Emily Gover

#general - April 21, 2025 at 11:39 PM

We move all CAB alumni to our broader advocate pool and keep them near the top of the list for event invites, speaking opportunities, etc. for the year ahead

#cabs - March 28, 2025 at 09:42 PM

Love it — really appreciate this recommendation, thank you!

#cabs - March 28, 2025 at 09:19 PM

Oh wow, interesting, thanks Amy. Our company is pretty strict on Zoom Partners, so I'm not sure this will get installed/approved before the meeting, but I'm going to keep this in mind for our next virtual session. Have you used Twine before? I'm curious how you heard about it!

#cabs - March 28, 2025 at 05:26 PM

This is amazing @Amanda Peacock — what a great idea. I may have to borrow this for our next meeting 😁

#cabs - March 27, 2025 at 10:20 PM

We will have two breakout rooms:
1. Array of senior (VP+) executives across IT, Operations, Revenue
2. Group of mid-level (Director+) leaders across IT, Marketing, and Ops/Production

#cabs - March 27, 2025 at 10:19 PM

Hi Cabbies 🚕

We are preparing for our first CAB meeting of the year (virtual event) and want to spend some time in our breakout rooms to facilitate introductions. Our members get a lot of value out of how they use our tools, and we were not intentional about dedicating time for them to get to know one another

I'd love to know what your approach has been to asking interesting and inviting questions that will help members get to know each other on a professional and personal level. If you'd be open to sharing any samples prompts, I'd greatly appreciate it to get the gears turning

#8-references - March 24, 2025 at 08:02 PM

You're welcome! If you'd like the specifics on what filters I applied in SFDC, I'm happy to share, just send me a DM 🙂

#8-references - March 24, 2025 at 07:41 PM

My goal was to have ~100 references in our tool by EOQ1, and we are just about on target simply from these two recruitment campaigns

#8-references - March 24, 2025 at 07:40 PM

I'll preface this by saying that our internal systems are very patchy in terms of data integrity, so while what I did is not particularly revolutionary, it did yield highly positive results for us within our target personas — which is a win

Context: Our Q1 goal was to build a large pool (~100+) references of happy customers, ideally within our target personas

Challenge: Our target persona is a very small subset of our overall customer base (consider them a "purple squirrel" — very rare 😉 ). Like many sales teams, our is spread thin and we find engaging them for advocate recommendations to be an ongoing, uphill battle

Experiment: I built a Salesforce contact report of recent c/w opps with a boatload of filters (high account health, role titles only containing certain words, specific sectors/industries, have opted into marketing comms, etc.) and vetted it with the Sales Ops team for overall data cleanliness (knowing full well that our systems are, like, 85% accurate most of the time)

Creating this report would be considered going a bit rogue by our organization's standards, which tends to lean towards "more cooks in the approval kitchen" than previous gigs — lots of red tape. However, we have also been told that we need to test things and iterate, and if we get a wrist slap later, that's OK (i.e. fail fast/learn quickly)

I am almost positive if I had spot-checked all of these accounts/contacts with the sales team, they would have told me to not invite any of them. Instead, I whittled down the list to two very small subsets (the first campaign was 79 people, the second was 144) that I had an educated guess would be highly engaged/responsive

Execution: We are using Deeto, so I set up a recruitment campaign in Deeto to invite folks to join the reference program, which launched today. I sent a "head's up" email to the list the Friday before, letting them know they'll be getting an email from me the following week, and there's no pressure to join (but if they're interested, we'd love to have them)

For each of those recruitment campaigns we've seen a 33% and 32% response rate, respectively with the vast majority being in our target personas/role types/industries

#8-references - March 24, 2025 at 06:58 PM

Thank you! The experiment itself is nothing crazy, but I don't have a ton of confidence in our data (🫣), so it was nice to be proven wrong for once by finding that the contact list actually had responsive and engaged customers!

