Leading Through Change and Building Resilience with Alice Palmer of InvoiceCloud

Speaker A: The Next CMO podcast explores topics that are on the minds of forward thinking marketing leaders. From vision and strategy to leadership in emerging technologies. The Next CMO is sponsored by Planful, a platform to build, manage and measure your marketing plan. Track all your marketing spend and connect your budget with outcomes to measure your ROI. Check it out at planful.com marketing. Your CFO will love you for it. I'm your host, Scott Todaro, a 32 year marketing veteran, seven time head of marketing and co author of the book the Next cmo. Welcome to another edition of the Next CMO Podcast. Thank you all for joining again. We are up now around 130 episodes. Um, I don't figure my voice would run out by now, but no, we're going to keep going. We got plenty of energy because that's what happens when you're a cmo. If you don't have unlimited energy, you won't make it. We all know that. So, uh, today I'm super excited because we have Alice Palmer on today. Alice is a vet and so you're going to get a lot of great intel from her today. But I also, what I love about her conversation today is, and I think it's going to touch a chord with a lot of you that are out there running marketing departments that are trying to raise a family at the same time. So she's got a deep background. You know, she's the chief marketing officer today at Invoice Cloud. They're an EP EBP P. Easy for me to say, uh, is space. So it's payments. So great, uh, solution out there. Take a look at it if you're looking for billing and payment engines. But she's got a deep, rich 25 year background, uh, in marketing and marketing leadership, uh, positions at B2B companies like Autodesk and Vacara. Bid Monotype. I'm sure you've heard of these companies before. Probably fairly large budgets as you as I'm sure, uh, Alice will go into great detail for it. Um, Alice is a Duke fan. Almost Alice. He had a good season, right? Yeah, yeah. It's not, it's not a total loss. I mean anytime you get into the final four, it's a good thing. But we're sorry he lost. But uh, there's always next year, right? There's always next year. So to start things off, uh, Alice is actually fairly unique. There aren't very few CMOs that I have talked to that have four children. Um, I have two children and I know how hard that was in the travel and everything else, then the demands on a CMO position. There's no hour of the day that isn't off limits, unfortunately. And so I wanted to start the conversation out, uh, on this. Alice, you have kind of navigated all this. You learned a lot as you're going through it and as your parenting. How has that impacted you being a cmo? What have you learned from it? And so, welcome to the show. And that's. I'm going to hit you with. With the first question.

Speaker B: All right, perfect. Well, thanks for having me, Scott. Really excited to be here today and.

Speaker C: And happy to dig in on this topic. It's obviously very close to me. It's what I live and breathe every day. So in my experience, I have, uh, four kids. All of them were obviously born as I was growing my career. And, you know, I think it's been a unique challenge. And the fact that my life is busy, I kind of joke to people that I don't have a lot else outside of, you know, being a CMO and, you know, every day going to work and then showing up to my kids in the evening. And I would say, you know, but some of the things I've learned, and I think parenting in general is a great lesson, um, that we can all take into our business lives.

Speaker B: You know, kind of first and foremost is prioritization, you know, and so I think about how important prioritization is, you know, in the workplace. And we all think about doing. Doing more with less and limited budgets and multiple corporate priorities. Parenting is a lot like that as well. I have four kids. I have to learn to prioritize, you know, what's most important for each of them. And so at the end of the day, you know, I can't do every single thing that they ask. I can't be there in every moment. But I have to really pick and choose being there for them and supporting them in the ways that I think are gonna make the greatest impact. And I think that's something I can definitely carry over into my professional life as well. I would say the other, um, big takeaway that I would mention there is the ability to pivot. So, you know, all of us who are parents can think about examples of, you know, times when things have not gone the way we thought they would. You know, I have a great example of, um, taking what was supposed to be a beautiful boat cruise of my kids, and we had very rocky waters, and everyone got seasick, and it turned into an absolute nightmare. But we found a way to pivot, you know, and involved Washing our clothes in the ocean and letting them dry on the back of beach, um, chairs. But. But we ultimately turned it into a great day. And I think when I'm in situations at work where things don't go as planned, and oftentimes we'll try a new initiative or run a campaign or enter into a new market and things aren't playing out the way we expected. The ability to say, let's turn this in a different direction and look for an opportunity, um, in a different way. So lots of ways I think parenting is applying, um, the other piece is just being able to shut on and off, um, to different things quickly where I try to do that. I think you're right. We're in a world where our lives are blending together, but being really conscious of when I'm present, you know, either with my family or with my team at work.

