jessica ep2_Martech
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[00:00:00] Richard Ellis: The average B2B organization now uses dozens of marketing tools, yet most struggled to answer basic questions about who they sell to, why deals stall, and where growth actually comes from. AI has entered the MarTech conversation, promising, acceleration, personalization, and automation, but amplification only works when the underlying system is sound.
[00:00:23] Richard Ellis: The real risk is not choosing the wrong AI tools, it's scaling the wrong thinking. Today we continue our conversation with Jessica Fless to talk about MarTech and the age of ai, not from a vendor perspective, but from an operator's perspective. This is a conversation about foundations restraint and why faster is often the wrong goal.
[00:00:45] Richard Ellis: Welcome to some goodness where we engage seasoned operators and thinkers to help leaders navigate real world go to market complexity without hiding behind trends and tools. My guest back with us today for a second time is Jessica Fless. She's a partner [00:01:00] at Inverter and one of the original architects of modern account based marketing.
[00:01:04] Richard Ellis: Today we continue the conversation with Jessica to talk about MarTech in the age of ai, not from a vendor perspective, but from an operator's perspective. This is a conversation about foundations restraint and why faster is often the wrong goal. Jessica, welcome back.
[00:01:21] Jessica Fewless: Thanks so much, Richard. Thanks for having me on your, uh, your podcast here.
[00:01:26] Richard Ellis: Absolutely. So you've got just a wealth of experience. And I, uh, I wanted to focus our conversation today just on marketing technology or what we, we often call MarTech, right? Mm-hmm. And maybe before we, we dive into MarTech specifically, we kind of set the stage and talk a little bit about. You know, just MarTech in general over the past, you know, 15 to 20 years and, you know, it seems to have been evolving and expanding and, you know, I've read some articles, uh, uh, where people are, are saying that, you know, [00:02:00] maybe it, you know, the technology is actually expanding faster than the marketing strategy itself, but just curious of what you've seen, you know, being kind of in the middle of it all in terms of, uh, the expansion of MarTech.
[00:02:13] Jessica Fewless: Yeah, the expansion of Mar, you know, the average tech stack inside of a company is just mind boggling. Mm-hmm. And mind blowing. And you know, when I was on the client partner side of consulting, it was really interesting to get ahold of. One of the first things I would ask people for is their MarTech stack.
[00:02:34] Richard Ellis: Okay.
[00:02:34] Jessica Fewless: And, um, we would do an audit of their MarTech stack one. So I knew what I had at my disposal for. Creating campaigns and those sorts of things, but two, to understand how they were leveraging all these tools. Sure. And I mean, I'm pretty sure that I became like the black widow among like tech vendors because, 'cause I would look at these tech stacks and go, why do you have these three things?
[00:02:59] Jessica Fewless: Like [00:03:00] you have one use case that you're using 'em for, one person's using it, and you're spending $150,000 a year on this technology.
[00:03:06] Richard Ellis: Right.
[00:03:07] Jessica Fewless: Why?
[00:03:08] Richard Ellis: Yeah. It doesn't quite make sense.
[00:03:09] Jessica Fewless: No. And so, you know, and now this has changed because budgets are more strict and there's a greater focus on ROI and those sorts of things.
[00:03:17] Jessica Fewless: But back then it was like somebody had an idea, there was a shiny new tool that. Could do it. And they're like, great, I'm gonna buy that thing. And so then you had these big, this, these bloated tech stacks and you know, your product marketing team would be using this thing or you know, your, and your field marketing team in North America would be using this, but your field marketing team in North America would be using another tool.
[00:03:38] Jessica Fewless: 'cause that's what they found over in Europe. And it was just, you know, it was like, once again, people were plugging holes in their strategy, right. With technology.
[00:03:49] Richard Ellis: Well, and that, that seems to correlate to a, a little bit of what we've observed as well is mm-hmm. You know, as kind of demand quantity started getting more challenging, [00:04:00] uh, lead quality started getting more challenging.
