No matter how digital the world gets, companies can’t automate meaningful connections with customers. In-person experiences are critical to growth strategies, but some executives may squirm at the cost of these events.
On this episode of SaaS Half Full, Gretchen Eischen, Chief Marketing Officer at Avetta, shared how her team transformed a traditional user conference into a community-driven experience that strengthened customer relationships and created new revenue growth opportunities.
Earlier this year, Gretchen guided Avetta through a rebranding. She said it was a fun experience to announce the brand internally and bring it to life for their employees. But they had to make it happen for customers, too.
That chance came at their user conference, the Avetta Summit Series.
Turning the customer conference model on its head
Many customer events feature a parade of executive speakers. Gretchen wanted to ditch that model.
“We’re going to create an experience that really brings the community that we are building to life. I wanted to make sure that the audience was hearing a reflection of themselves.”— Gretchen Eischen
She offered three strategies that had customers raving about their experience.
1. Fewer executives, more customers on stage
When your company is hosting a user conference, everyone internally wants to talk about their own thing. And that’s great. But these events should be focused on what the audience wants to hear.
So instead of orchestrating a long list of executive speeches, Gretchen had their customer award winners from the previous year speak. They articulated the challenges they were facing, how they’re working with clients and suppliers, and the progress they’re making toward their internal goals. Gretchen said these customers became the stars of the show.
Avetta also interviewed this year’s award winners on stage. Instead of hearing about what interested Avetta, customers witnessed a reflection of themselves and their real-world experiences.
2. Create a connection center
If you think about a traditional show floor, you’ll typically have sponsor and vendor booths around the perimeter and seating and food in the middle.
Gretchen and her team used that concept, but flipped the script. They had some partners, but they also had client booths. She said it functioned as a sort of job fair. Suppliers could pitch to companies looking to hire, creating direct connections.
The Avetta team also introduced sneak peek sessions. Product teams demonstrated the features discussed on the main stage, and customers got to beta test them and give immediate feedback. It was very interactive and beneficial for users and Avetta.
3. Give people freedom
Gretchen says her team took care to plan the agenda with maximum time for networking and interaction. They created tracks so that attendees could focus on learning what was most relevant to them, then have time to share those insights as a community. But they also allowed people to choose their own adventure, sitting in only the sessions that really mattered to them.
Justifying the cost
Gretchen said she had a tough conversation with the CRO about paying for the conference. She laid out her proposal and its price tag. His response: I don’t want to spend that much money on an event.
She told him he was thinking about it the wrong way.
“This is not that we’re spending this money on an event. We are investing in our community and in the community’s growth.” — Gretchen Eischen
The team viewed the in-person experience as a marketing event. Gretchen said you’ve got to approach it like a sales event.
She demonstrated the direct selling happening in the connection center. Every time a supplier connected with a client, it translated into revenue for Avetta. She said the event showed their sales peers how to leverage the experience to grow pipeline and revenue. Registration numbers are vanity numbers; connections make the money.
Gretchen also gave credit to the partnerships that helped her pull off the event.
Watch the full episode to hear more about maximizing an in-person event for attendees and the host company.
Transcript
This has been generated by AI and optimized by a human.
[00:00:00] Gretchen Eischen: when we were going through the budgeting process at the end of the year, and I presented, “This is what I’m gonna spend,” he said, “I don’t wanna spend that much money on an event.”
[00:00:07] Gretchen Eischen: And I said, “You’re thinking about it incorrectly. This is not that we’re spending this money on an event. We are investing in our community and in the community’s growth.
[00:00:18] Lindsey Groepper: Hi, and welcome back to SaaS Half Full, the only show serving B2B SaaS marketers. I’m Lindsey Groepper, EVP at PANBlast, and I will be both your host and bartender today. I had a great conversation with Gretchen Eischen, who is the CMO of Avetta, and Gretchen and I have known each other for a few years now. we met at an empowered CXO event several years ago, but I finally got her on the show.
