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.

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel talks with Monica Ho, CMO of SOCi, the leading AI-powered marketing platform for multi-location businesses. Monica reflects on her CMO journey as revenue has grown from ~$10MM to ~$100MM. She gets real about how she has built her adaptation muscles and her boardroom voice, and she shares how AI and efficiency have reshaped her org chart and choices.

Monica and Erica discuss:

• How "earning and re-earning" your seat at the table is imperative as the business evolves
• Rethinking the organization at every stage of growth, and pivoting towards "more strategists than doers"
• "Forcing" AI adoption by taking away tools that the team previously relied on
• The importance of reverse mentoring – interns and junior employees can bring in creativity and have better results, "because they are having more fun."
• Fueling experimentation, not just with tests and tech, but by collaborating in different ways
• Bringing specificity to the hiring process by asking a candidate for their current boss's name and that boss's perception of the candidate
• Making yourself uncomfortable in Board meetings by sharing "the bad stuff -- that way, you're not in defensive mode but rather in collaborative problem-solving mode

Notable quotes:

• "If I'm not in a changing environment, I produce that myself."
• "A successful life has to be earned and re-earned over and over again. Just because you're successful at something doesn't mean you're going to keep being successful….  I liken that to the CMO role. 'I had a great year. We crushed our goals.' Guess what? No one cares anymore. What am I doing next year? What am I doing this next quarter? And that earned and re-earned concept is just really instilled in me."
• "I have learned that you earn your seat at the table, yes, but then you have to make sure you have a voice, and you've got to keep earning that seat at the table. If I'm not coming with really good insight or an opinion or what we need next, I'm going to lose that seat."
• "So if I went back to my pre-CMO self, it would be to get out of my head, find my voice. One of the things I remember so clearly was it was a room full of very big personalities, and I'm also a big personality, but I'm a little bit more thoughtful. I like to listen before I speak. There was no time for me to speak. There wasn't a pause, and what I learned is that I had to interrupt people. That's not natural for me, but in order to get my thoughts out, that was just an uncomfortable place I had to put myself in, and I got a lot more comfortable with it as I held that board or held that seat."

00:00 Introduction to The Get

00:32 Meet Monica Ho, CMO of SOCI

01:13 Monica's Journey and Leadership Insights

14:49 The Impact of AI on Marketing

23:41 Hiring and Career Advice

30:05 Concluding Thoughts and Industry Changes

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.

How are PE-backed environments unique for SaaS CMOs? And what's the difference between the CMOs who flourish in PE-backed companies and those who flounder? This episode is required listening for any current or prospective CMO in a PE-backed company.

This week on The Get, Erica Seidel dives into the nuances of marketing leadership in PE-backed B2B SaaS orgs with guest Julie Zadow, Growth Marketing Leader at The Riverside Company. They explore Julie's role in private equity as a marketing operating partner, insights into aligning marketing strategies with investment firm goals, and the impact of AI on marketing roles and operations.

You will learn about:

• What it's like to be a marketing operating partner in a PE shop: As Julie describes it, she offers "battle scars for hire" and brings a mix of empathy, speed, and practicality
• How to speak marketing in a way that aligns with the investor's lens
• How to talk about brand in a way that doesn't make your investors run screaming
• How the different phases of the hold period matter for marketing – and how conversations with investors should evolve as the end of the hold period approaches
• Coaching junior employees in an AI+ environment, and a shortcut for contextualizing things for your most junior employees so they don't just 'do' with AI but 'learn' as well: Julie asks her interns: "Where did you feel you were parroting AI without understanding what it was saying?" and "What do you recommend that AI didn't think of?"
• The role that is hardest to disintermediate with AI
• The line of questioning CEOs are likely to pose to CMO candidates about their AI fluency
• Advice to CEOs who have failed at hiring marketing leaders

00:00 Welcome to The Get: Introduction and Overview

00:58 Introducing Julie Zadow: A Marketing Leader's Journey

02:10 The Role of a Marketing Operating Partner in Private Equity

03:58 Aligning Marketing Strategies with Investor Expectations

14:30 The Impact of AI on SaaS Marketing Organizations

26:18 Advice for CMOs in Private Equity-Backed Companies

34:21 Final Thoughts and Conclusion

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.

