The People of Digital Marketing

Travis' career has been the definition of a 'portfolio career' with experience in sales, recruitment, and marketing. He's the Founder and Principal Consultant at RainierDigital, a marketing operations consultancy and HubSpot Gold Partner. He's also the Founder of Winding Road Careers —a place for people on a non-linear career path—and the host of a podcast of the same name.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• The case for learning both sales skills and marketing skills
• Are career ladders “dead”?
• If someone wanted to become a consultant, what should they be doing today to prepare themselves for that transition?
• What makes marketing resumes suck? What makes them get ignored?
• What’s the best way to use LinkedIn to find new marketing jobs?
• How to learn new marketing skills over time? Who to follow? Where to search and learn?

And more!

“At my core I’m not a marketer, I’m a writer…”

With a decade of freelance and in-house marketing experience, Brooklin focuses on helping both clients and freelancers stand out. The memes are free.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• Why writing as a skill became a big focus for Brooklin early in his career
• How Brooklin started his content agency called BEAM
• How Brooklin recruited his first set of team members
• How to know if freelancing, working at an agency, or working internally within a marketing team is right for you
• How to identify and deal with “nightmare clients”
• How to time referral requests from clients
• How to successfully execute on cold outbound pitches
• Why are interviews a good source for content?
• How original research and data is a differentiator when it comes to content marketing
• Does AI content have a place in a content marketing plan?

  And more!

“I ultimately believe that product marketing should own pricing…pricing is a function of your company’s positioning.”

Dan Balcauski is the founder and Chief Pricing Officer at Product Tranquility, based in Austin, TX. He focuses on helping high-volume B2B SaaS CEOs define pricing and packaging for new products. Over his career, he has worked in both B2C and B2B companies ranging from startups to publicly traded enterprises.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• What do people get wrong about pricing?
• Defining product management
• Who should be responsible for pricing decisions in a business?
• The business objectives that pricing affects
• The pros and cons of freemium pricing models
• How businesses can define their product’s value using the “value cascade” and “Jobs To Be Done”
• How market reference prices work
• How to measure time to value and see its impact on the end-user
• How do you identify the most effective price metric?
• Should a company show pricing on its website?
• How to leverage bundling as an acquisition tactic
• Why custom packaging only works in one scenario

And more!

“[A buyer persona] is the understanding in detailed terms, of the attitudes, needs, concerns, decision criteria, and buyer’s journey around a specific type of buying decision…it is not a profile of an individual…”

Jim Kraus is the President of Buyer Persona Institute (BPI) and a leading authority on buyer personas and buying insights. In addition to his work at BPI, Jim is an avid blogger, author of the Buyer Persona Buzz newsletter, and is currently working on a second edition of the book Buyer Personas with BPI’s founder, Adele Revella. He also frequently speaks at events and podcasts to advance the thinking around buyer personas and buying insights more broadly.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• The simplest definition of what a buyer persona actually is and what buyer personas help businesses achieve
• The differences between customer segments & customer segmentation vs buyer personas
• The hardest buyer insight to discover
• How many buyer personas should a business even have?
• Who owns the creation of buyer personas?
• Do businesses even need buyer personas?
• Why it’s actually harder to buy products today than in the past (sellers aren’t the only ones feeling the pain of a new marketplace)
• What to do after the buyer personas are defined, what’s next?

And more!

“Differentiate yourself by making sure that you have people in-house that have worked with the brand, understand the brand, and connect with everyone [in the team]—so you don’t just have a random team working on your account and 50 other accounts…”

Melissa Rosenthal is an award-winning marketing exec and the Chief Creative Officer at ClickUp, focused on making the world more productive through best-in-class SaaS marketing!

Previously Melissa was the CRO/EVP at Cheddar, a live video media company at the intersection of business news and culture. For her brand work, she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30, Business Insider’s 30 Most Creative People Under 30, and as one of Digiday's "Changemakers."

Prior to Cheddar, she led BuzzFeed's Global Creative Team.

Questions and topics include:

• The importance of establishing a brand personality from the first day of a company’s existence
• The skills a marketer needs to lead a creative department
• How to become a better taste-maker and editor
• How to iterate on brand guidelines and Melissa’s thoughts on “team swipe files”
• How to scale an internal creative team to become an “in-house agency”?
• The balance between looking at the competition while charting your own path
• The benefits of scouting creative talent on behalf of your boss
• How to level up your brand’s social strategy and experiment on new platforms?
• How to recycle old content and creative
• Dealing with loneliness in a remote work world…

And more!

“What we found is that if we talk to the customer…it actually drove the conversion back up…The average answer rate for a ‘branded call’ is almost 30%.”

Alex Levin is Co-Founder and CEO of Regal Voice. He leads the GTM teams. Prior to Regal Voice, Alex was a product manager at Personal and Thomson Reuters, and then joined Handy (acquired by ANGI in 2018) as an early employee. At Handy and then ANGI Alex led growth and marketing. Alex grew up in New York and received his BA from Harvard.

Questions and topics covered include:

“Turns out it’s a lot more difficult to get other people to talk about you, compared to you just pulling up a Google Doc and creating a piece of content…”

“Brand positioning is much more than a marketing exercise…it underpins the entire organization.”