[00:04:02] Richard Ellis: It, it was, it was almost like, well, we need to find the right tool to fix this. Right. Rather than think your rethink the strategy. It was, what tool do we not have that could, you know, fix this problem. Yeah. And so almost over rotation of technology, because it was, there were great, you know, technological advances and you know, everybody wants to shiny new penny.
[00:04:23] Jessica Fewless: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:04:26] Richard Ellis: When, um, when you think back and you've served a lot of different clients, both large and small, um, and, and you think about kind of the teams that do use their tech stack in marketing well versus maybe those that, you know, got wrapped around the axle or didn't. Um, did you, do you kind of notice any patterns in terms of the, you know, the stronger teams versus the weaker teams or the more effective versus ineffective?
[00:04:51] Jessica Fewless: Yeah, I think two things would be true. One, there was a use case and a, you know, built around the technology. Here's what [00:05:00] it's gonna do for us, here's how it's gonna play across our organization, or at least with the relevant folks, right? And then there were workflows built. Okay, here's where this technology is built in.
[00:05:11] Jessica Fewless: Here's where we're going to use it. You know, whether it's a, you know, something to, you know, personalize your website or create a content hub or whatever there, or, or leveraging, you know, a chat on. Your website people had all of these tools, and once again, it was just very haphazardly used, right? Mm-hmm.
[00:05:32] Jessica Fewless: And then you went, ran into governance because there were no rules of the road of, you know, when you know, when does you know a message to your target account? Take precedence over your generic message when your chat window pops up, when somebody visits your website.
[00:05:47] Richard Ellis: Okay. Right.
[00:05:48] Jessica Fewless: Those sorts of things weren't worked out.
[00:05:50] Jessica Fewless: Mm-hmm. Um, in a lot of companies. So, but the companies that had that sort of, those workflows and the integrations between their tools. Really set up well and [00:06:00] or, and architected well, those two things were what made tech stacks really useful versus just a drain. And, and also those teams didn't have to justify to their CFO, the ROI of their technology year on and year out.
[00:06:14] Jessica Fewless: 'cause they could demonstrate the value and they could say, look, it's built into the way we work. You can't rip it out. You can't take it away from us. Right.
[00:06:21] Richard Ellis: Got it, got it. So really taking it back to kind of that underlying process or business workflow that's aligned to a use case or an objective or a problem to solve, mapping that out and then saying, okay, where are some technology gaps or where are some manual, you know, um, connection points that we can get rid of, uh mm-hmm.
[00:06:40] Richard Ellis: For efficiency or effectiveness and really kind of picking the, the, the tool strategy after you've really optimized the workflow.
[00:06:49] Jessica Fewless: Yes.
[00:06:50] Richard Ellis: Okay. Exactly. That makes a lot of sense.
[00:06:53] Jessica Fewless: Yeah.
[00:06:53] Richard Ellis: Well, um, uh, I'm more of, um, a, a geek when it turn comes to [00:07:00] like sales tech stack versus a marketing tech stack. So I, I only know so much, but, uh, I have seen, you know.
[00:07:07] Richard Ellis: It's changed a lot, right? In terms of there's, there's those that are going for the big platform, we can do it all. And then there's point solutions, and then there's, you know, kind of CRM kind of going backwards into, you know, marketing saying you don't need, you know, I mean, it's, it's just expanding and evolving in all different ways, but I'm just curious, you know, what, what are some of the big shifts or, or trends you've seen over the past, you know.
[00:07:34] Richard Ellis: 10 or so years and kind of leading into the future that we may need to be aware of.
[00:07:38] Jessica Fewless: Oh God. And the trend, the trends that were in place 10 years ago are very different from the trends today. You know, it's been, it's been really interesting. You know, there's, there was definitely the, the, I feel like in my entire marketing career, I've seen this shift from point solutions to comprehensive platforms, back to point solutions, right.
[00:07:57] Jessica Fewless: And yeah,
[00:07:57] Richard Ellis: it's almost back and forth. Yeah.
[00:07:59] Jessica Fewless: It [00:08:00] does. It goes back and forth and I think we're in an era now where everybody's like, you know what? I want more control. Like even though the platform's kind of the easy button, 'cause it combines a bunch of things, it's never gonna be best in class at everything.
