CTM - Amy Sitnick
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Amy Sitnick: [00:00:00] it's real easy to, say, quantify your success by how many emails you sent or how many leads you've driven, but the face-to-face client interaction and how you're maximizing that is super important.
Welcome to Connect to Market. I'm Casey Cheshire. Join the conversation with the marketing leaders driving the fastest growing B2B brands. We're sponsored by Ringmaster, building B2B podcasts and communities to reconnect you with your audience
Casey Cheshire: Here we go. have left the station, and we are rocking this thing. I'm so excited to introduce my guest today. amazing. Uh, fellow community member, absolute fellow marketing badass. She is so cool. I can't wait to learn from her today. who is she, Casey? Who?
Well, let me tell you. Seasoned, four times VP of marketing, marketing thought leader, community member. She's bringing great [00:01:00] insights. She's in the breakout sessions just dropping wisdom bombs. She is all about the account-based, the data-driven, the connecting. Uh, she is a connector. In fact, she connected me with, like, two fantastic guests you'll probably he- be hearing on this show a little bit later on, several episodes from now. She is connected, and at the end of this, she so chooses to share some connection information, connect with her because she is the one to know. She's led strategic initiatives across multiple industries, deep, experience in the pharma and health and drug research, life sciences, all the, the human-sized marketing. Ask around. Again, bringing data, creativity. And she eas- even is known for wrangling cross-functional teams, which i- is like wrangling a zoo of different kinds of people. We're gonna get into all of that today. VP of Marketing at VeeDoc, Sitnik. Welcome to the show
Amy Sitnick: Thank you so much, Casey. I'm so excited to be here today
Casey Cheshire: You know, we almost had our show before hitting record. You asked me a great [00:02:00] question, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I could answer this." And then we'd, we'd be half an hour, we'd surface and be like, "Oh, wait, we should have recorded that." So instead we hit the record
Amy Sitnick: That's right
Casey Cheshire: So to ask this first question, I need to enlist the help of a giant blue foam finger. I hope you're ready for this. Amy, what is the number one thing, one thing that marketers need to do in order to connect to their market?
Amy Sitnick: I mean, you have to know the people. You have to know the people in your company, you have to know your clients, you know, need to know the influencers, you need to know who is writing about your industry. So for me, it's really getting to know all those different stakeholders and, you know, clients being number one, right?
W- what is their challenge and why should they buy it from you? So that's what we really have to understand. Sometimes you do it through a client interview. Definitely, um, get to know your clients through all of your client-facing folks in your company. And then I love research, you know, and I think you can do quick and dirty, you know, SurveyMonkey kind of surveys just to understand what [00:03:00] are the key trends and pain points that are impacting your, you know, your buyers, your potential buyers.
It's really important
Casey Cheshire: What kind of questions do you put on that survey?
Amy Sitnick: So I've done a couple different surveys, and some are like CSAT surveys, like are they satisfied with their technology and understand what they like and what they don't like. Um, and then, you know, pro tip, I definitely ask in there, you know, are, would you be willing to, you know, provide a testimonial or even be on a video such as, as this?
But for more sort of product-oriented or thought leadership questions, I really ask about sort of like what are the strategic initiatives within their companies? So for us it's patient engagement, AI for sure, um, regulatory topics. Those are things that are interesting to know about. Um, but then also, you know, what are the impediments getting in their way?
Um, and then do they think technology can make a difference? 'Cause at our core, we are a te- technology [00:04:00] company that's helping us sort of move the industry ahead.
Casey Cheshire: do people have to complete the whole thing? And do you make them, like, super long? 'Cause I know I've definitely bounced out of some serial... I'm like, "Oh, I got this." And then I'm like pages in, I'm like, "I don't got this."
Amy Sitnick: I don't know. I, I mean, I always have to dial myself back, you know, because there's all kinds of things that I wanna know, my colleagues have always wanted to know. So, um, obviously the shorter the better. But I found that if you, um, have an engaged client base and you're asking the right people, they'll want to, to share their point of view.
So they appreciate having a platform in order to do that. Um, I would try to keep questions for, you know, a thought leader prospect kind of, um, survey to, like, under 10 questions, and that includes some of the demographic information. But then other questions, um, you know, y- for a client-oriented survey you can make it a little bit longer.
And it depends really, again, on your industry and your client base. I don't... [00:05:00] Sometimes people ask me the question of, you know, do you give a gift card, you know, or something for completing surveys? And it really depends on the company. I've done it and I've not done it
Casey Cheshire: Oh, so you've done it and not done it. What, what tends to be the, the decision maker for you about that?
