Episode 089 -Maria Ogneva, Director of Community - How to Build a Community from Scratch

Chris Detzel: Welcome to another peers over beers my name is Chris Chris denzel and we do have a special guest today Maria i've never Maria how are you.

Maria Ogneva: I am so well how are you.

Chris Detzel: doing well it's been a long time since we've connected.

Maria Ogneva: It has been a long time.

Chris Detzel: I think.

Chris Detzel: I don't know that we've really just had a one on one conversation, you know, like like this, so yeah.

Maria Ogneva: When I don't think we have, I think it's mostly in group.

Maria Ogneva: yeah like.

Maria Ogneva: On.

Maria Ogneva: What was that thing called clubhouse.

Chris Detzel: Before bit.

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Maria Ogneva: Are you still on that now.

Maria Ogneva: Or you.

Chris Detzel: Know never um it had potential, but you know I just got this too much stuff going on, and I was like I don't get it, you know i'm not i'm not understanding this too much so.

Chris Detzel: Well hey so you know you went to another company, several months ago I guess back in July, or something like that company called voca and you know we actually have.

Chris Detzel: A person in common, we know, but you know i'm interested to hear more you know from my understanding, you know you started.

Chris Detzel: you're starting a community from scratch and there's a lot of things within that process is that right, you know is that you're starting to Community there and love to know a little bit more about that piece, you know why Community what's kind of the goal and things like that.

Maria Ogneva: yeah sure, so you are correct, it was precisely last July when I started in boca and actually one of my old managers well nothing she's old but.

From a long time ago.

Maria Ogneva: What my previous bosses who my absolutely adore has been in boca and.

She.

Maria Ogneva: reached out, you know we chatted you know it's all I feel like you know the longer you do this job, and the more you.

Maria Ogneva: The more senior you get into your career, like all of the job referrals are primarily through your network, like, I cannot.

Maria Ogneva: Even tell you last time that, like, I went on a website and communication is all very much you know word of mouth right and so typically people that you work with in the past to like know your work and kind of what you're all about and the quality of your work.

Maria Ogneva: reach out, and so this was no exception, so yeah we chatted I was really impressed with the company and.

Maria Ogneva: The caliber of the leadership team and all the people who were working there i'm in the marketing department so everyone has met has been absolutely.

Maria Ogneva: Incredible and really impressive and I was like hey, this is a really cool space we're in the conversation intelligence space, so we help sales and marketing teams and digital leaders understand their conversations with customers and.

Maria Ogneva: And really transform their businesses that way so so really exciting space still early on, so being.

Maria Ogneva: In something that is growing quickly that's going to be the future of digital is really exciting and then you know you're building the category, and so, when I learned that.

Maria Ogneva: there's an opportunity for Community It made me think of you know, some other opportunities, where I was able to come in really kind of as the category was starting up and what a fantastic thought leadership opportunity that gives to Community members.

Maria Ogneva: Right to like all the customers that are they're sharing their tips and tricks they're really at the vanguard.

Maria Ogneva: right there blazing trails when they're learning something so new and so transformational, and so I love doing that right like what draws me to community.

Maria Ogneva: Is the ability to help people kind of find their voice, you know learn more and get better and, of course, learning and community is always better.

Maria Ogneva: and much more multifaceted that if you just going to read a book by yourself, you always learn so much more from your peers right like the Community.

Maria Ogneva: We came in like there were no books.

No.

Maria Ogneva: No learn by doing by talking to the other right and it's similar right and just allowing people to really.

Maria Ogneva: kind of.

Maria Ogneva: turbo turbo charge their careers and really become leaders in the space of Sonia that so fast growing that that is something that I love and so that's kind of what drew me to the opportunity.

Maria Ogneva: So yeah.

Maria Ogneva: been here since July starting up a new Community from scratch it's.

Maria Ogneva: it's everything that it always exciting it's exciting yeah um it's a lot of work it's a lot of aligning internally and externally, but it's it's all in good fun.

Chris Detzel: yeah I agree, you know I apologize, but let's go back because you have extensive knowledge and Community you've worked in a lot of places like.

Chris Detzel: sidecar technologies your Community there sumo logic your end of Community their linkedin your global edit Community their financial force Your Director of online Community experiencing.

Chris Detzel: Community that's kind of leverage but um and then now i'd have voca Your Director of Community and customer marketing so lots of experience and building.

Chris Detzel: From, I can tell B2B communities right and and just doing a i've known about you, for a long time and i've.

Chris Detzel: You know kind of kept up with you a little bit, and I was always very like you know.

Chris Detzel: always good things have been said about you and just how you built your communities and how you go in and look at the customer experience and.

Chris Detzel: Things like that you know so just wanted to go backwards and say you know Thank you so much for coming on piers over beers it means a lot to me, and I know our audience will appreciate.

Chris Detzel: kind of what they're going to hear today because of all your experience and and knowledge of communities so so thank you.

Maria Ogneva: Thank you yeah we learn from each other, you know yeah.

Maria Ogneva: that's right that's right Oh, and then yeah.

Chris Detzel: And that's why I love having you know leaders like yourself on peers over beers because be honest, you know I know that others are going to learn, but I learned a lot, so it helps me.

Chris Detzel: To have these conversations and things like that so well you know that's really cool about in boca and and the opportunity that you have there sounds like.

Chris Detzel: you've done a lot of stuff so we haven't even really started in tip you know kind of.

Chris Detzel: When you look at back in July August, you know when you kind of first started invoke and what are the first things that you go do, what do you, what do you.

