The strategic pause: How to reset, focus on what matters, and win credibility with Angela Troccoli

Speaker A: The other kind of credibility loss trap that I see a lot of folks fall into is they, they just jump straight to activity, right? They don't actually articulate well. Even if they know the answer themselves. They don't articulate well, why are we doing this? And so they're communicating, let's say a campaign and we've got these assets and these events and this digital and you know, but they're not explaining where this is coming from. The problem that we're talking about, the customer that we're serving, the outcomes that we expect and how it will help sales make more money.

Speaker B: If you're, uh, a marketing leader and you find yourself overwhelmed with the amount of work, projects and what seems to be a never ending stream of new requests, but also find you're drifting away from your goals, the answer is never doing more. The solution in fact is to pause and step back so you can regain focus and clarity. In today's episode, I discuss with Angela Trocholi, global marketing executive, about how marketing leaders can regain their focus, how they can create the space for such a pause, how to align with their leadership team, bring them on board and so much more. Angela is a global marketing executive with deep expertise in product marketing and startup growth strategy. She has built and scaled marketing functions across industries and and is known for helping organizations evolve from scrappy startup operations to mature revenue driving machines. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you learned something new and please follow the show for more content. I'm Elena, your host and I'll catch you on the next one.

Speaker C: Hey Angela, good morning. Welcome to the Value Driven Marketing podcast.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me, Elena. I'm thrilled to be here.

Speaker C: Glad to have you here today. What are you working on these days?

Speaker A: Well, right now I'm leading marketing at ah, Revacore, which is a healthcare professional services company based at Nashville, Tennessee. I'm also, um, finishing up a book that I started writing almost two years ago, which is hard to imagine. It's coming out this summer. So I'm very excited about that project.

Speaker C: Do you have a title for the book yet and what is the book about?

Speaker A: Yes, the title of the book is Signals and the book captures some of the top missteps that marketing leaders take, including myself, and really how to diagnose them. So how to identify, hence signals, the uh, the problem that you're experiencing, how to really diagnose it, why are we here? And then how to solve for it. And as part of the process of writing the book, I actually interviewed almost two dozen other marketing leaders across industries and geographies to learn from their lessons. Right, so what were the common challenges you had? How did you solve for it? Um, and I'm really, really excited with how it came together. So yeah, it was a labor of love and I'm really thrilled that it's finally coming to fruition.

Speaker C: It sounds like very interesting stories will be in the book. So very um, curious to read it.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker C: I do want to know a bit more about your journey in marketing. You have an extensive and rich career. You've led marketing at ah, different organizations. So I'm curious to learn more about your journey. How did you get started in marketing and where are you today?

Speaker A: You know, it's funny because I get asked the question, do you always know you want to be a marketer? And my answer was no. I actually came into marketing organically, uh, through the operating side of the business. So I started my career in global demand planning and supply chain logistics, R and D and product management, which arguably is probably as far away from marketing as you could probably get in a business. But what I liked about that origin is that it really gave me some early exposure into business growth, expectations, constraints, what success looks like for different departments. So that over time, as I started gravitating more towards product marketing revenue mark and marketing leadership, I, um, already kind of had this, this knowledge or this kind of feeling that it was more about campaigns. It was more than um, more than content. It was about creating value, it was about supporting decision making, bringing different teams together, helping leadership really see where grove could, could come from. And that was, I think, um, something that really set me apart from other team members and really other marketing leaders is that I kind of had a lens from different points of view within the company.

Speaker C: Yeah, that sounds really interesting. So throughout your career, what would you say are the most common challenge challenges that you see marketing marketing teams, um, face?