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel explores the changing landscape of SaaS marketing organizations with guest Jay Roxe, CMO at Inriver. You'll learn about:

• "Firing your tech stack" in order to re-imagine the marketing org and how marketing gets done
• Leveraging AI for everything from last-mile content customization to product marketing to building authority in situations where prospects say, 'ChatGPT told me I should talk to you"
• The evolving structure of marketing ops
• Why content is no longer king, but context is king: "Customers have done 80% of their research by the time they reach you. That number is actually going up. It's so easy for people to understand your organization."
• What a full-stack customer marketing org looks like
• Building a culture of gratitude on the marketing team
• Advice for rising CMOs: You have to love the process, not just want to HAVE DONE the CMO role. Intellectual curiosity about the job is not enough.
• Advice to CEOs on how to identify the CMOs who are the best problem solvers
• Hiring, and how to find people who are "curious, smart, and unexpected"

Quotes:

• "You're AI first or you're unemployed."
• "Adoption is the new MQL… As you put more stuff into the product, are people actually adopting and using it?"
• " From an org design point of view, you want to think of where you need person-to-person face-off. Your partners don't want to talk to your AI chatbot. They want to talk to a person who can help them, brainstorm with them, and give them context."
• "One of the things I like talking about with candidates: what have they changed over the past year? How have they changed how they work based on everything that's going on?"

00:00 Welcome to The Get

00:16 Introducing Jay Roxe

00:40 Jay's Marketing Journey

02:32 Inriver's Global Marketing Org

06:24 Future of SaaS Marketing Orgs

11:15 The Role of AI in Marketing

14:54 Hiring for the Future

19:30 Human-Centric Leadership

21:53 Customer Marketing Insights

24:32 Final Thoughts and Advice

29:21 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.

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel and guest Ashley Deibert, CMO of Marigold, candidly discuss the realities of leading marketing in today's SaaS landscape.

Ashley shares how she's navigated seismic shifts in marketing org structures, budget realities, and the CMO role itself, all while keeping alignment at the center of her approach. You'll learn from her perspective on:

• How to build alignment, not on Day 1 in the job, but during the interview process
• Deciding what to stop, start, and continue when taking on a new role
• Handling drastic budget reductions by providing scenario-based options
• Hiring fast, hiring micro-experts, and spotting 'moldable' talent through situational questions
• How to be open to others' feedback without getting mired in it
• Advice to CEOs on avoiding CMO mis-hires
• Why 'touch more, do more, be exposed to more' should be every rising CMO's mantra
• Structuring product marketing and customer marketing together for impact
• How AI is augmenting marketing without replacing talent
• Why the best GTM teams blur the lines among sales, marketing, product, and customer success into one revenue team

If you're a marketing leader, a CEO hiring a CMO, or otherwise navigating the changing currents of SaaS go-to-market, you'll learn new insights and frameworks from this episode.

Some quotes of note:

• "I don't believe in doing more with less. I believe in focus…. When you're a CMO, it's about alignment because you're servicing the organization's growth."
• " Don't just be selfish in a hiring cycle. Also, think about, is this person going to get what they need from you? Because if they don't, guess what? They leave."
• "The CEO needs to really think about the relationship that the organization and the culture around marketing that they desire….  I've seen and lived through many situations where it's, "we gotta have marketing", but "gotta have" versus "we need to embrace and make this core to our go-to-market" are different. Marketing is part of go-to-market. It's literally in the title."

00:00 Welcome to The Get: Meet Your Host Erica Seidel

00:16 Introducing Ashley Deibert: CMO at Marigold

01:19 Ashley Deibert's Career Journey and Insights

03:51 Mentorship Moments: Lessons Learned

07:43 Marketing Org Structure at Marigold

14:58 Advice for Aspiring CMOs

20:13 Navigating Budget Cuts in Marketing

21:08 Presenting Scenarios and Aligning with Leadership

23:13 The Importance of Networking in Hiring

25:24 Evaluating Candidates for Culture Fit

29:18 Hiring Freelancers vs. Full-Time Employees

31:40 Advice for CEOs on Hiring CMOs

36:38 The Role of AI in Marketing

38:21 The Future of SaaS Marketing Teams

39:27 Conclusion and Podcast Information

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.