In this episode, Scott Hammer, the Vice President of Marketing at Striven, shares his journey on how he successfully marketed the company’s industry-agnostic ERP system despite limited funding and a small user base. He also highlights the importance of aligning verticals and customizing the product to cater to various businesses. Scott further discusses Striven’s various partner programs and emphasizes his top three marketing lessons.
Scott Hammer is an accomplished professional with a successful career in sales, marketing, and partnerships. With a track record of driving revenue growth and establishing strong relationships, Scott has led teams and implemented integrated strategies to achieve impressive results. His expertise spans various industries, including technology, education, and publishing, where he has consistently delivered impactful solutions and exceptional customer experiences. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market:
- Understanding customer needs involves recognizing unique value propositions and adapting to market segments’ diversity and differences.
- Influencing developments requires getting everyone on the same page, remaining focused on your own company’s use case, paying attention to the marketplace’s needs, and growing your customer base.
- The acquisition cycle can be extended due to the many stakeholders involved in the decision-making process
- Striven Software offers two partner programs: a referral program for technology consultants and an integration partnership for products that integrate with ERPs.
- Hammer’s first marketing lesson is to not chase shiny objects and wait two weeks before bringing an idea to leadership.
- Thirdly, Hammer stresses the importance of aligning your passions with the product or service you’re working on and the company you’re in.
Resources:
Connecting with Scott Hammer:
Connecting with Brian Mattocks:
Quotables:
- 04:32 – “We don’t raise rounds of funding, like a lot of other, like a lot of our competitors, not all of them, but some of them. And then I think that’s pretty typical in tech. You know, you have a new product, let’s throw just a bunch of money into it, hire a ton of people, you know, just throw everything at the wall, see what sticks, and then cut back from there. Ours is really different.”
- 19:01 – “I think functionality is sometimes more important than industry. I mean, you, you have to show that you can serve an industry. And, and I, what I mean by that is you can’t just show it on your website. You can’t just say it. You have to have customers that have had proven success in your industry, and you have to show that you have the ability to be a game changer.”
- 14:34 – “Because you have, there’s two bridges in the product space, right? There’s the bridge to your current customers in the bridge to your potential customers, right? And so you represent essentially the future of their product and the current customers represent, you know, the lifetime value and that kind of stuff. So it’s a really interesting kind of place where you have to sit to kind of manage all of that stuff as, as you’ve done that.”
- 09:16 – “Very often, and at least in my experience, I can say, well, you know, I think that our solution is great for X, Y, and Z. Well, when you do your market research or you go out and you start doing any meaningful discovery, they go, no, no, your value is in, you know, A, B, and C. How do you reconcile those disconnects, and, you know, that has to inform the product dev team at some point as well, right?”
- 27:41 Brian: “What are the three top, top three things that come to mind in your journey that you can share with our listeners?”
Scott: “Number one, don’t chase shiny objects. There are a lot of shiny objects out there, and it’s, it’s wise to consider, you know, if something seems like a good idea, and if you’re a passionate and excited person, everything’s going to seem like a good idea at first. Wait two weeks before bringing it to anyone else, especially your leadership. And if it seems like a good idea after two weeks, then go ahead and bring it.”