Episode 2
CMO Secrets to Maximize Recruiter & Network Relationships
In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel delves into what it takes to excel at networking and effectively work with recruiters, exploring programmatic ways to engage with professional networks. Erica discusses the best questions candidates ask recruiters and the importance of developing a personal Board of Advisors. She also explains the role of executive search professionals, differentiating them from career coaches and therapists.
Special guest Tracy Eiler, CMO of OpenSesame, discusses her recent experience evaluating marketing leadership opportunities, how today's recruiting climate is unique, the fast-paced pressure-testing playbook she uses to assess roles, and red flags to watch out for. Tracy shares how CEOs can demonstrate their support for marketing, tips for collaborating with recruiters, and how CMO candidates can make a strong impression. The discussion extends to the complexities of career trauma, confidence, and the right level of transparency when delivering your 'career story.' Tracy also emphasizes continuous relationship building within one's network and the importance of having a well-prepared personal narrative.
00:00 Introduction to Networking and Recruiters
00:35 Welcome to The Get with Erica Seidel
01:06 Tips for Working with Executive Recruiters
04:09 Introducing Tracy Eiler
05:02 Tracy Eiler's Journey and Insights
08:57 Pressure Testing a Role
12:47 Evaluating CEOs and Red Flags
17:53 Tracy's First CMO Job and Lessons Learned
20:54 Collaborating with Recruiters
22:24 Navigating Recruiter Relationships
22:50 The Role of Feedback in Shaping Searches
26:24 The Importance of Networking
30:10 Building and Maintaining Meaningful Connections
33:25 Career Trauma and Vulnerability
38:01 Final Thoughts and Key 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 The Race to Reduce Risk in CMO Recruiting.
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.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
What does it look like to be good at networking?
Speaker:To be able to grow your network, nurture it, give to it, and get from it?
Speaker:And what does it mean to work with a recruiter?
Speaker:Many CMOs have admitted to me that they are really bad at networking, and
Speaker:many have asked me how they can best work with recruiters as a candidate?
Speaker:Today, we look at programmatic ways to work with your network, whether
Speaker:that means recruiters, former colleagues, current colleagues,
Speaker:personal boards of advisors, etc.
Speaker:If you can get good at this, your decision-making will be stronger
Speaker:with input from others, and you can get connected to more opportunities,
Speaker:making friends along the way.
Speaker:Hello, and welcome to The Get.
Speaker:I'm your host, Erica Seidel.
Speaker:This season, we focus on the race to reduce risk when it comes to a
Speaker:match between a company and a CMO.
Speaker:How can you find out what you need to find out before saying yes so that you
Speaker:make a match that sticks and flourishes?
Speaker:Today, you'll hear some tips from me about working with executive recruiters.
Speaker:Then you will meet my guest, Tracy Eiler.
Speaker:She will share the playbook that has helped her tap her
Speaker:network and collaborate well with recruiters over several CMO jobs.
Speaker:Let's first talk about how to work with executive recruiters as a candidate.
Speaker:Some words to the wise.
Speaker:First, executive search people like myself work on behalf of the
Speaker:companies, not the candidates.
Speaker:We don't have the model of working with candidates to curate their
Speaker:set of opportunities per se.
Speaker:We are instead helping companies that are looking for very particular things.
Speaker:I like to say eleven out of ten requirements.
Speaker:That means that the chance I could place a particular marketing leader
Speaker:is lower than I wish it would be, even if the person has great experience.
Speaker:I often tell people that I'm not a substitute for a
Speaker:career coach or a therapist.
Speaker:But of course, I do a lot of coaching for the candidates I have
Speaker:in play for particular searches, guiding them through that process.
Speaker:When I think about the marketing leaders that I have the closest relationships
Speaker:with, there's some things in common.
Speaker:They have the background that I tend to place, marketing leaders
Speaker:at scale-up companies in B2B SaaS.
Speaker:They have contributed to strong, scaled journeys.
Speaker:They've gotten back to me when I've reached out to them.
Speaker:They've said things like, I want to look at this or maybe this is
Speaker:not the fit for me, but let's chat.
Speaker:Let me introduce you to somebody who is a good fit.
Speaker:They might be somebody that I've met in person at some event or,
Speaker:obviously, through an interview.
Speaker:Maybe they've been a candidate already for me in the past.
Speaker:They've shared their views on the market and not just asked me for mine.
Speaker:So, let's say you have a conversation with a recruiter
Speaker:without a particular role in mind.
Speaker:Kind of a get-to-know-you conversation.
Speaker:Some tips for you.
Speaker:First, do your research.
Speaker:Check out the recruiter's content.
Speaker:Get to know their focus area.
Speaker:Second, have your scale-up numbers at the ready.
Speaker:Know what your business impact is and say it.
Speaker:If you have helped a company go from fifty million to a
Speaker:hundred million, spit that out.
Speaker:If you've built a marketing team from ten people to twenty-five
Speaker:and then back down to fifteen, but with increased output, share that.
Speaker:Third, be clear on what you're looking for job wise.
Speaker:Sometimes people spend too much time with me talking about what they did fifteen,
Speaker:twenty years ago, when really what you want is to create the triggers for,
Speaker:call me for this kind of opportunity.
Speaker:For instance, oh, I'm looking for a Series B cybersecurity company, you
Speaker:know, based on the East Coast, where the marketing leader should have a
Speaker:real strong depth in product marketing.
Speaker:That's helpful for me to hear.
Speaker:Now, let's say the executive search person has a role that could be a good
Speaker:fit for you, and they have shared the name of the company, so you have a
Speaker:real opportunity to work with them.
Speaker:Take the call if you have even a small amount of curiosity about the role.
Speaker:I've placed many people who went from twenty percent interested,
Speaker:to fifty percent interested, to 110 percent interested over the
Speaker:course of just a few conversations.
Speaker:And check out the company, come with a quick point of view.
Speaker:Especially now, the best candidates are doing that.
Speaker:Then, once you're meeting others from the company, share your reactions
Speaker:honestly with the recruiter.
