The big idea: Rethink how you acquire, retain, and grow customers across every stage and touchpoint of the customer journey.
Waymaker Podcast: S1:E15
Listen & watch ‘CX: Marketing Playbook | Clarity, Alignment & Results’
(In this episode we unpack the importance of delivering seamless customer experiences at every touch-point: both digital and non-digital.
Transcript
CX: Marketing Playbook
00:02
welcome to leadership talk
00:04
the official waymaker podcast where we
00:07
explore how your organization can
00:10
achieve more by doing less
00:23
well welcome to leadership talk the
00:24
official waymaker podcast i’m your host
00:28
as usual is stewart leo founder and ceo
00:31
of waymaker how are you i’m great craig
00:40
i have actually well i’m 50 done i
00:49
and i’m waiting for my second um
00:55
pfizer’s like penfolds it’s you know
01:00
it’s just in the taps down in adelaide
01:01
down your way all right that’s right but
01:04
but for the rest of it yeah but for the
01:08
uh i got tired of waiting is this and
01:11
sort of is this where i say like yellow
01:16
if you’re from from around the world and
01:18
you’re listening to this you’re like
01:19
what are these guys talking about what
01:20
is he talking about oh dear it’s wine
01:22
it’s what brand brains are mine yeah
01:24
that’s right which um but just down the
01:26
road from you is probably some of the
01:28
the greatest wine in the world if uh i
01:30
am in australian wine country yes that’s
01:32
true yeah if uh if jesus was turning
01:35
water into wine down your way he’d
01:45
hey which is a which is a perfect segue
01:47
into um what we’re talking about today
01:49
um which is continuing question five on
01:51
our customer experience it’s actually
01:55
i was thinking through it i’m going how
02:00
let’s just jump straight heck you’re
02:04
all right but stu we haven’t we have
02:06
been talking about cx we’ve been talking
02:08
about um customer experience how to
02:10
acquire retain and grow customers yes
02:12
and and and we’re going to keep talking
02:16
can you remind us what is cx customer
02:24
so customer experience it’s question
02:27
uh in the great seven questions of um
02:30
uh of strategy um from the waymaker
02:34
if you don’t know what they are listen
02:36
to a couple of the previous episodes um
02:41
survive thrive and conquer in your
02:43
business is to ask and answer those
02:44
seven questions every quarter and a firm
02:48
deliver the results of those
02:53
what is our customer experience how do
02:55
we acquire retain and grow our customers
02:57
through our brand personality which is
03:01
the science of customer experience which
03:03
when we define that it’s the unification
03:07
sales and service and technology
03:09
to create inspirational branded moments
03:12
across every stage and touch point
03:14
of the journey so that’s a bit of a
03:16
mouthful but um i guess um to summarize
03:22
we well i grew up i don’t know about you
03:24
but um you’re a lot younger than i am
03:30
and when i was growing up in marketing
03:33
marketing sales service there you know
03:35
there were different disciplines
03:37
but really in today’s world they fold
03:39
into one and that is the discipline of
03:41
customer experience how do we draw
03:47
of which there are buying journeys
03:48
fulfillment journeys service delivery
03:52
and how do we manage that
03:54
and how what information what messages
03:57
what content from our brand inspires
03:59
them to self-serve their way through
04:00
that journey in a digital and
04:04
that’s customer experience
04:06
excellent so like the underlying
04:07
practice of waymaker then is to like
04:11
alignment results in that in everything
04:14
but specifically in customer experience
04:19
waymakers build on that that simple
04:20
principle that if we build clarity and
04:22
we build alignment and we focus on
04:29
you know the why the what the how
04:30
alignment in who and when
04:34
results through goals then we’re going
04:35
to build a better organization
04:38
it’s the simplest i guess nutshell we
04:41
can put around it and so the waymaker
04:43
toolkit helps you do that
04:49
we want to talk about doing that in
04:51
specifically in customer experience and
04:53
in the discipline of marketing and
04:55
there’s some really cool tools inside
04:58
okay so how do we how do we do that in
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um the very first thing you’re going to
05:05
look at is the diagnostic um so we’ve
05:09
talked about this a lot in
