John Smallmtn

Welcome to another episode of the Adapted Growth Show, where we look at people who have spent time in the performance roles of sales, marketing, and leadership, and look at what has been helpful to them and how they have adapted to grow in these crazy roles that are part of business.

Today, we have Kendra Ellis on the show. Kendra is someone that I am new to connecting with, but she came highly recommended when I was looking for guests. We’ve had a little bit of conversation, and I’m excited to dig in with her.

She is the Senior Director of Growth Marketing at—I am so very sorry, I missed the name. My fault, hold on one second. RevPartners, okay. Super sorry. Okay, let me start that again. Let me write it down so I don’t forget in the middle of it. Preparation, Kendra.

Kendra Ellis

Sticky notes are our friend.

John Smallmtn

Sticky notes are everywhere. If only I had an automation that just put this right in front of my face, I wouldn’t even have to write it down. RevPartners.

Kendra Ellis

Pretty soon we’ll just give AI a script and it’ll just do it for us.

John Smallmtn

Yeah, it’s just going to pop right into my glasses, right? It’s going to be not intrusive at all.

All right, let’s try this again.

Welcome to the show, everybody. This is another episode of the Adapted Growth Show, where we interview people in performance roles of sales, marketing, and leadership and look at how they have figured out how to be successful in these roles—because they’re often chaotic, and they change and move.

Today, we have Kendra Ellis on the show. Kendra is the Senior Director of Growth Marketing at RevPartners. RevPartners is really focused on being more experienced with less risk so that you get better value whenever you’re looking to grow. Welcome to the show.

Kendra Ellis

Thanks, John. Thanks for having me.

John Smallmtn

Absolutely. I am going to jump right in because I’ve been sleuthing over your LinkedIn a little bit, so I have some very interesting questions for you.

The thing that I would like to talk about first: We were talking about this right before we hit record, and you were talking about moving into a much larger organization. It was kind of like drinking from the firehose a little bit. I think most people who have stepped into these kinds of roles are very familiar with that, but I’m curious: Have you found anything to deal with that drinking from the firehose and keeping it all manageable whenever you’re going into a new role?

Kendra Ellis

Absolutely. Honestly, regardless of organization size, it’s always drinking from a firehose. Especially if you’re the personality type that I am, where you pretty much want to be perfect outside of day one.

A couple of the tips that I have used across my onboarding journeys over my career: Really be a great note taker, not only because I will need that after 15 meetings in one day, let alone a whole entire week, but then I can really look back on what those action items are, what I was thinking about in that moment, and what my top priorities are for focusing on during that time when I have a little bit of free time to actually get some heads-down work done.

John Smallmtn

Absolutely. Like the second brain concept. I know lots of people take it very seriously and have it really built out. But I think, at the minimum, being a really great note taker removes that anxiety—that moment of waking up in the middle of the night thinking, “My God, I’ve got to do this,” because you’ve forgotten about it. I tell some of my clients that if you’re choosing not to write it down, you’re choosing to accept the pressure to be a perfect recall machine—and we’re not. Any other tips?

Kendra Ellis

Really make sure that the rest of your organization is on point. For me, I even color-code my calendar so I can, at a week’s glance, know how many client-facing calls I have, how many employee development calls I have, how many personal things I’m bringing into my day, and how much focus time I have just by looking at the entire week.

That really sets me up for success, not only from a mental standpoint, but also in knowing what I need to do to make sure my day is set up for success based on what that color-coding system is telling me within five minutes of starting my day.

John Smallmtn

I love that. For me, mine runs a little bit differently. I have a bunch of different calendars because we all have client calendars and different things like that. So the idea of color coding it is like—I should really do this, but I think it would throw me off a little bit as far as going in and making a big adjustment to it now.

I want to dive into the employee development stuff because it’s probably the most important part of being a leader, in my opinion. I have been on teams where everyone is expecting me to have it, and there’s no real development, coaching, or education. Now I try to fight for the idea that you have to give people the information and skills they need to do a good job. Sometimes it’s just hard to get people to want to spend time with us to do the learning, upskilling, and stuff. How do you get people on your team to be excited about development, training, and improvement?

Kendra Ellis

A couple of different ways. What I do when I first start working with someone new on my team is really understand their personality traits and how they work best—how they work best when being coached, mentored, and trained. I cater my style to theirs rather than the opposite way around. That sets the foundation for anything in the future that we may need to address, whether it be a training opportunity or a difficult conversation.

That’s where I start from a baseline. In order to get people excited about change management and opportunities for growth, I bring them along in what I call “Kendra’s Magical Universe.” What that really looks like is a continuous improvement look at what we do today and where we could take it in the future to make it even better than it already is.

By doing that, it really involves them in a larger, bigger-picture way that helps them feel like a bigger part of the team. So when we go to do an individual work session about something more minor in terms of their specific role, we’re both on the same page about where we might be headed as a team or as an organization while we’re doing this individual coaching or work session on what they need help with at that moment.

John Smallmtn

Interesting. Going back a little bit, I’m a big fan of DISC, but I like all personality assessments. Is there one that you prefer to use whenever you’re working with your teams and new people on your team to really understand how to speak to them and meet them at least halfway?

Kendra Ellis

Yes, I actually do have a personal favorite, and it’s not DISC. I’ve taken probably six or seven different ones, and I’ve found the most sticky version of personality traits might be a combination of two.

My favorite is called Real Colors, and it’s based on just four color types. You are a little bit of each one, but you have a very predominant color that you tend to lead with, and then a supporting color that you lean on when your subconscious takes over. I really like it because it’s very easy to remember. I can’t remember if I’m an ENFJ or a DISC profile, but I know I am a Gold and I have a Blue backer, and those are the two that I lead with primarily.

I always talk in terms of, “Okay, I feel your Green really coming out, so let’s focus on how we do X, Y, and Z very methodically based on how you’re thinking in terms of Green.” It really has helped monumentally, not only in having regular conversations with your team, but also in being able to coach and mentor them and meet them where they’re at in the way they need to hear and receive information.

