Special Guest!! Unboring Everything! Money20/20's VP Marketing Kathryn Frankson | Ep. 459

0:00Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast from marketers. We share quick tips, things you can do right now, and then we add a little bit of chaos at the end of every episode. We also keep it short, like this intro. Let's check it out. We are back for Do This Not That podcast, and I have an incredible guest here today. Seriously incredible. Catherine Frankson is here. Now, who's that? She is the Vice President of Marketing for Money 2020. Now, what is Money 2020? It's like it. It's where the global fintech ecosystem gets together. This event is massive. It's not just one event. It's these events all year long, all this content, all this media.

0:41But Money 2020, the actual event in the US has over 11 ,000 attendees from people from 80 countries, 350 speakers. But Catherine's a big deal. She's been in this event world, in the B2B world forever. And she's like a good human being who gets it. And I'm fired up. We're about B2B storytelling. Catherine, welcome to the show. Hi, Jay. Awesome to be here. Thanks for the killer intro. I'm super stoked that you're here. We're going to break into all things because a lot of people out there that are listening, they think they have a boring B2B job, but we're going to flip the script and tell them, well, no, you can make it amazing.

1:16But before we do that, how did you become amazing? What is your deal? How'd you become Catherine? How did I become Catherine? I love it. I also love that anything where we realize that we don't have to subscribe to just these boring tropes that our minds suck us into. So I, well, it's interesting that we're talking about storytelling and creativity, because I think the thing that's most pertinent to this conversation is that professionally, I got my start in sales. So I was true blue sales. Now we would probably have the terms like VR, SDR, up to enterprise, but sales, sales, sales. And I did that for a number of years and I became really sort of interested in marketing by proxy of that.

1:58I found that I was like having to talk a lot about how they were tracking and the why and ideation at the time. I was also planning my wedding. So you're looking for gobs of stuff at once and it makes you realize how you shop and purchase. And so that's what spurred me to make the change into marketing. And at the time I was like, oh my gosh, this is going to be amazing. This is going to be the heyday. I'm going to take off this boring like sales blazer. I'm going to be all creative and go into marketing. And I, I made the jump and not once was I in a meeting where I heard anyone say story or creativity or human or love or passion.

2:42And I was kind of shocked. And that's what made me realize that there is a void. And actually that's what I was really passionate about. And that was what I wanted to do for my style of marketing. And so that's been the road that I've traveled. Okay. So what blows my mind about that, I love that. And you're so right. I've been to all those meetings. No one ever says any of those words. But when you're like passionate about those words, I would have thought you'd be like, okay, I'm going to go work for this consumer brand that everybody knows and loves and whatever, but no, you went down the super duper exciting world of B2B publishing and business to business events in like regulated industries, like financial services and stuff.

3:30Like when you're like, I want creativity, I want love, I want storytelling. What led you to B2B land? Oh my God. I love B2B land. I love it because I think there's been a sense that those stories don't exist there or there isn't the opportunity to be creative in those spaces. And I knew, I will say, because I was in B2B sales. So I knew firsthand when you're in sales, as you have been as many, many people have been, and you're new to an industry, which I think there is absolutely a huge advantage to just being brand new to something. Like I actually love hiring people who have no events background or marketing background.

4:13Cause you're like, Oh my gosh, what we're going to get out of someone who has a fresh way of thinking, as long as they're curious and smart and ambitious, is really exciting. But what I knew from being in B2B sales when you're talking to real people and you're going one-to-one is that it's fascinating. It's really interesting. There's humans behind all of this. And you're trying to build and create partnerships or whatever version of sales. I did ad sales. I did 10 by 10 expo booth sales. I did, you know, more complex sponsorship sales, but it was always a person and you won the business by being real, being human, telling a story.

4:54If you, if you data dumped, you're going to lose someone or you're going to confuse them. You can't spam them with emails, right? They'd be like, what are you doing? What are you doing? And so I, I felt every bit as energized and I felt like there was just this void of that storytelling that wasn't happening behind. If you think of even money, oh, my God, money is at the root of everything, right? It's at the root of businesses, of hopes, of dreams, of people, of startups, of why is it regulated? The type of money is changing. So I think some of it is just deciding to be really passionate and curious and just not cutting off that belief that any sector, any vertical, any industry, anything.

