Chief Evangelist with Ethan Beute

Today’s guest is Joshua Burkhow, Chief Evangelist at Alteryx. Joshua joins Ethan Beute and shares insights into integrating storytelling into his role as an evangelist. Storytelling plays a pivotal role in the art of evangelism, enabling us to comprehend our client's unique perspectives and needs.

Joshua also explains the process of crafting and delivering compelling narratives. Joshua emphasizes the importance of ensuring your message comes across clearly and avoids anything unnecessary. This applies to evangelizing to the market, prospects, and clients, as well as to salespeople, sales engineers, and customer success managers.

Takeaways:

• One of the key aspects that set the Chief Evangelist role apart is its lack of uniformity. Each evangelist brings their own unique and distinct set of skills and perspectives. Two of Joshua's top responsibilities are to disseminate a message and to showcase and demonstrate product value.

• Even with a technical evangelist or a product evangelist, the human and emotional side of the role is key. There is an art to it. And, of course, the approach needs to be balanced with a depth of product understanding and technical aptitude.

• Joshua discovered the art of setting the stage, illuminating the value proposition, and wholeheartedly evangelizing. Joshua dedicated himself to perfecting his communication skills, presentation abilities, and structuring arguments. This enabled him to not only excel in his role but to pursue impactful evangelism.

• Joshua advises that exploring the levers in your company can assist in the extent of impact and obtaining valuable feedback. Evaluating these, you can gain insights into the effectiveness of your data and analytics practices, specifically to your organization's needs and circumstances.

Quote of the Show:

• “That combination of technical aptitude and communication skills is the ‘demanded foundation’ for a good evangelist.”

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Today’s guest is Ari Kaplan, Head Evangelist at Databricks. Ari joins Ethan Beute and breaks down AI, machine learning, and LLMs – and shares the unique and powerful role of lakehouses. Ari delivers a brief history of AI and predictive.

Ari also explains how the evangelism role was co-created and shaped within Databricks, as well as his priorities in his first six months in the role. Ari saw success evangelizing data science and AI at DataRobot so, he took a lot of his successes and failures and applied them at a larger scale at his current company.

Takeaways:

• The most important job of a Head Evangelist is:

• Thought leadership (innovation, unique value, speaking, social, blogs).

• Analysts (getting the word out to an audience that doesn’t know you, influencers, industry analysts).

• Partnerships (partner network, getting others to talk about you jointly or solely, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta).

• Customer engagement (non-sales approach, the art of the possible).

• Ari and his teams created the innovation of the lakehouse, revolutionizing the way data is managed. This company allows the use of both structured in data warehouses and unstructured data in data lakes, seamlessly consolidating them under a single and cohesive structure. The founders also developed an array of open-source solutions that attracted millions of downloads each month.

• An evangelist in a relatively new role may do well focusing internally for the first few months before shifting attention and energy externally to the ecosystem and market at large. This allows your internal stakeholders to understand the role and you to get your head and heart around the concepts and innovations you’ll be evangelizing. 

• Ari believes that a human evangelist plays an important role in simplifying tasks, saving company resources, advancing technology, developing processes, and delivering superior outcomes. Being an evangelist lies in meaningful connections with people. Prioritizing the clients becomes crucial in this people-centered role.

Quote of the Show:

• “I’m not selling. I’m not putting a price point on. But I have to educate people on what is something, why should they do it, why should they look at it now?”

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Today’s guest is Mark Gilham, Evangelist at Enable. Mark joins Ethan Beute and shares his experiences and expertise – in both accounting and evangelism! For him, genuine self-expression and staying true to yourself are key to success in this dynamic role.

Mark explains why having integrity in your values and beliefs draws people toward your message and makes them more inclined to embrace your product or service. Though an evangelist needs both, the skills of communication may be more easily taught than the skills of authentic connection. 

Takeaways:

• Through experience, Mark has realized that your evangelist role needs to be shaped and made. He believes that there is no standard job description when it comes to adding value to the organization. Through it all, evangelists must be themselves.

• Being genuine with your clients makes them feel comfortable. That’s how people buy into you and your message. And that’s when you find yourself starting to evangelize without even realizing you're doing it.