Mark Evans is the principal with Marketing Spark, which offers fractional CMO and strategic advisory services to B2B SaaS companies. Mark's areas of expertise include brand positioning, messaging, and content-driven growth plans. Mark has a podcast and recently published the second edition of his DIY marketing book, “Marketing Spark.”

Questions and topics we covered included:

• Defining what brand positioning is for B2B SaaS companies
• Who’s supposed to own brand positioning?
• How to effectively execute brand positioning
• Who should own brand governance within a company?
• How to use internal marketing to aid in brand governance
• Why addressing switching costs is the biggest challenge SaaS companies face when promoting their products
• Why the commoditization of content should be a concern for all marketing teams
• How to create useful buyer personas?

And more!

“Marketing touches every part of the business. Marketing is…equally as important to sales organizations as ‘sales’ itself.”

Justin Mink has spent a career in leadership and founder roles at companies that have grown from 0-1000s of employees, raised millions of dollars in capital, and that have been valued at over $1B. In 2007 he moved to Dallas from the Washington, D.C. area to launch the Franchise Division at digital marketing firm ReachLocal, helping take the company public while pioneering digital marketing best practices for franchise brands.

Today, as a Professional Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) Implementer, he helps entrepreneurs and leadership teams solve root problems and lead more effectively through a simple set of proven, practical tools. He lives near White Rock Lake with his wife, Kate, son, Jude, and a very old and well-fed dog named Titan.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• What is the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)?
• The difference between a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)
• What you need to know as a marketer to eventually become a CRO
• What it takes to be an internal leader (an intraprenuer) at a company
• The definition of a leader that nobody wants to follow and the signs that you’re working for a bad leader
• How does a degrading company culture change performance over time?
• What should marketing candidates be doing to impress recruiters and hiring managers?

And more!

“Everything we do just goes back to helping, and if we just do that authentically we know that…the value will come back to us.”

Chelsea is a former journalist turned empathy-driven marketer who leads content marketing at Lavender. Her 11+ year career spans diverse industries, from agencies to publishing, branding to SaaS. She draws on her multi-faceted experience and journalistic roots in her content approach and principles, which are hyper-focused on human-centered marketing.

She was also the Director of Content Marketing at Chili Piper back in 2022.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• When is the right time to do a career pivot?
• The competitive advantage journalists have when switching over into a marketing career.
• Should marketers be worried about AI replacing them? (Here’s where Chelsea explains what Human centered-marketing and AI looks like)
• The evolution of content marketing teams this year…
• When to recruit content marketers and Chelsea’s approach to recruiting
• How B2B organizations can dive into the world of video
• How the Lavender team uses Lavender
• How to scale engagement on LinkedIn when growing a personal brand?

And more!

Our Podcast Partner - MarketerHire

Here’s a special episode for all of you lovely marketers out there! In this interview, I chat with my mentor Maurice Bretzfield about AI and how marketers can get started using tools like ChatGPT.

Maurice is an AI and Marketing Consultant. He helps organizations increase revenue and decrease costs using the power of AI and MarTech. 

Maurice has been a digital marketer for nearly three decades and today enjoys working with organizations to integrate MarTech into their marketing strategies and operations. He is the founder of digiquation.io, a Digital Marketing Consultancy and publisher of content about MarTech. 

He is also the co-founder of digiquationHIRE, an outsourcing firm dedicated to supporting marketing teams with highly trained and affordable remote employees.

Topics we discussed include: 

• The evolution of AI and ChatGPT technology
• Crafting effective ChatGPT prompts: how to unlock the power of conversational AI
• AI, ChatGPT, and image generators: transforming marketing with intelligent creativity
• What is the role of AI in a marketer's career?
• Utilizing remote employees to power up your marketing efforts while increasing efficiency and reducing costs

And more!

“The word ‘manager’ can take on a lot of different formats…there’s a lot of different ways to seek out leadership opportunities.” 

Trisha Gallagher is a marketing strategist and mentor with nearly 15 years of experience in planning and executing successful marketing programs. Having held various roles in marketing both in-house and agency-side, Trisha brings a unique perspective to her role as VP of Marketing at Marketri, an outsourced marketing and fractional CMO firm.

She empowers B2B companies to achieve predictable, profitable growth through data-driven marketing programs and guides her clients from brand strategy development to the execution of high-impact campaigns. In addition to her dedication to her clients, Trisha is passionate about mentoring young marketers and helping them achieve their goals.

Questions and topics we covered included:

• Comparing where’s the best place to start your marketing career—at an agency vs in-house vs a consulting firm
• Marketing strategy vs marketing plans
• What is sector-based marketing? 
• The concept of fractional marketing
• The age-old battle of finding sales and marketing alignment
• How to handle feedback (both providing and receiving)?
• Differences in responsibility as you move up in leadership roles within a marketing department

And more!

“66% of websites don’t need to do SEO. There’s no reason that they should bother.”

Eli Schwartz is a seasoned SEO expert and consultant with over a decade of experience, helping prominent B2B and B2C companies like WordPress, Shutterstock, and Zendesk drastically enhance their organic visibility. Formerly leading SEO at SurveyMonkey, he boosted organic search to become a major growth driver. 