John Smallmtn

Yeah, I love that. I’ve been a DISC head for a very long time. It was honestly the thing that opened me up to the idea that I wasn’t really super serious about my craft and my role in selling.

I like all of them, honestly—StrengthsFinder, Enneagram, Predictive Index, Culture Index. I take every one I can get my hands on. Everyone talks about Myers-Briggs, but it’s really hard to use in a sales context to figure out how someone wants to communicate, or to use quickly when you’re coaching and leading other people.

I agree with you: If you can establish that foundation, you can coach so much deeper because then it doesn’t feel like character assassination. It’s just, “Hey, this is who you are, and it’s going to create some unique strengths, but also some challenges and things to be aware of.”

What’s the other one that you like? StrengthsFinder? Okay, I’ve done that one, and everyone I know knows theirs because it feels like it’s very inward-focused as opposed to something you can hold as a reference tool when working with other people. Have you found it similar in that way—that it’s more for inward reflection and improvement as opposed to using it for coaching and development?

Kendra Ellis

I do feel like it tends to be inward-facing in that you remember yours, but you don’t remember anyone else’s because there are five of them. You maybe only remember your top two or top three, but remembering everybody else’s may not be as prevalent in the front of your mind, even if you are a people leader. If you have five direct reports, that’s remembering 25 strengths across the board.

John Smallmtn

100%. You’re moving into this new role. I’m not going to try to pry into anything that you’re not allowed to talk about, but when you were deciding to leave SmartBug and looking for your next job, I’m of the opinion that people in roles like ours have to vet companies completely differently and with a higher level of discernment than lots of other roles.

What were you looking for when you were looking for a new role? Were you super specific, or were you just feeling like it was time to leave and go find the next challenge?

Kendra Ellis

Honestly, I was not looking. It happened very organically—very magically, I’ll call it. I had been seeing Brendan Tolleson in my newsfeed on LinkedIn, and I was like, “Man, I feel compelled to message him.” I never did because I didn’t want to be a creepy stalker or anything—he didn’t even know me, right?

John Smallmtn

Or a salesperson, right?

Kendra Ellis

“I’m not here to sell you anything,” but no.

We were magically introduced shortly after that, and we got to talking about our love and passion for the employee experience. We talked about my “magical universe,” actually, and how I see the employee experience really affecting what we do as a services business, and how that can take things in either direction depending on how the employee experience is going.

It just snowballed into this magical, beautiful thing where we were like, “Yeah, we want to build this, we want to grow this, and we want to do it together.”

Honestly, that’s how it all fell into place. It was not something that I was out seeking, although I have always kept in the back of my mind that because I’m so obsessed with HubSpot, I can’t ever see myself being in an organization that isn’t HubSpot-obsessed. Unless some magical universe happens where I get to bring HubSpot in—that may happen—outside of that, I’m in love with HubSpot and can’t imagine being in an atmosphere without using that as my single source of truth.

John Smallmtn

Interesting. Where does the HubSpot love come from? Was that from your time at SmartBug, or did you develop it before that while SmartBug was already running on HubSpot?

Kendra Ellis

HubSpot and SmartBug have been together for a very long time. My first experience was actually when I was serving in a boutique agency locally, and they were establishing themselves as a HubSpot partner. I started digging in to build that line of business for them and fell in love with the whole concept.

I’m very organized and structured, and I want to make the employee and client experience great. This was a tool that I felt was really adaptable, and I loved that aspect of it.

That grew from there. I went to INBOUND a few times and met amazing, smart people. From there, I was an in-house leader for the majority of my career, and every single time I’d be like, “We’re getting HubSpot, we’re adopting it.” I was on board, like, “Yes, everyone’s wearing orange. Even if our brand colors aren’t orange, we’re wearing orange!”

John Smallmtn

Because you like it so much—and I love looking at the other side of it—what do you not love about HubSpot? Where do you think it is not doing a good job of being the industry leader, if anywhere?

Kendra Ellis

You know, the troubles that I used to have with it, they’ve really expanded their product offering. Back when I was an in-house leader, I did a lot of events and trade shows pre-pandemic. I felt like Eventbrite’s integration, for example—I love Eventbrite, but the integration itself was not doing what I needed it to do as an in-house marketing leader. Both Eventbrite and HubSpot have answered that big pain point that was a sore spot for me in my past life.

They’re also doing really beautiful things outside of just the marketing and sales components with Service Hub, Operations Hub, and Content Hub.

The only other thing I can think of is for really small business owners—which is not their primary demographic necessarily, but for a small business owner needing to succeed, I’m still a HubSpot-obsessed person. For my husband’s business, I onboarded us on HubSpot, obviously. But there are a few hiccups there just from a very small startup component. That’s not their primary audience, so I don’t hold that against them.

John Smallmtn

I love the depth there. When I first started my business, it was just to be a CRM consultant. There was a tool that I liked, Pipedrive, and we had been using it in a startup I was working on, so I got certified there. Then I was looking for other systems, and I had a really rough experience with one of the HubSpot salespeople, so I was like, “Yeah, this isn’t for me.”

Now we’re doing projects on HubSpot and supporting teams on HubSpot, and the tool has really come a super long way, which is really cool to see.

What I would like to talk about with you—because I think this is probably one of the most unique things—can we talk a little bit about the differences between sales as a function and marketing as a function?

I feel like on the sales side, everyone thinks that they can do marketing, and everyone in marketing thinks that they can do sales. I think of it as a Venn diagram: There’s overlap between these two roles, but they’re fundamentally very different in how they’re executed and how to think about them.

Do you agree with that? Do you see these functions fighting for turf and everyone having opinions that are tied too much to how they got to the leadership level? Is that something you run into?

Kendra Ellis

Very much so. When I was in-house, I ran into this a lot. Really, if you look at the symptomatic problems, that’s not the root cause. The root cause is the way both of these teams are set up to almost be pitted against each other.