Speaker:Candidates can really shape the direction of a search and the
Speaker:perspective of the recruiter and the CEO more than they sometimes think.
Speaker:There's so much more to talk about, so let's bring on another perspective.
Speaker:Let me introduce you to my guest, Tracy Eiler.
Speaker:Tracy has been named one of the fifteen most influential women in B2B marketing.
Speaker:She's now the CMO of OpenSesame, the Series D company in the e-learning space.
Speaker:Previously, she served as CMO at Alation, InsideView, and MarkLogic, to name a few.
Speaker:She's an advisor with Women in Revenue, which is a great organization.
Speaker:I've tried to recruit her many times before, and you will likely find
Speaker:her just as impressive as I do.
Speaker:She's going to discuss with us her playbook for pressure testing a role,
Speaker:and she'll share her programmatic approach to working with people in
Speaker:her network, both recruiters and colleagues, to help get to the right fit.
Speaker:And she'll discuss tips for CEOs to demonstrate their support of marketing.
Speaker:Tracy, welcome to the show.
Speaker:Thanks for having me.
Speaker:I'm really thrilled to be here, especially after listening to last season.
Speaker:Oh, wonderful.
Speaker:Thank you for being a listener.
Speaker:I appreciate that.
Speaker:Let's launch right in.
Speaker:So you landed as CMO at OpenSesame in the last year, I think, right?
Speaker:And you
Speaker:- Yes.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So you mentioned you had checked out about thirty different opportunities.
Speaker:I did, I did.
Speaker:So that is, that is a lot.
Speaker:And I know you're picky about what you say yes to having talked to you before.
Speaker:So, um, can you talk about how this search for you was different from
Speaker:the past, and maybe share a couple of things that you learned or that you
Speaker:did that others could learn from as they seek to kind of mitigate risk
Speaker:with, with their hiring and recruiting?
Speaker:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker:I think every one of your listeners knows what a weird climate that we are in.
Speaker:Companies want successful marketers to join them, but yet they might have had a
Speaker:bad experience in the past or been burned or overhired teams and then downsized.
Speaker:There's just volatility everywhere.
Speaker:And every marketer I know has come in and out of businesses, sometimes
Speaker:in less than eighteen months, sometimes in less than a year.
Speaker:You know, there's that joke, not joke about marketing people having
Speaker:eighteen-month tenures, but you know, it's, it's happened to me.
Speaker:So I, this time around, was incredibly deliberate about what
Speaker:I was looking at and looking for.
Speaker:And at this stage of my career, I really wanted to be in a slightly more mature
Speaker:company, something that was C or D in terms of a series, that really was looking
Speaker:to scale and appreciated efficiency, that had really good business fundamentals.
Speaker:I've been through that growth-at-all-costs whirlwind that many of us have been in
Speaker:and we're in a different climate, right?
Speaker:So I started looking for my new opportunity, and really what I did
Speaker:first was proactively reach out to recruiters that I know and trust and
Speaker:just say, "Hey, I'm looking around.
Speaker:These are the sorts of things I'm looking for if anything comes up."
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Start there, but then I was also looking at kind of segments of
Speaker:the market that I think are really interesting, or people that I know
Speaker:that are at interesting companies that I would then go and learn about.
Speaker:And then you just start shortlisting and start interviewing, right?
Speaker:And I, I think one of my skills that I have developed really well, Erica, is the
Speaker:fast assessment phase when you first hear from someone like you and you see a job
Speaker:spec, and you look at a company, I can pretty much rule out a business maybe in
Speaker:five or ten minutes I can rule them out.
Speaker:And you know, you might think, Oh my God, how can you make
Speaker:such a fast snap decision?
Speaker:But there's just a bunch of different things I look at,
Speaker:and I'd be happy to share that.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:I do want to get to that.
Speaker:I also want to say I love what you said about a short list.
Speaker:So it sounds like you had a list of companies that kind of fit your criteria.
Speaker:And I'm wondering, it's funny cause so many CMOs don't actually do that.
Speaker:I'll, I'll share that as feedback with them when they come to me, I'll say like,
Speaker:Oh, create your kind of networking map of different companies and, you know,
Speaker:different swim lanes for your search.
Speaker:And so I love to hear that you did that.
Speaker:Can you talk about, like, is that, is that rare?
Speaker:To do, do you think?
Speaker:I do think so.
Speaker:Although, I have spoken to really good, trusted advisors, friends of
Speaker:mine, and trusted advisors, like Sydney Sloan's a good example.
Speaker:you know Sydney.
Speaker:She has done a very deliberate search in her past also.
Speaker:You know, in fact, during this time, we were both looking at different roles
Speaker:and comparing notes and even trading opportunities, almost like baseball cards.
Speaker:Like there were a couple of times she'd call me and say, Hey, I
Speaker:just talked to this company.
Speaker:Here's their story.
Speaker:They're in Atlanta, blah-di-blah.
Speaker:I think you could be a really good fit there.
Speaker:It's not for me.
Speaker:And I've done, you know, the same with other people too, which I
Speaker:don't know if that's, I think that's probably unusual also, right?
Speaker:Yes!
Speaker:It seems so obvious, and a lot of people don't do it.
Speaker:And I, I love that.
Speaker:Like, just call up other people who might be getting the calls that you want to
Speaker:get, and say, hey, if it's not the right time for you, not the right opportunity,
Speaker:not the right location, send them my way.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So talk to me a little bit about your, you know, let's call it your pressure testing
Speaker:playbook, just cause I love alliteration.
Speaker:So when you explore a new role, and how does it help you kind of avoid risk?
Speaker:Can you talk about that?
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:It's funny because until you and I were preparing for this
Speaker:conversation, I hadn't really thought about what my methodology was.
Speaker:I just know that I have one.
Speaker:My husband's a Chief Revenue Officer, and he's looking for his next opportunity.
Speaker:And I've been helping him with that super fast assessment.
Speaker:He'll be like, hey, can you go do the thing with this opportunity?
Speaker:And I'll go do the thing.
Speaker:And the thing is, essentially, I look at their website.