An accomplished speaker and author of the book “Product Led SEO”, Eli’s insights regularly appear in top industry publications and events, and he serves as a judge for prestigious awards like the US Search Awards and UK Search Awards.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• February 24th, 2010—How Google’s Panda update changed Eli’s career
• Why Eli doesn’t pay attention to Google algorithm updates (the answer is all about UX)
• Why marketers shouldn’t focus too much on page speed
• The common misconceptions about SEO
• How long does SEO take to see results?
• The basics between editorial vs programmatic SEO
• The right method for building an SEO forecast
• Does domain authority still matter?
• The core skills you need to have before you start your first SEO job

And more!

Relevant  Links:

"A good well-rounded CMO is going to be someone who understands the full buyer's journey...the full marketing-sales funnel."

As a Fractional CMO and GTM Strategist, Corey brings a 25-year track record of extraordinary success as an entrepreneur, sales leader, and CMO for a $150M+ agency called Scorpion (where he was the 1st marketing hire and grew the team to 30 people before leaving). Today, he helps B2B SaaS and Agencies grow from 7 figures to 8 by doing less, not more.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• How Corey grew Scorpion from $20M ARR to $150M ARR within 6 years
• The importance of an MBA
• The benefits that experience in sales brings to a marketer’s career
• How CMOs are measured by the CEO (top-line growth)
• The qualities a CMO looks for when they’re recruiting for the marketing team
• How does misalignment at the executive level trickle down and affect ICs and mid-level managers on the marketing team?
• How do you go about creating predictable word of mouth for your agency?
• Why should marketers stop saying “yes” to their clients? When is it appropriate to push back?
• Retention…why is it such a struggle to grow this metric?
• The transition from IC to leader to advisor

And more!

“If you can understand business, it will make you a better marketer.”

JC Polonia is the Head of Growth at LOOP, a car insurance company based out of Austin, Texas, that takes biased and discriminatory data out of the industry. He’s also the founder of Digitality, a New York-based performance and production marketing agency. From local small businesses to venture-backed companies, JC developed his chops for growth marketing from the grassroots. Data-driven and results-oriented, his efforts revolve around paid media buying and conversion rate optimization.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• How to pitch marketing services to local businesses using side hustles
• Why the marketing agency still works as a business model
• The benefits of working in-house instead of working at an agency
• How JC defines what a growth team actually does (hint: it’s not just media buying)
• Why should marketers understand both the company’s brand and the company’s business fundamentals?
• The importance of knowing what stage your company is in
• What does it mean to be “resourceful” as a marketer?
• The challenges of being a people manager?
• How to approach internal marketing with the CEO and CFO?

And more!

"I need content to connect dots that I didn't know were connected before...Otherwise...I could go look all this stuff up already on my own."

Tracey Wallace is the Director of Content Strategy at Klaviyo. Prior to that, she was the head of marketing for two early stage start-ups (Eterneva and MarketerHire), and the Editor-in-Chief over at BigCommerce. She has 13 years of experience in content marketing, and began her career in Journalism. She is    also a content creator for WorkWeek, managing her own weekly newsletter called “Contentment.”

Questions and topics we covered include:

• How brands can scale (written) content practically
• Tracey’s favorite brands that are best-in-class when it comes to content marketing
• The general misconceptions around content marketing
• Why all content marketers have to figure out how to tie what they create back to revenue goals
• The difference between direct-content revenue vs content-assisted revenue
• The headwinds that content marketers face that performance marketers don’t have to deal with
• Why attribution is “political at best” and why marketers need to understand attribution modeling vs mixed-media modeling
• Why you can’t create content without researching a topic first (cough cough, this is why AI content doesn’t work as a *final* draft)
• How to confirm what really works and how to avoid the BS marketing advice that’s regurgitated online?
• Why internal marketing is the most underrated skill that all marketers need to learn.
  

And more!

 "When you stop selling, you stop growing...If you think that you're maxed out right now...what if you lose a client?"

Ali Schwanke is the CEO and Founder of Simple Strat, an agency of expert strategists in sales and content marketing for B2B tech companies. Ali and her team focus on growing businesses through technology and automations, specializing in the implementation of HubSpot.

Ali is a sought-after speaker and co-host of HubSpot Hacks - the popular YouTube channel with over 1M views and 15k+ subscribers.

Questions and topics we covered: 

• Why is HubSpot the best CRM to use? It’s not just a tool for sales…
• Are CRMs useful for all businesses?
• Why do so many CRM adoptions fail?
• Is Hubspot only useful for marketing teams? (Heck no!)
• Practical ways to start using Hubspot to start growing sales.
• The advanced tactics within Hubspot to help grow sales (i.e. progressive fields).
• Marketing tactics to use for growing a personal brand and an agency.
• Ali’s tips for creating video content—even if you’re shy on camera.
• How to bleed your marketing budget and how to avoid doing this.
• How to tie a marketing strategy to company goals.
• Scaling growth with old content.
• How can B2B companies create a solid audience-building strategy? 
• And more!

“If there’s not a fit between your personality and the environment that you’re in, it’s going to be difficult for you to drive impact. This is regardless of how much you know in your [marketing] domain.” 