[00:08:12] Jessica Fewless: Sure. So I think everybody's switching back now to more discreet point solutions that they have more control over. And now you know that we have, you know, AI is coming onto the market, right? We've got all this data from our technologies, we've got all these capabilities, and then we have ai. We've got tools like Zapier where you can stitch this all together yourself in a way that truly maps to your business.
[00:08:37] Jessica Fewless: I think that's where people are headed now. Even though it's a little bit more work upfront, it's going to produce a much better end result for them. And so I think people are gonna be decoupling from the platforms and going more point solution now.
[00:08:51] Richard Ellis: Okay, that makes sense. Well, and as you, as you think across, you know, just different industries, uh, different solutions.
[00:08:59] Richard Ellis: You know, [00:09:00] one client, you know, might have a certain set of point solutions that are very needed and relevant for them, but, but that would be a different set of point solutions for another client. Right. And so to your point, Brian, buying a whole platform that, that, you know, has the 70% of capabilities across all of those areas may not be the cost in.
[00:09:18] Richard Ellis: Yeah.
[00:09:19] Jessica Fewless: Yeah, exactly. And you know, the, the, those comprehensive platforms are expensive. Right? Mm-hmm. And so especially on the lower end of the, the, the spectrum, you know, companies don't have the kind of budget. To buy them. And so they can, they can do as good or better once again with less expensive point solutions that they can, they can pull together exactly as they need.
[00:09:40] Richard Ellis: I was gonna say, instead of buying the whole platform Right, for the whole team and only using 30% of the capabilities.
[00:09:47] Jessica Fewless: Exactly, yep.
[00:09:48] Richard Ellis: You can get two or three, um, you know, point solutions and they might have built in integrations, but as you said, you know, you could use Zapier or something like that to connect things together.
[00:09:59] Richard Ellis: Yep. Right. [00:10:00] You kind of came out of the A BM world and sold a BM solutions, uh, and that was kind of the big buzzword. As you think about categories of point solutions or just are there a, a, a couple of, Hey, everybody needs this, or you need to take, think through, you know, these two or three areas specifically as, as you think about your tech stack for marketing?
[00:10:22] Jessica Fewless: Oh, God, that's a great question.
[00:10:23] Richard Ellis: I know it's a, it's a, it's a big question, but
[00:10:25] Jessica Fewless: it is a big question. I mean. We're always going to need to have to send email. Right, right. But now do you need a super fully featured email tool, or do you need a stripped down one that just allows you to connect your database to it and send email.
[00:10:40] Jessica Fewless: Okay. Right. That's, you know, that's kind of a question on people's minds now. Um, you know, because. You know, the, the, the, the core players. Now, of course, they're layering on AI and they're doing all this other stuff, but are they layering it on in the way that you want? Do you trust the way their AI works?
[00:10:58] Jessica Fewless: Right. Versus do you go with a [00:11:00] stripped down solution and you layer on the AI you want to, in the way you want to? Right.
[00:11:04] Richard Ellis: Right.
[00:11:05] Jessica Fewless: So there's, there's kind of that decision. Obviously you need to manage your data in some way, shape, or form, right? Mm-hmm. Obviously Salesforce is the big player out there when it comes to CRM data, but you know, I think a lot of people, and, and once again, Salesforce keeps adding on all these AI layers to their tools.
[00:11:22] Jessica Fewless: What is it the AI you need? I don't know. Or do you just need the, the base Salesforce to gather your data and then you build the different tools you need to actually action on that data, analyze that data, and those sorts of things. That's another decision point right now. Beyond that, I mean, I wouldn't say there's any must haves.
[00:11:45] Jessica Fewless: You know, of course people are gonna have the, you're gonna have a webinar tool and you're gonna have all those like kind of basic things. But you know, beyond having a way to email your database and having your database, those are the two fundamentals. I kind of feel [00:12:00] like everything's up for grabs after that.