Chris Detzel: Because I know the things I do, but you know i'm interested to hear your point of view, like you're telling me stuff on the pre show, and I was like yeah Maybe I should have done that.

Chris Detzel: So i'd love to hear kind of.

Chris Detzel: The first maybe it's a few months, you know in what do you start to do, what do you think about what are you trying to accomplish at the end of the day.

Maria Ogneva: we're so well and in boca community and customer marketing falls under me and then, when I came in, but we're actually in the thick of planning our major user conference that happens, once a year, and so, unfortunately, the Community was not going to be out in time for that last year because.

Maria Ogneva: You know, take some time to get it up and running, yes i'll get to in a second, but it was an awesome opportunity to actually like jump into the deep end and really get to know our customers, so one thing that I specifically has to run kind of soup to NUTS was our award show.

Maria Ogneva: So we have you know each year we give awards to the best and brightest in our category to the most innovative companies who are using invoke in interesting ways and.

Maria Ogneva: The cool results they're seeing, and so it was awesome because it gave me an opportunity to get to know, like all of these amazing people right off the BAT, and the reason I bring it up is because you know, obviously the show is about Community not festival marketing, but I think.

Maria Ogneva: there's yeah there's a lot of common ground and when we're talking about you know your your kind of your biggest advocates.

Maria Ogneva: The people really on the cutting edge, who are also like willing and able to share their story for the betterment of the Community.

Maria Ogneva: What you're talking about when you're talking about that group that's kind of the kernel that you would start your community with anyway right, so I just had like this really cool accelerant where I just got like a lot of people like really bow right off the BAT.

Maria Ogneva: In a in a very funny setting where it's like hey you've been nominated for this award.

Maria Ogneva: So.

Maria Ogneva: that's.

Chris Detzel: Pretty cool.

Maria Ogneva: Right.

Chris Detzel: I like that.

Chris Detzel: You get to meet the customers right off and so and it starts getting you thinking also have later, you know when you start that Community and.

Chris Detzel: How, you can see, questions, how you get people to talk to each other, you can you can call on to those people nominated for the Lord and things like that, or maybe people would say yes, so I mean to me.

Maria Ogneva: Is you know people yeah the people who, when they award are people who are really doing interesting stuff that's that's why they're nominated that's why the during the winter, and so you want to kind of make sure that you.

Maria Ogneva: You know, are able to build like a really mutually beneficial relationship with them to where you can continue to provide opportunity for them to.

Maria Ogneva: To have a platform for their expertise right and so communities, one of those platforms and end up fantastic So what we actually did a few months after that we got in touch with like 20 or so of our kind of again are.

Maria Ogneva: Very celebrated champions, and we said hey we're thinking about his Community like this is before the vendor was selected, this is before I kind of had any preconceived notions about what it would be like hey can you chat with me for like 15 minutes we're thinking about this Community.

Maria Ogneva: What.

Maria Ogneva: What would have to be true about this community for you to get value out of it right, and so we went and we asked everyone kind of a set of standard questions.

Maria Ogneva: But it really helped us to understand like what not just what kind of functionality, the Community should should have.

Maria Ogneva: but also in terms of programming what is actually useful because the last thing you want to do again, this goes back to starting out starting from scratch.

Maria Ogneva: You don't know anything you want to come into it with a beginner mind, even if you've built like tons of communities before you like, each one is like a fresh, new thing like a brand new baby are going to be like others I mean.

Chris Detzel: there's similarities, but similar yeah they all have similar elements, of course, but like you know you want to try to forget, as you as much as you can.

Maria Ogneva: In terms of like the structure and the the content and the types of things that that you will do in there from a programming perspective.

Maria Ogneva: And then just allow the Community to lead you this what you don't want to do is like.

Maria Ogneva: Community is not something you do to other people is something you do with other people and.

Maria Ogneva: So the more that you can kind of.

Maria Ogneva: get this groundswell of people.

Maria Ogneva: excited about it, talking about it, sharing their ideas with you the the easier it's going to be later when you launch.

Chris Detzel: What I what I liked what you said, though, the marine and it's a big buzzword today it's Community lead right and that's.

Maria Ogneva: Those are the things that you're talking about so I mean we've been doing this for a long time, so we already know this.

Chris Detzel: is not really something new, I feel like organizations right this actually do this, a lot, you know I mean the last thing they want to do is.

Chris Detzel: not have a Community lead i'm not saying organizations make mistake don't make mistakes, you know, but most part we've been doing this for years, this is not something new, but I love, how you said that, though, because that's exactly what you're doing is Community lead so.

Maria Ogneva: keep going so.

Maria Ogneva: Now.

Maria Ogneva: You we can't underscore that highly enough right like you can't can't some possible to overstate how important it is.

Maria Ogneva: yeah but thanks for putting it putting a finer point on it so so that's my customer side so as you're starting out you want to try to understand.

Maria Ogneva: Who are the customers personal we're excited about the state yeah right like this is supposed to be fine you're supposed to.

Maria Ogneva: Do it with people who are actually like excited about the future there'll be a time to bring laggards on to the thing later, but you want to start with.

Maria Ogneva: You know the art of the possible and you want to ask people what they would want to see right and it's if you can like try to interview customers who are new.

Maria Ogneva: Customers who are who've been with you for a while, because then i'm.

Maria Ogneva: You know customers who've been around for a while they're experts in may not remember kind of like what kind of support they need, who are new.

Maria Ogneva: So it's useful to kind of cover a lot of ground in terms of customers or new customers who have been around the block a few times and kind of span the gamut you know.