Speaker:I do a quick scan on who do they seem to be?
Speaker:How are they presenting themselves?
Speaker:I will then quickly pivot over to the team that's there that,
Speaker:that you can identify, right?
Speaker:Certainly the leadership that's identifiable, board members, if they're
Speaker:on the site, they're not always.
Speaker:And then I'll go right over to LinkedIn and I'll start looking
Speaker:at employees that are there.
Speaker:You know, how big are they?
Speaker:I look at that insights thing that you can find on a company profile.
Speaker:Get an idea of are they growing really fast?
Speaker:Are they leveling out?
Speaker:Have they downsized?
Speaker:You see all of those shapes now.
Speaker:And I'll look at the people that are there in kind of the next click down level,
Speaker:the VPs, the directors of functional areas, just to kind of get a feeling
Speaker:for like, where are these people?
Speaker:I'll give you an example of one that I told my husband to run away from.
Speaker:He was looking at an organization where once I did my double click
Speaker:down, I discovered that the leadership team and like the one level down,
Speaker:between all of them had like seventy years of Cisco experience.
Speaker:Not that Cisco's a bad company.
Speaker:Cisco's an awesome company.
Speaker:But the homogeneity in that leadership team, having all been at the same business
Speaker:for so long together, and now in this new business together, just said to
Speaker:him, you're going to be the odd man out.
Speaker:You're not a Cisco person.
Speaker:I don't think that's a good idea, right?
Speaker:And as it turned out, as he started talking to them, there was
Speaker:a lot of practices that they had that weren't really appropriate
Speaker:for their size and stage.
Speaker:They were a much smaller startup, and they'd all come
Speaker:from this big, big company.
Speaker:That's an example of the kind of sleuthing around that I do.
Speaker:I'll also read what people in the company are writing about, whether it be Glassdoor
Speaker:or LinkedIn posts on their engagement in their own businesses or other places
Speaker:where I'll go seek out information.
Speaker:And you know, none of those sources are perfect, right?
Speaker:I've heard plenty of people discredit Glassdoor employee reviews saying,
Speaker:oh, it's just the disgruntled people.
Speaker:But you know, you directionally get a sense.
Speaker:That's kind of my point.
Speaker:And my advice to other people is sample a lot of different sources of information.
Speaker:You're going to get a sense for the health of that business and
Speaker:the attitude and the culture.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:I love how your husband calls it, "do the thing," you know?
Speaker:[Laughter] Do you write it up as you go?
Speaker:Or is it just kind of like, you know, a few notes here
Speaker:and there and it's informing
Speaker:- Um it depends how many I'm looking at, right?
Speaker:Like, you know, there was a time where I was probably getting,
Speaker:oh my gosh, two or three inbound inquiries a week from recruiters.
Speaker:This is going back to 2020, 2021.
Speaker:And, you know, I would have to do the thing, do the superfast scan very quickly
Speaker:because I also have this tenant where even if I'm happy in my current role,
Speaker:if I know and trust that recruiter, I will often take a quick look at the
Speaker:spec and then give advice back like, hey, do you know these five people?
Speaker:I think they'd be good to network with, or whatever.
Speaker:I just did it yesterday.
Speaker:I do that whether I'm looking or not, and I find that to be
Speaker:a very good behavior to have.
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:And thank you.
Speaker:Cause you've done that for me many times and I appreciate that.
Speaker:And I think that's a good tip for people that even if you're not, um,
Speaker:even if you think you're going to be a no for an opportunity, take the call.
Speaker:You make a connection.
Speaker:You help somebody out.
Speaker:Recruiters have good memories usually and can, you know, remember that.
Speaker:And you never know sometimes a no becomes a yes.
Speaker:You never know.
Speaker:It's very true.
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:So, I'm curious about, you know, as part of your de-risking, part of it,
Speaker:I'm sure, is looking at the CEO and trying to figure out their commitment
Speaker:and their support for marketing.
Speaker:What would be your advice on the other side?
Speaker:So to CEOs, what is your advice to CEOs on how they can best demonstrate
Speaker:that to attract a candidate like you?
Speaker:You know, there's many things that I have experienced with CEOs ranging from, I
Speaker:worked for a CEO once who really wanted sales and marketing to be oppositional.
Speaker:He wanted us to fight.
Speaker:And I think it's because he felt there was some Darwinian survival of
Speaker:the fittest thing that was going to happen and we'd get a better result,
Speaker:which we all know that never happens.
Speaker:So I pressure test for attitudes about common pitfalls that I see
Speaker:marketers running into again and again, fighting with sales or sales and
Speaker:marketing misalignment is one of them.
Speaker:So I will ask questions of a CEO about their posture around sales and
Speaker:marketing, and they can demonstrate back to me by saying something
Speaker:simple as, I want you to be joined at the hip with our head of sales.
Speaker:When they say that, I know they don't want me to fight with that person, right?
Speaker:That's a good example.
Speaker:Another example would be, I want to see that they can articulate who
Speaker:they think the business should be in the market, or what posture the
Speaker:company should have in the market, and they're able to give me examples
Speaker:of brands that they know and love.
Speaker:I'll often ask, like, tell me about a brand that you just love.
Speaker:And it doesn't have to be in tech.
Speaker:It could be a consumer brand.
Speaker:I learn a lot that way.
Speaker:My current CEO, Don Spear, is a very unique CEO for me in my lifetime, where
Speaker:he is not a engineering technical founder who started the company at a really,
Speaker:really early stage in their career and then kind of grew up with the business.
Speaker:I've worked with a bunch of those kinds of people.
Speaker:Don was a submarine Lieutenant in the Navy and then went to Harvard Business
Speaker:School and he and his roommate wrote the first business plan for PetSmart.
Speaker:He was too risk-averse at the time to go found the company.
Speaker:He was newly married and had a young child and so on, but ended up
Speaker:joining PetSmart when they were about seven stores, and grew them to 250
Speaker:stores and then ended up selling it.