Speaker A: Um, I think the biggest challenge or issue that I see a lot of marketing teams making right now is loss of focus. So um, they're, they're being really reactive. They're kind of checking the box on a list of marketing tactics, but it's not necessarily connected. And I would argue that, you know, most marketing teams kind of get into this almost kind of cycle of just activity because objectives just keep getting buried by leadership requests, uh, urgency that's coming from other departments, internal politics or just unexamined assumptions. Right. When, when leadership makes very declarative statements around, you know, here's where the market is heading or here's this New great thing that marketing can do, Go do it. You know, there's a fear of saying no.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: And I think a lot of that really stems from not having a clear or shared definition of the value and the purpose, uh, of marketing within the organization. Right. There's so many leaders who don't understand why marketing. And if you can't articulate that question as a marketing leader, it's really, really difficult to get your own initiatives prioritized. I also see lack of alignment around measures of success, so it kind of like ties into that. And then again, you've got some M folks making declarative statements, but they may not necessarily be anchored in the customer and the customer truth. And so it can really start to warp. What are we working on? What is our strategy? And when you get into that cycle, that is, it is a recipe for disaster and for failure. So I would, I would always caution, if you feel that you're in this, this mode of just keep going, keep going, so stop, something is wrong. This is not how marketing should feel.

Speaker B: Hm.

Speaker C: And in a way, I mean I, I'm experiencing this sometime from time to time and stopping feels like, oh, this is going to be a waste of time where, when actually it shouldn't be. So how do we balance back to that place of intention and focusing back on, on the strategy?

Speaker A: Yeah, it does, it does take an intentional pause. And I've done that before, right. I've actually come into organizations and seen this environment and gone to my leadership and said, look, um, in order for us to course correct and for it to not feel jarring and for not for it to not take forever, we have to pause. We actually have to intentionally stop doing work, pushing out content, launching campaigns, sending emails so that we can level set on what is our strategy like, why are we here? How do we measure what good looks like and align it to what, what the business is looking for and usually you're going to tie it to things like pipeline and revenue and how do we get there? Is it with our current team, do we need to reassess? Do we need to bring on some new talent? Is it with our current tech stack, do we need to maybe swap things out to make things a little bit more nimble or aligned with the direction that we want to take? Do we have the right foundational messaging in place, foundational insights in place to actually make the right decisions and have them feel data backed so that we, we feel confident with what we're doing and that that doesn't happen overnight. It takes Time. And what I will say is it is next to uh, impossible to do that if you are also creating content, launching emails, running campaigns. You cannot do both at the same time. And when I have sat down leaders to explain, I need to pause for this amount of time. Here's what I'll be doing in that amount of time. Then we will do this. Then we will do this. I've frankly not had resistance because they understand this has to change. And I've even had that conversation with sales teams and this is when you really know that maybe a change is needed. When I articulated to a sales team, I will not send emails for the next two months and they said I'm okay with that.

Speaker C: Wow.

Speaker A: Right? That is telling. Right. And so give yourself the space. Right. If your sales team is like, I don't care, there's a lot of work to be done and um, and there's a good opportunity for you to have a very tangible reset. Right. And then usually the team feels when the engines back up and running and that is an incredible feeling because you start to rebuild that trust and credibility. And I would definitely advise at least having the conversation with your leadership and say I need to pause.

Speaker C: Yeah. And it makes sense that you are giving them basically context and uh, some sort of predictability into what exactly happened, what you'll do in that pause time. So that makes a lot of sense. And I also, it takes a lot of, or a little bit of self trust, uh, to articulate that you need a pause. Um, and related to that, I'm wondering a lot of marketers and marketing team teams lose credibility really fast or probably they never had it. And so why you think that is and what would you advise marketers to do in order to regain it?