Speaker A: Yeah, that, that, that's a great answer. And, you know, I think we all have the stories of us not doing the right things. I, I personally had an experience where I was screaming at a Forester analyst who gave us a bad ranking while I was standing in the happiest place on earth, Disneyland. So, uh, yeah, nothing like having to deal with that type of garbage. Right. So, yeah, it's. It's tough. You know, I, I think CMOs, because there are so many different elements to being a CMO and you're pulled in so many different directions and there's no real playbook to follow, you kind of have to create your own. And I think you're going to touch on this later about change. Right. There's just a lot of change in marketing. You funnel all those things in. And like you said, you had two things in your life. You had your children and you work. And like anybody that tells me that they got a four handicap in golf and they're a cmo, like, your days are limited. Right. I mean, there's not much more that you can fit in. It's a pretty, uh, exhausting job, but done right, very rewarding. Right. So one of the things that's, that's fabulous about your background and you have a lot of B2B experience, but it's kind of interesting that you jumped around to industries. And usually you'll see CMOs will get entrenched in an industry. They'll know that the buyer really well, they'll know the types of products that are out there, and you've kind of seamlessly transitioned across these different industries. What's your secret on this and how did you find success you know, jumping, having to learn different products, different buyers, different markets, different sales motions. How did you pull that all together? That's not easy. You see a lot of CMOs stay in their area of expertise.

Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, I started off my career, um, focused more on creative tech. And, you know, my background.

Speaker C: And I think, you know, you kind of hit on some of this in the intro. Um, is really in the creative space where I'm a writer. I did some film and video production. And so I started off working for Avid, which was very much in that space. It was film and video editing.

Speaker B: It was spending time in Hollywood.

Speaker C: I was very focused on that kind of tech. Um, but as I went to interview for future roles, you know, I would

Speaker B: kind of start the process and talk

Speaker C: to a lot of different companies, and I found it really interesting to learn about other businesses.

Speaker B: And I would actually get that question,

Speaker C: um, from CEOs or leaders who were interviewing me. Hey, you don't have background in our space. And I made that pivot from creative tech to cybersecurity.

Speaker B: Now I'm in the digital payment space.

Speaker C: And so it would come up, hey, we're used to people who know cybersecurity inside and out. You've been talking to a creative buyer,

Speaker B: and we're talking to that curmudgeon in the IT department. It's very, you know, very different.

Speaker C: And, and what makes you think you can be successful.

Speaker B: And I actually took that as a

Speaker C: challenge, you know, where, number one, you

Speaker B: know, I found it very interesting to learn about a different type of business, you know, and to sort of picture myself, you know, getting engrossed in something different than what I had done before. But two, you know, to take the challenge of how can I apply, you know, what I've learned to bring a fresh perspective to this industry. And so, you know, I mentioned cybersecurity. I think that's a great example where, you know, a lot of people are doing the same thing, you know, and I went to my first industry event there and walked around and looked at all the trade show booths, and I could honestly not tell the difference from one company to the next. All the taglines were similar. You know, the messaging was the same. And it really spoke to me in terms of the value of a fresh perspective, you know, coming in maybe from a different industry, looking at things in a little bit of a different way. You know, our job as marketers is to differentiate our, our companies. And I think changing industries, coming in with a fresh perspective can really help do that. The other piece is that ability to go deep on the customer. And so you mentioned that as well. That to me, I can know marketing really well, and then the other piece is knowing the customer. And that's not something that I bring with me from role to role. It's something I have to do when I get into the job. And so I love that challenge. I mean, I'm now in this space where we're dealing with local water utilities as our primary customer. Great to go in and just kind of set all my assumptions aside and get to know what's important to our customers, you know, hear them talk, see them operate in their environments. And so kind of pairing that knowledge and openness to learning our customers with, you know, that marketing, institutional knowledge that I can carry with me, I feel like is a really powerful combination.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's so difficult to go from industry to industry and learn sometimes very complex products. I also made the jump from E commerce. That was something I could explain to my mother, like, hey, you ever shop on Amazon? I do that. Right. Um, and then I moved into cybersecurity, into threat intelligence, and no one knew who it was. In fact, like, about 75% of the company didn't even know what the heck we did at the company. Right. So it's, uh, kind of a fascinating dynamic when you have to learn a whole new base. I remember just going in, you probably felt this way when designed cyber security. I had to write out three pages of terminology to learn all the acronyms that there were in cyber security just so I could write something. Uh, it's. It's nuts, isn't it?

