Stop The Finger Pointing - Andrea Eaton

0:00Andrea Eaton:Hey, welcome to the CMO Whisper Show. I'm your host, Steve Olenski. Part marketing practitioner, part ad agency veteran, part journalist, I was a writer for Forbes for 10 years. I've had so many insightful conversations over the years with business leaders, to athletes, to celebrities, to of course, CMOs. The only difference now is instead of sharing those insights through written form, I'm doing it this way. My guest today is Andrii Eaton, Chief Revenue Officer at Atacama. Andrii is a growth-focused executive with more than 20 years of experience helping tech companies scale revenue, transform go-to-market strategies, and navigate periods of rapid growth.

0:41Andrea Eaton:Her career spans leadership roles across sales, marketing, revenue operations, and product marketing, giving her a truly unique perspective on what it takes to drive sustainable business results. Now, before joining Atacama, Andrea led global marketing at OutSystems, where she helped advance the company's AI-powered vision and integrated AI into marketing and sales development workflows. She's also served as chief revenue officer at Bluefin Payment Systems and held senior leadership roles at several high-growth software and fintech companies. Andrea, welcome to the show. Thank you, Steve. It's great to be here.

1:15Andrea Eaton:It is my pleasure. And I want to start with really what I think is among the most interesting things in your career, which is the CMO to CRO evolution, right? You've led marketing, sales, product marketing, demand gen, now revenue. When this CRO opportunity came along, what was it you said, like, I'm ready for this new kind of role? Sure. Yeah. I guess maybe going back a little bit earlier in my career, my second job I ever had was at a then publicly traded fintech company called Bottom Line Technologies. And after, you know, early career days in marketing roles, I became really interested in what was happening to the leads that were being created by the marketing programs that I was running.

1:58And so I had asked the then leader of sales if I could try a sales role. And there wasn't a role available at the time. But a few months later, one opened up and he gave me the opportunity to move from the marketing role that I was in at the time over to an account executive role. And I spent a few years as a sales exec. And so that was really my first experience on the other side, if you will. And again, it really just was driven by my curiosity around, you know, what can happen in the follow up on demand that's created by a marketing program and how does that work and how would I do it? And so, as I mentioned, spent a few years doing that and kind of throughout my career have, you know, kind of gone between sales and marketing roles.

2:45So I've, you know, led sales enablement, spent for sure most of the career in marketing. But my first experience in the CRO seat was at Bluefin Payment Systems a few years ago. And, you know, at the time, I think it was really after meeting the CEO there and kind of talking about what they needed and reflecting on my experience, they, you know, kind of offered me that CRO position. It wasn't necessarily something that I had really planned to do, but it ended up being such a cool role and really allowed me to dig in on the whole go-to-market engine. my kind of love for marketing and brand and demand, and then kind of how that all flows through the funnel, through the sales team and getting to manage all of that.

3:25And so I did that for a bit before moving to OutSystems. And then from OutSystems, originally actually joined Atacama as chief marketing officer in December of last year. And then in April, I talked with our CEO about filling the CRO role and kind of stepping in and managing, again, all of sales and marketing. And so to be honest, you know, I think there was some probably natural hesitation at first, right? I had just joined the company, you know, four or five months prior. There certainly is still a ton of work to do, you know, just on the marketing side. And so I probably paused more because I wanted to reflect on could I do a great job with the marketing function and trying to get that where it needed to be.

4:07And then also ramp up on, you know, this new company to me's sales organization and do a great job there. But in the end, I think, you know, again, my, as I mentioned, my kind of love for the whole end to end engine probably won out. And there is something really cool about getting to sit across all of it and feel like you can unify what can be siloed teams or, you know, there can be that natural. Is marketing creating the right demand? Is sales following up on the demand? And so what's really great about sitting across all of it is, again, that ability to really unify the teams and kind of get rid of that, right?

4:45Like I equally care if marketing is creating the best possible demand, putting the brand in the best possible light, as I do about is sales following up on that? Are we helping sales be as equipped as possible to bring a customer through the deal cycle? Is the sales team showing up in those moments the way that they should be, right? And so it really, again, just kind of end to end optimization.

5:08Andrea Eaton:Yeah, you just you kind of answered my next question, but it was going to be since you've been in the role, what are some things you discovered that, you know, going from other roles to now you're the one responsible for the revenue? Yeah, you know, I think Atacama is in a great space. So we're a data trust platform that, you know, now with AI, more and more companies are realizing, shoot, I really need to be able to trust my data if I am going to be feeding AI and agents with it. And, you know, that product market fit was really why I was excited to join the company. But I think it is also, you know, a moment of so much, you know, confusion and hype.

