The First 90 Days Just Got Faster

[00:00:00] Hello, Renegade marketers. If this is your first time listening, welcome. If you're a regular listener, welcome back.

[00:00:07] You're about to listen to a recording from CMO Huddle Studio, our live show featuring the flocking awesome B2B marketing leaders of CMO Huddles. In this episode, Paige O'Neill, Scott Gordon, and Ali McCarthy share what it takes to start strong in a new CMO role. They discuss why the first 90 days are all about listening hard, checking what you heard in the interview process against reality, and getting aligned quickly on business goals, team needs, and where marketing can make the biggest impact.

[00:00:42] It's a lot. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. You'll be supporting our quest to be the number one B2B marketing podcast. All right, let's get to it

[00:00:55] Welcome to Renegade Marketers Unite, possibly the best weekly podcast for CMOs and everyone else looking for innovative ways to transform their brand drive, demand, and just plain cut through proving that B2B does not mean boring to business. Here's your host and chief marketing Renegade Drew Nier.

[00:01:24] Welcome to CMO Huddle Studio, the live streaming show dedicated to inspiring B2B awesomeness. I'm your host, drew Nier live from my home studio in New York City. Today we're taking a fresh look at the first 90 days of the CMOs tenure, not to establish its critical importance. We've done that. We had Michael Watkins, we've had lots of other CMOs talk about it, but now we're really focused on exploring how AI is accelerating.

[00:01:52] Everything from discovery to execution to performance expectations, it's a lot, it's a lot of change that's happening now. And fortunately for you, we've got three CMOs who recently started at new gigs who can share, how things have changed in the, in the first 90 days. So with that. Let's bring on Paige O'Neill, CMO of CultureAmp and an industry expert who's grace our stage before to delve into the topics of B2B virtual events and driving big change.

[00:02:21] Hello Paige. Wonderful to see you again.

[00:02:23] Hello Drew. Great to be here. Great to be back.

[00:02:26] So, um, how are you and where are you This fine day.

[00:02:30] I'm great. I'm in Pleasanton, California where we're having a heat wave. It's gonna be 90 degrees today so there you go.

[00:02:37] 90 degrees. Yeah.

[00:02:38] It's crazy. You look at the weather map and it's record highs and record lows. It's, it's a, it's a bizarre thing happening out there. Anyway, we're moving on and we're focused on the first 90 days, so talk a little bit about. you know, we know that the first 90 days can shape a lot that follows. I mean, this is not your first, uh, CMO gig.

[00:02:58] You know how that important that timeframe is. How did you approach that window when you joined CultureAmp?

[00:03:06] Yeah. And, uh, I've, I've been a CMO multiple times. Uh, the first 90 days is so critical to getting off to a good start coming into the organization, and the way that I usually approach it is I, I wanna make sure that what I heard during the interview process, you're gonna, you're gonna hear during the interview process certain themes.

[00:03:25] They've hired you for a reason, and so I wanna make sure in that first 90 days. That what I heard during the interview is the same as what I am observing and hearing as I'm going across the organization. So what, what, what are the opportunities? what is the low hanging fruit? why did they hire me?

[00:03:42] I've read a good tidbit somewhere that it's always good to ask the question, why did I get this job versus other candidates? To make sure that you're prepared to do the thing that they hired you for and that you're prioritizing that. So I think that's so important in the first, the first few days.

[00:03:57] Hopefully I'm, I'm guessing that the responses to that question, why did your hiring weren't too big a surprise?

[00:04:03] Yeah. Well, no, no. Can can be, can be an interesting, I mean, you usually know, but it's always good to ask, why did I get this ju Because, you know, typically it comes down to you in a final candidate.

[00:04:13] Why did they choose you for the role? Right. It's interesting to ask that question. and, and then that helps you align your priorities. 'cause you pretty quickly wanna go across the organization. Listen, make sure you understand the priorities, understand and assess the team. Do any change outs need to happen?

[00:04:28] Do we need to augment the team anywhere? What are the critical gaps? and are you aligned with the executive team and the rest of the business on what you think the priorities are versus what they think they are? If not, then there's some work to do.

[00:04:41] And so sometimes we've heard this form, so you've.

[00:04:44] Done your listening tour, which you're doing in a accelerated pace. You're assessing the team to make sure you have the right people in the right spot based on your past experience. But the alignment with the executive team is often tricky because they might know, not know how marketing works, right? and yet.

[00:05:04] Most of the time it's, we wanna grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. We want to grow faster than we did before, and often it's not a marketing challenge. So I'm just curious in terms of as, as you approach this, was there anything that surprised you in the first 90 days?

[00:05:22] Anything that, well, I don't know that anything surprised me.

[00:05:25] I mean, I, I, I think that the good news is, is what I heard during the interview process was, was very much what I observed when I came into the business. I guess the thing that surprised me was actually a good surprise in, for the most part was that there were a lot more leads and revenue source to marketing than I had originally.

[00:05:44] Thought. And so that was kind of, on the one hand it was a good problem to have, but on the other hand, is that a symptom of a pipeline that maybe needs to be strengthened a bit from other sources. So that was probably the biggest surprise.

[00:05:55] Interesting. So marketing was actually performing, above what you thought I was doing.

[00:05:59] So, which is an interesting one because there are oftentimes where things are working and you feel the need to change it just because you're the new. Person. And so that's gotta be a tough temptation to fight as well. so I'm curious in this and I, I, uh, we're balancing easy fixes, hard fixes and impact.

