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.

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel talks with Debbie Umbach, CMO of M-Files, about landing – and fulfilling – a CMO role in the age of AI. Debbie describes building AI capability inside a 50-person global team, from hiring to designing new roles to leading change.

You will learn about:

• Differentiating yourself in a CMO job search, and the role of AI in that
• Key things to share with boards about your AI journey: not just what you're doing but what is working well, what isn't, and how you are building AI fluency on your team
• Scaling AI fluency and transformation across a 50+ person marketing team
• Carving out a new role: The AI GTM Transformation Leader
• The persistent importance of context and taste in the CMO role
• A framework for speedily building trust as a new CMO (Hint: balance authenticity, data, and empathy)
• Change management tips for leading AI transformations, whether your team is big or small

Some quotes:

• “Marketing is an ing. We're always doing things. But WHY are we doing them, and what are the outcomes we're looking for? I always am trying to get the team to think about, ‘okay, we've got these things to do, but why?’”
• "You can't just change for change's sake. You can't just say, 'We want to use AI to be more productive.’ Instead, it's: 'Why are we changing? How are we going to get better? How is this going to make your job better and more fun? How are you going to get to do the things that are more interesting?’"

00:00 Welcome and Season Theme

01:20 Debbie’s Origin Story

03:30 Confidence and Speaking Up

04:40 Systems Thinking for AI

06:07 Winning the CMO Search

08:27 Showing AI in Interviews

09:12 AI Training and Org Design

12:43 AI SDR Teammate Mia

14:11 GTM Transformation Lead

19:43 New Roles and Knowledge Ops

21:10 Avoiding AI Slop

24:17 Context and Positioning

29:04 Hiring Questions That Reveal

31:53 Change Management and Trust

37:00 Future of the CMO Role

38:34 Wrap Up and Credits

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.

Host Erica Seidel interviews Corey McCarthy, who has held CMO roles at Axonify, Unifocus, and Webex Events, about how AI is changing CMO hiring, leadership, and team building in B2B SaaS.

You'll learn about:

• How AI is showing up in searches for CMOs -- on both sides of the table
• A simple, repeatable idea for breaking up your professional networking into bite-sized chunks that accelerate the speed of trust
• Ways to demonstrate your AI prowess as a CMO
• How someone 'in search' may actually be more up to date on AI than someone who's 'in seat'
• How the strongest GTM teams are going from single-player AI motions to multi-player motions – with positive impacts not just on overall GTM strategy, but on efficiency of AI spend
• How a CMO's value lies in orchestrating processes, systems, tools, data, and executive alignment with strong AI governance to avoid brand dilution, duplicated work, and runaway token costs
• How CMOs should approach team-building now that AI agents have joined the org

00:00 Welcome and AI focus

00:57 52 coffees networking

03:07 Career path and fun fact

04:53 In seat vs in search

06:05 AI job search system

08:07 Network plus dashboards

11:24 Proving AI leadership

14:19 Governance and token costs

16:39 Team building with AI

19:28 Recruiter advice for CMOs

21:13 Future of the CMO

22:54 Favorite interview question

24:51 How to answer AI questions

28:44 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.

Joe Sawyer, CMO of Flashpoint, joins Erica to share his experience and advice for how CMOs can talk with their Boards about their AI initiatives and their ROI.

You'll hear about:

• How getting the AI dialogue right with your Board can help you overcome some of the problematic ways that CMOs have communicated with Boards in the past
• Anticipating the questions your Board will ask about your AI initiatives
• How Joe narrowed down from 20+ potential AI use cases to the few to differentially invest in that would have profound value
• Why CMOs should avoid name-dropping consultants and tools, since that reinforces the perception of marketing as a function focused on activity rather than outcomes
• How Joe approached a presentation on AI in GTM to a group of PE portfolio company CEOs
• How to embrace "productive disappointment"
• What actually moves a team from AI-curious to AI-operational
• A maturity model for assessing a potential new hire's fluency with AI

Some quotes:

• "We tried to look at things through a different view, which was not just what are all the things we could be doing, but what would our board value most?"
• "Take a step back and say, 'What are boards talking about with respect to AI when the CMO is not in the room?' Generally, I would argue they're talking about enterprise value and what's the impact of AI on the company's enterprise value. When you show up as the CMO, they're looking at the levers you control that positively impact the way AI can influence the company's enterprise value."
• " CMOs can be high-fiving each other over their use cases, but boards are worried about enterprise value… and survival."