Sales has commission, and they get a larger commission for having cold calls or having a lead source that’s dedicated directly from them. Naturally, they’re not going to want to update the CRM in the most accurate way because then it affects their livelihood and their wellbeing. Marketing is tasked with bringing leads into the funnel, and if sales does not close them, they may not be very qualified. So just from the very get-go, we’ve been pitted against each other based on old, traditional models of how we track and measure success for those individual teams.

As you see these two teams shifting, you will see this beautiful thing happening: marketing and sales alignment, where they understand the end goal at the end of the day is two very important things—the customer experience and, obviously, hitting revenue goals. If they do not work together, failure is going to be inevitable with both of those things, and then nobody wins. As ABM becomes a more prevalent strategy, you’re going to see much more alignment with those two teams. Possibly, they will never be completely together under one roof, but they’ll certainly be working in lockstep. Those companies that are really excelling and achieving that today—if you lift up the hood, you’re seeing that those sales and marketing teams are in lockstep with one another.

John Smallmtn

Absolutely. For anyone who’s watching this and isn’t familiar with the acronym, ABM is account-based marketing. It’s like the opposite of spray and pray. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s deep research and deep relevancy—understanding them at a very deep level as opposed to a “here’s what we’re great at, you’re going to love us” kind of situation.

Everyone talks about the sales process, and then there’s the buyer’s journey. Oftentimes, they do not line up whatsoever. You have sales leaders and they’re pounding activities and pounding activities—and I’ve been this guy—and then you have marketing like, “Hey, wait for the content, wait for the messaging to take hold.” How do you think about aligning these two teams so that you’re not trying to force people through a process that doesn’t align with the buyer’s journey?

Kendra Ellis

I think that there are a number of different things that you can do to cater to both of those things. A lot of times I have seen in the past where—and it’s not even just sales, there are other departments that are pushing to move forward before marketing is ready. You just have an ability or a need to pivot, and I won’t even say compromise, but you just need to remember as marketers or whoever is in the position of moving faster than they’d like, at the end of the day, it’s about the customer journey. It’s about the customer experience, and whatever you can do in working lockstep with those other team members to make that experience better is going to win overall.

I’ll give an example where we might push a demo, scheduling a demo, or scheduling a consultation before a customer or prospect is ready. Marketing is saying, “Hold your jets, let me give this e-book to them first.” Sales is like, “I’ve got to hit my quota, we’ve got to send them a consultation request.”

At the end of the day, what you need to do is take a look at your data behind the scenes to tell that data-driven story. If it’s not affecting your prospect’s journey negatively, then I would say that you need to work together to find the new route of where you maybe move that task or that CTA up in the journey. If you are seeing data that’s negatively affecting that experience, that will arm you with the information and the data to suggest and recommend that we need to wait until that prospect is ready for that request from us.

John Smallmtn

Interesting. I like the idea as long as it’s not impacting them negatively. Realizing that marketing is largely just testing hypotheses and figuring out what works was kind of a game changer for me.

How can you tell—and this might be too in the weeds, and it’s okay to say that—how do you know if it’s going to potentially impact something negatively? Is that just looking back at your data, trends, and mapping, or is it very situational?

Kendra Ellis

At least for us specifically, data is the number one source of truth for everything that we do. We measure everything from a 30,000-foot view in the data all the way down to how an individual email is performing. The reason we do that is because there are different triggers that tell us different things, and that allows us to make the most informed decisions.

Now, there will be some that are in what we call a benchmarking phase where we don’t have any previous data, but I always like to err on the side of caution because once we give that negative experience to someone, it’s really hard to bring them back. I like to start with tried-and-true campaigns, strategies, and measures that I know are going to make positive effects, and then start to understand what the data is telling me in order to move outside of that.

John Smallmtn

Interesting. I have a slew of questions from that response, but really great response. Knowing that data is the backstop and that’s what you’re going to go look at—you talked about HubSpot being a single source of truth, which I fully stand behind. But we also talked about smaller businesses, your husband specifically, and how HubSpot is not really an ideal solution for them.

If you’re small, or let’s just say you want to move in a more data-driven direction, are there any lightweight ways of starting to move in that direction before you make a big, huge investment in something like HubSpot before you’re ready?

Kendra Ellis

Yes, short answer. I will caveat that by saying we did onboard to HubSpot immediately. There are just some of those nice-to-have tools that we’re not ready for, so it’s all about timing.

I still started with HubSpot in terms of data-driven reporting, but you also have Google Analytics. SEMrush also is a very effective tool where you can get a free trial. When you’re a very, very small business and need to really line-item out your budget to make sure that you’re being responsible with what you have at the time, there are a number of those types of tools that I use in terms of the free version until we can ramp up and get past that point where we have some budget to support those extra nice-to-have tools.

John Smallmtn

Interesting. Okay, I like that answer.

Let’s say that someone is completely sales-led, and they want to move in a direction of bringing in some marketing and taking some of the pressure off of the sales team. But it’s day one, day zero. Do you have any tips or tricks to start moving in that direction so you can be building without the pressure of it immediately needing to kick off and work? Sometimes salespeople and marketing people are brought in with the expectation of, “This better work.” You don’t really get a whole lot of time to figure it out. But from a small business level, if you want to move in a marketing direction, what are some steps or directions to move purposefully in that direction without putting a lot of pressure on immediate results?

Kendra Ellis

Do you mean in terms of what data we should be looking at, or what should I look for in a hire?

John Smallmtn

That’s a really good question. Let’s start with the data. If you want to move in that direction and you don’t have any data—let’s just say that everything has been running out of your inbox and an Excel spreadsheet in Drive that you sometimes correct and update—what should those first couple of steps look like?

Kendra Ellis

Typically what I do when either kicking off with someone new—or I did this for my husband’s business also—is I do what I call a playbook. It’s like a SWOT analysis and competitive research so that I can use other people in the space to benchmark where I see us needing to go. That could be anything from what keywords they are ranking for to how many visitors are going to their site. I can even look into their website to see what they’re using for marketing automation or for a CMS platform. I use some of these backend tools to create a benchmark before we have our own. That’s primarily where I start to set the stage for creating a 30-60-90-day plan in terms of marketing.

