AI isn't the enemy, mediocrity is: Insights from a Seasoned CMO

Speaker A: Foreign. Who's seen it from both sides of the balance sheet. Paul Taylor is a seasoned CMO with a strong financial background, which means he knows how to drive pipeline and prove it's paying off. In this episode, we unpack what it means to be a CMO under siege. From shrinking tenures to the relentless pressure to do more with less. But Paul's take, Stop auditioning for your job every 36 months and start owning the metrics that matter. You'll hear why brand isn't luxury, how, uh, mediocrity, not AI, is the real threat to marketing, and what B2B can steal from B2C without losing its soul. It's honest, it's practical, and it's full of punch. And if you've ever felt like you're marketing uphill, well, this conversation is the grip that you'll need. Paul Taylor, welcome to the show.

Speaker B: Hi, Chris. Nice to see you.

Speaker A: Paul, let's just dive straight in with a question that's going to put you on the spot. The CMO under siege. Would you agree with that statement? And if so, why would that be?

Speaker B: Certainly feels like it. I think I've got the gray hair or lack of hair to, uh, stand up to, uh, that criticism. Um, I think there's a lot of pressure within SaaS businesses today. Right. I, um, think particularly on the kind of growth and revenue side of the businesses and also on the product side of the businesses. On the product side, there's obviously a huge amount of new technology that's being invented in very, very short order and that's putting delivery teams and folks like that under pressure. And then in order to support the investment in all of those new products, you're obviously seeing a huge amount of pressure go into the commercial parts of the organizations, be that a CRO, which obviously is needing to try and get revenue through the door or protect accounts from churning, or the CMO whose job is to fill that pipeline just as much as they can. So, yeah, I think it's, uh, a tricky time in tech, but I think you're seeing that the cream raises to the top in terms of how people are approaching that challenge.

Speaker A: There's some research and in fact we're doing some of our own right now. In terms of the average tenure of a CMO in the B2B world, it's gone from sort of four to three and now two and a bit years and it's getting shorter by the year, it seems. And now is the much shorter than any other role on the C suite. Does that surprise You, Um, it doesn't.

Speaker B: I mean, my most recent role I was actually in for uh, nearly six years. So, uh, yeah, it must have been doing something right. Uh, but I do think that tenure is shrinking in different parts of the technology landscape and indeed other parts of uh, the industries and different verticals. I think the pressure is really driving short termism. You've got a situation where some CMOs spend more time proving their existence than shaping the business, which is a huge problem. Um, and it's almost like we've turned marketing leadership into a 36 month audition. Fundamentally you can't really build long, long term trust on quarterly patients. Right. So my argument would really be that I don't think it's necessarily a CMO problem. I think there's just a fundamental flaw in the clock that seems to be ticking in terms of what people want from these roles.

Speaker A: Yeah, but then again, I've heard you say it and I'd like everyone to listening into this to sort of, I'm sure it will resonate with them. But you've said it before. CMOs are being asked to do 20% more for 20% less. Is that not though the real reason?

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, I think many marketing teams are under resourced over targeted, told to halve the spend and then double the pipeline. You know, we've heard it all before. Fundamentally CFOs want accountability and CEOs want growth. And you can understand that. But I think you've got a situation where in a department that's often seen as a cost center, you know, the CMO is really stuck in the middle trying to deliver both the kind of accountability and spend level at the same time as balancing that kind of outrageous growth desire. Sometimes I think though that the people that succeed the best will be the CMOs that can speak the language of finance, um, and almost turn that kind of investment that's being kind of pumped into the engine, um, as a kind of balance sheet asset and not necessarily that cost line. I think we need to kind of get out of this thing of justifying our existence and I think we need to get a lot more on the front foot in terms of being able to explain that, um, investment that you're making in terms of all of the good metrics and all of the kind of brand growth that you get from doing these things, um, and these tactics. Otherwise you end up with somebody else defining it for you. So I think it's really incumbent on everyone to get on the front foot and make sure that you are aware of how you're being measured and how people are feeling about it.

