Episode 1

Combining Strategic Intent With Hyper-Experimentation: The CMO's Guide

This episode kicks off the 7th season of The Get podcast. Host Erica Seidel introduces this season's theme, which is about how SaaS marketing orgs are changing, in both seismic and subtle ways.

 

We share a deep dive with guest Claudia Lee. Claudia is a CMO with a unique background in both partner marketing and product marketing. She spoke at a rare moment of reflection, while transitioning from a CMO role at CertifID to a new CMO role at Celigo.

 

You'll hear perspectives and practical advice about:

 

  • How to use the theme of "enabling conversations" to frame marketing's contribution both internally and externally
  • How to combine strategic intent with hyper-experimentation for smart execution
  • Building a team from scratch, especially in a partner-led GTM model
  • The critical soft skills that are making the difference today for SaaS marketing teams
  • What a contextually-aligned marketing team is, and how it provides the best results
  • Navigating the tension between short-term results and long-term impact
  • Approaching AI as a tool, not a threat
  • Questions to anticipate from the CEO when exploring a new CMO role

00:00 Welcome to The Get: Season 7 Kickoff

00:16 Understanding Our Audience

01:17 Introducing Claudia Lee

02:14 Claudia's Marketing Journey

04:52 The Role of Marketing in Business Growth

08:07 Enabling Conversations: A Marketing Philosophy

12:30 The Evolution of SaaS Marketing

15:28 Partner Marketing Insights

22:22 The Impact of AI on Marketing

25:04 Hiring and Developing Marketing Leaders

31:05 Final Thoughts and Farewell



This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
Erica Seidel:

Hello and welcome to The Get.

Erica Seidel:

I'm your host, Erica Seidel.

Erica Seidel:

This is our seventh season.

Erica Seidel:

Time flies.

Erica Seidel:

If you're new here, welcome.

Erica Seidel:

The GET is all about driving smart decisions around recruiting and

Erica Seidel:

leadership in B2B SaaS marketing.

Erica Seidel:

You're in good company.

Erica Seidel:

Our listeners are CMOs, aspiring CMOs, marketing operating partners

Erica Seidel:

at PE firms and CEOs looking for inspiration as they recruit CMOs.

Erica Seidel:

I've been told that the get has been helpful to listeners, whether they're

Erica Seidel:

preparing for a board meeting or thinking about how to structure their teams

Erica Seidel:

or gearing up for a scaled journey, or simply looking to feel less alone

Erica Seidel:

as they navigate a very hard job.

Erica Seidel:

A listener once called me the Terry Gross of Marketing podcasts.

Erica Seidel:

I was honored this season's theme, SaaS Marketing orgs and how they are

Erica Seidel:

changing in both seismic and subtle ways.

Erica Seidel:

If you're leading a SaaS marketing org of any size, you're probably

Erica Seidel:

thinking of things like, how is AI reshaping your org chart?

Erica Seidel:

How do you vet a candidate's AI skills when you're still

Erica Seidel:

learning about AI yourself?

Erica Seidel:

What's the right mix of full-time fractional and freelance for your team?

Erica Seidel:

How do you build adaptability and resilience in your org in

Erica Seidel:

the face of economic disruptions?

Erica Seidel:

We'll start looking at these topics today.

Erica Seidel:

Our guest is Claudia Lee.

Erica Seidel:

I'm talking with Claudia at a rare moment of reflection.

Erica Seidel:

She's transitioning from one CMO role to another.

Erica Seidel:

She recently finished up at certified the company that fights fraud for

Erica Seidel:

the real estate industry through an identity verification SaaS platform.

Erica Seidel:

Her earlier career spikes were primarily in product

Erica Seidel:

marketing and partnership, blah.

Erica Seidel:

Her earlier career spikes were primarily in product marketing and

Erica Seidel:

partnership marketing at companies like Dell and Commvault and Nutanix.

Erica Seidel:

When I met Claudia a while back, she just stood out.

Erica Seidel:

I thought, wow.

Erica Seidel:

Here's someone who's uniquely thoughtful about how she leads

Erica Seidel:

her marketing team and how she interfaces with the rest of the org.

Erica Seidel:

Claudia, welcome to the show.

Claudia Lee:

Thank you so much for having me.