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it’s it’s really there it’s the thinking
05:21
and um every quarter your team’s going
05:23
to be taking the diagnostic and it’s
05:25
going to ask you a bunch of questions
05:29
but it’s going to organize all of that
05:31
content back into a set of leadership
05:36
that will give you insights on
05:38
maturity and leadership of that function
05:41
inside your organization so
05:43
how are we going inside the organization
05:47
in this area of customer experience and
05:49
specifically in marketing
05:51
and so um you know if you’re if you’re
05:53
looking in your software you’ll see in
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um click on cx marketing and you’ll see
06:01
marketing leadership curve and the big
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idea on that curve is how do we build
06:07
a leading marketing function
06:14
what skills do we need to invest in
06:16
what systems do we need to invest in
06:19
how how clear how mature how aligned are
06:26
and so it’s giving you the insight
06:31
health maturity and leadership of this
06:34
function inside your business
06:36
it’s does that make sense
06:39
my i’ve got a question for you just to
06:41
derail you a little bit where do you see
06:42
the most amount of dysfunction when it
06:46
this particular aspect of the customer
06:50
marketing well i think the greatest
06:52
amount of dysfunction i put in two areas
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and i think that you know our software
06:57
and our tools are hopefully helping
06:59
remove this dysfunction the first is in
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in treating marketing and i think we
07:03
talked about this last episode treating
07:07
like advertising and promotions and
07:10
that’s like treating food as burgers and
07:13
chips um you know there’s there’s so
07:16
to food than burgers and chips um yep
07:19
and and there’s so much more to
07:20
marketing than advertising and
07:22
promotions that the point of marketing
07:25
is to identify problems and to develop
07:27
products and services to solve those
07:30
and to develop and acquire customers for
07:34
marketing as a discipline will touch
07:37
every other part of the organization
07:40
by fulfilling its its context um
07:44
the first dysfunction we see is in the
07:54
well the failure is to assume that the
07:56
product and service you have today is
07:58
the product and service that customers
08:01
and you’re almost guaranteed that that’s
08:03
not true because every product and
08:05
service has a limited lifetime so you’re
08:10
continuously improving that product to
08:13
or you’re developing new products and
08:16
but if you’re standing still then you’re
08:18
going backwards and and that’s
08:21
that’s the first dysfunction so the
08:25
we see this in a lot of small to medium
08:33
for some reason they either
08:35
don’t think about it or don’t feel
08:36
empowered to think about it
08:38
there’s a fear that they can’t speak
08:41
um i was really fortunate i grew up in a
08:43
business that kind of it was if you
08:44
weren’t thinking about this then you
08:46
weren’t doing marketing and and so you
08:48
just drilled into you from day one
08:50
um and so that’s the first dysfunction
08:53
and i’d encourage you to look at your
08:55
own organization and your own
08:58
department and go are we thinking about
09:00
that are we assuming that our product
09:02
and service is what customers want today
09:05
and what are we doing about that
09:09
the the second failure of dysfunction we
09:20
assuming that marketing is a function
09:22
and a discipline to be to be delivered
09:29
still today a pervasive element of um
09:33
marketing teams or the marketing
09:34
functioning inside an organization
09:39
if our job is to acquire retain and grow
09:44
then in order to do that we’re actually
09:46
in the business of customer experience
09:47
we’re in the function of customer
09:49
experience marketing is a muscle a skill
09:52
a system we’re going to use
09:56
along with sales along with customer
09:59
service and service operations
10:02
it’s not a standalone and and i think
10:07
um emerging organizations in sas and
10:11
product based or product load
10:14
they they don’t run marketing
10:16
departments they run growth departments
10:18
they run growth teams and if you have a
10:20
contribution to growth then you’re in
10:24
and and they’re often led by product
10:31
and that’s really a symptom of
10:35
um that the core job is to acquire
10:37