John Smallmtn

Okay, interesting. Swapping to the other part of the question—because I think it’s very interesting as well—if you’ve never had a marketer on the team and you decide that you want to go hire one, what should you be looking for in that specific situation? Do you go for the jack-of-all-trades, or do you go for the super-specific because you can find a silo or a way that you’re excited about?

Kendra Ellis

I would tend to go for a jack-of-all-trades, although I’m not a big proponent of a jack-of-all-trades; I really love SMEs. But in terms of a small business and just getting started, I feel like jacks-of-all-trades are used to this very specific cadence that startups naturally fall into. When you have that jack-of-all-trades, they’re used to running that way. They’re used to wearing different hats, even if it’s not technically marketing.

There are a few hats that marketing plays that you’re not necessarily going to find in one human, so you may also need to set aside some budget to outsource some of those duties. For example, web development. You’re not likely going to find a jack-of-all-trades that can design a beautiful flyer, implement your CRM database, and develop your website. It is highly, highly unlikely you’re going to find that. If you do, let me know!

John Smallmtn

For real.

God, I have so many marketing questions, because I didn’t appreciate marketing whenever I was working on the corporate side. Then, whenever I moved into field sales for an independent distributor, it was obviously a significant drop-off. When I was doing my first startup with a business partner, we didn’t have any at all, and then I realized what it’s really like to sell without any marketing or any brand behind you. It is a very different existence.

Can we talk a little bit about this idea of benchmarking and proving out your own data? Hearing what you said about doing research on where we think we can be—sometimes, in the work that I do, I’ll hear a lot of, “Well, this is where we should be.” I’m a bigger proponent of benchmarking our own data so that we can be really accurate. We’re not talking about “should”; we’re talking about reality versus the goal, and we can plot a path from there. How do you talk about that with your clients to make sure that they’re not chasing silver bullets or doing stuff that isn’t really going to help them work toward the success that they’re looking for?

Kendra Ellis

Well, I seek to understand first. If I see a goal that I think might be a BHAG, which is a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, I ask questions to see how they derived that specific goal that we’re talking through that day—if they have any benchmark data, or if they don’t, what research they’ve done or have not done. Then, as I mentioned earlier, I go through my own process of setting them up for success in terms of where I think that they’re at with maturity levels, and where we can set our 30-60-90-day plan.

Typically, I like creating our own benchmarks if at all possible. That’s not just a 30-day thing. Optimally, we’d do at least a quarter, if not two or three quarters, to really understand the data. A lot of people in different industries have ebbs and flows, and if we don’t look at an entire year’s data, we can’t catch those things. In higher education, there are obvious trends where you see an uptick and then maybe a dip. A lot of industries have those, and without that proper benchmarking time period, you just can’t be confident in what you’re striving for.

John Smallmtn

Beautiful answer, honestly. When I used to play poker a long time ago and was working with a coach, I was frustrated over one day’s results. He was like, “Dude, your sample size is like nothing at all.” I didn’t understand the impact of sample size on being able to find accurate trends and data worth going after. That is very, very super helpful. A quarter minimum is kind of how I think about it now because everyone can have a great week or a great month. It’s over that longer duration that we really kind of see where the gaps and the challenges are going to be.

Kendra Ellis

You also hit on a great point: sample size. In marketing, especially in top-of-funnel data, to make business-related decisions—even just for the marketing team—you can’t benchmark something off of 50 sessions, right? You can’t benchmark it off five clicks. You can’t benchmark it off one email going out to 50 people. You really need a sizable sample in order to say, “I feel good about this as a benchmark,” and to say this is an accurate depiction of what we’re going to see. So, it’s all about really understanding your sample size and the time period in which you have taken that.

John Smallmtn

I love that. You and me are on the same page there, and I hope everyone who’s listening hears that as well, because the sample size is indicative of whether or not you actually have anything. So, yeah, very interesting.

This leads me to my next question. Whenever I first started to learn about data-driven marketing, data-driven selling, backfilling with intention, and forecasting, I was like, “My God, this is going to make everything so much easier because we can’t argue with the data, right?” But I have had interactions with teams that I’ve supported, and leaders that I’ve worked under, where even though there was data, I still had to sell them on the idea that, “Hey, we need to test,” or, “We need to make a change.” The data is data, but it doesn’t necessarily tell the same story to everyone that you’re showing it to.

Have you had any situations where you’ve had clear data that leads to a clear hypothesis, but you still have to go sell it to leadership because they’re looking at the data differently?

Kendra Ellis

100%. There are a couple of big outliers that I would lump these under. One is, “I don’t trust my data. I don’t trust the data you’re showing me that’s driving your hypothesis to make this decision.” There’s that component.

On the other side of it, you have to be very careful with data because there’s so much of it. You want to make sure that you’re telling the data-driven story that that person cares about and needs to see in order to understand and make the decision with you. If you just throw all of these dashboards and reports to someone on the leadership team, for example, they may or may not understand what the story is that you’re trying to tell them. They just see marketing throwing all of these fancy numbers and reports at them, and they don’t really know what they’re expected to do with it.

John Smallmtn

Interesting. Okay, how do you get better as a marketer at telling the story of data so that you have buy-in to run the tests and the campaigns that you want to run?

Kendra Ellis

I use this analogy often: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. What you really need to do is break down your data-driven story piece by piece to make sure that you’re telling a compelling story that gets you to the end result.

Also, as part of my RevPartners training, we do something called BLUF, which is “Bottom Line Up Front.” I think that is an amazing component that I cannot believe has just now come to me in my career journey. We always make sure that we have a recap in one sentence, and it’s the first thing we present. Whoever you’re talking to or working with, they know the end result that you’re trying to get to right out of the gate, and then you provide supporting information to actually prove and tell that story from there.

