Adam Larson: 00:06

Welcome back to Count Me In. I'm Adam Larson, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Laura Paterson, an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and the president of VisionEdge Marketing. Laura has spent decades at the intersection of marketing and finance, and she's here to share her expert perspective on what makes an ideal partnership between the teams in today's data driven world. We'll talk through common pitfalls organizations face, how to move beyond traditional budgeting to focus on strategic outcomes, and why customer centric strategies are so crucial for sustainable growth. Laura's approach is packed with practical advice, real world stories, and innovative tools that any team, from the c suite to the accounting and marketing, can put into action right away.

Adam Larson: 00:46

So are you eager to improve collaboration and accountability across your organization? You won't want to miss this conversation, and let's get started. Well, Laura, I'm excited to have you on the podcast today. And you've worked a lot with CFOs throughout your career. And so I wanted to ask you, you know, how would you describe the ideal partnership between marketing and finance in today's data driven environment?

Laura Paterson: 01:13

Well, Adam, thank you for having me, and I am delighted to talk about this is one of my favorite topics having spent a huge part of my own career, you know, decades, in this conversation between marketing and finance. So, obviously, know, like in any business relationship, you gotta have some mutual respect. But I think one of the things that gets in the way oftentimes between marketing and finance is language. So as marketers, we have a language around all the things that we create and do, and we like to speak in that language. But finances speaks a whole different language.

Laura Paterson: 01:48

So Mhmm. The best thing to build that relationship, and I believe it falls on the shoulders of those of us in marketing, is to be business people first and learn and speak the language of business when we're talking with finance people. And the best partnerships when they're working together, they are able to eliminate a lot of random acts. Those are those fragmented sort of reactive things that pop up in the marketer's world almost every day because we have so many new ideas and new opportunities, but they can really drain our resources and dilute our impact. By having a strong and solid relationship and partnership with finance, we can make sure that we are picking the right things that make the most sense for the business.

Laura Paterson: 02:34

Because, for example, segmentation, which takes a lot of data to do really good, it's customer segmentation or market segmentation. Gartner did some research and found that when you have poor segmentation, you know, it can cost your company, like, 30% in revenue. So it's a pretty we're not talking about a small amount of money. So if marketing and finance can use data, which we both are very comfortable doing or should be at this point in time in the world, very comfortable with data, we can use that as a bridge. And by working together, we can actually move beyond that idea of just budgeting as a relationship to actually a co collaborative relationship around growth and accountability, making sure that every investment that marketing is making on behalf of the company is purposeful and measurable.

Adam Larson: 03:23

So I like that data driven, you know, is a huge thing, especially, you know, in the in our world with so much data that's out there, and there's so much to to sort through, which means having good data analytics and a good team looking at that is hugely important. But I think I wanted to start with, before we dig into that too much is, you know, how do you break down that like, how do you how do you how do you break down the communication walls? Because a lot of times in the larger your organization is, the more silos are put up. The smaller organizations, the kind of the more connected people are. But how do you break that silo down and and kind of really work on that language difference and and connecting everybody?

Laura Paterson: 03:56

That's a good question too. And one of the things I think that's important that you said is we have a lot of data. Mhmm. But the real challenge is to have insights from that data. So oftentimes, the way to begin is to be have a conversation about here's the data I have.

Laura Paterson: 04:14

Here's the data you have. What is it we can what are the insights we're getting from this data? And how can we translate that into something that it can enable us to grow our the company or offset the competition or create a better experience for the customer, whatever those conversations might be. And if you can speak in those terms from the perspective of the insights from the data, you can build a much stronger relationship because finance can talk up in those terms. They can talk about, I see that we have this issue, this challenge that's creating more friction or more in the in the relationship with customers and our ability to serve them or creating a greater effort in our ability to engage with them.

Laura Paterson: 04:58

That's what the data is telling us, which is why in marketing we wanna do X, which is going to cost high. But if we do that, it will affect have this result. We can speak like that. Finance gets that. They can relate to that.

Laura Paterson: 05:13

So it doesn't have to be we're not talking about things that are just really difficult for anybody to do, whether you're a small company, a big company, a marketing team of one or a large organization, this is the kind of conversation we should have every time. And when we are engaged or asked to do something by some entity or person in the organization, right, we're always asked for something, whether I need a new white paper or a new piece of content or I'd like to make a new video or get a new customer testimonial or whatever it might be. Right? Then what we should be thinking up through is which that could turn into a random act if we're not careful is really what business outcome is that going to support and how will it move the ball down the field so to speak for that outcome given the investment and the investment is even if it's not hard cash. It's still time.

Laura Paterson: 06:09

It's still energy.