retain and grow customers across a
10:40
and sometimes the discipline of
10:42
marketing and sometimes the discipline
10:43
of sales and sometimes the discipline of
10:45
service are all going to interweave to
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make that journey a collection of
10:49
wonderful inspirational branded moments
10:51
that’s the second dysfunction um so
10:54
you’re talking about like isolation like
10:55
so departments are isolated from each
10:57
other or work in silos don’t that’s
10:59
right don’t communicate or whatever so
11:01
yeah yeah did i yeah yeah does that make
11:05
yeah completely uh that’s really cool so
11:08
i mean one of the things that uh the
11:09
waymaker um toolkit allows us to do
11:13
is um to kind of step back from it a
11:15
little bit have a bit of a helicopter
11:16
view correct on the whole
11:20
you know our soapbox that we’re kind of
11:22
preaching is don’t be a marketer be a
11:26
don’t be a finance person be a waymaker
11:28
don’t be a sales person be a waymaker um
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and and what we mean by that is
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you are not there to be a marketer or a
11:37
salesperson or a service person or a
11:39
finance person you are there
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to serve your customers and to lead your
11:45
team or your business to solve the
11:47
problem and so take the labels off
11:52
be a waymaker and that is identify the
11:55
problem and solve it if that means
11:57
you’ve got to step outside your your
11:59
traditional job description zone we’ll
12:02
because that’s what you need to do
12:05
and and so the idea here is to think
12:09
and plan and to execute well together
12:14
but to think well together and that
12:16
means arguing well together it means
12:18
constructively criticizing
12:21
how well you’re doing things internally
12:24
and constructively staying aware of
12:26
what’s going on around you and so that’s
12:29
why the diagnostic is powerful because
12:34
and you could almost say this is a third
12:35
function a third dysfunction of of
12:38
customer experience or marketing teams
12:40
is if they’re writing a good plan
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they’re looking at the market and that’s
12:44
great they’re trying to understand their
12:45
customer and where they sit
12:47
but rarely do they step back
12:49
and look inside their own teams and the
12:54
that they’re performing and go how do we
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so you’ve got to look outside the
12:59
organization into the marketplace
13:00
understand the customer understand
13:03
and be aware of what’s going on around
13:05
you but you must also understand and be
13:09
of your own internal performance and so
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as you’re building your quarterly and
13:19
if you’re not assessing your own
13:21
internal skills and systems and and
13:23
competencies and capabilities there
13:25
then you’ve you’re flying blind um and
13:28
so that’s what the diagnostic does it it
13:33
leading customer experience marketing
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by building bench strength
13:40
bench strength and go straight onto the
13:43
so here’s our problem stu
13:45
we’ve got all this information we’re
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looking at the diagnostics uh have you
13:51
to to help us yeah of course plan our
13:54
way through that yeah so um
13:58
in order to build clarity alignment
14:00
results we’ve got to diagnose plan and
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deliver there we go that’s that’s it in
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we’ve done the diagnostic bit we’ve
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found our gaps we’ve identified some
14:11
but a marketing plan isn’t just that
14:14
you’ve got to put some stub substance
14:20
within the academy you can go and grab
14:23
a one-page framework a canvas to
14:28
and that’s going to put some meat on the
14:31
you’ll have identified how to improve
14:33
the business and where you need to grow
14:35
through the diagnostic but then you’ll
14:38
put it into a plan of action
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by using the planning tool and and that
14:44
one page plan is going to take you
14:46
through the fundamentals it’s it’s going
14:53
the the conditions the economic
14:55
conditions the political conditions the
