DA (02:52):
Hi Juliette. Thanks so much for joining me today on the SaaS breakthrough podcast. How are you doing today?

JK (02:56):
Great. Thank you so much for having me.

DA (02:58):
Yes. I'm excited to have you and LinkSquares here. Lots to talk about today. Lots of tactical content and strategies. So we'll dig in there, but before we jump right into that conversation, why don't you give us a brief background about LinkSquares, when it was founded, who your customers are and what you're doing uniquely in the marketplace?

JK (03:15):
Definitely. So LinkSquares is an end-to-end contract life cycle management product that is powered by AI. We were founded in 2015. The customer that we sell to is specifically in-house legal teams. So typically a title would be general counsel, associate general counsel, deputy general counsel, chief legal officer, or legal operations role. And what we do is we help every part of the contracting process, whether that's writing better contracts, analyzing what's in existing contracts or helping them collaborate better with their team. And really where we differ from other tools on the market is through our powerful AI insights. So we extract a ton of data and information from contracts that help people understand what their obligations are. And especially if they're going through things like fundraising, due diligence projects, or even expense management, we help make that process happen in minutes rather than hours or weeks.

DA (04:17):
Talk to me a little bit more about that AI process. That's so interesting to me, and it's such a great product addition as far as like a marketing angle, right. But how does that actually work? I'm just trying to get my mind around how that works for a legal contract.

JK (04:30):
Yeah. So if you imagine any sort of legal contract or, you know, even if I zoom out a little bit more, you think about business, everything in business is really dictated by contracts, whether that's your employment agreements, whether that's your customer agreements, whether that's vendor agreements that you signed, whether that's partnerships. And there were probably a standard pieces of every single contract. You have the people that are signing the contract, you have one it's effective, you have the terms of the contract. You might have payment information in there. And so this is basic information. That's in say every single contract that you signed, but at the same time, every contract is in many ways unique, right? You might have a contract that you've written yourself in the company or one that's withthe party that you're signing with that they've written it.

JK (05:15):
And so a lot of times when you need to pull out this data, let's say for something like you want to better understand your customers better. And you want to say, Hey, which of our customers are renewing this year that don't have auto renewal in their contract already. You know, what are these customers that we have to reach out to to get them, to renew their contract? For a lot of companies, if they're going through a process like that, they are using like an Excel spreadsheet to track those terms and just have a list of customers. And if you're not doing that proactively and you're doing it after the fact, then sometimes you're stuck rereading all these contracts and really where AI comes in is we automatically extract all of that data that we understand what's in someone's contract by doing that analysis.

JK (06:02):
So that, you know, it's almost like this Google like search for your contracts. If you want to pull out different terms, or there are specific terms that we pull out of every single agreement. So if you want to run that report, you just set your search parameters and you get a complete report of all the contracts that fit those different parameters. So if you imagine, let's say if you have hundreds or even thousands of customers, and you have to do a project where you have to read all of them, that would take an insane amount of time, but with something like LinkSquares, you just run a search and you have that information in minutes.

DA (06:35):
That was really well said. And that makes a lot of sense. Now I'm totally seeing the value of that process. Just having gone through a legal process, myself of an acquisition, I can tell you the brain power that goes into just reading contracts, let alone hundreds or thousands of contracts to figure that out. So that's amazing. And then just give us some perspective. When did you actually join the team there?

JK (06:56):
So I joined the team about a year and a half ago. So I joined right before we raised our series A round of financing and I was the first person on the marketing team. And really when I joined it was to build out the marketing function within LinkSquares, and also build out a team and establish marketing. So it was definitely a big role, but one that I was really excited to take on. And that, you know, obviously I'm still excited about to see the continued growth in the team and marketing at LinkSquares.

DA (07:27):
That's amazing. And when you joined, you're building out the team, but was there marketing already going, did they already have ICPs. How have you built that? I mean, obviously your product is very specific for your niche, which is great, but you know, just talking about, you know, the ideal customer profile and the languaging you're using, did you have to build all that when you, when you came in?