John Smallmtn

I’m writing a note because I am a very direct, “Hey, let’s save time” person, and I’ve never heard of that before. I had to write that down because I’m going to blatantly steal it and use it, but I will give you guys credit as I’m stealing it!

Okay, can you talk about a time when you used data to get buy-in around something, and then it didn’t go according to plan? Have you ever had blowback over trying to sell leadership or the executive team on a campaign or something, and then it failed, and you kind of had to go back and suffer through the outcome with your tail between your legs?

Kendra Ellis

As a marketer who’s been in this field for 17 years, I’ve had a lot of campaigns that have not gone according to plan. The nice thing is that since I’ve really taken the data-driven approach and had the tools and resources to pull that data, my approach to continuous improvement of campaigns is to show how the expectations weren’t met, and then bring it back to how we’re going to improve that campaign in the future based on what the data is telling me.

It’s less of, “This campaign was a complete failure because X, Y, and Z goals weren’t hit,” and more of, “Here are the components of the campaign that are working based on the black-and-white data I’m seeing, and here is the part of the data that’s not quite making the cut, and how we’re going to make changes to the overall campaign to bump those up.”

John Smallmtn

Interesting, okay. To that end, it’s super easy to over-segment, have gated content, and require an email opt-in so you’re tracking everything. There’s obviously a lot of pushback around making things more accessible, not putting things behind paywalls, zero-click content—all these very interesting terms. How do you meet in the middle as a data-driven marketer, while still holding that we need to make it easy for people to take the motions and steps that they want to take without them feeling like they’re walking into a dungeon with the doors shutting behind them at every interaction?

Kendra Ellis

There is a large debate that’s been happening for quite a while now between marketing professionals. It’s very tongue-in-cheek, but it’s the gated versus ungated debate, right?

I’m very much on the ungated side of things, so you won’t hear any complaints from me for having no forms behind e-books and things of that nature. One, if you put it on a beautiful pillar page, it’s very easily consumable by your prospects, clients, or customers. It provides a better overall user experience. Google loves pillar pages over gated content, so you’re going to get credit from them as well, or any other search engine for that matter.

Where I stand in terms of gated content and being able to track it from a marketer’s perspective is: What are the things that we would typically have in our product or service offering that we’re willing to give prospects before they sign the dotted line, or what is our main competitive advantage? Those are the things I might tend to gate, but outside of that, I’m pretty ungated as a marketer.

Unpopular opinion here: I’m not as focused on the MQL. I’m more focused on the SQL. I need to be driving qualified leads to our sales team to help drive revenue growth. As a marketing leader, what I care about is helping drive revenue growth. While the MQL might not be dead for me—dead’s a strong word—I’m really more about providing the best experience all the way through than saying, “My team got 10 MQLs this month, yay us!” I’d rather say, “Hey, I helped make a knockout prospect experience, now a customer experience, for X, Y, and Z, and we helped hit our revenue goals.” That’s far more important to me than hitting my MQL goal.

John Smallmtn

Interesting. Okay, yeah. As a sales guy, it’s odd to me whenever I see people fighting for the land of the MQL versus the SQL. It’s very interesting. Then I see people, especially outside marketers and consultants, who are trying to sell “hot leads,” but some of these people are selling form-abandoned leads and trying to label them as hot. It’s like, what are you doing? I don’t understand.

Okay, you’ve mentioned services a couple of times on this call, and I’m a big fan of services over standalone products and widgets. Is there a big difference marketing services versus a standalone product?

Kendra Ellis

I would say yes. I’ve been in the services industry for a while now, but I did originally start my career in more product-focused areas. With a product, I won’t say it’s easier, but because you have a tangible thing or a widget, for whatever reason, the perception of value is much easier to market, rather than a human’s time. Although, if you ask me personally, I would say that a human’s time and their expertise is worth far more than a widget that’s going to sit there and do what I hope it does for me. Expertise helps me far longer than a widget probably would.

John Smallmtn

I completely could not agree more on both fronts. I’m better at selling someone else’s product than I am at selling my own services and help, because I don’t do the whole, “Guarantee this kind of thing,” or, “10x your business.” I don’t do any of that stuff. So it’s like, “Okay, John, what am I going to get help with?” Then it’s kind of a very awkward and interesting conversation of, “Okay, what kind of help? Well, what do you need?” Really trying to vet it out from there.

I tell everyone, this is the hardest stuff I’ve ever sold, as far as helping people with the soft-skill, foundational improvement of being good conversationalists and good leaders, because everyone thinks they’re already fine. Whereas if I was creating a new CRM for people, it would be easier to show the value.

Have you found any cool, unique ways of improving marketing for services that doesn’t come from product, but comes from your time being on the service side?

Kendra Ellis

Honestly, I think a lot of the way marketers think, act, and do is shifting. A lot of it’s not even based on our own expertise, necessarily; it’s based on consumer demand and what they’re telling us that they’re going to do. Really being transparent and empathetic, having them understand that we are here and we truly do care, showing the ways in which we care and are transparent, and showing our promises that we’re going to hold up our end of the bargain—I really think that resonates far more with people.

In addition to that, there’s the referral component. What I mean by the referral component is having an unbiased party back you up so that your say-do commitment isn’t just coming from your voice. It’s coming from someone else who doesn’t have a stick in the game.

John Smallmtn

So is that like social proof, like testimonials, reviews, and case studies?

Kendra Ellis

In a way, yes. It can come in social proof, referral programs, retention, and loyalty programs. At the end of the day, it’s based on outsiders having experienced what you do, you proving your value to them, and then them praising you for that because you did what you said you were going to do.

John Smallmtn

Interesting. Marketing is a moving environment—it seems like it’s rapidly iterating. Sales is very similar, but I do think that marketing moves faster than sales does. What are you seeing that you’re excited about as far as new ideas, new technology, and new ways of getting it done? Anything standing out to you as something you’re really excited about?