Speaker A: Yeah, I um, I have seen this and I, I would say that at the core a lot of folks don't really understand what marketing is.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Right. I have actually, and I'm serious, I have done like Marketing 101 Boot Camps for my C suite at different companies simply to explain. And again, these are, these are operational leaders, revenue leaders, product experts. Their job is not to be an expert in marketing. So we have to give them a lot of grace as well. Right. But to explain, here's what marketing does, here's the nomenclature that we use and how we translate it to your speak in your. Whether you're a CFO or an operational leader. Here's how that translates. Here are the metrics that we use to measure success internally. Here are the metrics we use to measure Success with you and your objectives. And in every single one of those instances, being able to explain what we do and why it matters and how it affects them, and also what we don't do has been very, um, eye opening. And I would say game changing in that relationship. If, if you haven't already done that or you're starting to sense that they literally don't know what marketing is, I would recommend in the, in the most respectful way saying, hey, would it be helpful if we walked through this? Right. The other kind of credibility loss trap that I see a lot of folks fall into is they, they just jump straight to activity, right? They don't actually articulate well. Even if they know the answer themselves. They don't articulate well, why are we doing this? And so they're communicating, let's say a campaign, and we've got these assets and these events and this digital and, you know, but they're not explaining where this is coming from. The problem that we're talking about, the customer that we're serving, the outcomes that we expect and how it will help sell sales, make more money, right? If you don't do that, then people's eyes will glaze over and you will lose credibility because it just feels like busy work, uh, with no connection to the bottom line or the strategic goals of the company. And so if I can give some recommendations for, like, here's, here's how I might suggest winning that credibility back. First and foremost, know your own strategic direction as a marketer. I've actually been told by other marketing leaders, like, well, I wasn't given this strategy. Okay, that is, that is a problem. You will not be given the strategy. You've been hired to define it. Now, you should know what the business outcome objectives are at the very highest level. But it's still your job to crosswalk that to what you will be doing and how you'll be contributing to it. And sometimes an easy way to do that. I've literally said, okay, my pillar. Like, we want brand voice or brand authority to be a key pillar for the business. We want revenue growth to be a key pill pillar for the business. How does marketing support that? And I will actually walk into a meeting with my CEO and say, this is what you want. Here's how I do it. For a cfo, this is what you want. Here's how I do it. It really helps you have, like, a waterfall from the top line, but it also helps them understand, why is she doing this. So tying it to those outcomes is critical. And then for your Team align, uh, everything that they're doing with that same strategy so that if someone asks them and they have a credibility issue, they already have the confidence and the talk track to be able to connect it to priorities. I think if you can, if you can set the stage like that, it really helps build credibility because then you're just delivering as opposed to constantly explaining why. Right. Like bring the team along with you. I think people worry either it's going to slow things down or they don't get it, I'm just gonna do it. They can catch up. That is not the mentality. Bring them along with you, give them that grace and make them a partner. And you will be probably surprised how quickly you get that credibility back.

Speaker C: And now hearing, listening to you say that, I'm wondering how many marketing teams actually do this because I, at ah, least in my experience, experience we don't do that often enough. Yeah. For many different reasons. And speaking of teams and alignment, especially in B2B, marketing works or should work very closely with sales. And in one of our, in our previous conversation I heard you saying that marketing serves two audiences. One is sales and the other the customer. So how do you serve those audiences? Well, um, and balance that at some point, let's say a conflicting. Not interest.

Speaker A: But yeah, yeah, no, you're right. Conflicting interests. Right. I, I think that um, there's a, a very common kind of, and I would say misunderstanding that these two stakeholders are in conflict with each other.

Speaker C: Mm mhm.

Speaker A: I believe that as a marketer, our primary job is to help set the customer up, um, for success and certainly in this day and age to help guide their decision making. Even if it's not to you. Right. That's, that is how you as a company gain trustworthiness. And that is critical because even if they're not a customer today, they might be a customer in a year. And you've already established that trust and that credibility with the market. They might refer you. Right. So like don't, don't sell the snake oil. Like be honest, help them make a decision. You be part of that journey. The problem there is that you also have a responsibility to the business to help set sales up for success. And I would say that my other, you know, help customers make decisions, help the company make more money faster. These have historically been at odds because as marketers we engage very early, um, or at least we should. And it's often way before the sales team is actually looking at this account as qualified leaders as a prospect. Right. And what they want, the types of content and activities that sales is looking for, like slides and one pagers is often or has historically been at odds with what we would want to serve up as a, uh, an ROI calculator or an infographic to help guide decision making. So when you look at kind of this old way of doing marketing and of this disconnect between sales and marketing, you know, again, you're not bringing them along. Right. So this is like that old way of doing it. There's going to be a conflict, Sales is going to get frustrated or customers are going to be underwhelmed with what you're serving up to them. And the worst thing that happens is you have this marketing narrative that draws the customer in. Sales is completely disconnected from it. They show up with one pager or a deck that has nothing to do with the white paper. Maybe that brought this customer in. And I've actually had this happen. I've had this conversation on a win loss interview where the customer said to me, we lost. And the customer said to me, I didn't even know who I was talking to. It m felt like two different narratives, two different companies. This was a few companies ago. It's not my current, um, but that was a big shock to me. Like, wow, right? So again, it might take a reset, it might take some sales enablement. But what's critical is that you're actually mapping the customer journey to the sales journey and that you're bringing the sales team along with you and showing them that I'm going to help you win more deals. I'm going to give you the things you want, but you're also going to be aware of the things the customers are looking at. And we're going to do this together so that this handoff feels like we're running a marathon. Right. I'm passing you the baton and it's a very visual baton that I'm giving you. If you can create that type of relationship, whether it's with your account executives or your BDR team, um, that really, I think allows you as a marketer to serve both stakeholders optimally.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And get the best possible outcomes. But it does take work and it really does take that visual representation. Here is the customer journey, here is the sales journey. Here's how the content and the engagement matches. Are we good? I do think it requires that exercise.