Adam Larson: 06:11

Yeah. And and maybe we can talk a little, when you're take talking about those investments because there's a lot of investment when you're marketing. You have to pour a lot of money in there to get your name out there to show to show your presence in whatever industry you're working in. And, you know, how do you kind of are there are there pitfalls that you have to kinda look out for when you're trying to put those investments against that value that you're trying to show? Hey, team.

Adam Larson: 06:33

This is what I need to I need this because this is the value we bring.

Laura Paterson: 06:36

Yeah. So this is probably one of the biggest pitfalls that marketers have a tendency to make is that we jump straight into a conversation around tactics.

Adam Larson: 06:45

Okay.

Laura Paterson: 06:45

And that is a pitfall. And we don't have it. We aren't clear about how this tactic or activity, which is an investment because it's going to take money. And, you know, everything we do is an investment on behalf of the organization. And if it was our personal money, we would be asking what would be the value of doing this tactic, whatever it might be.

Laura Paterson: 07:08

An investment could be going on a vacation. Investment could be buying a new car. An investment could be a new appliance. Whatever those things might be, we would justify that personally on how why we're doing that and what the cost benefit is. That's the same way we need to approach the money we invest on behalf of the company and marketing.

Laura Paterson: 07:25

And so rather than jumping into that tactic, which would be going out and rashly doing something with our personal money, we should step back and be able to talk to the leadership team, not just finance, everybody else on the leadership team on how this tactic or activity connects to what is going to be beneficial, the benefit to the organization. Otherwise, we end up in this what we call cart before the horse type of situation. And when you end up with cart before the horse, that's where those random acts can can bite us in the butt. So random act could be launching a campaign or a program, but don't have really clear measurable objectives that are tied to some kind of result for the company. And I think I read that MIT Sloan says that random non customer centric initiatives cost b to b companies.

Laura Paterson: 08:18

I don't know about b to c hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. So the antidote, how do you overcome this pitfall? Be disciplined. Be customer centric. Think about the investment in terms of the purpose and result it's going to produce for the company.

Adam Larson: 08:33

Mhmm. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So when we're looking at, you know, accounting and finance professionals kind of being the being support for the marketing team because, you know, they're they deal with the budgets and they're helping them connect to stuff, and we're talking about that we've talked about the data a bit. Are there are there different ways that that that team can help identify and track the right the right indicators for the campaign success with marketing team?

Laura Paterson: 08:56

Okay. So we're talking about are we talking about what I wanna be clear in our mind what we're looking at here. So accounting, you know, when when when marketing was first asked to be accountable, we looked way back when, Adam, and you and I can relate to way back when we looked up the word accountable and was says, oh, to account. And so we said, oh, to account means we just need to count things. And so we started thinking about what we could count.

Laura Paterson: 09:26

But Yeah. But what the financial people want isn't just counting. They want us to be able to translate the measures into something that has financial value. Like, how is this gonna improve product adoption? Because if we can increase the product adoption rate, it's worth this.

Laura Paterson: 09:45

How how will this help us improve our penetration into a segment? Because every penetration, you know, share is worth this. How will can we translate this measure into increasing customer lifetime value or reducing cost to acquisition. So everything we're doing in marketing is beyond just counting if we wanna be accountable. And the finance people can really help us translate changes in those numbers to dollars for the company.

Laura Paterson: 10:15

So that's where they can help us. So when they worked we work together. When we, marketing and accountability, work together and cocreate the measures, it'll be a lot easier to track and prove the value of marketing. And it'll be a lot easier for marketing, a, to ensure that their activities are accountable and aligned to business value, and, b, get the money, which is really important.

Adam Larson: 10:41

It is hugely important. So I think we've we've had a great conversation so far just kinda covering how, you know, how the marketing team and the accounting team kinda work together. They can translate things so they can use data together. But then a lot of times, it's easy for the you know, somebody in the marketing team and the finance team to kind of work together and do those things. But then then we need to kind of resonate that with our leader with the leadership team and make sure the c suite is is comfortable with everything that's happening.

Adam Larson: 11:06

What are some ways you've worked with the the c suite and and help the different teams translate those things so that way everybody's on the same page?

Laura Paterson: 11:13

Yeah. And you're exactly right. It we need to be able to translate things that are relevant to the leadership team. And accounting teams and especially the CFO teams, they can help us tell a better story when it's time for us to report to the board or do that, you know, quarterly business review or monthly operations review, whatever it is, however the company's got their reporting set up so that when marketing is talking about what they're doing, it isn't a story about the stuff they're doing, which is what we have a tendency to do. We did these events this last quarter, and we had these number of people come through our event, or we are attend our event or register for our event, or we publish X number of blogs this quarter, and this is how many people read the blog or shared the blog.

