Blake Morgan, Host, The Modern Customer Podcast

Transforming the B2B Buyer Journey

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Headshot - Blake Morgan
The still shot is from the title screen of the podcast video. Mike Marcellin’s picture is on the right side and the title of the segment is on the left. It reads, “Transforming the B2B Buy Journey.” Blake Morgan’s airplane logo is in the upper right corner. Mike’s name and title are underneath his picture, as is the title of the podcast: “The Modern Customer Podcast.”

Yes, you can capitalize on the blended buyer journey. Here’s how.

In this episode of the Modern Customer Podcast, host Blake Morgan speaks with Juniper’s CMO Mike Marcellin about the modern B2B buying experience and journey, and how it frequently consists of digital self-service as well as direct contact with a sales person. Listen as they discuss the changing B2B buyer journey, and how your company can succeed by matching changing B2B demands with technology, a personal touch, and flexibility

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You’ll learn

  • How the Juniper marketing strategy has changed over the last three years 

  • What the blended buyer journey means to Mike (and his advice to other B2B CMOs)

  • The latest Juniper sales strategies, and what trends Mike is interested in as CMO 

Who is this for?

Business Leaders Network Professionals

Host

Headshot - Blake Morgan
Blake Morgan
Host, the Modern Customer Podcast 

Guest speakers

Mike Marcellin Headshot
Mike Marcellin
Chief Marketing Officer, Juniper Networks

Transcript

0:00 hello and welcome back to the modern

0:02 customer podcast i am your host blake

0:05 morgan

0:06 my guest today on the show is mike

0:09 Marcellin he is the senior vice president

0:12 and cmo at juniper

0:15 mike leads the global marketing team

0:17 responsible for marketing juniper's

0:19 product and services portfolio and

0:22 stewarding the brand driving preference

0:24 for juniper in the market training its

0:27 partners and sales teams

0:29 and developing a differentiated digital

0:31 experience for its customers prior to

0:34 joining juniper in 2010 mike served as a

0:38 vice president of global managed

0:39 solutions for verizon today mike and i

0:42 are talking about a guided b2b buying

0:45 experience a blend of digital

0:48 self-service and sales supported i know

0:51 you will enjoy our conversation let's go

0:55 [Music]

