Navigating Mergers, Scaling Teams, and Leading With Transparency with Benoit Skinazi of Equativ

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. Hello and welcome to another exciting edition of the Next CMO podcast. I think we're up to about 130 podcast episodes now, so uh, it's getting to be old hat. Hopefully You've watched all 130, but I'm not sure you have. But I'd like to take a moment here to thank the people that have. So uh, we have an exciting session today and so I got Ben here online. So Ben Skanazi is the CMO right now at Sharethrough who just got acquired by Equitiv.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: And he, uh, he was one of the founders of District M. Some of you may be familiar with District M being in the marketing space. Uh, it was an ad tech platform, uh, that he was one of the founders. He did marketing, he did sales there. But this guy's been doing it for a long time. So we all know that it's a tough enough job to do marketing, let alone being a founder and doing marketing. Uh, I have shared that path with Ben and so uh, we're both going to fight through it. My middle name is Ben. So we're, we're both going to where there's a lot of synergies here as

Speaker B: we go through it.

Speaker A: So welcome Ben. Good to have you on the podcast and we're excited to go through a whole litany of your past and also some thoughts and you know, best practices that you want to share with the audience.

Speaker B: Well, glad to be here. Uh, uh, thank you Scott for having me.

Speaker A: Well, it's great to have you. So let's just get started. Jump right in here. So you know, as the co founder and cmo sharethrough, uh, now, uh, Equitiv, uh, you've led the company through a couple of mergers here, right? One acquisition where you're acquiring and one where you got acquired. There uh, was always a fun times trying to integrate marketing teams and expand. Also, you know, the company has grown pretty significantly over that time. Talk about some of the guiding principles that really helped you navigate these you know, tough waters. I mean, these transitions are difficult. What are some of the things that you could help a lot of the other marketing leaders out there that may be nervous about? Merging teams, merging strategies, merging, um, different markets, uh, it's, it's always branding, all this wonderful stuff that comes into play.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So first I have to say navigating two, uh, major mergers, first District M and Sharethrough, and more recently Sharethrough with uh, equative, uh, has been one of the most defining chapter, uh, of my career. You know, uh, these transitions weren't just about, uh, integrating businesses, uh, they were about uniting people, uh, cultures, visions. Uh, and as a co founder of uh, District M, there was a personal way to doing it right. Uh, not just from a business standpoint, but also for the teams who helped ah, build the company. So first, the two mergers were really different. Uh, the first merger, so, uh, the one between District M and sharethrough happened during COVID uh, which means back in the days, uh, we were not authorized to travel. So, so the entire M and A process, knowing that District M was based in Montreal, the headquarter was in Montreal, and share through headquarter was in San Francisco. So the entire M and A process, uh, happened on Zoom. Basically we never met in person with the.

Speaker A: No. Really?

Speaker B: Yeah, never met them, never met them until uh, the day we were able to travel again, you know. So the acquisition, because it was an acquisition in order to merge the two companies happened on Zoom. Really, the process to unite the two companies happened on Zoom as well. Um, and we did everything, uh, this way and it worked amazingly well in fact. Uh, but for it to be a success, communication between teams was really, really important. And so you're talking about guiding principle. So I would say, uh, first being radically transparent, uh, even when it's uh, uncomfortable was important, not always easy, especially when you don't really know the people that you're starting to work with. Um, and also the importance of keeping purpose at the center. So when two companies come together, there is a natural urge to think about the org chart or the product roadmap and things like that. Um, but on my end I found it's really important to remind people why we're doing that in the first place. Remind people internally, but also our clients why this merger. Uh, there is a reason for that or multiple reasons. And that part was really important. And the last one I would say in terms of guiding principle, uh, on the merger side is, uh, the energy. You know, uh, energy is contagious. You know, and um, so especially when you're doing things on Zoom, which hasn't been the case for Equative, at least we were able to meet. And the process has been uh, running for quite a longer, a longer time. Um, creating the right pace, uh between teams, the right communication channels, uh, putting the right energy uh, is very, very important. And that's something that uh, uh, you know we've always tried our best to do it right.

