ALISON: Yeah. And it, and it takes, it takes a lot of, you know, guts as a marketing leader. Who, again, like you said, in tech, a lot of times it's traditionally looked on as, you know, someone who's just performing all these activities, you know? Well, yeah. To put yourself out there and really just insert yourself into all the different new zealand whatsapp departments, like call up your chief product officer and have, you know, weekly by weekly meetings with them discussing roadmaps so that you can better influence your messaging and like all these things. I think if you're, if you're doing marketing well, and you're doing positioning and messaging well and brand, well, you have to do that. And ultimately that'll add a lot of value to the business. Cause brand value matters a lot.
CAROLINE: It does matter a lot. And it influences performance, right? It's not two separate things. It goes together.
ALISON: Definitely. Yeah. I think that's, that's something even recently, I've been talking a lot with my other executives and board about is just the importance of, of brand value on your enterprise value. And it's something that we're really excited about. So it's, it's good. It takes time, but once you get there, it, it matters a lot.
CAROLINE: Yeah. It does matter a lot. Awesome. So, yeah, just a couple more questions. One is, you know, like you just mentioned this one example, but there are a lot of things that we do in marketing that, you know, we hear a lot about them and you can like, you can look it up, but it's really difficult for people that are not in marketing to understand how they relate to each other, you know, how it actually works, why matters. Do you have like insights that you can share on, Like how, how do you communicate and educate your team members so that you guys are on the same page?
ALISON: Yeah. So I think education is obviously super important and to get people's, especially at the C-suite level and the board level to get their time and focus, it can be difficult, right. They have alot going on. So I always align when I do meet with them, whether it's one-on-one or in a group, I always aligned what I'm talking about to their current priorities, because if you can educate them in that moment, opportunistically, they're more willing to listen and they're more willing to absorb what you're talking about. So say, you know, you just raised a bunch of money and the board has given you the mandate to hire people, use that as an opportunity to meet with them and say, or even just send them, you know, a deck of like, these are the people I'm hiring and these, these are the different things they're going to be doing and why it matters, you know, that's relating to what they care about, but it's also allowing you to educate them on why it's important that you are even hiring these people in the first place. Right. So I think it's about educating them opportunistically rather than kind of like, you know, forcing them into it.
CAROLINE: That's pretty good. I really like it. All right. Great. So my last question for you, what are some of the most valuable lessons you've learned as a marketing leader?
ALISON: A lot I've learned a lot, especially, you know, at this company over the past like four and a half years. Yeah. I would say just the importance of collaboration between departments and how, you know, I knew marketing always from my past experiences, running marketing was at the nexus of everything, but when you're in a high growth startup, it's a whole new world and you have the opportunity as a marketing leader to run operations, to run strategy if you want it. And again, it takes that, that level of just like inserting yourself into other departments and inserting yourself into those conversations. But you can add a ton of value. I think I've learned just how much difference it can make to a business's growth if they prioritize marketing as a strategic asset, rather than a tactical one. And I've been able to seen it, see it firsthand, you know, and be part of it. So it's been like fun.
CAROLINE: That's amazing. Well, Alison, thank you so much for spending time with us today. I really, really appreciate it. And this was such a fun conversation.