1:03 mike welcome to the modern customer

1:06 podcast how is your day going in los

1:08 gatos california

1:10 going great blake it's good to see you

1:12 i'm doing well doing well

1:14 so good to see you

1:16 it's been an interesting three years for

1:18 everybody in the business world it's

1:20 been a good time for customer experience

1:22 and it's been a really good time for

1:24 companies that are comfortable with

1:26 digital customer experiences can you

1:29 just talk about

1:30 what you've been up to in the last three

1:32 years

1:34 leading marketing strategy for juniper

1:36 and what's changed as opposed to when

1:39 you were leading pre-coven

1:42 absolutely yeah i mean obviously yeah

1:44 the world has changed for sure in so

1:46 many different ways and you know i think

1:48 probably

1:49 accelerated a journey that we were

1:51 already on to to be honest um i think at

1:54 juniper you know we have uh some very

1:58 large competitors

1:59 who in some ways will always be able to

2:01 outspend us so we have to have uh you

2:04 know better engagement approach and

2:06 ultimately i think we need to outsmart

2:08 them um and how we approach uh working

2:11 with our customers

2:13 um and so uh you know really our journey

2:15 has been about creating

2:18 a variety of different digital touch

2:20 points you know the the term i like to

2:22 use is that experience is the new

2:23 product

2:24 um

2:25 and you know basically coming from a

2:27 technology company a product based

2:29 company um that's a big revelation uh

2:32 for us to say wait a second you know

2:33 products are great you have to have

2:35 great products but really how you engage

2:38 with customers how they perceive you as

2:40 a company the people that they work with

2:42 and how they even perceive and the

2:44 experience from the products

2:46 becomes the most important thing

2:48 and so that's really what we've been

2:50 investing in uh over the last few years

2:52 uh we actually our company tagline is

2:55 driven by experience so we've really

2:56 taken it to heart it truly is our true

2:59 north to provide that differentiated

3:01 experience to our customers

3:02 so mike your company and i worked

3:05 together during covid to do a virtual

3:07 event i remember

3:08 interviewing people like the cto of

3:11 british telecom and hearing about what

3:14 the role is of your product

3:16 my understanding is that you help

3:18 provide the network from these major

3:20 telecoms which is a really critical

3:22 product but for our audience listening

3:24 and watching can you describe what it is

3:27 that you sell and who you sell to

3:30 yeah absolutely um and you're right

3:32 probably so juniper's about 25 years old

3:35 we first started when the worldwide web

3:38 is just getting off the ground and it

3:39 was buckling under the growth of traffic

3:42 and all the businesses coming onto the

3:43 web and all of that so our first set of

3:46 customers were those big telecom

3:47 operators the big isps and we were

3:50 essentially the the infrastructure that

3:52 is the internet backbone

3:54 so if you think about the little router

3:55 you have in your house to connect your

3:57 home internet think about that but much

3:59 much larger with much more scale and

4:01 since then we've broadened into kind of

4:04 powering the similar infrastructure for

4:06 big data centers and cloud environments

4:08 uh as well as security uh which is so

4:11 important now to everything we do from a

4:13 networking perspective so those are the

4:15 products that we sell and over the past

4:17 handful of years

4:19 as you said you know telecom operators

4:21 the network is their business so there's

4:22 no confusion among them

4:24 about how important we are to them but

4:27 what you've seen interestingly over the

4:28 last five six seven years is almost

4:31 every other enterprise in all industries

4:34 recognize the importance of digital they

4:37 are transforming their own operations

4:39 and their own way that they engage with

4:41 their customers so the products and

4:43 solutions that we have now are not just

4:45 the the purview of the big telcos and

4:48 cloud providers but every single

4:50 enterprise around the world who sees

4:51 that their network and securing that

4:53 network is of paramount importance to

4:55 their business

4:57 seems like this would be a hard product

4:59 to sell to say the least it's an

5:02 expensive product i would imagine it is

5:04 complicated how do you find those buyers

5:07 and again is your buyer the cto

5:10 yeah great question yeah it's usually

5:12 the cto or the cio depending on the

5:14 company and how they're kind of um

5:16 constructed um and so it's that it

5:19 organization and you know they're

5:21 they're looking to

5:23 scale they're looking to provide great

5:25 experiences to their employees you know

5:27 if the employees show up to work and the

5:28 network's not working that's kind of a

5:30 productivity killer