Amy Sitnick: So usually budget. Budget's always our restrainer. Um,
Casey Cheshire: Fair
Amy Sitnick: So one thing that I've done that's really been useful has been to offer like a raffle of either two, um, you know, enter to win one of two Amazon gift cards, or, um, you can also offer, um, a charitable donation in that person's honor, and they get to choose the donation source, you know, of their choosing.
And so that way, you know, you're sort of playing into the humanity of the business as well
Casey Cheshire: Yeah. No, like, yeah, but, but like, why-- I feel like that, that gets so underplayed, the idea of the humanity of them. we tend to see them as like ones and [00:06:00] zeros a little too
often. Where do you think that comes from?
Amy Sitnick: The humanity in terms of why someone would wanna contribute, um, to a third party
Casey Cheshire: Yeah, no, I was thinking more of like the lack of seeing the humanity. know? Like we don't always see the humanity in, in the folks we're reaching out to.
Amy Sitnick: Yeah.
Casey Cheshire: it's because behind the digital side
Amy Sitnick: That, well, that's, that's especially true, and I think that's why, you know, there's always sort of a push/pull in terms of our B2B marketer's world in, terms of digital versus in-person events, and you really can't replace, building relationships. it's real easy to, say, quantify your success by how many emails you sent or how many leads you've driven, but the face-to-face client interaction and how you're maximizing that is super important.
Um, and then I think also if you're thinking about, [00:07:00] like, how do you bring the humanity to your, to your digital marketing, it's all about the stories. So those would be the stories of your people. Um, I'm doing a really great blog right now with one of my colleagues who I discovered not only has worked in clinical research and then worked at VDOC, but she's also been a clinical trial participant.
You know, so it's really cool to, to just ask questions of, you know, who your colleagues are and discover, you know, who has a story that's interesting to tell. Um, and you know, there's so many folks that you could bring onto webinars and, and, you know, do case studies around to talk about s- really what does this mean, you know, of us working together?
Casey Cheshire: Yeah. I love that. Okay. Well, you know, with that, I have, I have sort of a part two on that question. Could you tell me about a time a human connection like this, the humanity side, you know, it could've been a podcast, community, partnership, you know, m- uh, something at [00:08:00] an event or just some, some kind of real conversation led to a business result that no ad or automation could have delivered?
Amy Sitnick: So there's a lot. I mean, b- I mean, I, I love, I love a trade show because sometimes, you know, I'll sit down next to somebody, you know, at a lunch and not know who the person is, and then it turns into a relationship that's gonna last for years. Um, so I had quite a few of those over time, and there was a time when there was a patient advocate who I met, you know, at a show, and she's become a lifelong friend.
I've had her come and speak to my product teams over the years and participated with her in terms of joint thought leadership. So I think that those kind of relationships are really important. Um, they become part of, you know, your company's story through extension. Um, but if I sort of flip that and think a little bit more about how we're enabling our sales colleagues, one experience I had earlier this year resulted in just sitting down face-to-face with one of the sales teams for an emerging product my company had.[00:09:00]
And I was hearing that, you know, they have a really great product. People just don't know about it. And I start asking them questions. "Well, tell me, do you know who you want to target?" They're like, "Yes, we do. We've, we know it's these top 25 agencies, and I want to go after them." And I said, "Well, you know what?
Let's, let's try something different. Let's, let's do a direct mail. You know, there is all this digital. Let's, let's try a direct mail approach." And so what we did was we did a real sexy box, like a printed box with, um, a handwritten note with some collateral on the inside, and we sent it, and sometimes actually hand-delivered some of these boxes to these clients.
And some of the, the hard-to-reach prospects reached out to the sales team and said, "You got me. Like, I'm, I'm interested in a meeting." And these were folks who were really elusive. And it worked. It broke through the clutter of all the emails, all the advertising, the [00:10:00] trade shows even, because it was a little bit unique, but it all came down to the sales team telling me what were their challenges and me thinking about sort of my extension of vendors and people who I really consider to be pretty strategic as, um, you know, in my marketing Rolodex, if you will.
And I was like, "You know what? I've seen this idea, and I wanna activate this now." And we did, and it was really successful
Casey Cheshire: the point you made in there is I mean, there's several things, but one that I heard was that like the uniqueness and the fun of this box with collateral, it, it won you a shot,
Amy Sitnick: It did
Casey Cheshire: but it could easily then be like, "Cool recycling. for the snack bag,"
Amy Sitnick: You're right
Casey Cheshire: had the collateral with the pain and this, all the right things because you had done that research to be able to earn the rest of the
Amy Sitnick: 100%. So we
Casey Cheshire: yeah.
Amy Sitnick: [00:11:00] So we knew what our offering was and how it was solving, you know, the, the client's pain points. In the box were some pretty cool things. So I don't know about you, but I'm terrible at drinking water.