Speaker A: What are the metrics that really matter? I mean, you're absolutely right. Just justifying your role is not really the metric that the shareholders are looking for. So what are m the main metrics? And maybe if you could elaborate on if in your last role you were there for six years, how have those metrics changed and how might they change in the future?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I've said this quite a lot, it feels like over the last kind of couple of months, but it feels like the customer journey and the funnel, you know, that we all know and love has really just been kind of thrown on its head. Right. You've got this kind of weird looping, ghosting motion that people are using these days, uh, in terms of kind of evidence in buying signals. With the advent of large language models, people are able to do a lot more research before, before they even engage in a sales cycle. And I think what was once before maybe 70% of people's research taking place offline, uh, before they even engaged with you, I think you're probably pushing 90% these days. But fundamentally the board or the CEO, uh, the people that you report into, they don't really buy into marketing. What they really buy in is inter momentum. And I think there has to be a way of moving away from just kind of pretty bland metrics like numbers of MQLs, number of E&Qs, number of opportunities, and actually, actually shift it much more towards how is marketing working hand in hand with a revenue organization in order to further conversations with your icp. So it's really about kind of showing movement as opposed to metrics. Uh, so you can then frame that investment in the right way. Um, and getting really, really tight on what it is that they're actually expecting you to deliver. Is it net new logo, is it upsell or cross sell, or is it protecting kind of any churn events that you've, that you've got a concern with. And the reason why that matters is because the tactics that you use from a marketing perspective are ah, clearly very, very different, dependent on the challenge or the, the goal that you have. So you know, I think if you, if you can't tell your, your story, if you can't tell the board or the CEO what it is that you're trying to achieve versus those goals that they've passed down, then you've already really lost that audience. You know, fundamentally you kind of earn influence in the boardroom or with the sort of senior C suite, the same way as you Earn, um, trust in the market, which is really being really commercial and being consistent and then sort of building the metrics around that in order to prove your point.

Speaker A: So is there a degree of reskilling necessary for the CMO in order to understand these metrics? Because in particular, I think, am I correct in saying that you've got quite a strong financial background as well and that must have stood you in good stead? But that's not the norm, is it?

Speaker B: It's not the norm, no. I mean I've got 16, 16, 17 years in finance organizations. So yes, I understand how to work a spreadsheet, I guess, um, and how to work a calc. But yeah, I think fundamentally you just need to be very, very attuned to where the business is and what it is that it's trying to achieve. Um, and build those relationships with the people that matter across the C suite. Your peers, be they in finance, be they in sales, be they in kind of those revenue generating or cost counting functions. I think it is way overdue that, uh, people upskill. And I wouldn't say it's necessarily just the cmo. I think it's everyone through marketing with the kind of push of AI models and things like that. If you're not kind of leaning into some of those things at this point, then you're quite far behind.

Speaker A: And it's interesting you say keep reskilling. I mean, how do you keep up? Now, talking to a CMO yesterday who actually almost celebrated and had a party on his fourth anniversary in this company because he then thought from now on he might get fired purely because of the length of tenure. But he, uh, talked a lot about keeping up to speed. And it's so easy, isn't it, nowadays, to fall behind. How do you keep up to date?

Speaker B: You know, a lot of it is networking with peers. I belong to a lot of different, um, CMO networks across B2C, um, across B2B kind of domains because you can learn a lot from what people are doing in other parts of the market. Um, so one way is just being in various different chat rooms, be they WhatsApp groups or um, kind of these CMO kind of working groups that have cropped up which are really valuable because, you know, like you, you often sit there feeling like you're the only one with a challenge. And then you look around the room and sometimes you find that you've actually solved something that's going to help somebody else. So you get that kind of buzz. But also sometimes people kind of help you kind of think through your own challenges, um, talking to great people like you, um, on a regular basis, in terms of what you're seeing in the market, um, it's really working. That network. I don't think there's necessarily a book for this. And to be frank, if there was a book written on this right now,

Speaker A: it'd be out of date by the time it's written.

Speaker B: Exactly. It'd be out of date at least in two quarters. So I think everyone's just trying to find their ways through. There's some great groups out there. Lean into your pe, because very often you're not necessarily in a competitive space with these people, and everyone's pretty willing to help out and sort of bring forward ideas in terms of the challenges that you have.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's a big part. There's a big reason why we're really focusing on this thought leadership program around the CMO under siege, and indeed why this podcast is so important, because I think CMOs can learn a lot from each other by just, um, listening to this sort of program. But I think something you just said there was really interesting that the majority of people on this, um, in our audience are B2B and in particular, as you know, tech. But you've just highlighted an interesting point that you look at the B2C arena and see what lessons can be learned. What can be learned from the world of B2C if you're a B2B CMO?

Speaker B: Look, I've always had this view from very, very beginning of me getting into, uh, this domain that, uh, we talk a lot about B2B marketing, as if a bank is a person, a bank is not a person. Right. A telco is not a person. But guess what? There are people that sit in those organizations. So actually, when you're in a B2B domain, you're kind of already marketing to an underlying human or an underlying consumer of whatever it is that you're, that you're trying to market and sell. Um, and so, you know, I think a lot of the psychology and a lot of the psychological principles that sit behind how to connect with people, how to build trust with people from a brand perspective, how to connect with people. You understand yourself in terms of how you learn and how you go through your own buyer journeys in your life. You know, it's no different. So I think, you know, the thing that I always try and encourage my folks to do is to get kind of real in terms of who it is that you're marketing to, which at the end of the day is a human. And it's not this kind of weird, kind of, you know, like, corporation name. Yeah, I think that's one thing. And then, you know, the other. The other thing is just taking a look at the creativity of being able to land a point. Um, like I saw some, some great out of home advertising that Nike were doing at the Chicago Marath think last weekend. Very, very impactful. Very, very short copy. Absolutely geared towards how somebody would be feeling at mile 20 when they're running a marathon. Um, and it just really popped. So, you know, I think it's the psychology, it's the creativity, and then it's kind of just, just trying to bring those things together and see what, what might work for your, you know, SaaS Tech product or whatever it is that you're trying to market and sell.