Maria Ogneva: large companies, small companies, you know, whatever because you want to make it.

Maria Ogneva: Good for for everyone, you want to solve real needs right you your job is to understand like what is the problem you're solving you're not just building it just because someone gave you a job and said let's build a Community like it has to actually solve the thing right.

Maria Ogneva: Okay, so that's, the first thing the second thing is the work that you're going to do internally.

Maria Ogneva: So obviously we all have bosses right and every company has an executive team, and so you really want to make your Community like really strategic.

Maria Ogneva: But how do you make a strategic you want to understand what's important to the organization, so you know when you go to like all the all hands you listen to like.

Maria Ogneva: You know the readouts quarterly read out that your CFO gives you the strategy that the CEO talk to.

Maria Ogneva: You want to really understand that and internalize it and ask yourself, like all the time, is the Community i'm building as the stuff i'm doing.

Maria Ogneva: actually help that goal yeah that was kind of set for the whole company, and if it doesn't like you really need to kind of readjust a little bit.

Maria Ogneva: So that you are solving problems because again like your company brought him in to help make the company successful or more successful right usher into the new stage of growth, how are you going to do that by solving and, like the actual.

Maria Ogneva: By.

Maria Ogneva: Helping Community kind of aligned to the strategic direction that's been set out that takes you into that next phase of growth right or the next phase of whatever your company is in.

Maria Ogneva: So that's really, really important right, and so you want to be able to always point to how you are solving that big thing because that's how you really you get legitimacy and.

Maria Ogneva: And, and people are like oh wow this Community.

Maria Ogneva: So it's important it's delivering results let's keep funding it and so.

Chris Detzel: and Maria say.

Chris Detzel: You can't stress enough how important it is.

Chris Detzel: For your Community goals to line up to the company goals you know, like, for example.

Chris Detzel: You get your company goals.

Chris Detzel: Like I report to the CMO today right, and so we know that you know Community for me it's always been more of a customer success or success or customer thing.

Chris Detzel: it's not it always will be that, but I think you know if you're not solving some of these marketing goals that are actually rolling up into you know those main company goals, but the nice thing about communities, they can roll up to a lot of different goals you know product customer.

Chris Detzel: We call it customers, like our customer success and support and a bunch of other stuff there you know so that's the opportunity, but you really need to align it with that we have a thing called plan on a page.

Maria Ogneva: And so you put your plan on a page yeah.

Chris Detzel: Everything there just lines up directly with the marketing goals and those goals directly line up to the business goals if it's not doing that, like you said you have to think.

Chris Detzel: You have to do that Community isn't all about always hanging out with your friends hanging out with you know the Community people and.

Chris Detzel: You know, you were there for a reason, and then the goals are the goals and you've got to accomplish those goals, or at least.

Chris Detzel: Let those rough edges, I see a lot of tactical things that go on at some of these communities, and you know it's it's just.

Chris Detzel: You know you get a look at the strategic view of Community versus all the tactical things you have to go do these tactical things.

Chris Detzel: Are in the roadmap that you can push to drive to that strategic vision and goal and everything else, but you hit it right and I love, how you said it so that's what I just wanted to push that you know to say thank you for saying that and I agree so good stuff.

Maria Ogneva: yeah so um I am on the marketing team actually but i'm very lucky to have to executive sponsors so obviously our CMO, who was my.

Maria Ogneva: My old boss from a long time ago again cool cool my absolutely adore she is one of my executive sponsors and our head of customer success chief customer officer.

Maria Ogneva: is someone who you know together and comment she's my mother she's awesome sponsor and so she is so awesome so I not only do I have two amazing executive sponsors in two different departments.

Maria Ogneva: yep but they're also like both amazing and they're both such accomplished women leaders and that's always.

Chris Detzel: love it.

Maria Ogneva: that's always great so i'm really lucky in that I have to say it was helped me make sure that I am aligning this community to meet the needs of like, as many of these important stakeholders as possible, and so what I did.

Maria Ogneva: And i've always done this in the past, companies, but I feel like this time I can admit it in a more.

Maria Ogneva: prescriptive way, if you want I assembled a steering committee so apart from the two executive sponsors.

Maria Ogneva: I leveraged I say to build relationships with exact key executive stakeholders across the company.

Maria Ogneva: That.

Maria Ogneva: Will Community either would affect impact somehow or who whose lives, I could potentially improve right meaning their departments and deliverables or from home.

Maria Ogneva: Like we would need to partner with so right like so and executives like in charge of it, for example, like we were going to need system.

Maria Ogneva: Health right.

Maria Ogneva: We want to make sure that what we're building is like technically found and actually is good for kind of our technology stack right so like all these different groups, they have to be.

Maria Ogneva: consulted, they have to be brought into the fold, and they have to be.

Maria Ogneva: kept the breath and you wanted to get their input as well, and by having like this extremely cross functional team.

Maria Ogneva: Working with me on the strategy like before I even like talk to any vendors right This allowed me to ensure that I don't have that i'm not operating with any blind spots like I said Ray said i'm in marketing.

Maria Ogneva: that's where kind of my world revolves around but, like, I tried to know a lot about a lot, but like you're just not going to know everything right and like, no matter how many slack channels you're in.

Maria Ogneva: there's no one that can speak to kind of the big picture of the department than the person who's in charge of the department.

Maria Ogneva: Right and that person can actually steer you like one few and to get through the strategy it Asian.

Maria Ogneva: That person can actually fear you to the right people on their team to help you get it done and so it's really, really important for a number of reasons, it helps.