Claudia Lee:

I'm very excited.

Erica Seidel:

Well, I am excited to chat with you.

Erica Seidel:

Like we say in Boston where you lived for a while, I just

Erica Seidel:

found you " wicked smahht."

Erica Seidel:

Maybe we could just start with you giving a little intro on you, a little bit

Erica Seidel:

of a deeper dive on why did you wanna become a CMO, a little bit about your

Erica Seidel:

background, and maybe something that people who haven't gotten to know you too

Erica Seidel:

well would find unique or interesting, or a little bit of a fun fact on you.

Claudia Lee:

Yeah, thanks so much for this opportunity to chat.

Claudia Lee:

I love marketing and I have passion for marketing and that's why I'm

Claudia Lee:

so excited for this conversation.

Claudia Lee:

I became a marketer through a journey of starting in the business world.

Claudia Lee:

I started out in consulting, and through all of these projects consulting

Claudia Lee:

for organizations, I started to realize the power of good marketing.

Claudia Lee:

You can have a great product, but if people don't know about it, if you're

Claudia Lee:

not clear who you're trying to reach, you don't have the right strategies

Claudia Lee:

and tactics to reach those folks to help them understand the value, then

Claudia Lee:

your company or your business doesn't really fulfill its full potential.

Claudia Lee:

I also love marketing just because it is usually the growth engine for the company.

Claudia Lee:

You're out front in terms of thinking ahead of where your company's trying

Claudia Lee:

to go, and painting the vision for what the company's trying to do, painting

Claudia Lee:

the vision for customers and partners, like how you hope to help them.

Claudia Lee:

It's a very growth mindset type of function, and I gravitate towards that.

Claudia Lee:

I'm this sort of entrepreneurial person, but not necessarily for my own things.

Claudia Lee:

Every single role I've ever done is building and starting up businesses

Claudia Lee:

or lines of business, whether it was starting the first consumer PC line

Claudia Lee:

at Dell way back, or helping start a function at CommVault to take the data

Claudia Lee:

management platform and turn it into a service offering for service providers.

Claudia Lee:

Nutanix, I was kind of the first partner marketing person and grew

Claudia Lee:

that team from the ground up.

Claudia Lee:

Then, I came to CertifID 'cause it was such a cool opportunity

Claudia Lee:

to build the marketing function.

Claudia Lee:

When I joined, we were still a Series A company, forty employees, and I was

Claudia Lee:

the first full-time marketing hire, and it was just a really cool challenge

Claudia Lee:

and opportunity for me to build the marketing function from the ground up.

Claudia Lee:

The company had already done a great job of establishing the brand.

Claudia Lee:

It had a great presence in the market, but there was still just so much to

Claudia Lee:

build and that was what attracted me to the company as well as the mission

Claudia Lee:

of fighting fraud, like you described.

Claudia Lee:

As a marketer, you always want to have an impact, and for me, as I've

Claudia Lee:

gone through lots of different roles, I realized that I need to work on

Claudia Lee:

something that I truly believe in.

Claudia Lee:

If I have conviction, that's when I do my best work.

Claudia Lee:

At CertifID, I've had that blend of being able to build, and build something

Claudia Lee:

that I think is super meaningful and makes a difference in this world.

Claudia Lee:

So it's been a cool opportunity and I'm super grateful about it.

Erica Seidel:

That's great.

Erica Seidel:

Any fun facts?

Claudia Lee:

Fun fact, you've probably not met as many people

Claudia Lee:

that have read biographies of US Presidents as me, probably.

Erica Seidel:

I'll just pick up on one thing you said

Erica Seidel:

about being mission-oriented.

Erica Seidel:

I talk to a lot of people in my recruiting and I'll say, what are

Erica Seidel:

your criteria for your next role?

Erica Seidel:

And many of them say, I really want something that I can get excited about.

Erica Seidel:

It's so interesting because I always say, well, what does that mean?

Erica Seidel:

And you have to communicate what that means because if you just say

Erica Seidel:

that, somebody's going to think, oh, they want to, I don't know, save

Erica Seidel:

the world or hug the trees or do something that's nonprofit oriented.

Erica Seidel:

When in reality, things around cyber could be very impactful for one person.