[00:00:41] Lindsey Groepper: She is coming off the heels of their customer summit and she made the case to double their event budget for that summit this year. So we walked through how she made the case for that, some of the goods, the bad, the uglies lessons learned of owned events. so if you care to grab a drink and join me as I speak with Gretchen about all things owned events.
[00:01:00] Lindsey Groepper: Gretchen, welcome to SaaS Half Full
[00:01:02] Gretchen Eischen: Hi, Lindsey. Thank you so much for having me
[00:01:04] Lindsey Groepper: I am excited to have you on. I feel like we have been trying to do this for quite some time. Timing wasn’t right, topics weren’t right, but we finally figured it out. I told you before I hit record that I’ve had awesome guests the last few months, but we were talking a lot about AI.
[00:01:19] Lindsey Groepper: You had a LinkedIn post, uh, I think it was literally just last week from the time that we’re recording, talking about your, uh, in-person event, and it just stopped me in my tracks and I thought, “You know what? I want to talk more about connecting in person. Instead of marketing to bots, I want to talk about how we got to get our buyers together.”
[00:01:35] Lindsey Groepper: Um, so thankfully, you agreed and wanted to come on and chat. Um, Gretchen and I have known each other for a handful of years now. We met through the Empowered CMO Retreat, uh, which is an awesome event every year that, uh, has a really great in-person and virtual community. Um, but before we dive into talking about good, bad, uglies of owned events, Gretchen, I do want to give our listeners a bit of understanding of who you are.
[00:01:59] Lindsey Groepper: to start us off, are you joining me for a drink today?
[00:02:03] Gretchen Eischen: I am. Of course I am. And indeed, I am, uh, I feel like I should have an affiliate marketing link for this because I talk about it all the time. I’m having an AF drink, a Paloma, so it’s alcohol-free, but boy, is it delicious and refreshing. Cheers to you.
[00:02:18] Lindsey Groepper: cheers. I love it. I have a f– I don’t know if it’s the same… It must be the same brand. Do they… I have a friend that drinks the AF IPAs,
[00:02:24] Lindsey Groepper: so I’m assuming that, this, yeah, assuming that’s the same, same brand. Um, I am not going AF. Um, I am drinking, uh, a vodka soda. I found, found this, like, key lime flavored, um, like, seltzer water that I absolutely love that’s perfect for summer.
[00:02:40] Lindsey Groepper: Um, so I have a Tito’s and, uh, seltzer.
[00:02:44] Gretchen Eischen: That sounds delicious. I do sometimes add alcohol to these, but not tonight
[00:02:48] Lindsey Groepper: Mm-hmm. And I do love a Paloma. Love the taste of a Paloma.
[00:02:56] Lindsey Groepper: Okay, Gretchen, well, give us a little background on you. currently you’re the CMO of Avetta, but walk us a bit through your journey. Were you always a marketer? Um, and then we also wanna know just why Avetta exists and a little bit more about the company.
[00:03:06] Gretchen Eischen: Yeah, I’d love to share. Thanks for asking. So, uh, indeed I am currently CMO at Avetta. I have been here for just about two years. I started my career in B2B technology at a company called Ariba, way back in 2004. I was brought on board as a French-speaking project manager to help companies lead through sourcing projects in the procurement space.
[00:03:29] Gretchen Eischen: Had just an absolute light bulb moment. Imagine this, a light bulb moment of excitement about the procurement industry
[00:03:36] Gretchen Eischen: and really understanding, whoa, how businesses do business together. and it was really interesting to me, um, just coming from a, you know, a background in studying language, learning about business was, truly, uh, impactful and exciting for me.
[00:03:52] Gretchen Eischen: I had an awesome experience in my 18 years at Ariba. Had a number of different customer-facing roles, operations management, project management, customer success, account relationship management and leadership. Ultimately ended up in marketing when we got a new CMO who came into the business after we were acquired by SAP.
[00:04:13] Gretchen Eischen: Uh, her name is Alicia Tillman. She’s currently the CMO at Delta and, um, became my mentor, brought me into the marketing organization where I had my second giant light bulb moment of my career, where marketing and strategic marketing and the opportunity to really leverage a brand, a message, and an experience to grow revenue just absolutely clicked for me right away.