Maria Ogneva: people understand your vision, it helps people contribute to your vision, it helps you not the blind spots and it helps you build really solid relationships like outside of your department.

Maria Ogneva: and help, like other people get really excited about it, so that you know I mean i'm a team of two sometimes you're a team of one, and so you can indeed, like all the resources that you can get, and so the ability to manage cross functionally and.

Maria Ogneva: beg borrow and steal across the nation.

Maria Ogneva: is basically like what a good Community leader has to be able to do.

Chris Detzel: that's the.

Maria Ogneva: I think it has to be.

Chris Detzel: You know, getting those people excited and.

Maria Ogneva: yeah.

Chris Detzel: Like you said I think that's exactly what I do is you know when I go into the organization, the first thing is, they just start talking to people talking to leaders talking to just people, I know that are really smart and organization that aren't leaders, but.

Chris Detzel: I gotta go find those people because they're the ones, going to be helping to do.

Chris Detzel: Whatever programs, that we do for us as a webinar program where I call it the Community show.

Chris Detzel: they're really smart about the products so they're going to do that stuff but I get to talk to their leaders to let them know that they're going to be doing that stuff at some point, you know and.

Chris Detzel: You know so you're aligning all those things together, your goals and what you can accomplish getting those leaders excited and just let them know hey just you know i'll be probably.

Chris Detzel: Being in your department and nobody helping me do bunch stuff like answering questions helping write blogs, helping to you know, whatever the on the webinars and lead some stuff because it's an opportunity for them.

Chris Detzel: And that's the way I presented it is the opportunity to really evangelize yourself or promote yourself i'm here to do that for you.

Chris Detzel: But you know, the way we do it is through Community, and you know when you when you author a blog when you actually the speaker on a webinar when you.

Chris Detzel: answer those questions your names out there now you know you're on video for good, you know.

Chris Detzel: And you're on those blogs for good, and you know now, you can put that if you want, on your resume and all that kind of stuff and.

Chris Detzel: that's how I do it, you know, and I think that people get excited about it, let everybody know that.

Chris Detzel: Like we know everybody's different on how they want to engage with different things, whether it's Community or in life and things like that, so you have to build.

Chris Detzel: With you know these programs that allow even employees to engage in your community with your customers and for us our partners to so love that.

Maria Ogneva: that's totally yeah so we sat together as the steering committee team and we aligned, you know again when you're talking to executives you're not going to get in the weeds you're not going to get in for your program management you're going to keep it really high level.

Maria Ogneva: And we use a few a few of our sessions together to really align on the key priorities for community.

Maria Ogneva: We were able to prioritize.

Maria Ogneva: them against each other.

Maria Ogneva: And to come up with how we're going to measure success because that's really, really important, because that is your ability and so you want to be able to report back to the same Steering Committee, you know, three months, six months, nine months 12 months 24 months after.

Maria Ogneva: you're alive like how you did against these things that you said you were going to do your CFO right if you're you're probably spending.

Maria Ogneva: A chunk of money on these cloud based platforms, you know they're not.

Maria Ogneva: cheap and so your CFO is like hey I gave you all this money like.

Maria Ogneva: What what happened as a result, so you want to have those answers.

Maria Ogneva: So how you going to measure it it's actually really important and that's going to play in hugely into your vendor selection so hold that thought for a minute i'll circle back to that in a few minutes okay so because we created the strategy together as a team.

Maria Ogneva: And because you know the things that we said, the Community was going to do, are so bold and kind of cross functional cross functionally aligned and aligned to our big goal as a company.

Maria Ogneva: People are like excited about it, right now, they are more willing to then after you kind of did this collaborative strategy.

Maria Ogneva: If you ever need resources to support this thing that they are excited about what they participated in.

Maria Ogneva: They are more willing to give you some resources, so we had a situation where we needed an engineer for the implementation team.

Maria Ogneva: Listen, you know fast forwarding a little bit after we selected the vendor and we ended up losing that engineer.

Maria Ogneva: And so we had to quickly you know cover our bases and were able to unite because we built a good relationship with.

Maria Ogneva: Another product and engineering side of the House, like everybody was kind of connected into why it's important so.

Maria Ogneva: And again, the kind of repeating the value that this is going to bring to our customers into the company, you can never do that too much, because then people are you know are like what am I working on why what, why did you put me on this project it's important and you can't do it.

Maria Ogneva: it's impossible to overdo it right, so you want to keep reiterating the value and getting people excited.

Maria Ogneva: Good this.

Chris Detzel: is ongoing like.

Maria Ogneva: it's ongoing that.

Chris Detzel: You know, and one of the things that i've done over this last year, and I even did it last company is anytime there's a.

Chris Detzel: time to speak in front of the entire company which I get to do that every six weeks or so there's three different places that now, I can speak one is.

Chris Detzel: Maybe four but one is an all hands meeting once every six weeks, which anybody can come on usually there's maybe two or 300 that three.

Chris Detzel: About 200 people on it so most of the time, the executives are on to is when we have these things, called they're operating mechanisms called.

Chris Detzel: rocks, so there are real to operating committees, and so we have an executive level rock and so I get to talk every six weeks seven weeks on that and then every six or seven weeks on you know the.

Chris Detzel: All hands, which is just an HR thing and then we have these sub rock type things you know i'm on a partner or sub rock and looking at maybe a sales kind of the.

Chris Detzel: opportunity to do that and get in front of those leaders and show the value that you're bringing with your community.