JK (07:45):
Yeah, so it's interesting. I mean, marketing was certainly happening, you know, when I joined the company the team had been going to some events, you know, and having a booth presence there. We had a website, we had some amount of blog content, email content and things like that. But what was happening is it wasn't really happening strategically and with a specific goal in mind. And it wasn't really owned by one-person within the company. So in many ways, you know, it was great that marketing was happening already, but really when I joined the company, it was to refine and honestly define the marketing process as a whole. And also, when I joined the company, let's say the company was about 50 people when I joined. And so we had a fairly established sales team. We had a fairly established product team, but, a sort of the missing link in terms of the communication between those teams in terms of, you know, if we're launching a new product or a new feature or functionality how do we ensure that our internal teams now what that is, how to communicate it effectively and have the tools to be able to do it? And then externally, how do we make sure that the world knows about it? What are the new things within LinkSquares? Who is LinkSquares as a company? Who are we a fit for? And so some of that was happening ahead of time, but it was really, you know, how do we define and refine that?

DA (09:10):
That's very interesting 50 people and no marketing org. So very engineering sales and product heavy, obviously, but that's fantastic. That means they were definitely in a lot of heavy development. And I know one of the things that you just mentioned that you had to focus on was kind of refining that product marketing cycle. I would love to talk about that. I think it's such a great low hanging fruit for a team, especially that's like product and engineering heavy. You have this great product. Now, you just got to get it out there. I know you had to build that out, double down on it. How have you been able to build it out? What were the initiatives that you went through implementing within that kind of sphere of product marketing?

JK (09:45):
Yeah, I think product marketing for me, product marketing is something that's very near and dear to my heart. It's the way in which I got into marketing myself through product marketing. And I just really love having that deep understanding of a product, understanding the customer and then understanding really how to message and position to them effectively. And that's really where I began, even in my journey at LinkSquares and certainly like a piece of advice that I have for marketers that are maybe in a similar situation, you know, over the course of my marketing career, I've worked at a number of really great companies, but I've, I haven't you know, in some ways I've marketed to many different audiences and there are things that I'm learning about marketing as a functional area as I continue my career, but also things that I'm learning about the different ways in which to market to different you know, customers.

JK (10:40):
So, you know, previously in my career, I was at HubSpot and obviously there we're marketing to marketers. The company I joined up after that Backupify I was marketing to IT people. And then the company after that, we were marketing to support teams and now at LinksSquares marketing to legal audiences. And so one of the very first things that I did was I said, you know, I need to understand this person better and build out, like, what is that profile for them? Where do they consume information? How do they purchase the product? How do they run an evaluation? To understand how to really effectively market to them. Because one of the things that I've certainly learned over my career is that, you know, while you might have different, you might have similar way, like tools that you use say like blog content, email content, video content, but the messaging and positioning that you utilize is going to be just fundamentally different depending on who your customer is. So I spent a lot of time talking to, you know, general councils that I knew for connections, reaching out to people honestly cold. And then also talking with our customer base to better understand how did they like to be marketed to and how did they find out about new products and services. And I think that's really fundamental to certainly product marketing as a functional area, but it's something that like all of us as marketers should be doing as well I think.

DA (12:08):
Absolutely talking to our customers, understanding how to speak to them better, how to speak their language. One question from a tactical level on that when you're doing these different calls and you're having these conversations, are you asking the same questions to everyone? How are you organizing your thoughts? I always have such a hard time when I look back at that data, because everyone speaks a little bit differently, even though they can like circle the same pain points or the same problems or the same needs, they can all say it differently. How do you then kind of look at that data to say, okay, this is the way, this is the strategy that we should take for presenting this product feature, or, you know, how we should launch products in the future via video or something like that.