[00:04:39] Gretchen Eischen: And I knew from then on I was going to be a marketer for life. Um, so that was over 10 years ago now. Had the opportunity at Ariba and ultimately, at Fieldglass as well under the SAP umbrella to lead a number of different marketing functions. Ultimately led the entire marketing organization for both Ariba and Fieldglass.
[00:05:01] Gretchen Eischen: Left because I wanted to have the opportunity to own my full strategy as, some changes were taking place at SAP and those functions were being incorporated into the broader SAP marketing environment. So I wanted to own my own strategy. Went to a company called Icertis for a few years. Led marketing as chief marketing officer there, uh, and then ultimately made my way over to Avetta.
[00:05:25] Gretchen Eischen: So I’ve had the chance to work in, you know, large multinational public companies, smaller startup environments that were growing super fast as, as unicorns, and now working at Avetta where we’re sort of mid-size, PE-backed. What an awesome ride.
[00:05:40] Lindsey Groepper: What an awesome ride. And as a B2B tech CMO, what a just stress-free, role that you have chosen for yourself
[00:05:51] Gretchen Eischen: Indeed. But, you know, I get so much energy from it, and I, I really do love it. I feel really blessed to be, like, in a role that I just find a lot of excitement and energy from every day
[00:06:01] Lindsey Groepper: That’s awesome.
[00:06:02] Lindsey Groepper: Um, and tell us a little bit about Avetta. Now, if you’re on this call and you’re like, “I’ve never heard of Avetta,” that’s not, that, not super surprising, only because Avetta serves a very different and distinct audience. So tell us about
[00:06:15] Lindsey Groepper: Avetta
[00:06:15] Gretchen Eischen: Well, I like to say that Avetta is the best company that you’ve never heard of. And honestly, that was part of the reason that I wanted to come to this organization and take this role. Um, so at Avetta, we are helping businesses and suppliers get ready to work. And effectively, what this means is that, you know, we work with customers that are in, highly labor-intensive industries.
[00:06:37] Gretchen Eischen: Think construction, distribution, manufacturing, chemicals, energy, anybody that’s gonna bring a really large on-site workforce, into their environment, and the work that they’re gonna be doing is likely very high risk. Avetta is a two-sided business, so we’re working with those clients, but we’re also working with the 260,000 or so contractors and suppliers that are part of our community today.
[00:07:04] Gretchen Eischen: These are folks that are electricians, plumbers, contractors, doing that really high-risk work on site. And Avetta brings them all together to make sure that our platform collects the right level of information to ensure that all of that work is done safely, that the suppliers have the right level of insurance and qualification and sustainability, uh, focus, business and cyber risk focus within their businesses to ensure that the clients can reduce as much risk as possible, and the suppliers can deliver really high-quality work on time, and everyone progresses forward together.
[00:07:43] Gretchen Eischen: so it’s a really interesting business, uh, mostly because, again, we do have this opportunity to deliver both audiences, you know, the hiring clients and maybe safety leadership or procurement, but also the suppliers themselves who are looking to complete tasks and work, but also really want to grow their companies.
[00:08:03] Gretchen Eischen: Um, and we are really bringing both of those audiences together on our platform and in our community right now
[00:08:10] Lindsey Groepper: That’s awesome. And, um, before I hit record, you had said there’s this, sort of misconception that most B2B SaaS or, uh, B2B, uh, software companies sell to technologists, uh, folks that are very tech-forward, that really care a lot about AI and the AI positioning of your company. But there’s a whole host of B2B software companies and technology companies that do not sell to technologists.
[00:08:34] Lindsey Groepper: We represent a bunch of them, and we love them. Um, you know, we have sold to R&D leaders at life sciences companies. We’ve literally sold into, like, the coal and mining industry for our clients. and so for those of you that are listening that maybe sell into non-technology leaders or those that are savvy, like they sell into marketers, right?
