320 - Creating a Market Category with Kari Hanson, CMO at Robin

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Marketing Millennials – Episode 320 Creating a Market Category with Carrie Hansen, CMO at Robin

Introduction to Category Creation

In Episode 320 of The Marketing Millennials, host Daniel Murray delves into the strategic process of category creation—a marketing approach that goes beyond competing in existing markets to defining new ones. Joining him is Carrie Hansen, Chief Marketing Officer at Robin, a company revolutionizing flexible work environments. Robin's innovative approach has allowed it to carve out its own category by transforming office spaces into valuable destinations, making commutes worthwhile.

Why Create a New Category Instead of Competing in an Existing One?

Carrie Hansen begins by addressing the fundamental question: Why create a new market category instead of battling in an established one?

“There are two really good reasons to push for creating a category, and they have two very different strategies behind them.” [01:55]

Hansen explains that in the B2B SaaS landscape, new innovators often face giants. By redefining the competitive landscape, companies can question the status quo and position themselves uniquely. She cites HubSpot's successful creation of the "Inbound Marketing" category as an example, although HubSpot remained within the realms of email marketing and CRM.

For enterprise-focused companies like SailPoint, creating a new category also involves gaining recognition from industry analysts such as Gartner’s Magic Quadrant or Forrester’s Wave. This acknowledgment is crucial for large corporations that rely on these reports for procurement decisions, ultimately enabling higher contract values.

Signs to Consider Category Creation

Carrie elaborates on indicators that signal a company should consider creating a new category:

“If you're competing against those big companies, if you hear yourself say, you know, we approach this a different way or there's a different way to solve the same problem, that's probably when you really need to create a new category.” [04:16]

Key signs include:

1. Consistent Losses to Major Competitors: Hearing terms like "the 500-pound gorilla" indicates the dominance of an established player.
2. Unique Problem-Solving Approaches: Repeatedly approaching problems differently suggests a potential for category definition.
3. Early Conversations with Prospects: Being able to frame solutions differently from the outset can establish a new narrative early.

Steps to Start Category Creation Internally

Carrie outlines the three foundational steps for initiating category creation within a company:

1. Assess the Need: Determine whether the goal is to own competitive discussions or to gain analyst recognition.
2. Define the Problem and Solution: Clearly understand and articulate the problem your product solves differently without mentioning the product itself.
3. Develop a Category Definition: Agree internally on what the new category entails and how your product fits within it.

“Understanding what is it that you're trying to solve what's the problem, what is the market, what was the old way of doing it and what's this new way.” [05:34]

This approach ensures that the category is defined by its unique value proposition rather than the product features alone.

Marketing a New Category and Balancing Company Marketing

Creating a new category requires a dual-focused marketing strategy: promoting both the category and the company. Carrie explains the importance of positioning the company as the thought leader in the new category while also marketing its own strengths.

“Your thought leadership efforts are really about showing like you're the visionary of the market. This is why you need something new.” [08:02]

Balancing these aspects involves thought leadership that emphasizes visionary insights without overtly pushing the product until later stages. Maintaining the category focus ensures that the narrative remains about the broader market transformation rather than just the company's offerings.

Thought Leadership in Category Creation

Carrie underscores the role of thought leadership as a tactical tool in category creation:

“Thought leadership, if you look at it from a tactical PR perspective, top of the funnel perspective, it would be maybe putting out a byline to say, here's where I think the market's going.” [09:59]

Tactical approaches include:

• Publishing By-Lines and Industry Reports: Sharing insights and research to establish authority.
• Webinars and Panels: Hosting discussions that highlight the new category and its significance.
• Customer Collaborations: Showcasing how early adopters are benefiting from the new category.

This strategy not only promotes the category but also positions the company as the innovator driving the change.

Creating and Refining Positioning Statements

A critical aspect of category creation is developing a clear and concise positioning statement that contrasts the new category with the old way of doing things. Carrie provides practical advice on crafting this statement:

“You can start sort of instead of saying you have this deficit, you can actually say ... we're focusing on what really is your pain point and we're solving it this way.” [16:27]

Effective positioning involves:

• Listening to Customer Feedback: Understanding why deals are won or lost to identify gaps in the current market.
• Framing the New Approach: Clearly articulating how the new category addresses existing problems differently and more effectively.
• Admitting and Reframing Weaknesses: Transparently addressing areas where the new approach differs from the old, turning potential weaknesses into strengths.