Kendra Ellis

I’m keeping my eye, as I’m sure all of us are, on AI and all of the tools that are coming out of AI. I see this as a way to be more efficient in a lot of ways. I also see that this is probably going to come with a bad rep in terms of having people rely too heavily on that from a content production standpoint.

I want to keep my eye on how that continues to evolve and how people utilize it. I think that it could be a very, very amazing tool for us to utilize and tap into. Do I think that it should replace humans? Certainly not at this time.

John Smallmtn

So you’re not on the bus that all sales and marketing jobs are going out the window because AI can spit out a paragraph of text?

Kendra Ellis

Not from what I’ve seen. I’ve definitely done a lot of testing, comparatively speaking, from a human to ChatGPT-4, and it’s not there yet. But I think that we’re going to continue to get creative on how we use AI and how it could potentially replace some roles. I do think that we will continue to evolve as a sales and marketing team and use it in ways that will benefit our clients instead of hurt them.

John Smallmtn

Interesting, okay. So we’re going to get a little bit deeper here, okay? I’m curious: What does Kendra view as her craft currently? Is it leadership stuff, like motivating and encouraging people? Do you still view marketing as your core craft and something you’re really staying on top of? What are you working on keeping the edge on in your current state?

Kendra Ellis

I’m 100% always aiming to improve as a people leader, as a coach, and as a mentor. I feel like that is how you can have the greatest impact from different teams to different people organization-wide. That’s really what I’ve always been truly, truly passionate about: helping others live out their dream, whether through coaching and mentoring or through doing.

That’s why I got into marketing—to help others live their dream. “Kendra, I love being a pottery maker, but I don’t know how to actually get it out into the world.” Well, let me help you live your dream doing what I do so that people can find you, work with you, and buy from you. Really, that one component has always been my constant: making an impact on others so that they can live their dream. That’s probably what I’m most focused on.

Although, I will say building out that customer experience for my team specifically is also something I’m very passionate about. I need to keep on top of that because client expectations do change and continue to evolve. I’m always trying to keep on top of those expectations that are coming from them.

John Smallmtn

Interesting, okay. I love that. How do you go about measuring and improving in your craft as a leader?

Kendra Ellis

How do you measure effectiveness as a people leader when it’s a completely gray area? There are no hard and fast metrics.

What we use primarily—and I have always been a big proponent of this—is 360 surveys and interviews. For those of you listening that aren’t familiar, a 360 is an anonymous survey that goes out to members of your team, your peers, your leadership, and even some of the clients you serve or vendors to get a really holistic perspective where people feel comfortable sharing true feedback.

We also now have things like eNPS scores. We have that at RevPartners, where it’s NPS, but for employees. That’s another great way to benchmark how you’re doing internally.

John Smallmtn

Interesting.

Kendra Ellis

I have always had a pretty great rapport with everybody that directly reports to me. Another thing that we use at RevPartners—not to be a never-ending RevPartners pitch…

John Smallmtn

I mean, that’s where you’re at, and you’re there for a good reason. No harm, no foul.

Kendra Ellis

We have this amazing thing called “Feedback is a Gift,” where we openly give feedback. It has a certain format to it, but it’s a wonderful way to feel comfortable and confident in always providing continuous improvement to others. It’s a beautiful thing where we all do this for each other and truly understand that feedback is a gift. The only way you can improve is if you know what’s going on. That is another way that I, more recently, have come to get feedback on everyday things that I’m doing.

John Smallmtn

Do you do anything unique or strange to practice your craft to be a better leader? Any weird habits, weird hobbies, or strange things you might study, read, or look into?

Kendra Ellis

I would say that my interest in psychology has certainly helped me become a stronger people leader over time. Also, you just have to have a passion for other people’s growth and potential, and you have to care and really want the best for them. I think if you lead with that, you’ll find that you’re farther ahead of the game than you think you are.

John Smallmtn

I like that. Let’s say that someone is coming into a marketing role, and let’s get super specific: a small business, because that’s where most of my clients hang out. You get hired for a marketing role in a small business, and you’re new to it. Where would you point them to start getting some knowledge so that they can move with intention and start making the impact that they’re looking for? Where would you point them?

Kendra Ellis

New to the business, new to the industry, or new to marketing?

John Smallmtn

Let’s just magic-wand it and say all three.

Kendra Ellis

Okay. New to marketing: Find yourself some great influencers and some groups. There are fantastic groups on LinkedIn, Facebook, or whatever social platform you prefer. Take some courses; Pavilion is a great avenue for that. I’m not a huge fan of LinkedIn Learning, but if that’s the avenue that you have, it’s definitely better than sitting there and flat-out Googling things.

Just find your source of education and be a continuous learner. I think that resonates both with your marketing craft and your industry craft.

When you go over to industry-specific knowledge, there are trade publications, special groups, and members of your team you can rely on who are more tenured in that industry. Go to trade shows and other industry-related events.

Going over into company-specific stuff: Find a buddy or buddies in your organization that will help you learn the tricks of the trade, so to speak, for your specific organization. Also, there is always going to be a little bit of an element of faking it until you make it.

John Smallmtn

It’s odd to me because I remember the first time I heard that from a friend of mine, and I was like, “Yeah, I can do this.” Now I feel like so many people have jumped the shark a little bit with that idea in certain cases. Maybe that’s me being on social media way too much and in the circles that I run in, but where’s the line between “fake it till you make it” and just lying?

Kendra Ellis

You don’t want to jump too far. In terms of faking it until you make it, you have a foundation, a base level, or maybe even a moderate level of understanding. Then what you’re doing is research. Say you’re preparing for a meeting where you’re going to be “faking it until you make it”—you do as much research on the topic and the goal of that meeting ahead of time so that you’re as prepared as humanly possible to go in there and do what you’re intended to do. It’s not like, “I’m going to go try and fly a plane now.” That is not what I mean by faking it until you make it.

John Smallmtn

I’d like to talk a little bit about the gap between being an individual contributor and moving up into that first layer of management where you’re running a team and guiding and helping as opposed to just doing.

