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How to Sell Community to a CEO Who Doesn't Care About Community ft. Chris Catania (Esri)
[Un]Churned – The No. 1 Podcast for Customer RetentionShow Notes
Most leaders treat community as a marketing channel. They're leaving the real advantage on the table. Chris Catania , Head of Community at Esri built community from a love of live music. Lately, he wrote the playbook. In this episode he joins Erica Kuhl, who scaled Salesforce's legendary Trailblazer community, and Josh Schachter to make the case that community isn't a nice-to-have. It's a strategic operating system competitors can't copy. From Lego's near-bankruptcy turnaround to Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, demanding harsher feedback, this episode reframes what community can do for a business.
--- Want the playbook, not just the conversation? Subscribe for deep-dive, actionable breakdowns from every episode at unchurned.substack.com.
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What You'll Learn
- Why community is a service to every team, not a marketing channel - The importance of speaking each executive's language - The "fake flowers vs real flowers" test for authentic community - Why community-driven companies build an advantage rivals can't catch - The three E's: enablement, experience, evaluation - How to set a North Star while delivering ROI in small wins
--- Timestamps 0:00 - Preview & Intro 1:56 - Meet Chris Catania 6:27 - Three founders, one music origin story 10:17 - The Lego turnaround that saved the brand 14:25 - Fake flowers vs real flowers 17:28 - Why nobody likes the word "community" 22:05 - The Marc Benioff feedback story (CEO of Salesforce) 24:24 - Is Voice of the customer underleveraged? 31:47 - Erica ran Salesforce's first Twitter handle 33:22 - Community as a service and the unfair advantage 37:20 — One takeaway: the three E's
--- Josh is writing a book on building customer relationships. Follow his journey and insights at www.joshschachter.com
--- Where to Find the Guest Chris Catania: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophercatania/ Website: https://chriscatania.co/
--- Where to Find the Hosts: Erica's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericakuhl Josh's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/ Unchurned Substack: https://unchurned.substack.com/
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Want the playbook, not just the conversation? Subscribe for deep-dive, actionable breakdowns from every episode at unchurned.substack.com.
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