Q&A with Latane Conant, CMO at 6sense

MEDIA 7 | July 17, 2019

Q&A with Latane Conant
Latane Conant, CMO at 6sense has always been keenly focused on leveraging data to ensure marketing programs result in deals, not just leads.

At 6sense, Latane helps sales and marketing leaders increase revenue by tapping into the power of predictive intelligence to uncover buyers who are ready to buy.

MEDIA 7: As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
LATANE CONANT:
The first thing I ever wanted to be was a lifeguard and swim coach. When I was 5 years old, I joined the swim team as one of the youngest swimmers. At 13, I was too young to be a lifeguard so I begged them to create a “JR lifeguard” position. This was essentially deck swabbing and towel service but I didn’t care. So they hired me and called me “young jedi”. The head lifeguard loved to play jokes on me. One time he gave me a ruler and said every deck chair needed to be 10 ¾ inches apart. There were 50+ deck chairs, but I went out and started measuring. Finally, after a few chairs, they called me over the loudspeaker to come back to the office and we all had a big laugh. Another time they took me down to the filter room, which was underground and pretty spooky.

BUT as a young jedi, I had to learn how the system worked. We descended under the deck and I climbed a rickety old ladder to look down into the pump. Another lifeguard in scuba gear was waiting underwater and jumped out of the filter tank and scared the bejesus out of me! Once I calmed down I thought it was pretty hysterical! My role could have been seen as pretty mundane - bathroom cleaning and towel folding - BUT I loved the people I worked with so much. I worshipped the lifeguards and swim coaches!

They kept me on my toes and in stitches all summer, so it’s still one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. I finally graduated to teaching swim lessons, with a focus on kids who did not swim at all and were afraid to go in the pool. Nothing was more rewarding than seeing someone do something they thought they could not, or actually loving something that used to scare them - like put their head underwater, dive off the blocks, or swim the butterfly stroke for a lap.

M7: Latane, you have always thrived on working with wicked smart people. How do you get the best out of them when there is a common notion that it’s difficult to make smart people work together?
LC: 
Talented people want to be able to do great work. Not the average, crank some blogs out or run an event, but truly cool and differentiated things. My job is to be a force field and ensure the team has the opportunity to try different things and do their best work. This means providing focus. A powerful focus tool we use is the V2MOM. V2MOM stands for Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, and Metrics. Vision is what you want to achieve. Ideally your vision makes everyone uncomfortably excited. Values are why it matters, what you believe, guiding principles for decision making. Methods are where the rubber meets the road and are the top things you will do to achieve the vision.

Under each method, it's key to detail out obstacles (so you can plan around them) and metrics so you know if the method is on track. What’s nice about the system is that it provides built-in planning and is time bound. So every quarter I get my team together and we revise our V2MOM. This builds consensus around the vision and how we are going to get there. Every method gets assigned an owner, which drives accountability. And we publically track the metrics weekly so everyone knows our progress. The interesting thing about the V2MOM is not what's on the V2mom but what is NOT on the V2MOM. Because the process requires hyper prioritization of what you are going to do in a given time period, it forces focus.

I’m pretty obsessed and love the V2MOM. I am happy to share more on how teams can adopt, implement, and use it.  In fact, maybe in my next life, I will be a V2mom consultant!


"Marketing is harder and harder these days because buyers want to remain anonymous."

