How to Embed AI into Your Marketing Team with Wendy White

B2B CMO - 006 - Wendy White === [00:00:00] Sydney Sloan: [00:00:05] [00:00:10] [00:00:15] [00:00:20] Welcome, welcome [00:00:25] our B2B CMO community today. I am so excited to [00:00:30] be able to, um. Talk with our friend [00:00:35] introducing all of us to, uh, to Wendy White and, uh, [00:00:40] really one of the sharpest marketing minds I know. Um, she is currently the CMO at [00:00:45] Daxko, where she leads marketing and partnerships for the platform that's powering [00:00:50] every wellness journey. Sydney Sloan: So it's a member management and operations platform that powers [00:00:55] the fitness industry. Wendy has been a CMO for a number of companies [00:01:00] on global span and leadership roles at places like Microsoft and Intel [00:01:05] and. I can attest that she has seen the playbook from every single an [00:01:10] angle, scrappy, hands-on, data-driven. Sydney Sloan: I'm gonna tell the story the [00:01:15] very first time a woman might have been the first time, but the first time Wendy and I got to meet, spend quality time [00:01:20] together, she had just joined Doco. You were amalgamating a bunch of different companies [00:01:25] with different systems and you're like, I've got to get this data right. Sydney Sloan: Which I think put [00:01:30] you like in a very favorable place for when AI came along. And so we're gonna talk a [00:01:35] lot about Wendy's journey in ai, her journey in leadership, and I'm just [00:01:40] thrilled to have you here. Welcome, welcome, Wendy. Wendy White: Thank you so much [00:01:45] Sydney. Sydney Sloan: Alright, so we start getting to know a little bit about you. So we [00:01:50] will, um, ask you what is, like, what's your personal story? Like, where's, [00:01:55] where'd you come from, why'd you, uh, enter into marketing? Uh, who is Wendy [00:02:00] White? Wendy White: I, I, I think I probably am gonna give you the most unique [00:02:05] story you, you have heard, which is, Wendy White: um. I got into [00:02:10] marketing through doing propaganda development for the Army, and [00:02:15] I'm gonna guarantee you haven't heard that before. Um, but I joined the Army 40 [00:02:20] years ago this month. Um, I enlisted. Um, and [00:02:25] so, you know, think of the traditional thing of what you expect, you [00:02:30] know, my camouflage uniform and my M 16 rifle. Wendy White: I did all of that. Jon Miller: So [00:02:35] to clarify, this is the US Army. Wendy White: is the US Jon Miller: Okay. Yeah. I, [00:02:40] I had, um, I had parents who had my pa I, I'm the first person, [00:02:45] um, you know, to go into college and to go into a [00:02:50] professional, um, career. My parents were both, my dad started off as career as a [00:02:55] mechanic. My mom was a, you know, a junior secretary, like, and they worked themselves up to [00:03:00] being amazing entrepreneurs, but they. College experience. And so when it came time for me to go [00:03:05] to college, they had set no money aside, they weren't really financially prepared for it [00:03:10] and really wanted me to stay at home and live in their basement and, you know, commute 20 [00:03:15] minutes to the University of Minnesota and I'm an adventurous soul. Wendy White: And that sounded like the worst possible [00:03:20] experience in life. So I enlisted, um, and [00:03:25] um, and I joined the Army into a role called psychological operations [00:03:30] Specialist, which was propagated. It. Um, they sent me to language school in Monterey for a year. [00:03:35] I then I went to the Psychological Operations School, which was part of the John [00:03:40] F. Wendy White: Kennedy Special Warfare Center. So I'm technically in special operations or was in special operations. [00:03:45] So, um, and, um, learned all about. [00:03:50] Psychological preparation of the battlefield and audience analysis and all these things that is [00:03:55] essentially marketing. It's marketing, but you're marketing, you know, to do things [00:04:00] like disrupt the enemy and get civilians to move off the battlefield, create [00:04:05] disruptions. Um, and that's what it was. So. Dropping, uh, [00:04:10] leaflets, putting out loudspeaker campaigns, designing radio campaigns, designing [00:04:15] whisper campaigns, like all these things. So I learned how to do all that. Um, went to [00:04:20] college, went to Cal, became an Army officer, and stayed in for about 12 years doing, [00:04:25] doing psychological operations. Wendy White: But the last half of it in, in the reserves while I was working at Intel. But [00:04:30] again, again, I guarantee no one said, oh, I went to the Army to learn how to do marketing, but I [00:04:35] did. Jon Miller: That's awesome. Sydney Sloan: Fascinating. Do you, can you think of [00:04:40] a campaign that you were particularly proud of back then? Wendy White: Well, [00:04:45] you know, um, that specialty, um, is uh, you know, [00:04:50] rooted Sydney Sloan: is it secret? Sydney Sloan: Yeah. Wendy White: in weird stuff, but I, you know, I can [00:04:55] give you something that people might relate to. Like, um, do you guys [00:05:00] remember when we captured, you know, Noriega for example, and the US Army captured Noriega, they surrounded [00:05:05] his house with loudspeakers and blasted him with loudspeakers for 30 days. Wendy White: That was the [00:05:10] psychological operations crew doing that. It wasn't my particular platoon doing [00:05:15] it. Um. But that kind of thing is the, is the kind of thing you can think of when [00:05:20] you, when you think about these things. Yeah. Insane stuff. Jon Miller: This has me really excited for later in the [00:05:25] podcast when we start talking about AI and how you know marketers can use AI. [00:05:30] 'cause obviously you didn't have AI as a tool available to you then, but imagine if you did. Wendy White: I [00:05:35] can imagine it actually. 'cause you know, one of the things that you learn, um, and I was [00:05:40] went through military intelligence school as well. One thing you have to learn is how to sift through a lot of [00:05:45] data. To come up with the insights that allow you to plan that, you know, and understanding that [00:05:50] data. And you know, back then we would do that all manually. Wendy White: And, and you get to be, [00:05:55] um, you, you get to develop those really good analytical skills, [00:06:00] um, that I think now we are all starting to rely on AI for, that actually makes [00:06:05] it worrisome about our analytical skills, um, atrophying because [00:06:10] AI just does it so easily for us. Sydney Sloan: How did you decide to transition then from the [00:06:15] military into technology and moving to Intel? Wendy White: Well, you know, I grew up in a, um, [00:06:20] environment where the, where there was tech. Like even in the eighties when I was a kid, um, my [00:06:25] brother and I were probably the first people we knew to get a computer like the original TRS 80. Remember [00:06:30] that, Jon Miller: I had one of those. Wendy White: Yes, for sure. I mean, like, I, I, I think [00:06:35] John we're probably of an age and probably of the same, you know, tech background and experience the [00:06:40] first like TRS 80 to the Apple two E like, um, that whole experience. Wendy White: [00:06:45] But my mother also worked at Control Data Corporation. I dunno if you guys remember that company, but [00:06:50] it so precursor to a lot of the big, um. Uh, mainframe companies. [00:06:55] Um, and so I always had tech around me and I knew I wanted to work in tech. [00:07:00] Um, when I graduated, um, my number one goal was to work at Microsoft. Wendy White: I like thought that [00:07:05] Microsoft was the. Best company from like, just everything they did was [00:07:10] amazing to me. Um, and my first, uh, job, um, out of college was [00:07:15] working at a little systems integrator. Um, and that's how I kind of got into the whole tech [00:07:20] career. And then I went and got an MBA and from there got actually recruited to Intel. Wendy White: Um, [00:07:25] which if you squint is kind of like being at Microsoft, not really, but close enough. Jon Miller: you know, so Wendy, you know, [00:07:30] a big part of the B2B CMO project is, you know, [00:07:35] recognizing that it's hard to be a modern CMO. There's, there's challenges that we [00:07:40] face, both because the things that used to work aren't working as well [00:07:45] anymore. You know, CEOs and CFOs and boards don't necessarily get it, [00:07:50] and we have this AI disruption going on. Jon Miller: So, in your role as a CMO, like [00:07:55] how are you thinking about. Being strategic, being a strategic CMO, [00:08:00] navigating some of this, like these changes, what does it [00:08:05] mean to be a successful CMO today? Wendy White: I feel that so much when you say that, like the, you know, [00:08:10] it's hard being a CMO. Um, I, I've always felt that way, but I always felt [00:08:15] that way a little bit because, you know, um. I think every CMO has a little bit of imposter [00:08:20] syndrome because you cannot be great at every aspect of being A CMO, [00:08:25] right? Wendy White: You can be a, you know, fantastic at data, or you can be fantastic at operations, or you can [00:08:30] just be deep into performance marketing and demand gen. But then there's also [00:08:35] product marketing and positioning. There's brand and brand strategy. There's