Speaker C: And I think oftentimes sales don't necessarily have this picture. And so if you're able to paint it for them, uh, and make it very real, I think that can help bring them along on the journey, as you said.

Speaker A: Exactly. You know, it's funny, it makes me think of what we were talking about a little bit earlier in terms of credibility. And I, you know, I shared the anecdote of having to do some education on what is marketing. Right. Sometimes as marketers, we get a little cocky, and I think it's okay.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: You know, it's also frustrating to be told you make things look pretty, and so it's easy for us to get a chip on our shoulders and saying, you just don't get it. And so I'm not going to even waste my time. But unfortunately, when that happens over and over and over again, these walls come up between marketing and every other department. You lose credibility, you lose trust. And frankly, if you don't have those, marketing's not going to be as successful. Sales is still the one that closes the deal. Right. So even if you get that client all the way, sales still has to close the deal. And if there's a disconnected marketing, your win ratio will probably be lower. If you bring them along and you make them a partner in the marketing that you're doing and you treat them as an equal. It is amazing how the dynamic shifts. And I have actually experienced this and had a, uh, sales leader tell me I've never experienced this type of marketing before. You didn't just hand me a deck and say, figure out how to pitch it. You engaged me through the process and we built it together, and now I love it. I'm like, great, that's how this should work. So I think, you know, the more that we are open and, and kind of get a little bit more on the offense instead of defense, I think the better setup will be as marketers.

Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I'm wondering what should the marketing leader. So what is the healthy and strong foundation that a marketing leader should establish first before going into implementation? Campaigns delivering, uh, what is that? What does that foundation look like?

Speaker A: I think that, um, it's a great question. I would say even beyond campaigns, before you start using AI, like, take a beat. A clear definition of who you are as a company and who you serve and why it matters. It is amazing how often, if you ask different people in a company, a sales leader, a product leader, a marketing leader, maybe even a customer success leader, you will get different answers. Get every one of those leaders around a table, and even if it takes an afternoon, align on what is our definition? If you can do just that, you will solve a lot of downstream problems that marketers and sales and product and customer Success all feel because if there's a disconnect at one point in time, the customer's pissed off at one of you four. Right. Get, uh, at least once in their journey with you, they're pissed off because marketing doesn't get it. They're pissed off because sales is, you know, telling them a different narrative. They're pissed off because product didn't actually deliver the thing that they got contracted. They're pissed off because customer success doesn't understand what sales sold them. Like, if you guys are not on the same page, you are upsetting the customer at every possible step of the

Speaker C: journey, getting them confused, getting them super

Speaker A: confused and just frustrated. And so that's, that is number one before you start anything. And then once you are clear on that kind of what is the problem you solve and why is your approach different? That is going to inform a lot of your messaging, a lot of your content, your, your target accounts, the channels that you sell through. It's, it's important to know, um, how you're positioning your business and your product and then how does the business, your customer's business, win when you sell for it? And make sure that you have defendable proof points that you can put up there. One thing that I've heard is like, why are you differentiated? We're differentiated because we have great customers. That's not a differentiation. Like, how do you defend that? Someone could easily take that customer. Yeah, right. What is it about you that is different? And then how do you actually deliver value? And can you defend those proof points? Is it statistically relevant? Do you have enough customers that are willing to give a testimonial or a reference for it once? If you don't have those pieces, it doesn't mean you can't start, but man, does it make it hard. Yeah, right. Especially if you think about the whole purpose of marketing is to support decision making. Aren't those questions that you would ask? Right.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And so if you don't have the answers to them, it does make it really hard to set up a journey in a way that the customer feels confident.