5:44And so I think I'd already really realized it on just kind of the marketing side when I initially joined as CMO. But I'm seeing even more now that I've been in the CRO seat for a couple of months that from a product marketing standpoint, because I put so much value in great product marketing in terms of like how we create our positioning, how we enable sales with the best possible materials to move through the deal cycle. I really am seeing more and more how much work there is to do there for us to help our prospects and customers really make sense of everything that's happening in their world right now and to choose the best possible solutions for solving their problems.

6:23And I think that when, you know, tech companies of any kind create that clarity in their positioning, in their marketing campaigns with the sales materials, right, and you do that through enablement, you do that through all the, you know, everything that you roll out, that really buoys growth, right? It really helps prospects and customers feel like you get them, like you're not bullshitting them with jargon, right? You're trying to help them find the best possible solution. And, you know, luckily for us, I feel like we do have an amazing solution that maps to a lot of the challenges that our customers and prospects are trying to solve.

6:58So I'm really leaning in with the team on the positioning on, you know, better campaigns, better messaging across all of our channels, better sales materials so that we can have better sales conversations and really help customers get to their end state.

7:13Andrea Eaton:So let's pick two for right now, two of these many hats that you've worn, but specifically the two that probably get talked about the most in any given company, and that's marketing and sales, right? It's the oldest in the world. In your opinion, what does real alignment between those two actually look like? So I think let's talk about it both from a new business and then maybe an expansion side, because I think it's easy when you think about marketing sales to think about attracting new and winning new customers. But, you know, more and more, I think tech companies are realizing that done well, there is such a huge opportunity for marketing and sales on the expansion side and, you know, retaining and growing your customers.

7:51But I think on the news, I guess in either case, the whole concept needed pipeline coverage. You know, every company has a new logo and expansion target. So having both teams fully aligned on what is the amount of pipeline that we need to create collectively, whether that's through what marketing is doing, what BDRs are doing, AECSMs. And are we all aligned on what good pipeline looks like? Are we all rowing in the same direction to do our part to create that? Are we getting together, you know, week over week to talk about where we are and be honest about what's working and what isn't working?

8:27I think a sign of good alignment is that ability to be honest and even vulnerable on both sides. You know, for I want the marketing team to feel comfortable talking about a program that didn't work or admitting that, you know, this bit of demand we created maybe wasn't great. Equally, I want the sales team to feel comfortable acknowledging something like we're really stretched right now, bandwidth wise, and maybe we didn't do as great of a job as we could have kind of in early stage follow up on these opportunities and start to diagnose. Those are just two examples, by the way, but like starting to diagnose really where some of those issues are together and then work together to solve them.

9:07So that kind of the honesty and then ultimately like collaboration, feeling like you're in it together. To me, that's alignment.

9:15Andrea Eaton:So people listening now, like a CMO or not a CMO, I'm sorry, a CRO or even a CEO would say, okay, I need better alignment between my sales and marketing teams. I know that. What do I avoid? What should I not do? What are some mistakes you see companies making when they try to improve that? Because everybody wants it. Sure. Yeah. I think a big pitfall is not starting with data. So I'm a huge data nerd, rev ops, marketing ops, sales ops. Those team members are huge allies for a go-to-market organization and I think can be so critical to, again, I use the word diagnose, like step one is diagnose why you are, and data can be, I always like to start with that.

9:59Now, sometimes you have gaps in your data. We're in that situation right now where, you know, we don't have great discipline about basic, you know, let's call it BANT or MedPIC criteria being populated in Salesforce around our opportunities. And so we're working to remedy that so that we can learn more about the state of our pipeline and be able to diagnose, you know, what's working and not better. But I think to your question, you know, when you want that alignment, you don't have it, you don't know how to get it. My advice would be first and foremost, try to remove bias or opinion and start with data.

10:33Because I think based on what someone's background is or how much knowledge they might have about a particular domain, it can be easy to say marketing isn't working or salespeople aren't great. Right. And usually the truth is somewhere in the middle about, you know, functionally where maybe some usually there's opportunities across the board. Right. For all teams to level up. And so it's really about, again, like getting to the root cause, the transparency and honesty there and being data backed about.

11:00Andrea Eaton:Yeah, because it's so important, you know, just the way life works. Targets are going to be missed now and then we get that. But to me, the biggest always has been the finger pointing. Right. It's sales. No, it's marketing. No, it's sales. No, it's marketing. Is there a way to avoid that, if at all possible, that finger pointing? Yeah, I mean, I guess I kind of go back to, again, the data piece and really starting with that. But also, to use your words, in life, it's usually the case that we all could be doing better, right, as individuals, as teams. And so I do try to bring that voiceover to a lot of the hard conversations that we have.