#8-references - March 24, 2025 at 06:47 PM

Hi everyone, hope you had a nice weekend 😊 Wanted to share a recruitment win: my goal in Q1 was to build a strong pool of customer references for our new tool, so that when we launch in Q2, the sales reps actually have a number of advocates to partner with on reference calls

I've run two experimental outreach campaigns over the last week, and essentially doubled the number of references we have in our database. This was a slightly manual lift, but resulted in highly curated, small lists — resulting in >30% conversion rates to what I would deem pretty cold (but high propensity) leads

#general - March 19, 2025 at 03:53 PM

I'd love to learn if anyone here does referrals for B2B SaaS company. We work directly with customers (vs. resellers, consultants, etc.), and our leadership team has very loosely said things like, "We should have a referral program!" And then when I ask is their vision focused on expanding usage within existing accounts (i.e. inviting colleagues to join/use the tool) vs. expanding pipeline (i.e. inviting professional peers to join), their answer is... "Yes" 😉

#cabs - March 14, 2025 at 08:36 PM

This is the exact split we're planning to use for our CAB meeting next month, how validating! 😂

#8-references - March 14, 2025 at 08:35 PM

I think "serializing" our presence (joining weekly/monthly meetings) is so important to ensure long-term success. Sale reps are pulled in so many directions, the best way to stay top of mind is to always be there 😉

#8-references - March 14, 2025 at 08:34 PM

This is so great, thank you @Emily Smith for your insights 💙

#8-references - March 13, 2025 at 11:15 PM

I am planning to begin launching this in early April and having regular comms/touch-points for at least the first 6 weeks. I have two internal champions of Deeto already on the team (a sales rep and the sales manager), which will be a huge help, but I want to make sure I'm intentional about getting them up to speed. This is a completely new muscle for them. I think I can/should make this first effort high touch

Candidly, the marketing org does not have a ton of trust from the sales team — before my time, our last reference tool was "launched" with hardly any advocates or training, so it got very little use. They are wary/skeptical, but I have been spending the last couple of months building a foundational pool of customer advocates, so when it launches, they will have a sizeable cohort of advocates to choose from

#8-references - March 13, 2025 at 11:15 PM

Hi everyone 👋 I am beginning a soft launch of our customer reference tool (Deeto) with our new biz sales team. This is a small but mighty team of about 7 people.

I'm working on an implementation strategy and workback plan, and would love to either get a gut check on what I have, and/or to learn from you what you've found successful. It is currently a mix of:
• On-demand content (video/written)
• Comms channels (emails, Slack)
• Enablement sessions (joining team meetings bi-weekly to support with finding references, monthly trainings with the broader enablement team)

#jobs - March 12, 2025 at 10:54 PM

Same, Luke 😂 Can you tell I'm having A Week?

#jobs - March 12, 2025 at 10:49 PM

Yikes... 10?!

#jobs - March 12, 2025 at 10:39 PM

I have a friend who is (was?) interviewing for a lower-level IC role at a small startup. They were told they had to complete a 2-3 hour "prompt" and put together a 45-minute presentation for the CMO of the company. I think we've discussed the aspect of "take home assignments" during the interview process and knowing your worth, etc... that felt like a lot of work. This is following 4-5 interviews that already happened.

#general - March 03, 2025 at 05:39 PM

Will send you a rec @Casey Hibbard

#jobs - February 18, 2025 at 07:51 PM

⛰️ Seattle-area folks: A recruiter contacted me about a hybrid Customer Marketing role in Bellevue, WA — in-office 3 days per week. Let me know if you're interested and I can pass along your information

#general - February 10, 2025 at 09:15 PM

You're so kind, Mary 💙

https://www.linkedin.com/in/egover/

#cabs - February 04, 2025 at 12:13 AM

Hi Cameron, sharing a few thoughts below — hope this helps

• Is your CAB mostly executives/senior LT or a mixture of levels?
◦ Ours is primarily exec/senior level management. We are planning to host one CAB meeting this year where we ask them to invite a direct report/someone on their team to host concurrent sessions where we can get a bit more in the weeds with product feedback
• How many CAB members do you have? Do they have a commitment timeframe? 2 years, 1 year, etc?
◦ Commitment is for 1 year with opportunity to renew
• Do you offer them stock options or some sort of tangible offering for participating? If so, what?
◦ Our philosophy is that these positions are entirely voluntary, and while we provide fringe benefits (nice promotional items, comped travel for in-person experiences), any formal kind of compensation (including options) would be a conflict of interest. I would be concerned such forms of compensation would create bias in their feedback (telling us what we want to hear vs. what they actually think). Many execs cannot accept gifts we provide them, so we cover for that by including an option for them to donate the gift amount to a charity of their choice.
• How many times per year do you meet?
◦ This year we are planning for 3x (2 virtual, 1 in-person) but I wouldn't surprised if that gets scaled back to semi-annual. We'll see how our roadmap starts to take shape.

