Marketing to B2B buyers who aren't on LinkedIn (with Clare Corriveau, VP Marketing, Tekmetric)

0:00Hey, it's Dave. So Zoom Webinars and Events has made our recent Exit 5 Live sessions way more pro lately. But don't just take my word for it. Check this out. This is what Kelly B said. She said, I compare all other webinars now against Exit 5. I love that. And look, in a world of AI slop, we just want to make something that's actually worth going to. It's not easy to get an hour out of your day. I'm just the on-air talent though. So I'm going to kick it over to Marissa and Maria. This is our Exit 5 Live production team, our content team here at Exit 5, since they're the ones actually making this all happen.

0:29Marissa? I've been doing B2B content a long time. I know. It's hard to hold attention for more than 30 seconds, let alone a whole webinar. But Zoom webinars helps. Recently, we've had nearly 2 ,000 registrants, over 500 live, and hundreds of hours of watch time on our sessions. Maria, what would you say is driving that? It all starts with prep. We do up to seven hours per session. Choosing a topic, prep calls, building the run of show, and so much more. With Zoom webinars and events, everything's in one place. Registration, emails, polls, analytics. So it's simple to run that cycle every two weeks.

1:02At Showtime, I hand it back to Marissa in Zoom's production studio. With Zoom's production studio, I can set the scenes in advance. So on the big day, I just send them live with speakers and content already in place. Clean transitions, crystal clear audio and video. I feel like I'm running the big game back there. So this is why our webinars have been crushing it lately. Look, they just said we're spending seven hours per session on this. And don't just take our word for it. Come and see firsthand. We run these every other Friday. It's called Exit 5 Live, now powered by Zoom webinars and events.

1:32So come and check us out. See this whole thing live. And if you want to learn more about using Zoom at your company, check out zoom.com slash exit5. That's zoom.com slash exit5. Hey, it's me, Dave. Today's episode is brought to you by Convertive, a B2B marketing agency that helps enterprise teams build an AI-powered go-to-market strategy. Q4 is the time of year when having a great agency partner matters more than ever. If you're shopping for a new agency, Convertive is worth looking into. They work with marketing and operations leaders to help grow revenue across the business and AEO. One of the things I know you're thinking about right now is one of their specialties.

2:08Trusted by companies like DocuSign, Databank, and Constructor, Convertive builds on the search and marketing work you're already doing and helps optimize your site so more of your buyers find you and turn it into pipeline. Right now, they're offering Exit 5 listeners a free AI search review. They'll run the questions your buyers are actually asking through your Google and AI tools, show you how you stack up against competitors, and tell you what's worth fixing. If you're looking for a refresh of your AEO strategy in 2027, this AI search review with Convertive is a great place to start. Check it out.

2:38It's convertive.com slash exit 5. That's convertive.com slash exit 5. And you can also see the link in the show notes. You're listening to The Dave Gerrard Show.

3:02Hey, my guest on this episode is Claire Carrivo. She's VP of Marketing at TechMetric. They are the operating system for modern auto repair shops. And she came to TechMetric three years ago after a background in cybersecurity. we talked about how this was a jarring but ultimately refreshing switch from a crowded commoditized market to an underserved vertical SaaS category. Since she joined, TechMetric has four exits growth, but the company still today holds only 5 % of a 250 ,000 auto repair shops in the US. And so it was really cool to talk to someone outside of a traditional industry. What's it like trying to market to people who own auto repair shops?

3:40We talk about the power of brand and community, her vision for the team, why she's hiring humans, not just AI, to do the marketing. This was a great conversation with a marketing leader, and I guess what you would call mid-market vertical SaaS in B2B. If that's you, you're going to learn a lot from this episode. Find a peer to connect with. Enjoy my conversation with Claire. Okay, there she is, Claire Carivo. She's VP of Marketing at TechMetric. TechMetric is the operating system for the modern auto repair shop. Claire, good to have you on our podcast here at Exit 5. I need a soundboard. Yeah, I know.

4:15I'm stoked. Thanks for having me. So one of the reasons we want to have you on, obviously, we've gotten to know you over the last year or so, but do you run marketing in a company that is in a little bit more of a traditional industry? And I love highlighting these types of companies and stories because I think a lot of people out there, that's what's cool to me about B2B marketing. Actually, I try to make it cool. People say it's boring. I talk to a lot of people. I know it's not boring. I did a podcast last week with Rob Sobers, who's also one of our executive members. And he is the CMO of a$700 million cybersecurity company.

4:50He's like, oh yeah, we built a briefing center in Miami. And that's like a part of our marketing strategy this year. I'm like, whoever said B2B is not cool, doesn't understand. Yeah. Rob's great. I love Rob. Super smart. So you run marketing at TechMetric today. In your words, since you're a marketer, how would you explain the company for the other marketers? I like to just set the context up front so people can listen to what you're you say about marketing, but have the context of the company that you work at? Sure. Yeah. So Techmetric is the all in one platform for auto repair shops. And so our mission is pretty simple, which I like, which is help shops thrive, help them deliver an experience that drivers love.

5:28So you and me, right, we're all customers of an auto repair shop and do it in a way the whole industry rallies behind. And I think what that means in practice is like, what do we actually do as an all-in-one platform? It's everything from the moment you as a driver search on Google to try and find an auto repair shop near you from the moment the car drives into the shop, from the moment the car drives away. So it's advertising, it's appointment, online appointment booking, text reminders, digital vehicle inspections, creating estimates, repair orders, parts ordering, invoicing, payments, reporting for the shop.