[00:08:54] Lindsey Groepper: We’re all, like, pretty tech-savvy. Um, but this is definitely the episode for you. And even if you do, there’s gonna be some really good takeaways on, uh, on this, uh, owned event strategy.
[00:09:05] Lindsey Groepper: Um, you have had a, a pretty packed first half of the year, Gretchen, in that you went through a rebrand repositioning at the beginning of the year and then quickly had the opportunity, um, that you spearheaded to turn around and, like, literally physically bring that to life in a place that is bringing your, your customers together, um, and really show that in the, in the real world.
[00:09:29] Lindsey Groepper: So talk us through sort of that, rebrand, and then I want to get into the details of the Avetta Summit that you just wrapped last
[00:09:37] Lindsey Groepper: week.
[00:09:38] Gretchen Eischen: So I, I, I joked earlier that, you know, Avetta is the best company that you’ve never heard of. And honestly, when I joined the company about two years ago, it was not an organization that had been on my radar, even though honestly, um, having worked in the procurement industry previously, a lot of the value proposition that Avetta offers is very relevant to procurement contacts.
[00:10:00] Gretchen Eischen: has gone through a storied history of acquisition, and they did a rebrand, I think in 2009, if I’m not mistaken, uh, taking four different businesses that had been acquired and renaming them all as, as Avetta. And when I joined the organization two years ago, it was really apparent that, there had not been adequate focus on, on really ensuring that a consistent message, a consistent look and feel was representing the brand.
[00:10:29] Gretchen Eischen: The brand itself had honestly been ignored. and what this led to is if I asked 10 different people at Avetta what they did or what Avetta does, you would get 10 distinct answers. And same thing for our customers. They were not able to articulate the value that Avetta… Actually, they could articulate very well the trust and the partnership and the affinity that they had for the Avetta people.
[00:10:54] Gretchen Eischen: But when asked to describe what we did and what we delivered, it was really difficult for them to do so. Mm-hmm. And I would also just point out that we had nine different beautiful visual systems existing across our company. So you would go into meetings and, you know, stacked across your packed business day where you’d have meeting after meeting, if you were on with internal folks, you would see nine different PowerPoint presentations throughout the day.
[00:11:21] Gretchen Eischen: as a marketer
[00:11:23] Gretchen Eischen: It was horrifying.
[00:11:24] Gretchen Eischen: but honestly, we, we decided last year that we were going to, um, we were going to go forth and we were going to create a consistent message. There is a really powerful value prop here, and it’s a great company, and we wanted it to shine. so we went through an awesome process of interviewing our customers, our stakeholders internally.
[00:11:45] Gretchen Eischen: Um, we looked across our competitive set. We really brought everyone together to net down who is it that we want to be and what do we want to stand for? And what we came up with was indeed this concept of ready to work. You know, we believe that it really represents, again, the goal that our entire audience has.
[00:12:06] Gretchen Eischen: We know that it’s easy to articulate for our team members, and it allows us to really showcase and reflect our audience. And I, I really believe that the best marketing is simple and it just reflects the audience that you’re trying to serve. We know that clients want to have strong and safe operations.
[00:12:25] Gretchen Eischen: They have to mitigate risk every day. We know that suppliers want to get work done efficiently and quickly and at the highest level of quality. Avetta brings all of them together. We bring intelligence and the expertise to guide the community to be grounded in shared success and be ready to work. And it was a really fun experience to have the chance earlier this year to announce the brand internally, to bring everyone along on the journey of the message, to, you know, bring it to our, sales team and commercial team at SKO in January, where we hosted like a swag pop-up shop so they got the chance to, you know, pick and select their new materials and, um, and, you know, water bottles and socks and all of that fun stuff that every salesperson really wants.
[00:13:16] Gretchen Eischen: and we did have the chance to really take it across the globe as well in bringing it to life for our employee base. The chance to then make it happen for our customers came at our Avetta Summit Series that we kicked off in May
[00:13:30] Lindsey Groepper: Yeah.