Speaker B: Yes. And. And I would just add to that, that AI, which I know we're going to talk about as well, has been an incredible partner to me in ramping up on new industries. So joining in this. You know, you mentioned before the EBPP space, which was a totally new term for me as well. Um, as I've sat in meetings in my first four months in the role here, I've had copilot up all day long, you know, entering questions of what is, you know, ebv or what is, you know, this term or that term that I haven't heard before. And so I think that's a great assistant as well, you know, as you change industries.

Speaker A: Well, that. That's interesting. I didn't even think about using it that way, but, you know, it. I. It's funny because as we've gone through these podcasts over probably over the last year or so, a lot of people want to talk about AI and everybody's got a slightly different approach of how they're using, which tools they're buying, how they're actually deploying it, which people inside their organizations are using. And we'll get to that more in a minute. But uh, one of the fascinating things is that you've worked for companies that are PE backed. And I gotta be honest with you, I worked for one company that got acquired by PE and I was like, um, because the dynamic changed, right? Um, from a lot of freedom and kind of control over things to a lot of data and numbers, ROI calculations, things along those lines. So what advice do you have for people if you get acquired by PE or you join a company that's already PE backed? And what is the difference that you've seen from public companies or private companies to PE companies as far as the marketing and leadership that goes into it?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I, um, had worked for three public companies prior to starting to work for PE backed companies. So my experience had been working with public companies.

Speaker C: Probably similar to you is in the situation where, you know, happily working for my publicly traded company when we got acquired and uh, and so dealt with, you know, marketing team and myself having not gone through it before, you know, having a lot of skepticism about what it was going to look like. Fast forward, I'm now my third, um, PE backed company. So, you know, I definitely, uh, got sold on the benefits of working, you know, under that ownership structure.

Speaker B: And the things I think I got

Speaker C: out of it were number one, you know, you're right, there's sort of that rigor around data and you know, cost structure and all of that that comes with it.

Speaker B: But I also think it creates a discipline within the organization. So, you know, at the company that I was with at the time, we had had a lot of frustration around getting to the data we needed for clear visibility into marketing, roi, you know, and the requests we would have kind of kept getting pushed down the line, you know, based on other priorities within the organization. Second, we got acquired by a PE company. It was, you know, all of a sudden we're going to fix that, we're going to get you the data that you need to have that visibility. And so, you know, I really appreciated that. It just helped me have more rigor and discipline around what we were doing in marketing and allowed, I think our team to have a better sense of how we were contributing to the business. And so I felt like it got us there in a much more structured and disciplined way. I think the other thing that I have enjoyed about Working for PE backed companies is the alignment around, you know, what's going to drive value for the business. And so, you know, very clearly laid out is the thesis around what are the value drivers, how are we going to get, you know, to an ultimate goal of growth and ebitda? Uh, and you know, I feel like having that allows me to set a really clear structure for my team. And so, you know, when you're publicly traded, you know, you're dealing with, you know, a lot of different stakeholders who are, you know, weighing in and have, you know, maybe different goals for where they want the business to go. And it's very aligned between leadership and ownership in m that PE model. And so I think that really helps a marketing team prioritize and focus. And then the third thing is, and I'm really experiencing this now I'm with a Vista backed, uh, company is the expertise across the other portfolio companies. So, you know, every company that Vista owns is a B2B SaaS company. And so as a marketer I feel like I'm going to come in and get the expertise of a lot of people who are in similar shoes to me. And that to me, I mean, my goal in every role I take is to become a better marketer on the other side of it. And if I have a chance to learn from 75, 80 other CMOs who are going through similar journeys, that's a great opportunity. And so I think that's unique. And I'm seeing more and more PE firms set up a more formal structure around best practice sharing and Online communities where CMOs are talking on a regular basis. So I think there's a lot of opportunity for that as well.