creative, right? You can't be good at everything, [00:08:40] and yet. You kind of have to, right? Wendy White: So like, and if [00:08:45] you really are a CMO, you actually have to be a seat at the [00:08:50] table, executive on company strategy. You know, where do we place our bet as a company [00:08:55] on our products, on our, you know, our booking strategy, our [00:09:00] EBITDA strategy? Like you have to know all of that. You have to be seat at the table of all those things, right? Wendy White: So the [00:09:05] amount of pressure and stress on a cmo, because everybody has a point of view, everybody's a creative director. [00:09:10] Everybody, like it's the only job I think in a C-level suite where everybody else thinks they can [00:09:15] comment on your work. Like I don't go tell the CFO how to organize his accounting. I [00:09:20] mean, everybody wants to tell me how to run marketing, right? Wendy White: Like it's the most interesting role at the [00:09:25] executive table. So it is definitely. You know, a challenging time [00:09:30] because everything is changing so fast. So I, you know, I try to really [00:09:35] just root myself in the business strategy, our operating, you know, [00:09:40] principles, how I'm impacting, how I'm impacting revenue, how I'm impacting [00:09:45] bookings, how I'm impacting by pipeline. Make sure that I am keeping those [00:09:50] things front and center, and always bringing a business discussion. Um, but I'm [00:09:55] also, I, you know, freely admit, I, I have been, been there and seen it and done it all. [00:10:00] So I'm also commenting on the company's Customer success strategy, our sales [00:10:05] organization and structure, right? Wendy White: Our software procurement strategy, like I have a [00:10:10] seat and a point of view about all of that. And I think that is what a modern CMO needs to do [00:10:15] is to be really deeply integrated in into the overall [00:10:20] market and business strategy of the company. Don't sit back and wait for it to be about like, what's the next trade [00:10:25] show? Jon Miller: Hundred percent. Like that was the, the number one finding of the research we did recently, you know, which is [00:10:30] the most successful CMOs are a business executive first, you know, and, and [00:10:35] they, and, and they understand what their peers, they're also getting, you know, more, you know, [00:10:40] adept at speaking the language with the market, not just of marketing, which I think, you know, [00:10:45] you referred to and, and changing how they're talking [00:10:50] to, you know, their fellow executives and the kinda metrics that we're using that they're using. Jon Miller: [00:10:55] It, it sounds like you're, you're, you're sort of doing some of those same strategies. Wendy White: Yeah, I like my [00:11:00] relationship with my CFO for example, is, um, it, it's about, [00:11:05] um, investment and return. And it's about, like, for example, [00:11:10] ebitda. I have a recurring meeting with him where I'm looking at the run rate of [00:11:15] the costs of my business, how I'm bringing the run rate down, where I'm shifting, you know, [00:11:20] resources, where I'm shifting investments, what I expect that to do in terms of, um, [00:11:25] impact on, you know, pipelines, bookings, ebitda. Wendy White: Like that's a regular conversation. And [00:11:30] if you're a CMO, you've gotta be having those conversations to your CFO because. When it comes time for [00:11:35] the next budget, they're drafting that budget and usually working with the CEO [00:11:40] behind the scenes on their rev one forecast. And I'm sorry, but it's hard to fight an [00:11:45] uphill battle. Wendy White: If they've come in with already a strategy around cutting marketing or [00:11:50] increasing bookings, but not increasing marketing because they don't understand the correlation between those two. [00:11:55] Then you're working from a pos, a negative position, trying to re argue to [00:12:00] reclaim your dollars back, or you know, or argue for more dollars versus them coming [00:12:05] in with a model that makes sense out of the gate. Jon Miller: Yeah, it's the vicious circle. If you, you know, if you're, if you're [00:12:10] not establishing that credibility early on, h how, how, how, are you [00:12:15] handling the, everybody has an opinion about marketing problem. Wendy White: I will say I, [00:12:20] um, probably in my early years as a CMO got very defensive and frustrated. [00:12:25] Um, and, um, now I think I have to take it with like, um, [00:12:30] humor and grace and you just have to like, actually. [00:12:35] Make a joke about it. Say that like, you know, bring it forward [00:12:40] as almost like a Oh, okay. Like, who's