Ben Winn of Catalyst Software joins the podcast to discuss his role as Community & Events Manager at the company. Ben recently joined the Catalyst team and we chatted further about his strategy to start making an impact at a new organization immediately, why you should separate growth and success when measuring the health of your community and how he is approaching event strategy during COVID-19.
Ben Winn of Catalyst Software joins the podcast to discuss his role as Community & Events Manager at the company. Ben recently joined the Catalyst team and we chatted further about his strategy to start making an impact at a new organization immediately, why you should separate growth and success when measuring the health of your community and how he is approaching event strategy during COVID-19.
Who is this episode great for?
Community new hires, Virtual event managers, In-person communities
What’s the biggest takeaway?
Ben shares his strategy of cozying up to the sales team when starting in a new community role. This allows you to have an org-wide impact on revenue which ultimately is what matters most while also learning how to adapt your strategy to meet your team’s needs. Ben also shares his theory on the importance of separating growth and success as community health metrics.
Speaker 1:
You recently joined the Catalyst team just within the last few weeks. How has it been jumping right into your role in the middle of the global pandemic?
Speaker 2:
It's been interesting to say the least, I think, as most community managers can definitely relate to. A lot has gone up in the air with the pandemic. In the weeks leading up to me starting, I was actually waiting pretty much every day for that call from the Catalyst CEO telling me they no longer needed me, and they were canceling my contract. So after my first day, I breathed a big sigh of relief because we're doing a lot more than in-person events, and I'm glad we're all on the same page with that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. I mean, we've seen this sort of really troubling trend, honestly, with community folks, people who don't understand what they do, and it's sort of getting in the essential work that they actually provide as sort of part of a lot of these layoffs that we're seeing. What's been different at Catalyst? What do they see in community that has made it something that's been a resilient part of the team?
Speaker 2:
Well, I think we all have kind of the same vision and understanding that community is not just events management. Community is facilitating connections between people, leveraging the collective intellect and experience of a full group of people. And regardless of whether that's in-person at a massive conference, or if that's over a podcast, or it's over a panel, or it's over a Slack team, or it's one-to-one connections that you're facilitating as a community intermediary, whatever form that takes, people still need that human connection and companies can still benefit from that C2C marketing and that approach.
Speaker 2:
So Catalyst's leadership and I are really aligned on that vision, which is why I think we've been able to double down on community, whereas other companies who might not share that vision have been maybe letting people go or cutting budgets.
Speaker 1:
For those that don't know, just tell us briefly, what is Catalyst Software, and then what's your role there?
Speaker 2:
Awesome. So Catalyst Software is an operating system for your customer success function. So I went from a job where I always had to explain what I did and prove my value in customer success to another job where I always have to explain what I do and prove my value in community management. But the difference basically with Catalyst as a CS software is that our whole focus is bringing CS to the center of the organization by allowing complete visibility across departments versus other software where you're paying per seed. And it really silos CS into one, within just the CS function.
Speaker 2:
So we're still a startup, but we raised our series A 10 months ago. A few weeks ago, we announced our series B of 25 million. So those rounds were raised really quickly in succession, and it's just really showing how excited the CS community is for a solution like this and to have more of that community connection.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so we've heard of a lot of different types of event ideas over the years, and you're doing some pretty out of the box, off the wall things. So tell us about some of the event programs that you're running or that you're dreaming up.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. I mean, I wish I could go into a ton of detail, but because some of it hasn't been announced yet, I can't do that. But I mean, a big thing that's indicative of my approach is usually just kind of starting with seeing what's out there and looking for the gaps. It's really that approach. And there's another kind of angle to that that I love from Danny Meyer and his book Setting the Table. He says his approach to opening restaurants... So he's a really famous restaurateur out of New York for those who don't know, but he has a rule which is just, "Whoever said... blank?" Whoever said that events had to be this way? Whoever said that you had to... Fill in whatever you like. But the idea is kind of look for those rules that you can break. So look for the ways that other people are doing things and go, "Whoever said that it had to be like this?" And then target your strategy that way.
