Seeking Wisdom

On this #Marketing edition of Seeking Wisdom, DG syncs up with legendary marketing operator, Steve Johnson. Together they discuss his time at Constant Contact, Hootsuite, Vidyard and more. Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! Be sure to check out more insights on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @davegerhardt @seekingwisdomio. In This Episode: 0:33 - Intro with Steve Johnson 1:29 - The rise of social media 2:31 - Hootsuite and social media 3:51 - Lessons from the high-volume business 4:16 - Lessons from Constant Contact 4:34 - Fremium 5:43 - How did Hootsuite grow? 6:33 - Community marketing 7:25 - Ambassadors to reach area influencers 8:16 - Hoot-ups 10:52 - South by Southwest and an owl bus 12:02 - All a matter of marketing and public relations 12:34 - The move to enterprise 14:46 - The proliferation of free/enterprise combinations 15:44 - A lesson from Survey Monkey: switch to annual subscription 17:12 - A lesson from Survey Mon

First Round Capital is one of the most widely loved venture capital firms in tech -- no small feat for a VC firm to claim. Through their platform (VC for brand marketing and value-add projects), they've built the Harvard Business Review-of-Startups, hold 80+ events per year for their portfolio companies, and even help founders pitch them through a program called Pitch Assist. Today, host Jay Acunzo talks to First Round partner Bill Trenchard and how and why FRC bets on brand (and how that changed the VC world for good). We also hear from the founder of a growth-stage startup, Lloyd Tabb of Looker, who describes his experience with Bill and the First Round brand. Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! Be sure to check out more insights on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @davegerhardt, @dcancel and @seekingwisdomio. In This Episode: 1:00 - Overview of #Exceptions 2:02 - First Round Capital 4:40 - What do entrepreneurs think of First Round Capita

This week on Seeking Wisdom, DC and DG re-visit one of the most popular episodes of all time to share their secrets to reading more books. Why? Because reading is key to transforming you into a learning machine. And that means helping you get ahead in your career. Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! Be sure to check out more insights on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @davegerhardt, @dcancel and @seekingwisdomio. In this episode: 00:37 - Did you vote? Who are the copywriters for ballots? 2:00 - Why we made this episode 3:54 - You’ve been taught the wrong way to read 5:50 - The key to becoming a learning machine 7:30 - James Altucher: “Idea sex” 9:07 - Stop reading boring books 10:54 - How to stay inspired and keep learning 14:19 - A six-star review from Ethan

On today’s episode of #Build, host Maggie Crowley sits down with Joff Redfern, VP of Product at Atlassian. Together they talk through Joff’s time as VP of Product at LinkedIn, building a product org from 12 people to 650, the concept of a shipyard, why talent is priority 0, why he chose to join Atlassian and much more. Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! Be sure to check out more insights on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @maggiecrowley, @drift , @seekingwisdomio, and @mejoff. In this episode: 0:33 – Maggie introduces Joff 2:19 – Falling in love with the Atlassian vision, needing a calling 3:30 – How LinkedIn shaped Joff’s career 6:45 – Riding the double paradigm shift to mobile and social networks 7:48 – How to scale an organization...Building Your Shipyard 8:52 – Three pieces to a shipyard: values (8:59), people/talent (10:15), practices (10:43) 2:11 – What does it mean to be an Atlassian Product Manager? 15:40 – Having just one set

On this #Marketing edition of Seeking Wisdom, DG sits down with Jay Acunzo to unpack 5 lessons he learned from today's top B2B brands while working on season one of #Exceptions. Plus, get a behind-the-scenes look at the writing process for Jay's new book, the art of self-publishing and more.

How to convince an old-school CEO (of a legacy brand) to push forward with a rebrand

On this episode of Seeking Wisdom, DC and DG break down lessons from Daniel Kahneman’s classic book Thinking, Fast and Slow – and why this might be the most important book for anyone in sales and marketing. Topics on this episode: -Lessons from a recent outdoor ad campaign and American Eagle -Cognitive biases - Anchoring effect - The Halo Effect - What will DC be for Halloween? Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! Be sure to check out more insights on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @davegerhardt, @dcancel and @seekingwisdomio. In this episode: 1:00 – Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman 1:05 – Marketing lesson from blitz billboards in San Francisco YouTube 3:13 – How to get the referral and DC’s playbook 5:20 – Why DC loves Thinking, Fast and Slow…the third degree, black belt 6:16 – Blinkist app/website for book summary 7:38 – Why this is an important book for business people 8:13 – How we make decisions 8:38 – System 1 thinking – fast, int