Speaker A: Well that's good. Well I mean you're, the size of the companies have grown pretty substantially.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: So I think you, so you start out with like 70, then went to 160, then 750. So tell us a little bit about that. I mean you started out in two countries and 20 countries. That can be a little daunting. How did you approach that?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's not uh, it's not always simple. Uh, but I have to say you know the, the approach to leadership uh has evolved dramatically uh over the years and uh, honestly it had to from leading or co leading uh a 70 employee startup mostly based in Montreal. It's very different from helping steer 750 employee UH companies which is a global organization with offices in 20 countries. Um, so obviously it did not happen overnight. Uh, it was a uh, continuous and uh, humbling learning uh process on my end. But early on at District M, which was the startup uh I co founded, uh, I was really hands on as in every uh, startup you've been through that process. So I knew almost everyone personally. I could jump into a campaign, I could edit a deck, I could help troubleshoot on a client issue, uh, and all that on the fly. And so I felt more being like a team captain I would say than uh, a C level executive, uh, and that worked well. You know we were really fast, we were executing uh like uh, crazy. But after merging with Sharethrough, uh so we became like we doubled the size of the company overnight. And especially now with Equative where we multiplied almost by 10 the number of employees. Uh, I realized that scaling is not just about doing more, it's about letting go as well. And so that has been one of the biggest mindset uh shift uh for me I think over the years, you know, uh, so through the years I've learned to trust more uh which when you start a company trust others to uh, to take the lead on some project is not always easy. But so trusting, delegating more uh, and investing in building strong relationship layers as well. So I've surrounded myself with leaders uh, that are very good in what they do. Uh, and, uh, I have the chance to work with a fantastic team. So I learn from them, uh, constantly. And I think that part, uh, is really important. So I have my strengths, they have theirs. Uh, and my role as a leader is to capitalize on, uh, those complementarities, uh, basically. And I would say another evolution, um, is moving, uh, from being a doer to m, a storyteller, um, so as the company scales, uh, clarity becomes more important than ever for employees and also for clients. And I now spend a lot more time crafting narrative, uh, for our brand, our go to market strategy, uh, even internally as well. And because when you have teams across 20 countries, alignment is not a given. So it has to be built, uh, intentionally. And I try to do my best to do that.

Speaker A: It's incredibly difficult to do. And I think one of the things that you made a point of, that I want to reiterate, is that it is difficult, especially as you're a founder. You know, you're passionate about what you've built, um, and it's really tough to let go. And I tend to find that actually even, um, CMOs have been doing their job a long time that started out with a very small team and they're, you know, mired in the tactics for most of the time because you can't spend all your time working on strategy because you don't have enough people to get stuff done. They have trouble pulling themselves out of the tactics. And once you start getting bogged down in the tactics as a marketing leader, you're pretty much doomed. Um, you find yourself editing email copy and not really looking at the business and the market in general. So the points that you made are incredibly important. I've been acquired four times, but I've never acquired. So, um, as a marketing leader, so that you bring an interesting perspective. But one of the key things that I also like about your background is, is you've always, you've also run sales. Now why is this important? I think this is absolutely critical that any head of marketing runs. I ran sales four times in addition to doing marketing at the same time. And I think it brings an incredible perspective to the CMO and creates a structure where you're very complementary with, with sales. So tell us a little bit about your journey. Working with the sales team, working with the product team, and maybe even other executives at the company that you were able to unify with to make sure that the goals were all aligned for everyone and everybody was marching in the same direction.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think you get A point mentioning uh, sales. Uh, so yeah, I started my career as a seller. So I was basically we were a tech company. We still have uh, an ad tech company and I was in charge of uh, uh, what we call the demand side, uh, sales, so selling our advertising solutions to uh, advertisers meaning brands and agencies. And so my job was to convince brand and agencies to use us and our technology for delivering ah, their campaigns. So we had no marketing back in the days. And when uh, we started investing uh, in marketing, our marketing initiatives had to generate more sales. That was my vision. Why would we invest in marketing if it doesn't help me generate more sales? So I grew up professionally with the mindset that if marketing doesn't generate more sales then um, you end up only being a source of cost for the company. And if you're a source of cost, that means if the revenue isn't there at some point you might end up being the first one being cut. Exactly. And so that's uh, Today I have the privilege to uh, lead three teams. So I lead central marketing, uh, sales enablement and product marketing. And um, I say the privilege because running those three uh, teams uh, forces me but help me as well, uh, getting the right understanding of the clients, um, getting real market feedback by being constantly in contact with our sales team. And we have 200 sellers uh, in different markets. And the product marketing team forces me to be in contact with the product team, uh, and engineering teams. And so it's not about just receiving input from the product team telling us uh, well here is a new feature we would like to launch, please marketing, help us launch it. It's about really having those uh, strategic conversations with them, influencing the product roadmap as well, uh, and having this type of alignment between product sales and marketing. And for me that's uh, that's really uh, really really important.