[00:13:30] Lindsey Groepper: So you get through this massive rebrand, repositioning, get through your SKO. Everyone’s like, “Great job. Love it, Gretchen. Well done. Probably want to take a break now, take a little breath.” And you say, “Well, uh, except we got to start focusing on our owned event. And oh, by the way, in order to pull it off, I want to double our budget.”
[00:13:50] Lindsey Groepper: Which you said made a few people nervous. So talk us through the business case that you made for the budget that ultimately got people over the line to say yes
[00:14:02] Gretchen Eischen: Yeah, that’s a great question. It’s really interesting. I actually have a very, um, strong memory of the conversation that I had with our CRO about, my desire to ramp up our budget. Last year, um, Avetta hosted at its time the largest user conference that we’d ever had. We had about 270 folks on site. That was up from 100 the year before, so really strong growth.
[00:14:26] Gretchen Eischen: I was very proud of the event that we led last year. But it was a very standard user conference, right? And, there were some really shining moments of, our awards dinner where we were able to, um, I think we had 350 award nominations last year. And we had, you know, 50 different winners that we presented throughout the conference.
[00:14:50] Gretchen Eischen: It was a really celebratory and great event. and when we walked away from it, I remember talking to my CRO and saying like, “I want to rethink this entire thing.” And he was like ” Tell me why.” And I said, “Because I, I just, I know that what we’re focused on here isn’t truly focused on the audience.
[00:15:10] Gretchen Eischen: Everything that we are talking about is about us. None of this is about our audience.” And he kind of looked, and he, he shook his head and he was like, “Okay.” When I– And then I remember when we were going through the budgeting process at the end of the year, and I presented, “This is what I’m gonna spend,” he said, “I don’t wanna spend that much money on an event.”
[00:15:27] Gretchen Eischen: And I said, “You’re thinking about it incorrectly. This is not that we’re spending this money on an event. We are investing in our community and in the community’s growth. And I, I will tell you that I, I believe that we can get this event to 350 people next year. I think we can inc- it, we can extend it and, and grow it even further than we did this past year, but we’re gonna do it with the right folks, the people that are gonna be in the room who are gonna have the biggest impact for being here.
[00:15:55] Gretchen Eischen: And we’re gonna th- think about doing it differently. We’re going to create an experience that really brings the community that we are building to life.” And so he was like, “Okay, okay.” He, he agreed on the bet. Um, I definitely think that our experience in launching the brand and the trust that we were able to build across the board and the executive leadership team in delivering strong work that really resonated secured me the space of not a lot of challenge on the budget decision we made.
[00:16:28] Gretchen Eischen: Woo. when we went forth and, like, presented the event plan, I don’t think anyone really understood the vision of what we were putting together. I think everyone was a bit overwhelmed hearing like, “Oh, there’s all these bells and whist- whistles that we’re doing.” I don’t think anyone truly understood it until they arrived on site.
[00:16:47] Gretchen Eischen: But I will tell you that now, next year, they’re asking me not just, “How do we do it bigger?” “How do we do more of them?”
[00:16:54] Lindsey Groepper: Oh, wow. You’re like, “Okay, okay. Pump the brakes.” You’re like,
[00:16:58] Gretchen Eischen: Oh, no, I’m ready.
[00:17:01] Lindsey Groepper: Um, so when you took a look at sort of the traditional playbook that had been run, and maybe it was a better traditional playbook, maybe it was yours that you had, had repeated. What was the first thing that you knew you had to cut that maybe felt a little risky, but you knew was necessary
[00:17:18] Gretchen Eischen: we had to take, the parade of executives off of the stage.
[00:17:23] Lindsey Groepper: Okay.
[00:17:24] Lindsey Groepper: What did that
[00:17:24] Lindsey Groepper: look like before, and then what did that look like this year?
[00:17:27] Gretchen Eischen: So last year and, and in previous years, and I’m sure at honestly any user conference that anyone in this audience has, has been to, y- you know the pressure as a marketing leader who’s going to be putting the messaging together, what gets put on your stage, and you know the tap dance that you have to do of what is the ego of the executive and do– how much time are they gonna need to be present on the stage versus, you know, what does the audience actually care about and want to hear?