• A key aspect of Mark’s work involves helping businesses establish precise rebate structures. That’s what his company’s software enables, but Mark – a long-time practitioner and customer – adds this service and value layer around the software experience. He’s helping people and teams get more from the product.

• What people don’t realize is that the role of accountancy goes far beyond number-crunching. The majority of the time, the work involves influencing decision-making based on the numbers people see. Mark believes that being an accountant is all about evangelizing and advocating for others. This role centers around engaging with people.

Quote of the Show:

• “Let go a little bit and trust ‘I was put into this role not just for what I said I’m capable of, but because the business trusts me.’”

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Today’s guest is Leslie Pagel, Chief Evangelist at Authenticx. Leslie joins Ethan Beute to share the mission to help humans understand humans through the true voice of the customer.

Leslie explains how she joined the team as a Chief Customer Officer, with the role of helping the team define, measure, and achieve value with customers. In the shift to Chief Evangelist, her goal shifted from delivering value to healthcare companies to delivering value to the healthcare industry.

Takeaways:

• The most important job of a Chief Evangelist is to open the eyes of business leaders to the importance of what they do. For her, eyes need to be opened to the importance of the authentic voice of customers, the capability to hear it, and to the power of conversation.

• The problem facing the industry Leslie serves is that most data is “stored and ignored.” Artificial intelligence doesn’t do the listening that humans do, but it surfaces opportunities to hear, empathize, learn, and improve. 

• The mission Leslie’s on is to help humans understand humans. She built her career in customer experience and the voice of customers before these were popular business terms. Evangelizing with Authenticx aligns well in so many ways. 

• As a Chief Customer Officer, it is always about value. The team must figure out what the client needs, what they have available, and how to unlock value together. Ideally, it’s matched with hard metrics defining success.

• After the initial confusion and even resistance to the title, Leslie finds “Chief Evangelist” the perfect fit for the role because of what it conjures in the mind’s eye when someone hears it.

Quote of the Show:

• “It’s about opening eyes - talking with business leaders to help them see a new reality.”

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Today’s guest is Bryan Stallings, Chief Evangelist at Lucid Software, providers of Lucidchart, Lucidspark, and Lucidscale. Bryan joins Ethan Beute to tell the story of the relationship and shared values that brought him to the company in this unique role, as well as how their visual collaboration suite brings these values to life.

Bryan explains the different ways he engaged other employees to both serve customers and to create more evangelists. He shares insights into what success as Chief Evangelist looks like and how we works with the CMO on it. He also shares his passions for scrum and agile and for neurodivergence.

Takeaways:

• The most important job of an evangelist is to believe in the value and impact of the product, service, idea, or practice. Bryan’s belief comes from empathy - having felt, experienced, and known what it's like not to have the solutions that are now available.

• Bryan breaks down what the Lucid Suite and how each part transforms the way people live and work:

• Lucidchart is an intelligent diagramming solution.

• Lucidspark is a collaborative whiteboard solution. It helps teams to come together, collaborate, and enjoy their work.

• Lucidscale, helps his team visualize cloud solutions, cloud applications, and their implementations. They help those others clarify what's complex and collaborate visually, no matter where they're located in the world.

• A Chief Evangelist should work with sales and customer support teams to help tell customer stories and to talk through ways to solve customer pains and challenges.

• Once Bryan understood the role, he realized he’d been evangelizing for 17 years. He found something people didn’t have that would make their lives better and helped them through the change curve.

Quote of the Show:

• “I’d been evangelizing by finding something that would make people’s lives and work better, introducing it to them, and helping them through the change curve until they could really own it.”

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Today’s guest is Jonathan Stephens, Chief Evangelist at EveryPoint. Jonathan joins Ethan Beute to share how his journey into marketing, content, and live streaming resulted in organizations like NVIDIA inviting him onto their platforms. Jonathan realized that his reach widened as he shifted from a corporate logo and voice to leading with his personal name and face.

Jonathan explains how his live, unedited videos were key to creating understanding and awareness of EveryPoint’s technology. It’s honest. It’s raw. It’s being applied to real problems. And it creates conversation. But he also explains why some of his most popular content isn’t always the most effective.

Takeaways:

• The most important job as an evangelist is to humanize your company and its brand. Welcome people to engage with it on a personal level. Become that person your customers can reach out to and connect with.