JK (12:47):
Yeah. I think that's really going to be defined partially by like, what is the information that you're trying to get from that conversation. And I also think that there, there are certainly the benefit of having consistency in your question from say, like person to person, but at the same time you know, I think there's kind of like this general rule of three. Like if you're hearing the same answer, you know, three different times, then, then you're kind of looking for themes there. And I think then at that point, when you feel like you have a good handle on that, then it's appropriate to kind of, you know, move on and maybe sub in a different question that you want to dig deeper into. I also think when you're doing that customer research side, you know, in many ways you have to let that conversation flow naturally, and there are going to be things that are maybe distinct about their own background, their own career path, their own career trajectory that you want to like sort of you, know, dig deeper into. I'm sure in some ways, you know, it's the same way with the podcast, right?

JK (13:44):
That you run, that you're asking similar questions, but depending on that person's experience, depending on like interesting things that you're going to be able to pull out from them you know, it's, it's appropriate to kind of like dig deeper into those,

DA (13:57):
Absolutely, everyone's experience is different. Everyone's going to have different languaging and voice and perspectives, and they're all valuable. It's just always hard when you have so much data influx, just try to circle like again, where are those kind of you know, Venn diagram kind of overlapping sections. Right. But I love that rule of three. That's super helpful. Any other initiatives that you want to talk about around product marketing?

JK (14:19):
Yeah, I think in product marketing, you know, one of the things that I also did did very early on was just even understanding how marketing was happening at LinkSquares before I joined. So I mentioned, so for example, the team was already going to events. So we were doing in-person events that we were sponsoring and they were really effective for the team, which is a reason why, you know, even outside of having a marketing team it was something that the team was engaging in. You know, it was something typical when I joined you know, in past companies that I had been a part of, in-person events and sponsoring them, wasn't a big part of the marketing spend because honestly the ROI wasn't there for us, but at LinkSquares, it was very different. They were seeing returns of three to four times with an in-person event that, you know, if they sponsored an event, let's say for 50 K that they were seeing three to four X come out in customer revenue.

DA (15:13):
That's incredible.

JK (15:14):
It was, it was kind of crazy. And so when I joined, you know, one of the first things that I did was I hired an events manager, but really my second key hire was a video person. I really wanted to make video a large part of the marketing that we did and that we continue to do at LinkSquares. I think that video is so powerful as a marketing tool. We also had so many amazing customers that, that were willing to kind of share their story and the ways in which they think about the legal function. And quite frankly we have an amazing product that I wanted to be able to showcase in video and to give people an understanding of how our product worked, how they would be able to use it, what the UI look like even before they became a customer. And so I knew very early on that I wanted to make video a big part of the marketing that we did.

DA (16:10):
I want to dive into video a little bit more. I know you have a full on resource center, you have videos all over the website, like you said, showing the product. And we're talking a lot about video marketing here on the podcast, really excited that you hired someone in-house. Has been a hire that I've wanted to do for a while. I've kind of had circled on my org board is I want to make an in-house video hire. Why did you choose in-house versus production? Was it just going to be the utilization that you knew you had and, you know, was that something that you heard in the market they wanted to consume more video or just something that you really believe in?

JK (16:44):
There's a lot of questions there, so I'm going to try to move through them and you tell me if I miss any of them. So I think for me, you know, part of when I joined LinkSquares was, you know, I was trying to understand our buyer better and I wanted to understand the purchasing process and then also understand our product. And one of the things that I very quickly learned about that purchasing process. So, so one, a lot of times for legal teams, when they look at a product like LinkSquares, it might be the first technology product that they are purchasing for themselves. So a lot of times, if you ask a general counsel and you say, you know what pieces of software and tools do you use to do your job? That the answer will be something like, you know, we use Microsoft Word to write our contracts.

JK (17:28):
We use an e-signature tool, and then we store all of our contracts in something like Dropbox, Google drive, something like that. And what I thought was really interesting about that is that the tools that they use for their function weren't really outside of what I would say is like general office productivity. Like these are all tools that are available to everyone across the organization. And so a lot of times LinkSquares, is the first legal technology tool that they're purchasing for themselves. And, you know, one of the things that I kind of understood from that process was, you know, it was kind of a big deal for them, right? That this was like the first time that they might be purchasing a piece of software and getting them comfortable with that purchase was going to be really important and helping them understand, you know, what does that day-to-day look like?