Engaging with Industry Analysts

For enterprise-level category creation, engaging with third-party analysts is essential. Carrie emphasizes the importance of:

“Talking to the analysts on a regular basis, not just briefing them about your product, but sort of explaining to them, this is why we think that there's this new category creation.” [17:18]

Key steps include:

• Building Relationships: Regular interactions with analysts to discuss the new category.
• Providing Proof Points: Sharing customer success stories and market research to validate the new category.
• Staying Consistent: Maintaining a long-term commitment as analyst recognition often takes years.

Maintaining Category Momentum

Once a new category is established, sustaining momentum is crucial to maintain leadership:

“You always have to be innovating. ... You have to keep telling that story, going back to the CTO, always talking five years down the road.” [30:40]

Strategies include:

• Continuous Innovation: Regularly updating the product to stay ahead within the category.
• Ongoing Storytelling: Consistently communicating the evolving nature of the category and the company’s role in it.
• Engaging New Entrants Positively: Embracing new competitors as validation that the category is growing, and collaborating to further establish it.

Adapting to Market Changes: Robin’s Case

Carrie shares how Robin has adapted its category focus in response to the shifting landscape of remote and hybrid work:

“Robin is a workplace operations platform... As we get farther into the place where everybody is back in some form or fashion, ... really embracing that culture.” [28:16]

Key takeaways include:

• Sticking to Core Values: Despite market changes, maintaining the fundamental goal of fostering connections and collaboration.
• Flexible Storytelling: Adapting narratives to reflect current workplace trends while emphasizing enduring principles.
• Predictive Marketing: Anticipating future changes and preparing solutions in advance to stay relevant.

Rapid Fire Insights

Towards the end of the episode, Carrie participates in a rapid-fire segment, highlighting key insights:

1. One Word Describing Category Creation: Unique
2. Most Underrated Tool for Shaping Marketing Narrative: Blogs
3. Thought Leader or Book That Shaped Thinking on Category Creation: Peggy Noonan’s political speechwriting, specifically "Gorbachev, tear down that wall."
4. Biggest Misconception About Category Creation: That it can be achieved in just a few months.
5. Hardest Part of Getting a Category to Stick: Staying focused internally.
6. One Thing Wish to Know Before Starting Category Journey: Understanding competitors’ strategies.
7. Marketing Hill to Die On: Every marketer should understand how a business works and possess strong writing skills.

Final Thoughts

Carrie Hansen concludes by emphasizing the importance of personalized storytelling and maintaining authenticity in thought leadership, especially in an era where trust in institutions is waning.

“People trust people. They always have.” [24:38]

She advocates for company leaders, particularly founders or C-suite executives, to take the forefront in narrating the new category, thereby fostering genuine connections and trust with the audience.

Conclusion

Episode 320 of The Marketing Millennials offers a comprehensive exploration of category creation, providing actionable insights from Carrie Hansen of Robin. From identifying the need for a new category to sustaining momentum through continuous innovation and authentic thought leadership, this episode serves as a valuable guide for marketers aiming to redefine their competitive landscape and lead their markets into new territories.

For more insights and detailed strategies, tune into the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

[Daniel Murray]

Welcome to the Marketing Millennials, the no BS Marketing podcast. I'm Daniel Murray and join me for unfiltered conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the top.

[Host]

Welcome back to another episode of the Marketing Millennials Podcast. Today's episode is all about category creation. How to not just compete in a market, but define it. I'm joined by Kerry Hansen, the chief Marketing Officer at Robin, a company that's rethinking how flexible work actually works. Robin isn't just another workplace tool. They've carved out a category of their own by helping companies make their office space worth the commute. In this episode, Carrie breaks down what it really takes to create and lead a category. How to shape the narrative when the market doesn't even know what to search for. And the power of positioning, storytelling, and internal alignment when you're building something new. If you ever thought about creating your own lane instead of fighting for space with someone else's, this one's for you. Let's dive in right now.

[Carrie Hansen]

What's up, Carrie? Welcome to the podcast.

Thanks, Daniel. I'm excited to be here.

I know a lot of people ask you these questions about creating a market category, but I'm going to start asking you questions about creating a market category because I know you talk about it all the time, but I think everybody needs to know why it's important. So the first big question I have for you is why create a new.

Category instead of competing in an existing one?