#general - January 31, 2025 at 11:41 PM

This is super helpful, thanks so much for sharing your rationale here @Lauren Turner! How did you land on 30% in your example as the percentage of deals that need a reference?

We are going to be building ours from scratch, so we don't really know how many deals will need a reference — I'm going back and forth around just picking a number out of thin air, or running the program with a super low-stakes goal (i.e. 1x reference call per month)

#jobs - January 24, 2025 at 08:31 PM

One thing I appreciated about interviewing at my current company is that they re-thought the approach to this part of the interview process. What would have usually been a take-home assignment, they pivoted to a final group interview (myself and the hiring committee)

They provided the prompt at the top of the meeting, then we went cams and mic off for 15-20 minutes while I thought through the "assignment" and pulled a few thoughts together. They did not expect a flashy presentation or a super granular plan — the goal was to understand my thought process and who are the xfn partners I'd loop in to bring the program to life. This was a "green flag" for me as it showed they respected my time and didn't need a super robust take-home assignment to prove my value so far along in the process.

After that experience, I don't think I would spend more than an hour on a take-home assignment (if that). My previous job required a 4-hour writing assignment, and while I got the job, I think I'd now ask for compensation for it.

#general - January 09, 2025 at 05:01 PM

At my last company, we used a spiff for overall advocate nominations.

• For each advocate they recommended, they received one entry into a quarterly spiff for $3K.
• For each advocate nominated who participated in an act of advocacy that quarter (including reference calls), they were entered into a raffle for a $5K spiff
At my current gig we have been testing smaller spiffs for simply submitting a nomination (they receive a $50 gift card for recommending someone), but we have not seen as much traction or success. We need to revise our approach for the year ahead.

#cabs - December 16, 2024 at 11:15 PM

Hey all 👋 I'd love to hear what folks are using as their KPIs and metrics of success for CAB... it feels like a pie you can slice 10 different ways sometimes.

This past year we had the following, with an indicator on how we fared tracking them. I'd love to hear how you measure success of your CAB programs as we re-assess our strategy for 2025. Thank you 🙏

• Number of ideas accepted and implemented
• Acts of advocacy
• Customer satisfaction w/ CAB program
• Pipeline and revenue influenced
• Engagement/attendance rate to CAB events
• 🔴 WAU growth/deepened product usage of CAB accounts

#general - December 05, 2024 at 09:28 PM

Is this a private channel? If so, you someone please add me to it?

#discussions - December 03, 2024 at 09:08 PM

+1 to an NDA required, with an overview of expectations of their participation per year (XX number of meetings, XX number of async/optional acts of advocacy)

#discussions - November 20, 2024 at 07:46 PM

That said — we are in the process of implementing Deeto, which should help us scale the number of case studies/quotes from customers. Tools like Deeto have the agreement/reference clause baked into their Ts&Cs, so by opting in and approving the content through Deeto, customers are proactively signing off on allowing us to use their testimonial in public capacities

#discussions - November 20, 2024 at 07:45 PM

For us, the clause is only for naming rights (primarily used for talk tracks on sales, marketing, and IR — "Joe's Crab Shack is a customer"), logo rights (for logo parades on web pages/pitch decks), and a "brief description of their use case" ("Joe's Crab Shack uses us to store, share, and secure their content")

For anything more than that, including using a quote from something like a Gong call or a formal case study interview, requires a separate release form. YMMV with this, though — we are a publicly traded company and our Legal team is a bit more intense (rightfully) about endorsements

#discussions - November 19, 2024 at 08:02 PM

We just rolled out a clause this year for our B2B accounts, which includes naming, logo, and a brief description of their use case for sales, marketing, and IR materials.