creative director today? You know, [00:12:45] and, um, call your peers on it. Like, that's what I do. I I don't try to, [00:12:50] you know, call them out and challenge them. It's much more of, um, [00:12:55] using humor to diffuse that and to show them how [00:13:00] crazy it is. Right. And you know, and kind of what I remind, remind people is like, [00:13:05] Hey, look left and right. I'm the only person in this room that's got 30 years doing this job. Wendy White: So, you know, [00:13:10] we all have a point of view, but at some point, like the functional expert needs to decide. [00:13:15] Right? And some, so I think humor and grace. Um, and then also making sure you're [00:13:20] just lining up your relationships offline so that when you use that humor and grace that people [00:13:25] accept it and it doesn't feel like it's, um, disruptive to like the executive team behavior and [00:13:30] bonding. Jon Miller: That, that, that's actually a really interesting answer because I would say the more common answer I [00:13:35] hear is like, well, you actually listen and like, you know, take, you know, take their point of view to account and like, [00:13:40] you know, like, yes, you're probably doing some of that. But I, I love the sort of humor and [00:13:45] grace, you know, lead and I, I think that speaks to the relationships you're building. Wendy White: [00:13:50] there's that, uh, concept of the first team. Your first team is your peers, Wendy White: right? [00:13:55] And, and, um, I think that's true. You have to have a super tight relationship [00:14:00] with each of the peer sets on your executive team, um, so that [00:14:05] your agenda can be heard, um, that you're respected and your point of view is respected on [00:14:10] things outside of marketing. Wendy White: Like you gotta build that. Sydney Sloan: I agree. Like, you know that the [00:14:15] relationship with each one and what are your joint goals and how do you ensure your teams are [00:14:20] aligned and supporting each other? And I always say it's in partnership, right? I hear [00:14:25] sometimes people say marketing is in service too. And I'm like, no, we're not. We are in [00:14:30] partnership. Sydney Sloan: We have shared goals, we align our teams. And when that happens, it's just easier [00:14:35] on everyone. Um, but the, the, the spin is. Um, you [00:14:40] also are responsible for partnerships. Did, was that part of the job originally, or did you [00:14:45] expand into that? Because when we think about ourselves as like market leaders and expanding our [00:14:50] ecosystem through partners, I think that's just such a nice natural progression of the CMO [00:14:55] role. Sydney Sloan: So tell me how that happened for you. Wendy White: Yeah, it, it really, um, [00:15:00] materialized during the interview process with the, the CEO, um, um, because they had [00:15:05] partnerships stuck, um, under the CTO and they were treating it as a [00:15:10] technology integration versus a Go-To-Market led strategy. So [00:15:15] that emerged through that conversation just based on some experience that I had, you know, doing something similar to other [00:15:20] companies. Um, and, um, but when I, my first year here, I think I treated it as a, [00:15:25] like a. Funny side gig, um, because I was so busy transforming [00:15:30] marketing. Um, what's really emerged for me in the last, you know, couple years is it's an [00:15:35] equal role for me to my CMO role. Um, because it's so strategic to how we [00:15:40] grow. It's incredibly strategic to our brand being perceived as an [00:15:45] open platform ecosystem and, um, and our platform strategy, um, [00:15:50] and being able to plug in, you know, integration and, um. And [00:15:55] innovation from, um, around the industry, making our product very core to [00:16:00] our, um, to our customers. So for me, I spend probably [00:16:05] as much time on partnerships as I do on marketing. Um, but that's only because I've [00:16:10] hired really strong lieutenants on the marketing side and, um, have built up, you know, kind of [00:16:15] a world class leadership team that I can afford to do that. Sydney Sloan: I'm gonna pivot a little bit to get us into the AI [00:16:20] conversation because you were one of the first, I, I recall, uh, we [00:16:25] had one of our AI club meetings and you're like, hold on a minute. I feel behind. And you spent the [00:16:30] weekend building your own agents and you were like, you're like, I just, you know, and, and you pulled your [00:16:35] person in and like you were the next presenter and you went from nothing to like leading. Sydney Sloan: Uh, [00:16:40] in, in a month, and it was fantastic to see. And so as you think about [00:16:45] AI