Casey Cheshire: Yeah
Amy Sitnick: so we were actually marketing to other marketers for this product, and what the, um, one of the things that was inside the box was a water bottle that was tech-enabled.
So we were also trying to show that we were sort of a techy provider. Um, so it had an app connected to the water bottle to remind you to drink water. So
Casey Cheshire: That's
Amy Sitnick: we thought people within that sort of marketing agency that was doing healthcare advertising would think that that was a pretty slick, um, option, and that they would talk about it, and they did.
But it really started with me sitting down as marketing and hearing from the sales reps where they were challenged. They had the story, they knew the accounts, and they [00:12:00] wanted to get in front of them in a unique way
Casey Cheshire: And it worked.
Amy Sitnick: It worked
Casey Cheshire: It worked. I feel like you, addressed the humanity and their, challenge. You addressed them as, as people and the fact that these people going through something,
Amy Sitnick: Mm-hmm
Casey Cheshire: and that, worked.
Amy Sitnick: Yeah.
Casey Cheshire: Man, that's so cool.
Amy Sitnick: It is cold
Casey Cheshire: That's, that's, that's one of the coolest, uh, proof stories I've heard just around that. Um, uh, a quick follow-up on that, have you been-- I, I know the answer to this, but have you been to a CTM roundtable? How did it go?
Amy Sitnick: I have been to a CTM roundtable and, you know, like all other marketers and folks in business today, we're incredibly busy, right? I mean, like, it is hard sometimes to make the time to attend different functions. Now, I used to go pre-COVID. I was very involved with a lot of B2B marketing associations, and I still love networking, and I get a lot of my best ideas from other marketers.
But those [00:13:00] are really hard to come by or to make the time for. And so I didn't make it for a while, you know, to the, um, to the roundtables. And then when I did, I was like, "This is one of the best events that I've been to in a really long time." Not... And I'm not just saying that. Like, I thought the
Casey Cheshire: I
Amy Sitnick: quality of the people that were there, the format was great, and I got real value that I was able to then share back with my direct marketing team and folks that are, like, my connections from other marketing, 'cause I've got, you know, a, a whole virtual marketing squad of, of friends out here.
I was like,
Casey Cheshire: Heck
Amy Sitnick: " I got really good value out of this. Here's what people are doing with events. Here's what people are doing with exec communities. Here's what people are doing with AI." And I, I mean, I, I wanna mimic the concept, you know, for my own clients,
Casey Cheshire: Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, it, it, something about just being able to be real, and I think the kicking all the meeting note takers out is one of the most fun parts. Well, it's kind of a pain in the ass 'cause [00:14:00] there's like 30 of them that show up. But, you know, there's something to that where we go, "Okay, let's... Okay, humanity up. Let's go. Let's talk through our challenges here,
Amy Sitnick: Yeah.
Casey Cheshire: With each
Amy Sitnick: And We do it. We connect and we talk on the side. You know? I, I love that. So now I know I've got a healthcare marketing friend in Seattle, and I've got another friend, you know, in Atlanta, so it's been really useful
Casey Cheshire: Well, question for you is super fun. It, it is called the framework. Dun, dun, dun. If you had to build a connect-to-market strategy from scratch and you have no budget for ads, what would be your top three moves to get in front of and build trust with your ideal buyers?
Amy Sitnick: So it's very reflective of exactly where I am right now. Um,
Casey Cheshire: let's
Amy Sitnick: so recently joined, um, a company called Vidoc, and I'm helping to build, you know, a US-based and global marketing strategy. And what I would do [00:15:00] in this situation is, you know, similar to what we were talking before about connecting to our potential client base, is I would tap the internal experts around the organization.
Some- sometimes those don't have to be your chief product officer or head of strategy, though it is great if you can get those folks to, you know, buy in and be involved from a marketing perspective. But sometimes it's just folks that are, you know, on your customer success team, and help... You know, hear what those folks are doing, Yeah what clients are interested in, and build your thought leadership strategy from, um, some of the, the value which your platform enables.
So that's exactly what I'm doing right now. I'm building content. I'm, you know, leveraging some AI to do it, but definitely human in the loop. Another thing that I think is super important, and an area that I'm, you know, actually doing also right now, [00:16:00] is influencers, and that doesn't have to be somebody who's a Kardashian.
You know, in your specific spaces, who are the nonprofits that are movers and shakers? You know, who are the other folks that are regulatory experts? Invite those people. Those people need a voice too, and they will help to amplify your, your content and your approach. And so making sure that you're collaborating with folks that will help get the word out about your company, I think is really effective.