6:05So everything under one roof for a shop. So they have every advantage from, like I said, the moment a customer searches for an auto repair shop near me to the moment that customer drives away and then hopefully comes back again if and when they have car needs. Okay, cool. Got it. And then roughly, how big is the company and roughly give the makeup of the marketing team? Sure. So I think we are at close to 400 employees now, maybe 388, which is wild. when I joined two and a half years ago, I think I'm in play number 121 or something. So I feel like an OG. I always say tech metric years, you times it by seven.

6:44That's how long you've actually been here because it's like working for seven different companies over two and a half years at the pace that we're growing. And so our marketing team has grown from, let's say I think when I started, there's maybe four or five people. And now we have 17 full-time employees, three to four contractors, have nine new roles in the second half of the year for marketing, just the marketing team alone. So we're growing really, really fast. It's fun. So you joined three years ago. Your background, what did you do before this? You were working in running marketing and cybersecurity?

7:19Yes. It took a hard pivot into auto repair, but I - I thought this was good. I don't know if this is Marissa, producer Marissa or AI summary of the notes, but a jarring, but ultimately refreshing switch from a crowded commoditized market to an underserved vertical SaaS category. How did your experience from cybersecurity translate over here? It seems very different. I'm curious. And I wrote this thing yesterday, how like, there's really no marketing playbooks. You have to take a smart person, have them understand the industry. I'd love to try to like, just summarize the, some of the big stuff before we get into some of the other stuff, which we'll touch on, like just Totally.

7:58You're three years there. Sure. So I came from cybersecurity before this and before that I was in fintech. And so when I was recruited to Techmetric, when they first told me about the company, I was like, auto repair? I don't know anything about cars. I'm literally that person. I take my car to the auto repair shop when I needed my oil changed or my tires rotated. And if anything else is wrong, I call my dad. I'm like, dad, they say I need new brakes. What should I do? So I think people hear auto repair and it doesn't exactly scream exciting or sexy. And I think marketers hear it and think maybe unglamorous and low ceiling, but all beyond.

8:37And I did too at first, but I think what people don't see right off the bat is the massive underserved market that's there. And I think in horizontal SaaS, you're one of 50 marketing leaders fighting for the same audience, right? Here, you're building something. The category is ours to define. And auto repair were just really refreshing. So it was a big change. I had to learn a ton about this space, very intentional about spending time with our founder CEO, who I report to, who was an auto repair shop owner, dissatisfied with the technology that was in the market, created his own. And now he's built this amazing company and really spending a lot of time with our customers and understanding and getting to know them.

9:18But it's a big shift for sure. Wait, that's actually a really cool ingredient. Was that part of what was interesting that for me, it's like, oh, I love when there's a connection. I mean, I wrote a whole book about this founder brand, but I like when you can tell the story of like, no, this person actually lived this. It wasn't like, no, they were like laying in bed with their, you know, they were like laying around with their college roommates. You're like, no, we should make an app to get rich. Like, it's just different. No, he ran a shop for over 10 years, was just frustrated with what was available.

9:48And then literally it was like, I'm going to create something better. And he did. And now we are the largest cloud-based auto repair software platform in the industry, which is pretty amazing. And he's incredible. I mean, he has a really great pulse on the industry, still very involved in the day-to-day, especially with our customers and the product. On the marketing side, he's pretty hands-off, but he will tell me when he doesn't like something. And he'll tell me when he likes something. But he brings a perspective of actually being the person that we're targeting and talking to every day. And so he's a great sounding board and the first person that I'll go to to pressure test something with.

10:24It'd be interesting to see a study. Founders who come from the product side, there's always something, I have a bias towards those people because I feel like my skills as a marketer, I'm like, oh, you know this industry really well? Like, you know this product really well? I'll learn it too, but if I could be paired with you and I have, because I think a lot of times when it's a non-traditional industry, where we struggle in marketing is like trying to be this, trying to like, you can't fake subject matter expertise is what I'm saying. And so, so much of creating a brand and standing out and so much of what it takes to be good at marketing, I feel is really related to like having a strong point of view, understanding the customer, having a deep understanding of the market.

11:04You kind of get what I'm getting at? Totally. No, I a hundred percent agree. It's helpful to have him and he definitely has a pulse on it. And it actually is, it's great to walk into a company with an amazing product, a founder who's actually done it, a customer base that is ride or die for you and will support you because that is the story, right? They understand what's going on and what better than to actually do your marketing than your customers. And so I've been really fortunate to walk into that and just already to have that organic stuff happening within the company, within the DNA of the leadership team and how the company has been built.

11:38And then customers that are willing to tell their story on their behalf, because like I said, I knew nothing about auto repair. So it was definitely a big education for me. But it's helpful when the ingredients are there on the table and your job is really just to put them together and amplify them and take as much of that goodness out of, you know, a founder like Sunil is his name, like a founder like Sunil and our customers are willing to talk about it for us all the time. Can you break down your current marketing team? I don't really care about the numbers. And actually, I talked to a lot of VPs and CMOs and some people are weird.