Chris Detzel: and getting in front of them as much as possible, especially after the fact that it goes live, which I know you already know all this stuff.

Chris Detzel: But you know, putting yourself like what not so long ago, the HR person hey Chris in two days I need somebody to speak about something, can you please speak about Community and i'm like all right, I only got two days okay fine i'll figure it out right, you know so.

Maria Ogneva: yeah.

Maria Ogneva: take every opportunity, you can there's um you know you, you need to constantly be marketing to your memory, but you also have to market internally.

Maria Ogneva: Just as much, if not war right your internal employees is what really powers your Community work so without that you don't really have anything.

Maria Ogneva: That we have the Steering Committee we aligned on a strategy, we know what we're measuring stuff like that, and then that's when you can start getting into like understanding what is the functionality, that your community is going to have and the cool thing is.

Maria Ogneva: That you put together your strategy, so your feature set just kind of should like flow out of them.

Maria Ogneva: So it sounds like a lot of work and you actually end up spending like.

Maria Ogneva: quite a bit of time right on this kind of initial setup.

Maria Ogneva: Without you ever like talking about any features.

Maria Ogneva: But that is fine, so well stand like my favorite proverb is like I can go back to look, you can go fast alone, but you can go further together.

Maria Ogneva: it's always worth your time to slow down you don't need to rush into anything, even though you may feel the urgency to like start proving yourself always worth your while to slow down figure out why figure out who am I, how to.

Maria Ogneva: position it in a way that is the most impactful.

Chris Detzel: I like to.

Chris Detzel: Go slow to go fast, you know.

Maria Ogneva: Just let it go past yeah yeah but like.

Maria Ogneva: You know, like we spent a few months on that right like before anyone stepped into any kind of implementation so than because I knew what I was doing.

Maria Ogneva: Like what, in general terms of community has to deliver it was kind of easier to go from there to a feature set that you start talking to vendors, then you kind of narrow down this pool of vendors that you've talked to you.

Maria Ogneva: And then you know, then you can actually start selecting a vendor based on the feature that would allow you to reach those big goals but also.

Maria Ogneva: You want to always understand like how if you're going to be able to measure what you said you were going to measure.

Maria Ogneva: That was why I was like hey we'll circle back around to this in a few minutes So here we are right, that is a critical part of vendor selection, you need to understand what does data look like.

Maria Ogneva: Who who can take data out where you can take the data to.

Maria Ogneva: How was it logged where's it logged.

Maria Ogneva: How easy or hard, is it to take out into like whatever bi system, you have like a tableau and whatnot and so you want to kind of get ahead of that right.

Maria Ogneva: Because the last thing you want to do is have a Community system running it's wonderful, but you don't actually know how to measure it.

Maria Ogneva: And you can't actually get to those things that you said you were going to measure because you didn't do your homework so i'm not saying it's the only basis on which you select your platform, but it's one of the many things to think through.

Chris Detzel: it's epic it's why.

Maria Ogneva: I think.

Chris Detzel: You know it.

Maria Ogneva: Look there's a lot of things to look at, but.

Chris Detzel: You know, at the end of the day, you can approve value and you get understand well.

Maria Ogneva: yeah.

Maria Ogneva: All right, yeah.

Chris Detzel: You went to your executives and said, this is the value that we're going to bring.

Chris Detzel: And then you need a vendor to allow you to show that as best as possible i'm not saying you're not gonna have to get.

Chris Detzel: You know, Google analytics and you know the so there's probably a few places that you'll get your data, but like you said how easy or.

Chris Detzel: How can you move that data over to like a power bi or tableau or whatever to allow you to make that data pretty you know and make it digestible and and that.

Chris Detzel: Low end end I like that a lot and I didn't have to probably learned from you on that piece, because you know, allowing people to use it is would be amazing so if it was somebody in.

Chris Detzel: Customer success, and it was case deflection or for somebody in marketing that you know, maybe when we get a new lead, or maybe you've got to do.

Chris Detzel: something, you know that just going to help cells and that kind of stuff and prove that out, you know, instead of you haven't you have to teach and.

Chris Detzel: You know, learn teach learn learn kind of thing right you learn that you teach it you learn it, you know that kind of stuff and but, once these other organizations can see it and learn it and understand it, they start using this stuff that's powerful yeah.

Chris Detzel: I love that yeah wow.

Maria Ogneva: This is why you want to involve you know the the kind of executive work whoever's in charge of your systems is a really important partner, because that's where you start to understand like.

Maria Ogneva: Oh, we standardize everything on power bi or tableau like you wouldn't notice, if you just went into like this vendor selection process by yourself.

Maria Ogneva: But like this allows you to ask like really smart questions that allow you to actually vet it against not just against other vendors, but like also in support of your own.

Maria Ogneva: Data strategy as a company right.

Chris Detzel: yeah that's good i'm.

Maria Ogneva: really happy I like.

Maria Ogneva: got to know our data team, and then it how things work well before I sign any contracts with any vendor.

Maria Ogneva: Anyway, so this actually is a nice pivot into the next point so just like I have big thick it is team.

Maria Ogneva: The executive steering committee kind of aligning on the strategy I assembled a like a technology Council to help me that these like we.

Maria Ogneva: You know, pick our top three and we're like hey I want, like all the smart technical people on my organization is that these three choices.

Maria Ogneva: From a technical perspective right like again like you want to embed from a feature perspective right it's like let's say you know you're running product and you want customer feedback right you want to take a look at.

