EMT #23 with Kayla Drake - Field Marketer’s Guide to Sales Alignment

In this episode of Event Marketer’s Toolbox, hosts Chris Dunn and Brendon Hamlin sit down with field marketing powerhouse Kayla Drake, whose track record includes building high-performing event programs that convert—not just impress.

Kayla shares her blueprint for connecting marketing and sales efforts to drive pipeline from the very first conversation. From aligning with sales pre-show, to leveraging live data on the floor, and creating post-event follow-up strategies that don't feel like spam—Kayla offers practical, no-fluff insights that every marketer (and salesperson) should hear.

This episode is for event marketers tired of measuring success by badge scans and swag tables. Kayla shows how to bring intention, collaboration, and results to your event playbook.

🔹 From Logistics to Revenue
How Kayla transitioned from just executing events to building strategic event frameworks that fuel pipeline.

🔹 The Pre-Show Sales Alignment That Makes All the Difference
Why Kayla builds event briefs for the sales team, and how they use them to prep, partner, and win.

🔹 Field Marketer = Connector
How field marketers can build trust with sales—beyond event-day execution—and act as a critical bridge between teams.

🔹 Don’t Wait for the Debrief
Why real-time data and conversations matter more than end-of-quarter dashboards—and how to act on them fast.

🔹 Tips for First-Time Field Marketers
Kayla shares her advice for navigating the chaos, building credibility, and avoiding burnout in high-pressure roles.

Kayla Drake didn’t just drop tips, she offered a working blueprint for how marketing and sales can align in real-time around events. Her emphasis on strategic collaboration, pre-show planning, and real-time measurement offers a refreshing -and practical- take on field marketing.

If you’re looking to make your events matter beyond the trade show floor, this conversation is a must-listen.

👉🏼 Join us for more insightful discussions like this by tuning into 'Event Marketer's Toolbox,' where industry leaders share the tools, tactics, and trends driving success in the event world.

This Show is sponsored by Blue Hive

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro: Meet Kayla Drake
• 1:39 The evolution from event manager to field marketer
• 7:21 Building trust with the sales team
• 12:49 Creating alignment before the show: Kayla’s event briefs
• 18:09 Tools and platforms Kayla uses for field marketing success
• 23:24 How to interpret event success signals during (not after) a show
• 28:44 Post-event follow-up strategies that avoid “spray and pray”
• 33:39 Advice for first-time field marketers
• 37:54 Final thoughts: redefining event success in modern marketing
• 39:39 Outro

Transcript

Chris Dunn: [00:00:00] Hey, hello and welcome everybody to the Event Marketers Toolbox. We are super excited to welcome Kayla Drake and guest host, uh, Brendan Hamlin from Hamlin Creative. Uh, I'm Chris Dunn. I'm with BlueHive Exhibits. We are a creative agency. We have a group here, uh, in the Boston area. We also are located out in Las Vegas.

Chris Dunn: But enough about me. I'm gonna kick it over to my co-host, Brendan. Hey, Brendan, how you doing? 

Brendon Hamlin: Hey, Chris. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me back. Uh, it's, it's fun to sit in the co-host seat here with you. Um, yeah, so I'm, I'm Brendan Hamlin. I run Hamlin Creative. We're primarily a video and photo production company that creates content within the, uh, live event space, but also, uh, creates content at, you know, within that space, like as it's happening.

Brendon Hamlin: So, uh, what we like to say is we, we take those brand moments and turn them into brand momentum. So, and uh, we are super happy to have Kayla Drake with us today, [00:01:00] so welcome Kayla. 

Kayla Drake: Thank you. Yeah, Brendan and Chris, it's great to be here. I'm Kayla Drake. It's nice to be live with both of you and, and enjoy this awesome conversation.

Kayla Drake: Um, a little bit about myself. I am currently the director of field marketing and a BM at Stack Adapt. Hello my Stack Adapt team. Um, I have been in the field marketing event marketing space for the past. Gosh, 11, 12 plus years and really specialized in helping to build out field marketing strategies and teams at various tech B2B uh, startups.

Kayla Drake: So I've been at some more notable companies like IBM, Autodesk Udemy, and I've had the privilege of building a really amazing community over the years too by connecting with other event marketers, field marketers, and just learning best practices along the way. So. I just recently hit 10 K followers on LinkedIn, which is crazy to think.

Kayla Drake: Uh, but it really just comes back to sharing advice that I've received and, and passing along everything that I've learned. And, uh, of course. Also being a, an event [00:02:00] marketing coach on the side as well, because I'm just kind of obsessed with field marketing and you'll see that, uh, in this conversation today.

Kayla Drake: So thanks for having me. 

Chris Dunn: Fantastic. Well thanks for, thanks for joining us. That's awesome. Congratulations on the 10 K followers. I, I am one of those people. Um, that's originally how I found out about Kayla. And then it's, it's interesting how that works, right? You, you start following somebody, start kind of really kind of getting into their content.

Chris Dunn: Um, I, I didn't meet you firsthand, but we kind of crossed paths at, uh, at inbound last year in Boston, the HubSpot event. Um, and yeah, really admired all the work you're doing. I know you're tied in with, uh, club Ichi and, and Liz Latham, who was a guest previously. So a lot of good stuff. And we are definitely looking forward to the conversation.

Chris Dunn: However, prior to doing that, we wanna talk about our sponsors really quick, and then we're gonna jump into a series of questions. So we have two sponsors. Uh, first of all, BlueHive, which I had mentioned, creative agency. We kind of feel like we're that right-sized group. We're bigger than a boutique. We're smaller than the big guys, [00:03:00] where you're just a number.

Chris Dunn: We're about a hundred people. Um, we're super creative and we bring a lot of, um, you know, kind of outside the box thinking and really great customer service to the table. So. You're looking for a creative agency to help, uh, design build booths, uh, store manage logistics, all that stuff. That's what we do. Um, but also, uh, the group that's actually hosting or providing kind of this, uh, this technology platform and so forth, uh, that helps us with the podcast.