[00:12:03] Jessica Fewless: Yeah. Got it. Based on your workflows and the needs of your, your business, um, sure. And how sophisticated you're gonna be. I can't say everybody needs to have a website personalization tool,
[00:12:15] Richard Ellis: right?
[00:12:15] Jessica Fewless: Because maybe you do, maybe you don't. It, it all depends on your strategy and your audience and, you know. So,
[00:12:24] Richard Ellis: yeah.
[00:12:24] Richard Ellis: Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm seeing a big trend right now. And, and it's, it's, it's manifesting into a big challenge for software companies. And, and that is, you know, as we know, everybody's embedding AI capabilities into their products mm-hmm. Right? In some form or fashion. And so even if you're happy with your current platform or your tech stack, it's causing a lot of.
[00:12:47] Richard Ellis: Business owners, sales leaders, marketing leaders, to pause and say, well, is there something we're missing? And if, if we're gonna be thinking about making a change, maybe we should rethink, you know, more than just this, maybe we should [00:13:00] revisit the whole tech stack. Right? And so it's really creating some account retention challenges for, for many software clients right now.
[00:13:07] Richard Ellis: 'cause people are saying, well. You know, maybe now's the time to go make some of those big changes, and maybe there's an opportunity to simplify or consolidate. Are, are you seeing kind of that trend, uh, across your clients as well?
[00:13:19] Jessica Fewless: Well, absolutely. And they've got additional budget pressure too. Mm-hmm. So they're, they're kind of being forced.
[00:13:26] Jessica Fewless: I mean, a lot of CFOs and boards and CEOs are saying, look, AI allows you to do more. So go do more with ai, right? And I'm gonna shrink your tech budget as a result, or I'm gonna even shrink your headcount because now you have ai. Yeah. But then these companies are less scrambling like, well, I don't know what to do with AI to make up for the.
[00:13:51] Jessica Fewless: You know, 5% decrease in my headcount or the 10% decrease in my tech budget. And so now they're scrambling to try and figure that out. And that is, [00:14:00] that is, once again, that goes back to the fundamentals. That goes back to the strategy. What are you trying to achieve? How does your team work?
[00:14:06] Richard Ellis: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:06] Jessica Fewless: Right? And, and creating those workflows and understanding, okay, is there really a use case for this technology or not?
[00:14:12] Jessica Fewless: Right? Right. Or can we do it cheap more cheaply if we build it ourselves versus buy it?
[00:14:19] Richard Ellis: Yes. Yes. Well, and that's creating just a, a lot of challenges, uh, in terms of, you know, the positioning and the messaging, uh, to your, your client base, right? No longer is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it good enough. Or, you know, uh, just your own, you know, self-focused messaging of making sure your team can talk about your new AI capabilities.
[00:14:41] Announcer: Right.
[00:14:41] Richard Ellis: You know, there's pressure now to talk about, you know, why continue. You know, why stay with us. Right? And, uh, you know, why the, the, the, the seeming simplification play or consolidation play is not in your best interest, right? You need to stick with us. And so we're just seeing a lot of demand [00:15:00] for rethinking, positioning, messaging, conversational content, um, and, and then, you know, just kind of solidifying that, uh.
[00:15:11] Richard Ellis: That stickiness, if you will, uh, to to maintain, you know, client retention
[00:15:16] Jessica Fewless: well, and the, a lot of legacy technology that are adding ai, they're adding AI on top of what already existed, instead of re-imagining what their product should be and what the workflow should be. I know I keep saying workflow, so sorry.
[00:15:31] Jessica Fewless: Hopefully I'm not No,
[00:15:31] Richard Ellis: no, I love it.
[00:15:33] Jessica Fewless: But I mean, once again, it's how does AI actually change the problem that they're trying to solve for and fundamentally change the technology? So, you know, we're seeing a lot of, you know, players coming up that are AI native, right? They didn't have a legacy that they had to bolt on their ai, and those are the ones that are winning right now.
