8 Resolutions for 2025: A Drew-on-Drew Special

Drew: Hello, Renegade Marketers! It’s time for another Drew on Drew episode. As we kick off the new year, I thought I’d get personal and share my eight resolutions for 2025. I hope you find these inspiring, enlightening, and maybe just a little bit fun.

Drew: Okay, Drew, nice setup. But what is your first resolution?

Drew: Thank you for asking. Number one is to keep on learning. I have a confession to make. I’ve said some really bad things about—mainly written about—CROs and PE firms this year. You may remember one of my things was a CMO was quoted as saying “I got PE’d.” I’ve kind of ranted a lot about them, and I’ve also sort of questioned CROs and whether or not CMOs should report to them. What the heck are they? What do they do? And I realized that a lot of this is based on ignorance, or certainly secondhand knowledge. So I’m going to fix that. I’ve lined up a bunch of conversations with both CROs and some PE firms, and hopefully some VC firms, so then I can actually learn what it is. If I’m right about them, okay, I’ll own it. If I’m wrong, I’ll get a little bit smarter because I’ll have knowledge. And look, in CMO Huddles community, these groups are very important, so we better know what we’re dealing with if we hope to work with them, work better, and make some brilliant marketing happen. Okay, so in addition to the learning framework, one of the great things about CMO Huddles is that every single month, we bring in expert folks in bonus Huddles and bestselling authors. So amazing. We had over 30 of those folks come in this year. I wanted to mention two of them, Liz Wiseman and Matt Abrahams, both of whom joined us at the Super Huddle and were really super people who folks enjoyed. So I’m going to keep on learning. I hope you all keep on learning. So that’s number one.

Drew: What is number two? That was pretty good. It was okay. We got to keep on learning. We got to stay curious. Great. Knew that.

Drew: So resolution number two is to think bigger and do better. Okay, so let me give you an example of that from 2024. I was talking to my friend out in Silicon Valley, Ajay Manglani, who is Chief Operating Officer of Tie Silicon Valley. And we were talking, and I said, “You know, I want to do a lunch huddle, a big maybe bigger one, maybe 20 people. Would you like to help?” And he said, “Drew, you’re not thinking big enough.” I said, “Well, what do you mean?” And he said, “Look, we’ve got this empty space. Why don’t you do a much bigger event?” And I saw the hook pen, I jumped on it, and the team jumped on it. And I have to say, it was a huge risk for us, but it worked out unbelievably well. It is something that I knew we had to do, but it just took someone to push us forward. We ended up not doing it at Ajay’s headquarters in Silicon Valley, but we ended up doing it at a fabulous hotel. So I want to remind myself, even when you’re thinking something can’t be done for whatever reason, you got to think bigger. You got to aim bigger. And so, yes, we’re going to do another Super Huddle in 2025, but maybe there’s something else that we could do bigger and do better.

Drew: Alright, that was pretty good. Yes, definitely. We’re going to keep learning, and we’re going to think bigger. What else you got?

Drew: Well, number three is, I’m going to manage my time better. And I’m actually going to start thinking about it. And I do this every year. I say, “God, your time management skills stink.” I start on it. I get a habit. Maybe this happens to you—like, I block out my email time, for example. I’m only going to do it twice a day, between 11:30 and 12 and 4:30 and 5, and I start there, and it works unbelievably well, and then I just abandon it for whatever reason.

So we always spend December in Huddles. We had some inspiring Huddles. And so part of thinking about time management is doing fewer, bigger things better. So we mentioned that in my previous resolution, but it’s also thinking about all the things that you can do from a time management standpoint. Can delegate more—I’ve got a fantastic team. We’ll get to them in a bit. Could do more batching. If you have bills to pay, pay them all at the same time each week. Love this one included in a write-up: “No agenda, no meeting.” That’s going to be for me, as well as for everyone on our team. We can do better there.

I’m going to revisit “Getting Things Done,” which is a book that I read years ago. I think it’s David Allen that was probably the one that was the most influential. I’m going back to that. I’m going to try the Pomodoro method—there’s a little app that you can do that gives you 25-minute sprints. And the idea is, you do a sprint for 25 minutes, and then you take a break and reward yourself for doing it. I tend to take a break, and then I work for five minutes. So we gotta flip those, and part of the thinking is we can concentrate for about 20-25 minutes, and then we need to take a break. So let’s take advantage of that.

Finally, scheduling my writing time at a time where my brain is working the best—typically, that’s in the mornings, and I need to be focused and ready. So blocking that time every week where I know this is my writing time. And then there are routines I need to do: turn the phone over, turn Slack off, turn email off, turn messaging off, because for me to get in the writing zone, I need to be there completely. And the last thing, by the way—I always write to classical music. If you have something that’s a trigger that helps you, have that too.

Drew: Okay, so managing time better is number three. Alright, that’s pretty good. So you got three good ones so far. What else you got for us in resolution standpoint?

Drew: Alright, this one, number four is invest more in partnerships. I’ve already mentioned Ajay and the Super Huddle and Tie, but let’s just go. The headline here is “double the pleasure, double the fun.” We have all sorts of partners—over 20—who have amazing expertise that we like to work with, to absorb from, and to share. So I mentioned the Super Huddle. We partnered with Tie Silicon Valley. They helped us recruit folks. They marketed with us. They provided introductions to some great speakers. Fantastic partnership. And I think they got tremendous value out of it. So you’re always trying to find partnerships where there’s a good give-to-get.