Chris Dunn: Is called Fist Bump. Now, fist Bump, uh, originally was a company that I got involved with a couple years ago. Uh, the initial concept was, Hey, I need help with my LinkedIn. I'm not at 10,000 followers as Kayla is, um, struggling and kind of bumping along a little bit. And the more that I worked with this group, uh, on my own brand and, uh, blue Hives, uh, you know, kind of creating that, uh, revenue through reputation, um.

Chris Dunn: The, the closer we became. And then the podcast idea was kind of brought forth, was like, Hey Chris, you know, this is a great next step. Um, podcasting is a way to [00:04:00] build your reputation, become a thought leader in the industry to be known. Um, not so much as somebody who shows up and just tries to jam sales down people's throat, but.

Chris Dunn: It delivers quality conversations and, and ideas that everybody can learn from. So we're building a community here on the toolbox. Kayla's a great part of it, and, uh, enough about our sponsorship. I'm gonna kick it back to Brendan and, uh, you're gonna start us off with some questions for Kayla. 

Brendon Hamlin: Awesome.

Brendon Hamlin: Yeah. Well, Kayla, again, it's great to to meet you and thanks for, for being here with us today. Um, I guess the best way to start off is really to sort of take that. 10,000 foot approach and talk about that relationship between marketing and sales and that collaboration and how, what is your philosophy or your point of view on how those, those two teams work best together when it comes to creating a, an effective and engaging event?

Kayla Drake: Yeah, absolutely. In a funny way of putting it, the relationship between sales and marketing should very much be like a marriage, as in that's your [00:05:00] number one partner, and I talk about this a lot on LinkedIn as well, that they're really your most important stakeholder because the truth is everything that you're doing as we'll say, is a field marketer, is your.

Kayla Drake: Setting the stage and doing everything you can to put your sales team in the literal field and do what they do best, which is to close business. So having a very close relationship with them, understanding their priorities, their goals, what accounts are they trying to go after, is gonna help your events be successful because you are just setting the stage for them to be able to execute.

Kayla Drake: Just that. So it's incredibly, incredibly crucial and I talk about it. Uh, quite a bit in, in a lot of my, my posts and content around what are you doing to have them involved from the beginning, uh, not just at the event on site, but also even afterwards. And, uh, just taking in their advice, their feedback, and making sure that you feel like I.

Kayla Drake: You are working with them cohesively, almost more than you would with even your own marketing team in a way. Yeah. 

Brendon Hamlin: S so do, do you find that there are [00:06:00] some, you know, traps or, or bumps along the way or areas that cause misalignment between those two teams that maybe you can see ahead of time and try to prevent?

Kayla Drake: Yeah. So one of the common, uh, things, mistakes that I see, and I teach this with event marketers, as I'll say, the difference between an event producer and an event marketer, is you're thinking about what is your event gonna do to close revenue or business? And, uh, one of the things we tend to do as event marketers is we get so focused on the details of the event.

Kayla Drake: Where we are, we're, we're thinking about, okay, we gotta get the booth set up. I gotta get the swag just right, right? I've gotta get all these little details and you're crushing it. Yeah, and the sales team knows you crush it, but then you don't think about the, okay, what's next? Action plan? Meaning are you letting them know the blind attendee list, what it looks like before they go in so they can pre-schedule those meetings in advance of going, or when they're on site, do you schedule them booth duty time?

Kayla Drake: So they have breaks in between to go and take calls that they need to [00:07:00] schedule, or they had the chance to go walk to show floor and see what the competitors are up to. Or more importantly, what's your post event game plan? And I, I emphasize this one so dramatically because, uh, a lot of times what we'll do, or I, at least I did in the beginning of my career is I would say, okay, we're gonna go to this trade show.

Kayla Drake: We're gonna scan all these leads. Alright, we, we have a, a goal. We're gonna scan 300 badges. Awesome. And then at the end of the event, we take those 300 leads and we upload it to Salesforce and we go, okay, sales. All, all you, 

Brendon Hamlin: yeah. 

Kayla Drake: Do your job. 

Brendon Hamlin: Yeah, 

Kayla Drake: I did my job. We had the booth there. I'm good. And you think that's when you, when it ends and you kind of compartmentalize, and the truth is that that's not the case at all.

Kayla Drake: What are you doing with those leads? How are you, uh, pre-vetting them? How are you scoring them? How are you, uh, making sure to capture all the notes of the meetings that were, that were hosted on the booth and carrying that into Salesforce for the team that wasn't on site. So that they continue the conversations and make sure [00:08:00] it's a seamless process and they're following up accordingly because the success of the event is purely dependent on how the sales executes.

Kayla Drake: And so that's kind of the disconnect I see is yeah, knowing what their path is and also not assuming that they know what to do when the event's over. You know, are you communicating in your Slack and email and saying, okay, here's your Salesforce report. Here's your, I don't know, SalesLoft follow up cadence or suggested email copy that you can use to, you know, ask 'em questions and, and um, you know, really just vet those prospects that they met at the booth or the leads that they received, and they know what to do with them.

Kayla Drake: Yeah. Otherwise, if you don't guide them and you don't provide a little sales enablement. You are giving 'em a cold list. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. So 

Brendon Hamlin: you, you're, you're really doing some of that, helping them through that pre-work, that pre-production is what, what we would call it, um, to set them up for success after.

Brendon Hamlin: Yeah. Afterwards. Are there any, um, like examples maybe that, that, maybe without names everybody's anonymous here, but that you [00:09:00] could talk about something that maybe started to go a little sideways and you had to, to correct it along the way? 

Kayla Drake: Yeah. Gosh. Um. Honestly, the first one that comes to mind, uh, is actually an event I did.

Kayla Drake: It was a, it was a pretty large trade show that I managed back when I was at IBM. So this is, you know, years ago now, getting close to 10 years ago now, uh, dating myself a little bit and. It actually kind of set the stage for how I executed sponsored events after this. Um, the short of it is, is that I did exactly what I just said as a bad example.