Speaker C: Yeah. In choosing your business.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker C: Um, and speaking of, you know, priorities. So how can marketing leaders defend their priorities? If you like, when a lot of work comes their way, a lot of urgent things, new opportunities, new experiments to do, how do you defend your priorities?

Speaker A: Your CEO just read a book and it, and it said something really cool about X and now they want to go do it and you're like, oh my gosh, stop giving the man books. Uh, that is a very real problem. Um, so I get this question a lot. And I've gotten it from marketing leaders and I've gotten it from young marketers. It is really uncomfortable to see say no, especially when the person asking is superior to you, even if they're not on the same team.

Speaker C: It is.

Speaker A: It is uncomfortable. And, and I will be the first. I don't like confrontation. I don't like to say no. Right. Um, so what I generally leaned into. And, and I'm actually being serious. This is something that I picked up from improv. So I used to do improv.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: When I was in graduate school. And one of my absolute favorite things in improv is the sketch. That's yes. And. And so I lean a lot into the yes. And because it feels good, it feels nice. People don't realize you're telling them no. And so you kind of position it as a trade off statement. Uh, yes, I can do that. And to make room for it, we will need to stop this priority. Are you comfortable with that? Right. Or if you're working on something for another department, another stakeholder. Yes, I can do that. I'm currently prioritizing for Elena that I expect to have it ready by end of this week. Can this wait? But if not, should I let Katie know that I have to do this instead or Elena know that I have to do this instead? Right. So you're kind of, you're putting the burden, and I don't mean this in a negative way, but you're putting it on them, you know, And I feel like a lot of times as marketers, we feel like we have to figure out how we get it done. No, we don't. No one said that. They're asking for something that wasn't on the list already. They should help you decide. How are you going to get it done? You're still doing them a favor. It's just more around within. What guardrails Are you going to do that favor?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I, I have one example of this real example where I was asked by my leader at the time to create a total economic impact report, which is not a small piece of thought leadership. And I thought, okay, great, let me work with a firm to do that. What's my budget? You have no budget. I want you to do it. Gosh, that's a lot. Do you realize what you're asking of me? Yes, I totally know. I think you can get it done. And I need it in three months. I'm like, okay. And I knew in my head, if I just say flat out, no, it's a fight, right?

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Okay, I'm going to put together a little project plan for you to show you what it will take to get exactly that done, um, in three months. And I'm also going to put together a list of the priorities that I will have to put aside to get this done just so that you have that visibility. I don't want you to be surprised.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: The next day we got together and I showed him everything. The interviews, the customers I would talk to, the places that I would travel, how exactly I would make it work. I had competitive examples, like I took it seriously because if at the end of the day he said yes, then I had a project plan and then I showed him the list of things that I would stop doing. And he was like, whoa, so then we're not going to do the report. I'm like, if you say so, up to you. And we didn't because he knew it was not worth not doing all of the other priorities that we had. Now that is an extreme example. And I wouldn't expect someone to put together a PowerPoint presentation every time they wanted to say no. But I think if you can show the, the current, you know, trade offs, it really, really helps them understand. And again, you're not saying saying no, you are saying yes, but you're leaning in and helping them be part of the solution.

Speaker C: And I think it's your responsibility in a way to show them, you know, what you're working on, what you would have to stop doing in order to pick up on the new thing. And so I feel I will steal the yes and in order to make room for that.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker C: Really good. But yeah, it feels like a lot of times you just feel, okay, I have no option, I have to say yes and just go for it. I'm wondering what's a good question or a good set of questions to ask before taking on new work, new, uh, activity, new projects, new campaigns.