Speaker:And then he went on to found and run Banfield Pet Hospital, which
Speaker:I don't know if you've seen them, but in the northeast, it's like a
Speaker:chain of veterinary pop-in places.
Speaker:So Don is, he has a retailer's mind and very much talks in those terms.
Speaker:He understands all the, the four P's of marketing.
Speaker:And he himself will say, like, you have to make an emotional
Speaker:connection with the buyer.
Speaker:That is the way that you build trust.
Speaker:That is the way that you get them coming back.
Speaker:But he's not a marketing expert at all, right?
Speaker:He doesn't pretend to be, but through those, some of those experiences, I really
Speaker:came to evaluate him as somebody that would appreciate the complexity that the
Speaker:marketing role has in a business and the kinds of challenges that we would have.
Speaker:That's really been remarkable and a big difference for me
Speaker:working for somebody like that.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:He sounds terrific.
Speaker:How about on the other side?
Speaker:Have you seen any kind of red flags or sniffed out somebody who's not
Speaker:going to be a great marketing partner?
Speaker:Is there a particular example of that?
Speaker:[Laughs] Oh yeah.
Speaker:And it's not always the CEO.
Speaker:You know, it might be a head of sales or it might be someone in finance.
Speaker:It's unfortunate and I've heard people on your podcast talk about
Speaker:this and many of my friends that are CMOs - marketing is just very
Speaker:misunderstood, not thoroughly understood.
Speaker:And I think it's because all of us in our human lives and our regular lives, we are
Speaker:the audience of so much marketing, right?
Speaker:We are making buying decisions all the time, and therefore we have opinions
Speaker:about what good marketing is and isn't.
Speaker:So no matter who you are in a company, you're going to have an opinion about what
Speaker:marketing should and shouldn't be doing.
Speaker:And that's unique, right?
Speaker:I don't have an opinion about what engineering should and shouldn't be doing.
Speaker:I don't know how to build products.
Speaker:I don't know how to code, right?
Speaker:So I can't come across with any credibility in that conversation.
Speaker:But yet, our heads of product can because they are recipients
Speaker:of marketing all the time.
Speaker:So I find as marketers, we end ourselves up in businesses where we
Speaker:have to do loads and loads of internal marketing and communicating and not
Speaker:only about what we're going to do, but what we're not and why we made a
Speaker:decision to do thing A versus thing B.
Speaker:In fact, right now we're working on a website redesign and we're using a
Speaker:very much iterative kind of testing approach to decide where we land on
Speaker:fundamental things like our homepage.
Speaker:And, you know, I'm using that mantra that we are continuously
Speaker:testing because of this constant opinion that we keep getting back.
Speaker:So that for me is a scenario that I think we all should expect that there's
Speaker:going to be lots of opinions about what we should and shouldn't be doing.
Speaker:And we need to be the ones that are going to provide clarity on
Speaker:how we're making decisions and why.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, I'm feeling it's like this Chief Marketing Education Officer is
Speaker:- It's true.
Speaker:- you know, it's, it's such a thing.
Speaker:It's such a thing.
Speaker:So, Erika, there's one story I wanted to tell you.
Speaker:I got my very first CMO job at a company called MarkLogic.
Speaker:I had done my due diligence.
Speaker:I'd known the CEO.
Speaker:I'd worked for him in other companies.
Speaker:He had chewed up and spit out four marketing VPs in three years.
Speaker:And I knew that, but I knew it was because he kept hiring in
Speaker:the product marketing image.
Speaker:And he's a product marketer, and I'm a much more demand and brand marketer.
Speaker:So the need, I felt I would be successful there.
Speaker:I'd met the CRO, but the mistake I made was I didn't meet the CRO's
Speaker:lieutenants who were kind of VPs of sales in a couple different divisions.
Speaker:So this business was only 15 million when I joined.
Speaker:The day that I met the four VPs of these divisions, I go bouncing in,
Speaker:in my, you know, lighthearted self.
Speaker:Hey, I'm so excited to meet all of you!
Speaker:And I put my hand out and the alpha of the group who had run the federal team,
Speaker:literally looked up at me, shook his hand like waving away a fly, and turned
Speaker:around and kept talking to everybody else.
Speaker:Wouldn't shake my hand, wouldn't talk to me.
Speaker:I'm standing there going, oh my god, like, is this really happening?
Speaker:And you know, when you're outside yourself, looking at yourself,
Speaker:kind of like, what's gonna happen?
Speaker:And this voice came out of me, which was my mom's voice, and I just said,
Speaker:seriously, this is how it's going to be?
Speaker:Like, y'all are not even going to talk to me?
Speaker:Like, I know that you've had many predecessors before and I'm sorry
Speaker:about that, but unless you talk to me, you're going to be meeting
Speaker:number five in about six months.
Speaker:So how about we do a redo?
Speaker:And that's what we did.
Speaker:And, you know, it kind of shamed them into it, but it was crazy.
Speaker:The punchline to this story is the one who swatted me away is now my husband.
Speaker:Um
Speaker:- No!
Speaker:Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker:[Erica chuckling] Yes.
Speaker:So...
Speaker:[Tracy laughs]
Speaker:Wow!
Speaker:How we got from A to B is a lot of trust and a lot of friendship and a lot of
Speaker:lead generation for the sales team and then, you know, the rest is history.
Speaker:Did you ask why he was just swatting you away?
Speaker:Oh, he denies it.
Speaker:He's like, that's not how it happened.
Speaker:And I'm like, yes, it was.
Speaker:There were witnesses.
Speaker:I mean, basically, the point of view of those sales leaders, and I totally see
Speaker:it, was, oh god, here comes another one.
Speaker:Yet another marketing person coming in here with their
Speaker:playbook and their attitude.
Speaker:They think they know everything.
Speaker:You all have probably heard that term in the military, the "FNG?"
Speaker:The F-ing New G uy, basically.
Speaker:So you know, you've got this whole, this whole troop and you get the
Speaker:new person in and they basically, you know, they get shot fast because
Speaker:they don't know what they're doing.
Speaker:And that was what came to their mind.