Bonus Playlist:

Joe is not only a seasoned CMO, he's a seasoned DJ! He's created a companion playlist on Spotify.

CMO's Essential Summer Playlist

AI disruption and board expectations getting you down? Ten songs to restore perspective, lower your blood pressure, and remind you that not every problem requires a framework

00:00 Show Intro and Theme

00:37 Meet Joe Sawyer

01:25 Fun Fact DJ Dreams

03:07 AI Journey to CEO Summit

05:21 Inbound Conversion Win

06:28 MQL Experiment Lessons

08:15 What CEOs Asked

09:08 What Boards Want

10:20 Inside vs Outside Voice

13:18 Board Perceptions and Budget

15:26 AI as CMO Opportunity

16:36 Driving Team Adoption

19:23 AI Maturity Framework

21:00 Hiring and AI Work Samples

23:07 Best Day Interview Question

24:33 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

When you look at the CMO role across hundreds of B2B tech companies, what themes emerge these days? In this episode of The Get podcast, host Erica Seidel talks with Matt Selheimer, VP and Research Director for B2B Marketing Executives at Forrester.

You'll hear about the top themes that have emerged in The Get this season. And you'll get a sneak peek at new Forrester research dedicated to CMOs.

Learn about:

• How to classify marketing leadership roles: is the CEO looking for a supporter, a promoter, a partner, or a driver?
• How changes in tech and buying behavior can be a catalyst for marketing leaders to claim a broader role and bigger budget
• Advice to CEOs who have failed at hiring CMOs
• How CMOs who create a continuous learning organization are the ones who will be the most successful
• Why marketing leaders need to get beyond "polishing the pebbles on in-market intent signals" and instead invest to be the preferred vendor earlier on, to avoid being used as negotiating leverage against the preferred vendor
• How increasingly, "your understanding of your buyers, your customers, and the markets you're operating in is your competitive differentiator"
• Why so few CMOs are at the point of firing whole teams in favor of AI
• How to avoid 're-org fatigue' while still responding to changing buyer behaviors

Memorable Quote:

"What I tell our clients, and CMOs in transition, is: make sure there's a really good fit here for the purpose of marketing. That what you see as the purpose of marketing and what your CEO and the board see as the purpose of marketing is aligned. If you need to do education, that's the time to do the education… and expand the aperture of how they think about marketing. If you don't get the CEO resonating with that, then that may not be the place that you want to go join, as an example. But if you are already in a function, already in a company as a CMO, what we're telling all of our clients is, now's a great time to recalibrate the purpose of marketing."

00:00 Introduction to The Get Podcast

00:17 Guest Introduction: Matt Selheimer from Forrester

01:32 High-Level Themes in SaaS Marketing

01:46 AI's Role in B2B Buying

02:16 Disciplined Experimentation in Marketing

03:03 Resurgence of Brand and PR Roles

03:32 Matt Selheimer's Background and Fun Fact

06:33 In-Depth Discussion on AI and Generational Shifts

10:05 The Importance of Testing and Experimentation

13:25 The Role of Brand in Modern Marketing

17:22 Advice for CEOs on Hiring CMOs

27:29 Marketing Organizational Design

36:09 Favorite Interview Question

37:25 Conclusion and Closing Remarks

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 how SaaS marketing organizations are changing — in both seismic and subtle ways.

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.