14:57
social conditions the technological
15:01
pest analysis it’s going to help you
15:03
identify challenges and roadblocks
15:05
you’re facing to go out and acquire
15:07
retain and grow customers
15:17
and you should have those around
15:21
what people believe about us what do
15:23
they not believe about us what should
15:30
and your threats within the context of
15:32
those competitors your products and your
15:34
services and your pricing you should
15:35
have customer insights around those
15:38
and most importantly just like the
15:40
business has a small number of key
15:43
metrics that it’s tracking to define
15:47
um the marketing function should have
15:51
and and they should be um no more than
16:00
um there should be a small number and
16:02
preferably a north star in there aligned
16:06
metric of the business hopefully they’re
16:08
one and the same they should be
16:10
um and and really that’s how you’re
16:14
measuring um and setting goals around
16:19
um you should also have some you know if
16:21
you’ve identified gaps and things to do
16:23
through the diagnostic well then they
16:25
should come to life in some strategic
16:26
initiatives for the quarter of the year
16:32
research insights or crms or marketing
16:37
strategic frameworks then and loyalty
16:39
you know identify those document those
16:42
turn those turn those into projects
16:44
and and lastly but firstly
16:47
you should be um putting in place
16:50
programs for that continuous listening
16:53
how we’re listening to customers you
16:54
know they’re just awesome tools out
16:56
to build continuous listening frameworks
17:00
um and we should be scheduling and
17:04
and all of that should be your thinking
17:06
so that it translates into a set of
17:10
if we’ve got a key metric to shift there
17:12
should be a goal related to that if
17:13
we’ve got a research to run there should
17:15
be a goal related to that and that’s
17:17
what that one page plan is going to help
17:22
i wonder if there’s something in that
17:24
plan that you can just highlight stu in
17:26
uh the process of thinking through it um
17:30
like if you if you can see the plan um
17:33
like if you’ve read um any marketing
17:36
books that are sort of published in the
17:38
five years in particular what you’re
17:40
probably going to see is you’re going to
17:42
see some similarities on the right-hand
17:43
side of the plan but on the left-hand
17:44
side of the plan uh for me as you look
17:46
at it anyway it’s a little bit more of
17:48
the under the hood like um you know uh
17:52
getting the thinking right before you
17:54
actually then go out and and execute
17:56
which is actually where the
17:57
yeah which speaks to that first
17:59
first dysfunction we often see um yeah
18:06
go how much money have i got for
18:07
facebook ads and google ads and
18:09
and search optimization and what does my
18:13
and they’re not wrong things they’re
18:14
good things to think through
18:16
but that’s not marketing that’s
18:21
and the first thing you’ve got to do is
18:27
and um and you’ve got to say okay
18:30
what’s going on out there in the market
18:34
how is that influencing how i’m going to
18:40
thinking that way then you’re making
18:45
um everybody knows that when you make
18:47
assumptions you end up making an ass of
18:56
um so yeah the the front end of that is
18:59
getting your thinking right and and a
19:02
i mean this this is a big part of the
19:07
uh surface your challenges and your
19:09
roadblocks surface what’s in your way
19:12
good leaders lift burdens they remove
19:18
as a leader you want to know your team’s
19:21
burdens their roadblocks because it’s
19:23
actually your job to get rid of them
19:25
it’s not their job they have the
19:28
and and it’s not good enough to go you
19:32
you’ve got to get in the trenches and
19:34
you’ve got to you’ve got to get rid of
19:35
those roadblocks so they can do their
19:39
and so you’ve got to surface those which
19:40
is why there’s a section around
19:42
challenges and roadblocks um
19:44
and that’s that’s a good discipline of
19:50
learning how to identify challenges and
19:54
maybe we should just take a moment to
19:56
talk about that because that’s
19:58
that’s not a good skill yeah um
20:01
so let’s talk about what a
20:02
what a challenge or a roadblock is and
20:16
it’s not a lack of funding
20:20
typically a challenge or a roadblock um
20:25
has to be articulated in such a way as
20:28
if you could provide this or remove this
20:31
or overcome this then the goal can be
20:36