Speaker A: You're a better person than me. Okay. Early on you had a cmo, uh, role and I thought this was fascinating. I've never heard of this before, but actually you were legally bound to change the brand of your company. So first of all, you're gonna have to give, um, us some context as to what the legal issues were. Did you like ripping off somebody's name or something like that? Is that what happened?

Speaker B: No, no, it was just a company that was going to move on and retain that name and we were going to be, have a different identity and.

Speaker A: I see, okay.

Speaker C: Yeah. Okay.

Speaker A: But you had six months to rebrand the whole thing, so how'd you approach that?

Speaker C: Yeah, so that was, you know, it's kind of a shocker for me coming into this role, my first official CMO role. So, you know, new to the C suite, new to the company. This was the cybersecurity role, so new to this industry that is steeped in, ah, and specific expertise and was told I had to get this rebrand done, um, within six months.

Speaker B: And as I said, it was really

Speaker C: part of the separation agreement.

Speaker B: So nothing had a say in, you know, we were just on a clock and coming into that, you know, obviously

Speaker C: at the point I didn't know where anything was, you know, how many websites we had out there, the different touch points that were all going to need to be changed or what the competitive dynamics of the market were all the things that you would start to think about as you begin to plan for a rebrand. So the first thing I did was, you know, try to form a team of experts and identify people across the company who could be my champions in their area of expertise, you know, so it was someone, um, from finance and someone from IT and sales and created this rebrand leadership team and really empowered that group of people to identify. Think about your area of expertise, you know, think about everything that you cover. Where do we need to think about this rebrand? You know, what are the things we need to change? How do we need to communicate to

Speaker B: customers or prospects or, you know, banks that we work with? I mean, you know, you name it.

Speaker C: So really building, you know, this brand rebrand team of experts, you, uh, know, second was outstanding project management. So when you're on a clock, you know, for six months, you gotta make sure you have, you know, a really good list of tasks that you have to get done, accountability for that, understanding kind of, you know, who has to

Speaker B: do what, what's dependent, you know, on the next task. And building that project management structure was essential. Next was just making sure we were working with a, uh, branding and web agency that knew the market. So I recognized that that was a blind spot for me and that I didn't have that knowledge. So bringing on an agency that could bring that institutionally was absolutely critical. Um, and then the last part was really building internal energy around the rebrand. So I knew that we would be successful if the entire company was excited and rallied around it. And again, new person to the, you know, to the table here. And I'm, you know, suddenly going around saying, we're going to rebrand this company and it's going to be better than it ever was before. You know, I needed to build excitement with that. So we did a lot of, you know, teasers and communication and just getting people excited. Leading up to that day, I also set a deadline for the rebrand that was about Six weeks in advance of that six month, um, deadline. Yeah, assuming I was sort of assuming that things would go wrong, you know, and I figured I did not know what, what, I don't know. Starting this job, something is going to surprise me and we're going to have some sort of delay. Amazingly, we hit that deadline of the six weeks in advance and there were a couple things we needed to clean up after the fact. But, you know, we achieved that, which was really exciting. I did have a moment at 4am on the day of the rebrand where, you know, my agency had texted me and said, the website's ready, you know, go ahead and check it out, it's live. And we're went and typed it in and nothing showed up. I'm on my phone and then I'm on my laptop and, you know, trying every. Waking my husband up and having him do it. And it wasn't going live, but it, I guess, needed to cycle through. And by 8am when we put out the press release, uh, the rebrand was live. And so, you know, it was a really exciting accomplishment, I think also just, you know, really celebrating the success with the team. I mean, it was bringing that group of people along for the ride and, you know, not making it about marketing, not making about, you know, the CMO leadership role, but really about the organization, uh, leading this rebrand. So it was a huge challenge. I slept really well after that sleepless night the night before. But it was a great experience to go through.

Speaker A: Yeah, sometimes a great experience. I actually had a rebrand that was pitched to the board and everybody accepted. In my head, a brand had a meltdown over the weekend and rebranded the whole. Rebrand. Rebrand.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: Um, yeah. So nothing like coming in on Monday morning and somebody having built a whole new rebrand on. On top of your rebrand that you just spent three months building.

Speaker B: So, uh, yeah, good time comes in, right?