Patrick Moran was most recently an Executive in Residence at Reforge where he led the Growth Marketing, Experimentation and Testing, and Brand Marketing programs which he also co-developed. Previously, he was the Head of Consumer Marketing at Houzz and held leadership roles at Spotify, YikYak, and was one of the earlier marketing leaders at Netflix during its transition to producing original content (starting with House of Cards).

He is currently advising early-stage B2C companies looking to profitably scale their marketing initiatives.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• The 4 components that help you control your career trajectory: your knowledge, your impact, and your network.
• Why Patrick made the switch from being a performance marketer to a brand marketer.
• Patrick’s advice for marketers who are getting bigger responsibilities this year (how to deal with a larger scope of work).
• Patrick’s definition of brand marketing and the basics every marketer needs to understand. 
• How can marketers continue to grow in their roles (experience vs online education)?

And more!

“It doesn’t matter if you’re employed or not, it matters if you’re employable…if you learn the skills around how to grow ‘capital-efficiently’, [affecting] the growth curve in a positive way—that’s incredibly employable.”

Bill Macaitis is an advisor and board member, guiding aspiring unicorns and helping build out world class teams and innovative go-to-market strategies. Over his 20 year career Bill has achieved five successful exits and powered growth at three of the fastest-ever growing companies: Slack (CRO/CMO), Zendesk (CMO), and Salesforce (SVP of Marketing). He has also held leadership positions at Fox Interactive Media (SVP of Online Marketing) and IGN Entertainment (VP of Marketing).

Questions and topics we covered include:

• When is the right time to transition as a marketing leader from one company to another? 
• What does it mean to have a “marketing philosophy” as you grow in your career?
• What does it mean to be an employable marketer?
• The early challenges a 1st-time marketing leader faces when working at a startup.
• How can marketing teams infuse a personality into their brand?
• Finding the right balance between goal setting for various channels?
• How would you define capital-efficient growth?
• What does the future CMO look like?
• What are some common misconceptions around brand marketing?

And more!

“Take a look at your agency and if their tests keep losing and you’re like ‘oh our current ad keeps performing better’…you should have a real hard conversation…[You’re losing] every time they tested…” 

“Failure is the best way to learn…You have to try new methods and new things to surprise your audience and surpass your competitors.”

Keren Pakes is the Chief Brand & Communications Officer at Bright Data and the General Manager of The Bright Initiative. After 14 impressive years as an award-winning BBC News journalist (she won an Emmy?!), Keren left the field of journalism to pursue marketing senior leadership roles in the B2B tech space.

Today, Keren focuses her efforts on expanding the reach and impact of The Bright Initiative, an organization that uses web data to drive change across the globe.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• The advice Keren has for anyone who is transitioning from one profession into the world of marketing.
• The unique skills journalists bring to the table.
• What does the right pitch to a journalist look like?
• Should you begin your marketing career working at a startup or a big corporation?
• How to leverage your failures to help you grow in your career.
• The soft skills you need to learn to become a successful marketing leader.
• How to build a marketing department.

And more!

“Video is great, and audio is better.”

Nora Sudduth, Co-founder of Hello Audio is a leading marketing & conversion strategist who has helped businesses sell over $500M of products & services online. She’s also designed several courses, coaching, and certification programs that have generated millions more.

Nora has over 20 years of experience working with startups to Fortune 500 companies and everything in between. From market positioning and messaging, to offers and sales strategies, she’s consulted on thousands of marketing campaigns to help businesses have authentic, compelling conversations with their clients. She was also responsible for rebuilding ClickFunnel’s Certified Partner Program—consulting various businesses on over 1,000 marketing funnels.

Questions and topics we covered includes:

• What’s the difference between a public and private podcast? 
• How can businesses use private podcasts in their marketing?
• How to monetize your expertise using The Flagship Formula™.
• When is it appropriate for marketers to create a course?
• What are some tactics and strategies Nora has used to promote her own courses?
• Why should B2B organizations invest in certification programs as a product marketing tactic and when is the right time to launch one?

And more!

“When someone interacts with your brand for the first time, it’s literally a first impression.”

Sydney Michuda is the owner and creative lead behind Super Creative, a design and branding studio based in Milwaukee. With a nearly decade of design experience under her belt, most of which has been focused on branding small businesses, she's most at home when working with passionate, like-minded creative entrepreneurs.

Whether it's designing for brands large and small or educating fellow creatives, Sydney's always game to make something super. 

 Questions and topics include:

• How Sydney got her first set of clients.
• Sydney’s process for onboarding clients and how she’s improved it over time. 
• How Sydney defines “brand” and brand strategy.
• Brand heart
• Customer personas
• Competitive analysis
• Brand voice 
• The importance of maintaining consistency with your brand identity.
• The key differences in creative work when doing a rebrand.
• How to measure the success of your work as a creative professional.
• Is making the transition into a freelance role the right move for marketers who’ve been laid off this year?
• How marketers can collaborate better with their coworkers on the creative side of their departments.

And more!

“Take your top priorities and cut them in half, and then focus on doing fewer things exceedingly well.”

Chad is the VP of Marketing & Communications at Jotform, a leading online form, and productivity software company. He holds a master’s degree in communication and resides with his wife and cats in Oakland, California.