JK (18:16):
You know, how are they going to use it? How easy will it be for them and their team? And I thought video was a great way to do that. But the other thing, you know, a lot of companies sort of solve for this, where you might have a free trial of their product. Like when I was at HubSpot, the free trial was a great driver for new business for us, but with the nature of our product, the fact that you're uploading these sensitive information, you know, all of the information within your contracts, whether that's like partnerships, employment agreements, customer agreements, that's really not something that a general counsel is gonna, you know, click on a website and be like free trial of the product. Let me upload, you know, 10 documents to here without having gone through that vetting process first. So I had this understanding that, you know, this honestly personally, you know, from what I was hearing, but also this gut feel that the video was going to be this great medium for us to be able to communicate that ease of use to show them how they would use the product, even before they purchased the product and to help them you know, know that LinkSquares was the right fit for them.

JK (19:21):
And the reason why I brought that function in-house is that, you know, we're a SaaS company. We are continually launching new features, new functionality, making updates within our product. And I just knew what the speed at which our product is evolving, that bringing that function in-house was really important to be able to match that speed and to be able to produce new content in a timely way. When I had worked with agencies in the past while, like that has always been a great experience, I would sometimes run into this situation where by the time we had a finished video product, like we had made updates to our UI or added in a new feature or functionality or wanting to like add one last thing into the script and into the video. And so it always felt like we were kind of behind and already almost past that. Like, it almost would be like that that video was already sailed by the time that we had it. And I wanted to move that function in-house so that we could be really, really quick with videos and create a ton of content and iterate really quickly.

DA (20:27):
That makes a lot of sense. And you actually did answer all of those questions. So that's awesome. This is a tactical question. I'm only asking this because I'm very curious for this hire myself, but when you went to hire this person, were you looking for someone with a set amount of years of experience or just a creative vibe? Did they have to have their own equipment? Were they like actually video editors or just like a cinematographer, like a videographer.

JK (20:53):
Yeah. So for me, I mean, I honestly, as part of the interview process, it's funny, I had worked certainly with both in-house video producers in the pastlike when I was at HubSpot, I mean, at HubSpot, we adopted video very early on, you know, I was at HubSpot in 2010 and video was a big part of our marketing even then. So I think we were kind of ahead of the curve there. And then in subsequent jobs had worked with agencies to produce different videos. And for me though, even though I had utilized video in the past, I think I didn't understand some of the nuances between different video skills, whether that's, you know, in the post-production animation whether that's an editing, whether that's you know, sort of production side and storyboarding and script writing and things like that. So even during the interview process, you know, part of it was me almost getting an education on the different types of video people out there and then further refining what was the skill set that I was, that I was looking for. And I will say early on you know, when I joined the company, in some ways, a lot of the production area say like the storytelling, the concept, you know, I worked very closely with our video person on that. And she is very skilled in like the editing, the animation, the post-production side. So it was a great partnership for us and a great match for my own skillset for the company was, and then her skillset as well. And those are areas that she is also more of like the production side of it has also made a ton of progress in and grown her own skills in. So it was, it was just kind of a great fit for us. But it's finding for your company probably what is going to be that right fit in terms of skillset and having some of those like informational interviews and understanding the market better, and what's going to be the right fit for you. I'm certainly fortunate in Boston that we have so many great universities here and that focus on sort of that more creative side. And so, you know, I just reached out to a bunch of people on LinkedIn that had kind of the profile that I was looking for. I checked out their portfolios and kind of went through the process that way.

DA (23:13):
That was a fantastic answer. And I have so much excitement now for this role, possibly future hire for Ashley, our marketing director, if you're listening, you heard it. She's in Boston so, you know, you just gave all the tip bits.

JK (23:25):
Yeah. Well, I'm happy to also connect offline with her if she wants any helpful tips or anything like that.