Speaker 2:
So one example of that, I mean, that I can share is, I did previously, I was planning events and running community for a international surgical society. And the first event I ever ran for them, I did a competitive analysis. I looked at everything else that was out there. I looked at the target group, and I'm like, "You know what would make an incredible event? We're coming to Canada. We just legalized cannabis. Let's have gourmet cannabis edibles, and let's have burlesque dancers. Because I know these amazing burlesque dancers that we can come in, and it'll be entertaining and original, all this stuff." And they thought I was absolutely insane. We ended up settling on a hypnotist and no dancers. But I always try to go as far as I can, and then have the person who's paying for it kind of reel me back into reality.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. They're always a kind of critical part of the whole actually getting it out the door. I mean, hey, you start, you aim high, and you finish somewhere equally high or close by.
Speaker 2:
I'd always rather be real then than not go far enough with something. So the more out there something is, the more people remember it, the more people enjoy it.
Speaker 1:
What do you think these community programs and events, from your experience, and now with a CS product and company, are they better suited for acquisition of new customers? Are they better suited for retention, general support? Where do you put yourself in terms of the reasons for doing these programs? And maybe specifically as a CS company, how do you look at it at Catalyst?
Speaker 2:
Well, I think, I mean, I've always said building community in CS... Because previous to Catalyst, I founded CS in Focus, which is Canada's largest customer success community. And I've always said it's like shooting fish in a barrel when you're creating a community in customer success. Because you're taking people who literally make their living by helping other people be successful, and you're putting them in a room together, whether virtual or in person. So a lot of what we're doing in the approach is just based off of that. These are people who love to help each other, lend their support, lend their time, expecting nothing in return. And it's just kind of who they are as people.
Speaker 2:
So there's a few angles to it. I think the most valuable for us is kind of twofold. One is with existing customers, helping each other better leverage the product and learn how they're using it and doing innovative things with it. And the other is definitely on... Awareness is a big thing for Catalyst right now. We just raised this big round, but we need to keep getting our name out there. And so bringing in new customers and being able to offer to prospects and say, "Hey, we're hosting this event. We're holding this panel. We're doing this article or this video feature. Would you like to be a part of it?"
Speaker 2:
And it has nothing to do with promoting Catalyst or that, it's a community initiative. But it allows us to have that conversation and to lift them up and help our community at the same time. So it's going for that win, win, win kind of scenario.
Speaker 1:
I mean, I feel like we ask this question almost every episode, and I just love to get the variation of answers that we get, but for you as a long time community person and a community builder yourself, what metrics do you track to gauge growth? What does success look like from an analytics perspective for you or from a data perspective?
Speaker 2:
Yeah. I mean, I think this is still definitely an ongoing... This is one of the things I love listening to from previous episodes because it's a really important thing that I'm tackling in Catalyst. The first thing I would do is separate growth and success. So growth metrics can be anything like tickets sold, social engagement, attrition rate, newsletter signups. But success is where the real challenge lies, so how do you evaluate the success of the impact of community, especially in a commercial setting?
Speaker 2:
So my approach with it is to start with, okay, at the end of the day, I'm here to help the company succeed. For the company to succeed, we need more revenue. To get more revenue, we need people to know who we are and buy our software. How can I in my role drive that awareness and drive sales? How can I measure if I'm in fact driving awareness and sales? What tech are we using or could we use? And I just kind of keep working backwards until I arrive at some sort of conclusion there and then do some creative brainstorming.
Speaker 2:
So to get a little more specific, the metrics I'm looking at right now are new sales opportunities, faster sales cycle, more organic referrals, and a highly engaged community. Because you can do a lot better with a community of 20 really engaged people than 1,000 disengaged people. So those are kind of my four pillars. And right now, now that I've established those, the next challenge is, okay, how do we track back all of our sales opportunities to determine where that lead came from and so on?
Speaker 1:
With COVID and there's probably some sort of curve of the stages of grief for an event, a person in the midst of COVID, you've worked on conferences, I've worked on conferences, any ideas for just how you're thinking about this right now in terms of if someone is looking at postponing or trying to figure out what they do? What are your thoughts around that? What's your advice for somebody like that?