• Hiring for skills that matter and why writing is one to master!
• How to build a marketing team from the ground up.
• When to hire an employee vs freelancer vs a vendor.
• Defining the inflection points for a marketing team as a startup scales.
• When should companies consider a rebrand?
• What does it take to rebrand a company successfully?
• Why do all SaaS companies need the marketing team to use the product.

And more!

“A podcast is like a Swiss army knife, it can accomplish so many objectives…”

“[For] some clients who have not necessarily reinvented themselves yet–the experiences that we’ve experienced in the past need a facelift…”

Ashley Cline is a Digital Marketing Consultant and Freelancing Expert. As the VP & Co-Founder at Ice Cream Social, Ashley has over 17 years of experience specializing in marketing strategy, execution, and collaborative efforts. She is a proponent of the importance of word-of-mouth marketing in today's digital age.

Across her tenure in the field, Ashley has held nearly every role in the digital marketing space, giving her unmatched expertise in customer acquisition and email, search, and content marketing.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• How Ashley’s love for video games got her into the world of digital marketing.
• Some of the career paths available for digital marketers today (intrapreneur, entrepreneur, and solopreneur).
• What are most event marketers doing wrong in their marketing strategies?
• The best ad placements to consider in 2023.
• Why all event marketers should be learning how to use SMS messaging tactics.
• How to use your CRM platform to optimize your messaging and effectiveness across channels when promoting events.
• Is it possible to fast-track the growth of a startup?
• The secret to creating an “always full” sales pipeline (channel sales and partnerships).

And more!

Skip the intro: 00:04:41

“…This just provides more flexibility for really top-notch marketers to live the life that they want.”

Arlyn Davich is an entrepreneurial executive with a proven track record of building and scaling consumer-tech businesses as a startup Founder/CEO (PayPerks...Allswell...ShopShops) and Fortune 50 Intrapreneur at companies like Walmart. She specializes in direct-to-consumer strategy, brand building, demand generation and digital acceleration.

She's currently building her latest venture, Little Fish: a company that deploys top-tier executive talent, on a fractional and interim basis, to grow early stage e-commerce businesses.

Skip the intro: 00:03:59:58

Questions and topics we covered include:

• What is a Fractional CMO?
• The types of businesses that benefit the most from working with a Fractional CMO.
• Why is there more demand for Fractional CMOs, what has changed in the market?
• What is Little Fish’s role in the Fractional CMO landscape?
• What type of companies does Little Fish work with?
• How to build a marketing team from scratch.
• How to manage up to the CEO, as a marketing leader.
• What it takes to become a CMO (before transitioning to a fractional role)?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages when it comes to becoming a Fractional CMO?
• How should Fractional CMOs evaluate opportunities with new clients?

And more!

“Assuming timing exists, you [have to have] people, process, and technology…”

Zac Litwack is a partner at Savage Ventures, a venture operator with HQ in Nashville, TN which has created $450M in enterprise value so far. He recently led marketing for Savage portfolio company OutKick, which scaled to 7 figures per month in revenue and sold to FOX less than 1 year after its launch. He is currently Chief Marketing Officer / Partner of American Songwriter, Savage Sports, Rare, and 247Health whose properties reach 100+ million people per month, and is an owner plus leads growth hacking and high tempo testing across Savage’s portfolio companies, including MyDrHank, a 7 figure D2C online pharmacy and telemedicine brand focused on the senior male market, and Savage Media, a full-service creative service and video production firm. Savage Ventures has created $450M in enterprise value and is on a path to $1,000,000,000.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• The advantages venture operators have over traditional VC firms.
• The importance of people, process, and technology for a startup’s success.
• Do VCs look at a startup’s marketing strategy before making an investment? How much weight do they give to marketing when committing to an investment?
• How to build a marketing team from scratch.
• What does it take to scale a company from $0 to $100m?
• The most unaddressed marketing challenge all early-stage startups are facing.
• When is it appropriate to launch an affiliate marketing program?
• How to know if you have product market fit.
• How Zac’s businesses are preparing for new shifts in digital privacy regulations (he’s collecting first-party data!).
• How to find the right startups to work with as a marketer.

And more!

“Relationships are what turn into opportunities.”

Rachel B. Lee is a fearless marketing #ladyboss and the wife of Joshua B. Lee. Together they have formed a powerful business relationship that connects with audiences across the world. Rachel leads the marketing and branding strategy for Standout Authority and its clients and can help you find your voice and create influence like you’ve never imagined.

She’s passionate about helping students navigate their careers, so In her spare time, she’s a Texas MBA and MS Marketing Industry Consultant helping our future leaders navigate their personal brands and build careers that they love.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• What advantages can marketers get if they obtain an MBA?
• Rachel’s journey from corporate employee to starting a company with her husband.
• How marketers can stand out if they work within a large team.
• What does it take for a personal brand to stand out in 2023?
• How should people approach marketing strategy when it comes to building a personal brand?
• How to create a clear picture of your personal brand.

And more!

“The first question is, ‘How hard is it to extract value from our product?’”