Speaker A: I completely agree with you on that point. And you know, frankly when we start looking at the sales and marketing arms of the company and how they work together, really marketing is all the strategic elements of it. Right. Running sales. And you may disagree with me, that's fine if you do. But I don't find sales particularly strategic. Right. It's very tactical. You know, how are we going to go after this particular deal or that particular deal? What are the tactics? We're going to use the hand to hand combat on it. But you know who you're going to target, what goes into the product, how uh, you price, you package. And I'm glad that you said you have product marketing Because I think it's so critical for CMOs to have product marketing underneath them. And there are a lot of CMOs today that don't have it. Um, and I think that's kind of a huge limitation in being successful if you have your messages coming from other parts of the organization.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, this is a constant debate in many organizations. You know, should product marketing go under marketing or under product and in some cases under commercial? So it's always like it seems to be the team where we never know exactly where to which team it should report.

Speaker A: Do you have an inside sales team or BDR team, SDR team at your company or.

Speaker B: No, for a portion of our, uh, company. So depending, uh, on the clients we're targeting, because we're targeting different types of clients, uh, national clients, or uh, large tier one agencies, uh, for that we don't have a, uh, BDR team. But when we're targeting mid market, uh, then yes you do, because the approach is really different. Okay.

Speaker A: Oh, interesting. Because that's another big debate. Should the BDR SDR team report to marketing of a Legion action, or are they actually selling? And when you have a professional sales team, my argument is they're actually lead generation. You want them following up on the marketing leads first. But you just spent all that money and they're usually a warmer lead. Right. So, so now that we go through this and now you have a situation where you've probably taken over a team and um, you have a dynamic between the marketers that you acquired versus the marketers you have. Everybody's got different approaches for doing marketing because marketing is a green field.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And everybody's got all their ideas. How do you motivate these teams, get them integrated and keep them engaged to make sure that you're producing high quality work and driving the goals of the company?

Speaker B: Yeah, so it might sound as a cliche, uh, but I do, and I really do my best to be really transparent with my team. Uh, so I don't hide information from them. Or at least when you are see level, there are some financial information that you can't share all the time, obviously. But I mean, like, I really try to not hide any information from them because they need to understand the reality of the business, uh, in order to make the right, uh, decision. So I can't ask my team, I can't ask them to have some strong ownership over some projects if they don't really know why their work matters. Uh, and I can't have real conversations with them telling them this initiative was a failure. This one was a success if they don't really understand what would make it a failure or a success. So the transparency and the communication is uh, really, uh, really important. Of course, as any leader should do. I try to provide as much recognition as I can as well, uh, which is something that is very important. But I think, uh, uh, something that defines me is uh, really the level of autonomy, uh, that I give them as well. So as I was mentioning a bit earlier, I work with people, uh, that are better at what they do than me. Uh, and uh, I try uh, to uh, surround myself with people that will teach me things. I have a team of, uh, 25, 30 marketers doing different things from design to PR to legion. Well, I can't be better than all of those people. So, uh, uh, they need to get the right autonomy, uh, uh, uh, to, to run the business. And I asked them to take decisions. One of my mentors told me, you, uh, need to take seven good decisions out of 10, but you need to take decisions. And I always remember that saying, like, okay, it is important to have the courage as an employee, not only as a team leader to take decisions. However, if you do a mistake, it's okay, raise your hand. We try to fix it together. Obviously it's not a mistake. That is, uh, too bad, but I mean like for the business, but that's the thing. So empowering people is what I try to do. Um, uh, and once again, I have strong leaders with me, uh, strong team leaders, uh, that they do an excellent work at doing that with, uh, their employees as well.