M7: How does leveraging smart technologies like AI help marketers have an edge over others and achieve on-time targets?
LC:
We need every advantage we can get in order to be successful and AI provides that advantage. Marketing is harder and harder these days because buyers want to remain anonymous. In fact, 90 percent of B2B buying behavior is digital and anonymous. Buyers also buy in teams, so the buying journey and process is very fragmented across many people. According to Gartner, it’s typical for a buying team to have more than 10 people involved. Adding to that, buyers are resistant. Every member of the B2B buying team requires highly personalized multi-touch and multi-channel engagement to take a meeting.
But our current systems are built for known static data, which only 12% of marketers have confidence in.
Revenue-generating teams should look for platforms that allow them to uncover buyer behavior, particularly the anonymous behavior, so they can stop spending money, time, and energy on the accounts that aren’t even in-market. Instead, through AI and big data, that money, time and energy can be used to uncover their “dark funnel,” or the rich information that is being done on your company and/or solution in the dark. Next, they must prioritize. Look across behavior to determine and group buying teams. Look for changes in behavior over time to fully grasp which accounts are in-market, ready for an upsell, or have potential to churn. AI can deliver these insights with a high degree of accuracy so you can know when accounts are getting ready to open opportunities. Enabling you to focus your time, salespeople and BDRs on the BEST accounts. Once you have uncovered anonymous behavior and prioritized timing, it’s time to engage. Engaging is about orchestrating multi-touch, multi-channel, highly personalized messages at scale. This is where AI really shines. It tells us the best time to use display ads vs. email vs a direct mailer and even triggers actions across channels. It also ensures we are personalizing appropriately so if someone has consumed the demo it offers them another piece of content so they aren’t served the demo AGAIN.  Based on their behavior, buying stage, persona, and company we can dynamically deliver the best experience. Teams that use this approach see unbelievable results and are beating out their competition with 40 percent more opportunities, 5x larger deals, and 1.5x faster cycle times.


"Engaging is about orchestrating multi-touch, multi-channel, highly personalized messages at scale. This is where AI really shines."

M7: How does 6sense’s Account Based Orchestration Platform help revenue teams to compete and win in the age of account-based buying?
LC:
I had my team do some research on the typical results b2b sales and marketing teams see from their efforts. The picture is not pretty. In fact EVERY minute:
- DOZENS of interested buyers will visit your website but only ONE will identify themselves.
- Your most important prospect will receive 2 NEW EMAILS. They will likely delete them both without opening.
- Your sales reps will spend ONE-QUARTER of their time on leads who have no intention to buy.
- Your BDR team will make just over 6 calls. They will book ZERO meetings.

No wonder marketing and sales teams get misaligned. This is not competing or winning.

Account Based Marketing is all the rage - It requires selecting the best accounts to go after, detailed insights into accounts and personas, highly personalized multi-channel engagement, alignment with sales, and the ability to track “real stuff” like increased engagement, pipeline, and revenue. ABM makes a lot of sense vs. traditional tactics that result in millions of unopened emails that get sent each year, thousands of dollars spent on swag at events that don’t lead to an opportunity, etc. However, the dirty little secret is that it’s impossible to scale without GREAT customer insights and orchestration capabilities. This is why you hear a lot about ABM pilots and not about ABM at scale.
6sense brings sales, business development, customer success, and marketing together on one platform that provides an unprecedented level of insights and the ability to take action. 

6sense delivers ABM at scale by providing (at a click in an easy to use UI):
- an understanding of best accounts to go after based on your business objective, technographic, firmographic, and real-time behavioral information.
- insights into the key personas to engage, the topics they care about, and where they are in their buying stage.
- orchestrated engagement across tactics from email, to display ads, to direct mail.
- alerts for sales with relevant details like when to call, what to say, what accounts are doing anonymously/in the “dark funnel”, and what marketing activities are working.
- tracking and metrics around how campaigns perform, if new personas engage, if you influenced opportunities, and if you gained net new opportunities.

This means sales and marketing can get BACK to sales and marketing, aligning on a business objective, messaging, and the experience you want to deliver for prospects - one you can actually be proud of. One without useless forms, spam, and cold calls. And because our platform provides transparency, reduced mundane work, and competitive advantage, prospecting actually becomes fun!

M7: What is the “dark funnel” and how can marketers embrace that?
LC:
So, the dark funnel is all of the data, information, people, and research that is happening right now for our product or solution that we have no insights into. You have to zoom out and think about the complexity of this cycle and how it’s changed. First of all, B2B buyers want to remain anonymous for as long as possible and our trick to making them not anonymous was to have some sort of gated content or to maybe try to run them down at a trade show or scan them but that doesn’t work anymore. All of our systems are set up for contact or a lead which is one person. What we find now is buyers buying in these teams, so you have to be able to understand how one person on the team is interacting with another person, how to put them together and how their collective research and desires come together. And again, all of that’s happening anonymously. So, the dark funnel research just went from one person to ten peoples’ research.