I think that's a really good question, and it's one that there's two really good reasons to push for creating a category, and they have two very different strategies behind them. A lot of times in B2B technology, especially in SaaS, you'll have an up and comer innovator trying to take on a really large established company. And so in that instance, it's very advantageous to create a new market category or frankly a market definition, so that you can reframe the competitive landscape in a way that suits you and really sort of question the status quo. And I think that's what HubSpot, they did it really well with Inbound. They created this whole category term, but they didn't actually create a category. They were still very much email marketing and now CRM. I think the other side is if you're a little bit more in the enterprise space there, and this is what at Sailpoint, a company that I was at when we Created a category. There are a lot of reasons to create a new category in that you're also driving analysts to acknowledge this category, the magic quadrant from Gartner, the Forrester wave. There's a lot of value in having that because procurement at the Global 2000, they tend to look at industry analysts and what they're covering from a space before they'll even consider you. It's where you can actually take the value of what you're selling and those contract values go up significantly. And so at the time we were well into the mid six figures because you're buying something entirely new versus what existed. And so that's why at Sailpoint we created what was called the identity governance category because we wanted to take existing budget from compliance folks and security folks and really create an entire new focus for the CIO to, to purchase a new product.

What are some signs or early markers that hey, we should probably start thinking about creating a category.

We're competing in two of a competitive market right now. We're not winning contracts, we're not quote.

Unquote, the best in the market.

What, what are those sign people should look out for?

Yeah, I think, you know, as one, as marketers, I think we should recognize that if you're not winning contracts because you don't have a good product, this isn't going to solve that. But if you're competing against those big companies, if you hear yourself say, you know, we approach this a different way or there's a different way to solve the same problem, if you hear yourself saying that over and over again, that's probably when you really need to create a new category and reframe it because you can get in front of it. A lot of times it's when you're losing the contract, you might hear, oh, you know, we're going with, you know, the 500 pound gorilla. And your response might say, well, but we're thinking about this differently, you're looking at the problem differently, you're going to miss this. But it's too late to change the conversation. And so in that point, that's when there's a lot of value to creating a category and doing it sooner. So when you're having those first conversations, you can say, we understand your problem, we're coming at it from a very different perspective and here's how we think you should solve it. And then the whole mid funnel conversation is focused on it from that vantage point.

So I know you've created one category, you on your way creating another category, but could you walk me through the.

1, 2, 3 first steps that you think are needed to start this process internally.

Yeah. So step one is really answering do you need to create a category so that you can own the competitive discussion, or do you need to create a category because there is value to having a Forester Wave or a Magic Quadrant? Because that involves a lot of analyst work. It's typically an enterprise. Once you know which path that you need, Frankly in the SaaS world, a lot of times it's really coining a term. You getting, you know, sort of this following like HubSpot did, then the next step is really understanding what is it that you're trying to, to solve what's the problem, what is the market, what was the old way of doing it and what's this new way. And in that frame you should be able to answer that question without talking about your product. Because this is where, if you're talking about a category, really understanding what are the definitions of this new product, this, this new category, what are the requirements, what does that product look like? And once you agree on, at least internally, at a high level, you know, over the next two years, here's what this definition should look like, then you follow it very quickly within, you know, here's how our product solves it or is on its way to solving it. Maybe you're only 80% there and then you can start talking about it at a high level. And if you've really done it at a place where you could define this category without talking about your product, then if there's something going on in the news, if there's something that a competitor does, you can point to that and say, look, this is exactly why we're pushing for this new category definition. Because this company is coming at it from a different point, or this isn't working, or here's a security breach and it's clearly not working. And everything that's going on in the industry that you're in will validate why you need a new approach to an old problem. Because obviously the legacy tools aren't working.

One thing I want to go into as well is when you start creating a new category, there's kind of a two prong marketing approach. You have to market the category as well as your company. And marketing a category could also cause new competitors to enter that category. So you're also marketing it for this.

New wave of people, but you also seen as the market leader.

So how do you approach that of balancing, hey, we have to talk about the same HubSpot inbound marketing as well.

As, hey, we're also marketing our awesome company and what we do.