DA (23:32):
I love that. That's fantastic. Yeah, definitely we'll do that. And for those of you listening as well, this is fantastic. And I think video will continue to be a very powerful source of marketing storytelling. And really the crux of this conversation is just find the language of your prospect. How can I connect with them in the right medium and for LinkSquares, that's video. And you've done a great job of that. Now, one of the hard things that I've always had with video was like attribution with video. Like how can you track back to videos that were driving traffic? Okay. We can see the clicks on a button on a certain page, but how much of that video did they watch? And you can see that, you know, on an average basis with something like Wistia or YouTube, but how are you looking at those videos and then attributing that stuff back to, to attribution or your funnel pipeline?

JK (24:20):
Yeah, so, so it's interesting. Some of the things that you touched upon, I mean, some of it is, I would say like hard data and numbers that we look at, certainly for the individual videos in terms of the views that they get, the engagement with the video overall, but some of the ways that we're tracking it back. So we use Wistia as our video hosting platform. We also use HubSpot for marketing automation for a lot of our content for landing pages. And they have a really great integration that helps give you some of those insights so that you can track it back to individual leads and contacts that you have. And how are they engaging with that content. So that's been really powerful for us as we've set it up, but even from an individual video perspective, I mean, our sales team uses the videos that we create, whether it's on, you know, different topic areas, whether it's different features, functionality within their sales process.

JK (25:13):
And part of it is also just, you know, based on their own feedback in terms of like what's engaging, what are they excited to use? Because I really, when I think about like marketing as a whole and when even I think about like my own experience that marketing and sales partnership is so important to me. And as a marketer, I want to be creating content resources and tools that are not only, you know, engaging and interesting to our customer and to our audience, but also that our sales team is excited to use in their sales process. I think some of that comes from my product marketing background, you know, and how do you bridge that gap between sales and product. But a lot of it is, you know, at HubSpot, you know, when I started my career there, I actually started in a sales role. I was an account executive there and selling to our customers. And for me as a marketer, it's always really important to understand that sales side, for me to develop tools and resources and collateral that our sales team is excited to use, and that is going to truly help them in their sales process.

DA (26:17):
What an incredible journey. I think that's a great area to start coming from a sales, you know, going through product marketing, you really saw the gamut. And I think everything you said there was just spot on. Absolutely fantastic. One question I have, this is just an idea that I've started to have for our sales team. Now we specialize in webinars, but you know, this is more just for us to eat our own dog food, but, you know, having our sales team actually have their own produced videos or maybe webinars that include product video in it already, have you guys gone that route yet? Have you started thinking about that?

JK (26:49):
Tell me more about what you're thinking for a concept.

DA (26:52):
So like each sales rep has their own kind of personalized videos where they have like a personal reach out video that could include like the video demos inside of it or answering the top three objections where everyone can kind of do the same videos, but they're all personalized to each rep. Obviously it's an investment in both time for those reps and the video team, but it could be a really great kind of personalized experience.

JK (27:17):
Do you mean in terms of the outreach that your sales team is doing in order to like engage prospects or?

DA (27:24):
Yeah, I think outreach. And also, I think a lot of times there's like gatekeepers, right? So getting, you know, messaging pass through different gatekeepers or different people in the sales process, being able to share those videos. So that one consistent sales message is pass along the organization.

JK (27:38):
Yeah. So it's interesting. This is something that we have done some amount of experimentation with. And I think that this is something where, you know, sort of the broad advice that I give to marketing marketers, especially those working in sort of early stage companies or startups or are in that high growth phase is how do you break out an experiment like that to say if there's kind of like worth making a commitment to it. So this is an area that we did a little bit of experimentation with in terms of creating customized videos with our sales team, as a way to engage with prospects and have them, you know, build that personal connection. And I've certainly when I talked to other colleagues in marketing that market to say like different audiences, I would say that I've heard very mixed results in, in general, right?