Speaker:They're just like, oh my god, here comes another one.
Speaker:And just a lot of eye rolling.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Well, they didn't know who they had there.
Speaker:So that's, that's great.
Speaker:I like that you didn't put, you didn't let yourself be put in a one down position.
Speaker:You kind of like interacted as
Speaker:- I don't know how else I could have handled it, honestly.
Speaker:I think back on that, I'm like, I could have run crying
Speaker:from the room and quit, right?
Speaker:Like, it would have been easy.
Speaker:That was, these guys are just jerks, but I get it.
Speaker:Like, I understand why they behaved that way.
Speaker:It's terribly rude, but you know, I kind of get it.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:Thank you for sharing that story!
Speaker:So, talk also about working with recruiters.
Speaker:What does it mean in your mind to work with a recruiter?
Speaker:You've talked a little bit about taking a call even if it's not quite the right
Speaker:fit for you, which I think is great.
Speaker:Can you talk about other dimensions of how you have collaborated with recruiters?
Speaker:I have been very fortunate, and gotten to know some extremely
Speaker:talented recruiters in my career.
Speaker:Some that have placed me in opportunities, some that I've worked with and looking
Speaker:at opportunities that didn't work out.
Speaker:And the really good ones are advisors.
Speaker:I almost end up feeling like they're my agent, my talent
Speaker:agent, and are representing me.
Speaker:Now, there's no doubt that, you know, a recruiter is going to make money
Speaker:when they place you somewhere, right?
Speaker:But they're only going to be successful if that placement ends up to be a good one.
Speaker:So, you know, I think we have to trust that the recruiting process is going
Speaker:to weed out the candidates that aren't the right fit and put forward the
Speaker:candidates that are, and then help us, as candidates, put our best foot forward.
Speaker:And tell us the truth, right?
Speaker:There's nothing I appreciate more than when a recruiter says to me, "Hey Tracy,
Speaker:they're concerned that you did not grow up in product marketing because they
Speaker:think that's a really important skill."
Speaker:And my response to that will be, they're right.
Speaker:I did not grow up in product marketing.
Speaker:Let me tell you the ways that I supplement that lack of core talent in my
Speaker:skillset, let's just call it like that.
Speaker:And if that's not good enough, then we should walk away, right?
Speaker:If they're really hung up on a particular thing, then let's just say no.
Speaker:And I'm going to move on to the next thing.
Speaker:And I think good recruiters can really help weed some of that out because,
Speaker:you know, there's multidimensionality to every marketer and you can't,
Speaker:you're not going to get a hundred percent score in every dimension.
Speaker:So I really think good recruiters need to help CEOs prioritize and
Speaker:define what they think they need for the next two, three, five years.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:And it's such a calibration.
Speaker:You go back and forth.
Speaker:And I think candidates don't realize that they can, with their feedback
Speaker:and with their shaping, they can help to, they can help the recruiter
Speaker:and the CEO to shape the search and the outcome a little more than they
Speaker:might give themselves credit for.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And I really use recruiters as sounding boards in situations where,
Speaker:uh, when I was looking for my current role, I got to the altar five times.
Speaker:Meaning, I was one of the top two candidates.
Speaker:Several of those times I walked away at the end because I just in the end
Speaker:decided, you know what, I don't think this is going to be the best place for me,
Speaker:even though I went this far and it's so hard to walk away when you get that far.
Speaker:But I'm glad I did.
Speaker:A couple of the times they didn't pick me.
Speaker:They picked the other person.
Speaker:And in all of those scenarios, the recruiter was very much a sounding
Speaker:board for me about my decision process and what was concerning me, what
Speaker:was making me hesitant, and helped me explore it in a way that allowed
Speaker:me to be confident about my choice.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Speaker:And it sounds like you've invested in those relationships beforehand and
Speaker:while, while you're doing the search, you know, as well to have that kind of
Speaker:- That's exactly why when I do get an inbound inquiry, I respond.
Speaker:Because I feel like I'm just going to keep giving and giving and giving advice.
Speaker:Sometimes I'll read a spec, for example.
Speaker:I read one the other day that I just responded to that
Speaker:I was mentioning earlier.
Speaker:And there's a piece of the spec where I'm like, that doesn't make any sense.
Speaker:And I told the recruiter that.
Speaker:I said, this thing, this piece here just seems incongruous with everything else.
Speaker:You might want to take a fresh look at that.
Speaker:It struck me as odd.
Speaker:And he was very grateful.
Speaker:He's like, thank you for telling me that.
Speaker:I thought it was odd too, but the company insisted to put it in there.
Speaker:And that kind of stuff happens all the time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They say, you know, give to get.
Speaker:Just be a giver and give advice back on good candidates and other things.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:There's a great book, Give and Get.
Speaker:I don't know, have you read the book by - oh god, uh, Adam Grant?
Speaker:Is that his name?
Speaker:Oh, I love Adam Grant.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Giving and Getting?
Speaker:Give and Get?
Speaker:Give to Get?
Speaker:You know, something like that.
Speaker:Yeah, he talks about there are givers, there are takers, and there are matchers.
Speaker:And so it's, it's fascinating.
Speaker:It's one of his first things.
Speaker:Um, I would like to say also, I love your example of, "Oh, Tracy,
Speaker:we're not sure about your depth of product marketing experience."
Speaker:One of the best questions I get from candidates is, "Erica, what
Speaker:are the concerns that you or the company have about my candidacy?"
Speaker:Because that's a way that you can, as the candidate, they can hear
Speaker:how they've been perceived and correct any miscommunications.
Speaker:Because sometimes a recruiter didn't hear or, or, you know, just didn't fully grasp
Speaker:the extent of somebody's background.
Speaker:So, when you play it back, like, oh, okay, the client wants XYZ and you have
Speaker:ABC, that can be helpful to just kind of have that, that calibration moment.
Speaker:There's good examples that fit into what you're saying.
Speaker:For example, if you just look at someone's LinkedIn profile or resume,
Speaker:you may not know that they have worked on multiple acquisitions.