5:32 but increasingly also to their end users

5:35 you know their website needs to be up

5:37 because many companies conduct you know

5:40 millions or billions of dollars over

5:42 their website um you know how they

5:44 engage in customer service

5:45 which now you're seeing kind of omni

5:47 channel customer service the network is

5:49 at the heart of that and so it's really

5:51 become mission critical to every single

5:54 business but you're right you know the

5:55 it folks know us um some of the buying

5:58 centers are growing um so some of the

6:00 lines of business you know that

6:02 recognize that hey the network is

6:04 critical how we engage with our

6:05 customers

6:06 start to become more influential but

6:08 yeah the it organization is the core of

6:11 who we typically sell to

6:12 all right so let's talk about a blended

6:15 buyer journey what does that mean to you

6:19 well that's a great question and that's

6:20 something that we're seeing as

6:22 increasingly as an opportunity for us so

6:25 you know i think we've all heard in b2b

6:27 the stats about how you know people um

6:30 you know get 50 60 down the buying

6:32 journey before they ever engage a

6:34 salesperson and of course the truth is

6:36 it's not truly linear it's not as if

6:38 they go 60 and it's like okay now i'll

6:39 engage but they are absolutely getting

6:42 information from certainly the company's

6:44 website but from third-party websites

6:47 from their peers from industry analysts

6:49 from just a variety of different sources

6:51 so the notion that we can control that

6:53 buyer's journey you know as maybe we

6:55 used to 20 years ago

6:57 that's gone um and so what that means is

7:00 we need to be ready to engage with the

7:02 right kinds of information

7:04 through the right channels whenever

7:06 they're ready to engage with us so they

7:08 may come to our website before wanting

7:09 to really deal with the person or maybe

7:11 they have a relationship with one of our

7:13 salespeople and that's where they start

7:15 and so what we're in the process of

7:17 doing now is transforming that

7:19 experience on our website giving them a

7:22 variety of different content uh types

7:25 you know whether it's you know immersive

7:27 video for thought leadership to very

7:30 hard working you know data sheets about

7:32 our products if that's where they are in

7:34 the journey

7:35 and wanting to do that uh all throughout

7:38 the journey and if they

7:39 go you know offline and wanted to work

7:41 with the salesperson we need to know

7:43 what they did online and similarly if

7:45 they come online

7:46 and are expecting to engage with us it's

7:49 super helpful for us to know what

7:50 interactions they've had with juniper

7:52 people and so making sure that

7:54 hand-in-glove journey from digital to

7:57 people and back and forth is as seamless

8:00 as possible so we've architected that

8:02 that buying journey as best as we can

8:05 define it but we also know it's got to

8:07 be very very kind of

8:09 flexible with how they want to engage

8:11 with us at any moment in time

8:13 understood and when we think about the

8:15 blended buyer journey it seems to me the

8:17 first thing to understand is what you

8:19 just said mike that you are not in

8:21 control of the buyer's journey anymore

8:23 it is not linear it is a bit all over

8:25 the place so what advice would you have

8:28 for other b2b cmos listening that are at

8:31 the very beginning of realizing they're

8:34 not in control they have to create a

8:36 blended buyer journey and how do you

8:38 even

8:39 start to create a road map for that

8:42 yeah it's a great question and it's it's

8:44 certainly something i mean we certainly

8:45 haven't you know cracked the code

8:46 entirely but i would tell you that when

8:48 i when i started as the cmo here i made

8:51 two big bets

8:52 one was on data

8:55 and that includes you know hiring a team

8:56 a data scientist that means really

8:59 making sure that we understand as much

9:01 as we possibly can

9:02 about our buyer

9:04 about where they're getting influence

9:05 about where they are in the journey

9:06 about what they need from us

9:09 and again because everything's gone

9:11 digital that means there's data

9:13 everywhere as which we all know um but

9:15 the challenge is if you don't know how

9:16 to make sense of that and and harness

9:18 that then it's worthless to you so let's

9:20 get grounded in data

9:22 and then the second big bet was around

9:25 i'll call it martech marketing

9:27 technology kind of the tech stack that

9:29 we now use from our website to the tools

9:32 that we use to understand buyer intent

9:35 to how we engage with customers

9:37 individually and at an account level so

9:39 there's so many different tools out

9:41 there you really got to get your arms

9:42 around what tools are going to work for

9:44 you to give you that complete view of

9:46 the customer

9:48 and to allow you to quickly zig and zag