Speaker C: Yeah, sure.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's all there for you. So, like now, um, maybe moving forward, we're not even going to need to do rebranding. We can just hit a button for the AI. The AI will build everything I get. I teach students and, you know, at, at the college level and whenever they need a logo, they just hit a button and the logo pops it out for them. So I don't know if we're going to really need to do too much work moving forward. But speaking on the topic of AI, we already covered some elements of it. But how are you actually implementing AI on your team? Like, when you're Talking to the people on your team, are you giving them guidance on it? Are you letting them explore what technologies there are out there? Or is this something that as need pops up, you kind of search to find out what solutions you have?

Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, I'm fortunate in joining

Speaker C: Invoice Cloud and that we're a company that is really embracing AI, you know,

Speaker B: and so, you know, from the weekly leadership meetings that we have to board meetings to QBRs, AI is just infused into everything that we do.

Speaker C: It's just become a part of our culture. And so, you know, to your question, it really is a combination of us setting out what are the goals that we have for the organization, what are the goals that we have for the team around AI, but also kind of fostering that environment of keep pushing and experimenting. And as you know, it's changing so fast. I mean, it's incredible.

Speaker B: Where I left my last role at the beginning of December, started this role in January, and I felt like even in that month time frame so much had changed, um, with AI. So we've really been looking on our team, what kind of problems can we solve with AI? Not just, hey, we've got to be doing AI to, you know, check a box and make sure we seem forward thinking, but, you know, where do we have challenges? And so we've been looking at things like, you know, our funnel, you know, being leaky and the fact that, you know, we have a lot of leads, we have a huge database, you know, we have people who are engaged with us but maybe not ready for that conversation yet with sales. And, you know, SDRs aren't going to pay attention to those leads. They're not going to do anything. Getting an AI digital assistant. So we're incorporating a tool now that's going to really kind of bridge that gap between, you know, leads that are warm, you know, and those that are ready to have that sales conversation and do that follow up. So we're really excited about what that possibility, um, will deliver. It's pretty interesting because it's conversational AI, so it's not just, hey, we're going to, you know, send a series of nurturers that seem more personalized, but there's back and forth correspondence. So it's fascinating. And there's a big debate right now that we're having around how transparent, um, do we be with the fact that this is AI, you know, versus a person or, you know, an identity that we name. And so I think there's a lot to be learned. You know, we want to Keep testing and figure out, you know, what works there. But it's a huge opportunity to solve something that I think has long been a gap, you know, between um, you know, for sales and marketing and then you know, other areas that we're looking into. As you mentioned, rebranding and you know, message testing. We're, we have a whole set of new value driven messages that we've created over the past year and we're doing um, value proposition and message testing with synthetic Personas. So we're um, able to do, you know, what used to be, you know, traditional market research where you'd recruit a focus group and you know, try to find all the right people. And it could take a while and then ultimately maybe you don't even have the right Personas in the room to using AI, um, to be able to source Personas. And it's, I mean I just was on a call about it yesterday. It's absolutely fascinating how they can pull the intelligence around the Personas from every AI engine out there. Kind of remove that um, subservient piece where you know, AI wants to please you so they make it less biased and then you can actually do your message testing and then, you know, roll out campaigns that are all created, you know, quickly and actually test multiple campaigns and market through AI. So just really exciting stuff, you know, that I think we're still learning about, you know, still experimenting on. But you know, thinking about kind of first and foremost, how do we solve inefficiencies within our organization. My team is not growing and so, you know, how do we do more with the budget that we have today? Uh, and then how do we just kind of keep learning about what's next? And it's, it's an evolution for sure.

Speaker A: Well, that's incredible. I didn't even know that there was software out there that could literally simulate a focus group. And that's kind of interesting because, ah, you know, this, this gets into where does the AI stop and the human element come into play. And I, I sit on CMO roundtables periodically. Last one I went to, um, you know, a lot of people were saying, yeah, the AI is great for taking data that I already have messaging and crafting simple things, but nothing's really all that unique. Right. Um, it starts to get very sterile. The content gets very sterile. Um, everything is very polished. There's not a lot of personality. And you just told me that there's a software that literally is taking Personas of people and then recreating them. That's, that's really interesting because people, every person is unique. Right. So like, you know, how do you take 330 million people here in this country and get the uniqueness of them and try to. That. That's going to be fascinating to me. I would. Did that, did it work?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: So where we've landed and you know, this is kind of, I think how it's, you know, working today where we've now gotten feedback from these synthetic Personas. And, and I mean I'm sitting there, you know, messaging my team on Slack during the call, being like mind blown. You know, when they had these full Personas and responding and saying, you know, hey, what's resonating with me in this message is, are these words. I would rewrite it to say this, you know, this is not, I mean, eye rolling. Uh, so they created the Persona based on all the different AI tools available as well as taking information from our own. So we fed them our Personas in addition to that. But it was not. That wasn't the sole source. So. Yeah, so they.

