About this Episode
“If you see the physical person on the other side of the screen talking about the incredible work that you're doing together, it's hard to fake that.”
Topics Covered
Why case study rights belong in the presales conversation — trading a discount for pre-agreed KPIs and permission to publish once those KPIs are hit
How Cresta makes case studies hard to fake with on-camera customer video, in a category full of unnamed customers and unverifiable numbers
Why Fortune 500 accounts often add a second approval layer in comms and brand, beyond the working team
How building the story so the customer champion looks good creates future case study opportunities — Cresta has seen champions get promoted for featured work
Why analyst reports work as middle-to-bottom-funnel assets — placed in demo-page exit-intent pop-ups, AE recap emails, and analyst-attended events rather than top-of-funnel awareness
How analyst interest compounds through customer success, to the point that analysts have asked Cresta for standing quarterly touchpoints
How Cresta chose out-of-home cities based on where individual buyers, new hires, and investors actually live, not where accounts are headquartered
Why airport advertising earns outsized spend for internal reasons — the go-to-market team sees it constantly and shares it, counting employee confidence as part of the return
The $1 / $10 / $100 / $1k task framework Cresta uses to decide what marketing work is worth automating
Frequently Asked Questions
When should you negotiate case study rights with a customer?
During the presales process, before the contract is signed — agreeing on target KPIs and getting permission to publish if those KPIs are hit, often in exchange for a discount, since customers are less likely to agree after the fact even when results are strong.
How does Cresta make its case study numbers hard to fake?
By producing a video for every case study with the customer appearing on camera — real, on-camera participation is the hardest thing to fabricate in a category full of unnamed customers and unverifiable numbers.
Where should analyst reports be placed in the funnel?
As a middle-to-bottom-funnel asset, not a top-of-funnel awareness piece — Cresta places its Forrester report in demo-page exit-intent pop-ups and every AE follow-up email, which is what drives repeated mentions in sales call transcripts.
How did Cresta choose cities for its out-of-home advertising?
Based on where individual buyers actually live, down to the city area, not where accounts are headquartered — and weighted toward cities where Cresta is also hiring and where its investors are based.
About the Guest
Russell Banzon is a B2B GTM leader who is passionate about driving pipeline and revenue for SaaS technology companies. As the former VP of Marketing at Gong, he played a key role in scaling the company from seven figures to nine figures in ARR, leading category creation, international expansion, and the evolution from a single-product company to a multi-product platform. Now, as the CMO at Cresta, he is helping to shape the future of AI in the contact center space, though that story is still being written.
LinkedIn →About the Hosts
Mada Seghete is the CEO and co-founder of Upside, a next-gen revenue intelligence platform for B2B leaders. Previously co-founded and was CMO of Branch, helping scale to $100M+ revenue. Cornell Engineering graduate with Masters and MBA from Stanford. Partner at XFactor Ventures investing in women founders and organizes yearly retreats for 100+ women founders.
LinkedIn →Ethan Smith is Founder and CEO of Graphite Growth, a premium Vertical AI Growth Agency that helps companies like Webflow, Notion, MasterClass, and Captions drive sustainable revenue growth via SEO, content, and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). Ethan is also an adjunct professor at IE Business School.
LinkedIn →
