Siri came up when I said yes sir. We're doing more accelerator. So we did the marketing leadership accelerator this fall in February. I'm really excited about the accelerator. We're doing. We're doing an AI accelerator. I don't have all the agenda for it yet, but essentially if you're a B2B marketer, we're going to try and pack the most important things that you need to know about AI and the things you need to get better at when it comes to AI. So that's going to be really exciting. That's going to be probably launching sometime late January, early Feb. So keep your eyes peeled for that. Second thing is CMO Club. So we're going to go bigger with CMO Club. We've launched it in private this year and we've gotten really positive feedback. So we're going to open it up to more people, but we're going to still focus on small, tight knit connections and groups here. So we're going to focus on all the right areas with CMO Club. And then the last part, Community Pass. Community Pass is essentially what we're going to call just our regular exit 5k community. So not CMO Club. It's just the community as you know it today. And you know, we're going to continue to invest there. Going to try and mix in, you know, more playbooks from members and try and get them sharing the great work that we're doing. So everybody can see, gonna focus, keep focusing more in matchmaking. We're planning to upgrade our matchmaking programs. That's going to get even better. And then last but not least, we're also going to try and bake in more AI into the community. So we're working with the Circle team on a bot in the community that's essentially going to help tag the experts in the right posts when they come up, just like I'm doing manually today. So we're going to have more ways to get the right people involved in the right conversations and then hopefully find ways to reward them through gamification. So that's what's what's up. Coming.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Awesome. And keep an eye out for us. Follow everything we do. Exit5.com you can follow us on LinkedIn. Early in the new year, we're going to open a new role for our six teammate on the team. And so maybe that's you, maybe that's somebody you know. We're going to continue to grow and keep the feedback coming. We have an amazing, an amazing part of running a business like this is the feedback loop, right? We get comments on events like this. We're in Slack right now sharing screenshots about what people are saying. We get podcast reviews, we get emails, we get comments in the community. It is all driven on your feedback and so continue to share your ideas with us, continue to push us. The other thing I would say is we're also, we're very bullish on being like a curation business, not a creation business. Obviously, we do create content, but we're, we're not going to have the hot takes. Like, I don't want to be in the hot takes business, but we're sitting on this incredible community of 5,000 marketers, thousands of people in our community. Many of you don't get the opportunity at your companies to write about marketing because you're not a marketing company. You know, you do marketing for cyber security. And so you're not going to be able to write a blog post about the three cool things you did in marketing and publish it on your website. But Exit 5 can be that platform for you. And so maybe there's an opportunity to be on Our podcast. Maybe there's an opportunity to do an AMA in our community. Maybe there's an opportunity to speak in our event. Maybe there's an opportunity to write a guest post for our site. Stay close to us. Send us an email hixit5.com like we are always looking to feature you with thoughtful, relevant content that you're doing in your day job. And that's a big part of our vision for this brand and for content for the future. So, all right, that's it. Thanks for hanging with us. That was an awesome 48 minutes. Go check out Ding. Check out what they're doing at Event Shark. If you haven't already hired Event Shark to do videos for your next event, you are falling behind the curve. So shout out to them. Just don't hire them up so much because they're keep our eyes in this next year and I don't want to be out there filming online. So thanks, you all. Appreciate it. Love hearing the comments. Thanks for hanging out with us on this little virtual holiday party. I hope you have a great, safe, happy, healthy rest of the year. I love this team. I love what we're doing. I'm having a lot of fun.

[Matt]

I gotta testify the greatest marketing community is exit 5.

[Dave Gerhardt]

3500 strong.

[Matt]

You better recognize real engagement, real experience.

[Dave Gerhardt]

Hey, thanks for listening to this podcast.

If you like this episode, you know what? I'm not even going to ask you.

To subscribe and leave a review because.

I don't really care about that. I have something better for you. So we've built the number one private community for B2B marketers at exit 5. And you can go and check that out.

Instead of leaving a rating or review.

Go check it out right now on our website, exit5.com our mission at Exit 5 is to help you you grow your career in B2B marketing. And there's no better place to do that than with us at exit 5.

There's nearly 5,000 members now in our community.

People are in there posting every day, asking questions about things like marketing, planning.

Ideas, inspiration, asking questions and getting feedback from your peers. Building your own network of marketers who.

Are doing the same thing you are. So you can have a peer group or maybe just venting about your boss when you need to get in there and get something off your chest. It's 100% free to join for seven days, so you can go and check it out risk free.

And then there's a small annual fee to pay if you want to become a member for the year.

Go check it out. Learn more exit5.com and I will see.

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