And then last but not least is really thinking about, you know, the sales enablement program that you have within your organization. That's free. You know, so if I don't have advertising and I can't do, um, you know, a- an expensive ABM program, think about your, your, your colleagues that are face-to-face and are looking to build their books of business or grow the organization.
How are you enabling them, and what is that content? What are the tools? Making sure all those tools [00:17:00] sing together, and then track your results. So I say it's, you know, build your content. You know, it could be call recording and interviewing folks internally. Find your experts who are gonna help amplify your message and, you know, those are internal as well as external
Casey Cheshire: Man, that's exciting. And then how's it going so far? It sounds like you got a really cool crew,
Amy Sitnick: I do.
Casey Cheshire: Company,
Amy Sitnick: Yeah
Casey Cheshire: it just-- Is there a buzz happening?
Amy Sitnick: Uh, there's totally a buzz. And so one of the things that, like I was interviewing one of my internal subject matter experts the other day, and I was all like jazzed about it, and I said, "Wow, good people make good technology." And I was like, wow, that's, that's actually a great testimonial because our, um, NPS is off the charts and people really do love working with our company.
So I think it's really important to find out what your differentiation is and for, for us at VDOC, that is our client experience.
Casey Cheshire: That's amazing.
Having a good, uh, you know, [00:18:00] score,
Amy Sitnick: It is.
Casey Cheshire: Really hard.
Amy Sitnick: really is hard. And that's why I'm so impressed and I feel so blessed to have joined this organization because it, it just feels like there's so many stories to tell
Casey Cheshire: Makes me wonder, um, uh, I've definitely worked for some companies where, uh, you really wanna be inspired by the product and the company, and if it inspires you and it's actually good and it's helping people, then job is just to sort of like, you know, earn that attention like you did with the boxes and things like that.
And then the, the rest of it just takes over. Like they go, "Oh, wow, this actually does help me," and then they're... That's f- fantastic. But I
Amy Sitnick: it. It's a marketing dream come true.
Casey Cheshire: Just, ugh. I Yeah
it's like, man,
Amy Sitnick: Yeah
Casey Cheshire: work it, that's awesome. I mean, work for a company that you can believe in the product like that. That's so good
Amy Sitnick: So, and, and believe in the leadership. That's something that I've had some experiences, um, over time. Um, and I have less- left jobs, you know, because I didn't believe in leadership. And h- you know, I think that it's really critical as a marketer to believe in your leadership and your [00:19:00] product vision. You know, here I'm grateful to have both, and it really makes my job a pleasure.
Casey Cheshire: Man, what, what a cool combo. as well? Like, you're just like lockstep with sales. How do you, how do you connect that s- so well?
Amy Sitnick: So, you know, um, it's, it's an area that's developing in the company that's... But I, I've gone into different marketing, uh, uh, different organizations, and what I start with is, you know, a picture of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And whether or not ... And I just say,
Casey Cheshire: let's go
Amy Sitnick: was like, "You know, marketing is the peanut butter and you're the jelly," or vice versa.
I was like, "Let's go." You know, like, we, like, we're solving the, you know, the same mission and help grow the organization. And I just feel like we are the sales rep that's always on. So I want them to, you know, really have confidence that marketing is here to be a partner. And, um, you know, so we use Teams here, you know, so I'm always online.
And then, you know, here also, you know, my company is global, you know. [00:20:00] So sometimes I'm on early mornings with Japan, you know, you know, later mornings is with Sweden, here in the US. Um, and we have two new US sales reps. And so that's one of the things I'm, you know, I'm working with the teams pretty actively is, okay, you know, what are your blockers?
You know, what are you hearing? And, you know, how could marketing help?
Casey Cheshire: And that, I mean, that's the way to do it. I mean, they are lucky to have you. I'll it, I'll put that out there.
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Amy Sitnick: Well, thanks. [00:21:00] I'm happy to be here
Casey Cheshire: you is getting into that tension with AI because man, AI is cooking. It's
Amy Sitnick: It is
Casey Cheshire: things. So where do you see AI making marketing better, and where do you think it's actually making it worse or noisier?
Amy Sitnick: let's start with the noisier one.
Casey Cheshire: Yeah
Amy Sitnick: Because I feel like as somebody coming into an organization relatively recently, and, and AI really cooking over the last, you know, six months to a year, I feel like how you develop a marketing plan has really changed. And so in a way, um, I feel like there's a never-ending loop of making edits.
It's like, when am I done? When is this good enough? And, you know, so is it progress or perfection? And trying to just get some stuff out there. So I think that the iterations can, can take a toll, you know, on like your timelines and also, [00:22:00] I don't wanna say your confidence, but like, all right, am, am, is this where it should be?