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, so I think the most important thing to do first is to understand the why, but from the context of the customer. So before launching anything, I really prefer to have more of an outside in view of the why. Now, even before starting a strategic marketing plan, I want to understand the outside in view. Why are we here? What are we doing it for? How do we kind of work within this, this market? So what do we know about the customer? And not what do we assume, what do we literally know? And I say that very critically because it is amazing to me, especially when you have Folks that have been in a company for a little bit longer, maybe they're one of the founders or they're one of the first sales guys they know.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: They make declarative statements and it is amazing how often we kind of dig in, look for the proof points. And that is not, maybe not true anymore. It might have been true at one point, but it's not true anymore today. And so it's our job to really confirm what do we know? What can we prove about the customer? There are problems that we're trying to solve for decisions that we're trying to influence. Then why now? If we're launching a new campaign, new product, a new initiative, why is it important to do now? Mhm. And then why us? So why now? Why us? And what would success look like for the customer and for us? If you can lay that out, I'd say go for it. And you feel good about the answers. There's a, there's a reason externally that this is important. It is urgent. We have earned the right to do it. Whether it's talk about a certain topic or launch a certain product. We're solving a problem. It's meaningful. There's impact that we can measure. Do it. But if you don't know the answer to those questions, you're kind of just guessing. There is a pretty high chance that you're going to spend a lot of money and not get anything back. So it's good to start there. I have, I've done those exercises where then we've gotten to the end and said, huh, huh. It doesn't seem like there's much there there. Let's not invest in this. And so it's, it's good to be able to have that kind of mini business case.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: So that you're not spending money. Because I would say marketers are probably seeing their budgets go down, not go up.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so the more often that you can feel really good about what you're spending money on, the better.

Speaker C: And because you spoke about value and creating value for the customer. Um, um, I'm wondering what should marketing leader, uh, leaders focus on or stop doing in order to keep their focus on creating value for the customer?

Speaker A: I love that it's sort of like what's, what's the immediate stop. Start. Continue for anybody today? So I would say stop confusing activity.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: With progress. And that is an obvious thing to say, I think to most people. But I don't believe that they realize how often they do it. So I would say stop chasing every Trend really rationalize. Does this make sense for my business, my product, my customer? We are not here to be content creators and influencers. Yes, sort of, but not in the same way. We don't just need the views, we need the conversion. And so stop chasing trends. In that same vein, stop measuring success by volume of activity. Um, I cannot tell you how often I have asked how we measure success at new companies I've joined. And the answer is this much content.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: This many emails, this many campaigns. And I'm like, wow, that's not. Like, how do you connect it to the business?

Speaker C: It feels tangible. It feels like something you can control. I can control how many emails I send, how many campaigns I put out. That's something that's under my control.

Speaker A: Control. Yeah, it's. It's scary. It's scary. You know, it's. I've seen a lot of. Not news per se, but like commentary around Struggling with attribution.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: With marketing attribution. Right. How do I make sure that I'm the one that did this and how do I measure my success? And you hit the nail on the head. If it's the number of things I'm doing, I'm in control. If it has to do with the conversion, I'm not in control. That's scary. I don't want that to be something that affects my compensation, my bonus, you name it. Right. And that's a normal thing to feel. Going back to what I said earlier with bringing people along, it is a team sport. And so how I've positioned it to. To my leadership is I'm not here to take credit for a commission. And I think sometimes that is the fear. You get this tension between marketing and sales and they're bickering over what source led to this deal closure. We are a team. We're all here to make money for the company. I am not working on commission. You, sales leader, are. I'm not here to take your commission. So let's just get that out of the way. I might have sourced it. You still got the commission. Are we good? Yes. And so aligning on that with our CRO, our CEO, our cfo and saying I still want to make sure that you guys know I'm doing a good job.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: But we're not taking away John's commission or Sally's commission. Right. Great. It is amazing how less you bicker when the money is not on the table.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: And so sure that they understand. I just want to know that I'm helping get you Qualified leads you can close. Right. I just want to know that that's actually working so that I can track it back to this campaign, this channel, this message, and keep doing that more and more for you. And then the doors tend to open quite a lot in terms of getting closer to attribution, understanding the actual performance of your work. And then it's a lot less scary to track it. So even though I'm kind of saying like track it, you have to do some upfront, like, discussion to make sure that people understand the, and the cadence and the conversations you're going to have. But if you bring everyone to the table and you make it clear we are going to reward outcomes, and here's how marketing does it, here's how we get that information, here's how we're going to report it out, here's what that means, then most people, at least in my experience, have said, okay, I get that, you know, the CEO understands, your CFO understands because that's the other stakeholder we didn't talk about. But he wants to know that you're spending money to make money. And so you need to show that that is happening. Right. And your sales team is comfortable because they know that you're not trying to take something from them.