Kayla Drake: Uh, we went to this conference. We, because of our sponsorship, we received the full attendee list and it was upwards of like, I wanna say three, 400 leads. And when the show's over, I upload it into, uh. Salesforce and then I handed it over to the te, to the team, and I didn't pay attention to the path of from show to [00:10:00] Salesforce.

Kayla Drake: So I made two crucial mistakes. One is the AEs, the account executives that were on site when they were making these, they were booking these demos or having these conversations. They would just kind of cherry pick those leads out, open an opportunity separate from the campaign and say, oh, I closed, you know, a 50 K deal is great, but there was no way to track it back to the event.

Kayla Drake: Mistake number one, but mistake number two was. The rest of the leads we handed over to the SDR team. And because I didn't vet them, because I didn't at least filter to our ICP. So make sure they're the right titles, the right company, right industry. Um, we just handed over 400 leads and then a week later I get on the weekly call with SDR team and I go, Hey, how did it go?

Kayla Drake: And they go, oh, these leads are garbage. We stopped following up. They say, well, what do you mean? And they go, well, we've been calling and emailing and we've gotten, each of us have gotten through a list of at least 10 leads. So it was about 50 altogether. And they're like, and they're all, they're not the right person.

Kayla Drake: They're in a country we can't sell to. Uh, they're just garbage. And what [00:11:00] I realized, what I did was that because I didn't properly vet and score them beforehand, they basically just went into this cold list. And once they started to see there was no traction, they just stopped. 

Brendon Hamlin: Yeah. 

Kayla Drake: And so 50 K investment and we're seeing zero opportunity.

Kayla Drake: No. If ever you see that there's almost never a situation where you have zero opportunity coming out of, out of an event. But that was my mistake. And so with that particular event we had to do is we had to pivot really quickly, go back into those leads, uh, filter out just to our, i, our all ideal customer profile or ICP and say, okay, just focus on these leads.

Kayla Drake: Moving forward, what we ended up doing was we put those practices in place, which is now part of my playbook where I say, when I'm on site, lead scanner has to have demo booked or hand raiser, hot lead, warmly, gold lead. Your hot leads means the AE spoke to them on site. They were actually, uh, interested.

Kayla Drake: They wanna book time, so it's gonna be routed to the account owner [00:12:00] immediately at the sh after the show. Warmly means it goes to the SDR and the SDR can vet further means maybe you didn't have enough time to vet them, didn't have a good enough, uh, conversation to get, you know, a demo book. But we're gonna investigate more and then a cold lead will go into nurture.

Kayla Drake: So that means if they're a vendor or maybe they're just not quite there, they're, they're not, they're the influencer, but not the decision maker. We'll put 'em in nurture and we'll just try to get those, uh, leads a little bit warmed up. Now, when you leave the event. Sales is excited to follow up. Yeah. 'cause the way I preface it to sales is I say event marketing leads.

Kayla Drake: Those event leads, those are the gold standard leads. Those are the biggest investment out of anything you're doing in marketing. And they get a lot of noise. You know, they got webinar leads coming their way. They got content, uh, pages, blog posts, webinars. So how do you filter it out? How do you make sure they're excited about those leads?

Kayla Drake: Because the truth is that week after the event, that's when they're the hottest. Right. So they don't follow up quickly. Yeah. Cold again. 

Chris Dunn: Yeah, right. Wow, [00:13:00] that's, that's some amazing stuff right there. So we do, we do a few shows ourselves and, um, I, I'm gonna need to read your playbook. Absolutely. Hey, um, so just a heads up, we, we love having, uh, comments come in.

Chris Dunn: We're gonna actually kind of hold those and um, actually ca, Kayla, if you want to kind of grab that one from Meg, or we can push it towards the end. Any advice on increasing sales feedback to marketing? Love to, 

Kayla Drake: if, if the questions get a little, uh, stocked up, we might answer at the end, but, uh, let's answer Meg's question.

Kayla Drake: Sure. 

Chris Dunn: Alright. So, uh, any advice for increasing sales feedback, uh, to marketing? Uh, Meg's had challenges being able to attribute deals to events. Uh, if sales doesn't, uh, let me know that they spoke with or who they spoke with. 

Kayla Drake: Perfect. Yeah. Common occurrence. Meg? Uh, a couple things I'll, I'll acknowledge here.

Kayla Drake: Number one is. Uh, you really have to set the standard for sales to understand that they cannot follow up or open opportunities off of those contacts until the leads are, in fact, in Salesforce. So they're [00:14:00] attached to the campaign and there's a paper trail. One thing that often happens where it breaks is, say.

Kayla Drake: John Smith goes to a show and he, he's in the campaign. He's attached 'cause he was at the conference and he spoke to someone on your team and he talks to, you know, account executive number one. But then John Smith introduces AE number one to Jane Smith. So then that AE opens the opportunity off of Jane Smith, but she didn't go to the conference.

Kayla Drake: So she's not, and she's not attached. You lose that paper trail. So what you have to do is make sure that the, either the campaign or the contact is attached to the camp attached to the opportunity, if that makes sense. Talk with your market marketing operations team too, to just understand if it comes from lead or contact level.

Kayla Drake: But that's a big misstep. Secondly is always, always schedule a debrief call with your team and then double it with a follow up, um, like survey. So in case they can't make the call, and usually that's better. I find that if you can talk to sales team in real, real [00:15:00] time, you get their feedback quickly. Um, but then also follow it up with a, just a form to just get their general feedback and you gotta do a little bit of due diligence.

Kayla Drake: So just making sure. Um, any hot leads? Are they actually connected? Do you see? Make sure you've deduped as well. 'cause a lot of times that can happen. Um, but really chasing them on saying Any opportunities have you opened? Can you please show, share the Salesforce opportunity link and just do a little bit of homework on is this connected at the marketing campaign attached to the campaign for that particular event.

Kayla Drake: Those are a couple of my tips. There's a few more that I can share too, but hopefully that gets you started. 

Chris Dunn: Yeah, that's great. 'cause obviously you gotta have the attribution, right? The company's just dumped a couple hundred thousand bucks into an event, and if we can't trace it back to your story, right, like we trace it back, how is it that we have zero opportunities coming out of this event?