11:38I mean, I can't even tell you how many times over the last couple of weeks I've said on a pipeline call, this is an end to end engine. There are things marketing could be doing better and differently. There are things, you know, the BDR team could be doing better and differently and so on throughout the chain. And it's our job as leaders to know, first and foremost, what is happening so that we can have those conversations together. And it's our job to own our piece of it, our piece of the chain. And, you know, obviously it's my job to own the whole piece. And so I do, to avoid it, I think that starts at the leadership level.

12:10Like the leaders need to bring that mindset. And I do think one benefit of having one leader sit across sales and marketing is that finger pointing is especially unproductive for me and the teams, right? Like it's not about blame. It's really just about solving the problems and optimizing the outcomes.

12:29Andrea Eaton:So you just mentioned pipeline. And another fact of life is sometimes quarterly targets. As you're starting to look in the middle of a quarter, they're not quite where they're supposed to be. And the projections are showing they're not going to come in where they're supposed to be. It seems like the very first thing to at least get questioned, if not cut outright, is investment in brand. Why is that a mistake? Yeah. Well, it's all about balancing short-term and long-term thinking, right? I think because brand investments tend to be a longer game in terms of like where you might actually be able to draw a line from what you spent to what they delivered, or oftentimes it's actually hard to draw that line and you just have to maybe have some faith in the investment.

13:08When companies are, you know, kind of feeling like they're in that scramble for pipeline mode, I think it's somewhat natural to go to, you know, okay, well, what is that waterfall chart that shows me if I put a dollar here in this sort of, you know, demand gen campaign or channel, I'm going to get this much out the bottom. And so like marketing, just go do more of that because we need that right now. And again, you know, natural trap to fall into, but a little bit short-sighted. I guess speaking for Atacama, you probably haven't heard about us if you're listening to this podcast. And so brand awareness for us is important.

13:42Even at our customer advisory board last night, I was chatting with a few of our customers and how they came to know about us and work with us. And, you know, each of them kind of shared that, you know, we happen to be a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. So because of that, they found us. But really, other than that, they hadn't heard of us. And so as I've stepped into the role, you know, looking at the budget that I have as well, I've been thinking a lot about how to best balance that brand awareness with your term demand creation that we need.

14:10Andrea Eaton:So what are some conversations do you think leaders need to have with like boards, investors, customer, you know, teams to protect, to really protect those strategic brand investments during those challenging periods? What needs, what, what has to happen? What kind of conversations have to happen? Yeah, I mean, again, I think every company is obviously in its own unique situation on this and, you know, different marketing leaders come at how they allocate budget, you know, likely based on, you know, whatever the strategic objectives are for their company and probably also a bit based on what their personal background.

14:43always, you know, start with what is it that the company is trying to achieve and in what time frame, right? So a company that might be, you know, trying to build long-term value, IPO, right? That could be a different conversation about brand and demand investments than a company that might be PE backed and, you know, near the end of kind of a desired hold period and attempting to try and make a strategic exit. And so the things that at the C-level you need to be thinking about, like, how do I help a company achieve the outcome that's right for that company? And again, whatever timeframe I'm looking at should be, you know, a guiding light for how you invest and what type of conversations you're having with your CEO and with your board about where focus and dollars are going.

15:30Andrea Eaton:Yeah. Let's talk about, I'm going to get into data quality in the era of AI. You know, AI is really only as good as the data behind it, right? So how has that changed the way organizations think about or should think about data quality? Yeah, and again, I know I mentioned I had been at our customer advisory board meeting this week. And so I'm fresh off of just a ton of great conversations with data leaders at, you know, well-known name brand organizations who, you know, we're lucky to work with and are thinking about this day in and day out. I think some of the biggest themes we heard from those data leaders are it is still really challenging to get business and technical or data team alignment around data quality.

16:09So if you think about most of the data that sits inside of a business, a lot of it is functional in nature. So when I say that, I mean sales and marketing data or customer data lives with sales and marketing and CSM teams, right? So we're oftentimes you have to look at like, is it a data problem or is it a process problem? Do we have a good business process within our sales, marketing, and CS teams for getting good customer data into our CRM? Do we have a lot of blank job titles in the system? And if so, why is that? Just as an example, so we talked a lot yesterday about this whole business and data team alignment need around ensuring data quality, both from a like at the source input perspective, but also as data moves throughout the business, you know, who is involved in those different data flows and how do you make sure you maintain data integrity there?