as an equalizer, like we can all use AI to like manage [00:16:50] channels and, and maybe share a few of the things that you've done. Um, but then. [00:16:55] How you think about brand as a differentiator. And I don't think you could have, I [00:17:00] mean, the timing is right. Sydney Sloan: I said it at the very beginning. You came in and cleaned up your data. You had multiple [00:17:05] companies that, you know, you had to aggregate the data. And I, I recall you just saying how much of a mess it [00:17:10] was, but there's two questions in there, sorry. So one is, um, you [00:17:15] know, how did you approach AI and setting that up, and then we'll follow on with the brand [00:17:20] conversation. Wendy White: Okay, well, so like many CMOs, I started on the AI as [00:17:25] a content accelerator journey, you know, three or four years ago when it was still [00:17:30] early days. 'cause I could see that that, and, and content was a problem that we had. We just didn't have [00:17:35] enough content. We didn't, you know, we had tried bringing in copywriters, but [00:17:40] copywriters do everything serially. Wendy White: They wanna be perfect. They wanna own things end to end. [00:17:45] And your volume of content ends up being so minimal. So like many CMOs, I started with [00:17:50] the. With the, let's build some, let's build some prompts that we can all [00:17:55] share and like write a lot of copy. Um, but that doesn't scale Sydney, and that [00:18:00] doesn't really turn into a force multiplier. Wendy White: It, it just makes things more consistent, a [00:18:05] little faster. Um, and, um. You know, like many people in [00:18:10] tech, I'm like totally still addicted to Twitter. I don't call it X, but Twitter. [00:18:15] And so I started reading about, you know, AI on Twitter. I'd wake up [00:18:20] on Saturday morning and you know, there was somebody that inspired me and so I'd go play with stuff and then you [00:18:25] pulled me into a meeting, um, with this really brilliant guy that showed me like an AI [00:18:30] BDR. Wendy White: And I was like, okay, mind blown, mind open. How do I think Sydney Sloan: That was [00:18:35] G, Guillaume. Yeah. Yeah. Wendy White: it was G exactly who it was. He's brilliant. [00:18:40] And um. And then I realized this is, [00:18:45] change is hard for people change where you're changing their job, you're changing their how [00:18:50] you're changing your business process. That's hard. And you can't always [00:18:55] ask people to do that on top of the day jobs they're sprinting at. And so then I realized this is [00:19:00] actually gonna be a dedicated focus on a team. And I went hardcore and asked one of my [00:19:05] VPs, can you take this on? Can you create a center of excellence? Can you take this on? Can you go [00:19:10] hire dedicated AIOps people? And we did. And now, now we have our Manus [00:19:15] board where all of our, you know, 80 something agents live. Wendy White: You can see the layers. Our here's our [00:19:20] intelligence layer, here's our operations layer, here's our, you know, content [00:19:25] layer. Here's our rev, you know, what we call our revenue stack layer that we share with sales, [00:19:30] where we have, you know, this is a tool that will identify. Go look at a customer's [00:19:35] website and identify which of our products to match them to and manage the sales process around that. Wendy White: Here's our [00:19:40] customer insights layer. Like here's our gong layer. Like we have all these layers and then we have [00:19:45] all the actions going with it. And I think what I did is I invited a [00:19:50] lot of like training into the organization. I invited a lot of like [00:19:55] try fail, you know? Um. Uh, just [00:20:00] culture. Um, and then we just started systematizing things and, and, and then we started [00:20:05] telling people AI is not a choice. And we started interviewing for it and we [00:20:10] started, we changed all of our job descriptions. Um, we changed our career [00:20:15] ladder to include AI capabilities and skill sets that are behavioral. [00:20:20] Um, and you know, and we've just been involving that way. [00:20:25] If you really want AI to be embedded, you have a leader has to take the [00:20:30] actions to make it embedded because it's. It's a lot for people to do both the thinking, [00:20:35] change the process, change the job, change everything, right? You need to like [00:20:40] bring the, the process, the tools, the capabilities, but you also need to create the culture. The [00:20:45] culture of experimentation, the culture of failure, the culture of, you know, [00:20:50] in particular saying it's required is not a choice anymore. Sydney Sloan: Has the organization