It’s a special episode of #Build. Host Maggie Crowley is joined by members of Drift’s Product and Engineering teams. Meet Alexa Nguyen, Senior Product Manager, Trevor Rundell, Director of Engineering, and Peter Karl II, Lead, Product Efficiency. The group chats through how product and engineering can work together most efficiently. That means breaking through the perception that engineers should be wholly removed from the customer. To tackle this problem at Drift, tech leads here are directly responsible for the outcomes of the products they’re working on (where at most organizations, that’s the Product Manager’s responsibility). This gives engineering more context around the products they're building. And empowers them. They’re expected to be on the front lines answering questions from customers. Because at Drift, it’s all about putting the customer first. Learn more about story time and how to get your engineering and products teams better aligned in today’s episode of #Build.  Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

On today's episode of Seeking Wisdom, DC and DG are joined by special guest and Drift co-founder and CTO, Elias Torres. Together, they talk through how to hire people who can go from individual contributor to VP. It comes down to 4 things. 1) Come from humble beginnings. You need to be hungry. 2) Ability to get sh*t done. Do the work. 3) The "It" factor. Uncommon charisma and presence. 4) Humility. Be Ego-free. Stay humble as you grow in your career. They break it all down in this episode of Seeking Wisdom. Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! Be sure to check out more insights on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @davegerhardt, @dcancel, @eliast and @seekingwisdomio.   In This Episode: 0:53 - The Culture Code 1:38 - Consistency with Seeking Wisdom is coming. 2:30 - The team discusses their trips to Europe. 5:00 - Hiring Lessons from Elias Torres 6:12 - The value of coming from humble beginnings 7:04 - The ability to get sh*t done 7:17 - The “It” facto

A brand based on truth? That's what ProfitWell co-founder & CEO Patrick Campbell has set out to achieve. But what is a brand based on truth exactly? Well, it's about going deeper to cut through assumptions and push past egotistical decision making to find...the truth. With so many metrics, it's all too easy to pay attention to what makes us feel good, rather than what's actually good for our business. So how do you actually face the truth? We dive deeper in today’s episode of #Exceptions to find out.  In this episode: 1:40 - Introduction to ProfitWell 2:25 - What makes ProfitWell different? (The idea of Truth) 3:58 - Andy Cook’s experience using ProfitWell 6:14 - If ProfitWell were a person, who would it be? 7:30 - The fear of not making money vs. how to maximize your business 9:30 - Face the truth-Brand, Product and Content 12:00 - How many businesses start with a faulty foundation 13:54 - Build the foundation of your understanding first. 14:28 - Hear from ProfitWell’s founder and CEO, Patrick Campbell. 15:1

DG is traveling around Europe this week, sharing the good word on brand building. So for today's episode of Seeking Wisdom, we're throwing it back to one of our favorite episodes...on ideas. You don't need more of them, you need better execution. Learn how to pick out the good from the bad and how to actually execute. In this episode: 00:18 - Ranting about “ideas” 01:02 - Ideas that put you to sleep 01:30 - Why “ideas” hold no value 01:55 - Why NOW is the only real idea 02:30 - How to filter your ideas 03:09 - Synthesizing brings success 03:30 - Powerful ideas need immediate action 04:05 - Always trust your gut 04:35 - “Interesting” isn’t always worthy of action 04:45 - Real ideas always require implementation 05:15 - If you move the ball, you can move your mouth Before you go leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review and share the pod with your friends! Be sure to check out more insights on ideas and execution on the Drift blog at drift.com/blog and find us on Twitter @davegerhardt, @dcancel and @seekingwisdomio.

Pluralsight's Nate Walkingshaw literally wrote the book on product leadership. On this episode of Build, Nate dives into the importance of empathy in product and how his own background as an EMT helped him build more empathetic, more intuitive products. Plus, Nate shares his framework for the "product heart" – all of the key elements for what a healthy product should look like. In this episode: 00:35 - Nate’s journey from EMT to Chief Experience Officer (CXO) at Pluralsight 1:48 - Inventing products to solve EMT problem 3:25 - Nate’s work at Stryker 4:09 - The transition from hardware to software development 4:45 - Nate’s work at Strava 6:20 - Launching Strava’s first commerce based app 6:47 - Nate’s work as Head of Tanner Labs at O.C. Tanner 8:00 - The Mission of Pluralsight: Democratizing Technology Skills 8:30 - Joining Pluralsight   9:45 - How to develop a great product that impacts people 10:27 - Why “why” matters 11:25 - Direct Discovery: Mission, Vision and , & The Client 12:17 - Hearing the voice of t