Erica Seidel:

Something about financial services could be very impactful for another

Erica Seidel:

person, and you have to articulate what that means for yourself and

Erica Seidel:

articulate it to other people.

Claudia Lee:

For sure.

Claudia Lee:

Yeah.

Claudia Lee:

Value doesn't have to be working for a nonprofit, although that's, I'm sure, very

Claudia Lee:

rewarding and I've considered it, as well.

Claudia Lee:

To me, value and doing something meaningful is simply that you are helping

Claudia Lee:

grow a company or get a product out in the world that adds value to your customers.

Claudia Lee:

As an example, Nutanix is an amazing company because the intent of Nutanix

Claudia Lee:

was to take incredibly complex siloed data centers and simplify

Claudia Lee:

that, and, in so doing, free up resources for a company to go do

Claudia Lee:

strategic things in their businesses.

Claudia Lee:

Just the act of simplifying data centers was incredibly groundbreaking

Claudia Lee:

and valuable for our customers.

Claudia Lee:

Our prior CIO used to talk about how, before Nutanix, she hadn't had

Claudia Lee:

Thanksgiving dinner with her family for a decade because Thanksgiving was

Claudia Lee:

always a time when IT teams would do migrations and other type of IT projects.

Claudia Lee:

And so Nutanix gives people their holidays and weekends back so they

Claudia Lee:

can spend time with their family.

Claudia Lee:

Those kinds of things are what a marketer's about.

Claudia Lee:

We wanna work on things that are helping customers accomplish their

Claudia Lee:

business goals, enrich their lives.

Claudia Lee:

However, that value is, that needs to be super clear to a marketer 'cause

Claudia Lee:

we have to feel it in our bones.

Claudia Lee:

What is the value of this company?

Claudia Lee:

We have to love our product.

Claudia Lee:

We have to love our company because we are the chief voice for

Claudia Lee:

that story to the outside world.

Claudia Lee:

We are the chief evangelist.

Claudia Lee:

So we have to really love our company and what it does.

Claudia Lee:

Otherwise, you can't do your best work as a marketer, I believe.

Erica Seidel:

I like that.

Erica Seidel:

I can imagine interviewing with you for a more junior role on your team

Erica Seidel:

and being very inspired by that.

Erica Seidel:

That's awesome.

Erica Seidel:

So let's get into some questions.

Erica Seidel:

I know when I first talked with you, we talked about this concept of CMO

Erica Seidel:

needs to be like a chief marketing education officer, and you told me

Erica Seidel:

about this Slack channel that you had called Enabling Conversations.

Erica Seidel:

You said, you know, this is what marketers are here to do, to enable

Erica Seidel:

conversations, not just with customers, not just with prospects, but with

Erica Seidel:

partners, and also internally.

Erica Seidel:

I was very taken by that idea and so would love to hear you double click on

Erica Seidel:

that and talk about what you think about that, how that shows up, how that works,

Erica Seidel:

and what value you've gotten from that kind of mindset and communication channel.

Claudia Lee:

Yeah.

Claudia Lee:

I think enabling conversations, I came upon it during my

Claudia Lee:

time starting at CertifID.

Claudia Lee:

It kind of crystallized a belief that I've had in every marketing role,

Claudia Lee:

and that is, if you really think about why every function at a company

Claudia Lee:

exists, like, why does finance exist?

Claudia Lee:

Why does the product team exist?

Claudia Lee:

For marketers, marketing exists at a company to enable conversations.

Claudia Lee:

What I mean by that is pretty broad.

Claudia Lee:

Marketing is not just talking to people.

Claudia Lee:

Marketing is not just building messaging and broadcasting the messaging.

Claudia Lee:

Our job as marketers is to create the story and all the aspects of

Claudia Lee:

the story and create the conditions and vehicles and places where these

Claudia Lee:

ideas show up so that it sparks interest or ideas or conversation with

Claudia Lee:

partners and customers and prospects.

Claudia Lee:

That's a super broad, ambiguous way to describe it.

Claudia Lee:

But that is really our job.

Claudia Lee:

We are there to spark conversation, to enable conversations, to enable

Claudia Lee:

ongoing conversations with ideas and the ways we tell the story and that

Claudia Lee:

just shows up in so many different ways.