Justin Parnell is the VP of Marketing at BrightIdea. Justin is a data-driven marketing leader who oversees a full range of initiatives including influencing business strategy, developing lifecycle marketing plans, and the project management of BrightIdea’s marketing initiatives. Justin is also experienced in launching and scaling new offerings and providing the vision of BrightIdea’s new product go-to-market strategy.

Questions and topics we covered include :

• How having experience working in sales aided Justin in becoming a better marketer.
• Can you define Product Lead Growth?
• Which department owns PLG? Is it marketing? Product? Sales? A combination?
• What are some PLG Go-To-Market tactics and what brands are the best-in-class examples to follow?
• When shouldn’t a business try to use PLG as a Go-To-Market strategy?
• How has the buyer’s journey evolved?
• The right way to tackle upward mobility within a marketing team.
• The qualities in new candidates that Justin is looking for when scaling his marketing team.

And more!

“It can help to work for a mission-driven organization, but you’re going to maximize that opportunity if you have some perspective on what your personal values are...”

Always one to believe in bringing her whole self to work, Julia knows that the marketer who is deliberate in the purpose of their work will have the greatest impact.

Early in her career, personal circumstances helped Julia define her own purpose. She has learned how to drive more impactful outcomes by being on purpose throughout her career in healthcare.

Julia believes marketers who find their own purpose can enjoy professional success and personal satisfaction because of the way they do their work.

She is currently a marketing leader at Genentech and formerly a Marketing Director at Pfizer.

Questions and topics we covered:

• The unique marketing challenges within the pharmaceutical and medical industries.
• Why you should study other industries when trying to get new marketing ideas.
• What does “being on purpose” mean?
• Can marketers realize their purpose no matter which industry or company they work in?
• Is becoming a CMO the only path a marketer can take?
• What skills and professional qualities does a marketer need to gain in order to deserve a leadership role?
• What’s the value of being intentional in your marketing?
• Should marketing leaders focus on the competition?
• Why does authentic engagement matter in marketing?

And more!

“Click rates don’t always correlate to revenue.”

Joe works as the Director of Retention at The Beard Club. In his spare time, he's been growing his audience of 30K+ followers on Twitter and LinkedIn by sharing daily marketing tips and content geared toward DTC marketers.

He has generated over $50mm in revenue with email marketing throughout his career and recently finished teaching his first Email Marketing 101 course on Maven.

Other brands he’s helped in the world of marketing include Hopsy, FanDuel, and PetHonesty.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• What are the unique challenges that come from trying to grow a subscription business?
• Why is email marketing a tactic that will never go out of style?
• Are open rates dead?
• What do teams do wrong when launching their email marketing campaigns?
• How can you create cross-channel campaigns that include emails?
• Do the same tactics that work in SMS marketing work with email?
• What to look for when hiring the ideal email marketing specialist.
• Joe’s favorite marketing tools.

And more!

Links to learn more from Joe:

“Your job as a manager is to only care about three things: the financial goals of your direct reports, their professional goals, and finally their personal goals.”

Patrick Ward is the VP of Marketing for Rootstrap, a custom software development consultancy that digitally transforms companies like MasterClass & Google, along with A-List Celebrities like Tony Robbins & Snoop Dogg. He’s also the Founder of NanoGlobals, an expert-led platform that helps mid-size tech companies tap into global markets through remote hiring, offshoring, and international market expansion (this is his side hustle).

A writer by trade, Patrick's international brand & B2B marketing expertise has been featured in The New York Times, Ad Age, Fast Company, Morning Brew, Hacker Noon, HuffPost & Business Insider.

Questions and topics we talked about include:

• What does a marketer need to learn before getting hired as a marketing leader? (Hint: Internal marketing)
• What does it mean to be the leader of a marketing team?
• What should you do during a 1-on-1 with your manager?
• How are side hustles a company’s key to successful marketing?
• How Patrick convinces his team to buy into the idea of the “B2B influencer.” And what is an infernal influencer?
• What is the “Marketing Transformation Mindset”?
• And more!

Relevant links:

“Fun translates into good performance.”

The four things every marketer should know before starting their career:

1. Find a skill (channel) that is the most fun to do. Then specialize. Specialization brings money. Specialization solves hard problems that matter. You take this even further by also specializing in a specific industry (e.g. I specialize in marketing for fintech and insurance orgs at the moment).
2. Understand the business you’re marketing. Do your best to think like the CEO.
3. Find an excuse to meet other experts. Personal branding is the easiest way to grow your network of mentors.
4. Create a swipe file. This is not a new or novel suggestion, just one that works. There’s a reason other marketing experts do this!

Key moments from marketing experts:

“SEO takes time…”

“You gotta be flexible but, not spineless.”

JD Dillon lives by the principle of "Mission First, People Always." A U.S. Army veteran and graduate of the United States Military Academy, JD has spent his career in Corporate America focused on profitable top-line growth while investing in individuals and organizational development.