Speaker B: Mhm. Mhm.

Speaker A: And that's important.

Speaker C: Which kind of, uh, makes me think about sharing the blame. I don't know if that's the right term, but when things don't go necessarily well, objectives are not met. There's always this, uh, you know, ball being thrown from sales marketing. Oh, you didn't do your bid. Did we reach everyone that we wanted to with our marketing campaigns? Oh, the CTR was low. Oh, no, you did a bad job on calling, not delivering the right pitch. So.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, it's such a good point. Didn't hit our outcomes, we didn't hit our goals. Instead of arguing where it was broken, what do we want to do differently? You know, and, and I think it's scary to be vulnerable as a marketer. There's the common adage of like you get 18 months as a head of marketing or a CMO. Well, it's six for a head of sales, so I do. It's even scarier. So like, we're in it together, right? Like, we need to make this work. And I think bringing them along, being really transparent, here is how things are performing. These are the really high quality leads, opportunities that I'm bringing to you. Are you happy with them? Are they working for you? Meet regularly.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: Semiannually. When you happen to have an off site. Right. Talk about it. Have those one on ones be, be as high level as you need to be sometimes as in the weeds as you need to be sometimes that salesperson should really be your best friend. You're in it together and I think if you can take that vulnerability away.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Um, and approach it as a we, then hopefully it'll address a lot of those he said, she said kind of conversations because no one likes that.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Right. That's not fun though.

Speaker C: Since we're here, I'm wondering, um, what advice would you give to a marketing leader that's they're trying to do their best and keep focused and make sure they deliver on the goals that they've um, assumed. What is your advice?