At my previous company, we had the same clause baked in to the contracts, but had a bit more flexibility where the Legal team could adjust the rights pretty quickly (e.g. a customer may only agree to IR and naming, not logo rights)

My recommendation is to ask for as much as you can up front, and stay flexible on pushback. Worst case is they say no 🙂

#general - November 14, 2024 at 08:16 PM

Love this visual @Kevin Lau — thank you for always sharing your insights with us 💙

#general - November 14, 2024 at 06:56 PM

Following — we have had similar interest from leadership at our company, too

We built a CAB this year of primarily managerial and executive leadership roles (Directors, VPs, and one C-Suite) and are re-thinking what content we discuss with them at our meetings. To date we have done a mix of messaging and product feedback, but I think we need to zoom out a bit to bring more value to them

It's an interesting situation for us, because most of our advocates are (obviously) day to day users, who are usually ICs or lower on the totem pole. But we need the attention and buy-in from execs if we want to sustain growth in our new business areas — and I'm sure we're competing for their time and attention with every other vendor they work with 😅

#general - November 11, 2024 at 10:52 PM

A bit late but we also just purchased Deeto at Dropbox and are onboarding currently. Happy to share our experience with you.

#general - November 07, 2024 at 07:55 PM

+1 to Deeto. We are in the process of onboarding this tool right now at Dropbox to help scale the depth and breadth of our customer social proof. We went through a looooooong evaluation process — originally for a 1:1 reference program — and found that this tool will be able to support us in a number of other ways, including content and referrals

The nice thing with Deeto is that the customer still has full control over approving the content, and can rescind it at any point if needed

#general - September 03, 2024 at 11:00 PM

Is anyone at the CMA Summit in San Francisco this week?

#discussions - June 24, 2024 at 08:46 PM

@Emily Smith we talked about this a bit a couple months ago when we huddled on Zoom — lmk if you want to chat again 🙂

#general - May 23, 2024 at 08:29 PM

The contract terms on our release forms at my last company included a sentence or two on having permission to create derivative works. We rarely got pushback from customers on that

#random - May 20, 2024 at 09:04 PM

When a customer says "[product] has made us a more productive team!" and the Legal team responds, asking for receipts for data with a +/- 5% confidence range that what they're saying is true

#random - May 20, 2024 at 09:03 PM

This speaks to me 💀

#general - May 17, 2024 at 08:45 PM

Love that idea @Lauren Stefano!

#general - May 17, 2024 at 07:14 PM

My scratchpad of Qs...

• What was one of your team's/company's biggest accomplishments from last year?
• What are the top areas of focus/projects for you team/company this year?
• Tell us about a project you worked on during your career that you're particularly proud of.
• What has changed most about your field in the last 1-5 years?
• How do you think your industry will change in the next 1-5 years?

#general - May 17, 2024 at 07:14 PM

Hi everyone 👋 For those who run Customer Advisory Boards, I would love to pick your brains about meaningful prompts/questions you've asked to facilitate peer networking and relationship building among customers. While a key focus is of course on product feedback, I want to ensure that we are dedicating time for our customers to get to know — and learn from — one another.

Our first CAB will have breakout rooms segmented by role type. Dropping some questions I'm considering (besides the usual "Tell us about your role and company" and casual icebreakers) in 🧵 — would love to hear your thoughts as well...

#general - April 17, 2024 at 05:06 PM

Count me in as well, please 🙂

#general - April 15, 2024 at 09:16 PM

How do you all conduct post-program feedback surveys? What kind of questions do you ask?

We are wrapping up a product feedback program that has been running for about 4 months. I'm planning to send a feedback survey to both customers and internal stakeholders to assess impact. Would love to understand how others have approached this

#welcome - April 10, 2024 at 08:41 PM

Yay @Carly! Look who's joining in on the fun @Bree Bunzel

#random - March 22, 2024 at 08:13 PM

Totally — we would always remove churned customers and had a fairly streamlined workflow to stay on top of that, so we could tackle the takedowns before the customer noticed (happy to share how we operationalized that if anyone is interested). The worst part was when they would churn before we even published the story. 😭

RIFs also impacted this at my past gig: we filmed two awesome advocates, who were our primary points of contact for approvals. Both got laid off about a month after we filmed, and no one who remained at the company would permit us to finish it. We were gutted.

#announcements - March 20, 2024 at 11:22 PM

All I've heard is high praise for Deeto across the board 👀