12:12It's like this. It's like almost the reverse thing. Like a couple of years ago, it'd be like it'd be a flex. like how many people on your team now? I'll do interviews with CMOs and like, actually, I don't want people to know how many people. AI, we can't talk about how many people we have on the team. But I mostly care. I think people mostly want to know, like, how do you have the team structured? How do you bucket things? Can you give us a team overview? I have a really amazing team of super smart people that are all way better at marketing than me, right? Like my job is to find all the best people.

12:41So we have a brand and community team. And so they support everything from our brand positioning, our narrative, our creative, our social, and they actually own advocacy and community because advocacy and community is a huge part of our brand and how we build it. We have a demand gen function that's responsible for top of funnel acquisition. So grabbing net new rooftops, as we call them at TechMetric, which is really our Northstar metric. And their job is to go out everything from performance marketing to web to SEO, AEO, integrated marketing campaigns, find all the people that are not using TechMetric and get them to raise their hand.

13:20We are standing up a customer and partner marketing team. So customer marketing is really right now focused on our expansion efforts. And so since I've been here, we've transitioned from a single product company to a multi-product company. So with that comes the need to actually drive demand within our customer base, but also to support things like training, retention efforts, working really closely with our product teams on product-led growth initiatives that we have going on. And then partner marketing, which is really field. We have a really great field team that works with our partners. And so there's a lot of parts providers in the auto repair space.

13:56And so our partner managers are paired with partner managers in the field from parts providers. They go into shops, actually boots on the ground and try and get people to sign up for demos in the field. And so our field and partner team, partner marketing team do a lot to help activate the territories in the field, but also work with our strategic partners from a co-marketing perspective. Let's see what else. We have an incredible events team. We do a lot of events in auto repair, like a lot. We have over a hundred events that we do a year. And then we host our own, for the first time this year, had our first industry conference that we hosted.

14:30We had almost a thousand people attend, which was wild. I didn't sleep for like six months when that was happening. And that was really, really fun. It was a moonshot event that we put out there and it worked through the events team. And then we also have a new product marketing muscle that we're building. So building out our product marketing team, and they're really supporting go-to-market orchestration, commercialization strategy, enablement of our go-to-market team. And the way that I look at that team is across the board, we have four pillars that we look at that are driving everything. One is build the brand.

15:04Two is build the advocacy flywheel. Three is land acquisition and four is expand. And so if what you're working on doesn't roll up to one of those four pillars, stop doing it and focus on those four areas, our four core pillars of marketing at TechMetric. Nice. And those four, because I was going to, my question in my head was like trying to formulate a question around all the team stuff. But those four pillars, are those set from you? Do those come from the company? Where do they come from? Let's talk about that for a second. Sure. Yeah. So we set them in marketing, but everything rolls down from our overall company strategy.

15:41So let me tell you that the reason why I'm asking is I feel like whenever I'm trying, I'm certainly no expert at this, more of a thought leader than a marketer these days. But I feel like I like your four pillars because I feel like you need a marketing plan, but you almost need like a narrative first because there's like there's so many things that we could go and do this year. and I love when I talk to someone, you're like, yeah, we got the four pillars. It was like, what did you say? Yeah, build the brand, build the, go through them again, can you? Yeah, brand, advocacy, land and expand. Because then it's like, okay, now we like wrote those down on the cocktail napkin, a post-it note, the whiteboard, then we can go decide.

16:19So that means we're going to go do this instead of that and do that. And I think I talk about this a lot where I feel like all these great marketing leaders that I get to hang around like you, I mentioned Rob last week, Like you all usually have a, you have a narrative on how you're going to do marketing. It's not like, it's not so, so incredibly channel focused. The product marketer is going to do this. It's like, here's kind of the way we're going. And then we're going to like, we're going to build the plan and around that. Totally. Yeah. And I think, you know, we love OKRs at TechMetric and a lot of people use that.

16:49But I, I think it's important to make a hard distinction between OKRs and KPIs. You're talking about channel performance versus overall what we're trying to do. And so I think a lot of teams blur them and it creates confusion. So we look at OKRs as build the business and KPIs as run the business or build the biz and run the biz. So give me an example of my my acronym brain is spinning. Give me give me an example of each. So build the business is like capabilities and programs we're creating. They don't exist today, but they're required to get tech metric to that next stage of growth. And so an example would be, let's say right now we're working on building out our founder-led content as one of our build the biz.

17:31We don't have a strong founder-led content motion today. We know that we have to move into brand creation and brand and demand really work hand in hand. And so that's one of the pillars that we're creating around category ownership of our OKR. We don't have that today. We know that we need to invest in it to build to the next stage of growth for next year. So what do we need to do this half to get there? Whereas a KPI is the ongoing operational metrics that keep the business and the engine running every day. So it's like, how is our paid media performing, right? Are we hitting the metrics that we need to hit there?

18:04So build the biz, create the things and capabilities that don't exist today, that we need to exist in the future. KPIs is run the biz. What are the things that we need to do to make sure we keep the lights on? How do you articulate your role on this team and organizing all these things. You got to, you report to the founder and CEO, but you got to run the team. You got to come up with these plays. Like how do you, what's, what's Claire's job here? That's a really good question. What is my job, Dave? Yeah, it's a great, I don't know what is, I feel the same way most days. And then they're like, just do the podcast and you'll be okay.