Laura Paterson: 12:08

Right? That's what we tend to do in our reporting. Mhmm. Accounting can help us convert those stories into financial terms so that the stories will resonate with the leadership board, like saying, we were able to drive x number of new conversations, which will went into the pipeline that represent x potential new appointments for salespeople as a result of this these events or things along those lines so we can tell a better story for the leadership team on how what we're doing and how it ripples beyond what we did in marketing to the rest of the business. So it's relate relatable.

Laura Paterson: 12:45

So, oh, I see how what you're doing is having an impact on the sales team. I can see what you're doing is having an impact on the strategic account team. I see what you're doing is having an impact on accelerating the number of conversations that we might have or any number of different things. That's what we wanted them to be able to do, not just see all the great things we are producing and be seen as producers of stuff. And that's what we end up becoming if we're not careful producers of stuff.

Adam Larson: 13:17

Yeah. And what and those conversations you're talking about, a lot of times, those are connected to the budget. And when you and I first talked, you're very passionate about, let's move away from budget conversation, from line items to to strategy. And so maybe we could talk a little about that because I know every organization has their own budget, has their own way of budgeting. But I think I think you're right that we need to move away from just focusing on individual line items and kind of what is this what is the outcome that we wanna get to?

Laura Paterson: 13:41

Yes. And that is that's a really important perspective of that I have. I I I feel really strongly about this, so strongly that when I was in the corporate world and working with all my finance colleagues, we did something really innovative. And as a result, we try to help other companies do this. We stopped budgeting by subaccount, and we started budgeting by outcome.

Laura Paterson: 14:10

If you can just do that to that one small step, it's huge because you've changed the conversation. So what do I mean by that? Well, the for for those of you listening that are on the marketing side, it may not be as clear as it is to the people on the finance side who understand subaccounts. But in marketing, the subaccounts are those line items that say PR or advertising or social media or content marketing, whatever those line items are in the budget that you have allocated x number of dollars for by month or by quarter. And then that rolls up into the marketing budget.

Laura Paterson: 14:48

But when we think like that, everything that we're doing, the stuff, the activity is is distributed across those subaccounts, but they're but not tied to any business outcome. So what I did in my career and what we try to do for our customers is think about budgeting by outcome. This is a pretty innovative idea. So everything that you are spending is connected to an outcome. So now you can see exactly what you're investing in that outcome.

Laura Paterson: 15:22

And if you make changes to the strategy or the programs or the tactics or the activities or the dollars, you can now see what that might do as a to the result you're trying to produce, the financial result you're trying to do to do produce for the outcome. So let me make see if I can make it kind of real. Let's say that one of the things a company wants to do is acquire x number of net new customers in their existing top three custom, market segments. So they want whatever next number in each of their three existing market segments. So now they know exactly how many customers, which what kind, and they're new and in what markets.

Laura Paterson: 16:04

And that's gonna be worth x number on an average order value of y that's worth x number of dollars. And marketing's job is to create some x number of conversations specifically with customers who match that criteria in those segments. And everything marketing is gonna do is gonna be tied to that. So that's marketing's outcome, and it's gonna be x number of dollars. And everything below that is what they're gonna spend to do it.

Laura Paterson: 16:30

And if we achieve it, then within the parameters of the dollars, now we can measure that against what the financial value of the outcome was. So it becomes very real way of looking at marketing in a in a much different and more meaningful way than just talking ROI because now we can really connect it to a business result. And it forces a different kind of alignment than what we often see. So LSA Global did a report that said that, you know, highly aligned companies grow revenue 5858% faster, and they're 72% more profitable than less aligned companies. And aligning around outcomes is one of the easiest things to begin to think about doing.

Laura Paterson: 17:16

It's I'm not saying it's an easy thing to do, but visually, it's something that every company can get, and you can use visual tools to help you do it. Right? So your performance management dashboards can help you, and that helps everyone see what the direct connections are. And now the conversation is less again about the budget and more about the strategy that we're going to do to achieve the outcome. So it becomes less transactional in your relationship with finance.

Adam Larson: 17:44

Yeah. It becomes less transactional. I would it would be interesting to have you on a panel with a bunch of people who do budgets for a for a living and to to, like, really get into the nitty gritty of how that would all would work because I'm sure that they would have opinions on what you're saying, and it would be really interesting. I I wonder, have you had those conversations with people who are really into their budgets? And how do those conversations go?