5:39because that's part of it. It's like we've propped all this stuff up in these words, B2C, B2B, sectors, industry. It's like at the root of everything, doesn't matter if it's medicine or finance or insurance, there's people behind all of it doing really, really interesting stuff. And marketing, I found, was just so obsessed with the numbers. I mean, it was just, you went straight into this land of measuring everything and obsessively talking about that instead of, and some of that's applicable and great and smart and interesting and can be an unlock, but really at the expense of even opening yourself up to the same principles that you would in dealing with someone one-to-one, everything became these just large numbers on a spreadsheet.

6:25And with the people behind all of this, and we have to tap into it. So I've always been really energized by it. I think because I had that human connection to begin with. And so I never lost that terror. First of all, I feel very inspired. I do. And I think a lot of people out there, someone's like, oh, I'm in this boring B2B plumbing supply company. But now I'm thinking about the fact I'm reaching out to humans and I'm going to connect with them on a human level. So let me ask you this. In your organization, right? And now, okay. So you put on, amongst other things, you put on these massive events.

6:58Money 2020 is like one of the biggest events in the world, B2B events, whatever. So now the event ends and now it's, now you're going to plan for next year. Do you like have a meeting? Like, all right, everybody, today's the storytelling meeting. What's our story for next year? And everyone come with your best stories. Like, like how does it, what is the process to kind of invite kind of the storytelling into your, your, what you're doing? I'm going to, I, let's talk about that. Can I say one more thing about what you said when you said, oh, I'm inspired and different. So what was it? Was it two days ago that a video went viral from the New Berlin, Wisconsin library?

7:36I don't know if you've seen that. It's got like 46 million views. It is a librarian. They decided they wanted to do something to let people know that they've got great free resources at the New Berlin, Wisconsin library. And so they pretended to do a trust fall where one of the librarians didn't catch. Did you see that one? Didn't catch it. And it's just so funny and perfectly executed. And what a funny way to tell that story. That could have been a very boring graphic, right? I live in Hopkins, Minnesota. And the city of Hopkins, Minnesota, USA, decided to do on a whim for Paige Beckers, basketball star who's from Hopkins for her first WNBA game, decided to rename the city of Hopkins Paige Beckers, Minnesota for the day.

8:27National attention gets on ESPN. That is a city marketing team that decided on that, right? There's the dealership in, it's somewhere in New York, I think. And they decided to do a spoof on the office and did the dealership as a whip. So those examples live everywhere in every single industry. And so I just think it's, there's also this bit of getting, yeah, getting pumped about who you're dealing with and not ever thinking that any, really any of that is boring. And you have such, such a chance to win on that. So with Money 2020, how this comes live. So we do have, what I think is really interesting about creativity and storytelling is I think you need two things to do it really, really well.

9:12I think you do need the right culture, right? I mean, you can't talk to any frustrated marketer anywhere and go like, oh, I've got these ideas, but I can't, or there's the constraint. So you do really need, now I think you can create that. I think it can be a subculture. I think you can still find microcosms of that. But I think the best way to unlock that is to decide that you think creativity is important and real and valuable, and that you should talk about it and mention it, and that it holds weight to the work that you're doing, right? So I think that's really important. And then I do think you need a process in guardrails or it's going to spin out or it's going to be one bright shining moment and amidst a sea of day-to-day tasks that then you just can't replicate.

9:59So we do, we have a pretty rigored process about washups, strategy, how that layers into, right, creative, design, sales, marketing, operations, content. So you take the data, you take the thematics, you decide how that rolls up to your three-year strategy. So again, I say all this because you can live in storytelling and creative land and you have commercial delivery that you still have to make good on. And so it all ladders up to what a three-year strategy is, right? Knowing what those pillars are, because that's where, and again, I say this in the context of, I think sometimes you can live too far in one land or the other.

10:44And you can also get a really robust metrics, financial heavy three-year plan and go, oh, but if you're open to it and it's done right, what you're gonna find in there are new opportunities, right? Oh, we need to crack into this sector. Oh, our NPS is highest here. Interesting. Why are we churning here? We did some smart stuff, I thought. Why aren't we churning here? Okay, this did work. Okay, let's do a SWOT. All right, competitor, this is different. This is the same. So that piece doesn't have to be boring. It can be very fruitful and that can lay this foundation and kind of give you those guardrails for saying this is where we need to go.

11:30these are the timelines that we have to hit um we let's have a culture where we believe that being customer first and telling human stories is is really important and that that's going to be the red thread through everything and then let's start to put that into a a tactical execution plan so that we can actually put this stuff into the world over and over again And yeah, so it tends to be pretty, not formulaic, but structured. So along those lines, you talk about the librarian with the 40 million views and all those things. And clearly, you're very numbers oriented, right? And you're looking at metrics, looking at all the things.