17:04So I think, you know, business and data team alignment is one piece. I think data teams who have struggled to get that now feel like the AI wave and the hype cycle that we're in is a great opportunity to, you know, really attach a value or price tag to what data quality can help the business achieve. And often now it's actually, you know, CEOs, boards, and other executives that are that are doing that. And now the data team is is like in a little bit of a moment of I told you so. So really just an interesting space to be in right now.

17:39Andrea Eaton:I know we're still very early in the AI era, but are you seeing any shifts in buyer behavior? For sure. I think the stat is something like most B2B marketing teams are seeing, you know, something like at least a 30-point decline in organic web traffic. And we are no exception to that, right? With more zero-click search behavior. Just in the customer advisory board meeting yesterday, right in the meeting, one of our customers was going to Claude or ChatGPT to ask it questions that, you know, again, typically we would have gone to Google for a blog or a website. And so absolutely that buyer behavior is changing.

18:17And I think winning marketing teams are understanding how does your brand show up in those new channels and how does your job change to make sure that happens? As an example, when I joined, I was looking at our, before I joined, actually I was doing an audit of Atacama's customer reviews. Reviews, you know, are a big feeder of how you show up in AI search. And we hadn't had a role or a discipline really around proactively generating customer reviews. And so not surprisingly, right, we didn't have a lot of recency, didn't have a decent volume. And so in response to that, in our marketing plan for this year, we have a dedicated effort now around the whole review process on G2 and Gartner Peer Insights, It's, you know, channels like Reddit, other third parties.

19:07It's more about what they're saying, you know, what others are saying about your brand than what you're saying. So a little bit of a scary time to be in marketing, right? Because so much is changing and it's so much about what is being said about you. And, you know, really need to think through how do you try as best you can. And a lot of this does then bleed into sales and CS, right? How do you try to make sure that what others are saying about you is positive, reflects the value that you deliver, and helps another future buyer in their research?

19:38Andrea Eaton:Yeah. So you've been in the role about six months now. And I'm curious to know, do you look at your leadership type, if you will, any differently than you did before you took this current role? I think that certain aspects of the way that I lead in terms of just, you know, my personality, how I try to show up, what I expect from my team, how I communicate, I think, regardless of, you know, whether I was wearing the CMO hat December 1 when I first joined or now, you know, having evolved into the CRO role, I think that is those things are consistent, right? because they're more about probably who I am and again, how I try to show up.

20:13But I think to your earlier questions around finger pointing and revenue being a team sport, now with the expanded responsibility of CRO, I think I'm really just hyper conscious of trying to create that team culture across sales and marketing. And I hope that and I think that I would have been aiming for that, even in just the CMO capacity, right? I think I've been really fortunate throughout most of my career to work with, you know, when I've been in marketing leadership roles to work with sales leaders that have been incredible partners. And so I always try to, again, like really bring that this is a team sport mindset to it regardless.

20:53But I think it's really important that the AEs, the BDRs, the marketers, the partner team, anyone who reports to me understands that, you know, They are a team with everybody else and that that is clear in the way that I'm communicating day in and day out.

21:09Andrea Eaton:What are some of the traits you think make for a good leader? Yeah, I think transparency and context. So something I really pride myself on is sharing information about the why behind the what. I think everybody can work smarter, can bring their best ideas when they understand why they're being asked to do something or what it is that the business is trying to achieve. What does the marketing or sales org need to do in order to help the business achieve its goals? So like post board meeting, post leadership team meeting with, you know, my C-level peers, I'm always trying to cascade that information.

21:44You know, obviously there are certain things you can't share sometimes, but I'm usually trying to cascade as much as possible, as quickly as possible so that my teams have the benefit of context. So I think that piece is key. Having a mindset of, you know, we're going to fail forward, right? Not everything that we do is going to work and that's okay. I don't want anyone to be afraid to highlight a failed program, a lost deal. We just need to, the saying like you either win or you learn, right? We need to learn from where we didn't and then apply those learnings the next time around. And then I think the, you know, the concept of recognition, highlighting where there's been good work and the win and making people feel seen for their contributions, I think is key for leaders.

22:26Okay.

22:27Andrea Eaton:So if you're ready, now we're coming to the end. I do the random five where I ask you five personal questions. You can't see her look on her face, but she's anxiously awake. They're harmless. I promise. You ready? I'm ready. What's your go-to karaoke song? Gosh, I've actually never publicly done karaoke. All right. Privately in your car. What are you singing? If I pull up alongside you on a red light. Okay. Well, I guess I have such a crazy diverse Spotify like list, but lately I've probably been into Maggie Rogers, Ella Langley, Olivia Dean. Those are my good. Okay. If you could instantly become an expert in one non-work related skill, what would it be?