[00:15:53] Jessica Fewless: Right, because people are like, great, they get me, they get the power of ai and they have built their [00:16:00] technology from the ground up, understanding that, um, yeah, but you know what? But those technologies are gonna be out of date in three years. Right. Because AI is gonna continue to evolve and a lot of those aren't gonna be around three years from now.
[00:16:16] Richard Ellis: That's right. Well, and given that, do you have, you know, just any, any advice or, or guidance on, you know, do you wanna bet the farm on, you know, one pony, right? And it's like, okay, we're gonna go after this, or do you hedge your bets or do you play a wait? And you know, nobody wants to wait and see, right?
[00:16:35] Richard Ellis: Because they don't want to be left behind. Right. So it's a balancing act.
[00:16:39] Jessica Fewless: I think, you know, take some chances now, right? Mm-hmm. Once again, go into it knowing that that technology might not be relevant three years from now and be okay with that, right? So don't sign a five year con, not that anybody, anybody signs five year contacts, but like, I wouldn't sign more than a one or two year contract because, you know, another player could sprout [00:17:00] up tomorrow That's gonna just, you know, leapfrog.
[00:17:04] Jessica Fewless: The one that you're, you are buying today. So signing long-term contracts in this space, I absolutely wouldn't do, but I wouldn't rule it out for right now. If you've got the use case and you've got, you know, a need, buy the technology, you know, leverage it for now. Um, and then, but keep your eyes and ears open for, you know, new players and new ways to be even more, more effective.
[00:17:31] Richard Ellis: And I think that's the smart way to think about it, right? Because e, even just business in general, no longer can you chart out a five-year roadmap and have full confidence that you know what the world's even gonna look like in five years, right? And so you've got a plan to be agile and flexible and adapt and pivot along the way, and to kind of take that mindset into your tech stack decisions.
[00:17:52] Richard Ellis: I, I think it's really smart to say, Hey, we're gonna make the right decision for the next one to two years. And, uh, but knowing that we don't know everything [00:18:00] and the market and the technology's gonna continue to innovate, let's put some governance in place so that we can learn what's working, what's not, and be smart and that next decision point.
[00:18:10] Richard Ellis: Rather than just, Hey, we're all in and, and we're, we're gonna run it until it doesn't work anymore.
[00:18:16] Jessica Fewless: Well, and that's, you know, getting back to the fundamentals we've been talking about, like that's a fundamental thing that every marketing team should have been doing all along with all of their technology right upfront.
[00:18:27] Jessica Fewless: Having a very clear way of, if you were gonna say, is this working or is this not working? Mm-hmm. Right. Which
[00:18:33] Announcer: a lot of companies. You know, and teams skip that step. They bought a technology and they're like, ah, we'll figure it out
[00:18:38] Jessica Fewless: at the renewal. And then the CSM comes to them and says, Hey, so have you figured out the ROI?
[00:18:44] Jessica Fewless: And they're like, no, you do it for me and the Cs m's. Like, are you kidding me right now? But anyway, so, um, I mean, I feel like that should have been done all along, but it's even more important now with, with the pace of innovation.
[00:18:56] Richard Ellis: Sure.
[00:18:57] Jessica Fewless: That you know, that things are, you know, [00:19:00] are, are truly evaluated. You know, I like
[00:19:02] Richard Ellis: that.
[00:19:03] Jessica Fewless: You know, on a, on a regular basis with very discreet metrics and or whatever it is that you're evaluating that technology on, um, so that you don't get left behind.
[00:19:13] Richard Ellis: Yes, yes. And a great reminder that the fundamentals are still in place. You, you, you still need to have the a, a good strategy. You still need to have the right processes.
[00:19:23] Richard Ellis: Uh, and then you also have to have quality data. Uh, yeah. And so make sure you're not missing out on those fundamentals and trying to just throw AI on top of it, or, you know, a fancy tool that's gonna be, you know, resulting in dirty and dirty out right? Or amplifying the ugly, or, or whatever way you wanna position it, right?