12:13But how do you balance that, right? So if you're talking about storytelling, because I come from the camp that I think some attribution is garbage. I do, right? And yet you're measuring everything and yet you're storytelling. And sometimes, isn't it hard to sometimes do attribution with storytelling? Does everything have to line up to that it's converting and it's worth it and there's an ROI? Here's my view. I don't think you can. If you're living in last touch attribution, if that is your methodology for measuring what works and is your North Star for deciding where you invest, what channels you move towards or away from, you're going to miss a trick or two, to say the least.

13:02I mean, I think it'd be really interesting if everyone just took all of their last touch attribution metrics and if we had to unveil them, if everyone had to post it on LinkedIn at the same time, how much variance do you think there's going to be in that? No, it's going to be your search, going to be your email, it's going to be garbage. Correct. Direct, direct. Imagine that. Imagine that. So you have to, this is where people get frustrated though, right? Because some aren't able to move beyond that. Or it's, well, let's A-B test and let's show what's working. And once we have those metrics, we'll make a business case for it and we'll present that.

13:40And then we'll be able to do this other creative work. And that's, there's a difference between, and this is, again, I found this making the move into marketing, that there was the real world of how we are as humans, not even consumers, doesn't have to be B2B, B2C, how we as humans are finding new things, getting excited about stuff, embedded in culture. You know, you can't stand in an Uber line at any airport and not look around and just see every walk of person staring at their, at their phone, right. And, and consuming on, on social, but you, there was the real world that we exist in. And then there was like the four walls inside of an organization and how marketing was operating.

14:26I was like, but we know, but we know people care about this, but then why are we trying to measure it in this way? So it's a losing battle. If that's, if that is what all of the decision-making is going to be based on. I love that. It's so true. I think marketing is surround sound and last such attribution should not even exist in anybody's like metrics or whatever. All right. I'm flipping the script here. I want to go a totally different direction because I need you to sell me on something. You are a huge tea fan. You like tea. You like to drink tea. Is that true? Jane, I tell you, just when I thought my day could not get any better, No one's ever asked me.

15:09Jump scare. No one asks me about tea. Wait, here's what I want you so much. I like coffee a lot. Yeah, everyone likes coffee. Right. Sell me on why I should be. Catherine Frank said, I need to switch from coffee to tea. Here we go. Oh, my gosh. Tea is so wonderful and incredible. But here's something that I think is very tactical. Let's start by not winning hearts and minds. Let's start by being really, really on the nose with it. So one of the things that I think is amazing about tea is that, and the reason that I made the switch, is that it is because of the structure of the tea and the polyphenols.

15:48It's absorbed into your musculature as opposed to your central nervous system. So you don't get jittery. You don't get the jolt. You can enjoy it. You can drink it all day without having the crash. You could sustain your day and live your best life. And it's just absolutely amazing. I have gone to the tea fields of Sri Lanka. I will let you know. And yeah, I'm in deep. I'm in deep. Went to an eco lodge and yeah, woke up to the pluckers. The origins of it is amazing. I love that every different type of tea, whether it's green or black or oolong or white, has a real regional and global perspective to it.

16:27And I think it's, yeah, I think it's just really special and amazing. And I could go on, but I won't. Is it horrendous if I just said that you spilled the tea on tea? Is that the dumbest thing? No, it's amazing. There's nothing that could ever, like any, absolutely any nuance of it. Spill the tea, tea time with Jay and Jaffron. Yeah. That's a great idea. We're going to do, I think at some upcoming event, I'm going to ask you to do like a tea tasting. like we'll have to do something where you're trying all sorts of teas and telling everybody about what is going on this is a this is tremendous i would do you know what my uh bravo tagline would be no i want that i want to know i like my marketing hot but my tea hotter that's my bravo tagline yeah yeah i'm all in real housewives everything i watch every season of everything.

17:25You are wonderful. Thank you for spilling the tea. Listen, everybody's got to go and connect with Catherine Frankson on LinkedIn, Money 2020. You'll find all things we're going to put in the show notes. You are awesome. Catherine, thanks for being here. Thank you so much. You're the best. You did it. You made it to the end. But wait, the party is not over. Listen, I want to keep hanging out. Subscribe to this podcast. And if it wasn't the worst podcast you've ever listened do, give it a five-star review. Why not? But you know what? I want to do even more with you. Go to gurumediahub.com and we can partner there.

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