9:51 when they come in maybe in an unexpected

9:53 place um or take it take

9:55 their own journey in a different

9:57 direction uh again you need to be able

9:59 to support what they're looking for at

10:00 any moment in time

10:02 right so you're talking about leads

10:04 you're talking about data how closely do

10:06 you work with the other

10:08 leaders at juniper and would you just

10:10 describe how you share data and how you

10:13 collaborate with the other leaders that

10:15 impact what you do and you impact what

10:17 they do

10:18 absolutely uh and that's been an

10:20 essential i think element of what i

10:22 think is a successful customer

10:24 engagement strategy so we have a

10:26 corporate wide customer experience

10:28 initiative and when i say that what that

10:30 means is you know we do okrs lots of

10:32 companies do whatever kind of kpis or

10:34 okrs and we have three primary

10:36 objectives at the company level one of

10:39 those three is creating a differentiated

10:41 and remarkable customer experience so

10:43 that tells you the level of importance

10:45 that we place on that um and so

10:48 as part of that pretty much every single

10:50 function um has some skin in the game on

10:53 making that successful and we each have

10:56 our own okrs about our part of the

10:59 customer journey and the role we play in

11:01 creating that amazing customer

11:03 experience

11:04 and then how we manage that is through

11:07 i'd say you know pretty rigorous

11:09 governance um you know which sounds

11:11 super kind of corporate and bureaucratic

11:13 but really it just means we've got our

11:15 set of objectives we get together pretty

11:18 frequently

11:19 and look at all elements of the customer

11:21 experience

11:22 where we need to make progress what's

11:24 maybe not working how how we intended

11:26 and then also just making sure that we

11:28 all know what each is doing

11:30 because there are so many different

11:31 touch points that if we're all running

11:33 off in our own directions maybe even if

11:35 we're all doing good things if it's not

11:37 coordinated the customer is going to see

11:38 that it's not coordinated so i'd say

11:41 that's really been the key to our

11:42 success we don't have a chief customer

11:44 officer you know someone in name that is

11:47 just tasked with that so really it comes

11:49 down to our head of global customer

11:52 service and support

11:53 marketing

11:54 certainly our sales organization

11:56 and many of the support functions that

11:58 go along with all of those uh areas so

12:01 being super coordinated

12:02 looking at the data looking at that

12:04 experience and then you know making

12:06 adjustments when we need to

12:08 something i've been interested in lately

12:09 is just measurement how we measure

12:11 success

12:12 and i've had the pleasure of

12:14 interviewing the creator of net promoter

12:16 score a few times fred reichel and he

12:18 has this new metric out called earned

12:19 growth rate and basically what he says

12:22 is that the customers you get through

12:24 word of mouth are very much more

12:26 valuable than customers you would

12:28 acquire through traditional marketing

12:29 they spend more money all those

12:31 customers you acquire through like super

12:33 bowl ads and

12:35 billboards actually can cause damage to

12:38 the brand they spend less money they're

12:39 less loyal has that been your experience

12:42 um as far as the value of the customers

12:45 the more valuable ones being referrals

12:49 well i certainly you know it's an

12:51 interesting kind of juxtaposition you

12:52 know the is it are they less valuable if

12:55 you acquire them through other means i

12:56 will tell you

12:58 one thing's for sure that people trust

13:01 quote people they know people they trust

13:04 so that so that's referrals that means

13:06 you know i'm a cio in this company um i

13:10 am in a you know cio community and i

13:12 know other cios

13:14 you know their

13:15 opinions their direction their

13:17 experience with

13:18 juniper or anyone else is going to weigh

13:20 pretty heavily

13:22 on making that decision so i would say

13:24 that is absolutely at the top of the

13:26 list

13:27 and

13:28 you know certainly that's why we believe

13:31 it's so critical

13:32 to have you know customer communities we

13:35 have you know communities by industry

13:37 and we've really invested a lot in that

13:39 um as much for the benefit of those as

13:42 that are part of the community as it is

13:44 to us we love being a fly on the wall

13:45 when you know 10 healthcare cios get

13:48 together and start talking about their

13:50 big challenges because that's gold for

13:51 us but it's also gold for them to give

13:54 them a forum and a platform even if

13:55 they're not talking about juniper just

13:56 like to compare notes and to see what um

13:59 you know what's working for them and the

14:01 challenges that they face