Claudia Lee:

And it depends on your market and your company.

Claudia Lee:

That's why we exist and how it comes out is demos and opportunities and

Claudia Lee:

pipeline and close one, but you don't have that without really understanding

Claudia Lee:

what you're trying to do, what your company does, why it's so special.

Claudia Lee:

How do you tell that story in all the ways?

Claudia Lee:

How do you tell that story with all the audiences?

Claudia Lee:

How do you find ways to reach your audiences with those stories?

Claudia Lee:

So that's why I came up with this description of what we do as we are

Claudia Lee:

here to enable the right conversations with the right people at the right time.

Claudia Lee:

So it's about enabling conversations, and the Slack channel that we started

Claudia Lee:

at my current company is really just a place where we put new stories, new

Claudia Lee:

content ,even just industry articles.

Claudia Lee:

All these things are just fodder for our go-to-market teams to leverage to engage

Claudia Lee:

their prospects, customers, and partners.

Claudia Lee:

It's giving them fodder to spark conversation because we all know it's hard

Claudia Lee:

to get into the door of a large prospect.

Claudia Lee:

It's hard to get people to wanna engage with you.

Claudia Lee:

So you have to provide things of value for them.

Claudia Lee:

You have to.

Claudia Lee:

Find things that you think they would be interested in, that they're

Claudia Lee:

learning about something new, or they're learning about something

Claudia Lee:

that they needed to research anyway, or "Did you know?" kinds of things.

Claudia Lee:

Those are all fodder to spark that conversation.

Claudia Lee:

So that's how that channel started.

Claudia Lee:

We just put in news articles that are about our launches as well

Claudia Lee:

as industry articles as well as customer stories, that kind of thing.

Claudia Lee:

So it's just a place a go-to-market person can go to pick up ideas and turn

Claudia Lee:

that into outreach and things like that.

Erica Seidel:

Follow up question, when you talk with the CEO or the board, do you use

Erica Seidel:

this concept of enabling conversations, and if you do, how does that fly?

Claudia Lee:

It depends on the situation.

Claudia Lee:

That's the macro why we exist, but, obviously, it shows

Claudia Lee:

up in the numbers, right?

Claudia Lee:

So, if we're reaching the right audiences with the right conversations and we're

Claudia Lee:

helping them go through that buyer's journey, or the account buyer's journey

Claudia Lee:

with those conversations, then it shows up in those numbers that I mentioned.

Claudia Lee:

Are we picking up new contacts?

Claudia Lee:

Are they engaging?

Claudia Lee:

Are they requesting demos?

Claudia Lee:

Is that turning into opportunities?

Claudia Lee:

Et cetera.

Claudia Lee:

So it's more of an ethos as to why we exist, and then that becomes

Claudia Lee:

strategies and plans and execution, and it shows up in the numbers.

Erica Seidel:

Yeah.

Erica Seidel:

Great.

Erica Seidel:

So this season, with the podcast, we're looking at ways that the SaaS

Erica Seidel:

marketing organization is changing both seismic ways and in subtle ways.

Erica Seidel:

I like alliteration, so that's why I picked that.

Erica Seidel:

Anyway ,can you pick one or both of these things and talk through what

Erica Seidel:

you think and what you observe and what you're fermenting, either a

Erica Seidel:

seismic or a subtle changer, or both?

Claudia Lee:

Yeah, I think it's subtle and seismic, but I think that marketing orgs

Claudia Lee:

are changing in a couple ways in terms of how flexible and adaptable we have to be.

Claudia Lee:

I think marketing has always been about testing and having a mindset of testing

Claudia Lee:

and learning and experimentation.

Claudia Lee:

But I think that that is like 10x now, just because of all the technologies

Claudia Lee:

that are impacting how we do our work and how we reach our audiences and how our

Claudia Lee:

audiences consume content and engage now.

Claudia Lee:

So I would just say the number one theme that I think about a lot is

Claudia Lee:

just how to stay even more flexible and adaptable than ever before.

Claudia Lee:

There are certain phases I think of tech and tech marketing where

Claudia Lee:

there were certain things that were seen as working really well and

Claudia Lee:

it was more about scaling that.