Yeah, it's true thought leadership. So if you're talking from a marketing perspective about thought leadership, you're not talking about your product anyway. And so your thought leadership might be talking about this new category, or your thought leadership might be talking about how company is doing really well. But so this is really from a category perspective, category creation perspective. Your thought leadership efforts are really about sort of showing like you're the visionary of the market. This is why you need something new. And so you are by extension promoting your own company. But it's very much visionary commentary, thought leadership being that expert. And companies that are really comfortable, they already do this because that expert is not talking about the product until maybe the last 5% of the conversation. And, and so I don't want anyone to think that this is going to be a distraction from what you're doing if there's truly a need for it. It's just you're focusing. I think the bigger challenge is what tends to happen. Competitors will start using the term and that can get really frustrating. But if you want to create a category, you need more competitors in the category. So it's actually a positive thing. And this is where you might want to start pushing panels where maybe there are other companies that are coming at it from a slightly different perspective. Maybe they don't quite compete. So you can do that coopet type of discussion and really sort of build it up. Because when you start talking to analysts, industry followers, if there are multiple companies who all agree that there needs to be this new approach, it accelerates things in a really nice way. And if you can sort of see that as a positive versus being annoyed that, oh, they're trying to steal our thunder, you can really embrace it and you can get some really good thought leadership out of it with them. And then along the way, the goal would be you also talk about why your solution is better. And so you own the category, you're not going to give it to them. Them.

What does thought leadership look like tactically?

To me, thought leadership, if you look at it from a tactical PR perspective, top of the funnel perspective, it would be maybe putting out a byline to say, here's where I think the market's going. Maybe putting out an industry report where you've done some customer research, some industry research, and you add the commentary and putting it out there, then doing a webinar, talking about what's going on in the market, talking about why people care about it, talking about why your future customers should pay attention to this as well as your existing customers, but not talking about how you solve the problem. And so from a tactical perspective, I love to do bylines in publications, depending on your industry. LinkedIn posts are the easy ones. Videos, et cetera. Just that commentary having. Sometimes it's the cto, sometimes it's the head of product, sometimes it's the CEO sort of saying, here's where the market's going, here's where I think things are going. And then the webinars are starting to come back. For a while, nobody wanted to do them. Now everybody wants to sit in on them. You can do industry panels at trade shows. Dinners are a great place to do thought leadership. Where you might be at a big trade show, you can have a couple customers, a couple prospects talking about, this is why we need to rethink this product, or I mean, this problem. This is why you can have a new approach and solve something thinking outside of the box. And the customers can talk about what they've been doing while you frame it all along of, you know, you guys are the early adopters. Like, let's share what's working for you. While you guys are really sort of reshaping what's going on. I think there's a lot of thought leadership that you can do with your existing customers to position them as also thought leaders. Because let's be honest, everybody has an ego. And if they can talk about they were an early adopter pushing it, share their best practices of what works, it helps you because they're talking about how they're using your product, but they're also out there as a customer validating why you need this new category.

I want to also take one step back too, because this is a big.

Product marketing exercise of come and positioning exercise.

So what does that look like, coming up with positioning for this new category? Because you said it's going against the.

Old way, so you're basically anti the old way. So how does that look like in a positioning statement? How does that look like? How do you even start coming up with that positioning statement to make it clear and concise that people understand what you're talking about?