Currently, the CMO for renewable energy upstart Tigo Energy, his career has spanned a variety of functions while being focused on bringing value to his customers and his employees.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• The unique marketing challenges within the energy sector.
• The mental frameworks every marketer needs to know, just to be a better professional.
• What does it mean to be a successful CMO?
• Who measures the success of a CMO’s work?
• What’s the right way to set expectations and manage-up when working with the CEO?
• JD’s approach to internal marketing and why all marketers need to learn this skill.
• The most important type of meeting CMOs need to have.
• Are organizational charts (company org. charts) still necessary?
• How marketing teams can use the RACI matrix to get tasks done faster.
• The “quick wins” new CMOs should focus on during their first 90 days.
• Can a marketer do sales and marketing at the same time?
• What are some “old-school” practices that still work, regardless of what changes are going on in the market?

And more!

“The key thing in all of this really is understanding the value that you give and that you have, and then getting other people to help tell that story for you…”

Christina’s love of marketing started during her undergraduate days, when under the wise guidance of her grandmother she decided to do a marketing and management degree and hasn’t looked back.

Having held various roles in marketing in different sectors, managing teams of different sizes, she is now the head of marketing at Paid, a UK tech start-up that is changing the way procurement teams work with their smaller suppliers, making the process more efficient and cost-effective for both parties. In her words, she is “excited about the opportunity for marketing to shake things up, and deliver real value.”

Always in learning mode Christina also holds an MBA and she likes to keep up to date on what is going on in marketing and other things that interest her. She also runs Ara and Obi, which is a bedroom and bathroom linen brand for babies and toddlers with eczema.

Questions and topics we covered in this episode include:

• Why Christina champions the generalist approach to growing in her marketing career.
• How can B2B marketing companies create demand for sales? Is content the main lever to pull?
• What is the best approach to crafting the right go-to-market strategy?
• Using a podcast to understand your ICP’s pain points.
• Is lead scoring still useful for B2B marketers? Does it create the wrong incentives for marketers?
• The main reason why you should never buy a list of leads.
• What’s Christina’s general approach to building her marketing team?
• What does the CEO care about when it comes to marketing? (Preview = revenue…)

“Carpenters aren’t scared of nail guns. It can replace the hammer but, it can’t replace the carpenter. I think that is what AI is and represents.”

Dave Snyder is the CEO of CopyPress. His background in SEO, social media, and content marketing led Dave to look for a better way to scale and create content. That search led to the formation of CopyPress.

Today, CopyPress is one the most trusted content providers online working with brands like Linkedin, Zenefits, Sears, Macy's, IHG, and Stitchfix. With help from CopyPress, clients are able to increase their organic web traffic, improve their search engine rankings, and build their brand awareness.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• Dave’s story from how he transitioned from teacher to getting his first SEO job.
• The story of how is first agency merged with Search Engine Journal (it was called Search and Social).
• How he kicked off CopyPress and when he began to see the early signs of success.
• How to keep a long-term relationship with your clients?
• Why should content marketers care about AI?
• What is your sales strategy, how are you getting consistently big clients?
• What can they do now to prepare for future changes in the craft?
• Why should content marketers care just as much about attribution as they care about the content they are making?
• Why should all marketers study sales letters?
• How should companies build a blog in 2022?
• How can content marketers find the right balance between creating content people want to read and creating content that ranks on search?

If you work in e-commerce, you need to listen to this podcast interview.

Joel Garthwaite is the CMO of Harbour Lifestyle, the UK's fastest-growing outdoor furniture brand. With 10 years of experience working with global companies, Joel specializes in paid media programming, demand generation, data analytics, PR, and more. He has a proven track record not just in the DTC space—developing and leading world-class marketing teams across B2B and B2C.

He has also advised and led multiple companies across tech, commodities, and finance through successful IPOs.

Prior to moving client-side, he worked in the agency space too—helping clients like Nike, Nestlé, Shell, AstraZeneca, and more.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• The differences between selling commodity/impulse purchase products versus luxury products.
• The different methods to use to build trust when your business doesn’t have social proof.
• The right tactics to use to gain more product reviews and UGC.
• Is the single-channel strategy dead in the world of e-commerce marketing?
• How is Joel's team doing customer research and customer discovery this year?
• Why do marketers need to have a strong awareness of macro events in culture and news?
• What Joel looks for in potential marketing hires.
• How can CMOs stand out as candidates when being evaluated by hiring managers at the c-suite level (CEOs, executive recruiters, etc.)?

And more!

“Just niche down on one thing…People have been saying SEO is dead for 20 years. Focus has allowed to double in size almost every year.”

David Finberg has been building websites since the age of 9 and he decided to go all-in on the digital marketing industry in 2015 when he founded Peaks Digital Marketing. Since then, he’s generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue and has a passion for growing small businesses and corporations through data-driven ROI-centered strategies.

As a "Digital Sherpa" for his clients, he helps guide them on the best online path for the success of their businesses. He defines success as doing what you want to do and making an impact in the lives of others.

Questions and topics we covered in this episode include:

• The story of how David got into website development at the age of 9.
• How he launched and grew his 7-figure agency, Peaks Digital Marketing.
• The common mistakes businesses make when creating a marketing strategy.
• Where should SEO sit within a marketing team?
• What are the core functions of an SEO team and what qualities to look for when finding the right people for that team?

And more!

“Just like you need to understand the business, you need to help them [the c-suite] understand the realities of marketing…”

“The art of persuasion lives in the craft of writing…if you want to catapult your writing skills, write a book.”