Claudia Lee:

Now we're in this world where everyone's trying everything, trying

Claudia Lee:

to figure out what is the road ahead?

Claudia Lee:

Harnessing these technologies in order to gain an advantage.

Claudia Lee:

And I don't think anyone has completely figured out the playbook yet.

Claudia Lee:

So it's this era of experimentation that we're all going through, I believe.

Claudia Lee:

I see it a lot.

Claudia Lee:

We're all hungry and learning from each other in terms of teams that

Claudia Lee:

have had success leveraging different tools that are enabled by AI.

Claudia Lee:

That's gonna be the name of the game for the next few years.

Erica Seidel:

That's interesting.

Erica Seidel:

So an era of kind of hyper experimentation.

Erica Seidel:

Can you talk about a recent experiment that you wouldn't have

Erica Seidel:

done, I don't know, a few years ago?

Claudia Lee:

Yeah, I think all marketing teams are experimenting

Claudia Lee:

with how to derive value from AI.

Claudia Lee:

So one of the things that we have done as a team is we created our own content GPT.

Claudia Lee:

We actually fed it with proprietary content because what we do is so

Claudia Lee:

unique and there are proprietary aspects of it in order to fuel our

Claudia Lee:

content development more efficiently.

Claudia Lee:

It doesn't replace humans.

Claudia Lee:

It doesn't replace the strategic intent.

Claudia Lee:

It doesn't replace the more overreaching stories that we build, but it can take

Claudia Lee:

everything we've ever written before and help us actually produce more

Claudia Lee:

bite-sized content in an efficient way.

Claudia Lee:

So that's something that our team's been working on.

Erica Seidel:

Very cool.

Erica Seidel:

Awesome.

Erica Seidel:

One thing I remember about your background, when we first met, I

Erica Seidel:

was doing the search that was all around ecosystem-led growth and a

Erica Seidel:

very partner-oriented go-to-market motion, which I just thought was cool.

Erica Seidel:

And because it seems like that's just a faster path to market and everything.

Erica Seidel:

You have a background in this, and I remember you said that at CertifID your

Erica Seidel:

first hire was a partner marketing hire.

Erica Seidel:

I think it's rare for somebody to get to the CMO role from having a

Erica Seidel:

partner marketing kind of background.

Erica Seidel:

Can you talk about where are we with the maturity of ecosystem-led

Erica Seidel:

growth or partner-led growth, the arc of maturity, and what's your

Erica Seidel:

forecast for where that's going?

Erica Seidel:

Sorry, that's kind of a clunky question.

Claudia Lee:

Yeah, partner marketing is really unique and cool.

Claudia Lee:

I fell into partner marketing because I started out in product marketing,

Claudia Lee:

which became solutions marketing.

Claudia Lee:

In any kind of robust portfolio solutions, you want your technology to work with

Claudia Lee:

other folks' technologies, and that's how I fell into working with other tech

Claudia Lee:

partners and working on go-to-market together on these joint solutions.

Claudia Lee:

I was very lucky.

Claudia Lee:

I think the timing of that evolution of my experience was very much in parallel

Claudia Lee:

with the entire tech industry realizing, exactly what I said, that your reach and

Claudia Lee:

the capabilities of your technologies will improve immensely if your technologies

Claudia Lee:

work with other folks' technologies.

Claudia Lee:

It was this time when so many companies realized that partnering was going to

Claudia Lee:

be valuable, not only for the strength of the solution, but the reach.

Claudia Lee:

I just had great timing.

Claudia Lee:

My skills and experience and knowledge building around partner marketing

Claudia Lee:

just mapped with that really well.

Claudia Lee:

So that was a really nice benefit for me and my career growth because that type of

Claudia Lee:

skillset was valued and was searched for, and there really weren't that many people

Claudia Lee:

that had that type of experience yet.

Claudia Lee:

Partner marketing wasn't even really a discipline.

Claudia Lee:

If you go back, I'm aging myself a little bit, but way back if you intentionally

Claudia Lee:

said, "I wanna be in marketing," partner marketing was not even a thing

Claudia Lee:

people said, "I wanna do that." It just evolved as its own discipline.

Claudia Lee:

Now, the interesting thing is so many people have gravitated towards

Claudia Lee:

that idea, but it's not that easy to work with outside companies.