[00:06:20] In the first 90 days, and I'm wondering how you look at that and assess those sort of easy fixes, sort of quick wins. Michael Watkins talked about easy fixes that weren't necessarily so consequential but you demonstrate a quick win. I, yeah.

[00:06:37] And

[00:06:37] I, I, I think, you know, the first thing too, and you, you mentioned this a little bit before, is, um, and another good tidbit I, I picked up somewhere along the way is that, you know, don't assume that your predecessor was an idiot. I think, you know, it's, it's easy to go in and think, oh.

[00:06:50] Person was here before and they did all these things, and I'm gonna change them. And, and I certainly made that probably mistake earlier in my career of just thinking, oh, I'm gonna make change for change's sake. But in the case of CultureAmp, my predecessor was very much not an idiot. She did a, an amazing job.

[00:07:05] and set up an amazing demand gen and, and pipeline generation organization. And so looking at the, the, the balancing, the quick wins, which I agree, you always wanna come in with a quick win. What I tend to do is I look for either things that the team has been trying to get off the ground, that they've been held back for some reason, that I think are gonna make an impact.

[00:07:24] And so there's already been work done. The team's already excited about it, and you can get a quick win with the team because you accelerate the project They've been trying to get off the ground. And you can get a quick win with a business because there's a lot of headway that's already happened. And so it can short circuit the results.

[00:07:38] And so I tend to look for those and there are always those projects around. And, and in terms of the long term understanding, alright, where are the areas where we're gonna need to invest in, in most organizations today in marketing, it's around ai. And how can we leverage new technologies that are coming out to get us the longer term impact that we're gonna have, and then how do we speed that up and align that with what the executives are expecting?

[00:08:03] Because as we know, all executives usually think they understand marketing and they're expecting to get bigger wins probably sooner than is realistic. So you have to balance all of that together.

[00:08:14] I have to highlight a couple of things or, or stick it, but one is the predecessor thing. I, I have to say in my observation, about 80% of the time, the assumption is they were doing things wrong.

[00:08:26] That's why I'm here. And maybe there were 30% of the things that could have been done better, but it's rarely 80%. Yeah. Right. Where, where, where, like everything was. was wrong. but I love this idea of going to the team and finding out what projects they held back. what a joy that must have been to hear from your team.

[00:08:45] They must have gone. Oh my God, nobody's ever asked us that before. that's a great way of saying, I care about your ideas. I'm hoping that you can contribute and let's make some stuff happen together. That's amazing. Yeah. They must have been really excited.

[00:08:59] Yeah, it's, it's, like I said, it's a great way to get the team all in as well, because in there, there, and I've never had the case where this, there wasn't one or two or more of these projects lurking about where the team had done a lot of work.

[00:09:10] They had an idea, for whatever reason, it hadn't gotten off the ground, they couldn't get budget, and they're disappointed. And so coming in and unlocking that can just immediately lead to them being excited that you're even more excited that you're there.

[00:09:23] Yeah. No, it's, it's such a good thought and, and again, it's fresh, uh, to me in, in all the conversations we've had, uh, over the years about first sight.

[00:09:34] So thank you for that. the last point that you made about. AI and unlocking it. Um, we're gonna come back to, in the rest of the show 'cause there's a lot, and I really do wanna emphasize as we move forward in this, in the show, that AI is changing. 'cause I remember when you and I talked about even your prep for your interviews.

[00:09:53] Yeah. was, you know, you had terrific help from ai Right. Just to get the job.

[00:09:58] Yeah. And, and I, it's, it's completely changed. And with this job, I think this is the first time that I observed it to this, to this extent. I leveraged it from every step of the process. From, first of all, during the interview, the only thing that, and I, I didn't, I only interviewed with two companies before I took this job, and, but both interviews were very focused on.

[00:10:21] AI expertise or ai, I, I guess curiosity is a better word, right? I don't think there are really any quote unquote experts quite yet. But curiosity around ai. Ideas around ai, so navigating the interview process was something that AI was. Forward in and then preparing for the interview. I leveraged ai. I had to make a final presentation, leveraged AI extensively to, to pull that together and called that out during the presentation that I'd leveraged ai because I, you know, I wanted to demonstrate that I was able to do that, and so I don't think we should be fearful of saying that we're leveraging it.

[00:10:52] Right. then coming into the business onboarding, it was a revelation. That's probably where I saw the biggest impact. Was the ability to synthesize. I, I'm able to synthesize things, uh, fairly quickly. It's a, a skillset that I, that I have anyway, but AI just took that to a whole new level with all the notes and transcribing, pulling out key themes, some of them that I'd missed, and, developing personas for or, um, um, agents thought partners for different executive team members that allowed me to get to know them better.

[00:11:21] All of those things accelerated the onboarding substantially.

[00:11:24] I love it.

[00:11:25] Well, and yeah, and you were nice enough to come back to the transition team and share that process and I think a lot of it woke up a lot of folks. Alright, we'll be back to you, but now it's, uh, let's bring on Scott Gordon, who is the CMO of HG Insights and who is joining the show for the very first time.

[00:11:40] Hello Scott and welcome.

[00:11:42] Thank you. Thank you, drew. Great to be here.

[00:11:44] How are you and where are you this find day?

[00:11:47] Like Paige? I'm in California. I'm actually in the Central Coast, and we are also experiencing some heavy heat. Uh, but it's, uh, but, you know, can't complain. I like the summer, so it's all good.