Um, on the other hand, I mean, there's so much great stuff that's happening with marketing and AI, and the other thing that I think is very cool is understanding, well, what is customer success doing with AI? What are the dashboards that they're building? And what are we building in terms of, you know, like marketing metrics, a- you know, using AI in terms of pulling lots of disparate data together, and thinking about where will our metrics eventually appear, and should we join forces?
So it's really sort of... I love connecting the dots. You know, that's really my favorite thing. And so that I think is a major opportunity right now in terms of how do we synthesize a lot of data and then maybe, you know, hooking that into other parts of the organization. I think that's very cool. Um, one thing that we just did and I thought was very, [00:23:00] um, cool that, um, someone on our digital marketing here, team here at Vidoc did was one of the pain points I hear from a lot of marketers is that oftentimes the AI output is great and, and you can see different people around an organization, you know, going rogue a bit with creating content.
What we did was we created, you know, a, a master PowerPoint template so that Claude output is in brand. And,
Casey Cheshire: Nice
Amy Sitnick: you know, and, and it really worked surprisingly well, and we're continuing to iterate it, but the, the rapid nature and the velocity of how much we're changing is, um, is exciting to see. But like you're...
Y- you can harness it
Casey Cheshire: Yeah.
Amy Sitnick: And,
Casey Cheshire: Totally
Amy Sitnick: it's, it's, you know, sort of bringing metrics together or the output or the content development, there's a lot you could do with AI, but you still need the human in the loop so it do- you don't turn into a walking Em Dash
Casey Cheshire: Oh my gosh. Need [00:24:00] that human in the loop. I just busted one yesterday. I got a LinkedIn message and it was like, "You know, I, I meet with CEOs or whatever." And I'm like, "All right, cool. I'll do a, I'll do a session." I, and I, and I put... I'm like, "All right, I'm in. Here's my Calendly," right? And I got this thing back being like, cool.
Glad you're in. Here's my Calendly."
Amy Sitnick: Uh,
Casey Cheshire: I was
like, "Hold on." And
then I, I said, "Listen, that's really weird. you're either rude, have a particular form of brain like some of my friends do, or a bot." And then I kinda just put it out
there, back was like, " Yeah, so anyways, here's my link."
Amy Sitnick: Oh no
Casey Cheshire: so busted." And then randomly I just said, "Pickles." And then I posted a, like an animated graphic of a pickle dancing.
Amy Sitnick: Oh, funny
Casey Cheshire: then what did the bot write back? He put pickles in quotes. He said, "Pickles? Ha [00:25:00] ha ha. my link." And I was like, "Oh, get out of here." I'm like, I got all
Amy Sitnick: Oh, no
Casey Cheshire: and I was like, "Get out of here, bot. Shoo."
Amy Sitnick: So the, the thing that everyone wants to use AI, but in a scenario like that, for us, we're appealing to pretty s- you know, sophisticated buyers. You
Casey Cheshire: Yeah
Amy Sitnick: folks that are running clinical trials, these are life and death or, you know, types of scenarios. And so it's one thing to test, uh, using AI for outreach, but you have to make sure that, you know, it's not gonna represent your brand in a, an authentic way.
So
Casey Cheshire: Right
Amy Sitnick: that's one of those scenarios that maybe it wasn't as valuable
Casey Cheshire: you know, I think that's the, it's the great pickles. You know, you're just throwing something random
Amy Sitnick: Yeah
Casey Cheshire: And, and I think like a human would be like, "Dude, what are you doing?" You know? Like, and I, I got, I got that from, uh, apparently in police interrogations, I don't know if you've heard this, uh, [00:26:00] they'll sometimes make like Mickey Mouse ears, like moose ears middle of interrogation. They're like chit-chatting, blah, blah, blah, and they're like, and the guy's telling a story like, "Well, so I, I did this and then I, then I went over here," and then they'll just go like this and they'll put their hands down. And that are guilty will like be like, they'll keep going. And if
you're innocent, you'd be like, "What
Amy Sitnick: what are you doing?
Casey Cheshire: What are you doing?" Right? Because they're trying to see like, are you stuck on your story that you're making up?
Amy Sitnick: Oh, interesting
Casey Cheshire: can you sort of go with... Or are you just like regular person going like, "That's really weird. Why would you do
Amy Sitnick: Yeah.
Well, that wouldn't have passed. Do you watch Impractical Jokers?
Casey Cheshire: Yes
Amy Sitnick: They do that all the time. Like, they always try to get their buddies to laugh behind them, and they always
Casey Cheshire: Yeah.
Amy Sitnick: Under pressure
Casey Cheshire: I love when they have them go up on stage and try to explain a PowerPoint that they didn't create, know?