The other challenge is, in order to engage with buyers because they get so much noise and are so inundated, in fact in B2B we send about 300 billion emails a year, there’s only 7.7 billion people in the world and that’s not even B2C, so that doesn’t mean they’re on pottery barn’s list. So, our email motion in being able to break out of the noise is incredibly difficult. Hence, we have to have more touches and more capabilities and all of those emails and things that we’re sending are all in this dark funnel, we don’t truly understand how they’re getting consumed. So what ends up happening is we as marketers have to do a lot of guessing in how we design our programs and how we engage with customers and when you can start to really shine a light on the dark funnel and understand that rich research and the buying team and most importantly understand where they are in their journey, understand the timing. Rather than spamming you can start to really personalize in engagement and experience based on what they care about, who they are and most importantly, where they are in the buying journey.


"6sense brings sales, business development, customer success, and marketing together on one platform that provides an unprecedented level of insights and the ability to take action."

M7: To what extent does having a deep insight into a prospect’s buying journey help marketers in sales conversion and closing deals?
LC: 
Marketing is hard, selling is harder, and being a business development rep is the HARDEST. Business Development Reps and AE’s are expected to make hundreds of calls and send tons of email a week, but how do they know the contacts they are calling on aren’t random? Are they even in-market? How do they know when the best time to call is or what to even discuss without knowing the contacts needs? With outbound efforts, BDR’s and AE’s want opportunities, not just activity, but they don’t have a good way to make the right connections with the right content in order to be successful.

To reduce turnover and give outbound sales teams the best chance of success, we have to give them insights, with a robust group of digital signals to show if an account is actually in-market to buy or beginning the early stages of research. And with potential buyers leaving a digital footprint in the form of intent signals across the internet, both known and anonymous interactions with your website, as well as thousands of other 3rd party sites, we can take the guesswork out of identifying which accounts to target and what topics or competitors those accounts are searching.

Deep insights from 6sense help marketing, sales, and BDRs understand where each account is in their buyer journey and focus efforts on those who are actively in-market or in the early stages of research for our product or service. This lets the sales team know the ideal time to engage and what the account is interested in, taking the conversation from a cold call to a productive, meaningful one, driving higher conversions, win rates, and average deal size.

M7: 6sense recently launched Account-Based External Media Campaigns Analytics. How is it enabling media campaign effectiveness?
LC: 
The days of a four martini lunch and a deal are long gone since buyers don't want to talk to sales until they are 70% through the journey. Because of this shift, B2B digital ad spend is projected to hit $6.08 billion this year. It is an effective way to reach buyers in target accounts if done strategically with insights and proper measurement.

This feature focuses on digital agencies and the brands they work with. They use 6sense and all the rich insights on behavior and keywords in their campaign planning. It enables them to micro-segment and take an audience first approach vs designing a campaign and then finding an audience, flipping the campaign planning process on its head. 6sense also allows agencies to compare campaigns across different channels - tracking reach, engagement, and influence of these campaigns on accounts they are targeting for their customers.
Innovative agencies are partnering with us to deliver for their customers and they are seeing high returns on their investment.

M7: What is your favorite quote?
LC: 
“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.” - Mick Jagger

ABOUT 6SENSE

6sense’s Account Based Orchestration Platform helps revenue teams compete and win in the age of Account Based Buying by putting the power of AI, big data and machine learning behind every member of the B2B revenue team, empowering them to uncover anonymous buying behavior, prioritize fragmented data to focus on accounts in market, and engage resistant buying teams with personalized, omni-channel, multi-touch campaigns. 6sense helps revenue teams know everything they need to know about their buyers so they can easily do anything they need to do to generate more opportunities, increase deal size, get into opportunities sooner, compete and win more often.