14:03 so yeah creating those forums is another

14:05 way that we can provide value beyond

14:07 just hey we have great products go you

14:09 know buy our products it's we're giving

14:11 you a forum to engage with your industry

14:13 peers and to solve the challenges that

14:15 you're facing every day

14:17 yeah absolutely and i find with this

14:19 industry in particular they're so hungry

14:21 executives are so hungry to share

14:23 information because

14:24 it is hard to find good content at least

14:27 from a customer experience perspective

14:30 do you do a lot of

14:32 information seeking yourself

14:34 from other marketing

14:36 thought leadership firms or other cmos

14:39 on customer experience or how have you

14:41 acquired your wealth of knowledge yeah i

14:44 i am in i'm in actually one forum

14:47 specifically for cmos uh it's a global

14:49 forum of some you know top cmos so

14:52 that's just always a great calibration

14:53 you know when you think you're man i'm

14:55 facing this challenge you know can

14:57 anyone else be facing this and then you

14:58 find out that half the other people are

15:00 are um and can give you some good good

15:02 guidance and thoughts so that's one and

15:04 then i actually am involved in another

15:06 forum specifically around customer

15:08 experience with some other with some

15:10 cheap customer officers as i said we

15:12 don't have someone in that title per se

15:14 but i'm able to be a part of that

15:16 because of you know certainly the role

15:18 that marketing plays in creating a great

15:20 customer experience is huge so just

15:23 being able to see how some very large

15:26 companies and some smaller companies

15:28 think about uh how they do customer

15:30 experience think about how they measure

15:32 it to your point you know just getting

15:34 all those learnings again i don't know

15:35 that anyone has cracked the code but

15:36 there's some really good work going on

15:38 so learning from other leaders

15:40 is is hugely valuable to me

15:43 i imagine that a lot of our listeners

15:45 and viewers are tuning in because

15:46 they're interested in what it's like to

15:48 be a marketing leader at a complicated

15:51 tech company it's not an easy product

15:53 that you sell

15:55 you have to create the language for it

15:56 you have to be at the right place at the

15:58 right time how do you even begin to

16:00 sketch out the vision for the

16:03 communication communicating the value of

16:05 the product doing it in the right

16:07 channels what tools have you used to be

16:10 successful in

16:12 drawing that whole vision and image for

16:14 how the product can

16:16 change the world

16:17 for these customers

16:19 yeah what a great question blake um and

16:22 it is a challenge i will tell you um

16:24 because the interesting thing is you

16:26 know for us our experience has been that

16:28 when we get engaged with someone and

16:29 when they start to use our technology

16:31 then we have a i'd say if you will a

16:33 lower level conversation a more detailed

16:35 like here's all the great bits and bobs

16:37 of the technology but to get to that

16:39 point

16:40 you were probably many years in the

16:42 journey

16:43 because when we show up on the doorstep

16:45 of a fortune 500 company that maybe

16:47 we're not working with

16:49 they first want to know why should i

16:50 even be talking to you i have typically

16:53 what we have you know the the solutions

16:55 that we have

16:56 they already have something in place

16:57 today they have a wi-fi network they

16:59 have a security infrastructure they have

17:00 a data center you know they have those

17:02 things rarely sometimes you'll get a

17:04 green field but generally they have

17:06 something and so really it's first why

17:08 should i even be working with juniper um

17:11 and that's where i talked about

17:13 this maniacal focus on customer

17:15 experience because i think that actually

17:17 cuts above

17:18 the um you know here's what my

17:21 you know device does or my software can

17:23 do for you we'll get to that

17:24 conversation hopefully um but really

17:27 it's about we have a different approach

17:29 we're thinking about um you know your

17:31 experience of both the people that run

17:33 the network as well as the end users uh

17:36 who who are leveraging the network

17:38 and that's actually a really interesting

17:40 starting point because when you come to

17:42 a cio and you say

17:43 you know we're able to reduce trouble

17:46 tickets on networks by over 90 with our

17:49 ai technology like oh well that's

17:51 interesting what if my team had 90 of

17:53 their time back and wasn't just chasing

17:55 wi-fi tickets but actually able to think

17:57 about what's around the corner or adding

17:59 more value to the business

18:00 that's a different level of conversation

18:02 um and and one that generally will get

18:05 the c-suite interested um and then

18:08 once you have them interested then you