You know, there's a couple ways that you can do it. And I think, you know, first and foremost, it's really about listening to the calls with both prospects and with customers and see what's working and what's not working. Why did you lose some deals? What was it that wasn't there? And really figuring out the crux of the challenge of this is the problem. Everyone usually agrees on that. That's the easy thing. But here's why the status quo isn't working. So this is. In a lot of marketing teams, you'll talk about the cost of doing nothing. Well, this is really the cost of solving it the same way everybody else has solved it, even though it's frustrating and really figuring out what are the top two or three way that you're approaching something different. And then you can really start figuring out the positioning. One of the things that I loved at my last company, Spiro, it was an AI driven CRM. And so we were trying to really reframe the conversation around how salespeople should manage their contacts. And we actually came up with calling ourselves the anti CRM CRM, because first, for all practical matters, we were a CRM. We were in that space. It's what people knew they needed, the context, they had the budget for it. But we told everybody that we were the anti CRM because we wanted to solve things differently than the way Salesforce did. And so then we could sort of start that conversation where we could say, here's why we think the old way wasn't working, here's how the new way works. But also, rest assured, we absolutely are, you know, that CRM that you want. We're just not the way that these old companies are doing it. And so you can be very tongue in cheek with something like that. Long live this technology while you're also killing this technology. But I think you can also go the complete opposite way of basically saying, look, you're trying to solve this problem this way. But if you think about a completely different answer and sort of take a step back and really approach it from a different viewpoint, you can rethink everything. And that can be very challenging for customers. It's very abstract. You know, just even as I'm talking to you, you can sort of see like that one is very abstract versus saying, hey, we know you need a CRM, we're a CRM, but we're a very different CRM. You know, think about it. You know, I hate to use this example right now, but Tesla, they are a car, but they're a very different car. And when they first came out, you know, talking about, you know, this autonomous driving car, they tried to be a data. They had all of these things, but really they were a car, but you didn't have to drive the car. And so, you know, it sort of makes you rethink what you're looking for, and it lets sort of look for different pieces where if you're looking for an automobile, there are certain things that you want. If you're looking for an automobile that will drive for you, suddenly some of the things you were looking for might not be as important. And this is where, you know, in the technology space, you know, when you're going against these big companies, there are some things that they've just taught you. You really want this feature. You really want this feature. And if you can reframe what you're looking for, how you're solving the problem, you can also reframe. Look, I know you're looking for that one feature, but there's a reason we aren't doing it, and there's a reason that we took our software in a different place, because that's not important. And that's where you can start sort of instead of saying you have this deficit, you can actually say instead of doing that, we focused on what really is your pain point and we're solving it this way. And that's a non issue.

Yes, it's kind of the Avis framing of where we're at number two. But we're better framing where you're, you're admitting that, hey, we don't have this.

Feature, but you're also saying, this is why we don't have this feature. And you just say, this is why we're better because we don't have this feature. So you admit it up front.

So at least when people are looking.

For it, you can say this is the reason why. Addressing those flaws.

Yeah, it's exactly why there's a lot of benefit to, you know, really taking a, a step back and reframing the category because you can actually say, you know, that company that's been doing that feature for 20 years, yeah, that feature is great. But this is the problem that you're solving. And, you know, we can solve it without doing that. And there's, you know, benefits to doing that. And it, it lets you take what would historically have been your biggest weakness, and it makes it your strength of look, we're not focusing and we're not losing product development on that one feature because we're going this way and we're moving faster. And here's the three things that we can do that they haven't even thought.

About you talked about. I mean, this is one way. And it also can coincide with talking about using the Gartner, the industry analyst.

Side of things for Enterprise.

So what does that route even look.

Like so people can get a grip of how to even start engaging that conversation with outside parties or third party analysts.

Yeah. So if you're going that path, there's a lot of conversations, there's a lot of partnering with the analysts, there's a lot of benefit to the analysts. And this is certainly not meant to be an analyst commercial. But if you're selling into that enterprise, talking to the analysts on a regular basis, not just briefing them about your product, but sort of explaining to them, this is why we think that there's this new category creation and here's what we're seeing happening and feeding them proof points along the way. This is what customers are asking for, what customers are not asking for. Here's why we're winning. Pointing them, this is where, you know, other smaller competitors joining in helps you because the more that you can point the analysts to everything showing the market is moving, the more that they'll start paying attention to it. And when they really dig in, if you can back it up with customers who are doing it, prospects who are looking for it, other companies who are looking at it, then they'll start paying more attention to. And they can also give you feedback of oh yeah, you know, the big guys, they talk about this, but this is why they say it's not necessary. And you can start countering that almost behind the scenes and help them influence it. It takes a long time. It is a multi year strategy. You know, they don't, they don't move on a dime. Their research agenda is usually scheduled a year out. And so you have to be really comfortable investing. This is where investing time and energy and really focusing. And this is where you know, just when you think, okay, we've talked about this a lot. It was really exciting at the beginning. We were getting all this pickup, people were paying attention to us. It's kind of gone dull. That's where you have to really stick to it. Because six months, nine months in, when it feels very repetitive to you, it's just starting to resonate and you probably have another year, year and a half of telling the same story before it really takes off. And so from an enterprise perspective, it takes a lot longer. But also if you think about, if you're selling into that space, a lot of the times the selling cycle is probably 12 to 24 months. So just put that in perspective of this should move a lot faster. Look at the SaaS world, things come and go so much faster. But when you're selling a $500,000 product to a Fortune 50 company, you're talking to them for two years. And so obviously the analysts are probably on the same timeframe as well.

That makes total sense. I mean, enterprise is always long sales.