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Application Readiness offers Automated User Acceptance Testing for Portable Windows Apps Containerized with Liquidware FlexApp

PR Newswire | June 01, 2023

Liquidware, the leader in digital workspace management solutions, and Application Readiness, a leader in automated cloud-based software packaging and application compatibility testing solutions, today announced that Application Readiness now fully supports the automated testing of Liquidware FlexApp™ packages. The joint collaboration helps enable enterprise customers to realize the benefits of FlexApp quickly. FlexApp easily containerizes virtually any Windows application into a virtual disk and delivers them dynamically - greatly minimizing base image management and delivering applications more efficiently. Additionally, Application Readiness has leveraged FlexApp's API to kick off the solution's powerful, unattended, automated packaging process. This is especially helpful for large customers that may have hundreds or thousands of applications, as commonly seen in Healthcare, Financial, and other industries that rely on numerous Windows apps. Application Readiness compares individual app's performance and functionality across leading application delivery methods - such as Liquidware FlexApp, Microsoft App-V and MSIX, as well as multi-session computing platforms - to give customers a report of maximum compatibility. According to independent testing by Application Readiness, Windows applications packaged with FlexApp perform excellently, with maximum compatibility on average, when compared to most other platforms. "We're thrilled that Application Readiness has automated the workflow surrounding automated testing of FlexApp packages for our customers," said Jason E. Smith, Vice President of Alliances and Product Marketing at Liquidware. "By combining the expertise of Application Readiness with the power of Liquidware FlexApp, our customers can ensure the compatibility and efficiency of their applications in any deployment method." "Through this integration, our customers can simplify the application packaging process while ensuring their applications are delivered in the most efficient manner," said Greg Lambert, Founder of Application Readiness. "We are excited to partner with Liquidware and become a Liquidware Ready Verified partner based on the integration work we have accomplished with FlexApp." Liquidware is hosting a webinar with Greg Lambert June 8, where we discuss how to plan and prepare for App-V End-of-Life and how to move forward. Register here to attend: https://liquidware.eu/webinar-appv-eol. Liquidware customers can take advantage of the integration with Application Readiness to ensure that their applications are delivered in the most efficient manner, maximizing user productivity and minimizing management costs. About Liquidware Liquidware is a leader in digital workspace management solutions for Windows desktops. The company's products encompass all facets of management to ensure the ultimate user experience across all workspaces – physical, virtual, DaaS or in the cloud. Enterprises across the globe utilize Liquidware solutions to dramatically decrease time spent managing desktops, while delivering increased security, flexibility, and scalability. Supported platforms include Microsoft physical, Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD), Windows 365, Citrix Desktops, VMware Horizon, Amazon WorkSpaces, and Nutanix Frame. Liquidware products are available through a global network of partners. For more information, visit www.liquidware.com About Application Readiness Readiness is a small, agile company led by former ChangeBASE chairman and CEO Greg Lambert. Its only product is Readiness, the first cloud-based application compatibility assessment and conversion software. Over 12 years in the making, Readiness has been checked and processed applications against hundreds of thousands of rules. Greg saw how expensive and complicated the infrastructure required for application compatibility, patch impact assessment, conversion and remediation was. This, and for the fact that applications are evolving faster than ever, convinced him that Readiness must be entirely cloud-based, so there's never any infrastructure to buy or maintain, and rules are kept up-to-date automatically. For more information, visit www.applicationreadiness.com.

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VIRTUAL DESKTOP TOOLS, VIRTUALIZED ENVIRONMENTS, VPN

CYTRACOM Announces Industry-Leading Network Security for MSPs with ControlOne's New Passwordless Experience and Silent Deployment