Laura Paterson: 18:06

Well, listen. So it does create some challenges for the finance organization because they're reporting like, if you're a really, really big company and you're in one of the biz lines of business and you start this thing and change, like, what this so what we did, you know, I was, you know, I was really fortunate to have a financial partner, a finance partner who was open to this idea. And so we just arbitrarily called the PR subaccount line outcome one and advertising subaccount line outcome two and, you know, whatever the event subaccount line outcome three. We just labeled them that for our purposes. But he knew, Enrique knew, that that was gonna create roll up challenges because, really, it wasn't advertising dollars or PR dollars or event dollars.

Laura Paterson: 18:59

It was these outcomes. So he was doing probably some other kind of tracking just to keep things, you know, legit for the roll up, but it'll definitely helped us get a understanding of what we were spending by outcome when we were spending it and what those total expenditures ended up being compared to what the results were.

Adam Larson: 19:22

That's really cool. Yeah.

Laura Paterson: 19:24

It was cool. So we have a we have a tool. We have an application called excellence that allows our customers to do exactly that. So they don't have to get their finance people to change the sub account charts, which could you know, that you're gonna get pushback from. It's just inside the application and it creates an outcome based budget for you.

Adam Larson: 19:42

Wow. So let's talk a little bit about, you know, VisionEdge marketing, your your organization. So you've been around for over twenty five years, you know, and you focus on data measurements, performance, and all those things. You know, how is how is kind of your approach changed? Because real time analytics, digital transformation, you know, the raise of the rise of AI and AgenTik AI, which you and I were just talking about.

Adam Larson: 20:01

You know, how has that kinda changed your approach as, you know, as technology is constantly changing?

Laura Paterson: 20:06

Well, it has changed our approach in some ways, but in other ways, not so much. Because our whole philosophy is that customers that a customer centric strategies are the only way to grow. And getting you and thinking about growth in customer centric terms is not going to be impacted by AI or technology. It may you may use AI and technology to help you achieve them, maybe achieve them faster or achieve them more affordably. But the real strategy, like making a decision that these are our x number of best customers and they are the ones that we wanna invest in and help and figure out how they can help us and how we can help them with the product road map.

Laura Paterson: 21:01

So we want our next innovations to support these top 50 companies, for example. Right? That would be something you would do as a result of looking at your data, that they're the ones who typically are driving your innovation. They're the ones who are making the requests for, you know, additional capabilities, or they're the ones that are are sharing their innovation road map and you're building your road map to them. So that would wouldn't be something you would do differently as a result of AI, but your data might inform you of that.

Laura Paterson: 21:31

And then you would build out what is the strategy for doing that, and is that what we wanna do kind of conversation. So that would be an example potentially that isn't really any different than what we've been doing for the last twenty five years. But how we go about getting the data or how we go about analyzing the data or how we go about putting strategies and tactics to get or tactic programs and tactics together, that might change. There may be more online things and less virtual in person things, potentially. There may be different kinds I mean, more podcasts, you know, potentially as a as a activity depending on what that might look like.

Laura Paterson: 22:08

So I would say that implementation may have changed some in terms of approach, but what we do has really changed and because companies still have a long way to go to get more customer centric out there, particularly b to b companies.

Adam Larson: 22:23

So when you say customer centric, what do you mean by being more customer centric?

Laura Paterson: 22:28

So customer centric is about I'm glad you asked this, Adam, because people say, oh, you so you just want us to do whatever customers want. That's not really what customer centricity is. Customer centricity is not about catering to every whim of every customer. Customer centricity is about keeping your customer's success requirements in mind in the decisions that you're going to make for your business. That if you can improve customer value, then you will improve business and shareholder value because customers are what pay the bills.

Laura Paterson: 23:04

Right? So by being customer centric, what you're saying is do we understand what success is for the customers we serve and how we can help them achieve that? What are the products and services that we can bring to the market that they will most likely adopt and pay more for, buy more of so that we are growing and they're being more successful?

Adam Larson: 23:27

Yeah. That makes sense. And you would think that most companies are customer centric, but the way you're listing that, I'm like, it seems like that not a like, it's not everybody's top of mind. Because a lot of times, it's like their bottom line is their is their is their main, source of, like, motivation.

Laura Paterson: 23:42

Well, there's different models for out there. And just kinda quickly just maybe to make help people, understand what those different models are. There are product centric companies. These you know these companies? Because when you look at their r and d investments, they're massive.

Laura Paterson: 23:59

They're a huge portion of the company. They're doing a lot in r and d, and they're betting on the future. They're trying to make the future, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that because we need those kinds of companies. And if we build it, they will come kind of companies. And sometimes, you know, people don't even know that they want people don't even know they want autonomous vehicles.

