Developing a marketing vision through company-wide orchestration will allow you create more value while streamlining work. In today’s accelerated world, both customers and businesses want to spend less time on logistics and more time actually making a difference in their markets. DocuSign is one of the top businesses doing just that – allowing work to happen faster for over 200 million users across 188 countries.
On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Drew interviews Scott Olrich, the Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer for DocuSign. They discuss exactly what orchestration means in terms of B2B marketing environments, how to sell a marketing vision, and why courageous decision making should be a part of any CMO job description.
Scott is behind some of the biggest changes at DocuSign, rated as the 22nd best place to work in 2018 by Glassdoor. He shares his expertise with Drew in this interview and explains why ultimate orchestration will set you apart from your competitors in an exciting new way.
To hear why marketing visions are so important, be sure to catch this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite. Click here to listen.
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What orchestration means within a company and why it’s critical
When Scott started the orchestration process at DocuSign, the company was focused solely on making digital signatures easier. Now they are moving towards streamlining multiple components of doing business in a digital world. In any company environment, you have to understand where your organization’s broader category of business is going to go. Rather than focusing solely on the “now,” teams have to be able to see where the entire market is going in the future and set up systems to accommodate that forward growth. That’s where orchestration comes in. Essentially, orchestration occurs when a company’s marketing visions, products, sales teams, and senior leadership all subscribe to a new macro way of thinking about the company. This drives long-term success because as Scott explains, “People want to buy into the future! They just have to be given a reason to do so.”
The importance of not pushing the envelope too far
The first step of orchestration is to develop a new marketing vision for your company. This clear vision and narrative of what you think the company should be will drive your products, marketing strategies, and internal educational components. A vision should teach and challenge people to think differently about the bigger picture issue, but you have to be able to back up this vision with real-world examples that people can understand. Orchestration does so much more than just improve response rates for one marketing campaign, it has the power to rework your entire business if you allow it. The biggest danger with orchestration? You want to avoid a disconnect between your product and the vision you’re trying to sell. If your marketing teams and product teams are not on the same page, customers will recognize this and be wary of your company. To hear Scott explain this challenge in full detail, be sure to listen to this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite.
Why courageous decision making should be a large part of any CMO job description
As the Chief Strategy Officer and CMO, Scott has been charged with taking an already successful company and making it even better. On this episode, Drew asks Scott how he has the courage to take risky decisions and how he combats the idea of “if it’s not broken, why fix it?” Once you establish a clear marketing vision you have to subscribe to it 100%, go out and win over the rest of the company, and then sell it to your customers. There’s actually a formula for this type of courageous decision-making, and Scott fully explains each step in this interview with Drew. Your company and your career will greatly benefit from hearing his story, so don’t miss this episode.
What You’ll Learn
- [1:10] Drew introduces his guest for this episode, Scott Olrich, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer for DocuSign
- [4:25] DocuSign’s current place in transactional happiness and what it means to be an orchestrated company
- [11:54] What exactly does orchestration mean within a company?
- [15:05] The importance of not pushing the envelope too far when it comes to selling a vision
- [19:25] How Scott views the idea of a company narrative and how it can be used to sell your marketing vision
- [24:29] Scott shares how he’s incorporating courageous decision-making into his current position at DocuSign
- [28:59] Where DocuSign is headed in the future
- [36:25] Drew’s summary of the episode, and why orchestration will set you apart from your competitors
Connect With Scott:
- DocuSign’s press release on Scott
- Connect with Scott on LinkedIn
Resources & People Mentioned
- DocuSign website
- Ep. 42 “Why The Best Talent is Going Client-side w CMO of Boxed.com”
- Drew’s scheduling tool – Schedule Once
Meet the Guest
Scott serves as the Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at DocuSign where he orchestrates the company vision, strategy, marketing and enablement efforts across the company. Scott brings 25 years of leadership experience and a proven track record of driving innovation, market adoption and hyper growth across the technology and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) industries to his role at DocuSign.
Previously, Scott held a variety of senior management roles at Responsys – including president of marketing and platform, chief marketing and sales officer and CMO – where he helped transform and scale the business from private start up to the leading cross-channel marketing automation platform globally and a publicly traded company, and later led the sale of Responsys to Oracle for $1.6 billion. During his tenure at Responsys, Scott was named one of The CMO Institute’s Top 10 U.S. CMOs in 2011.
Prior to joining Responsys, Scott held strategy, sales, marketing and product management roles at Topica, Inc., Spark Online, Accenture and Xerox. He has a Bachelor of Science in Business and Finance from San Diego State University. Scott has served as an advisor and board member for leading private companies throughout Silicon Valley.
Quotes from Scott Olrich
- You have to create a strong point of view and a vision of the future because people want to buy into the future even if they don't buy that whole vision upfront. That's critically important.
- That's the important thing: having a narrative that challenges a customer's current thinking and actually reframes them to think about the bigger problem and how your offering is going to be the right partner for them, both now and in the future.
- What is an orchestrated company? Well, first off you have to have a clear narrative and a vision of what you think the company should become.
- I'm very much a believer that a narrative should teach people and challenge people to think differently.