• Hyper-edited content about emerging technology can feel corporately mass-produced and manipulated compared to the flaws and human mistakes throughout an unedited live stream. This builds credibility and authority.

• Jonathan believes that there is no point in technology if it is not solving a problem. His goal is to convert companies to become more involved with technology to help solve issues.

• Jonathan’s job is to show people what’s possible and invite the problems it solves to emerge. He doesn’t have all of the answers, but he’s an approachable person who’s capturing and sharing the voice of the client and serving as their advocate internally and externally.

Quote of the Show:

• “The answers are not in your office. The answers are outside with your clients. You have to get out there.”

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Today’s guest is Anthony Kennada, Co-Founder & CEO at AudiencePlus and author of Category Creation. Anthony joins Ethan Beute to share why leading companies champion an idea, not just provide a product. They engage, educate, entertain, and host conversation. They wrap products with valuable content and a meaningful community. And evangelism is key to all of this.

Anthony explains why our reliance on rented channels drives so much of the struggle with tracking and measuring an evangelist’s impact, as well as how thinking more like a media company can resolve much of it. He also shares the differences between a creator and an evangelist – and the benefits of both in a changing B2B sales and marketing environment.

Takeaways:

• The most important job as an evangelist is not just to create content, speak, and leverage a network, but to do it all with authenticity and subject matter expertise.

• We’ve underappreciated and underinvested in the ideas that people want to buy from people and that people want to buy more than just a product.

• Category creation is when you're positioning more than just your products. You position a problem that people may or may not recognize that they have. 

• Ultimately companies don’t create categories, customers do. Evangelism helps carry the torch for the idea or the movement, but a category isn’t created unless the community rallies around it.

Quote of the Show:

• “There’s a responsibility for companies to carry the torch for a new idea – and evangelism plays a massive role in that.”

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Today’s guest is Justin Robbins, Founder and Principal Analyst at Metric Sherpa. Justin joins Ethan Beute to share the importance of real-world experience serving as the foundation for effective evangelism.

Justin explains why many companies need a savvy, strategic evangelist, not just a spokesperson. Evangelism isn’t just about telling a story or addressing a here-and-now problem or opportunity. It’s about creating meaning and impact in a bigger and longer-term way. He does this by walking through his service as a Chief Evangelist and as a Senior Director of Corporate Communications and Evangelism.

Takeaways:

• An evangelist's most important job is to get people excited, tell stories, and share the impact, meaning, and value that a solution can provide.

• Effective evangelism comes from true experience and the ability of people to recognize that the evangelist has faced some of the same things you have.

• Measuring efficacy involves tracking activities, but also the impact of those activities. The impact is what matters and the basis for measurement is the problem you’re trying to solve.

• There are multiple paths to an evangelist role; Justin shares two of them. One started through his background in training and consulting and the other through fractional work for a CMO.

• An evangelist must be a student of the spaces in which they’re serving – doing research and reading it, joining sales calls and listening in, developing and substantiating ideas and beliefs, advising the organization and its stakeholders, and thinking through what’s happening now and what’s coming in the future.

Quote of the Show:

• “A spokesperson delivers a message. An evangelist cultivates a movement.”

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Today’s guest is Arthur Castillo, Head of Dark Social and Evangelism at Chili. Arthur joins Ethan Beute to share how he viewed and pursued the opportunity that LinkedIn represents and how it led to his transitions from sales to field marketing to evangelism.

Arthur shares what’s new and not new about “dark social,” as well as best practices for setting up mutually beneficial Customer Advisory Boards. He talks through fundamental shifts in B2B sales and marketing and the desire buyers have for trusted advisors. He also shares in-person and virtual tactics to turn your customers into evangelists who actively engage with your prospects.

Takeaways:

• The most important job of a Head of Evangelism is talking about problems that you solve and that exist in the market that others might not even be aware of.

• In the universal buyer's journey, an evangelist lives in three stages: unaware, aware, and consideration. It’s the evangelist’s job to help move buyers through these stages and to help them think differently.

• “Dark social” isn’t new in that it’s just “word of mouth.” But the maturity of communication channels and the frequency of engagement have changed the game here. It’s our responsibility to find the conversations that are happening in the market and to engage.