18:37Yeah. Yeah. No, I get that. Let's see. What is my job? I mean, our, our job in marketing is, is to support the entire organization. I think it's interesting as a marketing leader. I think it's one of the few roles in a company where you're literally attached to everything that's happening. You're working with me. That's the question that I'm asking. To talk to the aspiring or your peers, VP of marketing, what do you realize that the job is now versus maybe what it was two or three turns of your career ago? Yeah. I mean, it's to tell the TechMetric story and make sure that everybody that isn't using TechMetric knows about us, whether they use us or not, and the customers that are using us are continuing to see value in what we're doing and that we're getting our customers to results.

19:23Honestly, I think that's everybody's job across the organization. It's just how people do that individually is a little bit different. And so from a marketing perspective, we're responsible for telling that story, right? In every sense of the word, to get people to the results that they're trying to do. And my job as a marketing leader is obviously to orchestrate that across the organization, everything from employer branding with the people and culture team to working with the product team on launches to the sales team on making sure we have enough pipeline. I have to orchestrate that. But at the end of the day, the thing I think I'm learning in this role is it all comes back to finding the right talent on your team to build towards that, which has been, I think, a realization for me.

20:05So this is my first VP of marketing gig, my backgrounds in demand generation and growth. And I came up through that. This is the first time I've done the whole shebang. And if I could go back to Claire three years ago that thought she knew everything, I'd be like, oh, you have so much to learn. Because yes, there's marketing. And yes, there's creativity. And yes, there's understanding the metrics. But it really comes back to people and making sure you have the right talent on your team to help grow. And people that can grow along with the piece of the business, which is, I think, really challenging with how fast we're growing.

20:38Like what God, I say to my team all the time, what got us here will not take us there. And we all have to be willing to reinvent ourselves, our teams, our roles every three to six months, because that's how fast we're changing as an organization. So talent, my job is to find the right talent and then orchestrate and support everybody and then get out of their way to do their jobs because they're way better than me. No, it's great to hear you say that. And I kind of chalked this up to one of those things that almost, you know, you have children. There are certain things that like my parents used to do that I didn't understand or roll my eyes at.

21:11And now that I have my own kids, I'm like, oh yeah, that's why they did that. And I think I've had bosses, mentors, whatever, that like all they did was recruit people, manage a team. And I'm like, that's not the job. That's not the job. The job is to be great at marketing. It's like, no, no, no. That is, it's like the obstacle is the way. That's the one thing that makes everything else easier. And I used to work for this guy, Mike Volpe, who was a CMO at HubSpot at the time. And he was like, dude, I literally spend 90 % of my day like working with people recruiting, because that is the thing.

21:41The marketing stuff is easy. You can always figure out the marketing stuff. But if you don't have the right people on the team, and the right people can mean many different things, you might not have the deepest pockets, you might have to go, I always use this analogy, but like, you might have to make a dinner with with like three eggs and onion and two pieces of bread in the fridge. And that's like all you can get, but you got to find somebody to do that. Totally. Totally. And it's like, I look back at bosses that I've had where we've all had those thoughts. We're like, what do they do all day?

22:06Do they even know what I have going on? And now I'm like, oh my God, that's me. I'm that person where my team is probably like, you know, I would love to get in a room and put together a really amazing campaign, right? And brainstorm ideas. And I do that. And I will be the first person to roll up my sleeves, much to my team's chagrin. Sometimes they're like, oh, great. Claire's here with an idea. Oh my God, I'm the idea person now. I'm the person that comes in and like messes everything up. That's the job though. But I, it is, it is, but it's been, and I credit a lot, our founder, CEO, and our SVP of revenue and the other leaders that I work with really pushing me as a leader.

22:42Cause right now it used to be, be the best at this job. And that's how you move forward, right? Like be the best at demand. And now my job is to make sure I have the right leverage on the team to support the company moving forward. And that has been something I don't think I truly understood until I actually sat in the seat. And now I'm like, okay, I'm no longer graded on being the best demand marketer. It doesn't really matter. I'm graded and the success of my team is based off of do we have the right people in place to move that company to the next stage of growth. And I think things have changed so quickly just with how fast we're growing and with AI and the type of people that we're looking for and the personality type and like the work ethic and the high slope can operate an ambiguity and the fog of war type of thing.

23:29It's, it's, it's hard to find. So yeah, I've learned a lot. And I look back at Claire three years ago and think, oh, she was so cute. She thought she knew. So I'm learning, I'm learning all the time still. You have a bunch of open roles. So you, you're basically going to double your team over the over the second half of this year, which is interesting, because if I open up LinkedIn, everyone tells me or if I go to YouTube, everyone tells me that they're replacing the marketing team with Claude code. And yet I'm talking to the, you know, head of marketing and a successful vertical SaaS company is like, actually, no, we're hiring nine people right now.

24:02Right. So AI is important. I don't want to say that it's not. Obviously, you know, Claude is my homie, right? We hang out a lot. We spend a lot of time together. Shout out to Claude. Pour one out for Claude. But I still think, you know, what I'm seeing is like AI is great. We all know that we can leverage it to replace the things that took a lot of time, but we still need people to think. And we still need people to look at things and say, does this make sense? Do I actually understand our customer? Do I actually understand the numbers? Do we have the right foundation in place? So I do want people that are AI forward and AI fluent in how they're thinking.