PR Newswire | June 02, 2023

Channel leader CYTRACOM announces a significant update to its ControlOne platform, enabling MSPs to prevent managed clients from evading security requirements and create a passwordless experience for end-users. Managed users are now always on the virtual corporate network, secured by unified global security policies, with an experience that is transparent to end users. "With the new capabilities of the ControlOne agent, we are demonstrating our continued commitment to driving innovation within the network security market for managed services providers," says CYTRACOM Co-founder and CEO Zane Conkle. "Working closely with MSPs, we are removing the complexity of connecting and securing users without compromising performance and security. The ControlOne platform enables MSPs to meet the challenges of today's distributed workforce and alleviate the increasing pressure from regulatory and compliance entities, all while driving increased profit for our partners." Game-changing features With the latest release of ControlOne, CYTRACOM is removing the end user from the process of joining or connecting to corporate network infrastructures. "To achieve this objective, we are uniquely leveraging identity management, initially with Microsoft Azure AD and other third-party identity providers coming soon. With this update, the ControlOne agent can now be silently deployed by MSPs through RMM platforms. Unlike VPN software and other security solutions, no interaction with the end user is necessary during setup," says Eric Romano, Head of ControlOne Development, CYTRACOM. Once deployed, end users are always on the corporate network regardless of location and are protected by firewall and security policies directly managed by the MSP. This also enables MSPs to prevent users from disconnecting from the network, essentially closing a major security gap that exists in most solutions available in the market today. CYTRACOM's new ControlOne agent also enables a passwordless experience for users. "No longer do they have to complete set-up procedures or connect and disconnect from the network," continues Romano "ControlOne is always on and enables users to work without having to learn specific processes based on their location like they were forced to do with legacy VPN solutions." Brandt Ball, Founder of Standard I.T. Security adds, "CYTRACOM's ControlOne agent changes the game for us as it enforces always-on security and dramatically cuts deployment costs and effort. We are no longer reliant on the customer to do the right thing or comply with directions which saves us time and money and dramatically improves the experience for the customer. The ControlOne agent integration with Azure AD takes decision-making out of the hands of the customer and ensures they are always connected, always secure, and able to just work. It truly is a win-win." Cyber insurance ready The combination of the new silent deployment and passwordless experience of the CYTRACOM ControlOne agent, along with its ability to eliminate VPNs and firewalls, ensures MSPs innovate and achieve compliance with industry regulations and mandates set forth by cyber insurance providers and other regulatory bodies. "In today's hybrid work environments, we know everyone isn't working inside an office building, but with CYTRACOM's ControlOne platform, MSPs can securely connect and protect users as if they were inside the perimeter of their corporate network at all times," says CYTRACOM COO John Tippett. "ControlOne enables MSPs to regain control over their customers' networks. By eliminating the end user from the equation, MSPs can achieve secure networks and enforce compliance, eliminating vulnerabilities introduced by legacy VPN and on-premises firewalls." About CYTRACOM CYTRACOM delivers infrastructure software purpose-built to empower managed service providers (MSPs) with cloud solutions that connect and secure both traditional and hybrid workforces. Our secure access service edge (SASE) solution provides identity-based network security and connectivity within a single platform that enables businesses to deploy zero-trust networks, enforce compliance and eliminate traditional firewalls and VPNs. Our unified communications suite (UCaaS) uniquely aligns with the operating needs of MSPs and enables their customers to experience seamless communication and collaboration regardless of physical location. Together, these solutions deliver a communications, security and networking platform that is exclusively available to CYTRACOM channel partners.

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VIRTUAL DESKTOP TOOLS, SERVER VIRTUALIZATION

Datometry Partners With Databricks to Accelerate Migrations from Legacy Data Warehouses to the Lakehouse

prnewswire | May 31, 2023

Datometry, the pioneer in database virtualization, announced today their partnership with Databricks, the data and AI company, to accelerate the worldwide transition of enterprises from classic data warehouse technology to the lakehouse. The partnership will empower enterprise customers to overcome the lock-in of legacy vendors. Enterprises struggle to move their workloads off legacy data warehouses like Teradata and Oracle. Until now, the only way to move applications off these legacy systems was to rewrite them and translate the embedded SQL with conversion tools. This approach is not only costly and time-consuming but also error-prone and poses significant risk to an organization. Datometry has joined the Databricks Technology Partner Program to offer customers a validated integration with Databricks that overcomes the challenges of conventional migrations. With Datometry, enterprises can move their business as-is without having to rewrite or redefine application code. As a result, clients move 4x faster and at 20% of the cost of other approaches. "We're excited to welcome Datometry to the Databricks partner ecosystem," said Roger Murff, VP of Technology Partners at Databricks. "Through the Databricks Technology Partner Program, customers can quickly discover and engage with Datometry and accelerate their journey to the lakehouse." "We're proud to be partnering with Databricks," said Mike Waas, CEO Datometry. "This partnership will enable organizations to break free from the vendor lock-in of legacy databases and adopt a lakehouse architecture 4x faster than with any other approach." About Datometry Datometry is the leader in database system virtualization. Our technology frees enterprises from legacy database technology and accelerates any enterprise's transition to the cloud. With Datometry Hyper-Q, enterprises can run their existing applications directly on a cloud database without needing costly and risk-laden database migrations. Datometry counts leading Fortune 500 and Global 2000 enterprises worldwide among their customers.