18:09 start working with their teams and you

18:11 start doing your you know here's what

18:12 our products do versus other products

18:14 here so we have advantages and you have

18:16 to have the

18:17 technology team fall in love with your

18:18 product

18:19 so having those two altitudes has really

18:21 been fundamental to our success

18:24 mike as a leader do you think that

18:26 understanding and saying that your

18:29 product is a commodity i mean is that

18:31 something you guys talk about because i

18:32 know that requires like quite a bit of

18:34 humility to say hey our product there

18:36 are other people that make our product

18:37 how are we going to elevate the

18:38 experience to be different

18:41 yeah i mean look i i think if if you had

18:43 one of our engineers on on the line

18:45 today they would tell you the 10 reasons

18:47 why our products not a commodity and why

18:50 we do this better this is more unique

18:52 whatever and look there's some truth to

18:54 that i mean we have real proof points on

18:56 how we built a better mousetrap in many

18:58 cases but i think to your point like

19:01 because because everyone is using

19:04 something even if our something is 10

19:06 better um you still have to explain to

19:08 them why even that 10 or 20 percent

19:10 better

19:11 is worth the disruption of change

19:13 because there's no matter what changing

19:15 from one technology or one vendor to

19:17 another there's some level of disruption

19:19 there's some level of risk

19:21 so i have to believe that what's on the

19:22 other side is so much better that maybe

19:25 there's some technology differences

19:27 maybe the price is competitive or even

19:28 better but there has to be something

19:30 more and so i think if anything

19:32 that acknowledgement has pushed us

19:34 harder and to really come up and

19:37 crystallize what it means to work with

19:39 juniper beyond just our product details

19:42 what it means to work with us how we're

19:44 different than the competition how we're

19:45 going to surround our customers to make

19:47 sure they're successful

19:49 and so that i think it just pushes us uh

19:52 and then like i said hopefully we get to

19:53 the technology conversation we can give

19:55 you you know the deep dive into why it's

19:57 better and that's with the the

19:59 networking teams who are gonna run our

20:00 stuff through its paces but you're never

20:02 gonna get to that conversation if you

20:04 haven't you know kind of did the why

20:06 should i even be thinking about a

20:08 different different vendor a different

20:09 answer

20:11 so my part of a leader's job is to

20:13 obviously deliver the strategy that's

20:15 necessary now but it's also to keep your

20:18 eye on the future and the horizon

20:20 so i would be interested to hear what

20:22 some of the trends are that you're

20:23 interested in uh for the future of

20:26 marketing at juniper

20:28 yeah um well you know i touched on one

20:31 that i think is interesting it's

20:33 interesting because it's part of our

20:34 product portfolio but it's certainly

20:36 across many many more areas and that's

20:38 ai and ml where everyone's thinking

20:40 about okay how do i use this is it

20:42 really going to move the ball forward

20:44 do i have a concern about what it's

20:46 going to do to jobs i mean there's so

20:47 many different elements of that but make

20:50 no mistake i think you know

20:52 optimizing operations and optimizing in

20:55 our case end-user experiences through ai

20:57 is a way to provide a better solution

21:01 and one that again will free up teams to

21:04 focus on what they really want to focus

21:06 on so that's a big one and we're also

21:08 starting to leverage it within the

21:09 marketing discipline as well um you know

21:11 how do we really anticipate buyer needs

21:15 how do we coordinate uh and and

21:18 kind of cross cross hatch of the data

21:20 that we have to make some decisions or

21:23 at least to you know reach out to the

21:25 customer at the right time

21:27 so i think that's an an interesting um

21:29 space to watch

21:30 one of the other ones that i would say

21:32 is important to us from a marketing

21:34 perspective from a company perspective

21:36 and from a world perspective is

21:37 sustainability um and you know being in

21:40 the i.t industry

21:42 obviously we like so many others are

21:44 part of the problem i mean the good news

21:47 is our products have become so much more

21:49 power efficient over the years

21:51 the bad news if you want to look at it

21:52 this way is the demand for

21:55 data and bandwidth and all the things

21:57 that we facilitate continues to grow um

22:01 unabated

22:02 so the demand is there we're trying to

22:04 keep up with that by by creating more

22:06 sustainable solutions but i think as we

22:08 all know this is going to become a

22:10 conversation that is going to continue

22:12 to be

22:13 quite active and quite urgent over the