JK (28:27):
Sometimes it's effective. Sometimes it's not. It really depends on your audience. But I said, you know, Hey, for us in our marketing, let's run an experiment with it. So let's really clearly define what the experiment is, what the goal is. And I always think the key to kind of doing that experimentation is how do you, how do you start out small, right? How do we not do like a six month project where at the end of that six months, we spend a ton of time effort, money doing an experiment, and then at the end of six months say like, Oh, Hey, that wasn't really effective. I'm more like, how can we run an experiment in maybe like two to three weeks, see if there's enough traction there to say like, okay, let's double down on it. You know, do kind of that round two of the experiment and then double down on that if we see like positive results from there.

JK (29:14):
And so we ran an experiment doing something similar and we just didn't really see the early results and early traction. I think it just wasn't a fit for our audience at this point in time in terms of using that video. But I know for me as a marketer having been on sort of some of the receiving end of some of this outreach by companies, it has been really interesting as just a way to build that personal connection. You know, especially during COVID times. And also been helpful when I received a response back, like as part of a sales process where the person just does a quick video where it's like, Hey, just wanted to respond to your question. You know, let me take you through really quickly, you know, how you would do that in our product, or like go through the answer to that question rather than, you know, typing out an email for half an hour, just so it's a little bit more conversational. And so I think that it can be really effective, but I encourage people to run an experiment and really clearly define it and start small.

DA (30:15):
Yeah. You answered that question so profoundly with the idea of the agile marketing approach, which I'm such a big fan of to your point, you want to do kind of that crawl, walk, run approach to everything. I call it either a phaseal or like an agile approach to marketing. And I think it's so needed, especially for startups, right? Like that's your leverage point is the ability to move (inaudible)

JK (30:36):
In some way, we don't have an option, right. You know sometimes with the budget that we have, where, you know, some of these things we have to start out small and we have to kind of prove it out, you know, and whether that's even a budget perspective or whether that's like a resources perspective, because, you know, I have, I have a fairly small marketing team. So if I'm going to say, you know, spend the time doing doing this, I want to make sure that it's, that it makes sense because then if we experiment with something, you know, we're pulling resources from a different area of the company. So I want to make sure that it makes sense.

DA (31:09):
Absolutely. And it's, you know, every company I talked to on here, you know, talks about marketing resource limitation and it doesn't matter the size. It just somehow becomes a smaller department with resources now that it's under like loved in the organization, but there's just so many other places to put resources. And so you do, you have to focus on your biggest impact. You have to experiment like that, but that's what keeps you scrappy. It keeps you creative, keeps you on your toes, right. Makes marketing fun. And looking back, you joined, you said about a year and a half ago, which is, you know, a little before COVID, you're coming through, COVID probably a lot of, you know, tweaks and pivots and crazy things over the past year, but any hard lessons that you learned from things that maybe didn't work out as expected, maybe some of those quick experiments that you tried that just didn't make it?

JK (31:52):
Yeah. Well you know, it was interesting. I mean, I will say like 2020, and certainly in 2021 as well, you know, I think the theme is kind of change, right. And how do you adapt. Because I mean, fundamentally the way in which we do business is different, you know, our company culture and then certainly the different ways that we interact and engage with our customers and prospects. And so, you know, I know I mentioned early in the conversation, you know, events were a large part of the marketing that, that we did. And when I started out at LinkSquares, but you know, COVID kind of changed all that, right? We weren't doing these large in-person events. And so, you know, continuing that theme of experimentation, you know, we did experiment teaching with like some, the events that we had done in the past looking at the virtual offerings. But in some ways you know, sponsoring a booth at a virtual event, I think, I think now things are a little bit different, but especially in like, you know, the middle of 2020, I think a lot of these event organizers, were still figuring out, like, what does that presence look like for people who are sponsoring?