Maria Ogneva: kind of how the feedback actually happens with customers right but also you want to bring in people who kind of hold the different parts of your tech stack in their in their hands operationally.

Maria Ogneva: and understand how everything is going to fit together your platform is going to fit with whatever we use for CRM more than likely salesforce.

Maria Ogneva: gain site right like what are all the different tools that intersect and that your community should maybe, at least not initially but at some point should.

Maria Ogneva: integrate with or take data from or put data into right and so so on the sea and was like our head of marketing OPS to head of customer success.

Maria Ogneva: salesforce.

Maria Ogneva: salesforce developers again my partner who manages our entire technology team.

Maria Ogneva: And you want to have, like all these different representatives.

Maria Ogneva: To to to help us that and and ask good questions because they have some questions too right, so you.

Maria Ogneva: want to have these like sessions for the whole team, where they can ask questions directly to the vendor.

Maria Ogneva: Then you kind of from there, I went and I sold out score cards for each of the three vendors.

Maria Ogneva: Actually.

Maria Ogneva: There, there are a few.

Maria Ogneva: out on the web, my favorite one is probably from my friends that in before the lock, they have a great template which I literally went and I copied it copied it like it literally says, you can go in and copy.

Maria Ogneva: and make your own and that's what I did.

Maria Ogneva: But the beauty of specifically is that.

Maria Ogneva: Of that template is that it helps you kind of think through things holistically right like it helps me think of the vendors kind of strength as you see them and also like what does the sentence think your strengths are.

Maria Ogneva: And then it also allowed me to kind of extrapolate a little bit on that thinking.

Maria Ogneva: Understand like you know where the vendor is going in the future right because you do the scorecard on the features that again are aligned to your strategy right like which ones just deliver better on the functionality.

Maria Ogneva: kind of roughly the same.

Maria Ogneva: You know, give or take a few there were like everyone's going to have like questions and others and ideas right, but like they view things in in.

Maria Ogneva: Because that a pretty vastly different way by the different integrations or go through, but like at its core, you have conversations you have groups.

Chris Detzel: yeah most of them do that but, like you had.

Chris Detzel: That point on, and I think integrations are big thing right.

Maria Ogneva: yeah so.

Chris Detzel: You know, like like, for example, ideation you know for vendor like most of these vendors have ideas, but not all vendors will integrate into like jira.

Chris Detzel: And then right back right, you know right integer and you're writing back to the Community I ation platform so i'm I say that because you know, the way that work on a daily basis is through jira yeah.

Chris Detzel: or.

Chris Detzel: Something like that right like they don't.

Chris Detzel: Go to other places they don't want to go anywhere else, they want to put their information right there in jira.

Chris Detzel: And they hit send or save and then that should go back directly, you know and and it's like you know a lot of times, because when you start when you start competing with.

Chris Detzel: You know, things like Aha and you know, because it is an only an ideation platform right, so your vendor can't do the basics like that.

Chris Detzel: i'm not saying it has to be as good as haha, but it has to do the basics like I just said, you know, and if he hasn't been you know so that's just one example of you know, I know that.

Chris Detzel: Like right, you know some vendors Community vendors do keep very good job and they get the technology market right like that that's.

Chris Detzel: Not everyone does like the vendor over here, yes, they have Q amp a they have blogs, they have these things.

Chris Detzel: But their integration strategy and other business systems like salesforce or you know jira or any other system is not that it can't be done, but it's very difficult, you know what I mean so.

Maria Ogneva: yeah no.

Chris Detzel: I think that's key you know, especially for.

Every.

Maria Ogneva: yeah and not every like salesforce integration is the same either.

Maria Ogneva: A managed package from have an unmanaged package some integrate via API like these all have like serious pros and cons, so this is why you need to have your technical steering team to help that like hey you kind of we feel about this.

Maria Ogneva: type of innovation, how we feel anyway, so I did the scorecards based on feature and functionality, but also it allowed me to like interview each vendor and be like So what are you excited about in the future.

Maria Ogneva: Tell me a little bit about your roadmap, where do you see Community in five years, and also like.

Maria Ogneva: This is kind of not obvious, but you want to make sure that whatever vendor you're selecting it's going to be around for a while, because.

Maria Ogneva: Community migration as anyone who's gone through migration can tell you it is not something you want to do migrations.

Maria Ogneva: It is disruptive to your customers to move the needle people hate it.

Maria Ogneva: Something always goes wrong it's expensive it's.

Maria Ogneva: time consuming.

Maria Ogneva: In terms of money in terms of resources, like it is a mess, so what you are trying to manage to his longevity you want a part of Community partner.

Chris Detzel: You want to do this, one you.

Maria Ogneva: want to.

Chris Detzel: You know if you're gonna stay with the company for five years you want that vendor to be with you for five years or however long you know because.

Maria Ogneva: The last thing you want to do is, I know.

You wanted.

Maria Ogneva: To.

Maria Ogneva: Do you leave like the neck up person that takes over it's like wow this is so great it's so organized I.

Maria Ogneva: I couldn't grow this thing right I don't have to worry and the partner base and.

Maria Ogneva: I love that yeah yeah and so you want to make sure like as much as possible, you want to try to understand their.

Maria Ogneva: Like just their longevity how long they've been around how well funded, they are what their customers are right, like if they just have like a ton of really great customers that probably making enough money, but like you know, p.

Maria Ogneva: crunchbase or whatever tried on how much money they brains and so these questions do end up coming up like when you're talking.

Maria Ogneva: to your steering committee about the recommendation you're making you want to make sure that they feel comfortable with not just like who can do the job, but like is this company or whiskey company.