Speaker C: Yeah, I have.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'd have to. Yeah. So we were going through a third party agency and then they were using a software. I can, I can follow up with you on that one. But uh, but yeah, it's uh, it's pretty amazing to see it. And then what they are doing though is then going to go and test this with a set of real humans. So there is that layer still added in. And, and it's interesting, right, because your question around, did it work? I think that will be answered in this next round when we test it with a group of humans. But it allows us to get to that first level where you know, they're saying certain tones for us, you know, in our industry think words like revolutionize and you know, these kind of marketing speak, you know, things were really, you know, didn't resonate anything too casual. Didn't resonate either. And, and so it'll be really interesting to then take it to our Personas. Ah. You know, to real people and find out, you know, are those things true? I mean, I will, I will have an answer for that once we do that testing in terms of how effective it was. But, but it gives you that first round, um, and kind of helps you hone in on how to message. So you know, I think we're in the early days of this, but what's possible is just changing so quickly. And I mean the word synthetic Personas was not in my vocabulary in 2024.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Synthetic robot.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: But you know it's fascinating because if you look at it, because some of the human element is being pulled out of this. Right. And humans can create based outside the box. Right. Because AI, you know, I've been in AI since like 1995 when it didn't work at all. Um, and so like, you're basically pulling data from other places right now. If you're pulling the data from the Internet. Who put the information on the Internet? People like us. Do we make mistakes that we do. Um, and so you're not getting what I would say purity. Anyways, right. As to where you, where you're getting the data from to do a lot of these things. So I'd be fascinated to see how that works out because, you know, frankly, what I, what I see a lot of times with marketers these days, and I love that you're doing focus groups. Like what a lost art that's become. Um, people aren't doing them anymore. And I, like, I remember back the old day we had the, you know, the, the two way glass and you know, everybody's taking notes and the cameras, we get set up around the rooms.

Speaker B: Yep. Yeah.

Speaker A: Way back in your fellow interrogation room. And you know, there's some bad beef that people were eating on the side there, you know, but, you know, those days are gone. But you could do these over Zoom. Right. Um, I've been doing focus groups, you know, towards the, the back half of my career now with Zoom, and just, you know, kind of getting nine people on the call and having a moderator do it. And now you can't see their hands. And some other things along those lines that give you tells as to what their, their emotional state is. But you're still getting pretty good data. Right. And you get to record it and be. Everyone can watch it. Uh, which is, which is a nice element. But you know, this is, this is fascinating. I, I hope that all marketers look to do more of this because honestly, when your marketing works, you said the right thing to the right people. And if you don't understand the buyer, you'll never write the right messages in order to meet them. So that's fascinating that you did that. That's incredible.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: All right, so, um, so now that we kind of talked about AI and like, um, so I'm old enough to remember when there was no Internet. And then we came out and we said things are moving at Internet speed and now we're moving at AI speed. And marketing has always been change. Right. One of the interview questions I would always ask people that were looking for jobs. I was like, do you like change or do you hate change? Because only two types of people on the planet, those that like and those that hate it. Anybody that hates change can't do marketing right because they just won't be able to react to what's happening, happening. Taking that into account and you having to change constantly, are you changing industries, you're changing teams, you're changing PE backed companies, you're changing public companies, you got to change like your brand. How do you manage it? How do you manage your team? How do you keep them efficient with all this change happening?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I guess I would answer your question by first saying, I guess

Speaker C: I like change given that I, I've

Speaker B: gone through, uh, all of that and you know, and so I, you know, I think I have embraced that. But you know, a lot of times I will see people on my teams,

Speaker C: especially those who are earlier in their career, I would say those who are early in their careers and those who have stayed with a company for a

Speaker B: long time, you know, perhaps, you know, it's the less, you know, change ready people who tend to, you know, stick in one place and grow their career,

Speaker C: uh, there oftentimes they're kind of rattled by change, you know.