Speaker A: I'm really pleased to hear that because, uh, in the storytelling workshops I run, I'm always talking about it. To me, it almost doesn't matter. B2B or B2C. In actual fact, the difference obviously is that there's one buyer when it's a B2C and multiple stakeholders in a B2B situation. But nevertheless, they're human beings, aren't they? And it's. It should be B to H, business to human, or even human to human.

Speaker B: Yes. No, you're quite right. I like B2H. You should, you should trademark that.

Speaker A: Yeah, I will. Don't tell anyone. I'll get on and do that this afternoon. Let's just talk about the great content overload for a little while. I mean, we're seeing now a proliferation of dull content just about Everywhere and turning LinkedIn to a bit of a chore for a lot of people. Uh, uh, and I just wonder what your, first of all, your thoughts are about that. Are we seeing a rise of mediocrity?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think there's a big risk. It feels like it's at somewhat of an inflection point. I think there's still good copy being produced and I think AI can create good copy if you're careful. But there is a risk that it's going to flip over to some kind of mediocrity and you're going to end up in this kind of weird space where you've got kind of AI agents consuming content that other AI agents have written, which feels a little bit dystopian, I guess. But again, I don't think AI is going to kill creativity, but I do think the mediocrity will. I think there's that whole concept that would suggest if AI is trained on the lowest common denominator or on average, then don't be surprised when it produces average for you. And I think the, the greatest risk in marketing today isn't really getting it wrong. It's blending in. So it's finding ways of being able to still create that difference whilst using those tools, um, which do help people traverse their daily work, but making sure that you're kind of keeping an eye on the copy that works, the copy that lands, not blending in with everyone else, really pushing those kind of outcomes that you're getting from your product instead of just the kind of very bland sort of brand promises that a lot of people push out. And, you know, I think just trying to sort of be authentic to the brand that you spent so much time building.

Speaker A: So what tools would you say enable you to automate authenticity? Is there such a thing?

Speaker B: Do you know what? I'm not sure that there is a single tool out there that's kind of geared towards authentic, kind of authentic content creation. However, there are a number of platforms out there that I won't name, um, that are doing some really great work in blending together different LLMs with different agents. So there are platforms out there that will take prompts, it will create content, it will have an editing agent, so a creation agent, editing agent. It will run through SEO geo, uh, it will imbibe your brand tone and your brand story and all of your customer outcomes and actually produce some pretty cool content. I still think that for the moment we're going to be in a period of time where, where the human in the loop matters. Um, I don't think we're there yet in terms of just being able to click a button and have it pre fill everything from website through to email copy through to LinkedIn, um, kind of messages and all sorts of other things. But I do think we're on that path. And for people that think that this is going away, I think they're sorely misguided. It's a bit of a strong statement, but I've got this fundamental belief that AI is not going to replace marketers, but it will replace mediocre ones. And I think you need to make sure that you're leaning into this, understanding how it will work for you, understanding how you can upskill on it, um, and then kind of working alongside it to make sure that, uh, you're still producing things that matter.

Speaker A: And I think this is where the big question lies, Isn't it that if the CMO is going to fall behind they are going to be out of a job pretty damn quick. And keeping up to speed on the movement of the markets is one thing, but staying ahead of the AI curve. Is there any tips that you can give on that?

Speaker B: It's a tough one, I think. Use the tools, explore the tools. Take the demos from the AI vendors that are kind of filling your inbox in terms of taking a look at automated SDR flows, um, automated marketing ops flows. I mean, these are just some of the things that have come through to me this week. Have a look at the content platforms that are being developed, understand how they can work for you, but absolutely make sure that you're able to have an LLM that you're. That you're going to contribute to training to make sure that you're not just getting the kind of sloppy content that will just come straight out of a very bland LLM, like going out there and trying it. Chris, to be honest, like, you know, I heard on a podcast, I'll give you an example. I heard on a podcast about Vibe coding a few months ago and I was like, what's that? Well, no better way of learning what the hell that thing is than picking up Replit or Lovable and actually building an app. I'm absolutely not, like, technically gifted in terms of being able to code and things like that, but I built an app in five minutes, um, and actually started to understand, you know, started to understand how they work, started to understand the prompts that worked in terms of being able to get that kind of app created the way I wanted it and all of the tokenomics that sat behind it as well. So, you know, be curious, I guess. It sounds so basic and so cliche, but you need to be curious. You can't just sit there with blinkers on.