Maria Ogneva: yeah right and fair, you want to help people feel good about the choice you're making So what we did with it.

Maria Ogneva: But the technology team, you know I did the scorecards I convened everyone together after we did the three demos for the vendors and we had a debrief and I just had everyone, we were lucky that we were in vehement agreement.

Maria Ogneva: you're not always going to have that but you know it just shows that, like.

Maria Ogneva: Because we were all kind of aligned on the vision and, like, I chose three good companies that frequent all really support that vision, but in different ways, so we were able to really kind of agree on our top one and two choices and I took.

Maria Ogneva: Those recommendations back to the steering committee and then we just kind of grilled the data together.

Maria Ogneva: As a executive team to come up with like the choice that we made right and so onerous thing is mine into consideration, like.

Maria Ogneva: Again we went back to the strategy we're like hey you know this tool even even though it's more expensive it actually addresses.

Maria Ogneva: Like some of our self service goals, like a lot better than the other tools so like people actually felt more comfortable with a more expensive tool, because it more holistically.

Maria Ogneva: solved for what we're trying to solve to good thing we have that strategy, we knew what we were what problem so we're actually solving right, so it all kind of.

Maria Ogneva: Again, it all is circular you kind of end up back where you started and it just started from a solid place I get all kind of just flows through that but you know it's an intensive process, it is.

Chris Detzel: It is.

Maria Ogneva: A lot of alignment, a lot of.

Maria Ogneva: Selling right a lot of painting of a vision, when you don't even have a pixel on a page at that point, and you know effective communication and effective leadership.

Maria Ogneva: that's all you're doing yeah.

Maria Ogneva: So the first.

Maria Ogneva: Three months at least.

Chris Detzel: At least at night at the key right job changes once you know you start getting kind of he started looking at how are you going to see your Community who's going to be on Community and.

Chris Detzel: You know, once that starts, you know you'll start promoting out, you know the numbers where you're heading you still want to get that executive alignment all that stuff where.

Chris Detzel: yeah but.

Chris Detzel: it's basically a different job your first three or four monster it's way different than.

Chris Detzel: The rest of your career, you know I mean like yeah.

Chris Detzel: But.

Chris Detzel: But I think they're crucial to to what you have to go do to sell the value sell the you know, do everything you just said, and you know.

Chris Detzel: You didn't just like a pro you know you've done it before I know, but you know, this is exactly I think what our audience needs to hear it's been really good.

Chris Detzel: Now what's so now the vendor selection is done you already selected somebody.

Chris Detzel: what's next.

Maria Ogneva: Well, next is the implementation.

Maria Ogneva: yeah though I mean obviously there's contract negotiations that again, you want to park yeah buddy internally to help you come to the best term you can get.

Maria Ogneva: You have to also understand like you know you want everyone to be happy with the deal.

Maria Ogneva: You want definitely favorable terms, but you also want your vendor because again they're a partner, you want to be in business with them for at least five years.

Maria Ogneva: So you want them to be happy you don't want them to discount it so much that they're not making a profit, so you just you know it takes a little bit of dancing um.

Maria Ogneva: But you know.

Maria Ogneva: You.

Maria Ogneva: you end up with a deal everyone sign on the dotted line and then you can start implementation project, and so you know, depending on how big and complex.

Maria Ogneva: The platform is and how many of these integration means to do it may take a little bit and may take a long time the implementation we're doing now is a little bit on the more complex side.

Maria Ogneva: So we will also have a migration so.

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Maria Ogneva: It takes some time yeah just stuff content, just like.

Chris Detzel: Not.

Maria Ogneva: Even like questions and answers.

Maria Ogneva: that's that's much harder to migrate, and even like this content migration is.

Maria Ogneva: It just makes the project like a lot more complex so.

Maria Ogneva: Just to underscore the point about migration, you want to use them sparingly if ever um anyway so.

Maria Ogneva: that's where we are, you know we're in a migration process, but while you're starting the implementation process, but while you're in the implementation process boarding a plane you're always planning your next thing right, what is the next thing.

Chris Detzel: Long right.

Maria Ogneva: So you know launch all the elements i've already started making my rounds for everyone at the company who's going to participate in the launch.

Maria Ogneva: Again, you want you never want to bring especially something that's big to people at the last minute, you want to try to pad as much as possible and people really appreciate you for doing that.

Chris Detzel: You know, I have to tell you a little story, because I think.

Chris Detzel: You know you hit it right there I think he got to create that buzz in the very beginning and you're going to continue continue to maintain that over time, but the buzz that you create today.

Chris Detzel: Like example I created so much buzz in April of last year, so we have been will be live a year from on April 28 and.

Chris Detzel: When I go look at the numbers just the amount of people that clicked on the Community right, you know, the number of users and things like that, for the first two months was way higher than the next.

Chris Detzel: Six months why because yeah one is that first day first let's say two weeks because I did kind of a soft launch and then I kind of been opened, it up and then had a bunch of people started to.

Chris Detzel: But there's so many people come on both employees and customers and partners that mean it was crazy like you know.

Chris Detzel: And so, then it kept the numbers went down which I knew they would because because you want to start seeing you know because.

Chris Detzel: The things that I did, one of my, how do you get traffic to your site well you can't always just email a bunch of people that's one way you know, but you have to use the different channels like.

Chris Detzel: For our for us real to.com support.to.com docs real to.com inside the product and all these other places, so people know who you are where you are, you know that kind of stuff that's another thing you have to think about is how do you get on these digital.