Amy Sitnick: funny.
Casey Cheshire: So it's ridiculous. Uh,
Amy Sitnick: love them
Casey Cheshire: it, well, you know, that kind of brings me up to my next [00:27:00] question. Really, Amy, who are you? Who are you? How do you know these things? Can you take me back in time, little you days? Did you know you were gonna be a marketing leader, thought leader to the stars, all this good stuff? What was it like?
Amy Sitnick: I definitely never thought I would be in marketing, but I actually was always doing marketing, I just didn't know it. So I studied Spanish, I studied international relations. I, um, did some nonprofit work for a while. I was in politics for a bit, and I found that those were all things I'm passionate about.
They're, but, but they're more my hobbies. And so then I sort of explored and did all the, you know, the personality tests and everything, and everything said, "You should be in marketing. You know, you're creative, you like technology. You know, you, um, you know, outgoing." And so all the things sort of led me to marketing, and so I sort of fell into it.
And I fell into B2B marketing. I never, you know... I've always been on the client side. I've never worked for an agency, so I've always been sort of the [00:28:00] in-house person. And, um, I worked for a long time in financial services marketing, and now, um, my last three companies have all been in the life sciences tech and data space.
So
Casey Cheshire: Oh,
Amy Sitnick: love it. That's my work life
Casey Cheshire: Yeah. So, um, all those different industries, do you... Is there something about the, the one you're in now that sort of like, did it feel like you, you're kind of in the groove?
Amy Sitnick: They all sort of build on each other. So I went from a lot, like a lot of financial services, so and, and there... What I, I like to do is go into an area and then learn different areas of that industry. So I worked in investments, I worked in private equity, I worked for a bank, and I worked for a small financial consulting firm/law firm.
So I did a lot of different things within that space and lots of different functions. So I really believe as a marketer, it, it doesn't even matter as much about the industry. Well, I'll [00:29:00] come back to that in a sec. Um, it's really about sort of understanding, do you wanna be a specialist forever? Are you just gonna be a lead generation person or a marketing operations person?
Or do you wanna get well-rounded and, you know, understand web, understand content, understand social, and then become sort of a marketing team leader? And that's really the path that I took, was, okay,
Casey Cheshire: it
Amy Sitnick: I am going to be all things. I'm a marketing generalist. And then I got into sort of customer marketing, and I got into, um, solutions marketing, and then I got into social media.
And that led me to content marketing, which led me to marketing leadership. But I wholeheartedly believe that if you are a person who has, you know, a, a personal mission, as, as much as you can connect your, you know, what your passion is as a person to the work you're doing, you're going to, [00:30:00] like, be a rocket ship.
You know? And so that is for me. Like, when I was marketing financial services, I liked it. What I thought of was I was making people's dreams come true. But now, being able to work within the life sciences space, I'm giving people hope. You know? And so
Casey Cheshire: Wow
Amy Sitnick: love the, the space that I'm in and the role that I play within an organization in helping to tell the company's story.
My cheesy line that I often tell when I do a marketing orientation within my company is that basically I'm the photojournalist of the company, and I'm there to tell the different stories and make sure that, you know, that the, the customers that our client- that our sales reps are looking to promote are familiar with our brand and have a really good feeling about our brand.
And, um, so that's what I happen to love, you know, that I'm able to sort of connect to mission and I'm also able to connect, um, my [00:31:00] function within the company.
Casey Cheshire: You know what? Like, I, I've sold sprockets before and you're like, "Okay, Yeah you know, sold more sprockets this quarter," and okay, you know, team, team win. something about it when it's connected to life and health and to your point of hope and
Amy Sitnick: Absolutely.
Casey Cheshire: that's priceless, 'cause you are a part of that solution
Amy Sitnick: of the solution. And I think that,
Casey Cheshire: Yeah
Amy Sitnick: it... You just recruit fellow colleagues that are so inspirational. Like, a woman in our product department, She has a beautiful family. She works at Vidoc. And my first week on the job, I'm over in Sweden, and I'm getting to, you know, meet with all the people around the organization, and she invited me to dinner at her house. And I said, "Well, I mean, I just love these people." I mean, that I love her, and I love this company.
And, and I think that, that, I think that when you sort of match, you know, what you are sort of [00:32:00] passionate about, it shows
Casey Cheshire: It does show. It does show. Um, I even, I remember reading a book, um, I think it was like Noble Sales. Like, I, sales does better when... They, they looked at all these, uh, f- uh, pharma reps, they could predict the ones that did better were the ones that genuinely wanted to help.