[00:12:00] Alright. Yes. Well, um, let's talk about you, um, stepping into the CMO role at HG Insights and, you know, what were your priorities?

[00:12:10] Yeah. So, uh, you know, Paige is spot on in terms of. Definitely trying to get the lay of the, of the land and see how, how distance it was between your interview process and what you gleamed there, uh, versus actually, uh, getting in, uh, and seeing it firsthand.

[00:12:25] Usually it's not such a see change of difference, uh, but I, I always look at four things. I look at, Hey, what's the real business objectives and the pipeline commits. what's the budget allocation and is there a demand gen model? If not, we need one. what's the team initiatives? What's their sentiment?

[00:12:42] and how's their performance? Uh, what's the perceptions of others of the team and also the team leaders themselves, uh, getting that feedback. And then last but not least. Uh, really getting, uh, alignment with sales and rev ops. So those are the four things, no matter what. Again, like Paige, I've been a, a, a multi-time, uh, CMO, that's what I focus on first.

[00:13:02] So. Yeah, let's talk about those sort of one by one because I, I, you know, again, you can't do all of those at once and, and you we're only talking 90 days, so, while you're, you're sort of listening. Yeah.

[00:13:14] Yeah.

[00:13:15] And, and you sort of need to make some decisions, talk about, at least go through 'em one at a time maybe.

[00:13:21] Yeah. So, so, and, and Drew. I mean, I'm in high tech, so 90 days, that's a good amount of time. So in 90 days, you should be able to accomplish those things because you have to set a pace and expectations. You have to get engaged, not just with leadership, engaged with your team. So 90 days is absolutely adequate time.

[00:13:39] To, to hit those four things. So in terms of business objectives, hey, what is, what is the C-C-E-O-C-F-O committed to the board? What have they committed downstream? How do those commitments relate to what marketing contributes to those objectives? And then there's always pipeline, uh, you know, whether it's uh, whether it's pure influence, whether it's influence, and sourced.

[00:14:02] Uh, what are those pipeline commits and what are the assumptions behind those pipeline commits, which are super key. so I focus on that first, but that then lends itself to, budgeting and demand. even though it sounds like fundamentals. And yes, you can use AI for a lot of things. Aligning, that pipeline and seeing the assumptions of where you've been.

[00:14:22] And where you need to go. How do you build up a demand gen model that aligns with that across all your channels? even though that may be overlooked, it depends on the, uh, stage of the company and the maturity of the growth team. But that's very key. And then seeing whether budgets are realistic across programs, tools, and headcount.

[00:14:39] I mean, I know CMOs who've stepped into roles where they thought they had a real budget, you know, five, 10%, and they get there and it's 1% and yet the growth target is 25%. you know, those are, those are some distances that are just not humanly possible to sort of meet, and so. When you see that budget and you see those demand goals, uh, and expectations, what is the sort of the process of, I mean, you know, you, you don't wanna be the guy to say, I can't do this.

[00:15:08] You said we were gonna have this and, so how do you navigate that part? Yeah, yeah.

[00:15:12] Yeah. Drew, that's

[00:15:13] a great question. And, and, you know, and, and also a great observation. That's why. imagine if you got to that equation at the end of your 90 day cycle. That's why you gotta do these things in parallel, in 90 days and figure out, okay, what you can achieve.

[00:15:26] But you gotta set the pace. So, actually I don't think it's wise to be you know, you don't have to be the person that says yes. you don't have to be the person that says, I'll do it no matter what the data tells me. really being data driven. Driving that in, case in point, we reset expectations of of percent contribution, at my company where I just joined, outside of where, uh, their original expectations were.

[00:15:49] You never know how these expectations get built up and what data sources people use. maybe they go to, to the Forrester, uh, former Serious decisions, the Forester Group, and they see all these great, metrics. But they're really not that closely aligned to your B2B business. So you really need to look at the data and have that insight and, uh, you know, have backbone.

[00:16:09] It's okay. It, you know, you'd be surprised how sales CFOs and CCEO leadership appreciate the fact that, you're coming with data and saying. This is what we can meet or these are where we're not in alignment.

[00:16:22] Well, and I do think you have a little bit of time. That first 90 days is that moment when you can, because That's right.

[00:16:29] You're still, you're the new person and you know, we want you to sort of succeed and you've noticed this issue and you, you. Okay. cause you can't do that in a year.

[00:16:39] that's right. And equally important, understanding the team, their initiatives, where their sentiment is, where, what's the perception internally and externally to the org.

[00:16:48] and, and then really have they set, uh, their performance and operational norms. I never assume anything I wanna listen. Take it all in. But that's that 90 day period because that's gonna set the pace and the agenda, uh, going forward.

[00:17:02] So we have our business objectives and then we say, okay, with this budget we can commit to this thing that marketing will be able to do.

[00:17:10] Talk about the team and the sentiment and how you go about sort of getting to know the team and who's gonna be the right team for you moving forward.

[00:17:20] I use AI for everything. I have an AI agent that goes out and interviews everyone and just gives me the highlight. Just kidding. Definitely don't do that.

[00:17:28] I, you know, I think there's an importance for a personal bond, for personal engagement. I try to talk to as many folks as I can. Definitely my, my leaders, and their team leads, and to really get that sentiment. I do the same thing with the. Uh, with the, uh, sales and rev ops organization to say, Hey, not just talk to the leaders, but give me, give me your best reps.