Léandre Larouche is an author, speaker, and writing consultant based in Toronto, Canada. He is the author of Hétérochrome (2017), Write a Book That Matters (2021), The Architecture of Grammar (2021), and The End of Nonsense (forthcoming).

Léandre is a writing activist. He believes that writing is the most powerful skill in the world and that writing well isn’t hard with the right mindset and approach.

Questions and topics we covered in this episode include:

• Léandre’s obsession with writing and how he learned to become a writer with English as his second language.
• Using a book to build authority in any industry.
• How to start writing a book? What are the some popular “best practices” that Léandre doesn’t agree with?
• The right writing habits to keep.
• Léandre’s approach to editing.
• When is the right time to request feedback on a book?
• When should you hire a ghostwriter?
• Self-publishing or going through a publisher—which is the right path?
• And more!

Connect with Léandre via his:

Jacob Warwick is the CEO of ThinkWarwick, an executive leadership and career growth firm. He's on a mission to help more people love what they do. Prior to starting his own business, he grew into c-suite marketing and product roles in Silicon Valley and was the CEO of a multi-million dollar a year career management company.

Questions and topics covered:

• What the transition between marketing tactician to marketing leader looks like.
• How can marketers who are trying to grow, make themselves recession-proof?
• What is a career narrative and why is it important to have this clearly defined?
• How Jacob has created a newsletter that actually helps grow his business.
• The advice Jacob has for anyone trying to grow their LinkedIn audience this year.
• Is it possible to become a CMO without a personal brand?

And more!

“Success can look drastically different, you don’t always need a lot of downloads…”

Jeff Large is the CEO & Founder of Come Alive Creative, a podcast production company. Clients hire Jeff to produce their podcasts and to develop strategies for their content marketing. Jeff spends most days actively learning about goal setting, writing narratives, collaborating with others, and producing amazing audio.

Questions and topics we covered:

• Jeff’s home office setup (the most impressive setup I’ve seen to date).
• What made him shift from teaching and being a musician to becoming a podcast host?
• What’s his process for helping his clients produce podcasts on a consistent basis?
• Is a launch plan necessary for podcasts? How should hosts approach this?
• The common mistakes most podcast hosts are making right now.
• When looking at podcast analytics, what metrics actually matter?
• What gear and studio setup do you recommend for new podcast hosts?
• The most straightforward way you can repurpose podcast content, over and over and over again.

And more!

Fun fact: Jeff has been podcasting since 2012.

“Podcasting is not inherently viral…”

Harry Morton is the founder and CEO of Lower Street, a podcast production agency specializing in creating shows for agencies, startups, and enterprise clients. Harry and his team of producers, audio engineers, and marketers have launched more than 50 podcasts and produced thousands of episodes. Harry is also a happy father of 2, an avid mountain biker, and an occasional music producer.

Questions:

• The story of how Harry grew his marketing agency.
• What does it take to create a B2B podcast that generates revenue?
• What’s the business case for creating a podcast?
• What are some unexpected challenges businesses face when launching a podcast?
• What are the best practices for driving audience growth?
• What should someone consider when pitching themselves as a guest?
• The smart tactics to use when repurposing podcast content.

And more!

Saarim is a recognized LinkedIn expert and consultant who has helped thousands of people master LinkedIn for client acquisition. Today, multiple people have credited Saarim with helping them to get their businesses 6 & 7 figure levels. Today, Saarim has coaching programs specifically focused on client acquisition using LinkedIn. For all things LinkedIn & getting clients - Saarim is the guy to go to!

Questions and topics we covered include:

• How to grow a blog from 0 to 1 million readers in 2022.
• Why Saarim chooses LinkedIn as his area of expertise.
• The common mistakes people make when trying to promote themselves on LinkedIn.
• The best content format for LinkedIn.
• What makes LinkedIn different from Instagram in terms of client acquisition?
• How do you design a LinkedIn profile to attract clients?
• What are the 3 principles for getting clients on LinkedIn? (Traffic, Content, & Relationships)
• How to create an actionable content strategy for LinkedIn in 2022.
• What kind of content attracts buyers the best on LinkedIn?

And more!

Sara Pion has spent the last 4.5 years growing her career in B2B Saas, starting in technical support and moving into Growth and Demand Generation marketing across high-growth companies like Drift, Alyce, Voiceflow, and now Dandy. She has a proven track record of fostering community within a customer base, scaling teams, and acquiring and activating users.

Outside of work, she has an amazing podcast on personal and professional growth with her co-host Bridget called “Self Control & Cheese”. When she isn’t working, Sara likes exploring Denver and boxing.

Questions and topics we covered include:

• When is the right time to leave a job you used to love?
• Sara’s take on the age-old debate of starting off as a specialist or generalist.
• Why should candidates applying to startups ask companies questions about their financial security?
• The pros and cons of joining a startup at seed, series A, B, and so on. And, how can marketers determine if startups in general are the right type of company for them to join?
• How to say “no” to too many ideas.
• What does a toxic job offer look like?
• The skills any marketer should learn as they try to become an expert in their industry, channel, etc.
• Why does internal marketing become more important as a marketer gets more senior roles?