Cycles, their long contracts with other vendors and carving out a new category, like you said at the beginning, gets you another line on their budget where they're not paying for account based marketing, for.

Example, it's not another account based marketing tool.

It's this tool that does this, that helps with this form of marketing that does.

I'm just talking from a marketing perspective.

But it totally makes sense.

Yeah, and the nice thing about on the enterprise side, it does take longer, but you can be more visionary so you can actually talk about, look, this is where we're going. Imagine where we're going to be in five years. And you know, I think this is a topic from a thought leadership perspective that CTOs usually really like, where they can talk five to 10 years out because they don't have to be right. Because in three years the world will change and they can keep moving their predictions. But because you have so much time where these companies aren't moving so fast, you can sort of talk about like this is over the next couple of years what you need to solve. But think about it, in five years or 10 years, this is where the world is going. If you think about like smart manufacturing is a great example, selling to those big companies, telling the future, you can get really visionary and you don't have to be accurate and it doesn't have to be, you know, exactly tied to your product roadmap because you have such a long Runway. And in my experience, that's where, you know, the CTOs really get excited about being able to predict so far down the path, sometimes they're right. But like I said, you know, three years in, they can change their prediction, evolve their prediction. And so over time, you know, they've always been right.

That actually brings me to how do.

You get internal alignment for this? What is the strategy as a marketer.

To go and make sure everybody's rowing.

In the same direction? They understand where we're going, they understand what we're talking about.

Because as important as making your own category, you got to get that internal.

Buy in, that everybody is talking the talk and walking the walk as well.

Yeah, it's not necessarily easy, but it's also not necessarily challenging. In my experience, it's very much a positioning exercise. You really have to do the research, agree, get the buy in from the executive team, from the right stakeholders. If you've done the research right, you've already been talking to the product team, you've been talking to the engineering team about where they're going. You've been talking to the sales team. And so when you can sort of build the roadmap of okay from a global story, and let's be clear, this is very much a storytelling versus, you know, the product positioning from a global story. This is where we're going with our market. It's what we're currently targeting. It also gives us room whether we're going to acquire, whether we're going to grow, what that looks like, and here's how we back it up, and here's when we get to, you know, and here's. Here's the company story, and here's the product story. And if you can really succinctly map that out, everyone is typically on the same page. And then it's really about training them from the ground up. Of, okay, you have to understand the product positioning, and then you have to understand the. The company positioning, and then you have to understand the market positioning. And sometimes you start with the market and work your way back. But it's really those three pillars that everybody needs to understand, and you need to give them examples. Every time when you win a new customer, this is a validation for this market, and here's why. When you lose a deal, you know, this is sort of a challenge. This is what they were looking for. We didn't quite have it, but the product is coming, but it's still a validation for the market where we're heading. When you hear competitor news, you can put it in perspective of, you know, here's how we're going to respond to it. But they also see what we're seeing, they're hearing what we're seeing. And this is how, you know, this is proving the direction that we're going, but this is how we're going to win and own that category. And so everything that you send to them has to put back into the context. I think the more context you can give everybody along the way, the more that they will embrace that story. And then as you're training them and telling them over and over again, you know, in my experience, usually they'll come and they'll actually ask, well, how can I position this correctly? Or how do you think this ties into where we're going versus them fighting? They all want to be rowing in the right direction. They just need the help.

We're in a very interesting time where the trust of institutions are a little.

Bit lower than they used to be.

When it comes to 10 years ago.

A company can set a narrative and people maybe trust it more, but now there people are trusting people more and over institutions.

So how do you get for the thought leadership side of it, that buy in that there is a thought leader.

That'S in the company making sure that whether it's either the founder of the company or the CEO or the CMO that is out there talking about this on stages or in webinars, what does that process look like?