Speaker A: It is very difficult as a marketer to not feel overwhelmed right now.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: We are being asked to do so much and it is hard to not feel like it's just, it's too much. Right. I think that um, again I'm going to come back to it and just kind of broken record at this point. But this is often a symptom of misalignment between you and your peers. If they don't know your priorities, then it's, you know, they don't know they're asking for too much. Right.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Kind of taking, giving them a little bit of that grace and then also lack of strategy. So if you, if you don't know what your goals are, it's very difficult to know what matters. So I would say first advice, take a step back and ask what actually matters? What are we protecting and what can we let go of? Is this really moving the needle now? You need to actually be tracking impact in order to know what's moving the needle.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so a lot of, I would say that the risk that comes with just measuring activity is if all you're doing is measuring activity, it's very difficult to stop doing things. If you're measuring outcomes, then it's a lot easier to say this campaign wasn't successful, we wouldn't do it again. This content syndication was expensive and we got three leads. Let's move money somewhere else. Right? Yeah, but you have to do that. You have to be super intentional about what are you trying to do and how are you measuring success? How do you know that you got it done? I would then say there are certain frameworks that I've given to leaders that I've used. Uh, they're not mine, but I've shared with um, with my leaders. Um, with my teams. I actually write about them in my upcoming book because this is a big topic for marketers. My M2 favorite frameworks are um, the must, should, could, won't framework. So there's just four buckets and I kind of set it up like a little Kanban, like what am I going to do when. And then the Eisenhower matrix. So that's a two by two matrix where you have urgent on one side, important on the other. If it is urgent but not important, is it a priority? No. Um, if it's neither urgent nor important, get rid of it. Right. It's amazing how many things can fall there without you realizing it. And so taking the time every once in a while to take your long list of to dos and shove it into one of those frameworks is really valuable because it still feel good, feels good to check things off. You're just doing it because it's not important, right?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: The one thing I will add, because we haven't really talked about it yet, but I think it's important. Important is that in the era of AI right now it is really difficult and I actually think it's getting harder, not easier to operate. There's more of a sense of overwhelm than I've seen in a very long time. And I think that that's coming from this growing expectation from the industry, from our leadership, from our peers, that we should be able to do more, faster and with fewer resources. And if you're already in an organization where marketing is not well understood and you are seen as a team that makes things pretty.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: A team that polishes up decks and that is it, then adding AI to the mix is just compounding that perception. Right. So I would say that while AI ah can absolutely help, if you're just throwing it at the problem without that clear strategy and without clear goals, then it will only amplify the chaos that you are feeling. So, kind of going back to that question you asked earlier, starting with the foundation of knowing your customer, defining your strategy, setting clear priorities and having very, very clear messaging that everybody around that table is aligned to, that's something to build and then use AI to enhance and scale that work. And if you do it in that order, and that order is important, important, I think that you'll start feeling a lot of the um, the sense of overwhelm kind of melting away. To add to that, I actually had a conversation just this week with one of my employees, one of my staff and I asked how things were going when we first chatted. Maybe Five months ago, when I first joined the team, her response was, I'm really overwhelmed. It's a lot. And when I looked around at everything she was being asked to do, I was shocked. Cause it was too much. No one person should do all this work. But there was such a lack of understanding. And so what I had focused on for a few months was really redefining what are we here for? And when I chatted with her this week, I said, how are things going? She's like, great, I feel good. Like, uh, but you're busy. Like really busy. I've seen your, your, you know, your project list. Um, and she was like, yeah, but it's predictable M aligned strategy. I know why I'm doing it. Nothing is this hair on fire moment. And it was one of the most fulfilling moments I've had because I thought to myself that was the goal. That was why I took the break. That was why I put the strategy in place. That was why I did a reset and walked, you know, my, my colleagues through. Here's what marketing is and what marketing isn't. Because I wanted to get to this point, point, mhm. Where my team felt empowered and in charge of their own destiny at work and not overwhelmed. And to get there and to see it and feel it is, is one of the most charging, you know, positively charging things as a leader.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Is there anything you feel like I haven't asked and it's super relevant that we speak about.

Speaker A: I think the only other topic that comes up a lot for me, um, is how do you not just align with a CEO but also with a cfo?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, you mentioned that earlier, but we didn't go with it.

Speaker A: Budgets are under so much scrutiny right now. And when people don't understand what marketing does, it's really easy to just come at it with machete and, and cut as much as they can because they don't understand what it's delivering. That's not a new problem. I've actually been, you know, having to like Wrangle CFOs for 15 years. So that's not a new issue. But it's definitely, I think, uh, becoming more critical for marketing leaders to really own their destiny in that way and learn how to speak in the right language of a CFO and walk them through the impact and the pillars, associate pillars that each of your activities tie to so that it doesn't just feel like a list of, of tactics or of agencies, but it really feels like it's a part of your marketing strategy. Like the budget is not just this thing that we do that we spend money. The budget is actually part of the strategy. You know, this section of the strategy equals this direction of the budget. And, um, and I think if you can, if you can make that crosswalk, it makes it a lot easier. If they do want to have conversations about reducing this or reducing that, you can go right back to your strategy and say, okay, and then we won't deliver this.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: Which means we won't get this outcome. And so, you know, you kind of get right back into that.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: And I think having the confidence comes from being prepared and having that ready to go.

Speaker C: Well, thank you so much for adding this. Um, I think everything that you said. I'll listen back to the episode and I'm taking notes really, because a lot of valuable advice on how to actually build, uh, that credibility, which comes from not being, uh, yes man or yes woman, but rather from setting the priorities right and telling people what needs to happen in order to go to where we all want to go, achieve the goals that we've set out. Angela, this has been super interesting for me. Thank you so much. Fingers crossed on the book and let us know when it comes out. I'm definitely looking forward to reading it.

Speaker A: I will absolutely get you a copy. Thank you so much, Alina, for having me. This was really fun.