Amy Sitnick: Interesting
Casey Cheshire: doctors could tell, everyone could tell, and they really, and maybe they took one more meeting 'cause they just wanted to get one more person on that, whatever product that
was. Um, and they just performed better, and I gotta imagine that's the same with marketing, that when you that you're taking care of people, like, you, you push that much harder
Amy Sitnick: Yeah. And like you're authentic about
like your interactions with people. One of the things that-- So I mentioned the influencer marketing. One of the organizations that we, um, work with here, you know, with thought leadership is an organization called CISCRP, and they study the, um, patient participation in clinical trials, and they [00:33:00] survey over 10,000 people to, who, um, you know, participate or don't participate and understand why.
And one of my favorite things is connecting one-to-one with the woman there who leads their research arm and getting into the data. And it's not just because, you know, I, I want us to be favorable in that organization's, you know, eyes. It's because I really want to understand what the data means, and that's what her mission is, too.
You know, so really what is in the mind of patients, and she's sh- her role is servicing that and, and our role is how do we make it easier for patients to participate in, in a clinical trial
Casey Cheshire: Man. And I, see I've not, I've not been in that industry, and that just, that just appe- sounds so appealing to like,
Amy Sitnick: It's cool
Casey Cheshire: a difference. It's not just, "Oh, look, we have some MQLs and some blah, blah, blah," you know? It's like, no, no, these are, these are pe- and then it's not like you're... [00:34:00] I mean, you never really want to feel like you're tricking people, but in this case you're like, "No, I, I need to get people aware of this
Amy Sitnick: Yes
Casey Cheshire: for good reasons."
Like, and so what do we need to do here,
Amy Sitnick: 100%. But let's, let's bring it back. So we are a B2B sales company, and so the struggles that I struggle with as marketing are attribution, you know, are we targeting the right accounts, and are they, um, you know, are we looking at the full buying committee and where do we surface that information? Where, what are they reading and what are the data sources where we find those people?
So it's very relatable to the struggles that someone in security software or someone who's selling consulting services may have, because it all comes down to, you know, who's your target audience? How are you finding them? You know, how are you marketing to them? How are you activating your sales folks?
Casey Cheshire: Right.
Amy Sitnick: I just happen to have cool stories to tell.
Casey Cheshire: You do? I feel like this is like story time with [00:35:00] Aimé. Hello. on by. Um, yeah. Wow. Well, n- speaking of stories and whatnot, I, I have a bit of a hypothetical question for you next,
Amy Sitnick: okay.
Casey Cheshire: Ready for this. Are you
Amy Sitnick: Yeah. Let's have some fun
Casey Cheshire: Let's have some fun. See, I may or may not have a time machine up here in New Hampshire.
Amy Sitnick: Okay
Casey Cheshire: And I can't confirm or deny, but I might have one. And if I do, next time you have a customer event or something in, you know, Boston area, drive on up. You know, it's in the backyard covered in a tarp, so allegedly. Um, but it's a particular kind of time machine where you get a chance to go back in time, and you get a chance to meet yourself a couple days after graduating.
You just kind of got out of school, class is done, you're feeling good about it, right? Y- you got degrees in Spanish and eventually international relations, but, like, you just got your undergrad,
Amy Sitnick: Mm-hmm.
Casey Cheshire: And you get to meet [00:36:00] yourself
Amy Sitnick: Yeah
Casey Cheshire: then. What do you tell that, that version of you?
Amy Sitnick: I think I'm gonna tell m- myself that you're gonna love your life and be really grateful for everything that's ahead. But I, I, I think that me back in the day was very skeptical about learning anything business related, and I think that I was just very interested in learning about culture and language and interpersonal relations, and I think those things are really important.
Um, but I do think that the more you can be savvy about finance and other business functions, um, the better. So, um, I, I think that I would tell myself, you know, make sure... Don't close your eyes to those kinds of things. The other thing is I would, um, tell myself to travel more and sooner.
Casey Cheshire: And where, where would you say to go if you were to
Amy Sitnick: So when I was in college, I, um, I studied abroad in Spain and I [00:37:00] loved it. And then, um, you know, we went to Costa Rica on our honeymoon and that was great, but we... Like I, I think I would've either, you know, went and worked abroad a little bit or, or just, you know, I think that I would've, um... I've always said yes to every single concert ticket, so I've never had a problem with that.
But I think making more time and effort to go on trips, you know, to Europe or backpacking different places, I would wanna have done that more
Casey Cheshire: Yeah. Before
Amy Sitnick: Before the kids. Yes.
Casey Cheshire: Kick
Amy Sitnick: Yeah. Yeah
Casey Cheshire: do it afterward, it's a different vibe though.
Amy Sitnick: It is. I'm on the other end now.