24:39But I don't think that replaces the human component of being strategic and actually knowing who our customers are. We sell and market into a tech metric, a very, very human industry. And so you have to actually know who those people are. And I don't think we still need humans to get deep on that. Yeah. What's the tone and sentiment in your ideal What are the car dealership owners? How are they feeling about AI? So a couple of things. Just this is what I've learned about auto repair. We don't target dealerships. Dealerships is a whole different flavor, Dave, just so you know. All right. Look, I don't work in this industry, so you're allowed to correct me.

25:19You can say whatever you do, the cars, the cars, whatever you do with the cars, the software and the cars. Yeah. Hey, it's Dave. Today's episode is brought to you by Optimizely. If you want to know what AI agents can actually do for a marketing team, Optimizely is where I'd point you to right now for a real example. Last month, we ran an exit five live session where a bunch of our members showed off their best AI agent use cases. And McKeel, director of AI innovation at Optimizely actually won the whole session. He showed us how he used Optimizely's AI agent platform to run an ABM campaign that gave 2000 accounts, their own landing pages built from signals like job postings, press releases, and leadership changes.

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27:35That's compoundgrowthmarketing.com slash exit five. Totally. So, I mean, I think AI is - Auto repair. How do auto repair shops feel about AI, Claire? So, I mean, they're using it, right? Like there's a lot of repetitive things that happen within an auto repair shop that AI can help with, but they're also in customer service at the end of the day. They're constantly talking to customers. So they're using it for things like appointment booking or email and text reminders or AI phone receptionists to call and know everything about your car. They're using the same way we are. Like, how do I look at my reporting?

28:10What am I missing? What's going on? And so, but the job itself, actually the manual work that a technician, which is what they're not called mechanics, they're called technicians, just so we all know, the work that technicians do still require people to be able to like fix cars manually, right? So it's never going to, right now, it's not going to replace. I'm sure at some point there will be a robot, right? That can fix cars too, but it still requires somebody with the knowledge of a trade, right? To go in and be able to fix something, but they're looking at it in the same way as any other B2B business.

28:42What are the things that we do all the time that doesn't require a person that we can replace to be more efficient to get us to the results that we're looking to do. What works marketing to this? We have this on our doc, the non-desk buyer, right? People who own these auto repair shops are not always at the desk. They're not on LinkedIn. They don't go to webinars. They don't often respond to cold outreach or email. How the heck, what have you learned? Give me like one or two plays that have worked to marketing to this audience. Well, there's a couple of things. I'll give you some tactical examples.

29:14So Bing was one that just surprised me. Bing for paid search. The team was skeptical. Turns out shop owners use Microsoft Bing to do quite a bit of searching. So I think it's just a good reminder that don't assume your audience behaves like a default tech savvy B2B buyer. So that was like a specific channel. Why is that? Is that just like a default browser installed on whatever their computer they're using? Totally. I mean, it's like my parents are like, I don't use Chrome. I use Safari because it's on my computer and that's easier to use. And so I think it's the same idea. One of the biggest things about auto repair that surprised me, I just didn't know.

29:48It was just like, I didn't know what I didn't know. Do you know when you're looking for a new car and all of a sudden you see that car that you're looking at everywhere on the highway and you've never seen it before? That's how I feel about auto repair shops now. I'm like, they're literally everywhere. And I'm obsessed. I'm like, do they use Techmetric? Who are they using? What's going on? I should stop in and look, but it's a very heavy coaching group industry. So there are these peer advisory groups for shop owners. If you think about, I'm a technician, I've worked in a shop, I want to try it on my own for the first time, but I've never run a business.

30:20I have no idea how to do that. You know, it's funny, like, this is literally the same company we have as Exit 5 for B2B marketing professionals. There's someone who influences auto repair shop owners. They need to learn how to run their business. Yeah, I love that. Totally. And so they have a facilitator, they share financials, they have a coach, they put them into 20 groups, they're called, where there's like 15 to 20 operators. in a room, they're not competing with each other, but they're talking about, you know, how they run an auto repair shop. Can you influence those people? Totally. So that's, that was really the early stage strategy at TechMetric is, it's basically a mastermind group for auto repair.

30:56So if, if TechMetric gets endorsed inside one of those groups, it spreads like wildfire because the most trusted recommendation you can get is from a peer you respect, right? Who runs a business like yours, who's in a similar role as yours. So we didn't invent that channel, but we've definitely learned to work it intentionally. and it changed how we think about partnering community marketing. So that's one I just didn't know about, but it makes total sense. It's just like exit five. And then that kind of leads to community. I believe that our customer community is our moat. We have over 6 ,000 customers, sorry, 16 almost.

31:29Yeah, this is crazy. This was in our doc, TechMetrics Real Moat. They have 16, they have 16 ,000 people in this Facebook community, 6 ,000 active in the TechMetric user group, which is crazy. It is crazy. So we have 16 ,000 customers. 16 ,000 customers. Around the world. And it's called Tug, our TechMetric user group. It's a Facebook group. Auto repair shops love Facebook. They love Facebook for everything. And so we have this user group and you have to have been a customer for 30 days. Then you can request to get in. Yeah. Who manages that? Somebody on your team? Somebody on my team, along with the customer support, we have a tiger team that really looks at it and tracks it.