• Doing field marketing and evangelism are greats way to build relationships with your prospects and customers. And to help your customers build relationships and drive conversations with your prospects for more efficient growth.

• Questions that should be driving us as evangelists, salespeople, and marketers include: “How do I amplify customer voices?” and “How do I develop deeper relationships?”

• The future of sales is more about guiding a group of people and ensuring that they know how their day-to-day is affected - and marketing’s job will be to help people to think differently.

Quote of the Show:

• “There’s no better form of evangelism than your customers”

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Today’s guest is Blaine Feyen, Head of Community and Chief Evangelist at True Footage. Blaine joins Ethan Beute and shares his philosophy behind and approach to developing your own teachable point of view – based on experience, not on opinion – as the foundation of effective evangelism.

Blaine emphasizes how important it is to believe in what you are doing and how you can help people. This feeds the human function of trust, authenticity, and energy. It’s the fuel that helps others believe, too. He shares virtual and in-person tactics he’s used to building community and spread belief.

Takeaways:

• The most important job for a Chief Evangelist is to believe. You must have an unwavering unquestioning belief in solving problems and the ability to express it with energy and inspiration.
• Expressing sincere belief can inspire others around you. When you believe in something, you build this trust that you can help spread amongst others.
• When Blaine was younger, he became interested in the martial art Aikido, which involves blending and using others’ energy to resolve conflicts. He learned through the process to make others better than himself – something that serves him well today.
• From his instructor's advice, Blaine realized that evangelism helps other humans grow, develop, and evolve. Blaine built several businesses in those terms of helping others.
• Blaine’s strategy with his company is to evangelize the mission and the vision without evangelizing the product. He shares ways he does this internally and externally.

Quote of the Show:

• “When I believe in something, the belief is deeply tied to helping other human beings grow and develop.”

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Today’s guest is Ryan Collins, an SEO analyst, the Founder of AfterYourPhD, and the author of a dissertation on tech evangelism. Ryan joins Ethan Beute to share what he learned from interviewing dozens of evangelists and conducting deep research into the practice.

Ryan emphasizes the need for enough history and maturity with innovation and within a market to have credible and authoritative voices to evangelize in that space.

Takeaways:

• The most important job as an evangelist is education. Evangelists need to educate people about innovation in a way that anyone can understand. An edge of excitement helps, too.
• Defining an evangelist is difficult; there are so many different kinds. It differs for each organization and within each market. Talking with evangelists is the best way to get into that nuance and variety.
• The religious connotations of the title, role, and function are apt; they’re about spreading the good news of innovation, whether that’s physical and tangible or conceptual and abstract.
• Diffusion of innovation and social identity are two theories helpful to exploring and understanding tech evangelism and brand evangelism.
• Evangelists have a lot of experience in their spaces – enough to earn authority from their audience. Their stories of personal experience make them more effective and credible.
• Guy Kawasaki, our guest on Episode 006 of Chief Evangelist, remains a helpful source of information, perspective, and stories about secular evangelism.

Quote of the Show:

• “A lot of it is strategy and understanding who your audience is.” (15:53)

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Today’s guest is Bill Sherman, COO and Thought Leadership Practice Lead at Thought Leadership Leverage and podcast host of Leveraging Thought Leadership. Bill joins Ethan Beute to share how to get ideas into the mind space of the people you’re trying to reach.

Bill describes how to create client connections through podcasting, how evangelists and thought leaders can partner for success, and how to reach and engage people both emotionally and rationally.

Takeaways:

• The most important job of an evangelist is helping scale ideas, building communities, sparking conversations, and collaborating with others.
• The most important job of a thought leader is curating foundational ideas for their organizations, aligning with organizational goals, meeting customers’ needs, and encouraging more ideas.
• Most businesses would benefit from appointing a thought leader.
• Before bringing a thought leader into your company, figure out where the role and work fit relative to marketing, content marketing, and product marketing.
• Bill found that working in organizational development resonated deeply with him. He found that getting the right people to do the right thing for the right reasons and making sure that they were rewarded was really fulfilling work.