Chris Dunn: That's, uh, that's no bueno as they say. Um, I'm gonna pivot slightly. So, uh, you know, what you mentioned earlier with things [00:16:00] that, 

Kayla Drake: because I just, I just recall this too. 

Chris Dunn: Yeah. 

Kayla Drake: Um, uh, it goes back to sales enablement, uh, as well. And this one's for Meg. Uh, you have to teach the sales team. What you just explained, Chris, is if we cannot track attribution, attribution to this event, we will not get the budget for that event next year.

Kayla Drake: So when they come to you and, and they say, man, that trade you was so great. I really loved it. I wanna go again. Say, great. If you have any opportunities that come from that event, you have to attach it to the campaign in Salesforce. 'cause if I can't prove ROI, then we don't get to go. But if we can, then we get more budget next year.

Kayla Drake: So you gotta speak to 'em in money, speak to 'em in dollars, and if they understand that, they'll be. You know, sales hates having to do the Salesforce update. It's very tedious. They get in trouble and yelled at a lot by their managers. So this is like a reoccurring issue, but if you explain it to them that way, they'll be a little bit more diligent.

Kayla Drake: So, sorry, I had to add that in 'cause that's always one. That's so good 

Brendon Hamlin: though. Yeah. 

Chris Dunn: All the, the, the gold, the golden [00:17:00] nuggets are where, uh, the value lies for sure. Yeah. Right. Um, alright, so Kayla, you mentioned your, your, uh, sales alignment playbook. It's, it's not a physical book as it were, but it's more of a philosophy.

Chris Dunn: So let's talk, uh, uh, kind of take a step back from the event itself and talk about that pre-event collaboration. Like what does that look like and how do you like to kind of kick that off and start it? 

Kayla Drake: Yeah. I think there's some of the basics that most field and event marketers are already aware of. So you want a good clean event brief that has very high level information.

Kayla Drake: You always wanna schedule a no before you go call, um, at least the week before the event to kind of walk 'em through everything that they should expect for larger events. Um, especially multi-day trade shows or, you know, think of like those P one hosted events. So if it's a user conference, et cetera, you actually wanna kick off call maybe as early as.

Kayla Drake: Four weeks in advance of the event, or even six weeks in advance of the event. Um, and then, you know, an internal Slack channel or you know, a place where you can have regular comms about that particular event. And [00:18:00] the biggest thing is transparency, right? So number one, making sure you have the sales team, uh, up to date on all information they need to know about the event, not just like the logistics and, uh, the exhibitor hours, but who are.

Kayla Drake: Uh, the other exhibitors that are going to be at the show, where are the, the competitors? Where are their boots in relation to ours? Providing them that blind attendee list to the show. Um, or even if it's a hosted event, regular updates on the registration so that they can be prepped and ready to go to that event.

Kayla Drake: Um, if it's a sponsored event, like a trade show or conference, um, giving them the opportunity to schedule meetings in advance, that's gonna be really important. Because it sets them up for success. Before they even go to the show. So it's not just about them standing at the booth and waiting for people to come to them, but they can have some really meaningful, uh, conversations and relationships, um, built and in, in advance of going, and it may not even just be at [00:19:00] the actual conference.

Kayla Drake: So if say you have an account executive that's based in California, that that's their territory and you have an event in San Francisco, have 'em hit up their clients that are in San Francisco in general, even if they're not going to the show. So that way they're just taking advantage of their time there.

Kayla Drake: Because remember, you're taking them off the floor, the, the sales floor to be at that event. So you gotta get opportunities set up for success for them. And, uh, that'd be my approach. Just clear communication, advance notice, and um, and then also making sure they have time after the event to follow up to those leads too.

Kayla Drake: So blocking their calendar, maybe the, the Monday following of the Tuesday following, so they have that time to really like debrief and then go after those conversations. 

Chris Dunn: Yeah. I, I, I love that, that you mentioned, um, just kind of, you know, working the territory and working, even if you're not going to the show.

Chris Dunn: Uh, Brendan, we actually talked about this a couple weeks ago with, uh, with Allison. Um, and it, it was kind of, it, it's a conversation point, right? As a salesperson, I'm looking to create those touchpoint and. [00:20:00] Just, just checking in, right? Like, we all know that that's the, the suckiest possible, you know, entry point into a, into a fresh conversation.

Chris Dunn: Um, so being able to reach out and if you're not going to this event, then, then hey, um, great. Just love to, love to, at least I can tell you a little bit about the event if you have some interest. Um, or what, what other opportunities might we have to get together. Um, so I, I think that there's a lot of ways to kind of leverage that event happening.

Chris Dunn: Even if that person's not, not actually going right, because there's gonna be some interesting learnings providing it's, uh, you know, in their wheelhouse and in their field. Yeah. Um, so with regards to that, do you have, um, like templates or lists or activation maps or any, any other kind of tools that you kind of like to use with those sales teams?

Chris Dunn: Things that you've either developed or, um, you know. Any thoughts on that? 

Kayla Drake: Yeah, I think when we talk about, you know, the playbook, I think it's more just a, a philosophy or a [00:21:00] standard best practices that I like to implement at any company I'm at. Hmm. And a lot of times, you know, just if you look at my LinkedIn, if you looked at my, my resume, I've, I.

Kayla Drake: I've specialized in joining, uh, high growth startups and helping them to build out their strategy or team, uh, a lot of times before going through acquisition or going, uh, going public and being able to IPO and, um, I. I like to come in setting a standard for success. So when it comes to, you know, working with sales and, and creating expectations around an event, um, I'll start with the basics.

Kayla Drake: Hey, just so you know, if I'm gonna do a sponsored event, it takes about two to three months to execute. If I'm gonna be doing a hosted event, takes me about six to eight weeks to execute. Here's my timeline of success. So here's what we're gonna do to get you set up in advance of going. Here's everything that I'm gonna own and make sure you're set up to basically just show up and sell.

Kayla Drake: That's what I always used to tell my sales team. I'm like, I just clear your schedule. I need you to be ready to show up and sell. And then [00:22:00] post event, that's when the real work begins. It's gonna be all the follow up to those conversations. Because remember, this was just a, um, just you setting the stage for them, having those initial conversations and, you know, going back to a trade show, for example, you're, you can't give a proper demo on a trade show floor.

Kayla Drake: You only have five minutes. Really, but what you're doing is getting 'em on the hook so that you can schedule that demo properly the week following the event, and now have one-on-one dedicated time with them. So you're just sort of vetting them out, you're you're getting as much information, qualifying them, and then now you're really gonna follow up afterwards.

Kayla Drake: And I think. Being able to have that sort of templatized process of how you execute. It also sets the standard for how sales will know how to work with you, so you can start to plan things well on it out in advance, you can get your schedule of events a quarter out, H one out, one full year out, and they will have this.

Kayla Drake: Very easy to follow schedule and they'll know events are coming [00:23:00] up and then they can start mentally planning for it in advance as well. Uh, and that way you might have a little wiggle room for surprises to say, oh gosh, this big company Google is gonna be in town. Could we put together a quick dinner for them?

Kayla Drake: And you'll have a little bit of bandwidth to be able to pivot towards, you know, supporting that, especially from an A BM standpoint. But, um. This way, they know what to expect with working with you, and then you can hold them accountable for what you need them to do to close those deals. Once the event's over.

Chris Dunn: Yeah. 

Kayla Drake: Yeah. 

Chris Dunn: No, that's great. So listen, as, as a salesperson, I can see very easily why this strategy that you, that you hold creates the alignment because you're making it so easy for me as a salesperson. Just like you said, just show up and sell. Here's some opportunities. I'm totally gonna team up.

Chris Dunn: Softballs all day long. Um, and that's great, right? Because, uh, as a salesperson, it's like the only resource we have that is irreplaceable is our time, right? So when we know that we're investing our time wisely and you've kind of [00:24:00] curated all these opportunities or potential opportunities and at least, you know, created some sticks that we can work between, that makes it easy for, for the sales team.

Chris Dunn: So that's, that's wonderful. 

Kayla Drake: Yeah, absolutely. Um, we have 

Chris Dunn: another question from Erica here. I'm not sure, do we want to try to handle this? Uh, is your team focused only on events or do you execute other types of campaigns? 

Kayla Drake: Yeah, good question. So Erica, currently, right now, um, like I said, I'm at StackAdapt. I'm the director of field marketing, a BM, so I do actually have a full fledged event marketing team.

Kayla Drake: Um, shout out to Emma and the team. Um, uh, she manages a team of five. They do global events, um, at large scale. Just killer team and quite frankly. I feel like I, I probably barely add value to them 'cause they crush it. Um, but naturally we're gonna be building out more of a field marketing, uh, motion, which is a little bit more, when you think of the difference between event marketing, field marketing to a BM, think of it like event marketing is one to many.

Kayla Drake: Where you are often going to a lot of sponsored [00:25:00] shows, larger scale user conferences, field marketing tends to be more regionally based and focused. Uh, so you're gonna be aligning, typically with your enterprise team, it's more one to two, and you're going to map your team typically with the, uh, sales territories.

Kayla Drake: So you might have a field marketing manager, west coast field marketing manager, east Coast, et cetera. An a BM account-based marketing, uh, that's when you actually get more focused on the individual strategic accounts. So, to answer your question, Erica, um, yes, absolutely. I can give you a a quick example 'cause I know we're mostly talking about event marketing, but when you think of a BM, it's a multi-channel approach on how to get the attention of one particular account.

Kayla Drake: And event marketing can be one of those channels. So say if you're going after an account, we'll say Google. Um, and you're wanting to get the attention of, in this case, when you have a strategic account, there's a lot of times multiple decision makers involved. There might be a committee of people that will be involved in the decision of purchasing your product or service [00:26:00] or your software, right?

Kayla Drake: And. You need to get them all to buy in. So how do you get all their attention? Well, an A BM campaign could be, for example, paid ads going towards each of those executives that would be reviewing your product, being able to promote your product directly to them. It could also be a mix of a social media campaign that's targeted towards them.

Kayla Drake: It could then be a private dinner. Where you're, you have just a high level executive dinner, a round table, and you're inviting everyone from that Google team to sit in a room and just be able to strategize and enjoy it over drinks and dinner and, and, uh, build a relationship. But it might be a play that goes over the course of several weeks and it uses all these different channels.

Kayla Drake: An event is that, like that final hook, right? And so that's how it all comes together. Um, in previous roles, you, to me being a good example, uh, we would go after a set list of target accounts and anytime we had an event where we could cater a little bit more [00:27:00] focused on those key accounts, we would. Either, okay, we're at this trade show, but we know two of those target accounts are gonna be present.

Kayla Drake: Can we do a wrapper event, a dinner event for them, and then do a customized gifting activation following up to say, had so much fun? Here's this awesome bottle of wine. I know you mentioned you love Cabernet from Napa. Wanted to send this as a thank you. Just like a little extra touch, right? A little extra nurture.

Kayla Drake: Uh, that's what I recommend in, in an A BM, you got a whole marketing team you get to work with, so I recommend it. You pull, pull everyone in 'cause you gotta land that deal. 'cause the difference between an enterprise account and a strategic account could be an enterprise account, might be 10 K, but that one big strategic account could be a million dollars that you just landed for the company for a year.

Kayla Drake: Whew. That's a big one. Right. So that's where you work together. Absolutely. 

Chris Dunn: There we go. Kayla, is that why you've located yourself in, uh, San Francisco? Is it all about the, uh, access to the Napa Valley Cabernets? 

Kayla Drake: Uh, yeah. Hello? Napa Valley. 

Brendon Hamlin: That's, 

Chris Dunn: hello. 

Kayla Drake: [00:28:00] There you go. I love San Francisco. It's a beautiful city, but I'm a California girl through and through.

Kayla Drake: So I've lived all up and down San Francisco, or excuse me, all up and down California. Originally from Chico, went to college at San Diego State. Uh, but San Francisco's where it's at. Tell you what. 

Chris Dunn: All right. Nice. Good stuff. It's, uh, one of my favorite show towns, actually. Uh, San Diego, San Francisco. I mean, like LA Yeah.

Chris Dunn: You know, uh, west Coast. West Coast shows hit a little different, so it's kind of nice. Yeah. Um. We are looking at about almost a half an hour in here. We try to cap ourselves at around 40 minutes. So we're gonna kind of go through and power through some things here. So, uh, Brandon, you're up next here with, um, kind of onsite partnerships.

Chris Dunn: Why don't we kind of roll that into that and maybe the post show. Yeah. So I, we definitely wanna hit on the quick fire. Sure. And, uh, and the key actionable takeaways that Kayla's gonna drop some gold with us. 

Brendon Hamlin: So I was looking on your LinkedIn profile, uh, today, Kayla, and was, look, love the, uh, the quotes post from about a week ago.

Brendon Hamlin: And [00:29:00] your, um, uh, I can look at, uh, event marketer, AKA professional fire putter outer. Um, I, I, I love that notion, and I, and I guess the, my question is how do you, how do you strike the balance between pulling sales into that process and being, you know, having equity in, in the, in it, but also, I mean, you've still gotta do a job, like you've still gotta get.

Brendon Hamlin: You gotta build the thing, create the space, create the event, all of that. How do you get them in close enough to make sure that they're getting in the engagement they need and they're part of that process, but also, you know, not, not being. Like being collaborative, I guess is the best way to, to say it.

Brendon Hamlin: Like what's the, what's what, what would you say are some logistical tips for, for how to pull them in and, and make them part of that process? 

Kayla Drake: Yeah, so I think the truth is, uh, probably everybody in, in event marketing and sales probably has some degree of a DHD be real. Uh, and I think with sales, [00:30:00] they're, they have a million things that they're trying to manage.

Kayla Drake: They have so many deals that they're focused on. And then with marketing, uh, I think where it breaks is that marketing asks so many things of them, and their attention pan span is like 10 seconds. 

Brendon Hamlin: Yeah. 

Kayla Drake: So I find that less is more when it comes to event marketing. Tell 'em what they need to know and think about.

Kayla Drake: What do they even care about, right? Mm-hmm. They don't care about the catered food. They don't care about what's on the menu. They, they care about, Hey, show up at nine o'clock, wear a blazer. You're gonna be here for 30 minutes. Like they, that's what they care about. Also, three of your accounts are gonna show up at, at nine 30.

Kayla Drake: That's where this is the room you need to go to. 

Brendon Hamlin: Yeah. Give 

Kayla Drake: them the quick, high level information and sort of set it up like, like your marketing team and your manager. They're gonna know how much work you've get into this. They're, and the sales team's gonna see when they get there, but try to make it, uh, feel more seamless.

Kayla Drake: Like I used to always tell my sales team, uh, back when I was an ic, um, individual contributor, I. I would say, [00:31:00] let me take care of ev everything, just show up. And I'd have a few like ground rules, you know, like if I had a show, I'd say No eating on the booth, no cell phone calls on the booth, little things like that as a courtesy.

Kayla Drake: But I would just pretty much say like, let me take care of every, everything, uh, just show up and be ready to sail, sell, but be on your feet and be ready to talk. And I wanna smile on your face and I wanna see you active and I wanna see you engaged and. Sort of set that standard. And then I found that they knew they were gonna be taken care of.

Kayla Drake: They knew that I was gonna handle everything and I was thinking about them in mind. So I would do a couple little extra things like book some dinner reservations to just have on hold in case they had a client meeting go well, and they wanna take it, you know, after the show to, to, to a quick dinner or something like that.

Kayla Drake: Um, but just having those, uh, conversations with them and, and truthfully outside of the event, you should be meeting with your sales team regularly. You gotta give 'em regular updates on events coming up. Give them regular updates on the results of the events 'cause they care about that. [00:32:00] And also lets them know in case they miss something to say, by the way, of these 10 leads that were routed to you, you only followed up with eight of 'em.

Kayla Drake: What about these other two? What are you gonna do? Lets them know that you've got an eye on it. And then anytime you can add a little competition, because sales love to be competitive, add a spiff to your event if you can, uh, say for example. Okay, we're going to this event and we need to have a hundred leads scanned in the day.

Kayla Drake: Uh, whoever can get the most leads scanned in the day, I'll get you some extra, I'll a branded hat or something like that. Something cheeky, you know, uh, it just gets 'em excited and they get to be competitive with each other, so speak their languages. The bottom line, 

Chris Dunn: what we won't do for a branded hat and a little competition and bragging right?

Chris Dunn: Yes.

Chris Dunn: Uh, that's good stuff. Well, I can, I can certainly see why, um, again, you're, you know, you're making it so easy to, to work with your, your team. Just, just outta curiosity, and I know Brandon's got a little bit more, uh, another question for you, [00:33:00] but as a salesperson myself, do you get, do you get, do. People who don't wanna play the game the way that you wanna play it.

Chris Dunn: I, I'm sure you get pushback. People, I've been doing this 40 years, I know what I'm doing. All this kind of, you know, attitude type of thing. Um, but like, how do you, how do you work with somebody who maybe, uh, pushes back on, I. Your efforts to make things as seamless and as easy as possible? 

Kayla Drake: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Kayla Drake: You're always gonna get pushback. Um, you know, sales is a tough crowd. I think there's two things to keep in mind. Number one is, number one is, uh, a salesperson Going to events is not for everybody, not every salesperson who might be good at picking up the phone and selling. Cold calling or, you know, being able to have virtual meetings is gonna be good in an event.

Kayla Drake: It does not always translate, and in my opinion, if they're not, don't have 'em go to the event. Mm-hmm. For two, for the, the reason of they're not gonna enjoy it and they might not be good at it. That's okay. Your job as a salesperson is to sell, not to happen, to be [00:34:00] good at, you know, standing at a booth or happen to be good at, um.

Kayla Drake: You know, schmoozing it up at a happy hour. It may not be their skillset and that's all right. So just don't have them go and just be mindful of it and have that open, transparent conversation because you could maybe just have a more involved in webinars or other activations or just following up with leads after the fact, and they don't, maybe they just don't wanna be there.

Kayla Drake: Secondly, it's gonna be really about building trust. You have to show that your event is valuable. If they can't see why going closes them business, they're not gonna care. So that's what I mean about being really transparent too about your data. If an event goes, well, show them and invest again. But if it doesn't, don't go to that event again.

Kayla Drake: Don't waste their time. And that's what I mean about building that relationship and that trust is make it worth their while. 

Brendon Hamlin: I love, um. E example. So is there a, a show or an event that you put together that really checked all those boxes where you had the collaboration and you had the, you know, the organic conversations [00:35:00] and then you had the follow through afterwards, like something that really like, wow, we really nailed that one.

Kayla Drake: I. Oh, uh, many. Uh, I can give you many. Um, no, I, I actually came back to my, uh, build building Connected Days. That was probably one of my favorite companies I worked at, favorite teams. Um, the team was a little bit younger, so they were, they were hungry. They, they really wanted to be there, but they were new to going to events.

Kayla Drake: And kind of back to your comment, Chris, sometimes. You might think that a, like an enterprise rep who's been doing it for 20 years, it might be harder to deal with actually not the case. Not for event marketing. 'cause what happens is they know the, the, the run, they know the game. They understand what you gotta do to get the most out of it.

Kayla Drake: Yeah. So they're gonna be the more senior they are. A lot of times the more they're gonna already be thinking, how can I pre-schedule meetings? How can I take advantage of my time there because they've been in this rodeo for so long. Right. The younger reps, especially ones who haven't been there. Uh, I find that you gotta handhold a little bit more.

Kayla Drake: You kind of have to repeat yourself a little bit more. [00:36:00] Never assume a sales person has read your slack. Never assume that a sales person has looked at your, your slide deck. You gotta repeat it. You post it in Slack, you gotta post it, you gotta email it. Also, you gotta have a couple calls with them. You might have to do a, a team meeting right before this show starts to go.

Kayla Drake: Okay? Uh, and again, repeat yourself. Repeat yourself. And, and that's okay, because they're gonna get it down. Um, just be very explicit with your expectations. Don't assume that they know. Um, in some cases, uh, and this goes back to my building connected days, I found that I even. I would schedule as far as sales enablement goes, some training calls for some of the newer sales reps who had never been to a show and say, here's what you do when you're at a show.

Kayla Drake: You only have five minutes of their time. Here's some opening questions that you can use. Here's what you should expect. Yes, you're gonna need to take breaks. Please eat snacks, drink water. Your voice is gonna be hos by the end of the day. Wear comfortable shoes, like things that they would not know.

Kayla Drake: Unless you told them. So you've gotta bridge that, bridge that gap, and you gotta provide that sales [00:37:00] enablement. Um, and I think of, um, uh, Procore puts on the show Ground Break, uh, every year. And when we were at Building Connected, that was like the show that comes to mind that was just. Super successful.

Kayla Drake: Like we had been planning weeks in advance. We had like the, a team was there, they were ready, they understood like we even had training on how to use the lead scanners. We had, um, trainings on how to give quick on the flight demos 'cause you only had, you know, a couple minutes, um, how to vet out and qualify lead quickly, but scan 'em and go on to the next.

Kayla Drake: And um, my favorite activation was we had on the second day, uh, build your own Bloody Mary bar. And it was in the morning and you think like, oh, that's cheeky. Like bloody Mary's first thing in the morning. Uh, yeah. 'cause everyone goes and parties on the first night that they're there. So it was like the perfect, pick me up of a second.

Chris Dunn: Little hair of the dog. 

Kayla Drake: Oh, they loved it. We added like bacon and cheese and all that into it. Oh [00:38:00] man. People were talking about that for months after that show. That was really cool. And then it was a conversation starter when they followed up with their leads afterwards. It was so much fun. 

Chris Dunn: Nice. That's right.

Chris Dunn: I love that. So when you can, and I mean, I'm just thinking about, you know, motivating the sales team so you have a successful event like that, it becomes fuel for the next one because they're like, man, that was fricking awesome. We kicked the crap outta that. Let's go do that again. Definitely. So, hey, we gotta jump, uh, escalate our, our speed here.

Chris Dunn: So, quickfire questions, um, what's one tool or tactic that every field marketer should use? 

Kayla Drake: Uh, learn to learn to demo your own product, learn about you, get very in the weeds of, uh, being in like Asana and Salesforce and, and, uh, your own event marketing platform. Okay? Learn to demo your product and talk to your sales team so that you understand how it looks like from a client per perspective.

Chris Dunn: Awesome. Okay. Fantastic. Um, next one. What is the most overlooked part of sales collaboration?[00:39:00] 

Kayla Drake: Um. Uh, j just goes back to clear communication. Repeat yourself regularly and just remember that the, your goal is to put on a good event. Their goal is to close deals. So what is your event doing to help them close business? That's what they care about more. It, you might have some pretty swag. You might have some a, a beautiful run of show in Google Sheets, but at the end of the day, what did it do to help them hit their quota?

Kayla Drake: That's what they care about. So just remember that. That's their end goal. 

Chris Dunn: Yeah. No, that's great. Alright, this one a little bit of a fun one. What's your go-to event, snack or ritual? 

Kayla Drake: Um, at my ritual, at the end of every successful event, knock on wood, I like to have a single glass of champagne. So I kind of cheers to myself to say I did it and I feel good about it.

Kayla Drake: Um, and then go to snack is a vegan protein bar. 'cause I, I find that, uh, you want something kinda light. But you have to have protein. It's very easy to forget to eat when you're on a show floor that adrenaline kicks in and you forget, and then you're starving because you haven't had eight hours. So. Yeah.