22:15 coming few years we actually just made

22:16 an announcement earlier this year that

22:18 we're going to be carbon neutral for our

22:19 own operations by 2025 which is a an

22:22 aggressive statement to make but one

22:24 that i feel really proud of that we're

22:27 able to to lead our industry uh along

22:29 those lines and i think ultimately our

22:32 customers we see this the number of rfps

22:34 that customers are coming to us every

22:36 single year

22:38 saying what are you doing around

22:40 sustainability give us your targets give

22:42 us your progress against those targets

22:44 if we think very broadly about your

22:46 passion around customer experience this

22:48 is going to become an element of that

22:50 and um we want to make sure that we're

22:52 in the right leadership position to do

22:55 the right things for the planet but also

22:57 to make sure we're helping our customers

22:59 meet their their climate goals

23:01 that's very exciting and actually after

23:03 the podcast we can talk about

23:05 a company i'm a part of now that is

23:08 helping to helping the utilities

23:09 industry transform um in light of this

23:12 and electrification

23:14 all right so now is time for the fun

23:16 part the rapid fire mike are you ready

23:18 to take these rapid fire questions

23:20 i don't know am i let's do it let's give

23:22 a we'll find out um all right you

23:24 are stuck on an island you have access

23:27 to water you can bring one other food

23:29 and one other drink what are they

23:31 okay

23:32 the food is pizza and you get it with

23:35 everything so that every day you could

23:37 pick some toppings off and you'd have

23:38 different variety every single day i've

23:40 thought about this one um

23:42 drink hmm so i have water so i'm good on

23:45 the hydration so then it's just

23:46 something uh maybe something light and

23:48 fruity because at least for the first

23:50 month it would be fun and then it would

23:52 get pretty bad

23:53 we'll go with that okay awesome if you

23:56 could have lunch with anybody dead or

23:58 alive who would it be

24:00 uh prince

24:02 okay cool my favorite artist gone too

24:05 soon but uh yeah yeah he was an amazing

24:08 amazing musician absolutely what is one

24:11 tool or resource you use to get through

24:14 during covit for self-development

24:17 oh self-development um as opposed to all

24:19 the hours wasted binging

24:21 um huh

24:23 good question i may have to

24:25 self-development

24:26 i mean i certainly found myself you know

24:29 more

24:30 engaged with an industry conversation

24:31 because you're staring at your computer

24:33 all the time

24:34 so engaging in we talked a little bit

24:36 about kind of cxo forums and stuff um

24:39 luckily a lot of them came with a

24:41 mixologist or a wine tasting but but

24:43 i'll tell you that worked because you

24:45 really got to have some great

24:45 conversations with people

24:47 that you might not otherwise see because

24:49 you had to trudge across town to go to a

24:51 dinner at 6 30 and fight traffic now you

24:53 just flip your laptop up in your kitchen

24:55 and you're talking to

24:57 industry peers so i'd say that kind of

24:59 engagement mechanism has been really

25:00 valuable for me personally and then for

25:02 us as a company and engaging with our

25:04 customers too

25:05 absolutely and you might have an easy

25:07 answer to this next one because you've

25:09 already sort of mentioned it but what is

25:10 the greatest musician or band of all

25:12 time

25:13 well yeah i had to say prince on that

25:16 one so prolific it's so varied over so

25:18 much time so yeah absolutely um what is

25:21 your most embarrassing work moment

25:26 man

25:27 um

25:31 well okay this is going way back this is

25:34 literally my first day

25:36 i started uh right out of college with

25:38 pricewaterhouseconsulting

25:40 now it's pwc it's price waterhouse then

25:42 and you know your first day you're

25:44 thinking about all these things you've

25:44 got all these things you have to go do

25:45 and blah blah and i and i left the house

25:47 with my fly down

25:49 um so i i think i caught it pretty

25:52 quickly um but that could have been

25:54 because you've got so much else in your

25:55 mind you're not doing the very basic

25:57 things yep happens to everybody you know

26:00 okay just does all right well mike this

26:02 has been really fun and i'm so glad we

26:04 got to chat

26:06 and uh if people want to learn more

26:08 about juniper or you where can they do

26:10 that

26:12 www.juniper.net

26:14 all right i'm on linkedin as well all

26:16 right great well

26:18 thank you for joining me uh all of you

26:20 have been tuning in to the modern

26:22 customer podcast if you have time leave

26:24 me a review on apple so more people can

26:26 find this growing show

26:28 and until next time thanks

26:30 [Music]

26:42 you

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