[00:17:57] Gretchen Eischen: And where we end up tending is usually nonetheless caving to the internal pressure of the audience that we have to deal with every day, i.e. the execs, and we create this, you know, long list of parade of execs who wanna talk about their thing, and it’s the talking head parade. So I wanted to take that and, and throw it on its head.
[00:18:20] Gretchen Eischen: I wanted to make sure that instead the audience was hearing a reflection of themselves. So rather than taking a, you know, cross-country style awards dinner where you’ve got a big room of people and everybody claps after every single award, and we instead decided that we would bring the amazing award winners from last year and have them speak.
[00:18:44] Gretchen Eischen: They became the folks who actually articulated, um, you know, the challenge that they were facing, how they were progressing towards addressing the challenge, what they were doing in partnership with either their clients or suppliers, how they were making progress on the commitments to readiness that they had internally.
[00:19:03] Gretchen Eischen: They became the stars of the show. We also leveraged, um, you know, the introduction and, and announcement of our new awards for this year on our main stage, where then we could have interviews with, with, uh, folks that were winning to understand more about what they are focused on, what their challenges are, et cetera.
[00:19:22] Gretchen Eischen: So we just really flipped the script in terms of what we were talking about. And, and we also– Well, this will be different than most folks, where usually when, when a B2B marketing leader is putting together a content frame, a lot of it is product forward. In the past, ours had not been.
[00:19:39] Gretchen Eischen: We had talked a lot about ourselves and a lot about our service, but we had not done a lot of product demo. So we did that. The, the piece that was about Avetta this year was leading with product innovation and technology
[00:19:52] Lindsey Groepper: Okay.
[00:20:06] Lindsey Groepper: Um, something that you also mentioned was that you allowed for live customer feedback with the product team. And when that stood out to me, um, and now granted, I haven’t attended a lot of user conferences, how did you prepare the product team for that? Um, I’m sure it was received very well from the customers because they, right, you– God, it’s like you, you want that so bad.
[00:20:15] Lindsey Groepper: Any vendor that I have, I would love just to actually just sit down and get all my questions answered. but how did you prepare the product team for that level of like unfiltered feedback and questioning?
[00:20:26] Gretchen Eischen: Yeah, great question. What we constructed in order to make this experience come to life was this concept of a connection center. So if you think about a traditional show floor, you’ll typically have sponsor booths and, uh, maybe vendor booths around the perimeter of the space, and you’ll have seating and food, et cetera, in the middle.
[00:20:49] Gretchen Eischen: We constructed a similar sort of show floor, but we flipped the script in terms of who was around the room. So we did have partners who bring thought leadership and technology and service to, to bear, but we actually had our clients around the room. those folks who are hiring for qualified suppliers who are looking for work, we set them up as booths.
[00:21:13] Gretchen Eischen: So it was almost like a job fair, right? They could actually talk about their needs from a program perspective. Suppliers were able to come and pitch their competitive advantage and talk about their qualifications. We could be making direct connections.
[00:21:28] Lindsey Groepper: Absolutely
[00:21:29] Gretchen Eischen: Interspersed amongst this, we also then had new feature sneak peek sessions, and they were, you know, demo booth areas where our product team could actually demonstrate and show the features that we talked about on our main stage, but people could play with them right away.
[00:21:46] Gretchen Eischen: They could have the chance to interact with the, the solution, share feedback right then and there. Our marketing team was on site as well to catch supplier, uh, testimonials directly. So now as we’re preparing to launch these features that we effectively did some beta testing for on site, we also have really strong testimonials from folks that were using it firsthand.
[00:22:09] Gretchen Eischen: we prepped with the product team. They were amazing partners in this. We actually came up with that idea of doing the new feature sneak peeks just, I think, three weeks before the event. Um, but they were all in. We also had a central hub where, you know, essentially any of our clients or suppliers in the community could come, and it was fully staffed by Avetta folks, so they could do a demo of anything in the solution right then and there.