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VIRTUAL DESKTOP TOOLS

Application Readiness offers Automated User Acceptance Testing for Portable Windows Apps Containerized with Liquidware FlexApp

PR Newswire | June 01, 2023

Liquidware, the leader in digital workspace management solutions, and Application Readiness, a leader in automated cloud-based software packaging and application compatibility testing solutions, today announced that Application Readiness now fully supports the automated testing of Liquidware FlexApp™ packages. The joint collaboration helps enable enterprise customers to realize the benefits of FlexApp quickly. FlexApp easily containerizes virtually any Windows application into a virtual disk and delivers them dynamically - greatly minimizing base image management and delivering applications more efficiently. Additionally, Application Readiness has leveraged FlexApp's API to kick off the solution's powerful, unattended, automated packaging process. This is especially helpful for large customers that may have hundreds or thousands of applications, as commonly seen in Healthcare, Financial, and other industries that rely on numerous Windows apps. Application Readiness compares individual app's performance and functionality across leading application delivery methods - such as Liquidware FlexApp, Microsoft App-V and MSIX, as well as multi-session computing platforms - to give customers a report of maximum compatibility. According to independent testing by Application Readiness, Windows applications packaged with FlexApp perform excellently, with maximum compatibility on average, when compared to most other platforms. "We're thrilled that Application Readiness has automated the workflow surrounding automated testing of FlexApp packages for our customers," said Jason E. Smith, Vice President of Alliances and Product Marketing at Liquidware. "By combining the expertise of Application Readiness with the power of Liquidware FlexApp, our customers can ensure the compatibility and efficiency of their applications in any deployment method." "Through this integration, our customers can simplify the application packaging process while ensuring their applications are delivered in the most efficient manner," said Greg Lambert, Founder of Application Readiness. "We are excited to partner with Liquidware and become a Liquidware Ready Verified partner based on the integration work we have accomplished with FlexApp." Liquidware is hosting a webinar with Greg Lambert June 8, where we discuss how to plan and prepare for App-V End-of-Life and how to move forward. Register here to attend: https://liquidware.eu/webinar-appv-eol. Liquidware customers can take advantage of the integration with Application Readiness to ensure that their applications are delivered in the most efficient manner, maximizing user productivity and minimizing management costs. About Liquidware Liquidware is a leader in digital workspace management solutions for Windows desktops. The company's products encompass all facets of management to ensure the ultimate user experience across all workspaces – physical, virtual, DaaS or in the cloud. Enterprises across the globe utilize Liquidware solutions to dramatically decrease time spent managing desktops, while delivering increased security, flexibility, and scalability. Supported platforms include Microsoft physical, Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD), Windows 365, Citrix Desktops, VMware Horizon, Amazon WorkSpaces, and Nutanix Frame. Liquidware products are available through a global network of partners. For more information, visit www.liquidware.com About Application Readiness Readiness is a small, agile company led by former ChangeBASE chairman and CEO Greg Lambert. Its only product is Readiness, the first cloud-based application compatibility assessment and conversion software. Over 12 years in the making, Readiness has been checked and processed applications against hundreds of thousands of rules. Greg saw how expensive and complicated the infrastructure required for application compatibility, patch impact assessment, conversion and remediation was. This, and for the fact that applications are evolving faster than ever, convinced him that Readiness must be entirely cloud-based, so there's never any infrastructure to buy or maintain, and rules are kept up-to-date automatically. For more information, visit www.applicationreadiness.com.

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