Claudia Lee:

Partnering in general, whether it's just partner, BD, sales, or marketing,

Claudia Lee:

these are just disciplines that are challenging 'cause you're trying to get

Claudia Lee:

alignment between two companies to do something together and stay together and

Claudia Lee:

keep that momentum going for a sustained enough period of time to see revenue.

Claudia Lee:

That just takes a very certain intentionality and strategy and mindset

Claudia Lee:

and sustained resource to do that.

Claudia Lee:

So there was this massive ramp in desire for partner marketing and

Claudia Lee:

partner teams, and I think now it's become a little bit more mature.

Claudia Lee:

A lot of the companies understand now how it can be challenging, but how it

Claudia Lee:

can lead to outcomes if you can invest and sustain that effort for enough of

Claudia Lee:

a period of time to see the results.

Claudia Lee:

My trajectory has gone with a trajectory of partner marketing even being a thing.

Claudia Lee:

It didn't even exist then companies started to see the

Claudia Lee:

value, started to invest.

Claudia Lee:

The great thing is, is its own discipline now, and now there's

Claudia Lee:

this period of companies who have become really great at it.

Claudia Lee:

There are still a lot of companies that are still trying to figure it out.

Claudia Lee:

We've realized that partnering was going to be our most effective and

Claudia Lee:

most efficient path to reaching our ICP audiences because these large companies

Claudia Lee:

already had the relationships, had the decades of experience and success

Claudia Lee:

working with our customers, and were very respected in terms of their

Claudia Lee:

recommendations on technologies to use, partners, and just all aspects of a deal.

Claudia Lee:

So that is why we have continued to invest in partner marketing 'cause it's a value

Claudia Lee:

to all sides, to us and to our customers.

Erica Seidel:

Really cool.

Erica Seidel:

If somebody has a stagnant partner marketing program, what would be the

Erica Seidel:

first question you would ask them?

Erica Seidel:

If you had your consulting hat on, 'cause you know so much about this,

Erica Seidel:

what would be the first question you would ask them to diagnose what the

Erica Seidel:

problem was and how they could fix that?

Claudia Lee:

That's a great question.

Claudia Lee:

I guess my first question would be tell me about your partner ecosystem.

Claudia Lee:

Tell me, who are your strategic partners and why?

Claudia Lee:

What categories do you hope to serve by working with your sets of partners?

Claudia Lee:

What does success look like with these strategic partners?

Claudia Lee:

Just understanding the intent because if intent is clear, then, it's not

Claudia Lee:

easy, but if intent is clear, then you can build a path toward that.

Claudia Lee:

It's hard work to get there, but that intent and focus and

Claudia Lee:

prioritization is really important.

Erica Seidel:

I like that.

Erica Seidel:

Make sure the intent is clear.

Erica Seidel:

You bring up something that I think is so huge in marketing these days, this

Erica Seidel:

kind of tension between short-term results and long-term patience.

Erica Seidel:

To your point, it could take time for anything in marketing to work, but

Erica Seidel:

partner marketing results is one of those things that can take a lot of time.

Erica Seidel:

Meanwhile, companies are so anxious for short-term results

Erica Seidel:

that you're fighting time.

Claudia Lee:

I feel like you can do both.

Claudia Lee:

It's not easy, and I'm being pretty optimistic, which I am generally

Claudia Lee:

an optimistic person, but I think you can do both because you do

Claudia Lee:

need to find the early wins.

Claudia Lee:

If you can get some early wins, whether it's a few large customers that you

Claudia Lee:

close together, those kinds of early wins, then that becomes fuel to get to

Claudia Lee:

your next stage of growth as a partner.

Claudia Lee:

You take those as examples of what good looks like and teams that work together

Claudia Lee:

and how they achieve that success together in order to spark more and more of your

Claudia Lee:

joint sales and marketing teams to want to work together to see that result.

Claudia Lee:

Then you can build that into a scalable program.

Claudia Lee:

But it has to be seen as urgent.

Claudia Lee:

Getting some of those early wins is incredibly urgent because if your

Claudia Lee:

partnership launches and you don't have enough fuel, after a certain

Claudia Lee:

time, that momentum will dissipate.