Quote of the Show:

• “Podcasting is one of the most delightful roles you can do.” (37:48)

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Today’s guest is Diana Cabrices, Founder & Fractional Chief Evangelist at Diana Cabrices Consulting, a firm that focuses on the WealthTech industry. Diana joins Ethan Beute to share the benefits of a fractional approach to evangelism for both the evangelist and the company.

Diana describes the essence of evangelism: evoking emotion, exciting people, and motivating action. Watch or listen for her insights differentiating a fractional Chief Evangelist from a marketing consultant or an influencer.

Takeaways:

• Every Chief Evangelist has different talents which leads to different approaches and even different outcomes. In her eyes, the most important job of an evangelist is to evoke emotion and motivate people to change. This process is based on trust between people and builds loyalty toward the product, service, or brand.
• More than ever and driven by the pandemic, people are feeling disconnected from each other. We’re more distant from our customers, who can evaluate and buy without any direct interaction with people inside our organization. This creates a great opportunity to differentiate your experience by building relationships with your customers.
• Diana’s business model is based on serving just a few companies with category exclusivity.
• Diana expresses how critical it is to have your values aligned between an evangelist and a company.
• The fractional approach has advantages and disadvantages both for the Chief Evangelist and for the company; Diana walks through them.

Quote of the Show:

“I have found this world of evangelism and it's the number one thing I love about my job.” (13:22)

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Today’s guest is Daniel Jester, Chief Evangelist at Creative Force. Daniel joins Ethan Beute and shares the two things that were useful for his start as a Chief Evangelist: breaking down the complex and becoming an analogy factory.

Daniel shares his journey from surviving as a freelance photographer during Covid to being recruited into an evangelism role. Watch or listen for his advice on communicating with your customers through support channels to improve your product or service experience and on becoming the historian or archaeologist for your industry.

Takeaways:

• Two things helped Daniel when he was starting as Chief Evangelist: understanding and then simplifying a relatively complex system in a short amount of time as someone shares it with you and quickly developing analogies that help people better understand what you’re communicating.
• Daniel needs to prepare a young industry to evaluate and purchase more advanced tools by educating away ignorance, hesitancy, and skepticism. This effort helps create a more level playing field and gets more people in the space to help each other.
• When Daniel started at Creative Force, he focused on customers and customer education through video. By having been in their shoes and working from that empathetic perspective, you better understand where they are and what they need to move forward successfully.
• When Daniel first took on the title of Chief Evangelist, he felt what we all do: imposter syndrome. But the CEO saw clearly the value in him and in the role for their innovative tech company.
• Daniel learned a lot doing customer support. Talking with customers provided relationships and perspectives that continue to serve him today as he works to connect and mature a young industry.
• As a Chief Evangelist, you must be – or become – a great storyteller. Becoming a student of storytelling will benefit you immediately and in years – and in roles – to come.

Quote of the Show:

“My role has become much more outward facing because we're trying to build community.” (24:29)

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Today’s guest is Dan Steinman, Chief Evangelist at Gainsight. Dan joins Ethan Beute and shares the idea that creating awareness of something that’s making a difference is the most important aspect of the role.

Dan also discusses the three aspects of being a great evangelist, two ways to source insights to generate thought leadership, and why he and his CEO stopped trying to track and measure the ROI of his role.  Be sure to listen in on Dan giving his advice on how you can become a better listener to your clients about what does and doesn't work for them!

Takeaways:

• Dan thinks that the most important job for a Chief Evangelist is to raise awareness and understanding of the category of customer success. Growing the category helps grow your company.
• As Chief Evangelist, you must provide thought leadership about your category, your product, and your business. This content helps attract, educate, engage, and activate people within your broader community and within your customer base.
• Evangelizing and creating thought leadership have three sources of insight. One is the fundamentals of customer success, two are the things that evangelists are trying, some working and not working, and three are all of the thoughts you hear from your community.
• Dan shares that their book, Customer Success, was likely the best evangelistic work they did at Gainsight. But to make a book useful and successful in service of your mission, you must adhere to the basic dos and don’ts that he offers here.
• It is always so important to listen to your clients about what works for them and what doesn't work for them. Listening to what works and what doesn't work, it becomes pressure on your product to make it better for those kinds of big-scale ideas that your clients may have in mind.
• Attributing revenue. Tracking activities. Measuring outcomes. Dan and his CEO spent a lot of time on this, but eventually gave up because it wasn’t worth the effort. They both knew the work was valuable.