When I think about thought leaders, it's always a person, typically an executive, because, you know, a director below, they could come and go at the company. Even better if it's a founder. You know, to me, the company story obviously needs to tie to this, but people don't really pay attention to that. So, you know, even right now, if you were to look at Robin's corporate LinkedIn, you know, we obviously are doing marketing, but the bulk of the visionary stories are coming from actual people because people trust people. They always have. I don't think that has changed. I think in today's world, the easiest place to find that person is if you have a founder who is the CTO or the CEO explaining, you know, I started this company because I saw this problem and tying it to that story, it makes it personal. But it also, you know, they're putting their money where their mouth is, frankly, because they're saying, I, I saw this product that wasn't working. I thought of this new way of doing it, and I'm building this company to do it. And here's everything we're doing. If it's not the founder, you can find somebody who can build their credibility. And it always comes to the credibility side, where if it's a product person pointing to the customers, if it's a CEO pointing to the customers and the partners, and here's how we're growing and giving some stats and sort of proving the story along the way, I think is really important. But I, I think absolutely has to come from a person or people, if you will. But it's, you know, the story is truly personalized from their perspective. Whether it's engineering, product, even marketing, we can all tell that same story. But we bring our own experience. And along the way you have to prove, give examples, validate, give people a reason to trust you. And I think that's one of the challenges, especially in today's world, people don't trust. I think this is where AI generated content, you can spam everybody and you're going to lose trust because AI generated content is not, you this is where I think you have to actually put in the work of having your own opinion, having your own voice, actually having something unique to say and really putting that story out there and not relying on somebody else to do it for you.

Yeah, I always say content for content sake. There's something called negative signal out there. There's positive signals and negative signals in marketing and people always think of positive.

Things that if I put out more pieces of content, if I do more.

In social, if I do more here.

It'S a positive signal.

But if you're putting out things that are below average or average and don't really have opinions, or it can also have a negative effect on.

On your brand and negative signal and draw people away from your brand.

So I totally agree with that, especially with the age of AI Also, you're. I don't know how much you could talk about it, but you're in an interesting place with Robin because there was the whole shift to remote work and.

Now there's the shift to return to.

Office, Rotemark or hybrid. And so how. How are you? Have you been dealing with.

Because your mark. The market with you is with Robin is changing a lot too, because it was fully remote for two years and.

Then now it's like some people are.

Pro return to office, some people aren't. So there's this internal struggle as well.

Yeah, well, so I think Robin is a great example where when you have this story in the market, things can change, but they sort of validate the approach. And you know, with Robin, we're a workplace operations platform. At one point early on, it was really focused on managing desks. You know, people coming back from COVID they needed to be six feet away from each other. They weren't all coming to the office. Could you, you know, hot desk, things like that. But as we get farther into the place where everybody is back in some form or fashion, you know, maybe it's once a quarter, maybe it's a couple times a week, but people are going into the office and so you have to make that work. And I think for Robin, the. The world has changed, but our view around people want to come together to celebrate, to collaborate, and to really sort of embrace that culture. And so, you know, really sticking to some of those fundamentals, even as what that looks like has changed over time, has really made it easy for us from a storytelling perspective. Because, yes, the product has absolutely changed, the market has absolutely changed. But at the end of the day, you know, whether. Even when we were remote during the pandemic everybody still needed to connect. And it's all about those connections and the celebrations and the collaborations. It's just the how has changed over time, which is great. This is where you can talk. I think, you know, in five years, the office is going to look very different than it did today. And I also think, you know, today it looks very different than it did five years ago. But that's the fun part of telling a market story, right, is the market is always changing. And if you rethink it versus, you know, there are some companies in our space where they think of the office as there is somebody at the front desk. You go in, you check in, you go to your office or you go to your cube. That's where you are. There's probably a mail room, but no office exists like that anymore. It's just, it's not what people are looking for.

One other question I have is, okay, you've started creating a category. It's named People Starting to Know It. How do you keep that momentum going? And not because now there's going to be new. Once you've created the new market, there's.

Obviously going to be new competitors coming into that market trying to steal market share, steal market cap.

So how do you keep that momentum going and not lose track of that? You just. Because you're number one now, you can.

Always lose that spot.

Yeah. I think the biggest thing is once you created the market, or even as you're creating the market, you also have to focus on owning the market. And so you always have to be. If you're creating something new, by definition, you are an innovator. Right. And so you always have to be innovating. And what we're offering today is very innovative, but we also have to be thinking about, well, 12 months down the road, what's that going to look like and what's our innovation coming? And you have to keep telling that story, going back to the cto, always talking five years down the road, you know, what is the innovations that are coming? What are the improvements that are coming? What does two years, five years, seven years look like? And how are you staying ahead so that you've created this category, people understand it. You've been the innovator to begin with, but then you're driving innovation. I think this is where Apple, in most of their products, they do it really well. You know, they, they can come out with the iPhone, they can talk about the iPhone, but they keep doing something different. Drive some people crazy, but there's always something that they're Trying to push the innovation, whether it's a form or a function. But they're focused on innovating and they keep telling that story about where they see that world evolving. They started getting into other media things because it fed into the device and so their story changed. But they were always trying to be an innovator. And of course they also have billions of dollars. So it's easy to innovate when you're a startup. Sometimes it's really picking that one or two things that you're looking for. And it might be, as we said, this problem is, is changing. You know, for us with Robin, the office is changing. We're solving today's problems, but we're also thinking about, you know, what does it look like in 12 months, what's that problem? And when we get to there, we'll be waiting for you with the solution. So, you know, it's really, really focused on thinking what are the customers going to be looking for, what are they going to need? And making sure that you have the product when they're ready.