[00:22:34] Gretchen Eischen: They could also help a supplier to get in and update their profile. Um, you know, really take advantage of what they have already subscribed to as part of the Avetta platform. We could show them exactly what to do or how to do anything that they needed right then and there. So it was very hands-on and very interactive.
[00:22:53] Gretchen Eischen: Um, and again, the community just absolutely raved about it
[00:22:58] Lindsey Groepper: Yeah. What I’m picking up from this is it w- this conference was a bit more like choose your own adventure. So you could lean into the areas that mattered to you versus you having to sit through sessions or keynotes or demos or whatever the case is that, that maybe you’re not interested in or maybe you’re not ready for, depending on, you know, how long you’ve been a customer, where you are in your journey.
[00:23:20] Lindsey Groepper: So I like that this was sort of, you can spend your time in a way that’s going to be maximized for you individually instead of shoving everybody down the same path.
[00:23:28] Lindsey Groepper:
[00:23:28] Gretchen Eischen: Yes. So we really took care to make sure that the agenda itself was planned with the maximum amount of time available for networking, interaction, and learning within this connection center versus, as you’re saying, sitting in a theater seat. we did, however, also have tracks for content so that when they did break to go to connect– uh, to, uh, breakout sessions, uh, you had a track that was for supplier, a track that was for procurement, a track that was for health and safety.
[00:23:57] Gretchen Eischen: So they could really focus on learning that was most relevant to them, but then come back and share those learnings together as a community. a lot of what we put together from a supplier perspective was very showing our suppliers, what they can do within their profile to be seen and more visible in the Avetta community so that they can continue to grow their business.
[00:24:19] Gretchen Eischen: people would go directly from that session straight to the back to the connection center, up to the hub to update their profile, then march over and talk with the client and be able to say, “You should look at my profile. I’m ready to work for you.” And, and it was, it was just very organic in the way that the experience then unfolded because, again, we were really able to make sure that each of the audiences were getting what they needed at the event
[00:24:45] Lindsey Groepper: Um, I want to go back to budget a little bit because sometimes bigger budget means, uh, louder and more significant pressure to prove and show ROI. Talk to us about sort of expectation setting for doubling the budget doesn’t necessarily mean whatever your outcomes are going to double as well. But just talk to us a little bit about, um, I guess what, what type of metrics did you intentionally ignore and just say, “We’re not ev– That’s, that’s not the point,” and which ones did you lean into to show overall success to stakeholders?
[00:25:18] Gretchen Eischen: Yeah. I love this question because, um, you know, I have, like, a typical answer that I think that one would give in this scenario of, you know, we, we weren’t looking at the traditional regis- You know, obviously marketers, if they’re savvy today, are not looking at registration count and, you know, the vanity metrics of who’s registered or who’s even in attendance.
[00:25:38] Gretchen Eischen: They’re looking at pipeline. They’re looking at the influence of pipeline. They’re looking at the build of pipeline. In our business, this had not been utilized as a sales event in the past. It had really been seen as a marketing event.
[00:25:52] Lindsey Groepper: Okay?
[00:25:53] Gretchen Eischen: And my job in this was convincing my peers within the, the, uh, go-to-market team, “No, no, no, no.
[00:26:00] Gretchen Eischen: This is a sales event, and we’re gonna show you direct selling happening in this connection center.” Every time a supplier went up to meet with a client and made that connection, that’s revenue for us. So we showed them exactly how it comes, happens organically, but also grows immediately. And because we also took care with the content to ensure that the procurement or safety leaders were sitting in breakout sessions that were relevant to how to grow their business, we had the chance to really show them, uh, to show my sales peers, “Here’s how you actually leverage this experience to grow.”
[00:26:40] Gretchen Eischen: Gretchen, this has been awesome.
[00:26:41] Lindsey Groepper: Is there anything that we haven’t tackled that you wanna make sure that we cover today?
[00:26:46] Lindsey Groepper: guess I would just share honestly that, like, the power of partnership in, um, building out an event like this is so incredibly important. you know, not only was I able to lean on just some amazing friendships that I have with people who are in the event management and event strategy space to help brainstorm this and, uh, and really think through the experience.