32:12But I mean, everybody's in there. It's light on kind of management on purpose because we don't want to disturb the organic nature of the group. So you have customers in there that are swapping tips and tricks about the product. You have people complaining about the product. You have people asking for things. Is it like a support forum? It is, but it isn't. Some people treat it like that. I've always wondered like a user, like so many, a bunch of different people have shown examples of crushing it with a user group. As a community guy myself, as you know, Claire, I've just always wondered like, how do you, what's the right angle?

32:50How does that not just become like, I'm posting in the HubSpot community about like, why is this thing rendering in a weird way? Do you discourage that? Is it okay? How do you like, what's the lane that works for this community? We don't discourage people. People are going to come and talk about what they want to talk about regardless, right? So I do think we've been intentional about trying to make sure that we transform it from a support forum into something closer to community as a product, right, when we're in there. So we definitely do surprise and delight gifting in there. We start, you know, conversation threads similar to what you all do with Exit 5 today.

33:26Right. But also the interesting thing is like our customers literally defend us to other customers in there. So like a customer might say, hey, I don't like this. Why doesn't TechMetric have it? And someone will come in and say, of all the things that they do for you, you know, this is what you do. I love that. I love that. We need more of that. Yeah. I think people are sometimes a little nervous about our user group, but I think it's awesome. Like what other place can you have 6 ,000 active customers to talk to? right and to get feedback from our ceo is in there our cto is in there our product team's in there our marketing team's in there and so but they're literally our customers are answering questions for each other they're supporting each other so it's a wide range of topics and so i think if you try and put too many rules on it then it disturbs the organic nature of the group and then people don't people don't want to participate so yeah or like if you just pumped it full of tech metric stuff, people would not use it in the same way, but you probably still can pick and choose spots to promote things like your, you know, your, your event or whatever.

34:27Totally. Yeah. We talk about Tectonic in there, but we're careful, right? It doesn't become like a marketing newsletter for us. We'll share things. Our product team will share things. It's part of our, our go-to-market tiered bill of materials for our product launches of like, we have to make sure we post in Tug. But I also remind the team, it's only 6 ,000 active members compared to 16 ,000 customers, right? So there's a lot of customers that aren't in there. But our customers ask each other questions, they share best practices, they troubleshoot, they fight with each other, they show us love, they tell us when they don't like something.

35:00I love it. I've never worked in an organization where we have it. And then Facebook, on the opposite side of our community, we do a lot of advertising on Facebook. And I would say, you know, meta ads aren't necessarily like a huge producer of leads for us, but the ad, the thread comments are wild. Like it's like a shoe ad. It's like you post something and there's thousands of comments in there of people being like, I love TechMetric. People being like, I don't like it at all. I wish they had this. And then you have our customers in public threads of paid ads defending us and then sharing their stories.

35:34And I'm like, that's it, right? Like it's unprompted. People are sharing what they like and don't like. they give our product team feedback and then our customers rep for us. And so, yeah, it's interesting. You're almost in like, uh, my industry is marketing and marketers are very vocal. It seems like this is a very vocal online person that you're selling to. So these things are really important. And so you need to like open yourself up to those things versus fully control all of it. Totally. Totally. Yeah. It's, it's great. And so our job is to earn that trust from our customers, right? And then feed it, which is what we're really trying to do.

36:10So all that organic stuff happens on its own and continues to push us forward. So I love our customers. Inevitably, when we talk about community, I think there's lots of companies that will listen to this and have an example of how a user group could work for them. Whenever I mentioned Facebook or the community platform, someone always said, why did you pick Facebook? My guess is you didn't pick it. It just started and it's grown and now you can't move it. Would you ever move it? Would that just be marketers trying to measure it better? Any comments? Yeah. I mean, it would be because you do have limitations, right?

36:43You can't create subgroups and you're kind of stuck with it. But it's not a problem that I need to solve right now because people go there and that's where they live. And so we are going to listen to our customers. That's where they like to communicate. That's where they like to live. So sure, if we move to a community platform, would we have more capabilities? Yes, but getting 6 ,000 people to move to it probably won't happen, especially people that love Facebook. So we're going to keep it where it's at. There's no reason. There's no problem that we're solving by moving it. We would just be annoying marketers in tech trying to make something work for us instead of listening to our customers about what works for them.

37:21So absolutely. I mean, it's just good. It's good advice, right? I used to work for a mentor of mine would always be like, is this a company problem or a customer problem? Meaning like, are we trying to what's better for the customer? Are we trying to solve this so we can like measure it better and track it better? Or are they going to get plenty of value from where it's at? And it's nice, it's refreshing to hear someone be like, nope, it's not an issue. We're not going to do it. It's not an issue. And it's also like technology is not ever a blocker, in my opinion. So like, what problem are you actually trying to solve?

37:48And if the answer to that problem is we need new tech, like I'm really going to push on you. I'm going to say, is that actually the problem that we're trying to solve right now? or, you know, I think people just jump to solutioning and sometimes tech is the answer. Let's get a new community platform, but like it's working. We have 6 ,000 active members that communicate. Sure, would we like things to be different in there and have more capability, but it's not, but it's working. So, well. Are you, it seems like, you know, you have a big market. Are you under, is demand gen like a big function of your like market?

