Doug Straton, CMO of Bazaarvoice, joins Erica Seidel on The Get podcast.

You'll hear about:

• What makes an AI value prop actually defensible
• Moving from a 'selfish' AI approach, where individuals automate their own jobs, to an approach that puts the business and its processes first
• How relentless simplicity in org design wins, especially in an environment where CMOs need to defend their org investments to the Board ("Can I explain this to someone in 30 seconds?")
• The charter of the new role of 'Head of Marketing Strategy and AI Transformation' -- to make sure the processes serve the business, not the people on the team – THEN automate the process
• What it's like to go from the B2C world to the B2B SaaS world – and when to wear your 'insider' hat versus your 'outsider' hat
• A context-heavy interview approach that gets candidates to dig in and explain 'This is where I can help you'

Notable Quotes:

• “There are SaaS companies that are fully powered by engineers that have been able to design very clever solutions but have not necessarily really understood their customer. It takes years for them to figure out product market fit. They've got something that sounds like an interesting idea, but they have to test it over a very long period of time. That modus operandi is extinct."
• "Probably the biggest move I made is I put in a Director of Marketing Strategy and AI Transformation. The job spec is very much like a marketing engineer, and that person makes sure that for all the work streams that we have, there are processes built, and the processes are strong and the processes serve the business, not the people on the team. And once we know that the process is strong and it serves the business and not the team, THEN we automate it. And only then, because if you automate chaos, you'll just get automated chaos. You'll get more content, for example, if that's what you're trying to create, but it won't be any good."

00:00 Show Intro and Guest

01:20 Guitars and Woodstock

02:27 From B2C to SaaS

04:51 Staying Client Centric

07:00 AI Value Prop Strategy

12:40 Proof and Metrics

15:36 Avoiding AI Washing

21:52 Rebuilding the Org

25:08 AI Transformation Role

30:16 Hiring and Interviewing

32:31 Early Mistakes Learned

35:31 Talking to PE Boards

38:49 Wrap Up and Outro

The Get is here to drive smart decisions around recruiting and leadership in B2B SaaS marketing. We explore the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of today’s top marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.

This season’s theme is focused on how AI is reshaping the CMO role: how you lead, how you hire, and how you get hired."

The Get’s host is Erica Seidel, who runs The Connective Good, an executive search practice with a hyper-focus on recruiting CMOs and VPs of Marketing, especially in B2B SaaS.

If you are looking to hire a CMO or VP of Marketing of the ‘make money’ variety, rather than the ‘make it pretty’ variety, contact Erica at erica@theconnectivegood.com. You can also follow Erica on LinkedIn or sign up for her newsletter at TheConnectiveGood.com.

The Get is produced by the team at Simpler Media Productions.

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel talks with marketing leader Audrea Madey, who has led AI transformation at Rocket Software and previously led digital transformations at Manulife and John Hancock.

You will learn about

• The anatomy of an AI center of excellence in GTM, and how to adapt it to your org, regardless of size
• Infusing AI into marketing at enterprise scale, including training, enabling, and optimizing
• 'Meeting people where they are' – giving the stars the spotlight while providing the learners the coaching they need
• How AI transformations are distinct from digital transformations
• Metrics that balance cost savings with quality improvement
• How to immediately identify someone with curiosity and systems thinking DNA
• An interview tip: "Here's what Perplexity or Claude produced. What would you add to this argument?"

Some memorable quotes:

• "AI for the sake of AI is just… beige."
• "If a tool sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
• "I've found that people will ask a third party the questions that they might feel dumb asking of their bosses or their managers."
• "If you can't add to the points that these LLMs are putting out, you don't have a job in the future."

00:00 Welcome to The Get

00:58 Meet Audrea Madey

01:58 Art School to Marketing

03:58 Scope and AI COE

07:23 Leading AI Change

10:04 AI vs Digital Shift

11:51 Three Pillar COE Model

17:32 New Roles and Agents

20:21 Measuring AI Impact

22:11 Hiring for AI Mindset

29:25 Building COE from Scratch

31:41 Leader Advice and Wrap

The Get is here to drive smart decisions around recruiting and leadership in B2B SaaS marketing. We explore the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of today’s top marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.

This season’s theme is focused on how AI is reshaping the CMO role: how you lead, how you hire, and how you get hired."

The Get’s host is Erica Seidel, who runs The Connective Good, an executive search practice with a hyper-focus on recruiting CMOs and VPs of Marketing, especially in B2B SaaS.

If you are looking to hire a CMO or VP of Marketing of the ‘make money’ variety, rather than the ‘make it pretty’ variety, contact Erica at erica@theconnectivegood.com. You can also follow Erica on LinkedIn or sign up for her newsletter at TheConnectiveGood.com.

The Get is produced by the team at Simpler Media Productions.

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel talks with Suresh Balasubermaniam, CMO at Qualio, about how AI is reframing the CMO role and what it takes to move from a larger-company CMO seat to a smaller, faster AI-first build.

You’ll hear about:

• Inverting the change management playbook to focus on tech before people and process, since the tech can provide great results from the start
• Advice for hiring a marketing leader from a bigger company to a smaller company…and how to tell if the candidate is really ready for a smaller company
• Why it would be dangerous for a CMO -- of even a big company -- to say about AI, "Yeah, I've got a team that does that"
• Responding to Board members who encourage you to chase shiny AI objects: maintain your balance and stay true to your function
• Why marketing should be the catalyst for AI usage across the organization, given that marketing has the most connective tissue
• How to interview someone for AI-first thinking, and for the ability to not just improve processes, but re-imagine them
• A question that will separate AI posers from AI natives: "What did you build last weekend?"
• How to encourage AI use without producing AI slop, by insisting on human insight, distillation, and measurable outcomes

00:00 Show Intro and Guest

01:17 Why Move to Qualio

03:22 Proving You Can Scale Down

05:24 AI Teammates in the Funnel

08:11 The Rise of GTM Engineer

10:20 Inverted Change Playbook

14:11 AI First Without Slop

15:27 Beating AI FOMO

19:00 Hiring for AI Fluency

19:30 Wrap Up and Takeaways

The Get is here to drive smart decisions around recruiting and leadership in B2B SaaS marketing. We explore the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of today’s top marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.

This season’s theme is focused on how AI is reshaping the CMO role: how you lead, how you hire, and how you get hired."

The Get’s host is Erica Seidel, who runs The Connective Good, an executive search practice with a hyper-focus on recruiting CMOs and VPs of Marketing, especially in B2B SaaS.

If you are looking to hire a CMO or VP of Marketing of the ‘make money’ variety, rather than the ‘make it pretty’ variety, contact Erica at erica@theconnectivegood.com. You can also follow Erica on LinkedIn or sign up for her newsletter at TheConnectiveGood.com.

The Get is produced by the team at Simpler Media Productions.