That's a, that's a great way to put it. And I also want to go into some rapid fire questions. Okay, one word that describes the category you created. Unique, most underrated tool for shaping a marketed narrative. Blogs, thought leader or book that shaped.

Your thinking about this topic?

I don't have a specific one, but the ones that really shaped there's like a handful were ones sort of the insider guides to presidential campaigns. Because I think in a completely different world and not recently, but you know, going back 25 years when I started my career, you know, the Peggy Noonan's of the world. Hearing how she would shape the world's opinion based on sound bites and thoughts really made me think hard going into it about how, you know, your tagline or you know, this is, this is the one word synopsis of what we're doing, how it really has to have longevity.

Yeah, I think putting politics aside, if you just study politics, it's really good.

Marketing, whatever they're doing, not saying it's.

Good or bad, like they're doing it.

For a positive, negative way, but and going back in history, history of politics, it's so interesting to see how people shape that.

Yeah, it's fascinating. And so Peggy Noonan, she was the speechwriter for George Bush Sr. She also worked many presidents before him. But hearing her talk about things like going way back in history with the Berlin Wall and coming up with one single phrase that she knew was going to be the sound bite on the news. And it had to be a rallying cry. And just started hearing the science in her mind of coming up with Gorbachev, tear down that wall. Which, you know, I think is probably a history lesson for a lot of your listeners. But it, you know, in politics, you hear like, what's that one rallying cry that gets the world going? And in technology, you know, it's sort of the same concept of, you know, what's that one phrase that everyone can just sort of get behind Again, going back to HubSpot, it was inbound. Like it was just a word. They didn't invent the word inbound marketing. They didn't invent the concept, but they invented the excitement behind it that they even had events and marketers were excited to go to it and they. All they could talk about was inbound, Inbound, Inbound.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Carrie Hansen]

And they shaped it as a strategy.

Too, to how to go to market. So it was like people were doing it, but they. They doubled down on how to do it.

Exactly.

Biggest misconception people have about category creation.

That you can do it in just a few months and be done.

What's the hardest part of getting a category to stick?

Staying focused internally.

What's one thing you wish you knew before starting a new category journey?

I mean, the one thing I'd always want to know is what are the competitors trying to do, frankly? Because if you know where they're going, it's easier to map out that category.

Lastly, I ask every marketer this on my podcast, but what's a marketing hill.

You would die on?

A marketing hill that I would die on is that every marketer, doesn't matter what your role is, should understand both how a business works and how to write really, really well.

I love that.

That.

That is. I want to quote that one. That one coming from marketing ops.

That is something I learned well is.

You have to me learning the whole.

Business helped me become a way better marketer.

Yes. I will tell everybody on my team, you should know how to read a financial statement. You should know things like, what does LTV mean? What does CAC mean? What's the rule of 40? You should know how the product works. And you should. Absolutely. Again, I don't care what role you're in. You should really good writer because everything in marketing is about communication.

And lastly, where could people find you, what you're doing and everything else?

The easiest place is on LinkedIn. I'm Carrie with a K. Hansen. I would say I'm on there all the time. Feel free to reach out to me.

Thank you so much for coming on. I learned a lot today and I.

Know everybody will learn a lot from this conversation.

Well, thanks for having me. Like I said when we started, I love talking about this topic. I'm pretty passionate about it. I think it can get really interesting and I'm appreciative that I was able to geek out with you.

[Daniel Murray]

Thanks so much for listening. Keep tuning in to hear more great insights from the coolest marketers from around the world. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and follow the Marketing Millennials podcast us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you hear, I would greatly appreciate you giving us a five star rating. It helps bring more marketers into our community.