38:21Like, do you need to acquire a certain number of leads every month? Is that a big part of your business? Are you doing more like targeted outreach to auto repair shops that are not on you? Totally. So we, it's, demand has been a huge focus for us. I will say demand capture relative. Can you talk about some of the mechanics of that? Like, I'm just curious, like what offers work? What calls to action? Like, I get that you're doing Bing and Facebook and all that stuff. But if you could talk about some of the, like, how you actually go and capture leads today, what's working? So paid search is a big demand capture for us.

38:53Google's table stakes. Like I said, Bing was a surprise. Facebook meta shop owners are heavy Facebook users, but also there's a lot of industry groups on Facebook outside of our actual user group, like shop owner groups that people join that we're in and we're tracking events and trade shows are big. I'm not going to share anything groundbreaking, I guess. Like this is just, but are you trying to book? Like, is it like, I'm trying to book a meeting with a shop owner and then what do you, is it just, Hey, book a meeting and we're going to teach you how to improve your show. Is there some, what's the offer?

39:25Is it like talk to sales? You know, what gets people on the phone with you? Is book a demo right now? I hate to say it. Again, I wish I had a more exciting answer, but ours is really, our main CTA is to book a demo, test the product, try it out for yourself and get in the door. I think what we're seeing happen is right now we are capturing most of the group that's in demand, right? They're looking for something, we're capturing everybody. If you're looking for an auto repair shop platform between what we're doing on search and paid and social, we're finding you. We're starting to move more into that demand creation.

40:02Like we're capturing everybody that wants something. We need to create more demand, which comes back to brand and comes back to community. So there's been a lot of focus for us on content, stories, customer testimonials, YouTube. We have a YouTube docuseries called Under the Lift I'm super passionate about that tells our customers' origin stories, has nothing to do with TechMetric or our software, but just tells their stories. And so it's a little bit longer tale of a play, right? Where you have to play that game, but you're trying to create that demand so we can capture it with the really strong demand capture systems that we have in place.

40:37Okay. I got it. So you have a great... The product works. You have a lot of social proof and success with it. The product is really good. Marketing's job here is to basically... We need to tell more people that this thing exists and can help them and then they will book demos. It's interesting how many earlier stage companies I talked to where so many of the problems that seem like marketing channel problems are actually product market fit problems. You know what I mean? We have an amazing product. It is much easier to do marketing when you have great product market fit, a great product and customers that love you.

41:10I'm a lucky marketing lady. We have those ingredients there. I've worked for organizations before where you don't have great product market fit and marketing has to work even harder. And the strategy is a little bit different. This is we have great product market fit. We have customers that love us. We just need to convince part of the market that isn't quite ready to make the change, which I think is interesting about this. If you're looking for an auto repair shop software, you've heard of us and you've talked to us and you're probably using us. Otherwise, you've been using something for 25 to 30 years in your shop and you're good with it because it works.

41:46I've had conversations with shop owners and they said, listen, I know who you are. I'm sure what your product does is better than what I have today, but I've been doing this for 35 years and this works for me. So it's more about change management and trying to get people there. And that's a much harder thing. So again, coming back to community and hearing from other shop owners about what they're doing and the success that they saw is really where we're leaning in. Yes. It's probably like a lot of... they would always say like the biggest competitor is like a spreadsheet or like a notepad, you know, in some industries, right?

42:19Pen and paper. Pen and paper or server based on-prem. Yeah. This says a lot about your internal culture. Tell me about TechMetric University for new hires and tech treks for every employee. Totally. So you asked like, how did I get up to speed on auto repair not coming from it? So our, we have internal, our people and culture team does a great job. Every new hire has to complete or get an on really ongoing employees. We have a tech U, which is TechMetric University, regular courses that are there to help teach people about the industry, about the product, our onboarding. You come to Houston where we're headquartered for the first week.

42:57And part of that is shop visits too. So you go to shops, you meet the customers. That's a really cool thing about working here. So in cybersecurity, I would never meet a CISO outside of a trade show and they didn't want to talk to people anyways, right? Like their job is to keep people out and then marketing is trying to get in. I can look up on our internal tracker, all the TechMetric customers within 30 miles of where I live and I can call them and I can say, Hey, I'd love to come into your shop today. Just stop by, say hi. Is it okay if I stop by this day today? And usually the answer is yes.

43:29And so we also have something called TechTracks internally, where all employees are encouraged and have a stipend monthly to go visit a customer shop, bring them swag, bring them food, ask them how it's going and just learn. A bunch of these new marketing hires that you're going to bring on, are they going to go and do this as part of onboarding? Absolutely. They'll visit TechMetric shops, they'll complete TechMetric University. There is a very vested interest in the organization that as you get bigger, when you start, everybody knows everything. Everybody knows the product, everybody knows the industry.

44:00And as you add people, you lose that tribal knowledge. So the company has been very intentional about investing in people and making sure that they have that information. And, and listen, I, again, I don't like, I don't like cars. Like I'm not a car person, but I love our customers. Like I absolutely love our customers. I don't like cars. I don't, I'm not a car person. Like, you know, I drive a Hyundai Palisade. I'm like a mom, I'm just a mom mobile. I'm like, whatever. Hyundai's a big sponsor of the show. Relax with this, with the drive by. I love, I love my Palisade. Don't get me wrong. But I mean, my whole thing about cars is like, does it get me from point A to point B with all of my kids' sports stuff?