i haven’t yet met a boss who can add
20:43
so don’t ask for more time
20:45
if you’ve got a time problem then you’ve
20:53
way you can add more time to solve a
20:55
problem is to put more people around it
20:59
so the problem isn’t time the problem is
21:02
is number of people working on something
21:06
one person building a house taking two
21:08
years can be fixed by two people
21:10
building a house and doing it in one
21:13
the i’m not giving you more time i’m
21:14
actually giving you a resource that can
21:17
decrease the amount of time required to
21:20
and so a challenge or a roadblock
21:27
so that if if overcome removed or or
21:31
the goal can be achieved and so it’s the
21:33
job of the person with the challenge or
21:35
the roadblock to think through the
21:41
a global pandemic or a gfc is not a
21:43
challenge or a roadblock because it’s
21:45
that’s the market that’s that’s the
21:46
conditions that’s right conditions yes
21:48
um there’s there’s this great quote by
21:52
it’s one of our favorites
21:55
it’s not the wind that blows it’s how
21:57
you set the sail the wind that blows is
22:00
is market forces the wind that blows is
22:02
global pandemic the wind correct it’s
22:04
how you set this out correct so you know
22:09
the problem the great problem with the
22:13
um recently and gee we’re going to get
22:15
soft track if we dig into this but this
22:16
is going to be so much fun
22:19
uh watch watch the haters hate um
22:23
the big problem with the pandemic
22:26
was how quickly can you bring a vaccine
22:32
and so the problem to solve wasn’t time
22:45
and so a big reason we have a lot of um
22:49
gee i’m going to get into trouble right
22:50
now yeah i’m just cueing up the cricket
22:56
a big reason in the marketplace today
22:58
why we have a lot of vaccine hesitancy
23:00
is because people don’t trust the speed
23:10
vaccine could come to market so fast was
23:12
that it wasn’t invented this year
23:15
yeah it had actually been worked on for
23:21
and that most people don’t know that um
23:26
in the pandemic wasn’t oh we have to
23:28
invent a vaccine the problem was how do
23:31
we design a vaccine to combat
23:33
um sars2 which creates covert 19.
23:38
the the answer was well sars one
23:41
was solved and it was solved in about
23:46
almost two decades of research from the
23:48
guys that looked at the first size one
23:50
outbreak which was bird flu you remember
23:52
in the early 2000s we knew that well
23:56
because it shut down air travel
24:00
and everybody knew about bird flu and
24:02
bird flu was caused from sars one
24:07
and when sars 2 was published as a as a
24:12
um when the world looked at that there
24:16
it’s not it’s not too hard to take what
24:19
we had for sars one and adapt it to size
24:23
the problem wasn’t time the problem was
24:27
and how do we affect change using that
24:30
vaccine and i going to get into all
24:31
sorts of trouble talking about that um
24:34
but vaccines are good they’re healthy
24:39
and and the point here is to say um
24:43
when when vaccine companies looked at
24:48
they were looking at what they had in
24:50
their toolkit that existed already to
24:52
solve that problem their problem wasn’t
24:54
time their problem was the capacity to
24:57
manufacture and yeah and so
25:00
um you know there’s a whole there’s some
25:02
really good stuff being published now on
25:06
um these pandemic vaccines came to
25:14
western democratic capitalist that
25:16
believes in free markets um
25:19
i think it’s not a perfect system but
25:20
it’s the best system we got and
25:23
um if you look at what’s happened um
25:26
we’ve had a free and open market
25:29
um vaccine companies all around the
25:32
um collaborating together
25:38
and and those companies have achieved in
25:43
not just the design of the vaccine but
25:48
the the production and the distribution
25:50
of that product globally to get that
25:53
into the arms of nations and saved
25:59
you cannot look at the last couple of
26:00
years and go wow that is a modern
26:03
miracle of collaboration technology
26:07
and companies working together it’s just
26:10
the way that that has been uh produced
26:16
with with the flu uh the spanish flu
26:20
circa 100 million people died
26:22
more people died in the spanish flu from
26:27
1819 through to about 1925 than they did
26:32
the flu that that flu was was more
26:37
than world war one in that context in
26:39
terms of human lives lost
26:41
and today a hundred years later um we’re
26:45
sadly at four or five million lives lost
26:49
but that’s not a hundred million