[00:17:48] Let me talk to them. Gi uh, let me find out and talk to directly to the top two SDRs. So I try to take it all in, but I think bigger, uh, bigger's really setting the expectations, that I'm not here to. Drive my personal initiatives. It has to be a we, so how do I get the team engaged? And more importantly, I wanna make sure the team feels comfortable to voice their opinion, whether or not it's a, you know, I want them not only just to say, Hey, this is a problem, always come with one or two solutions.

[00:18:16] But I want them to feel comfortable about, uh, voicing their praying. And that's key, uh, because you can't, make a change or set a new pace without everybody feeling ownership and a part of it.

[00:18:27] Yeah, and I, I think it's particularly hard right now to do that because I think there's a lot of fear in, you know, that AI's gonna be able to do this part of my job, or AI's gonna be gonna do my whole job.

[00:18:41] And AI may be able to do some of the folks that are working for their jobs. So it's like, you can't just say, oh, that'll never happen. But it's an interesting time, unlike one we've been through for a while, where there's a lot of, of sense of insecurity in roles. So, and I'm just curious, as you were sort of how you sort of get a sense of, and is part of getting to know the folks, getting their sense of how insecure they are feeling.

[00:19:08] AI definitely is upon us. Uh, we have initiatives to really drive AI forward in everything that we do. I think getting across the point of, Hey, you're the experts. so how does AI. Be a forced multiplier and enhance your job and your ability to do more upper level thinking. Uh, and also that doesn't dismiss the fact that you have expertise, uh, you have domain expertise.

[00:19:32] so getting that across and then actually pinpointing, Hey, what are the actual processes? people don't really think about, Hey, what's. It starts really with what are you trying to solve and what's the backend data that AI is gonna source what's the quality of that data and how that data's being maintained.

[00:19:47] And that's directly a part of how your team needs to engage. as much as there's, Certainly fear, uh, there's also some excitement and there's also new processes and, and new things that we need to introduce. Uh, the org is gonna change, for sure with AI enhancement. So how do, how are we a part of that change?

[00:20:05] and I love it because I, I wanna avoid, I wanna avoid minimizing my team. I think we have you, we try to build the most solid team and then how do we augment them to do more and more and more as the company grows?

[00:20:15] I love it. Alright, we'll be back to that 'cause there's lots more to dig in on. But now let's welcome Ali McCarthy, who has been waiting patiently, uh, who is the CMO of Asset Map and who's previously joined us to discuss a mix of topics including product launches and a BM.

[00:20:32] Hello, Allie, welcome back.

[00:20:35] Thank you, drew. Happy to be here.

[00:20:38] Okay. And so, and where are you this fine day?

[00:20:41] I am about 40 miles west of Philadelphia in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

[00:20:47] All right. We finally got some East Coast

[00:20:50] So I'm curious, you heard, um, what Paige and Scott had to say, what resonated with you and, and, let's start there.

[00:20:59] Yeah, absolutely. So I think that, it's very real. the notion of how is AI going to disrupt, how is AI going to enhance, how, what is our plan as a management team to bring our company forward?

[00:21:12] Because. The interesting part about, coming into a new role now versus maybe prior and you know, earlier in your career, is just that this is a, you now need to have a plan and a strategy, and we don't know. As a management team, and I'm not saying my company, most companies don't know if the AI that we're putting forward today is the AI that will make us competitive in six to 12 to 18 months because it's changing so rapidly.

[00:21:42] And so, it's just one of those things where, you know, you need to be stepping into it and leaning into it as a team. but you just, no one has the crystal ball yet with ai and I think anyone coming into this role and any management team working together right now is, is trying to command as much as we can of, of what we can control and where we know we can deploy it.

[00:22:07] But again, the velocity of change is one that we can't, um, even grasp on, on the downturn impact of it.

[00:22:15] Yeah. And well said. And, and that, you know, it's, it's funny 'cause we could have said that the 91st, 90 days pre I AI we're really intense Now. Because of one AI enabled helping you do it. Two, because AI expectations helping you get onboard.

[00:22:31] and three, it's changing so fast. You, you know, that, that whatever you think, you know, may or may not be, uh, relevant moving forward. So yeah, easy peasy. First 90 days, no stress. Let's talk about, what. Your learning process is as you go forward. I mean, Scott had a very specific sort of map for going through his four points and so forth.

[00:22:55] I'm curious, when you start where do you focus?

[00:22:58] I love that model that Scott had and, and I do think that those are the right four pillars in this particular role. I, it wasn't that I didn't use those pillars, but what I needed to focus on first in the first 90 days was.

[00:23:12] Where we were messaging or not messaging, meaning we, so financial planning can be messy, right? Your financial life can be messy, it can be complex. And the technology that asset map provides actually makes it simple, right? It puts it all in one page. But if we can be financial planning and we can be a presentation layer, and we can be a.

[00:23:36] Conversation assist to an advisor and a client. Where do we begin, right? If we're solving so many problems. And the issue when I came on was just that we had all those opportunities and so in the marketplace we were a lot of things to the marketplace. And so what I needed to do first was really take all this beautiful, rich content that we had and now's figure out.

[00:24:00] Okay. Where do we solve just one problem. We can solve multiple problems, but can the market just know us right. To solve one major problem? And so that's really where I found that I needed to focus because the people are amazing. The product is amazing, right? the people before me had done a great foundation.

[00:24:20] still, it nothing, you know, was infallible. I had to start somewhere, and this is where I think the best place to start was with assets.