Quote of the Show:

“Evangelism is the idea of creating awareness of something that's making a difference.” (02:41)

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Today’s guest is Mike Grigsby, Executive Advisor at MWGrigs LLC and Citizen Engagement Solutions Lead at Lumen Technologies. Mike joins Ethan Beute and shares one of the best analogies you'll hear to the work of evangelism. Mike discusses the importance of having your evangelist get out there to prepare the way and spread the good news of the change or transformation ahead. 

Be sure to listen for Mike's advice on how you can do better at asking questions in order to get people to engage with you, as well as balancing an internal and external voice for your message.

Takeaways:

• Mike thinks that the primary role of an evangelist is to spread the good news. Whether it's about a particular product or about a domain, he believes the main role is to spread the good news.
• Another role Mike thinks is crucial for an evangelist is to pave the way and prepare the way. Mike believes that there is an educational and awareness element around evangelism that he thinks should not be dismissed or overlooked.
• One of the core attributes an evangelist should give is an “aha” moment to those around them. Evangelists help break down complexity for others to help them get started on their journeys.
• As you make a shift to change, you have to communicate about the change with your external stakeholders, your customers, and your partners. Ask yourself, what does it look like? What does your supply chain look like? How is that shift in your organization's direction? How is that gonna affect all of the stakeholders around?
• The evangelist focuses on the problem, not the product. Mike believes that this is a key component of understanding how to activate the role of evangelism in the organization or externally to your stakeholders.
• A big failure that Mike has seen in companies is that the evangelist has not been enabled or empowered at the highest levels. Mike believes that there almost needs to be an agnostic element where the evangelist plays a role within the company.

Quote of the Show:

“I have a passion for seeing that light bulb moment in people.” (05:28)

Links:

Today’s guest is Jo Zichterman, Data Evangelist at ZoomInfo. Jo joins Ethan Beute and shares ways to scale the impact of evangelism by working internally and the value of the human face and voice in creating belief. He also shares his path through a high-growth company from customer service through account management to evangelist. He also shares his path through a high-growth company from customer service to account management to evangelist (and how he titled the role).

Learn about his approach to developing a thesis, advancing ideas, and impacting people at scale by interacting with all of your customer-facing team members. Listen in for his advice on discerning whether you’re dealing with an education gap or if there's something that needs to be addressed and fixed!

Takeaways:

• You don’t need to convince anyone that data is useful. Good data has utility and value to help people and organizations but a lot of people don’t understand data’s utility or its limitations. This requires evangelism.
• It is always important to ask a lot of questions at your place of work. Get to know the processes your company goes through. This will help you figure out any mistakes your company runs into since you’ve gathered information.
• If your company does not have a lot of structure, ask how to justify your work and prove the value and contribution of your role. Set up a meeting with your business and talk about where you think your time is best spent and where there are areas where you need to pull in more people who fit those roles.
• In the workplace, you don't need to work as hard to convince people that the thing you have knowledge of (data, etc.) is useful to them. It's much more about them understanding how and when it's useful for themselves.
• When telling a customer about your product, tell them every detail about the who, what, why, how, and when before they search for something else. Being upfront and open about what your product is can be beneficial to keeping them as a client.

Quote of the Show:

“My job is to be the person people come to with questions, help them understand things, and help them make sense of the world.” (11:46)

Related Links:

Our guest on this episode of Chief Evangelist is Yvonne Heimann, Start-Up Evangelist at ClickUp, Brand Ambassador at Agroapluse, Content Creator at Minerva, and Business Efficiency Consultant & Mindset Coach at Ask Yvi. Yvonne joins Ethan Beute and shares the experience of working as an ambassador and evangelist from, technically, outside the company as a 1099 employee.

Yvi explains what you should look out for when bringing on an evangelist to your company and the hierarchy from affiliate to ambassador to evangelist. Yvonne also discusses how to make sure your evangelist aligns with your company's values, goals, and brand. Be sure to listen in on the advice Yvonne gives her advice to companies on how to build your brand loyalty!