26:50
and and we’re going to dodge that bullet
26:53
due to phenomenal problem solving man i
26:56
don’t know how i got into this i’ve
27:00
it is and you know like sure you’re not
27:05
you’re not completely speaking
27:06
ignorantly you do have an infectious
27:07
disease expert yeah in your family
27:11
immediate family yeah and that we work
27:15
so i think you know we bring this back
27:16
to roadblocks and challenges um
27:19
uh there’s a real there was actually a
27:21
really couple of really good
27:22
documentaries published recently on this
27:23
topic and i think we should do more on
27:26
um the clarity of roadblocks and clarity
27:29
of challenges solve step by step to
27:30
bring those products to market
27:33
has been a wonderful example
27:40
so one so point here is often the
27:45
it’s more rece resource or design or
27:49
people and so the first job of the
27:52
individual or the team going we’ve got
27:54
is to articulate the roadblock well
27:57
to surface the problem well you know the
27:59
problem we’re solving is not i need more
28:01
time dear boss but rather actually in
28:05
this is we’re going to need x number of
28:07
people working in xy okay
28:11
that’s the moment when when the boss
28:13
goes i can see you’ve got a solution to
28:14
a problem i can fund that problem i can
28:17
fund that solution and we can solve that
28:21
the reason why it’s a discipline to
28:23
think through challenges and roadblocks
28:25
is that you in your thinking through of
28:28
the challenge in the roadblock actually
28:36
you’re going to somebody who can
28:38
actually go i can solve that i could i
28:42
because because i can fund produce do
28:47
um but if you’re going to somebody going
28:50
i don’t know how i’ve got a problem
28:52
um you know what are they going to do
28:54
they’re going to say go away and think
28:56
and come back to me later with a
28:59
um or come back to me later with with
29:01
thinking around your problem and i’ll
29:03
help you build the solution if you can’t
29:05
do that but it’s not i can’t do it
29:08
that’s not a challenge or a roadblock um
29:10
so so the discipline of thinking about
29:13
challenges and roadblocks is the
29:15
discipline of thinking through the
29:18
identifying what the problem is to solve
29:21
and then surfacing possible solutions
29:23
for discussion and then people will get
29:26
around you bosses leaders others will
29:29
yeah actually that’s right we can do
29:31
that and here’s how we’re going to do it
29:36
roadblocks removed goals delivered does
29:42
stu we’ve got a framework
29:44
a one-page plan yeah that people can
29:52
i can actually think through some of
29:53
these things so do you just want to like
29:54
talk about that just for a second well
29:56
like and and how we kind of track the
29:58
results of that plan yeah do you want to
30:00
know the coolest thing about our one
30:03
it turns into a digital it’s digital
30:09
it turns into a one cloud dynamic plan
30:14
uh please explain okay so
30:17
uh you might go away and do your
30:20
on the marketing plan canvas
30:23
might have a bunch of notes you might
30:24
even write it up in a in a word doc or a
30:28
but you’re going to have some goals um
30:31
the most important part of any plan is
30:34
what are the goals we’re going to
30:35
achieve and those goals will articulate
30:37
how you’re going to get there
30:39
so if you go into waymaker
30:42
you’ll see the company profile in your
30:44
settings right hand side settings drop
30:48
click on that and that is actually your
30:50
dynamic plan across the business
30:54
your insights from your one page canvas
31:02
and the goals that you’ve built
31:09
sitting underneath that content
31:12
and come and as you you deliver
31:15
they’ll dynamically surface
31:17
for the period of time that you’re in
31:20
and you’ll have a rolling progress score
31:22
and confidence score on your marketing
31:25
plan and you will see the roll-ups on
31:28
the progress delivery of your marketing
31:30
plan so insights plus goals
31:34
goals tracked weekly and that
31:36
dynamically updates your plan inside
31:40
so how do we build clarity alignment and
31:42
results we do it by diagnosing planning
31:45
and delivering and the three tools
31:47
inside the waymaker toolkit for customer
31:51
are the cx marketing diagnostic
31:53
cx marketing one page plan canvas
31:57
cx marketing one cloud plan inside
32:00
waymaker using your goals that you’ve
32:02
built the cool thing is those goals
32:05
relate up to your strategic plan so