Seeking Wisdom is back to discuss the importance of 1:1 meetings – what they are, why you and your team need them, the best 1:1 formats and more. Hint: As a manager, these meetings are all about listening and roadblock removal. Also in this episode, “skip 1 meetings” plus go inside DC and DG’s own 1:1 meetings – and DC’s format to steal for your own company. In this episode: Format Tips for Successful 1:1s Strive for weekly 1:1s with direct reports, every other week if you have to Embrace “skip 1 meetings” where you meet every two weeks or once a month with anyone else on the team Keep them casual – go for a walk to get coffee or a juice, get in a room to whiteboard, don’t write everything down, listen instead – this is not an interrogation! Encourage your direct reports to talk by embracing the silence, give them the room they need to talk. Tips for Direct Reports: Come to the meeting prepared with agenda – DG uses Evernote Notebooks to record what he wants to talk about. Go to the meeting with the top 3

On this episode of #Exceptions, we’re going inside Buffer. Buffer sells social media management tools for marketers, allowing you to schedule and analyze everything. It’s used by companies like Shopify, HelpScout, the Denver Broncos, and thousands more. The entire company is run on a platform of radical transparency. They’ve been publishing their revenues, metrics, and even employee salaries for years now. They’re truly walking the walk. Buffer doesn't just pay lip service to transparency. Buffer takes action. Buffer is creating something deeper than traffic. They’re starting conversations and then following through with their community. Through their public slack channel of over 5,000 members, they’re moving customers from traffic to audience to community. Think about your own company. Do you treat your customers as humans? Or merely as transactions? If the answer is the latter, that’s okay. These are changes that any company can make.

On this episode of Seeking Wisdom, DC & DG break down confirmation bias & why it's one of the most common biases that impacts how we make decisions at work and at home (and one of the top 25 Cognitive Biases that we deal with every day; arguably it's the #1 bias we have). Books mentioned on this episode: Thinking Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman  Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini If you're a fan of the show, we'd love it if you left a six-star rating on Apple Podcasts. And if you leave a review and then take a screenshot and tweet at @dcancel and @davegerhardt, we'll hook you up with copies of the two books mentioned on this show.  

Maybe you're in product dev, maybe you’re in marketing. Either way, you have customers, and your goal is to provide value for them, drive revenue, and surpass goals. Chances are, you’ve seen someone miss it. Maybe you’ve missed it.

Dave Gerhardt had read maybe 10 books his whole life. Then he met DC, who told him to read like his life (or at least career) depended on it. Now at Drift, he’s read over 100 in just 2 years. Why? Because it’s the difference between mediocrity and success. You can follow the greats in your area of interest, copy their results, implement their best practices, and avoid their mistakes. Maybe you’re thinking, “I don’t enjoy reading.” Neither did Dave. But after DC let him in on a few secrets, Dave began ravenously tearing through books on marketing, managing, training, things that mattered to him. 100 books later, he’s letting you in on his secrets, so today on Seeking Wisdom, DG is giving you three keys he learned from DC on on how to read for success PS. The Seeking Wisdom Official Facebook Group is live! One place, finally, for all of us to hang out, get updates on the podcast, and share what we’re learning (plus some exclusives). Just search for the Seeking Wisdom Official group on Facebook.

Customer support professionals remove the obstacles and clear the way for your customers to appreciate your product or service. They are the front lines of your business, representing your name day in, day out. Often time, customers service pros may be the only face or voice of a company someone can connect to the business. Yet, these individuals, the ones bearing the flag for an entire organization, are typically overworked, underpaid, and underserved. Meet Help Scout. Help Scout hasn’t just built a kick-ass SaaS product that enables CSRs and others to perform faster and better. They’ve created a culture where these professionals on the frontlines are valued, heard, and understood. Their clients love the product and the company, because both are built around them. From Help Scout’s customers, to their employees, to their CEO, to even those unhappy with how Help Scout’s changing the industry, I heard one thing in common with every stakeholder: Help Scout is ruthless about customer-centricity. They are an #Exc

In this one Pratima Arora, Head of Product at Confluence, discussed how she scaled two product teams - one for Salesforce and one for Atlassian, bringing genuine diversity to her teams at both companies in the process.

On this episode of Seeking Wisdom, DC & DG recap the behind the scenes of HYPERGROWTH East, including lessons from Jocko Willink, Casey Neistat, and what happened with Grant Cardone. HYPERGROWTH West is coming to San Francisco in 2 weeks on Monday 9/24 and there are a limited number of tickets still available. Visit hypergrowth.com and use the promo code SEEKINGWISDOM for a little surprise.