Speaker B: And I experienced that in the example I gave before with the company that had been public and then went private and you know, really rattled people and was, it was difficult. And so the thing I've always tried to tell anyone who's questioned that is there's opportunity in change and you know, you just really have to look for it. And so with any change, and that could be a leadership change where you have a new boss coming in and this is a chance to learn from someone new and have a new perspective. You know, there could be an organizational change that gives you a chance to work on a project that you haven't had before. And I feel like those who are open to seeking opportunity and change can oftentimes find it. I would say that the most pivotal moments in my own career have been in times of change where, you know, sometimes I've been given things. I mean, at one point, you know, I was told to lead a UX team and I have no background in ux, but there had been an organizational change and that team was handed over to me. But one of the best experiences ever, you know, and I still have probably, uh, one of the best relationships with the UX leader who worked for me. And I didn't know anything about it. And so I think it's uh, that willingness to you know, take on new things, to see the opportunity, and then also to kind of get grounded in the fact that while there is change, and technology is a great example of that. Right. Change is all around us. I mean, it can be dizzying to think about all that's happening with AI Fundamentally, you know, we're still trying to achieve the same thing with our business. And so there are constants that, you know, that still exists within change. And so, you know, we may be thinking about every day how I can transform our business, but what we want to do with our business and the customers that we want to serve stays the same. You know, not every person, but a lot of the people, you know, who are sitting next to us are still there with us, you know, alongside the journey. So I think it's also kind of grounding yourself in the things that still do exist. You know, not everything changes at once, you know, even though it may feel that way at some times.

Speaker A: Yeah, without a doubt. So, I mean, as far as, um, you know, this change and going from company to company, um, usually we bring lessons from the last company to our next company. Although I will say, uh, you know, having run marketing seven times in my career, I feel like I did it different all seven times. Uh, because each company, the industry, the people that you have on your team, the skill sets, how you structure your team, what you inherit when you. When you go and take over that team, what are some of the biggest things that you were able to replicate and bring to your current position today?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I think there are a few things, as I think, especially about my last three roles, you know, which have been my marketing leadership roles that I've, you know, brought from role to role. I think one is, um, trusting your gut, you know, and so we talk a lot about being so data driven and, you know, the decisions that we make. And I, you know, absolutely think that's critical, you know, for everyone in an organization and marketing especially. But. But there's that gut instinct side of things. And so one of the things I've learned as a leader is that, you know, I'll come into an organization and I want to be thoughtful.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: And I do want to, you know, take the time to learn and listen. I think that's a really important part of the process. But there'll be things that just at a gut level, you know, don't feel right or don't feel like they're structured the way that they should be. And I think in my previous roles, I would tend to perhaps wait a little Bit too long, you know, to act on that gut. And at the end of the day it hasn't served the organization, you know, so I think it's having that trust and again, you have to balance that with, you know, being thoughtful with listening, but also trusting your gut that when it's time to make a decision, make that decision. Um, another really big takeaway for me is investing. And this is maybe tied to the PE conversation that we have is, you know, really focusing investment in areas that don't necessarily have that clear roi. So you know, I think there's, you know, it's easy as a new cmo, it's easy as a, uh, you know, CMO at a PE backed company to really gear towards, you know, okay, we're going to push for the dollars and the roles where there's that clear roi. But you know, I think in the past that's been at the sacrifice of things like product marketing and brand awareness. And to me those are all pieces that are just as important to the revenue engine as demand gen. And so, you know, coming into newer, more recent roles, you know, I've really pushed for that focus as well and champion the fact that I think you've got to have, you know, investment and attention on those roles as well within the organization. So I think having that balance and not necessarily being afraid to invest in the places where, you know, it might be harder to show, you know, more of a challenge to show those kind of tangible results.