Laura Paterson: 24:19

Somebody figured out that autonomous vehicles are something that people are gonna want, and they made huge investments to get that. So as an I mean, I'm using that as an example because you and I were we're talking about the influx of autonomous vehicles for Uber and Waymo and companies like that and how they're growing, rapidly growing. And certainly five years ago, none of us would have been thinking that we would be getting in driverless vehicles to take us but then and then there's sales centric companies. And you kinda know these companies because salespeople are pretty much running the show, and they sell things you may not even make yet. They set pricing that you may or may not be profitable.

Laura Paterson: 25:00

They might do delivery dates that are almost impossible to meet. So they're, you know, they're making a lot of decisions in order to get the deal. And so that's, that's a very common model. Right? So it's just all about selling and getting salespeople out there to sell as much as they possibly can and make a number.

Laura Paterson: 25:19

I've been in those companies. I imagine you have too. There's lots of those and they're very opportunistic. There's, you know, oftentimes you see that in more early stage companies, but they don't grow out of it. They're still stuck there even when it's time to make a shift.

Laura Paterson: 25:34

And oftentimes, they end up getting customers in the long down the road that they need to jettison because they're really not gonna be the best customers for future growth. And then there's market centric companies, and I I know you've been in some of those too. Those are companies that look a lot like product centric companies. But unlike product centric companies who are creating the wave that are the first to market, market centric companies are more about drafting the wave. So we can see that happening.

Laura Paterson: 26:02

We were talking about AI earlier. We can see that happening in the AI landscape. Look at all the companies that have emerged in that space just in the course of the last couple of years. So those are all market centric companies who are seeing this is a huge opportunity, new new area of growth. Where can we go?

Laura Paterson: 26:22

And there's a lot of, you know, a lot of clutter and a lot of noise in the space and lot of overlap between companies, and eventually that will weed itself out. So those are some examples of other ways that people have operating models that aren't necessarily customer centric.

Adam Larson: 26:38

Mhmm. That's helpful. I think that's it's good to kind of establish the differences, especially when somebody might not even know what what is my organization? What is our what what what are we on? And it kind of gets you thinking about that for sure.

Laura Paterson: 26:52

I can usually tell, by when I start asking them what their measures are going to be for of success. And I usually tell if when I start asking the question, do you know what success is for your customer? And do you know what success is for their customers? And if they don't know that begin to know some of the answers to those kinds of questions, then odds are they probably have some things they need to revisit.

Adam Larson: 27:14

Now, you know, with all the tools and the strategies that we talked about today, are there certain types of companies that work better with these strategies, or can we can this be applied no matter what your focus of your organization is?

Laura Paterson: 27:27

This can be applied to any company. Mhmm. Being customer centric is not dependent on what kind of market you're in.

Adam Larson: 27:35

Mhmm.

Laura Paterson: 27:37

I would say that companies who have complex products that require a consultative sell, which is often the case in b to b manufacturing or technology, life sciences, medical devices, logistics, those kinds of companies, that they they should be at the forefront of embracing customer centricity because that they they'll they'll have the they'll reap the bet greatest benefits compared to a a company that's, you know, maybe selling I always use this because I sold chocolate when I was young, the world's finest chocolate. So selling a chocolate bar, it's a little bit more transactional.

Adam Larson: 28:15

Yeah.

Laura Paterson: 28:15

It doesn't require a consultative sell typically. And, there's not a lot of buyer's remorse if you buy it. You might have remorse over the calories, but not necessarily over the money.

Adam Larson: 28:25

Definitely. You know, Laura, this has been a great conversation, and I wanna kinda end with, you know, for CFOs or even just finance and accounting leaders within organizations, what's, like, maybe one thing they can do today to build help build a stronger, more strategic relationship with their marketing counterparts?

Laura Paterson: 28:40

Sit down and take a look at the marketing plan and see if you can draw a straight line from a business outcome all the way down through the activities and tactics for that outcome in the marketing plan. And if you can't, that would be the place I would begin.

Adam Larson: 29:01

That's powerful because it's it's it's such a simple thing, but if you can't do that, then it creates a whole world of a road map almost of how you can how you can start working together better in a sense.

Laura Paterson: 29:12

Yes. And it will help the finance people and the marketing people see where what do we need to do to get the right things lined up and in the right buckets.

Adam Larson: 29:20

Mhmm.

Laura Paterson: 29:21

And it will improve that alignment and to change the conversation. It will completely change the conversation with your finance organization.

Adam Larson: 29:30

Definitely. Well, Laura, I again, I appreciate you coming on the podcast. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with our audience today.

Laura Paterson: 29:37

It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me, Adam.

Announcer: 29:41

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