Speaker A: That's good that you empower your team. I think the critical thing that I found with, you know, being a CMO is really helping people understand to your point that you made earlier is why they're doing things right. It's actually amazing to me where I work with, uh, CMOs and uh, they know what they want to do, but their team is very junior because a lot of times team, uh, companies don't, or the money that needs to go into marketing to hire experienced people. And they do things. They know what to do. They just don't know why they're doing it and they don't really ask. Um, and so I think it's really important to share those goals and make sure they're very clear. Now the other thing that, that we tend to find here is that marketers have a lot of problems, right? Um, and the cmo and all, all those problems bubble up to them and they've got to figure out how to parcel out Those problems, those challenges. So I'm going to ask you to come up with just one because I'm sure we could be here all day. You're telling me all the challenges that you're facing and that you see other CMOs facing out there. But if you had to pick one, what do you think is the biggest challenge facing CMOs today? And how do they work effectively with the executive team, you know, to overcome those challenges and keep the organization running right, and keep them integrated.

Speaker B: So you asked me for one. Well now I'm thinking about two of them.

Speaker A: That's okay, you could do two. I just don't want to come up with 20. We could spend 20 minutes.

Speaker B: But I would say like generally speaking speaking, uh, uh, when you are cmo, everybody within the company comes to you with requests and they are all urgent. Uh, and so navigating uh, and managing those expectations uh, is one of the complexity that comes with the job. Uh, I would say. Ah, so that would be one which is uh, so um, and once again that comes with communication as well. Because if you do communicate uh, properly internally about the different, the company visions, the priorities for the company, uh, if you know we operate, we use company okrs as well. So that means if you're coming to us with something that has nothing to do with our company uh, objectives, well that might not be the priority number one uh, in terms of um, on our to do list, uh, for the marketing team. But so navigating that is uh, not always um, easy. The second thing is balancing short term, um, uh, performance with long term brand equity, uh, in the way that as marketer you do need to help the business short term but you also need uh, to build a uh, long standing business. You know, you need to build a brand equity, you need to build a strong brand recognition, thought leadership and those type of things. They're not always easy to measure. You know, ah, becoming a thought leader on a specific topic, uh, in the ad tech industry for example doesn't happen overnight. It takes time. What you're probably spending money in order to do that, but it's hard to prove the value of what you're doing short term. So that is a challenge I think uh, many CMOs, uh, are facing as well.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's one of them. Uh, one of them.

Speaker B: But you asked me for two. You asked me for two.

Speaker A: It's a very humbling job, right? We wake up in the morning and we hope for the best.

Speaker B: Yeah, but it's a great job. You know, it changed, you know that like ah, You've been through multiple uh, uh, you know, companies, startup, etc. You know that. But that's what makes our job exciting.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that it does. You know, it's, it's interesting now because every, the big hot topic is now AI and how's that? That's going to affect everything. But you know, you know when I look at the uses of the AI out there right now, because a lot of CMOs are saying that's their biggest challenge, I, I don't see that as the case because even a lot of the main fundamentals in marketing don't go away and the AI is not going to fix those elements of it. So uh, at least not for a while. It'll get there eventually but it's, it's not there yet.

Speaker B: On my end I see that as a big opportunity. In fact, uh, at different levels. Um, and AI could be an entire question as well. But uh, I don't see that as a threat. It's going to change every or most of the uh, industries and most of uh, the functions within companies including marketing. And so yes you could be on a defense mode saying okay, but creativity will change, uh, uh, everybody will have access to the same ideas if you're relying on AI to do your job instead of doing it yourself. Uh, um, but it's an opportunity uh, to be so more productive as well and do so much more things that what we're currently doing. Uh, I love it, I use it every day. I'm doing my best to include more and more AI in everything that we do within the company, not only marketing. So uh, yeah, I'm uh, opportunist with that.