Casey Cheshire: Man. Well, I, yeah, I guess the follow-up question to that would be, do you think you would listen to yourself?
Amy Sitnick: Hmm, probably not. No.
Casey Cheshire: Get out of here, lady.
Amy Sitnick: Yeah, like, uh, no, you're gonna go save the world, but I think I would tell myself, "You are gonna save the world just in a different way."
Casey Cheshire: [00:38:00] Yeah. Yeah, one person at a time.
Amy Sitnick: That
Casey Cheshire: Um, where do people connect with you if they want to reach out? You are the connector.
Amy Sitnick: I am the connector. So I mean, I, I hope everyone connects with me on LinkedIn, so definitely search me up on LinkedIn. Um, I'm, I'm active on all the socials. Um, but don't send me an email. I even though I send emails, I don't, I don't wanna receive them
Casey Cheshire: Fair enough. You know, a nice little LinkedIn message is like a, a nice little, you know, text message as opposed to some corporate email,
Amy Sitnick: Yeah
Casey Cheshire: Yeah, and, and say where you f- where you heard, you know, met her. Be like, "Hey, I heard your pod episode." Don't be
a creepy stranger. Tell, say where you, where you heard about
Amy Sitnick: Yeah.
Casey Cheshire: And
Amy Sitnick: if you're in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area, feel free to connect with me for, you know, a coffee. I would love to, you know, meet face to face. I love that. One of my, um, colleagues lives in Virginia, and he met with somebody who, um, is a- a influencer, you know, sort of consultant in our [00:39:00] industry, and he said, "Oh, she lives in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania."
And I said, "That's right down the road from me." So now we're having coffee this Friday. So I like the opportunity to sort of connect with people face to face as much as possible
Casey Cheshire: Yeah, I love that too. That's so good. That's so good. Um, man, Amy, thank you so much for coming on here. I
Amy Sitnick: Yeah.
Casey Cheshire: Feel like we've had our own time warp here
Amy Sitnick: I know
Casey Cheshire: where did all that go?" And that's a good sign
Amy Sitnick: Where would you go in your time machine?
Casey Cheshire: Where would I go? You know, I was pretty anxious in high school, and you don't necessarily have the vision to know, like, th-this too shall pass, and this is, like, not really all that important. Um, but yeah, you know, and, and I think I would, I would tell myself, I think a lot of the passions I had as hobbies in high school and college turned into then jobs.
You know, that, that theater company that I ran for a bit in school and totally didn't pay attention in my s- [00:40:00] my math classes, it worked
Amy Sitnick: It's okay.
Casey Cheshire: The right move, you know?
Amy Sitnick: Yeah
Casey Cheshire: So I would probably tell myself that, "Hey, you know, maybe double-click even on the theater stuff you're doing and, know, that business thing you're helping launch over there.
Just for it, and don't worry, linear algebra will, will be fine without you. You know, you'll be okay."
Amy Sitnick: That's why I think it's great, like when you're young, and I have a 19-year-old son right now,
Casey Cheshire: Yeah
Amy Sitnick: just study what you're passionate about. You know, you have the rest of your life to, you know, work, and I really think that there's something to being well-rounded, you know, and, and sort of understanding the world.
Just do it. You know? Get good grades, but immerse yourself in life. Say yes
Casey Cheshire: Man. Yeah. That's it, and that's the place to end right
Amy Sitnick: Yeah
Casey Cheshire: Man, thank you so much for coming on
Amy Sitnick: You got it
Casey Cheshire: it. I feel like it's been a master class in connecting with humanity, and I love the [00:41:00] stories of seeing it in action. And, uh, I'm excited to see what kind of awesome things you do for VDoc
Amy Sitnick: Thank you. Me too. I think that it's already, it feels so good, and we're doing some really cool stuff. So I appreciate you giving me the platform to talk about it
Casey Cheshire: Heck yeah. And we'll have to-- We're gonna pre-schedule you to come back in a quarter or two and, and fill us in on how things are
Amy Sitnick: That would be great.
Casey Cheshire: yeah, that'd be really
Amy Sitnick: Yeah
Casey Cheshire: thank you for that. And those listening, if you learned something, share this with someone else, especially, uh, we've got some really good tips in here.
Hey, send a little sizzle box out to people, but don't forget to know the things that need to go in it so you earn more than just a glance. Um, man, good stuff. And with that, thank you again, Amy. You're amazing
Amy Sitnick: You're amazing. Thank you, Casey. I really appreciate this and, and the community
Casey Cheshire: Heck yeah. Heck yeah. I appreciate you. And with that, everybody, this has been a crazy cool, very exciting episode of the Connect to Market pod. We will see you all next [00:42:00] time