Speaker A: Yeah, you learn as you go, almost like a machine. Um, it's like I was using Replit myself and created a website, but I just got better and better at it. The more you learned to prompt it differently. And I think it's a remarkable thing. But that is no question the future. It's just that human intervention and recognizing that raw AI content is there and we could spot it and it's lazy and there's a lot of it. Yeah, good. Just, um, another question, and I've heard you talk about this before, about brand as a luxury, and I'm kind of wanting to sort of focus in on that a little bit more because is, is there an issue right now where short term decision making is really driving the marketing agenda and that brand is being sacrificed as a result.

Speaker B: I think there is a real risk, um, you know, in my experience and from talking to people um, around the market, you know, peers of mine, I do think there is a risk that in high growth businesses that the brand is being treated like that luxury item. It's almost something you do after hitting the number, whatever the number is. But I think you'll talk to some people that are really, really great at brand building and they'll talk about the fact that strong brands actually create efficiency. They lower um, cac, they raise conversion, they defend margin, they defend churn and problems within the accounts. And I think really, and again maybe a strong statement, but my fundamental belief is that cutting brand spend in a downturn or in a tight moment is really like selling your engine for petrol money. You might be able to get down the road a little bit now but you've then got no engine in the car. So what are you going to do next? Um, so I think that's a real problem today and I think when you come back to this mediocrity in terms of content that's coming through here and there. I think fundamentally when everyone sounds the same, trust really becomes your only differentiator. And trust comes from brand spend and brand resonance. It doesn't come from dollars put behind demand campaigns. Um, so I think that's the um, that there is a risk there today. But the people that understand that risk and have maybe been through that curve and made some errors are now starting to kind of re pivot to make sure that they've got enough dollars behind brand and demand. Um, because otherwise you just stack up a problem for later.

Speaker A: Yeah, got it. Okay, great. And just finally, just a few words about you really. I think your background, we talked about you having this financial background but how did you get into marketing then? I'm assuming that when you were a small boy, you didn't say one day when I grow up I want to be a cmo. So what happened there?

Speaker B: I didn't um, yeah, so spent 16 years in banks and was working quite closely with a company called Swift who were building a uh, product, uh, for the banks, uh, at that point in time to help them with some inefficiencies that were out there in the post trade environment. Um, and then got a phone call and somebody said to me, would you like to join? Uh, and they, I was like yeah, great time to jump onto the vendor side of the business I guess. And um, just kind of almost fell into a product based role. Um, and just found that I had a gift of being able to cut through nonsense, um, and sort of, you know, create stories and create narratives and create a feeling behind what it was that was being built and just kind of fell into it, I guess, embarrassingly. Um, and then, um, and then you just found that it was actually quite enjoyable. I guess the bit that I enjoy the most is the kind of identifying problems, fixing the issues that sit out there and building the skills and capabilities within the team that you're running in order to hit whatever goal it is, whether that's category creation or winning back a market. In terms of kind of some of those analyst relations reviews and things like that that you see knocking around or building out a demand engine from scratch. All of these things are, are pretty exciting when you get them right and you sort of stand back and look at what you've achieved. So, um, yeah, I think it's a fascinating part of the industry to be in. I did sales for a few years as well, but this is much more enjoyable.

Speaker A: What next for you, Paul?

Speaker B: Good question, Chris. Um, so I'm in a moment where I'm taking a pause to reflect, uh, uh, in terms of what's next, uh, considering a bunch of different opportunities. Whether that's kind of some strategy, some advisory work, some non exec director work, the good old CMO stuff that I know and love. Um, so yeah, just uh, just out there and having a number of conversations right now with people, uh, in order to see where I can help. I just want to work with some great humans with a great piece of technology that needs to be uh, positioned. That's really the, the only thing I care about right now.

Speaker A: Okay. And how can people get hold of you if they want to talk to you or use your services or potentially recruit?

Speaker B: Yeah, LinkedIn. LinkedIn would be good. I'm sure that you'll probably tag me in this, uh, in this post and indeed I'll, I'll make sure that you've got my email address in the uh, in the show notes as well.

Speaker A: Far super, super. Okay Paul, that's it for now. Thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker B: Thank you, Chris. Really enjoyable.

Speaker A: So that's a wrap on another episode of CMO Unplugged. Huge thanks to Paul for being so brilliant and thank you too for listening. Please do me the favor of hitting the subscribe button to help make the algorithm happy, not to mention myself. And if there's a cmo, uh, marketing wizard or wild card you want on the show, drop me a like line and we'll invite them on. Thank you for listening.