Takeaways:

• An evangelist is the customer’s personal connection to the brand. Connecting to the person with the brand is beyond the support they could get.
• When hiring someone, your company needs to make sure that your evangelist aligns with your values, goals, and brand. If they do not fit, then they are not the right person for your business. - A Chief Evangelist is the face of the company. They are the persona of the business.
• The CEO should not be the brand evangelist. Salespeople are not your brand evangelists, either. The first goal of an evangelist is not to sell and close revenue.
• The 1099 relationship can look however the company and the evangelist want it to look. - When hiring an evangelist, ​​listen to their conversations. Track how well your evangelist can integrate themselves into conversations.
• What’s true of a 1099 evangelist is also true of a direct employee evangelist. Mutual trust, mutual respect, shared passion, shared values, and open communication. - Do you want to build brand loyalty? An evangelist is the best tool to do this. Evangelists get you past the human barriers of emotion and humanization. They also take care of it and break down barriers between your target market and your brand.

Quote of the Show:

“A well-placed Brand Evangelist is the best tool to build brand loyalty.” (45:56)

Links to Connect with Yvi:

Today’s guest is Guy Kawasaki, Chief Evangelist at Canva and podcast host of Guy Kawasaki's Remarkable People. He's the author of 15 books and the person who popularized secular evangelism decades ago as Chief Evangelist at Apple.

Guy joins Ethan Beute and shares how evangelism starts with believing in the product or service, that’s the core. Guy makes clear that trust is the foundation for success as a Chief Evangelist. Trust is everything to a company's success - and to an evangelist's success. He suggests that every company needs a chief believer who proselytizes internally and externally. Don’t miss the advice Guy gives on how to get people to believe in something as much as you do!

Takeaways:

• Guy speaks about how Evangelism starts with believing in the product or service, that’s the core. He believes that Evangelists are made not born. They are made because they encounter a product or service that changes their life which then becomes their life.
• Guy thinks that people should separate their titles from their functions. He explains that it doesn’t matter what you put in as the title or the effort. He suggests that every company needs a chief believer who proselytizes internally and externally.
• Guy thinks that you have to get people to believe in something as much as you do. The reasoning is that if your community believes, then your company will succeed.
• Evangelism is primarily an analog effort. You may use digital means to get that effort going, but it’s fundamentally analog.
• Guy discusses how it’s hard to be a Chief Evangelist if you’re not trustworthy. Trust is everything to a company's success. You want your community to trust the company and most importantly, your clients. Without trust, you cannot flourish.
• Guy says that there are two levels of empathy. One is to go and see what people are encountering and experiencing. The other is to go and be; encounter and experience yourself. This is good to have in mind because it is a good mindset for evangelism and a good mindset for customer experience.

Quote of the Show:

“Life is too short to be selling products you don’t believe in.” (23:12)

Links:

Have you ever put yourself in your client's shoes? Have you ever seen it from their perspective? Have you ever let your community drive the agenda?

Today’s guest is Bill Staikos, SVP/Evangelist & Head of Community Engagement at Medallia. Bill joins Ethan Beute and shares how it is important to walk a mile in the buyer’s shoes - something he's done because he's been the buyer. Bill also discusses how he managed the relationship between his company and his own media property, Be Customer Led. Don’t miss the advice Bill gives on how people will reach out based on his content and ask to learn more about his company. Bill tells the listeners to not keep them to yourself, share them!

Takeaways:

• The primary role or responsibility is evangelizing the problem the company is trying to solve through their product or service.
• Bill realized that getting into the problems his customers face every day, including our organizational design is sometimes farther afield than the immediate problems.
• Most companies aren’t solving problems or solving them the right way. So Bill used his background to create content to help people think about it or realize the benefits.
• In order to grow his company, Bill dedicated 30% of his time to working with clients, assessing their level of maturity, where they want to go, how to get there, and what it means to get there. Focusing your time on these important things can improve your relationship with your clients.
• Bill learned that building trust, community, engagement, and providing platforms for people to come together for conversations where they can all learn from peers and each other can help gain a better relationship with your clients and community.
• An important question to think about when wanting to better understand your customers is what problems are they facing at different stages and how are they growing and evolving up the curve.