[00:19:42] Richard Ellis: Um, in terms of just some of the, the newer tech, I know that like intent signals are getting a lot of talk right now because it's easier with AI and and technology to find those and surface those and then do something with that. Uh, are you, uh, first of all, you know, tell me a little bit about what [00:20:00] you're seeing companies do well with intent signals and then, you know, are there any other kind of features or capabilities that we should, you know, be leaning into?
[00:20:08] Jessica Fewless: Yeah, I think when it comes to intent, intent's gotten a bad wrap. Kind of over the cor the course of the last year or two. Um, primarily because one super top of the funnel, people are using AI tools for their research. Mm-hmm. Which intent can't pick up. Right. Okay. So you're not really getting intent signals until a little further down the funnel.
[00:20:30] Jessica Fewless: Two people are using them as a, as in a silo, right? Mm-hmm. And 10 signals need to be combined with the rest of the data. In your
[00:20:39] Richard Ellis: data in context. Yes.
[00:20:41] Jessica Fewless: Yes. Because if you're just like, well, this account is spiking cool, but are they on your website at all?
[00:20:47] Richard Ellis: Right.
[00:20:47] Jessica Fewless: Right. Um, you know, are they, you know, is it just one person that's got a pet project versus Right.
[00:20:55] Jessica Fewless: Five people researching? Right. And so understanding [00:21:00] it in context is really important. And then to your point, what do you do with that? Mm-hmm. Um, you know, I was on a webinar with A CMO and she said. There should never be a static nurture. There should only be a reaction to signals moving forward.
[00:21:14] Richard Ellis: Ooh, I like that.
[00:21:15] Jessica Fewless: And that's gonna be hard to pull off, right? Mm-hmm. Like there's a lot that's gonna have to go into doing that, but I think that is the potential here of data and intent being, one piece of that is really understanding who your buyer is, what they care about, what they're researching, and being able to tailor.
[00:21:34] Jessica Fewless: Quote, unquote, nurture, we call it always on strategy that speaks to them where they're at based on those signals and can pivot when they pivot, right? Mm-hmm. If suddenly they take a step back or you know, one individual is doing a ton of research but a bunch of other people aren't, how do you get them to caught catch up?
[00:21:52] Jessica Fewless: Right? And really, um, orchestrating that sort of a conversation with your prospects and customers. [00:22:00] That's really the power of data. That I don't think most, if anybody is really harnessed yet.
[00:22:09] Richard Ellis: Right. Right. Very good, very good. Well, and, and then, uh, following on that, are you seeing, uh, or what kind of trends are you seeing in terms of, you know, shifting towards, you know, we, we've talked about, you know, a BM and, you know, strategic and, and hyper-personalized marketing and campaigns and things like that.
[00:22:28] Richard Ellis: But what about, uh, trends around findability of your website and, and AI indexing versus SEO? That could be a whole nother, you know, 20 minute topic, but I'm just, you know, a any, any quick thoughts on that? Because we're in the middle of, you know, thinking through that as well, ourselves.
[00:22:44] Jessica Fewless: Yeah, I mean, it's, honestly, I feel like there's people out there saying, I know the answer and then everybody else is like, it's still a little bit of, you know, once again, and I know I said this already, it's going back to the fundamentals of good SEO [00:23:00] will help you show up in G-E-O-A-E-O, whatever you wanna call it.
[00:23:05] Richard Ellis: Right.
[00:23:06] Jessica Fewless: Um, but I mean, there are definitely new techniques. Um, you know, I mean, if you have the bandwidth, you know, being out on Reddit just because so much of what comes from AI is being pulled from Reddit. If you're not being referenced out there, you know, that's, but, but. You know, teams don't necessarily have the bandwidth for that, so how do you do that?
[00:23:28] Jessica Fewless: Right, right. Um, PR general PR becomes more important in this world because you need other people referencing your company. Um, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's just this constant. Share a voice and getting, you know, and, and getting on those top 10 lists. I mean, I feel like this will evolve. And once again, ai, the, the AI search keeps evolving, but you know, if it's like top 10 B2B marketing consulting firms, if you're on that list, you're likely to come up when somebody searches on, Hey, I need a B2B marketing consulting firm.[00:24:00]
[00:24:00] Richard Ellis: Right.