Speaker:You may not know that they have extensive experience in EMEA, but not in Asia.
Speaker:You might not know that they were an SDR at the beginning of their
Speaker:career, a sales development rep.
Speaker:I was.
Speaker:But that comes out in the conversation and then you realize, oh my gosh, I
Speaker:probably should have put that in writing, but a good recruiter is going to tease
Speaker:out those things and help, you know, really amplify what's unique about you.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:Yeah, that's a lot of what we do.
Speaker:Because you talk to so many people and it's like, oh, okay, well,
Speaker:you have this combination of these two things and that's rare.
Speaker:So I, I love that.
Speaker:That's the fun part.
Speaker:Let's talk about networking broadly.
Speaker:So part of working with recruiters is kind of a networky thing, but, you know,
Speaker:networking can be kind of a dirty word or a necessary evil for some people.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:And, and many people will say to me, god, I wish I had a bigger network,
Speaker:or I wish I knew how to network, or I wish I enjoyed networking,
Speaker:you know, types of events more.
Speaker:So it seems like you have a different approach to it.
Speaker:And I'm wondering, maybe you're just more extroverted.
Speaker:I don't know, or more programmatic about it, but can you, can you talk
Speaker:about how you approach networking?
Speaker:Because if you think about there's different, it seems like for
Speaker:you, you have, you know, you're connected to several recruiters.
Speaker:You have your Women in Revenue organization.
Speaker:You're also an advocate, it seems like, for women in marketing.
Speaker:had people who've worked for you, people you've worked for, you've had investors.
Speaker:And so it's like, it seems like there's this whole ecosystem.
Speaker:Can you talk about your approach to, to networking and how that, that
Speaker:is programmatic, if you think is?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:I do think it's programmatic, although it's not as organized as you make
Speaker:it sound, you know, in my world.
Speaker:But I remember very early in my career going to "networking events" and
Speaker:I'd have my little stack of business cards in my little business card case.
Speaker:And I dreaded it.
Speaker:I didn't know what to say to anybody.
Speaker:I felt awkward.
Speaker:I felt like I didn't belong in the room.
Speaker:What I came to realize over time is everyone else feels
Speaker:the same way that's there.
Speaker:It's just like going to a dinner party where you don't know anybody
Speaker:or like everyone's really hoping they're going to have a good time
Speaker:and, but they're nervous about it.
Speaker:So I just decided, I think the way to do this is, and I learned this from
Speaker:a book that I read by Peggy Noonan, who was Ronald Reagan's speechwriter.
Speaker:And Peggy Noonan wrote his very famous, amazing speech after
Speaker:the Challenger explosion and all those astronauts were killed.
Speaker:She really became known for making him what was known as a great
Speaker:communicator at the time, whether you believed in his politics or not,
Speaker:he was a phenomenal communicator.
Speaker:And Peggy Noonan had terrible stage fright.
Speaker:And she talked about in her book how she overcame her stage fright because
Speaker:she was asked to speak all over the place based on what she'd been doing.
Speaker:How she overcame it was basically realizing that her
Speaker:nerves were because she cared.
Speaker:And if she framed it that way, then she kind of got herself to settle down.
Speaker:So I totally have stolen that.
Speaker:It helped so much.
Speaker:And the other one was she didn't go stay in a green room before she spoke.
Speaker:She went out and moved around the audience and just talked to people.
Speaker:Like, why'd you come?
Speaker:What are you hoping to hear?
Speaker:Because they're nervous too.
Speaker:They're nervous that you're gonna be terrible.
Speaker:They're nervous that they're gonna waste their time.
Speaker:So, by the time you get back on stage, you're like, oh my god,
Speaker:I have friends in the audience.
Speaker:I know now what they want to learn.
Speaker:So that's kind of the way I think about networking.
Speaker:If I go to any kind of event, there's like, just people
Speaker:that I want to get to know.
Speaker:And there's usually one or two people that I already know.
Speaker:And then you can kind of just start finding out about people
Speaker:and asking good questions, right?
Speaker:Everyone loves to talk about themselves.
Speaker:So that's the way that I think about it.
Speaker:And I also think about, what's, what is this person looking for?
Speaker:For example, if I talk to somebody at an investment firm - Costanoa
Speaker:Ventures is a good example.
Speaker:They were an investor in my last company and I got to know the partners there and
Speaker:their marketing community really well.
Speaker:And you know, what is it that they want?
Speaker:They want talent, right?
Speaker:And they want to know what the best practices are in the market.
Speaker:And so sometimes I'll just proactively share something with, you know, um,
Speaker:Martina Lochenko is a good buddy of mine and be like, hey, I just read this book.
Speaker:I think you'd be interested in it.
Speaker:So it's like in the back of my head, there's just always this little, who can I
Speaker:give a gift to that might be of interest?
Speaker:And then if I think about approaching somebody that I don't know, I'll
Speaker:just start kind of watching them.
Speaker:Some people call it stalking, but I just am interested in knowing,
Speaker:like, what are they publishing?
Speaker:What are they doing?
Speaker:Where have they been in their career?
Speaker:So that there can be like a human point of connection.
Speaker:And I find it just kind of easier to do the further along I go.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Do, do you have a model for staying in touch with all the
Speaker:people that you're meeting?
Speaker:Yeah, kind of.
Speaker:By the way, this isn't, I'm not talking about hundreds
Speaker:and hundreds of people, right?
Speaker:I'm talking about, there's probably, I don't know, several dozen that
Speaker:I'm in touch with regularly, and then there's like another little
Speaker:kind of ecosystem outside of that.
Speaker:You know, I don't think you can let more than a year go by without connecting
Speaker:with somebody that's in your network, and preferably sooner than that.
Speaker:But I'll just tell you a quick story.
Speaker:There was a product marketing manager on my team a couple
Speaker:companies ago who was just terrific.
Speaker:He was wonderful.
Speaker:And worked for me for two years, went on to another company.
Speaker:And when he did that, I was a reference for him.
Speaker:Like he was looking for something bigger.
Speaker:I'm like, I'll help you.