Claudia Lee:

That excitement and energy of launching together will dissipate without more fuel.

Claudia Lee:

So I think there's a way to do both.

Claudia Lee:

In fact, you have to do both.

Claudia Lee:

You have to find those early wins so that you can sustain the momentum

Claudia Lee:

and turn that into a scalable effort.

Erica Seidel:

Okay, great.

Erica Seidel:

Thank you.

Erica Seidel:

Let's talk about AI.

Erica Seidel:

You know no conversation these days is complete without some topics of AI.

Erica Seidel:

There's a lot of talk about AI is gonna take over entry level jobs, or

Erica Seidel:

at the very least, change them a lot.

Erica Seidel:

How do you think that's gonna look?

Erica Seidel:

What kinds of people are gonna get the few jobs that are the relatively,

Erica Seidel:

comparatively few jobs that are out there?

Claudia Lee:

It's obvious that AI's going to change roles and

Claudia Lee:

how teams are staffed and whatnot.

Claudia Lee:

The main things that I see is just the elevation of that thought around

Claudia Lee:

intent and having more of a thought process on what are we trying to

Claudia Lee:

do, build the strategy around it, that culture of experimentation.

Claudia Lee:

A lot of other folks have probably described this to you, as well.

Claudia Lee:

I think AI is simply another, I'm oversimplifying, but AI is another

Claudia Lee:

category of technology that aids us.

Claudia Lee:

So marketers have to continue to uplevel our thinking and our skillset

Claudia Lee:

and our ability to understand the technology and figure out how to

Claudia Lee:

leverage the technology for our purpose.

Claudia Lee:

It's a tool, right?

Claudia Lee:

Effective, successful marketers and marketing leaders will view it

Claudia Lee:

that way as this cool opportunity to find new ways to do things.

Claudia Lee:

So it just continues to elevate that strategic thinking,

Claudia Lee:

understanding your company and why we're doing what we're doing.

Claudia Lee:

That flexibility, adaptability, that culture of experimentation becomes even

Claudia Lee:

more important because it can feel chaotic when we're on the ground, in day-to-day.

Claudia Lee:

and we see posts constantly about " AI created this for me," or "AI

Claudia Lee:

created that for me," or, "I didn't do this anymore 'cause of AI."

Claudia Lee:

Those are all true things, but to turn that into a scalable motion will take the

Claudia Lee:

right strategic folks to build that out.

Claudia Lee:

So I think it just continues to uplevel the type of talent and the strategic

Claudia Lee:

acumen of the talent that you hire.

Erica Seidel:

It's interesting, I feel like the theme coming out here

Erica Seidel:

is intent plus experimentation.

Claudia Lee:

Every single team or role I've ever had, I think

Claudia Lee:

if you were to choose two words that describe me as a marketing

Claudia Lee:

leader, it's " strategic execution."

Claudia Lee:

Because nothing happens without execution, but execution without

Claudia Lee:

a strategy is just busy work.

Claudia Lee:

But then strategy without the execution chops doesn't actually lead to progress.

Claudia Lee:

So it's the blend of both.

Claudia Lee:

Understanding what you're trying to do, but then having that grit to execute.

Erica Seidel:

That's a great segue to the thing I wanted to talk about

Erica Seidel:

next, which is about bringing up the next crop of marketing leaders.

Erica Seidel:

You are a very intentional person like we've been talking about.

Erica Seidel:

I'm wondering if you could talk about the three most important skills that, whether

Erica Seidel:

they're hard skills or soft skills, that you like to create in your team.

Erica Seidel:

If we talked to people who worked for you, what would they

Erica Seidel:

say they had learned from you?

Claudia Lee:

You won't be surprised at my first one.

Claudia Lee:

It's that strategic acumen, or just thoughtfulness is a better word for it.

Claudia Lee:

I always look for folks that are super thoughtful in how they think about and

Claudia Lee:

talk about what they've done before and what they've learned and what

Claudia Lee:

they're trying to do in their next role.

Claudia Lee:

To me, that indicates intellectual curiosity, which

Claudia Lee:

is pivotal to any marketer.

Claudia Lee:

You have to be asking questions and trying to understand the why of things because

Claudia Lee:

metrics in marketing are simply clues.