Quote of the Show:

“Letting your community drive the agenda is really important. There is so much learning from it.” (14:04)

Links:

Today’s guest is Sangram Vajre, Co-Founder & CEO at GTM Partners and, prior to that, Co-Founder & Chief Evangelist at Terminus.

Sangram joins Ethan Beute and shares that the most important thing a brand can have is trust and an evangelist that builds it. Sangram then explains that companies do not have the luxury of not having somebody who has their trust. Sangram also discusses the two different types of evangelism, Internal and External Evangelism. Don’t forget to listen in on the advice Sangram gives on figuring out what works for you and what doesn't work. What an educational episode! We learned so much!

Takeaways:

• The most important thing a brand can have is trust and an evangelist that builds it. Companies do not have the luxury of not having somebody who has their trust.
• When you prove to your customers that they can trust your product, their loyalty can be bought way faster than you would think. Loyalty from a customer is mostly through transactional environments.
• There are two different types of evangelism, Internal and External Evangelism. Both external and internal evangelism always end up coming together and are increasingly internal as the company grew.
• For people who are wanting to become an evangelist, try not to underestimate the over-education that you will have to do internal enablement around it.
• When starting off as a Chief Evangelist, you want to make sure you document your journey and everything that happens in it because you never know when you're going back to it and how that's gonna help you in the future.
• As a beginner Chief Evangelist, you have to figure out what works for you and what doesn't work. Think about what level of evangelism are you going to be.

Quote of the Show:

“I don't think you have a choice but to start building trust, and trust by definition can be built with humans, not with robots.” (05:07)

Links:

Today’s guest, Jim Kalbach, Chief Evangelist at MURAL, joins Ethan Beute and shares the 4 C’s of evangelism which are: Company, Culture, Customers, and Community. Jim defines what each C means and how they relate to one another and to the role. Jim also discusses the idea that making better customers makes better customers, as well as the reason he doesn't have to say MURAL in order to evangelize on behalf of the company.

Takeaways:

• When you are in an industry or market that is expanding, it’s in a company’s interest to grow that entire market. You want to expand the thinking around that space - not just around your brand or product specifically.
• When starting a business, you need to remember that making better customers makes better customers. You can’t ignore the customer’s situation and approach. That will lead to a bad business.
• The 4 c’s of evangelism are Company, Culture, Customers, and Community. Following these 4 C’s will help create maximum customer impact.
• “Company” stands for values, mission, vision for the future, interfaces with analysts, blog posts, and webinars - helping the marketing team, brand vision, and the base.
• “Culture” stands for internal during the onboarding sequence. Jim does a session with new team members and shares their stories (small group/cohort - also does one-on-ones).
• “Customers” stand for VIP events with accounts and direct customer contact.
• Lastly, “Community” stands for being involved in conferences, the work-forward community (an open-source community).
• Some advice for aspiring Chief Evangelists is to perfect your writing, speaking, and ability to express passion. Being an expert on these will make you a better public speaker and storyteller.
• Some advice for leaders is to investigate who stands out in your domain.
  

Quote of the Show:

“I see myself as a fire starter and the idea of a Chief Evangelist is to start the right fires that are gonna have the maximum impact.” (18:48)

Links:

Ever wonder what it takes to become Chief Evangelist? What steps should you take? We take on those questions and more right here in Episode 001.

Today’s guest is Randy Frisch, Co-Founder-and-CMO turned Co-Founder-and-Chief-Evangelist at Uberflip. Randy joins Ethan Beute on this first episode to share what it means to be a Chief Evangelist at your company - supporting the people and teams around you.

Top Takeaways:

• Before you take on the role of Chief Evangelist, get experience evangelizing.
• Put community first to broaden your reach and impact; some will become customers.
• Capture other voices and share them via your platforms and reach.
• Evangelize your category, not your product.
• To better evangelize with prospects and customers, create a narrative about the status quo, your point of view, and your company that people can buy into.
• Create frameworks to make it easier for people to understand, buy, and adopt your product. You're not establishing anything new, but you're framing things in a way that helps people understand, talk about, and achieve the benefits.
• Makes sure to focus on the problem. Without focusing on the problems, you run into a likelihood or propensity to oversell.

Key Quote:

“You have the opportunity to experiment in this role and you need to embrace that.” (44:32)

Related Links: