105: Josh Hill: Mastering martech with a hands-on, exploratory approach and rigorous data hygiene

What’s up everyone, today we’re chatting with Josh Hill, a GTM operations and tech executive with more than 20 years of experience in B2B sales, marketing, and technology.Summary: Josh delved into how integrating sales experience into marketing strategies leads to more customer-centric approaches. He highlighted the importance of hands-on experience with martech tools, blending marketing creativity with technical know-how, and the significance of high-quality data for effective AI implementation in marketing. He shared his journey of juggling personal projects with professional growth, striking a chord on maintaining work-life balance in a high-octane career. This episode is a backstage pass for anyone in martech, offering practical insights and strategies to take center stage in this mad world of martech.About JoshJosh started his career in enterprise sales at The Economist before moving to a demand gen role where he wore many different hats including martech and database management He then had a few short stints at different software and cybersecurity companies touching everything from SEO, SEM, content, branding, email deliverability and data qualityHe was also a solopreneur and consulted with senior marketing and sales leaders at B2B SaaS companies Josh is best known for creating the marketingrockstarguides blog for 7 years, one of the top blogs supporting marketing technologists, before it’s acquisition by Etumos a marketing automation consultancyMost recently, Josh spent 7.5 years at RingCentral moving up to Associate VP of Martech where he built and led a globally distributed center of excellence to scale GTM and Martech architectureToday Josh serves as an Advisor at Openprise, a RevOps data automation platform for enterprise
Leveraging Sales Experience for Marketing SuccessJosh's career trajectory from sales to marketing is a story that demonstrates the value of cross-functional skills in today's business world. His time at The Economist, where he honed his skills in account renewal and new business acquisition, laid a solid foundation for his later transition to marketing. Josh highlights the importance of direct customer interactions and negotiation skills developed in sales, which provided him with a unique perspective and skill set. These skills proved to be invaluable as he moved into marketing, particularly in stakeholder management and vendor relations.In his sales role, Josh realized a disconnect between marketing materials and customer perceptions. This insight led him to rethink the approach to customer engagement, moving away from traditional sales pitches to a more content-focused marketing strategy. His success in sales, where he was one of the top representatives, stemmed from aligning customer needs with marketing messages, an approach he sought to scale in his marketing role.Josh's transition was not just a shift in job functions but a broader business transformation. He emphasized the importance of aligning sales and marketing, leveraging marketing automation tools, and understanding the nuances of demand generation. His hands-on experience with attribution reporting and CRM systems further enriched his marketing expertise. Josh's journey is a testament to the benefits of integrating technology and customer service experiences into marketing strategies.Key takeaway: Josh's transition from sales to marketing at The Economist underscores the value of integrating sales insights into marketing strategies. By utilizing his direct customer interactions and negotiation skills acquired in sales, he crafted marketing approaches that were more aligned with customer needs and expectations. This fusion of sales and marketing perspectives proved crucial in developing effective, customer-centric marketing strategies, demonstrating th