Speaker:So I was a reference for him there.
Speaker:And then I didn't hear from him for like three years.
Speaker:And then he called me up and said, "Hey, I'm looking at a new
Speaker:opportunity, will you be a reference?"
Speaker:And I'm like, I can't.
Speaker:I don't know anything about you anymore.
Speaker:You haven't kept in touch with me.
Speaker:You haven't told me what's going on.
Speaker:I can't comment on where you've been in the last three years.
Speaker:Like, you know, you should have told me because I can't really help you now.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:And that was brutal, right?
Speaker:But it's how I felt.
Speaker:I was like, in the old days, I might've said, oh, sure.
Speaker:You know, I'll help you out.
Speaker:But I just felt disingenuous.
Speaker:It's like, I don't know anything about this person anymore.
Speaker:So I feel like there's, there's that piece of it too.
Speaker:Where you think about your own network and who's giving back to you, and who doesn't.
Speaker:You don't want to always be chasing everybody all the time.
Speaker:So I think cultivate some meaningful relationships where you really
Speaker:develop your almost board of advisors.
Speaker:I have a collection of people where, you know, when I'm looking
Speaker:at a job offer, I call them up and say, this is what they offered me.
Speaker:What do you think?
Speaker:What else should I ask for?
Speaker:You know, what should I be concerned about?
Speaker:And get that second point of view or third point of view.
Speaker:Super helpful.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:Can you talk, you don't have to give me names, but like,
Speaker:who's on this board of advisors?
Speaker:You know, more personal, more professional, other CMOs?
Speaker:Yeah, it's really former coworkers and bosses.
Speaker:Many of them are women.
Speaker:And that's because I have very much cultivated my female network
Speaker:because there just aren't as many of us in leadership roles.
Speaker:That's one of the reasons why I got involved in Women in Revenue
Speaker:with other people that you know.
Speaker:That community is turning into a really wonderful one for, not only
Speaker:networking, but also sharing advice.
Speaker:In fact, a little known fact that I would love your listeners to know about is in
Speaker:the Women in Revenue community, there's a Slack community and there's actually an
Speaker:advice, comp, and benefits channel within Slack that allows for anonymous posting.
Speaker:So you see in there frequently women will say, hey, I've just
Speaker:been offered this role as a VP of Marketing and a blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:Give some details.
Speaker:Does this offer seem appropriate?
Speaker:And I really like that a lot because there's so much, um, mystery around
Speaker:salary negotiations and what people get paid, and what they should ask for.
Speaker:And then there's lots of things in negotiation that you kind of
Speaker:learn along the way, like double trigger or negotiating a severance
Speaker:package before you even get there.
Speaker:That you just learn the hard way.
Speaker:And I feel like when you have a good network of advisors, they
Speaker:warn you about those things.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:I have two final questions for you.
Speaker:One, you talked about, you used the word "disingenuous" and part of having a
Speaker:strong network is being authentic, right?
Speaker:And showing up as yourself and trying to help other people, et cetera.
Speaker:I'm wondering, in many of the conversations I've been having,
Speaker:there's this aspect of like career trauma that is coming up.
Speaker:Yes!
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Where, you know, people are, again, they've had these short tenures.
Speaker:You know, CEOs are disappointed in marketing leaders.
Speaker:Marketing leaders can be disappointed in CEOs, et cetera.
Speaker:I guess, how real should a marketing leader be when they
Speaker:show up to their network?
Speaker:When is something like kind of too much information to share that you're
Speaker:having this, you know, traumatic situation, and when should people
Speaker:trust the authenticity of it?
Speaker:Because I often feel like
Speaker:- Oh, you're - I such a great question.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:I often feel like, as a recruiter, you talked about recruiters being
Speaker:agents, but I often feel like people misconstrue, like they mistake a
Speaker:recruiter for a career coach or
Speaker:- For a therapist!
Speaker:Or for a therapist, right, exactly.
Speaker:Yet I do want to know who the authentic person is.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I don't have a particular incisive question, but do you, do you have
Speaker:- No, I know exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker:I know exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker:You and I were on a CMO club meeting like two or three weeks ago, and
Speaker:you were talking about, uh, career advice and networking and recruiting.
Speaker:And the topic came up in the group about this phrase, "career trauma."
Speaker:There was like almost 300 people on that call.
Speaker:And boy, that, the chat in that meeting just exploded.
Speaker:I know you saw it, too.
Speaker:And you know, there is no doubt that almost every executive I know, whether
Speaker:they're in marketing or not, has been through some sort of career trauma of
Speaker:one sort or another in their career.
Speaker:But especially in the last several years.
Speaker:You look at the hyper growth stage, COVID lockdown and all of the challenges that
Speaker:brought, all of the impossibility of even recruiting when unemployment was so low.
Speaker:And then the economy squeezes and everything gets downsized, right?
Speaker:So everything gets bloated and then it all crushes down.
Speaker:So lots and lots of people who lost their jobs and there's nothing
Speaker:scarier than losing your job, right?
Speaker:You've got a mortgage to pay.
Speaker:I remember that happened to me early in my career and I had a, I was a single
Speaker:mom to a young toddler and it was like, oh my god, what am I going to do?
Speaker:Like I, I need to make money.
Speaker:You know, you find yourself making decisions that you wouldn't
Speaker:normally make or settling for things you wouldn't normally do.
Speaker:I think that we all have to know ourselves and work on our confidence.
Speaker:And believe me, I've had several phases in my career where I made a
Speaker:mistake in deciding to join a business and then leaving that business and
Speaker:just feeling like, wow, how could I have blown that decision so badly?
Speaker:And then if it happens again, you're like, why?
Speaker:What happened?
Speaker:There's a woman on my team that we just hired who'd been laid off three
Speaker:different times in three different years.
Speaker:And she was just like, look, I thought I made good decisions, but those businesses
Speaker:were not what I thought they were.
Speaker:And that was okay with me to hear her say that.
Speaker:What you're talking about is how much vulnerability do we show?
Speaker:And there is no doubt that we need to project confidence, right?