looked at, [00:20:55] were you the first in, in the organization to kind of lead this way? Do you think you're leading AI [00:21:00] transformation for the company? Wendy White: a hundred percent leading AI transformation company, like even a head of [00:21:05] engineering. Um, I remember having a conversation with our CTO and he is like, oh, I learned about this tool [00:21:10] called Cursor. And I was like, what? Like. , you [00:21:15] can't really have just learned about that tool. Wendy White: Right. And it wasn't that many months ago, [00:21:20] right? So yes, first in our company, I think really, um, one of the first in our, we're in [00:21:25] a PE portfolio, so one of the first in our portfolio. So we get asked often to like lead [00:21:30] and give examples. But I will say my company, um, we don't sit on our laurels. Everybody else is [00:21:35] caught up. You know, we, um, I think we're doing great in many parts of the company now, and I'm, [00:21:40] I'm actually very proud of, of how the company has just jumped on it, um, and proud of [00:21:45] my peers for also realizing that it's, it, it, there's no choice, this [00:21:50] path forward. Jon Miller: When you say everybody else is caught up, I mean, I, I, I, I'm surprised by that. [00:21:55] I mean, I would assume you're continuing to push the ball forward. Wendy White: Caught up more in like, [00:22:00] um, willingness to experiment, try bringing tools in. I would say [00:22:05] we're still, we're still pretty, you know, we're still pretty ahead because, because every business [00:22:10] process is an opportunity, right? So. In terms of the number of our business processes, the [00:22:15] number of places in our organization, and the kind of cultural leaning in, I, I'm, I'm [00:22:20] still sure my team is ahead, but I really do believe the other organizations are catching up fast because they [00:22:25] didn't have to go through as much of an experimentation stage as we did without the tools. [00:22:30] Um, you know, the company decided, for example, that everybody's gonna get [00:22:35] access to Claude. That we're gonna, you know, roll out cps, that we're doing all these things that I had to like [00:22:40] be the pioneer and break ground on now that they just have access to those. Yeah. Sydney Sloan: [00:22:45] 14 months ago is when you started this, Wendy White: Yeah, Sydney Sloan: I Sydney Sloan: remember. Wendy White: we started, um, [00:22:50] we started with with, you know, ChatGPT and like content GPTs probably in [00:22:55] 2023, but we're now really, we're, we're, we're very leaned in. Yeah. I [00:23:00] have, um, yeah, I have three full-time AI ops folks in the team. Um, one of my [00:23:05] VPs has it as a secondary job. We gave him the title of ai, um, marketing ai, [00:23:10] like we're, we're very serious about it. Jon Miller: What else have you done organizationally to make this work? I think [00:23:15] that's a question that every CMO is thinking about. Wendy White: I think John, that's an ever changing [00:23:20] question. Like I would say, um, if you would've asked me that three months ago, it's different than what I'm saying now. [00:23:25] Like last year, organizationally, we had brought in, you know, a new dedicated [00:23:30] content team and a new dedicated this and that team. And now I'm starting to tell my leaders, I'm sorry [00:23:35] guys, but you gotta kind of go back old school and be way more vertically integrated. Because the thing that [00:23:40] actually drags you down is the organizational lag and handoff between teams. That's where things slow down. [00:23:45] And for us, the other thing that slowed us down was Asana. Asana was killing us. [00:23:50] Right? A tool that should be there to accelerate you was actually really [00:23:55] slowing us down. Because we had all these old school steps and processes in there that [00:24:00] suddenly AI could skip half of that, and a single person could do things that used to be handed off across three, three or [00:24:05] four teams, but they still felt like they had to hand it off because that [00:24:10] was the job description. So we're still breaking that. Wendy White: We're still breaking teams, we're still [00:24:15] reorganizing. I think we're gonna be in constant reorganization over the next handful of months as [00:24:20] we understand. How the new workflow consolidates work back [00:24:25] to more generalist roles than, than all the specialist roles we had six months ago. Sydney Sloan: I remember when [00:24:30] you were talking about your content and blog strategy and where you were designing humans in the loop, you've talked about [00:24:35] this idea of following the sun in an AI scaled execution model. Could [00:24:40] you explain where that, what that means to you? And then how do you think about human in the loop [00:24:45] or human in the lead, which we've talked about? Sydney Sloan: Uh, now. Wendy White: Well follow the [00:24:50] sun for us means that, um, about half of our marketing team, FTE [00:24:55] employees sit in India. Um, and, um, so our AIOps team is [00:25:00] in India. Our marketing automation team is in India. Our content marketing team is in India. Our [00:25:05] design team is in India. Um, and even some of our campaign team is in India. Um, um, [00:25:10] and it's a real accelerator for us because we can hire really expert talented [00:25:15] marketers, like really expert and talented marketers that can. Wendy White: You know, flesh [00:25:20] out our team from a capability standpoint. Um, and also we can just [00:25:25] use the follow the sun model work gets done. I get up in the morning and I'm looking at, can [00:25:30] you approve these six things? Not can we start this project for today? Right. Because they, [00:25:35] that work has been conceptualized yesterday and finished today because it got finished in, in India [00:25:40] overnight. Right. And AI helps that because they, you know, they have. Complete [00:25:45] trained ais on our brand, our campaigns, our, you know, our, [00:25:50] our gong calls. They can, you know, literally take major pieces of work [00:25:55] and move them forward overnight. Jon Miller: So let, let's finish this up, Wendy, by talking a little bit [00:26:00] about metrics. Um, I think, you know, marketing in the age of [00:26:05] ai, when AI can disintermediate our content and our emails and all the [00:26:10] traditional things, I think most CMOs are thinking it is about brand, you know, because they, [00:26:15] we, we have to be on the short list, otherwise we're not even gonna get through. Jon Miller: How are you [00:26:20] thinking about evolving, not just your marketing, but your metrics and how you [00:26:25] communicate your metrics to the board? You know, when some of this stuff is inherently just a little bit [00:26:30] harder to measure? Wendy White: we actually just had this discussion at my last board meeting a few weeks ago. I [00:26:35] kicked off the board meeting by telling the board that I was instituting a new brand [00:26:40] measure for the company. That was made up of what I considered probably to be the [00:26:45] leading indicators of brand in the market and things that I could not measure before [00:26:50] that I was measuring now because I had used AI to start doing that. Wendy White: So, um, [00:26:55] brand sentiment out in Reddit and on G2 like not just scores, but [00:27:00] sentiment, right? Like, how do I think that is changing? Um, and then like, you know, [00:27:05] traditional, uh, leading indicators of like direct, direct. [00:27:10] Reference traffic to the site direct, like direct referral traffic, um, to the [00:27:15] site versus people finding us through SEO. Wendy White: Like you can start to watch that [00:27:20] change, right? Um, if, if people are finding your brand and they're [00:27:25] literally going and typing it in, or, uh, because they read something about [00:27:30] you, et cetera, and then also. Um, interesting for us, like there isn't a [00:27:35] huge amount of press in our space, but, um, I, I would say when I [00:27:40] was first A CMO 15 years ago, PR was incredibly important. Wendy White: We had a dedicated [00:27:45] PR agency. It was all about that earned media and then there was a trough where that all went away [00:27:50] 'cause everybody was self-publishing. And lo and behold, 2026 [00:27:55] PR is like one of my top things. Again, how can I get authoritative earned [00:28:00] media, uh, in my industry and outside my industry? Wendy White: Because it's a, you know, leading [00:28:05] source of content for the, uh, for the LLM. So digital [00:28:10] pr, and brand and the brand experience, the, the human part of the brand [00:28:15] experience. is like suddenly. Incredibly important again. So I have a whole new [00:28:20] brand matrix that's made up of, you know, things I can learn from ai, like sentiment, things I [00:28:25] can score like, which is like AI visibility. Um, all the things that [00:28:30] probably a board had never heard about. They loved it because they knew that we were [00:28:35] thinking differently about how we showed up in the AI age. And I [00:28:40] think that's good. I think that's good for all of us. Sydney Sloan: once again being the lead in the PE [00:28:45] portfolio. Congratulations for sure did. And, and are you including citation in that as [00:28:50] well? Like citation share of Sydney Sloan: Yeah, Sydney Sloan: share of citation