[00:24:28] Well, and it's so interesting, uh, you know, I am, I'm reminded of a story that, you read about when Steve Jobs came back to Apple and there were all these products and all these things, and he sort of narrowed it down to four, you know, when it comes to.

[00:24:40] marketing to me, if you don't have a great core positioning with a focus that everybody in the organization knows about, then your salespeople are chasing anything that moves your demand Gen people don't know really well, this is as good as that. So, and you don't get better at serving one particular customer.

[00:24:58] and you don't get known for anything. So,

[00:25:00] exactly.

[00:25:01] It feels like there is that. if that doesn't exist, if the sheer focus of the organization and the product story doesn't exist, you gotta, you gotta nail that first and foremost. Right? Because everything else will align. It doesn't matter what your goals are.

[00:25:14] Right? Right. If, if, uh, so that makes sense. Uh, a lot of sense. Me,

[00:25:18] there's,

[00:25:19] there's this element of, um. Like culture and connectivity under that as well. Because they brought me on. They knew, I knew the blocking and tackling of marketing. Right. That wasn't the issue. And it's not that it hadn't been happening at the firm either, but where.

[00:25:37] Marketers today are able to, to separate from the pack, if you will, and, and grow brands, is just being able to say, okay, can we bring the firm together and align under that? and what are your abilities and your skills that can enable you to do. Blocking and tackling of demand gen and all the other things and content creation and running great events and you know the things that we need to do, but then where can you lean in further to the organization and help bring them together towards that?

[00:26:11] And I think in sometimes marketing gets that task as well.

[00:26:16] So talk a little bit about the process. Again, there's a lot of pressure in those first 90 days to, for you to help. Bring that alignment that you're describing around a particular sort of, product benefit or solution set. how did you go about getting that alignment?

[00:26:34] So we started with research and um, we did our own research. So we just wrapped up about three months. Again, the first 90 days, implemented it fairly early on and, we're starting to just ask and, and get the data. And I think that having that has. Been an opportunity for us to unify around our own data.

[00:26:56] And then AI just helps us bring it to market that much faster. Right. Right. We don't, we can do a lot of that, but we can do some of the work with AI to help us, um, uh, bring some of the findings to market faster. So everything's accelerated. Everything.

[00:27:13] It's true. I, it's funny, the, but what you're describing is using the time to build a strategic foundation.

[00:27:23] Sometimes in order to do that, you need to go out to your customers and the market to get more information. Yes. You could create, you could try to do that via, via, you know, ai, but I don't know how accurate it would be. You could probably, uh, go to a company like Eza and get them to feel the faster from the research that you did, was it old fashioned, you know, one-on-ones?

[00:27:46] Uh, were you fielding as. Survey. What kind of research did you do?

[00:27:49] We did, we field a survey, and we just, um, hit folks in our target audience and it was part of our, um, just our inbound sequence. And every time, you know, they came in, we were, we were asking the same question. And so, we, we started to find a lot of things that were interesting that we knew.

[00:28:09] But a lot of things that we, we, we. A lot of green shoots coming out of it. And I think that that's the opportunity of just, you can look at the data that you have and it's of course gonna validate some of the themes that bubble up. But, you know, everyone's at a different place in, in their. You know, how, how much their data lake is unified.

[00:28:29] Right. And sometimes it's nice if you're just to start fresh, um, with one little project like this. Because I could debate, you know, if, if I was just pulling up old content, you know, it, it could be, well that way, you know. That's not relevant for this, that the other reason. And so I was like, you know what?

[00:28:47] I control it. I have a research background. So I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna do it and I'm gonna do it myself and I'm gonna own it. And, and I think that, that, was me able to put my own signature on it, if you will. And, and to feel, to be able to control one thing in those first short 90 days.

[00:29:03] So,

[00:29:04] and I'm sensing that. You had the liberty of doing that the house wasn't on fire. Mm-hmm. That might not be the solution if, if like their demand, like the pipeline is empty. Right. But this is a, the business is doing fine. There's things that are, you know, there's somewhat of a flywheel. We're trying to figure out how can we accelerate it by being more focused.

[00:29:27] Uh, so again, I do think the first 90 days can be very different. For every CMO depending on the situation they're walking into. and in and in yours, it sounds like there was an opportunity to narrow bring focus, but you had to make the business case and you had to prove that you needed data.

[00:29:46] I mean, uh, yes, you needed the data, but I mean, don't let me paint a rosy picture.

[00:29:51] There were certainly things that were, you know, falling apart and hair on fire and, you know, things that were. you had to wear multiple hats, right? Right. And, and so, uh, but you get used to doing that as a marketer, and especially as a marketing leader. And you almost get bored if you don't have two or three or four big things running simultaneously.

[00:30:12] So I feel as if it was the right thing to do. Because I knew I needed to, to own that, to be able to get the message out. But there were certainly a lot of things operationally that we needed to fix. I mean, processes and workflows weren't optimized. people came, people left, I mean, I saw a lot on those first 90 days but it, it really made me know that.

[00:30:35] When you're at a company at the right time and they have picked you and you know you're the right person. It's just, there's just not enough hours in the day. There's so much that you wanna get done as fast as you can to help that company grow because you're just so excited. I mean, it is a very fun time, to be new and to, have some of those that, that opportunity and that.

[00:30:57] Space to think and breathe a little bit in those first 90 days. So don't I love it. Don't try to rush it, I guess.

[00:31:04] I love it. No, the fresh eyes, uh, is, is awesome. Yeah. All right. We're gonna take some time now for me, uh, and you all to talk about CMO Huddles. CMO huddles launched in 2020. It's the only community of flocking US and B2B marketing leaders, and that has a.