From a sales perspective, it’s super easy to be like, “Okay, get out of the way, I’m going to go close this,” because you lack the trust or you really need it. How does that show up in marketing, if at all—someone who’s not really ready to let go of the doing and step into that management role? What does that typically look like on the marketing side?

Kendra Ellis

A lot of young people leaders struggle with that. I myself struggled with that. It could be a play on personality type, or it could be a play on just not fully understanding what your people leadership role includes. They’re like, “Well, what am I going to do with all my time if I’m not doing? What am I doing?”

There’s a level of comfortability and a personality trait that comes into play, but I feel like most young people leaders struggle with letting go and not being a micromanager. It’s just one of those things that you have to grow through.

What I would say is: Always have a mentor. Always have a mentor. I’ve had a mentor since the first day of my first career job after college.

John Smallmtn

The same mentor the whole time?

Kendra Ellis

Yes, but I have other mentors now too.

John Smallmtn

That to me is cool and also astounding—that you can find that, because careers change. I’ve had some really special people pour into me, but as I continue to grow, evolve, and change, I have to put them in specific lanes. My old sales coach—I love him to death, but we can’t talk about social selling, because to him, any social media is just prospecting avoidance. You should just be hitting the phones and setting meetings. Now I try not to have one person that I turn to for all of my questions because I’m concerned about drinking too much of the Kool-Aid and taking bad advice from someone who’s not qualified. It’s cool that the same person has been able to be that backstop for you this whole time.

Kendra Ellis

You need to approach mentorship with at least an overarching goal in mind. This mentor that we’re speaking about right now is a learning and development coach, so she helps me be a better leader. She helps me understand the components of leadership, and she helps me with coaching and mentoring. Things like that you can grow over time. It’s not like a marketer who has a very specific direction and skill set; it’s a more holistic mentorship. That’s how this has carried throughout different industries over the course of time.

John Smallmtn

I notice you’re not mentioning her name. Do you want to name-drop her? Is she someone who mentors other people? Should we be promoting this person?

Kendra Ellis

She is in the business of coaching; she’s a Real Colors coach, and she does a lot of leadership seminars and things of that nature. Her name is Karen Schumacher of Crescendo Leadership Development, and she’s fantastic. She’s the reason why I’m such a big proponent of Real Colors. I attribute a lot of my success in leadership to the things that she’s taught me over the last—my goodness, I don’t even want to say how many years—almost two decades.

John Smallmtn

There’s something unique about the mentor-mentee relationship, right? There are no pulled punches. The quality of those conversations—in my experience, if you’re not ready to hear it, you’re not going to get anything out of it. You really have to be in the right place, and a lot of that requires trust.

Have you ever struggled taking advice from your mentor, but then realized later, “Yeah, I can see it now”?

Kendra Ellis

Earlier in my career, when I was much younger, feedback was not always a gift. Over time, you learn that if someone is taking the time to have a difficult conversation with you, they care more about you and making you better than the uncomfortable conversation they’re having to have with you right now. As you start to learn that, you realize it’s a beautiful thing because they innately care about you.

John Smallmtn

Yeah, it’s easier to avoid the uncomfortable conversation and not say anything at all. I really like that framing; that’s awesome.

Shifting gears—I want to be super respectful of your time, and I really appreciate you hopping on and doing this. What pet peeves do you have about marketing? What do you run into or read on LinkedIn or in your communities that makes you roll your eyes and wish we weren’t talking about anymore?

Kendra Ellis

You might have stumped me! You know what used to bug me when I was in-house was what we hit on a little bit earlier: pushing the sales team in prospects’ faces too soon from a customer experience standpoint. That was a big pet peeve of mine for a very long time—holding back my sales team from pouncing on people.

In terms of social, though, I feel like we’re making a really big shift in what we’re expecting out of social media. I can’t say that I have a pet peeve about it necessarily, but there’s just so much information coming at us these days that we need to be mindful of what we’re putting out there—who knows how AI is going to use that in the future, even thinking about it from that standpoint. Also, we can get lost in the noise if noise is all we’re making. Let’s be intentional, let’s be purposeful, and let’s aim to impact someone’s day by what we’re sharing. I think if we all lived by that general high-level rule, we would have a really great experience.

John Smallmtn

I love that, because I spend a lot of time on social to learn, engage, post my own content, and network. I really enjoy the networking component way more than I ever thought I would.

When you’re going to work on something new—let’s say you hear about something, learn about it, and think, “I need to go learn more about this”—do you turn to books, your network, or podcasts? How do you go about deciding whether Kendra needs to learn more about this or if it’s on the periphery and you don’t need to do anything about it right now? How do you figure out if that’s a priority for you to spend time learning and understanding?

Kendra Ellis

Typically, I would search or reach out to my network first to get their referrals or opinions. Then—this sounds terrible—I’d Google it to find information directly from the source and build a really great knowledge base. Part of the reason I do that is because of my own background and what I do for a living. It’s like, “I want to see you excelling, so my expectation is that you’re providing me what I need on your website as your single source of truth.” I naturally gravitate toward that as a resource because that’s what I aim to do for my people. First network, then the single source of truth, for sure.

John Smallmtn

Who do you follow as far as—because you mentioned that the person you’re working with now, you started out following them on social. Who else do you follow that you know is putting out real talk? No fluff, no BS, actionable things that are helpful, and not under the guise of trying to get more mileage. Who do you like?

Kendra Ellis

I’m going to stick with LinkedIn specifically, because I have a strategy for each one of my personal social media accounts. My Instagram is very much for the mom in me and the foodie in me; that’s who I’m following there. It’s not about marketing necessarily—though it might happen by accident because of my algorithm, no doubt.

From a LinkedIn perspective, obviously I follow all of the people that have impacted me or that I’ve made an impact on in my career, so I get a lot of really great pieces in my newsfeed because of that. I don’t follow a ton of what we call “LinkedIn influencers.” I do follow people like Barbara Corcoran from Shark Tank, just because I love her background and story, and I’m generally interested in what she has to say. But I don’t follow a lot of those big influencers. I follow Wednesday Women and the individuals that run Wednesday Women. I obviously follow Yamini Rangan, Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah, and HubSpot in general. But really, it’s a very narrowed following unless I have direct connection or direct interaction with them.