44:38And is it paid off? But when you think about our customers, they're second generation operators, legacy businesses, family-owned shops, people that are like super proud of their craft and fiercely protective of their independence. And so our job at Techmetrics to make sure they have every advantage to continue need to have a thriving business. And when you meet them and you hear their stories, it's just, it's so refreshing, especially coming from other industries that I've been in. Well, I think it was cool to hear you lay it out that way, because I think in order to be great at marketing, you have to have a deep understanding of your customer.

45:11Okay, no kidding, Dave, but it's hearing you articulated at that level. And I think we live in a world now where it's like very easy to like, oh, I'm listening to call recordings. I'm reading call transcripts. I understand the customer. There's a different feeling than walking into an auto repair shop. What do you see? What do you smell? What does it feel like? What does it look like? Pairing that with then like, yeah, is this person going to click on this ad that we're running? Like, I feel like that's where the, you know, that's how the sausage gets made, right? Right. Yeah. My, our buyers are not on LinkedIn.

45:43They're literally never going to download anything ever. Right. It's like walk into the shop and then match, like take up, take all of our marketing touch points and match it. Be like, is that person really going to like go to this webinar? And of course not. So let's not do that. Let's do this instead. Yeah. And it's like, how did you learn about this? Well, my guy, my buddy down the street was using you or I saw you at a trade show and they can name the people. The first trade show I went to for TechMetric when I started, I went to a lot of events just to get FaceTime with customers to understand the space.

46:12I had a customer walk up to me and I said, oh, hey, I'm Claire. Nice to meet you. And they said, I'm shop number 1792. to. That's how they identified themselves. And I was like, what? They're like, that's my shop ID. So when you join TechMetric, you get a TechMetric ID. People are so proud of their shop IDs, right? Like that's a real thing. And so I think that's what we're trying to do, right? We're trying to get our customers and they do it already to be able to represent for us. And the fact that someone will walk up to me and introduce themselves with their shop ID before they actually share their name is something to pay attention to.

46:50So I just think, you know, again, community is so important. And when you think about building a community flywheel, it's like being authentic. Like then how do you become the authority? And then that true long-term play is peer-to-peer advocacy at scale, where they're actually unprompted representing TechMetric and they feel like they are part of the brand. It seems like you just you really get it like and that comes from the founder on all the way down the way to build community and advocacy is not is having a great product. Yes, but also to letting those things happen on their terms. Right.

47:26If you over engineered this like Facebook community, it wouldn't work if you, you know. Anyway, Claire, this was great. This is great. You're going to get it. But I hope you get a bunch of messages because here my call to action is if you are if you also work in a non. what do we call this in the beginning of our show? It was a different switch from cybersecurity, right? If you work in, I guess technically they call this like mid-market SaaS, verticalized SaaS. I'm in vertical SaaS. They would call it horizontal SaaS, right? What is that? I don't know what that means. I don't even know. Who knows what anything means anymore?

47:59At the end of the day, marketing is pretty simple, I think. It's like, know your customer, right? I think the marketing is simple. I think people are the challenging part. Internal teammates. It's like all of my issues are like, and this is not even now, it's all people. It's people on the team, stakeholders inside the company, the head of product you got to work with who doesn't really like you, the head of sales who likes you, but it's crazy. You know, there's just like so many factors to like. Yeah. For the record, I love our head of sales and our head of product. I do think that's an important thing.

48:28So I'm just going to say it on record. Say it on record. I mean, it's no surprise. It's a common trend between companies who get marketing it this way, strong founder, the brand, they understand the product, came from that deep level of expertise. It's typically the companies that are like a little bit more later stage and you kind of have like very siloed orgs where it's just kind of cutthroat where every exec has their own different OKRs that they're trying to hit and achieve their bonus based on that. And then otherwise, they don't really care. I think it's different here. And I think the interesting thing about a vertical SaaS market too, it's just like the growth opportunities with it.

49:03Like there's 250 ,000 auto repair shops in the US. We're the largest cloud-based player and we only have 5 % of the market share and we're going 50 % year over year. Like that's insane. Like in cybersecurity, by the time you're the leader, you've got 30 to 40 % share and 20 competitors eating your lunch. And here the runway is huge. And we have a really great, a super rad customer base and a growth rate. I think most SaaS companies would kill for. So it's just, it's really exciting. And also a reminder of like, we still have a lot of work to do in front of us. But that's cool. That's a cool, a lot of people are thinking about jobs, career stuff, maybe go find, look for like a head of marketing, a VP of marketing at a company, you know, a bit more of a non-traditional industry and space, and you can have a lot of runway to do some cool stuff.

49:47Claire, thanks for coming on our podcast. I've enjoyed getting to know you, one of our executive members. If you want more peers, if you want to have people like Claire in your peer network, you should reach out. We have this really cool executive community. Claire's been a part of that. And I'm spending more of my time doing podcasts with our members because I don't know, I like geeking out on what you're doing and hearing what fires you up at work. So totally. Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. That's it. Yeah. Two weeks of summer. Good luck. Good luck surviving the last two weeks till we get back.

50:18Everybody get back into school, get a little bit more routine going. You too. All right. Thanks, Dave. All right, Claire. Good job. All right. Bye.

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