[00:31:22] Logo featuring penguins. Wait, what? Yes. Well, a group of these curious, adaptable, and problem solving burrs is called a huddle, and the leaders in the CMO huddles are all that and more huddling together to conquer the toughest job in the C-suite. There's a pun there if you wanna hear it. Um. So Paige, uh, Scott, Allie, you're all incredibly busy marketing leaders.

[00:31:44] I'm wondering, uh, and I'm gonna let Paige and Allie go for, you guys are longtime members of the community. Maybe you could share an example of how CMO huddles has helped you.

[00:31:54] Oh gosh. I mean, so many examples. Um, it's, it's, it's hard to pinpoint just one, but I, I think, and I, I. It's amazing to me how often in my job I reference a conversation or a topic that's been talked about at CMO huddles, or I draw on the knowledge of the collective huddle that I've gained.

[00:32:13] Uh, when I'm in a situation, in a real world situation in my job, I feel like no matter what topic comes up. We've talked about it and I've got real world polling that has, has been done about that topic that I can bring back to the business. Whether that's about how organizations are restructuring because of ai, how to structure a marketing team, how to do a budget, what tactics are working in demand gen and, and how things are changing.

[00:32:38] I mean, these are all examples of topics that are. Regularly talked about that I can bring that knowledge back to the both the marketing team and the entire business.

[00:32:47] I would echo that. And I would also say that, uh, I ended up, uh, canceling my relationship with my coach because I was getting more value out of the CMO huddles.

[00:32:59] So, CMO huddles is not only my peer, uh, partners where I can get all the questions that I need answered. But also, it fills that bucket on some of the coaching that I need. And so very, plays a very, very important role in, uh, where I am today. And couldn't do it without you

[00:33:17] and the team.

[00:33:18] You're the best.

[00:33:19] I'd love that. I would hug you. I've. But by the way, we're overdue for a one-on-one. Uh, so, uh, you can book that because that is part of the, that is part of the program. And Paige, we haven't gotten up, but I hope I, I'll see you on the, on the West coast. So, Scott, you're new to CMO huddles and so, uh, don't know if you have an experience yet where.

[00:33:37] Uh, you could share.

[00:33:39] Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to the one-on-one Drew. I, I would just say being a new person, jumping in and just trying to get a feel for things. Uh, leveraging the website and the, what's nice is it's such a diverse set of topics. You can always have takeaways and choose which ones you want to go into and learn from, and the podcast library is rich.

[00:33:57] I've enjoyed that. And then actually, you know. Getting FaceTime and meeting peers is super important. Uh, so anytime I can do that, where it fits into the schedule. And, uh, so, uh, the last workshop we did, uh, was great and so I'm looking forward to experiencing more and experiencing the super huddle, which we were a sponsor of last year.

[00:34:16] I love it. All right, well, we're so appreciative of the three of you. If you're a B2B marketing leader who wants to build a stronger peer network, gain recognition as a thought leader and get your very own stress penguin, there's one back there. Uh, please join us@cmmohuddles.com. Okay, let's get back to this.

[00:34:34] This topic we're starting. We were edging on this notion and A and a CMO, and I talked about this yesterday. You are the new CMO and you've got a staff of whatever size it came in. If you were starting from scratch, this is the question that I wanna ask it. If you were starting at a, a new company and a new marketing department, would you be thinking about that department completely differently than you do the team that you've inherited?

[00:35:03] And I've just, and it's an interesting philosophical question, but it leads to also how. Are you going to be able to evolve your teams to sort of be, I'm gonna use a cliche AI first. So Allie, do you think if you started fresh, you would be designing a completely different team?

[00:35:20] I, I mean, I do think folks would naturally go there and say, of course I would do it different.

[00:35:26] But I, I think you still need the folks that we have. what I think the challenge is, how can I as a leader, impress how important it is for them? To use AI and be bought in on AI as, something to enable them beyond just a chat GPT prompt to fix an email. You know, like that is, you know, level one. How do we get them to level two, level three thinking, because we're forced to, um, go down that road and we wanna go down that road. We're naturally curious, but sometimes the team is just happy doing their job. They don't wanna disrupt, they don't want, you know, and so it's, where do you say, okay, you may, this may be uncomfortable, but let's go there together and let's find the joy.

[00:36:13] And asking those questions and finding out how it can do it. So how do you make it a burden to a joy is what I'm trying to really,

[00:36:21] I get you.

[00:36:21] So, Scott, I'm curious if, because it's, do we add to the 90 day first 90 left, the sort of the AI literacy of every member of your team from, you know, one to, I know that A, a CMO in our community, actually their whole company now, everyone is measured on a scale of one to five, no one will be a five because that's someone who works at Anthropic.

[00:36:40] But it would be unacceptable for anybody to be a, a one in three months.

[00:36:45] Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, and if the question is, if, if we were starting with a new team, maybe a new company, a new team, non existing, right? So if we're starting with new, I'm still, I'm still, uh, you know. the, the three legged stool of, hey, product, marketing, brand, and comms and growth are the three top positions I always hire.

[00:37:04] And if you're starting from scratch, which I've done in small startups besides larger companies like this one, you know, I look for extremely. Hands-on folks to be leaders, cause they set the pace. But now with ai, I would say it has to be, not just hands-on, but it does have to be ai, AI engaged and savvy.