Speaker A: Yeah, without a doubt. And I, and I think one of the things that you brought up, I love the gut component of it. Uh, I will say this. You know, early on my career we couldn't measure anything because it was before the Internet. So we, we just, everything was all gut. It was like, you know, basically research you did with either survey or focus groups and then you trusted your gut on it. I think what it's interesting because the data component has obviously forced us to look at things more closely as to what the metrics are. If you got a PE back firm, um, you know, the p organization only wants to see the data. They don't want to care about your gut. Um, but what I will say is this, is that if you don't trust your gut when you're managing your team, that's where you're really going to, to trip over it. And you know, this is where, you know, organizing teams because of the skill sets that you're putting on your team. You know, everybody on your team's different. Like, it's not like accounting where everybody Kind of looks and acts the same way. Sorry, accountants that are listening to this. But like your marketing team, you got a designer, right? And you've got somebody that's doing marketing ops. They're not going to lunch together. Right. I mean, you've got to take all of these personalities and understand the dynamics to make sure that everybody's efficient. So with that in mind, we. Brings us. Brings us to our final question, which we ask all of our wonderful guests. What is the best piece of advice that you could either give to a CMO or an aspiring cmo?

Speaker C: Yeah, so I would say one of

Speaker B: the best pieces of advice that I received, um, relatively early in my career. So this one is really speaking to people who, you know, may be aspiring to be a CMO one day, you know, or developing their career is don't sweat the small stuff. And so by that, I mean, you know, oftentimes I was one of those people who had a to do list of things. And I prided myself on the fact that it was every single day I was getting through my to do list. There wasn't an email that was unanswered.

Speaker C: No.

Speaker B: I was the most responsive person in the company. And I had a boss who came to me and said, uh, you know, you're doing all those things, which is great. You're getting your job done, but are you thinking about the big picture pieces?

Speaker C: You know?

Speaker B: And I said, well, I'm just so busy, you know, checking all these boxes that I'm not necessarily thinking about the big picture thing. And she said, I want to challenge you to maybe leave a few of those boxes unchecked, you know, and get comfortable with the fact that there might be an email that goes unanswered or a to do that gets pushed off in favor of going after those bigger things and, you know, start with the stuff that's really going to be a needle mover for the business and focus there. And it really shifted my thinking and, you know, it allowed me to think about, okay, over the next year, how am I going to make a meaningful impact on the business? And to me, that was, you know, a game changer, uh, in terms of, you know, putting me on a trajectory to get where I am today.

Speaker A: That is an incredible piece of advice because I got to be honest with you, too many CMOs, especially if they get in early and they keep growing their team early, you have to get involved because there's only like, two other three other people on your team. You need that, uh, involvement. But as your team grows, you've got to push the trust out. So I'm going to double down on what you said where don't sweat the small stuff. I would say ignore the small stuff. Right. Um, and set the tone that your team needs to make the decisions on these and that you're not going to be responsible for it. Uh, I think that teams can bring a lot of, like, little small problems that start to weigh you down. Um, and there's a great book out there. It's called the, uh, the Five Minute Manager Meets the Monkey. And, uh, you know, what ends up happening is that your team keeps bringing all these monkeys and then you, before you know it, you're at the office till 1 o' clock in the morning and they're all at the bar at 5, 30, 30. Um, and so, you know, you need to be able to push those things down to them, empower them to make those decisions, because otherwise you're just going to get mired down in this detail.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: All right, well, this has been an awesome conversation. Alice. Loved all of the points you made, especially trying to figure out how, uh, people that have families can get that balance going in their life. Uh, you know, four kids, God love you. I'll tell you.

Speaker B: Don't sweat the small stuff.

Speaker C: Yeah, the small.

Speaker A: The small people. Don't sweat them too. Right. Although we sweat them the most. Right?

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: Well, thanks for coming on. Hopefully we'll get you on another podcast at some point or another. But this is a fascinating conversation for everyone else. Uh, please check out other the next CMO podcast episodes. We've got a bunch of them up there and there are more to come. We're recording at a geometric rate. Everybody wants to talk these days. So, uh, if you know anybody else out there that would like to. We're queuing them up. So thanks everyone and hopefully we'll see you in the community. Please join up then next cmo.com you can sign up for free. Tons of great materials up there. All free templates, best practices. We just want to improve the profession because we know how hard it is. So look forward to seeing you all. And thanks again, Alice.

Speaker B: Sounds good. Thanks, Scott.

Speaker A: All right, bye. Bye.

Speaker C: Thanks.

Speaker B: Bye. Bye,

Speaker C: Sam.