Speaker:That is a huge part of what we bring to a business is projecting confidence as
Speaker:an executive, that we know what we're doing and that we are feeling good about
Speaker:the decisions that are going forward.
Speaker:So some of it is a little performative.
Speaker:I'm a huge fan of Amy Cuddy.
Speaker:I don't know if you know Amy Cuddy, the Power Posing?
Speaker:And I tell you, it's true.
Speaker:If you get yourself kind of up for the thing - for me, it
Speaker:means there's things I wear.
Speaker:There's kind of rituals that I do ahead of time to just get myself in
Speaker:the zone to be able to talk about my accomplishments, and also talk about
Speaker:why I might have left a business and, you know, what I'm, why I'm available
Speaker:currently and that kind of stuff.
Speaker:And you just, you need a good, smooth talk track and you need, you don't
Speaker:need to say a heck of a lot, right?
Speaker:I think sometimes people tend to over explain circumstances in a way
Speaker:that makes the person they're talking to really wonder what happened.
Speaker:Like, wow, you know, this is a lot of drama going on here.
Speaker:Is this somebody that is going to bring that to a business?
Speaker:So I think trying to think about what happened in your past dispassionately
Speaker:and in a business-like fashion.
Speaker:And just knowing that there are cycles in businesses and as a
Speaker:marketing leader, it is very rare to be somewhere five, seven, ten years.
Speaker:It's super rare.
Speaker:I was a VP of Marketing, corporate marketing, at BusinessObjects.
Speaker:I was there for eleven years.
Speaker:That was unusual.
Speaker:And it's okay to be going to the next thing.
Speaker:Or to decide, hey, I'm think I'm interested in a company that's
Speaker:slightly bigger, or I'm interested in a company that's more international,
Speaker:or whatever the case may be.
Speaker:And you deliberately make that choice and transition out and in.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, that's a great perspective.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:I know we are running short on time.
Speaker:So one final question for you.
Speaker:I like to ask most of the people I interview this.
Speaker:When you interview a marketer for your team, a marketing leader to
Speaker:work for you, is there a particular question you like to ask them?
Speaker:I love to ask, what didn't I ask you that you want me to know?
Speaker:It's one of my favorites.
Speaker:It usually catches people off guard.
Speaker:So I find by doing that, I get a little insight into the real them.
Speaker:They become less performative.
Speaker:I can't stand performative behavior.
Speaker:It drives me nuts.
Speaker:Like I, I just kind of have a nose for when people are posturing or,
Speaker:you know, using flowery language or something that they might've
Speaker:pulled out of AI as a good answer.
Speaker:And I almost always hear something that is more on the personal
Speaker:side than the professional side.
Speaker:I'll learn that somebody, uh, just took up running marathons.
Speaker:I learned once that a person that I hired had lost a hundred pounds, and
Speaker:how meaningful that that was for them and how it had changed their life.
Speaker:I've learned about people that, uh, had some real gritty thing,
Speaker:gritty lessons that they've learned.
Speaker:Someone told me, you know, I, I'm here to remove the stigma
Speaker:of being a teenage mother.
Speaker:You know, I had my son when I was seventeen, and now he's graduating
Speaker:high school and I'm really proud of being able to do all that.
Speaker:Some people have told me that they were first generation college graduates
Speaker:and what that meant in their family.
Speaker:And I love that content, right?
Speaker:It just tells you, gives you this kind of insight into them.
Speaker:I'll often tell people that, my first job was a sales development
Speaker:rep when I was in high school.
Speaker:And I did that job for four years before it was ever even called that.
Speaker:How much that taught me.
Speaker:I'll tell them that I'm the oldest of seven children in a multiracial family.
Speaker:And that is like at the foundation of who I am and how I show up as a leader.
Speaker:So that's my favorite one.
Speaker:Yeah, that's great!
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:And I love how it dovetails with the whole trauma and vulnerability thing.
Speaker:You know, like I think maybe vulnerability is not necessarily
Speaker:sharing all the dirty laundry.
Speaker:It's kind of, it can be something, you know, personal and authentic
Speaker:and non-professional related.
Speaker:Yeah, and my advice is just work on your story.
Speaker:And I've done this with some of my advisors.
Speaker:It's like, how do I explain this story of where, why I went to that company, what I
Speaker:did when I was there, and how I'm leaving?
Speaker:And you know, that, that can be very helpful, just to kind of
Speaker:talk that through your sort of elevator pitch about a scenario.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:I think that's great feedback for people.
Speaker:Just keep telling it.
Speaker:And as you practice, you get better.
Speaker:And as you practice, people give you feedback on, Oh, this part was boring.
Speaker:This part was interesting.
Speaker:Or this resonated and, or stop here.
Speaker:And yeah, that's, that's great.
Speaker:Fabulous.
Speaker:Well, Tracy, thank you so much for sharing all this awesome wisdom on
Speaker:working with recruiters, working with your network, working with your kind of
Speaker:insides, and all of this with The Get.
Speaker:Appreciate it.
Speaker:I really appreciate the offer to come and talk to you and talk to your listeners.
Speaker:I'd love to be helpful to anyone and would love to connect.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:That was Tracy Eiler, CMO at OpenSesame.
Speaker:Now, think about what three things you can do to leverage your network in new ways.
Speaker:Next time on The Get, you'll hear from me and from another guest.
Speaker:Don't miss it.
Speaker:Thanks for listening to The Get.
Speaker:I'm your host, Erica Seidel.
Speaker:The Get is here to drive smart decisions around recruiting and
Speaker:leadership in B2B SaaS marketing.
Speaker:We explore the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of today's top
Speaker:marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.
Speaker:If you liked this episode, please share it.
Speaker:For more about The Get, visit TheGetPodcast.com.
Speaker:To learn more about my executive search practice, which focuses on recruiting the
Speaker:make-money marketing leaders rather than the make-it-pretty ones, follow me on
Speaker:LinkedIn or visit TheConnectiveGood.Com.
Speaker:The Get is produced by Evo Terra of Simpler Media Productions.