[00:27:13] Gretchen Eischen: but we had an amazing event agency that we worked with. They’re called, uh, KCI. They were phenomenal in helping to make sure that this vision got executed. and I just would encourage you not to think that you have to do it alone. There’s so many amazing moments being created in person today, so many more to come.
[00:27:35] Gretchen Eischen: I really feel like in an age of AI, the power of creativity is really getting lit up in community right now and in in-person events. so leveraging folks who are seeing the best of what’s out there, is a great way to make sure that you can bring your audience the best of what works for them.
[00:27:58] Lindsey Groepper: Yeah, I love that.
[00:28:05] Lindsey Groepper: And you, you’ve mentioned community quite a bit, um, the power of connecting. You and I connected through a community, the Empowered Community. and we were talking, um, before we hit record, um, and I’m bringing this up so you’re gonna have to tell us about it, is that you had, that you’re thinking about starting your own group for CMOs.
[00:28:17] Lindsey Groepper: We’ve mentioned it’s a very difficult job, um, specifically female CMOs, to add another layer to that, and that you are thinking about launching your own community, for female CMOs. Tell us about that.
[00:28:30] Gretchen Eischen: Yeah. So it’s not so much that I’m launching my own community. What I am offering is the, uh, for the community of CMOs that exist, the opportunity to participate in a, a CMO circle. And think about this as really like a very curated cohort of CMOs that are getting together in small groups to spend 12 sessions together.
[00:28:53] Gretchen Eischen: I really do credit the Empowered community with giving me confidence, to believe that I could go for my dream of being a CMO. you probably know the saying that, you know, the, uh, you are the average of the five people that you spend the most of amount of your time with, and I think that you should curate that.
[00:29:10] Gretchen Eischen: you know, I believe that you have to surround yourself with people who know more than you do, who think differently and have different experiences, but that doesn’t just happen organically. I wanna create these curated cohorts of women who can come together, hold each other up, boost each other forward, but also really attack the challenges that exist for CMOs today.
[00:29:32] Gretchen Eischen: So each of the 12 sessions is gonna cover a different conversation. It could be how to speak CFO. It could be, you know, tackling together, how to manage demand and, uh, progress pipeline in an ultra-personalized world. but essentially I’m bringing together small groups of CMOs to build community together, build that tight-knit-ness that I think we always organically have had come out of Empowered, where you get to meet a person who really understands you and your needs.
[00:30:03] Gretchen Eischen: Sometimes you just need a group that you can tap into to say, “I’ve got a big problem. I can’t solve it alone. Who can help me?” And not every CMO is out there making those connections all the time. This is a chance to do so. So if someone is interested in, in joining one of these, curated circles, please let me know.
[00:30:22] Gretchen Eischen: You can reach out to me on LinkedIn
[00:30:23] Lindsey Groepper: Okay, awesome. Um, really appreciate that, and I feel like you’re gonna have quite a few takers, well, this has been awesome, Gretchen. Thank you so much.
[00:30:31] Lindsey Groepper: I, uh, end every episode the same way. I ask our question– or ask our guests the same question, which is, do you have a signature or favorite toast to send us out with?
[00:30:38] Gretchen Eischen: Ooh, uh, that is a great question. Uh, so I, uh, I had the opportunity earlier in my career to spend about a year and a half living in, uh, in Prague. and I will tell you, I’m not gonna give the, the Prague, uh, toast, but I wa- what I will send you out with is this: the only check that I recall from my team or from my time there, which is, “Ukoncete prosim vystup a nastup, dveře se, dveře se zaviraji,” which means, “Watch out, the subway doors are about to close.”
[00:31:10] Lindsey Groepper: Thanks again, Gretchen, for joining me on SaaS Half Full. Hopefully you took a thing or two away as you are planning your next. Customer or owned event, loved hearing from her. Glad to finally get her on the show. We always appreciate the listen, and until next time, bottoms up.