Kayla Drake: [00:40:00] Vegan protein bars, 

Chris Dunn: that, and just, you know, having some water in the booth and, and just because right, everybody's been, it's like being in airplane. You're in, you're recycled air in the, uh, in the convention hall and it's just like, you're like, oh, why am I so thirsty and I can't talk anymore? Yeah. All that stuff.

Kayla Drake: Oh, and pro tip, bring a Sharpie and have your team write their names on their water bottles. I can't tell me, tell you how many times someone grabs a water bottle, sets it somewhere and it's next to five others and now you gotta throw away a bunch. So. 

Chris Dunn: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um. The small bottles too. Get the A ounces.

Chris Dunn: Otherwise you end up throwing away dead soldiers all the time. 

Kayla Drake: Or reusable if you can. Yes. There you go. Even 

Chris Dunn: better. Even better. Right? Let's, let's be sustainable. Um, alright, so Brendan, we've got, uh, the closing and the takeaways. Why don't you take this on and, and wrap things up here. Put a nice bow on it with Ms.

Chris Dunn: Taylor. Yeah, 

Brendon Hamlin: happy to. Happy to. So, Kayla, what are three actionable takeaways, uh, for field marketers looking to. Up their game when it comes to partnering with sales. 

Kayla Drake: Yeah. Number one would be [00:41:00] just, again, understanding their end goal and what it is that they need to be able to close a deal, get a little bit more familiar with the sales side of the process of when they receive a lead in Salesforce, what happens next?

Kayla Drake: Do they convert the lead to a contact and then open the opportunity? What is that trail? So you can understand the paper trail back to your campaign and track that attribution. So, uh, learn their language, understand what their goals are. Uh, and you'll be able to help bridge that gap so that when you hand the leads over, you're not doing it blindly, but you're giving them clear, actionable steps to follow up and make that event successful.

Kayla Drake: Um, number two, I would say repeat yourself. Repeat yourself. Repeat yourself. If you put it in Slack, put it in email, have jump on a team call. Also have a note before you go call. You're gonna be annoyed. 'cause you're gonna say, I already told them this. Yeah. Were they paying attention? Was their eyes glossed over and they weren't really listening?

Kayla Drake: Say it again. Yeah, repeat yourself. And then finally, uh, the real work begins post event. So make sure you have a very strong post event, game [00:42:00] plan, because how they follow up with those leads will dictate the success of the event. 'cause that week following is when they're hot. If you wait two weeks, they're cold again.

Kayla Drake: So remember that post-event follow up? Yeah, that's about it. 

Chris Dunn: That's great. That's great. This has been some, some awesome stuff. So, Kayla, what is the best way for after this? People are like, how do I get more Kayla Drake in my life? So what is the best way to, to reach out and contact you? 

Kayla Drake: Yeah, LinkedIn, number one.

Kayla Drake: Uh, definitely follow me. Uh, connect with me. I love hearing tips and tricks and ideas. Um, I'm also in a lot of the, uh, community. So, uh, gold Cast has the Event Marketers Club. Please join. Uh, I am the San Francisco Chapter lead. Um, so we do have some San Francisco meetups, bay area meetups. Join us on the next one.

Kayla Drake: Uh, and of course I'm a big member and fan of Club Ichi, so if you're an event marketing, field marketing, you've gotta be in club. Each chi and paid is worth it. Please trust me on that. That's where you wanna be. So I just, um, let's start LinkedIn. 

Chris Dunn: Shout out to Liz Lathan. She's, uh, that's right. Yeah. 

Kayla Drake: Liz, she's, [00:43:00] 

Chris Dunn: she was an early guest on the show and, uh, we, we love, we love us some Liz.

Chris Dunn: Um, all right, well this has been fantastic. We're gonna go ahead and wrap it up. I wanna do a little, um, kind of like, Hey. If you enjoyed this, share the show. Uh, spread it around, spread the word. Um, you know, go ahead and subscribe. We can be seen not only here live every, uh, noon time, uh, on, on, uh, east, east coast time that is for Kayla.

Chris Dunn: This is a early, early rise for you. Um, but, uh, we're here every, uh, every noontime Thursdays. Um, this is episode number 23. We're having a blast. We're talking to all sorts of folks. That lucky number, right? Um, I. And, uh, and I'm just turning 23, you know, uh, perfect. Yeah, exactly. The 27th birthday of my, uh, or anniversary of my 23rd birthday or somewhere around there.

Chris Dunn: Um, but anyways, um, spread the word. Uh, we're building a community here of like-minded event folks who are just kind of, you know. [00:44:00] Learning from each other, sharing. And, uh, we can be seen, uh, not only here on LinkedIn, but also on YouTube. And we're on all of the different, um, your favorite podcast channels.

Chris Dunn: So subscribe, like, uh, broadcast and, uh, and, and, and share the toolbox with, uh, with folks that, uh, that you, uh, know and like in the event field. So thank you so much, uh, appreciate everybody coming and, uh, joining us live. And if. If you're catching us after, uh, in, in during, uh, the taping, or I should say, uh, you know, after the episode is, is aired, um, we'd love to hear from you.

Chris Dunn: So connect and, uh, Kayla, thanks so much for your time. This has been fantastic. 

Kayla Drake: This was great. You both a wonderful host and thank you to the audience for tuning in and listening. Um, I love doing this, so I hope I get to chat with you guys more and, uh, hope everyone learn something. 

Chris Dunn: Absolutely. We'll definitely have to have you, have you back.

Chris Dunn: So, and, and Brendan, thanks for being my copilot today. Hey. Thank you. I have a 

Brendon Hamlin: full page of notes again, so another great guest and I've learned a ton, [00:45:00] so thank you. 

Chris Dunn: Know 

Brendon Hamlin: Brendan. Brendan 

Chris Dunn: and I will go and compare notes and be like, wow, we're getting all this great. Right? That's free marketing information and event information that we need to actually employ now.

Chris Dunn: Super good. Yep. Alright gang, thanks so much. It's been a great one. Take care of everybody. Have a great rest of your day. 

Brendon Hamlin: Thank you. Thank you.