[00:24:00] Jessica Fewless: You know, versus if you're not on that top 10 list, you're probably not gonna show up.
[00:24:04] Richard Ellis: And, you know, you remind us, uh, a couple of times, the fundamentals still matter, right? Mm-hmm. Same thing with SEO or GEO, right? Mm-hmm. Being that authority, uh, in, in your domain, you know, still matters whether somebody's, yeah.
[00:24:18] Richard Ellis: Going to Google search or chat GPT saying, I need help.
[00:24:23] Jessica Fewless: And I think also, I mean, I think the one fundamental thing is, you know, the pretty shiny PDFs, like AI doesn't care. They just want the work, right? So, you know, we've, we've gone to, instead of doing graphical images, you know, in our blog posts and those sorts of things, we create charts, but we create them native in, you know,
[00:24:45] Richard Ellis: WordPress,
[00:24:46] Jessica Fewless: right?
[00:24:46] Jessica Fewless: So
[00:24:46] Announcer: that's
[00:24:47] Jessica Fewless: the, usually
[00:24:47] Richard Ellis: for AI to read doesn't have to be the most prettiest thing because a human may not even be reading it, it, it maybe surface. We do both do that human through ai.
[00:24:55] Jessica Fewless: We create the kind of like bland but scannable, you [00:25:00] know, landing page. But then we do create the pretty PDF because humans are still part of the process.
[00:25:04] Jessica Fewless: But you gotta do both now.
[00:25:06] Richard Ellis: Yeah,
[00:25:06] Jessica Fewless: for sure.
[00:25:07] Richard Ellis: Great point, great point. Yeah. Well, anything else come to mind in terms of, uh, just MarTech and the, the marketing tech stack and decisions or, uh, cool stuff that, uh, our listeners would appreciate before we wrap up here?
[00:25:22] Jessica Fewless: Yeah, I mean, I think, I think really it's. Take a hard look at your tech stack, right?
[00:25:26] Jessica Fewless: Mm-hmm There's probably a lot of waste. There's probably a lot of duplication out there and you know, once again going back to my Black widow moniker, I mean you probably do, you know your CFO's probably not wrong in asking you to really like reduce your budget there. 'cause I think you can do a lot more with less tools and more creativity, um, and probably even get better outcomes.
[00:25:50] Richard Ellis: Great reminder. I think that's good encouragement. And, uh, as we, as we wrap up here, uh, our show's about sharing all kinds of goodness. So anything [00:26:00] outside of MarTech or technology or marketing that, uh, it's a little goodness in your life these days?
[00:26:06] Jessica Fewless: Um, well, uh, as, uh, I live in the mountains, as you can tell, by my flannel and my, um, vest here.
[00:26:11] Jessica Fewless: I live in the mountains and it's a cross country ski season. Mm-hmm. Yes. And so I'm one of those crazy people who actually likes to work on skis versus just going downhill. Not that downhill skiing is easy, like that is also a workout. But, um, most, most people I know are like, why? Why would you choose to,
[00:26:30] Richard Ellis: why trudging through, I've seen the cross country.
[00:26:32] Richard Ellis: Skiers and I'm just like, that looks hard.
[00:26:35] Jessica Fewless: Yeah. Um, I love it. And once again, it's another thing that allows me to shut off my brain and just enjoy the silence of like a snowy day out where there aren't any other people and you know, and just really enjoy that. And, you know, once again, I think my theme there is just, you know, find something where you can just shut off your professional brain, like let it rest.
[00:26:59] Jessica Fewless: [00:27:00] Right. Let it rest. Have a hard cut over from your professional to your personal life. Um, it's just gonna make you a better marketer, um, at the end of the day.
[00:27:11] Richard Ellis: That is some goodness. So thank you for sharing that and uh, thank you for being on our show.
[00:27:15] Jessica Fewless: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It was a great conversation.
[00:27:20] Announcer: Some goodness is a creation of revenue innovations. Visit us@revenueinnovations.com and subscribe to our newsletter.
