We will periodically feature a new B2B marketer answering questions about their job, their best tips, their B2B skill set, and showcase their marketing and career advice.
This month we are excited to feature Mike Moore, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Averetek. I first met Mike after attending the “Top 6 Ways to get Channel Partners More Engaged and Productive” webinar that he co-presented. I was impressed by the amount of helpful substance and style of delivery
His willingness to share hard-earned knowledge is also very apparent in the book “Marketing Multiplied” which he co-authored. It’s a phenomenal book for anyone in channel/partner marketing.
In his spare time, he keeps busy with his wife and 3 children, his new golden doodle, flying drones and attending Boston Red Sox championship parades.
Your Job
- How would you explain to a ten-year-old what your company does?
I have a 12-year old who is aware that I work in Channel Marketing, and kind of understands it. I explain to him and others that at Averetek, we make software that helps people share their ideas with not just hundreds but thousands of people.
- How would you explain to a ten-year-old what you do for work?
As the leader of sales and marketing for Averetek, my job is to help us find new customers
Marketing Tips
- Which element of your marketing tech stack would you recommend to others? Why?
Hubspot has been the core of our marketing tech stack for the past 4.5 years. We use it for hosting our website, blog, landing pages, as well as for email marketing and posting on social media. Hubspot continues to evolve and add value as our tactics and needs change, which makes us very happy Hubspot customers.
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What’s the best piece of content that you or your team produced recently? What makes it so good?
We wrote a launch communication e-book with an actionable template for companies that struggle with launching a new channel partner program, channel marketing platform or anything else to their channel partners. We are focused on creating content that is not just theoretical but also includes a template, a tool or any other helpful resources that helps them see things through to execution. Not only is this piece useful for customers, but it has also become a great piece of content to market to and attract new customers.
- What’s your best tip for establishing a productive relationship with your sales team?
The most productive relationships are the ones where there is alignment between the sales and marketing leadership teams that cascades through joint planning and regular meetings. These are essential pieces to ensure that both sides are contributing to building a successful business.
- What’s your best tip for getting the best out of your Marketing team?
Marketing and Sales need to get involved together at the ground level to develop quarterly and annual business plans. This is to ensure that they have the swim lanes drawn out as to who is responsible for what while orchestrating the handoffs along the way so that it’s clear how everyone will be doing this together. We want to be doing things that add value to what the company is trying to achieve versus being disconnected and seen as separate from the main drivers of the business growth.
Productivity Tips
- What daily or weekly habit is the most important thing you do to help you be productive and successful at work?
I’m pretty old school when it comes to task management, so if I need to work on something I put a time block on my calendar. If I need to work on a blog post, I will block off four hours on my calendar, which may seem excessive, but I don’t think that you can have a time limit to do creative things. I also know from my style of work that if I need to write, I’m best to make that the very first task of my day.
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Is there a specific app that you really like that helps you be productive?
I don’t travel as much as I used to, but even when I do, I find TripIt to be a brilliant app. The way that TripIt brings the plans together from a variety of sources is very useful.
Career Advice
- What’s the weirdest job you’ve ever had in your career?
I spent six years in the Army National Guard as a military policeman.
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What did you study in university, and how has it helped you in your career?
I originally came out of high school wanting a career in law enforcement, so I started my college education as a political science major and from there I planned to go to law school. Then my career took a side path, and I ended up in tech instead and abandoned the law enforcement career. I eventually returned to school to get my BS in management, which has been helpful as I went on with my career.
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What’s the best interview question to evaluate a B2B marketer?
We’ve adopted a hiring methodology here at Averetek where our initial interview questions focus solely on the values of the candidate. Values are things that you learn from the time that you’re a child and how you develop as a person into adulthood. The things that you consider most important to you and how you think about the world and others are all contained in your values. Many interview questions start with your skills and experiences “Tell me what you’re good at, what you’ve done,” but if you don’t check their values first, then that stuff doesn’t matter, as it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to change somebody’s value system.
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What advice would you give to your 25 year-old self?
I would tell myself to be patient, as now that we’re older we all know that our career path is never a straight line, and sometimes the way it all ends up is quite nice. There’s a reason for the experiences that you have along the way, including the setbacks. Patience is key and ends up being what pays off. I believe that trusting in the universe and that things are all happening for a reason and everything has a way of working itself out is the best way to go, that has certainly been the story of my life and my career.
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What’s the biggest intangible that you look for in a job candidate?
Finding people who have an empathetic point of view is crucial for us. I want to work with people who can look over at me as a colleague, or as a partner, or as a customer, or a prospect and try to put themselves in my shoes and understand what challenges I face and what are the opportunities.
At Averetek we ask ourselves, how can we as a partner work with channel marketers who may not have experience deploying marketing automation systems, yet are considering our product, and set them up for a great career moment? How can we help them mitigate risk? How can we help them seize the opportunity? How can this be a very positive inflection point in their career?
- What underrated skills should every marketer have to succeed today? In three years?
Empathy is number one, but I also think that if you’re a marketer in 2019 and don’t have somewhat of a technical skillset, then I don’t know how you function. Having an imagination and aptitude for technology is an essential skill as so much of what we do currently involves the use of it. In my career of over 25 years in tech & marketing, I’ve come across people who would sit in at a computer and say, “I’m not really good in front of a computer,” That’s where I would cringe and respond, “How can you market in tech and not only be good in front of your own PC and using it, but also not understand software and how different tools exist to help with certain technical challenges in marketing.”
B2B Skillset
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How do you keep your B2B skillset up-to-date?
I dedicate my time to reading tech industry news and general marketing news because sometimes the best ideas that I find that are relevant to channel marketing come from elsewhere.
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Which conference is a can’t-miss for you? Why?
We are a sponsor of the Channel Focus North America that serves the niche market we serve. 100% of the attendees are channel people, which is a lot better than going to a bigger conference and trying to find the channel people.
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Which blogs or newsletters are a must-read for you? Why?
– Scott Brinker’s Chief Marketing Technologist Blog
– Ann Handley’s weekly newsletter
– Seth Godin’s daily email, which is usually short but thoughtful
– Mark Schaefer’s Grow daily newsletter
– Gary Vaynerchuk’s blogs and video content
– Jay Baer’s blogLast Question
- How do you spend your free time?
We spend most of our free time with our three kids. Our oldest is in college and we also have a high school junior and a sixth grader. Since our oldest is in college, we’re cherishing our time with our younger ones, as we are close to that window where the end of it is going to go by quickly, so we’re just enjoying them. We also have a new golden doodle puppy that we just brought home eight weeks ago.
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What book or podcast would you strongly recommend?
The Marketing Book Podcast by Douglas Burdett. Douglas puts lots of time into his work and gets big-name authors as well as new authors you might not have heard. There’s always something useful in each episode.
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If you weren’t a B2B marketer, what would you choose as a career?
I gave up on my aspirations of working in law enforcement a long time ago because I’m too old for that now. However, I’ve started working on my commercial license to be a drone pilot. It’s a fun hobby for now, but the future possibilities will be interesting.
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