JK (33:02):
And so we didn't see a lot of like great results when we had to transition from doing, you know, in-person events to doing virtual events. And it really forced us to take a look at, you know, for those in-person events, why were they so effective for us? And I think the reasons in which why they were so effective for us is that, you know, we would spend a lot of time like developing out a theme for a booth and thinking about how can we be more creative and how can we be memorable? And how can we build those connections in terms of having people stop by our booth and engage with us. Might be not a shocker to you, but a lot of times at like legal events, people have their booths, everyone's, you know, kind of buttoned up wearing a suit. But I think one of the things that I looked at really early on in the company is how do we be a little bit more creative? How do we give people a reason to stop by and engage with us? And some of those things didn't translate perfectly over to an like a virtual booth, but we can still like push ourselves to be more creative. And to be more

DA (34:07):
What is the example of one, I would love to hear an example of something that didn't translate.

JK (34:11):
So, so for example there's an annual event held by the association of corporate counsel. And so in 2019 when we went we did, I don't know if you've ever been to Dreamforce yourself, but like Dreamforce is kind of like a marketer's dream in that all of the different booths have like different themes, you know, interesting giveaways. People are just really engaged and I want it to almost bring like those Dreamforce level tactics for like booth to a legal tech event. And so we did a superheros theme. We had, we actually had an a team of 15 people that we sent over. We all dressed as superheroes. We had a whack-a-mole game at our booth. We had really great giveaways that we were giving people. People just, you know, wanting to stop by our booth because they were like, what is going on over there?

JK (35:04):
I want to learn more. And it was a great conversation opener because people were kind of like, why are you all dressed as superheroes? Why are you guys having so much fun? You know, can I like play this game? What can we talk about, what do you do? It was a great conversation opener, and it was a way for us to build those connections and make that conversation easier. But you can imagine in like a virtual booth, we're not all sitting at home wearing superhero costumes, right. That's not something that's going to translate sort of one for one in that arena. So when we, at some of these, these virtual events, we had to sort of like rethink, how do we be creative? How do we build that personal connection? So one of the things that we did last year is we started even hosting some of our own events.

JK (35:50):
Like we did a number of wine nights where we personally invited a number of customers and prospects. We sent them amazing bottles of wine. We made it a conversation that we had with them and an opportunity for them to, to get to know other people that might already be in their network or outside of their network, and a chance to talk about topics that were important to them. So we kind of brought that sort of closeness and we were doing something a little bit different. Right. You know, I think everyone is kind of eager for that like personal connection. And so we're bringing people together to talk about things that they cared about. And then we're actually, you know, doing a little bit of a twist in it for next month for (inaudible) we're going to do, you know, a margarita kind of like tequila night. But similar theme, a way to bring people together, the focus isn't, you know, LinkSquares, the product, and it isn't going to be a sales pitch or a skimming them a presentation, but it's them having a conversation with their peers and helping build that connection. And talk about topics that they're interested about and interested in learning from their peers about. But that's a virtual event that we're going to host on our own, coming up and that we did last year.

DA (37:02):
That's super exciting. I love the idea of close knit connections. I mean, these events are all about building relationships, right. And, you know, I think it's a great way to do, and I have so many light bulbs going off different ideas that we could do something similar with. I love the wine nights and I better get an invite for the margarita night. You know, I'll be standing by my email for that one.

JK (37:21):
Well, if you are looking to purchase contract management solution

DA (37:25):
Yeah. Then I get an invite. Got it. But I will say that these, these lawyer and legal events sound absolutely thrilling. So I'm glad you're bringing some creativity and fun to them. And that sounds great.

JK (37:35):
Well, and I think what's interesting about it is that, you know, I think in the marketing universe, like perhaps we're, we're used to being marketed to this way, but for many ways, you know, for legal, legal tech, this isn't something that all the other companies out there are doing. And so I think the key and really maybe the takeaway is like, how do you do something that's creative? How do you do something that's going to help you stand out and how are you going to do something that's going to help, you know, maybe be like educational for your audience and build that connection and build out your thought leadership. You know, for us, these are tactics that have worked for us, with our audience in ways to engage. But, you know, I think if you have those goals in mind and think about like your strategies that way, it's not to say that I'm like everybody should be hosting a wine night or a tequila night for their audience, and that's going to be a home run for you. But how do you think about building those connections and being more engaging and experiment honestly.