Speaker A: Why not? Well, you know, speaking on AI, one of the things that uh, is happening because I happen to teach college, uh, is it's scaring the students that are graduating these days. Uh, they're having harder and harder times finding jobs, especially as the AI gets a little sharper. Um, so if you had somebody young coming out into the world with a marketing degree, um, or just even somebody that's got a couple years of experience in marketing, what is the best piece of advice that you could give that uh, junior resource in order to get their career rolling?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think we touched a bit on that. Uh, but it's be uh curious. The reason I'm saying that it's whatever product or service your company is selling, whether it's a big organization or small startup. You do need to understand your clients when you're working in marketing. Ah, their reality, their day to day, uh, um, there is no way for you as a marketer to um, understand what would make you the obvious choice for your clients if you don't understand their reality. I'll give you an example. On our end, um, we're not tech company, we're basically selling advertising spaces on web pages. You know, if I summarize it a lot, uh, and we do have competitors, um, but there is something we have in common with our clients. You know, when I'm talking with uh, agency people, uh, well, those people are Internet users as well. So that means they are like you, like me, we are all Internet users. Uh, so when selling my products, I could tell them I have the best tech, uh, my technology is better than my competitors, and they might trust me if I'm lucky. Uh, but the reality is, uh, what we've tried to do is explain the technology in a way that makes sense for them. So we do a lot of consumer research to better understand the way people consume content online, uh, and adapt the product accordingly. I'll give you an example. If I tell you, uh, I have the best, uh, technology to deliver online video campaigns, you might say, okay, maybe, maybe not. But if I tell you, well, 72% of people, when they're ah, on their mobile, they often watch video on mute because you don't want to, uh, you're commuting, you don't want to disturb the person next to you. So you're often watching video on mute. That means if I'm showing you some video ad content, you might not understand the ad itself. So our technology knows that and adds dynamic captions on the video and then you're like, oh, okay, that starts to make sense. And it's not, not telling you where the best tech. I'm telling you what the tech is doing and why it makes sense for you. If I tell you that 90% of people, when they're watching TV, when uh, the commercials are starting, they're taking their phone or they're doing something else. Uh, so bringing back the attention on TV is a challenge. You'll be like, oh, uh, yeah, it's true. When I'm watching tv, when the ads are starting, I take my phone and I check my emails or I do something else most of the time and you will recognize yourself. So what I'm saying here is if as a marketer you're not curious to understand your client, uh, what are their challenges, their struggles, or what they do as a consumer themselves, uh, you won't be able to adapt, uh, your marketing, go to market, uh, the best way as possible.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think, you know, being able to adapt on a day to day basis is important, let alone what's happening in the marketplace. Because frankly in this day and age we have economic constraints, technology trends, all of these things that are hitting us and we've got to be on top of it. That's why the CMO needs to spend more of their time looking outside the organization than working with the people that are below them. Which is why I love your philosophy of empowering the people on your team to be able to make those decisions. So for you now, let's see, you've acquired, you've been acquired. You know, what's next for you both, uh, professionally and personally. What do you got going on? Anything fun?

Speaker B: Well, personally I'm, I'm a new uh, dad since uh.

Speaker A: Oh, congratulations. Now that's amazing.

Speaker B: That's new to me. So uh, and uh, and yeah everybody was saying you see it change everything and it's true. Uh, so um, that's on the personal uh, level and uh, as a cmo, well I'm still uh, on the same mission. So I'm becoming, I'm now the CMO at equative. And uh, I'm on this mission to bring the company to the next level. I'm still a shareholder of the company, uh, and I really care about uh, the journey, I mean uh, so it's really now that we are merging officially the two companies into uh, and uniting them into one is how to bring this uh, company to the next level. We have everything on paper, uh, to make it an industry leader. It's up to us to execute, uh, and I love execution. Uh, so uh, I don't like when we take too long to take decisions. I don't like when uh, things are going slowly, uh, uh. So I mean uh, the right element for me. So I'm gonna keep uh, focusing on that uh, for quite a time.

Speaker A: That sounds great. Well, we've come to the last question that we ask all of our guests. If you had one piece of advice for a CMO or an aspiring CMO, what would that be?

Speaker B: One advice for CMOs? Well maybe that would be uh, taking the counterpart uh, of what you were saying earlier is adopt AI, you know, uh, but um, no, I mean like I'm learning so much from many CMOs in fact, uh, so I uh, would say the same thing, you know, and uh, uh, it's open your perspective, uh, as much as uh, possible. Uh, it comes with the be curious thing that I was saying. But uh, be open minded, you know, uh, is, uh. And uh, is, uh, for me, one of the most important, uh, elements, I would say. All right.

Speaker A: Well, that's fantastic.

Speaker B: Ben.

Speaker A: It's been wonderful having you on the podcast today. Please, anytime you want to come back, you let me know. We'll slide you in for another slot. And good luck with, you know, getting acquired and getting integrated into the new organization, getting everybody up to speed. We know it's not trivial. So those of you, uh, listening to the podcast, uh, please check out one of the other 130 episodes.

Speaker B: Um, sure.

Speaker A: They're equally as good because it's always good talking to CMOs and getting great feedback. Um, join the community, uh, the next cmo dot com. Tons and tons of great information up there, templates you can use, tips and tricks, articles, um, thought leadership, pieces that are posted in the community. All free for you to use atthenext CMO.com. so thanks again and we'll see you on a future podcast.