Speaker 2:
The biggest thing is don't do something for the sake of doing something. I saw so many people who immediately when COVID hit, just everything virtual right away, everything virtual. And as you well know, and everyone listening knows, that conversion doesn't always work from a live event to a virtual event. So you had your plans, they're no longer feasible. So go back to the original question of why you had those plans in the first place and think about another way to accomplish what your goals were.
Speaker 2:
So to me, simply digitizing a conference is somewhat lazy, shows a lack of creativity. And I think while, for example, a lot of us had vacations planned before COVID. So instead of going to Paris, did we Google photos of the Eiffel Tower and click through the street view and that kind of thing? No, we're going to do that later, and in the meantime we're doing other stuff that we think is going to be really fun and cool. We're day drinking and watching RuPaul's Drag Race. So what's that equivalent for your conference? What's the subject matter? What are the challenges, the struggles? What was your overall goal? And how can you get creative, but still accomplishing those goals, but adapted for a new environment?
Speaker 1:
Yeah. I mean, it's a great insight, and it sort of changes day-by-day and week-by-week, it feels like too. That it's like maybe what you thought, I mean, what I thought in the end of April is certainly not what I thought at the end of May. And WHO comes out and makes an announcement, and the whole thing changes again.
Speaker 2:
Definitely.
Speaker 1:
So it sort of feels like just being flexible, moving quickly. And then what I sort of heard from you is just trying to be really authentic to what your brand is, and also sort of sincerely looking at the user and what they need and what will make them successful and not just sort of slapping a virtual wrapper on something and calling it good.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, exactly. I think things have changed, so we have to change with it. And I think the biggest thing, especially, I mean, at first we had COVID, but now we've got these protests happening globally. So again, there's been another monumental shift. I have cringed every time I've hit post on LinkedIn or Twitter over the past week because I don't want to be posting anything that takes away from the incredibly important messages that are over those platforms. But I still have to do my job, so it's finding that balance.
Speaker 2:
And I think a lot of people are also in that similar spot, whether it was because of COVID or the protests or something else. Figuring out that balance and figuring out how to be sensitive to what's going on in the world is really important. We can't just block it all out and just keep going as if everything's the same as it always was.
Speaker 1:
Back to you sort of being a new person inside of this organization, I wonder just how you are approaching being the new person, and how you can have an impact quickly, either going into any type of community role or just starting a new job in general? How have you approached or how are you thinking about just coming in and sort of making an impact right away?
Speaker 2:
The biggest thing for me has probably been to cozy up to the sales team. We talk about immediate impact. Companies need revenue. So make the salespeople your best friends. Fortunately, in my case, they're also wonderful people. So I don't have to be disingenuous at all. But figure out, like I've started going straight to them, and I said, "How can I help you? What do you need?" Okay, I talked to them one idea that I was working on, and they were like, "That's great, but what we need is more of this kind of stuff." And so I was able to pivot my strategy, and I was able to learn what they need and make sure I was adapting and serving their needs as best I can. And from there it's expanding to the rest of the company. But definitely starting with that top of the funnel, driving sales, driving revenue, that's what matters most. So that's where I started.
Speaker 1:
As we start to wrap up, I'd love to hear about a community that you love and why you love it? Tell us about it.
Speaker 2:
Well, there's so many cool... I mean, okay. I can start with the obvious, which as someone who... So previously I was doing community stuff all in my spare time. That was like volunteer weekends, nights, all that kind of stuff, and I was working in customer success during the day. So throughout all that time, CMX was a super helpful resource to go to in learning about that. I did talk to [Gian 00:13:11] from Startup Grind a year-and-a-half ago, and he was incredibly helpful in giving me advice. I mean, Fuckup Nights has been an amazing presence here in Toronto. They do amazing events, and it's all about getting genuine, getting real. I mean, there are so many communities that I have to be grateful for, essentially for helping me and giving back to the community. And so I'd say those are just a few. I'm probably leaving a bunch of good ones out, but...