I want to thank our partner, Spiralize, who helped us redo our whole page, and it really was quite transformative for us. I want to thank our partner, Growth Natives. They did our website migration in 2024 from Renegade to RenegadeMarketing.com. It was easy, and they continue to help us with HubSpot integration. So that’s another fantastic partnership. Prism is a company that helps us with just looking at our HubSpot usage and how we’re doing it. Of course, we have ways of reciprocating, and that’s really important. Jacob Moore, a great partner, was at the Super Huddle but has also joined us for several transition team meetings, helping us help the folks in our smaller community of folks in transition, and really appreciate Jacob’s wisdom that he shared.Okay, so we’re gonna invest more in partnerships.

Drew: Next. What do you got? What’s number five?

Drew: I had this funny thing. I think I’m a funny person, or can be a funny person. I just forget in the middle of work, I am like all work, and I don’t know if this happens to you or not, but I just forget, and there’s like a little switch that I need to turn on to keep things lighter internally, because if you’re just all work all the time, you’re really no fun. So finding opportunities to inject humor and keeping things light internally with our programs and even externally with the writing. Could we find some way to just not be so serious in the writing? I try to keep it engaging, but I think I could add a little more humor.And then again, I just didn’t add any humor. All right. But you know the idea—try to keep it light.

Drew: Okay, that one’s good. I don’t think you’re gonna succeed, but yeah, go for it. Keep on. Alright. What else you got?

Drew: Well, number six is stay positive. And this really isn’t much of a resolution for me, in the sense that I’m kind of a positive person, if you know me, but in the 45 or so consecutive Saturday LinkedIn posts, I have tended to be a little negative, and I tend to rant and whine on behalf of CMOs and marketing. And you know, honestly, there’s a lot to whine about. It’s a very tough market, and there’s a lot of magical thinking out there, but nonetheless, I still have to find a way to be positive within this sort of negative cloud. So we’re going to try. I can’t guarantee on that one, and I would welcome your input on how I can stay more positive about the world and our little microcosm of B2B marketing.

Drew: Okay, staying positive. Love it. Yeah, that’s you. You should be able to do that. When hardly even worth it as a resolution, but you did, so there it is. Okay, moving on. What do you got? What’s number seven?

Drew: So one of the things I’d really like to do is do more for the three nonprofits I support the most. That’s Duke, Urban Green Council, and the Global Penguin Society. I’ll go through one at a time. With Duke, I no longer have a formal role. I was on the board, but I still am helping students when they do outreach, helping them with their South by execution, with their entertainment meeting, the arts program, but what I really most want to do is help Dukies, young Dukies, the students, understand that there are careers like marketing out there, and so I can find ways to do that a little bit more with my time.

Okay. Number two is Urban Green Council. Been on the board now 12 years and just renewed. So I’m grateful for that, and the fact that I get to be working with these folks who are helping to have New York City be the leader in green building, and it’s really kind of phenomenal what they’ve been able to accomplish. And I’m excited to help them pursue their mission.

And then lastly, I see the penguin on the hat and so forth, is the Global Penguin Society. This is an organization dedicated to studying and educating the world on penguins and why they’re so important to the world’s ecosystem. Why they’re a bellwether, ecological bellwether, because they live on land and sea. Huddles is proud to donate 1% of our revenue, not profits—revenue—and we’re still looking to introduce them to someone at Monson where the Pittsburgh Penguins and Warner Brothers, the producers of Happy Feet. Could you do me a favor and introduce me, because I want to help them raise some money to do some of the fantastic work that they’re doing?

Drew: Alright, that was number seven, more stuff for penguins. All you penguin fans out there, you know, send me some great videos of penguins too. Okay, what’s your last one?

Drew: I hope this one resonates with you all. Number eight is express more gratitude. I’m so grateful to the CMO Huddles team: Melissa Caffrey, who leads the program—nothing would happen without Melissa; Laura Parkyn, who runs our partner program and so many other things in the content areas—terrific contributor, grateful for Laura; Ishar Cuevas, who managed to keep our podcast and so much of our content moving; and Elie, who takes care of everything, all the little stuff. So I’m super grateful for them.

I’m grateful to our board of advisors of CMO Huddles, all eight of you. You’re fantastic people. Appreciate your quarterly input and your ongoing input and your support. I’m grateful to the 30 experts who joined us on bonus Huddles and career Huddles, including Matt Abrahams and Liz Wiseman, who I already mentioned, and we have another great group lined up.

And finally, I’m grateful to you all listening to my diatribes here and reading my rants on LinkedIn every Saturday. And I just feel kind of fortunate. As an old friend of mine from second grade would say, “Neisser, you are the luckiest person in the world,” and I truly believe it, and I am grateful that all of you take the time to listen to my interviews and what I have to say.

So here’s to a fantastic 2025—one filled with gratitude, positivity, maybe a little more humor, and a lot of learning. I’m Drew Neisser, that’s your Drew on Drew episode. Peace out.

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Show Credits

Renegade Marketers Unite is written and directed by Drew Neisser. Hey, that’s me! This show is produced by Melissa Caffrey, Laura Parkyn, and Ishar Cuevas. The music is by the amazing Burns Twins and the intro Voice Over is Linda Cornelius. To find the transcripts of all episodes, suggest future guests, or learn more about B2B branding, CMO Huddles, or my CMO coaching service, check out renegade.com. I’m your host, Drew Neisser. And until next time, keep those Renegade thinking caps on and strong!