We caught up with Anton Belo, VP of Growth Marketing at Kochava, to chat about his experience as a speaker at RMA’s Las Vegas summit.
Keen to be a speaker or attend one of our events? You can keep an eye on our upcoming summits right here.
What prompted you to get involved with RMA’s Las Vegas event?
Someone reached out to me at a point in time when I wanted to help build some self-brand. I believe the initial contact was on LinkedIn.
I was like, wow, this is right up my alley. The person who reached out shared a full prospectus with me. The prospectus detailed what we needed to talk about.
As a speaker at the RMA Las Vegas event, I offered to talk about the value of having SDRs (sales development representatives) reporting to marketing, to really help drive revenue and revenue growth.
That was the initial conversation that really piqued my interest.
What made this event stand out above market alternatives?
It was the right place at the right time. Of course, there are a lot of other events out there. This one I found to be a more intimate event environment, which I really liked.
I had a huge Q&A afterward. A lot of follow-up conversations actually aspired out of it, maybe six or seven. I had a lot of people saying that mine was the best workshop they’d attended that day, which was great to hear.
I’m a unique breed of marketer where I actually request SDRs to report to marketing – to report to me – the beauty of this is I’m able to track the conversions and the pipeline a lot better. I can also get feedback from marketing initiatives a lot quicker than I can the traditional means.
Stevie Langford
So it was a great, great, great track. I had a lot of job offer requests after that, too. So it was pretty interesting!
Which aspects of the event did you find the most valuable?
I spoke with a presenter who spoke about MMM (media mix modeling) which was great, and super helpful in understanding their journey.
I found that quite valuable because I'm a marketer who stays close to the pipeline. MMM is a concept that shows an impact on the pipeline in some way, shape, or form, and needs to understand those concepts. That was pretty good.
Other talks were great, and I gained insight from other speakers and followed up with a handful of them. I ended up meeting with one MMM speaker face-to-face afterward as we were both in the Bay Area.
Revenue Marketing Alliance
Has the event helped to enhance your marketing credentials?
It was great to learn from other industry experts. For my personal growth, it was great, but I primarily focus on very early-stage companies – those that’ve only just got funding. So I’m usually the first hire to grow the company and see that impact.
There were a couple of talks I found personally valuable. I took vigorous notes, but they might not necessarily pertain to me in my day-to-day life because I don’t personally have the time or budget or the people – I have a small team.
Still, I definitely learned a lot.
Has this experience helped you to network?
Oh, yes, this was a really good event for networking. I think I connected with everyone who attended that event via LinkedIn.
I had a lot of LinkedIn conversations and a lot of follow-up calls with people, too, which was really beneficial.
The connections I built were really valuable.
Charley Gale
How has this experience impacted your professional growth or career?
Stepping out and speaking more really helped me, quite a bit. I ended up speaking at a few other events after this one, so it definitely helped break the ice for me.
The network I was able to achieve outside of that was very beneficial. I’ve connected with some people a few times throughout the year after our initial connection at the event.
I haven’t spoken much before other than small meetup groups due to my role – it’s full-on so I’m usually “head down” from the start. I don’t have loads of free time – I need the company to be growing on a global scale, it’s fast-moving, so this was a great opportunity to help segue into speaking more.
What would you say to fellow marketing professionals considering speaking at or attending one of RMA’s events?
I would say they should do it. It was a very good event.
A little about Anton
Anton has 15+ years of experience in B2B marketing, including several start-ups and hyper-growth companies. He specializes in building a marketing engine that accelerates revenue growth and takes companies to the next level.
Anton’s expertise lie in building a marketing revenue engine for startups or hyper-growth SaaS companies. His success is driven by his strong ability to establish, operationalize, and manage marketing processes that strongly align with sales.
Anton’s specialties include account-based marketing (ABM), marketing operations, campaign management, lead life-cycle management, marketing automation, paid advertising, and marketing analytics.
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