influence. Awesome. Yeah, Sydney Sloan: Okay. [00:28:55] Well, I told you it was gonna go fast and it has, and we've gone deep in [00:29:00] your leadership strategy and ai, uh, measurement brand. But we like to [00:29:05] end going back to you and some fun things. So we already heard a fun [00:29:10] fact in your, on your intro, I will admit. But what is your [00:29:15] passion outside of work? Wendy White: Sydney knows the answer to this already. Um, and, [00:29:20] um, and she's given me a package of seeds to plant in my garden, which are, which are [00:29:25] blooming out there right now, Sydney. Um, I never. [00:29:30] Knew the name of a plant, how a plant, uh, anything like that. And then five [00:29:35] years ago I moved to California and suddenly discovered that I have an [00:29:40] absolute deep passion for the environment and [00:29:45] creating a pollinator and native insect. Wendy White: And. [00:29:50] Animal, mostly bird friendly environment. [00:29:55] So I've gone a on a five year journey to completely transform my yard into a California [00:30:00] native garden and at a pollinator friendly garden. And I spend equally [00:30:05] number of hours out there. I'm out there every single day. Um, every break I get, I go [00:30:10] out and Guertin. Um, it's, uh, you know, eight 30 when the sun goes down, you find [00:30:15] me still out in the Guertin and I'm out there every weekend. It is my absolute joy. Sydney Sloan: Isn't it amazing [00:30:20] the energy you get? I mean, I think, you know, a as we continue to, we have a tough [00:30:25] job and we give a lot. Um, and you, I think we have to be more [00:30:30] mindful now of our environment and where we gain energy. And I know [00:30:35] that for you is, is that, and cooking and, and taking care of, and entertaining. Sydney Sloan: [00:30:40] So we, Sydney Sloan: we do Sydney Sloan: share love all of that. I love all of it. Yes. Sydney Sloan: [00:30:45] Um, and the last question we have is really around sharing gratitude. We know we wouldn't be able to be where we are [00:30:50] without the mentorship of others, the support of others. And, uh, so [00:30:55] this is the opportunity, uh, for you to shout out, um, or give gratitude to a few [00:31:00] people that have helped you get where you are. Wendy White: I think I will give gratitude to Matt Heinz. [00:31:05] Um, Matt, when I first became a CMO, was somebody I sat down with and said, how do you do [00:31:10] this? Um, and um, that was in 2012. [00:31:15] And fast forward, you know, the CMO Coffee Talk community and all the people that I've met [00:31:20] through that, that have touched my heart, including you, Sydney, that are the people I [00:31:25] trust for advice on career and personal, um, and who [00:31:30] have given me inspiration to learn and grow and, you know, continually be [00:31:35] curious. Sydney Sloan: Yes. Well, Wendy, I've, I mean, I, every time I talk to you, I learn [00:31:40] about work and life, which is so en enlightening and I cherish, um, you and our [00:31:45] friendship so much. Uh, congratulations on being one of the top 100 B2B CMOs. You [00:31:50] absolutely earned it. You are a force in our, in our, um, industry, [00:31:55] in our community. Sydney Sloan: You take, you're not afraid to take on big gnarly challenges [00:32:00] too, I would say, like when I hear about some of the, the things that you're tackling, um, it's not [00:32:05] for the faint of heart. And, um, so I just wanna say congratulations and thank [00:32:10] you. Um, if you liked what you've heard today on The B2B CMO [00:32:15] podcast, we encourage you to follow along. Sydney Sloan: Uh, there are more podcasts coming. We also [00:32:20] can be found at the b2bcmoproject.com, where we have primary research, [00:32:25] um, that we're continuing to build out and share. Like hopefully [00:32:30] the metrics that Wendy just shared. So we hope that everybody has a pleasant day. Thank you again, [00:32:35] Wendy. Thank you to my co-host Jon Miller, and have a great day everybody. Thanks for [00:32:40] listening to the B2B CMO podcast. Head on over to b2b CMO [00:32:45] project.com for more episodes, plus the latest research and framework CMOs need, [00:32:50] not just to survive but actually thrive as AI in the new playbook reshape how [00:32:55] we Go-To-Market. And if this episode sparks something for you, please follow the show. Leave a [00:33:00] rating and share it with a marketing leader who could use a little inspiration. Special thanks to [00:33:05] our wonderful partners. One Mind, two x check [00:33:10] Demandbase G two Gold Cast LinkedIn, fave, sendo, and [00:33:15] Webflow for making this podcast possible. Until next time, be safe out [00:33:20] there.