DA (38:35):
No, absolutely. You're absolutely right. And I think if there's a theme from today's episode, it's just really understanding your marketplace. Is kind of where we started this conversation, right? Who are my prospects? How do I communicate with them? How can I build relationships? How can I be creative and stand out? I mean, you're probably a breath of fresh air in this, you know, event room bringing that kind of marketing creativity. So you've done a fantastic job of articulating that today and bringing that wisdom. So, so thank you so much. But for the sake of time, what I want to do now is flip over to our lightning round questions. Five quick questions that you can answer with the first and best thought that comes to mind. You ready to get started?

JK (39:14):
Sure.

DA (39:15):
All right. You're going to do great. What advice would you give for early stage SaaS companies starting marketing?

JK (39:22):
Yeah. So I think this is really what we covered in the episode, but I think one it's that experimentation. And two, it's just knowing your customer better.

DA (39:33):
I love it. Very simple, but like the things that you need to know, like very foundational, fundamental things from marketing. What about a skill that you think is vital for marketing teams to improve and build on today?

JK (39:47):
I would say one of the things that we have been working on internally at LinkSquares for our marketing team is that writing is such a big part of every part of marketing, whether that's, you're creating videos, whether that's you're writing copy for the site, whether that's writing things like write content, ebook content, things like that. And so one of the goals that I put out to my team is how do we all become better writers? And so we started a book club for us all internally where we're reading different copywriting books, different things on messaging and positioning so that we can all become better writers.

DA (40:22):
That is amazing. I love that initiative. What about a book that you may have just recommended or an educational resource you'd recommend for marketing growth or possibly writing?

JK (40:33):
There is a book. The first book that we read was, let me look up the title. It is, it's Dreyer's and I'm just like missing the full title of the book, but I'll look it up in one second and I'll give it to you.

DA (40:47):
Yeah, absolutely. And we'll link that in the show notes as well. So anyone can find that resource. These are always great resources for marketers looking to improve their skillsets.

DA (40:55):
Awesome. So while you're looking that up, we can move forward. What about a favorite tool that you can't live without?

JK (41:01):
I mean, I would have to say this, this, this is going to sound crazy, but I would say zoom. I mean, like, I think zoom has been just instrumental in us being able to work effectively and productively and to build that connection with, you know, our team customers, friends, family, especially during COVID times, I couldn't live without it.

DA (41:25):
Now that, that hurts me a little bit being a competitor of them. But, you know, at the same time, I definitely understand video communication. You know, I'm just going to say that we won't, we won't say... totally joking, totally joking. But what about a brand business or team that you admire today?

JK (41:40):
I mean, hopefully this isn't a cop out, but certainly HubSpot, I mean, HubSpot was so instrumental, not just for my own career path and trajectory, but also just for you know, inbound marketing and everything that they do to educate marketers and help us all become better marketers

DA (42:00):
Cop out at all. I think that's a fantastic answer. They've been, you know, a pillar in the marketing community of B2B marketing for so long, just really showing us how to create great content. Like you said, be value-driven create a great product. You know, I've heard them speak multiple times about their journey and it wasn't easy, but they've done an amazing job at building a great company. So great answer. And what we'll do is we'll link your book recommendation there for educational resource in the show notes, unless you have it?

JK (42:28):
Yes, I do. So the book is called Dreyer's English - an utterly correct guide to clarity and style and for a book on copywriting, it is a really fun read. I definitely encourage people to pick it up.

DA (42:41):
I'm definitely going to nab that one. I totally agree with you, (inaudible) copywriting so then we can all improve on and it's no wonder you forgot the name of that. That was a very long title. So that makes sense. But Juliette I want to say thank you so much for jumping on the call with me for sharing so much. You've been a fantastic guest. It's been wonderful to have you, and thank you so much for your time today.

JK (43:01):
Thank you so much.

DA (43:02):
It was a real pleasure. And we'll talk to you soon.
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