Maria Ogneva: Sites, how do you.

Chris Detzel: You know it's not always easy to do that, but so that's how we're getting our traffic today and now seo is starting to be a big play starting it started.

Chris Detzel: But you know our seo numbers are like this and i'm showing that and the next meeting is you know the way we're going to get traffic 80% of our traffic in the next three years will be from seo at.

Chris Detzel: chef close to 80 right.

Chris Detzel: Well right right now it'd be close maybe it'd be 60 to 80 you know but eventually you know that's how that's how these things work right, you know people were searching for the questions, people are you know and so.

Chris Detzel: Today we're probably only at 25 27% so just think.

Chris Detzel: The beauty is yeah so much more to go it's gonna be awesome you know and but.

Chris Detzel: But it's kind of cool to kind of look at that first launch and the excitement that you can bring to the organization because it'll be all over the place, you know coming in and.

Chris Detzel: You know the challenge is trying to maintain it, you know, sometimes you have to let off the gas to see.

Chris Detzel: You know if the questions are not being answered by an employee or something like that so okay let's let's see if anybody else answers it, you know so there's a lot of things you have to think about you know to.

Chris Detzel: Yes, you want to answer quickly, but you also want to give other people opportunity to do it, because then they'll just expect us to do it the whole time you know I mean so it's a fine balance and everything else so.

Chris Detzel: But yeah so yours is large, and probably sitting and getting people you know to come come in first day or two, or whatever you know I did it for two weeks, like.

Maria Ogneva: yeah.

Chris Detzel: I had seed questions for two weeks for two days a week or two days twice a day for two weeks, I would have posts, and then I would send out emails directly to.

Chris Detzel: Customers you know and partners to say we're open Baba and then warm content going out, I had a blog every single week.

Chris Detzel: Basically, even to this day, every single week I have some kind of content blog that is solving some kind of problem.

Chris Detzel: boom boom boom, you know and so he's going to now start thinking about your content strategy your engagement strategy and the roadmap to drive all those things which I assume you probably have a lot of that right so.

Chris Detzel: Getting there anyways.

Maria Ogneva: This is that you know, while you're implement implementation it's time to start mapping out your content strategy like will have a content working group to help figure out like.

Maria Ogneva: What, what is the content that we have, what is the content that we need to create who's going to create it and which.

Maria Ogneva: We I mean i'm so lucky that I have such smart people around me in the organization, but like who like really understand learning.

Maria Ogneva: So we can like geek out and figure out like what the learning personas right like, who is the learner what do they need to learn what do we need them to learn and kind of having kind of that organized.

Maria Ogneva: way of thinking about it so it's not just random randomly putting but like actually get going.

Maria Ogneva: The questions people ask and.

Maria Ogneva: don't forget to look at your search analytics to like in the Community, what are people searching and getting answers to work is not getting answers those content gaps are actually really telling like that is a place to.

Maria Ogneva: Creating content if someone's looking for something that binding it.

Maria Ogneva: start there, people are asking questions you start to see these trends and so, then it just kind of becomes a flywheel right like some more stuff is in there, the more people are searching and asking the more informed your content roadmap can become.

Maria Ogneva: That again like.

Maria Ogneva: I think it, it also really promoted internally don't forget to talk to people internally, like all the time to understand what they need from a content perspective I.

Chris Detzel: think that you know, over time, you know i'll give a perfect example because that stuff is very good point is.

Chris Detzel: When you start looking at your search analytics you know the back end it takes a little time, you know people to search and things like that, but then, once they do you start seeing a lot of trends like one of our things.

Was.

Chris Detzel: On community and i'll say this last thing but.

Chris Detzel: One of the search words was.

Chris Detzel: What was it.

Chris Detzel: The search word kept coming up over and over and over I thought we don't have any content around the search word why you know this is crazy, and so I started creating.

Maria Ogneva: What was really.

Chris Detzel: No, no, it was just.

Chris Detzel: Different searching for that every single month, it was the highest rated search.

Chris Detzel: And yeah you can go see who it was and.

Chris Detzel: So I started creating content, you know I started looking at webinars and then I started creating blogs and capture that Q amp a that were on the webinars pushed it out on Community, and now we have a ton of content just on that.

Chris Detzel: topic, you know, so that you know it was just so much really good stuff come out of it, you know what I mean so but.

Chris Detzel: So, Maria this was really, really good, thank you for coming on.

Maria Ogneva: it's always such a pleasure chatting and I really learned from you as well, like how you're approaching similar problems and.

Maria Ogneva: Where I like how we're thinking about things in a similar way, but like.

Maria Ogneva: Someone in them in a different in a different fashion right because our communities have different our users need different things from us, and so.

Maria Ogneva: Always always a pleasure to chat to another professional.

Chris Detzel: Over yet Maria, thank you for coming on piers over beers i'm Chris denzel and.

Maria.

Maria Ogneva: Yes, perfect on linkedin.

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Chris Detzel: it's all about our awesome good.

Maria Ogneva: awesome friend Brian all blend your creative created.

Maria Ogneva: A link that says shortcut to my linkedin and I think it's called everyone knows maria.com.

Maria Ogneva: Oh, my God, I have to find out what.

Maria Ogneva: He reminded me of it, like every time I see room So if you go to that it actually linked to my linkedin so that's one.

Maria Ogneva: Name that's one way to find me but yeah feel free to connect on linkedin and I am so excited to get a chance to chat with you, Chris and looking forward to connecting to all of you on linkedin.

Chris Detzel: Alright, thanks, Maria.