John Smallmtn

First of all, I thought I was the only person who did that. On LinkedIn, it’s very corporate business and revenue operations stuff that I’m interested in. Facebook, which is my other big social network, is much more small business, high-ticket closers, and direct response copy stuff, which I enjoy. I used to hate Instagram because I wasn’t curating my feed, so it was all terrible ads trying to sell me agency stuff and business-in-a-box crap. I didn’t even want to open the app.

A year ago, I started playing the guitar—brand-new habit, brand-new practice. I started working with a coach, and now my feed is all guitar, woodworking, and artistic stuff. Now it’s a really nice, beautiful place to go and recharge, as opposed to seeing how people are talking about sales and marketing. Really cultivating it so that it’s different—I thought I was the only person doing that, so I’m glad to know I’m not the only one.

The last question I have for you before I let you go: One of my big drives in doing this show is to try to show that everyone does these roles a little bit differently. Can you talk a little bit about being a female leader? For a long time, I knew it was different, but not until I coached my first female seller. She was talking about how she really couldn’t be direct in the same way that I’m direct, and I had no basis of understanding for that because I’m just a big, dumb, tall white guy.

Can you talk a little bit about some of the struggles you’ve gone through as a woman leader specifically? Getting up to that level as a woman is interesting and difficult, but from a leadership perspective, do you feel any weird adjustments to do the job well as a woman? Do you feel yourself compromising or doing anything like that on a consistent basis?

Kendra Ellis

It really depends on the organization that you surround yourself with. I’ve been a people leader at organizations where I was doing multiple people’s jobs when I shouldn’t have been in order to get a seat at the table. I had to prove myself, so I was doing other people’s jobs for them. It really is dependent on the organization you immerse yourself in.

RevPartners and my previous organization are very big proponents of women in leadership, equality, diversity, and inclusion. Just never cut yourself short, regardless of whether you’re in a leadership position or not. You deserve just as much as everyone else does, and you need to strive for that. If you’re not getting that, if you’re not feeling heard, there’s an organization out there that will listen to you, care about you, and help you get to where you want to be.

John Smallmtn

I know some very direct women where that’s just part of their personality, and it leads them to the success that they’ve had, but they talk about having to dial it down. It sounds like you might be talking about the other side—punching up and fighting to be heard. Which one do you think is more prevalent, or do you think it’s the same thing?

Kendra Ellis

I think it can be the same thing. I’m oftentimes called a very blunt person, which is why that is my answer. But if you’re very driven, you’re willing to use your voice whether you’re heard or not, and you’re willing to go above and beyond what you should be doing to get to the place you want to go. I think it’s a little bit of both.

John Smallmtn

That brings me to my last question, unless you have a super interesting answer that opens up a couple more. Do you think it’s easier to be on the inside, in-house, or do you think it’s easier to be on the outside as a consultant—specifically around speaking truth to power, change management, and calling things out that don’t make sense?

Kendra Ellis

That is a great question. I think that it’s easier as a consultant because, at the end of the day, you’re working with your client with a specific goal in mind, recommending solutions and helping them take action. But if, at the end of the day, they don’t take that action, you can continue to coach them and mentor them, shake your finger at them, and say, “Hey, this is what we agreed upon. You have to take these steps in order to get there.” At the end of the day, if they don’t own up to their end, there’s not a lot you’re going to be able to do about that from a consultant’s perspective, even if in your heart of hearts you want the best for them and want them to achieve the goal you set out to do together.

Whereas internally, as I call being on the hamster wheel, you might be directly affected by that change that’s not occurring. You may still be in the same situation as the consultant, but you’re living with what happens when you don’t make the changes that you need to make.

John Smallmtn

Right, and the outcome is completely different. If you’re in-house, you might need to let someone go, versus on the outside, you can make recommendations, but ultimately it’s not really your show. I tend to go with the idea that people deserve a chance, and they need coaching and development—which is why this show exists for this very reason.

Have you ever been brought into a project to clean house?

Kendra Ellis

As it relates to humans, no.

John Smallmtn

As far as the brand and the messaging, have you had to tear it down to the studs before?

Kendra Ellis

My goodness, I think I’ve done seven or eight rebrands in my in-house experience. But I also have been brought into organizations to do CRM adoption, which, speaking of change management, is very, very difficult.

John Smallmtn

Oh my god, yeah. “Is this going to fix everything, John?” I’m like, “Are your people excited about doing the thing, or are you using it as a really bad leash and they see it as a bad mousetrap?” How it’s positioned has a big impact. Sorry to cut you off there, but the CRM thing—everyone thinks, “As long as we have a single source of truth…” Yes, but your people have to be excited to use that single source of truth, and you have to position it so that they are excited about it. Otherwise, you’re just tapping your foot, micromanaging, asking, “Did you update that deal in the pipeline?” It’s a nightmare if you don’t do it the right way.

I had been brought in a couple of times where the unspoken expectation was that I was going to let everyone go, and I had to tell them, “If I’m just supposed to torch it down to the ground and start over, you need to find someone else.” That’s not really how I work. I was curious if that happened in your roles.

Kendra, I want to be super respectful of your time. I could probably talk to you for another day and a half, but I know you have a happy hour to go to, and I do not want to get in the way of that at all. This has been really awesome, and I really appreciate the time. If someone wants to learn more about you or RevPartners, where should they go?

Kendra Ellis

Feel free to send me a direct message on LinkedIn. I’d be happy to chat through anything I can do to support you. Otherwise, you can go to RevPartners’ website and check it out. But DM me on LinkedIn for sure, and I’d be happy to connect.

John Smallmtn

Awesome. All right, Kendra, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.

Kendra Ellis

Thank you, John.

John Smallmtn

Cheers.