[00:37:22] Uh, that world has changed, for, you know, two years from now. I'm looking at my organization saying, Hey, I have a direct report with a, with an AI leader, an enabler, literally on my team, which I never had before. Right? And not only that, but now I'm looking at, okay, how do I augment that team with GTM engineering and with how that's gonna engage?

[00:37:42] So that's different, from what I've done in the past, and that probably will be a spearhead if I were to start from scratch as being the fourth leg of the stool. Now.

[00:37:51] Paige, uh, curious from your standpoint, it's great to disagree at any point in time or at least have a different point of view.

[00:37:58] I did talk to a CMO who, uh, was worried that didn't have a product person, but they said, you know what? I built a product GPT to hold me for a while. Uh, I'm curious, you know, and, and they're, it's working, uh, for them. I'm just curious if you look at, this question of start from scratch, versus, uh, you know, would it be different and, and how are you evolving your team, uh, as a result of, the need to use the tools and the.

[00:38:27] Just the beauty of using the tools.

[00:38:29] Yeah, and I, I mean, I think, sure if I were starting from scratch it would probably be different, but I think the bigger challenge that we have is most of us are not starting from scratch. The, the real challenge is how do we transform our teams and what's changing, every board that I've talked to, every c c-level person I've talked to is under pressure to go back to the board and communicate how they're getting efficiencies.

[00:38:53] Because of AI and so I think there's the pressure that's coming from the top. And then for me as a leader, I feel, an immense responsibility to communicate a sense of urgency to my teams that they have to skill themselves, or I'll just say like, it, it's gonna be a risk to their future careers. And so, you know, at at, at CultureAmp, we've brought in an AI consultant, we're doing workshops with all the team members.

[00:39:17] We're giving them an opportunity to learn the tools we're taking on projects. and it's, it's an indicator to me if I don't have the uptake in that training from certain parts of the business, it's a red flag, right? Yeah. And so I, I, I think that we've gotta look at, there are roles that are, I think, gonna change and probably go away or condense.

[00:39:35] Or shrink. but does that change the structure of the team over time? Yes. But right now what I'm seeing more of is, able to do so much more throughput with a smaller team than we were before. But I think it's not gonna be long. Those structures are already changing. it'll happen naturally.

[00:39:52] You know, in talking and, and hearing what Paige had said, I hear a lot of tools, tools, tools, and I think what's missing is the fundamental discussion of data, data, data, because those tools are driven by data. So having, having fragmented or incomplete data plus ai.

[00:40:09] Doesn't mean you're, you're, you're just gonna have poor G TM outcomes.

[00:40:12] Yeah.

[00:40:12] Uh, so I think that discussion is also gonna start coming out more and more. That it's not just the tools, but it's, Hey, where's the data being sourced? How it's being interplayed, how comprehensive is it? You, how trusted is it?

[00:40:25] Right. And it feels like there's an opportunity for marketing to just say, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna own this data. 'cause sales has always, it's never been clean and what they're putting in there. So somebody, and we know that we're. AI is only as good as the data. what I'm kind of wondering about, and this is me just sort of being philosophical, is does the entire go to market motion organization change, and then what's that look like and what role does market like?

[00:40:50] Did we create an artificial construct way back when, where we had product and we had marketing and we had sales, and we had customer service. And is there a new model that some companies, because they're not encumbered by the current model, are going to say, Hmm, we could really streamline this now? I don't know.

[00:41:08] and, and, and no one has proven that yet. Yeah. So we, we could just let that go totally with you on data.

[00:41:14] Yeah. I mean, I'm just gonna say it's also depends on the size of the org, right? Really large orgs have, data and AI analyst teams that are services and, and they, they drive that through their organization as you go.

[00:41:26] Smaller, smaller and smaller. Marketing, marketing or marketing plus the CEO or marketing plus CFO or marketing plus BizOps, they become the strategy team. So it's interesting dynamic of how that plays.

[00:41:39] Okay. Uh, staying with AI for a second in combining it with this notion of quick wins, I'm curious if any of the three of you.

[00:41:49] cause the quick win is an important thing. You know, it's, it's a quick win with your team. It's a quick win with the head of sales and your executive team, because otherwise the first 90 days can be a listening tour. And, you know, here's the plan at the end of that. No. Uh. It is a good idea and I'm wondering if AI is accelerating that somehow.

[00:42:08] And like Allie, did you have, other than doing the research, was there a quick win that you were able to implement?

[00:42:14] Yes. So the quick win in my mind is one that's repeatable and so, um, you know, versus just finding, you know, lightning in a bottle and not being able to replicate it, so. Uh, we were able to, actually the quick win for us was getting the SDRs over into marketing.

[00:42:33] So, we still have human SDRs it was an opportunity to eliminate. Some of the friction of getting quality leads and, and driving better pipelines. So we did start to, um, see, you know, an uptick in the quality of leads because we were resourcing those folks. we have them in our ecosystem and we could control the whole process.

[00:42:57] Now, where do I see AI disrupting that function? I do, but I'm glad it's in marketing right now, and I'll be a part of that and I'll own it.

[00:43:05] Right, and you can test it and are more likely to do, uh, test it, Yes. And that's funny 'cause that is a, uh, often if marketing is not, you know, contributing enough to pipeline, it's often because the CRS are somewhere else and it's a problem.

[00:43:19] So interesting. Paige, a quick win, although you did mention that you sourced a quick win from your team. I'm just curious if there were any others or things that you were able to do as you were sort of getting established what the new plan would look like?

[00:43:30] Yeah. And staying on the the SDR topic.

[00:43:33] A hundred percent agree. SDRs belong in marketing. And our quick win, uh, an additional quick win was to, and at the same time, accelerating the, the productivity of the SDRs by leveraging ai, leveraging, automating top end sequences to more quickly funnel through M qls and source the ones that were really showing the high intent.

[00:43:53] So we've automated that process with ai. That was a very quick win. increased SDR productivity enabled us to reduce the team by about 20% and increased our conversions by about, I think. 30, 30%.

[00:44:06] Amazing. Scott, I, I mean, I know you guys are in the business of doing this too, right?

[00:44:11] Right.

[00:44:12] We're a MarTech company for sure.

[00:44:14] We need to eat our, so I think our quick win actually is eating our own dog food. You know, we came out with some really, uh, cool predictive scoring for both leads and accounts. And that equates to a BM optimization and conversion rates. So, uh, our quick win was actually, since we released it last year, is actually fully deploying it internally and, and seeing those outcomes.

[00:44:35] Uh, so, uh, yeah, that would be, that would be one quick win and a necessary win.

[00:44:40] Your customer zero and it, and it's a, that's right, that's right. Place because obviously look, if you can't make it work, or you will by using it, push it to the point where it breaks and therefore you can help the product team fix stuff too.

[00:44:54] 'cause you know, no product is ever perfect, particularly a new one that is integrating a bunch of things. So. That's right.

[00:45:02] That's right.

[00:45:02] But I would, I would agree with Paige like, With ai, we, you can drive way more testing. so it used to be, hey, you had limited capabilities. You can only do so much testing.

[00:45:11] Now you can, you don't have to be perfect. You can drive more testing to get better outcomes than you had before, 'cause of the, uh, scale.

[00:45:19] And, and interesting 'cause that comes into this first 90 days. Because if you have the mindset of we wanna get more tests out there right away, I don't, you know, if, if there's a, a wonderful sort of innocence to it, which is, hey, we might discover something and learn something that are gonna help us make some really big decisions.

[00:45:36] So yeah, adding, tests and the fact that you can do them so much faster is, is, is amazing. Well, we are. We're out time here. So what we need from each of you are some final words of wisdom, and I I want you to reflect on the discussion that we've had and sort of say what was your single most important takeaway for someone trying to start strong in a new CMO role, and we'll do this in.

[00:46:01] Reverse order. So, Ali, you get to go first.

[00:46:06] I would just say be a business leader first and a marketer second.

[00:46:11] Business leader first, and a marketer second. Yes, indeed. Perfect. Okay. Uh, Scott, final words of wisdom and or a key takeaway from this, uh, from this, uh, session?

[00:46:24] Ali, we're, we're the same mind, so I would definitely say, uh, your job is not to say yes.

[00:46:29] Your job is to, uh, be, uh, evaluate the business and execute accordingly and get people on board for that. you get buried if all you are is saying, yes, I can. Yes I can. And not sticking to conviction of. Data and outcome.

[00:46:45] Data and outcome, there is a key takeaway. Okay, and Paige O'Neill, final words of wisdom.

[00:46:52] Yeah, I would say do not squander your power that you have in the first 90 days. As an outside person coming into the organization, you'll never be more listened to than you are in the first 90 days. You'll never have a better opportunity to propose a radical idea. Push back, carve out the space That you wanna make for yourself.

[00:47:11] You have a lot of power coming into the organization. Don't squander it and don't give it away.

[00:47:16] I'd love that. I wanna build on that because we, we have another minute or two and don't squander the power. And that's so interesting and so tricky because. That assumes that you have a point of view that you come in or hypotheses at least, which you're quickly discovering.

[00:47:32] And you know that at that moment, the CEO, the CFO, the head of sales are probably gonna lean in and listen until they find out, uh, yes or no, that you, you were right. So how do you and I, and I'm curious, uh, you know, Scott, how do you make sure that, that you are balancing that so that you, as, as Paige says, you're not squandering the power.

[00:47:54] Yeah, I think, I think there, there is a balance. I mean, and Paige, that's a great, great takeaway I think it's also seeding, seeding who you're engaging with. So go to the CRO, go to the BizOps, go to your CFO, see the ideas, see what you're, see what you're trying to get across, and then leverage that so you're not just walking in blank with your power, but you've reinforced that power already.

[00:48:17] It's so funny, it's, I'm just having this vision of walking in with your, uh, you know, your, um, superhero costume on that is immediately stripped away after 90 days, but you've got it for your Bulletproof for those first 90 days. Allie, any thoughts on not squandering that power?

[00:48:35] I think it just comes from a place too of, of caring enough to have empathy and listening to those, to those other department heads that you have.

[00:48:44] You know that it's that balance of you, you have that power. you're using it to gauge a deeper relationship with those folks. And so, you know that because this is a, this is supposed to be a long-term partnership, right? Um, we're partners in the business, we're gonna run ahead together in our own respective swim lanes.

[00:49:04] And so I think that they're, they're happy that you're here. They want you to do what you do best just find the opportunity to do it together. It's, it's gonna, you're gonna go faster together.

[00:49:18] I love it. All right. Well, thank you Paige, Scott, and Ally, you're all amazing sports. Thank you audience for staying with us.

 

To hear more conversations like this one and submit your questions while we're live, join us on the next CMO Huddle Studio. We stream to my LinkedIn profile. That's Drew Neisser, every other week.

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!