Claudia Lee:

We don't always know why somebody decided to buy.

Claudia Lee:

Sometimes you're lucky and they'll tell you exactly, but we're in the

Claudia Lee:

business of looking at all the clues, all the engagements along the buyer's

Claudia Lee:

journey, and, " Okay, I think this might improve conversion rates."

Claudia Lee:

You just need that intellectual curiosity to ask, " Why did conversion

Claudia Lee:

of leads into demo requests only have this percent here, but this percent

Claudia Lee:

there?" So intellectual curiosity is super important for any marketer.

Claudia Lee:

I also think that no matter what your role is in marketing, it could be

Claudia Lee:

ops, it could be events, it could be brand, even though your role could be

Claudia Lee:

very specific, I always look for folks that are pretty well-rounded because

Claudia Lee:

the world we live in is changing.

Claudia Lee:

You're gonna want somebody that's able to think out of the box and think

Claudia Lee:

beyond their current scope in order to keep evolving what they do, how

Claudia Lee:

they do it, how they do it better, and how it fits into the bigger picture.

Claudia Lee:

So I always look for folks that are really well-rounded because any

Claudia Lee:

well-rounded marketing person needs to understand the story, needs to be able

Claudia Lee:

to understand how demand is created, needs to understand their numbers.

Claudia Lee:

You need that full facet across any role.

Claudia Lee:

Maybe you're more indexed in certain things that you're an expert on in

Claudia Lee:

your role, but you still need to understand how all of it works together.

Claudia Lee:

Those are the qualities that I always look for.

Claudia Lee:

I think the last thing goes without saying, but just that collaborative

Claudia Lee:

spirit is also so important in marketing because everything we do is so contextual.

Claudia Lee:

We do our work better if we understand what our teammates are doing, because

Claudia Lee:

then how we show up at a trade show or how we show up in a digital ad is more

Claudia Lee:

informed because of learnings that we're all gathering as a go-to-market team.

Claudia Lee:

Not just our team, but working with sales and customer success.

Claudia Lee:

So that spirit of collaboration, that I'm not alone, I'm not doing this in a silo.

Claudia Lee:

I can get more lift and effectiveness if I understand what others are doing.

Claudia Lee:

Then I also just need to understand what others are doing so I know how my

Claudia Lee:

piece of the puzzle shows up in front of our audience that I'm trying to target.

Claudia Lee:

Just understanding how you're connected is super important.

Claudia Lee:

You can't just be in your lane.

Erica Seidel:

I love that.

Erica Seidel:

I think that's so well articulated.

Erica Seidel:

How do you tell if somebody's collaborative?

Erica Seidel:

I'll just pick up that third one.

Erica Seidel:

If you're interviewing somebody, people often just say, "Oh, I'm collaborative."

Erica Seidel:

And I always think are you collaborative in terms of, okay, I do my piece, you do

Erica Seidel:

your piece, and then we put it together?

Erica Seidel:

Are you collaborative in terms of we come to the same mind and we're joined at the

Erica Seidel:

hip to come up with something, which could be you know, maybe more time consuming?

Erica Seidel:

How do you tell?

Claudia Lee:

Interviewing is so hard because you're trying to test for

Claudia Lee:

things that are really hard to test for.

Claudia Lee:

I think the tells are little things, like as they describe their experiences, did

Claudia Lee:

they describe how they worked with others?

Claudia Lee:

This is a really hard one to test for, but are they generous in giving credit

Claudia Lee:

to the others that they worked with?

Claudia Lee:

Because you never do anything alone.

Claudia Lee:

Just that generous spirit of " I did this because there was a broader

Claudia Lee:

team that I worked with." And how they describe their accomplishments.

Claudia Lee:

One of my questions that I ask folks is how would your manager describe you?

Claudia Lee:

Or how would your former team describe you?

Claudia Lee:

And you see, like, how do they see themselves?

Claudia Lee:

Does anything indicating great teamwork or collaboration or that kind of thing

Claudia Lee:

pop up in their description of themselves?

Claudia Lee:

Those are like little proxy clues, I would say, but yeah, it's a really

Claudia Lee:

hard thing to test for in an interview.

Claudia Lee:

Agreed.

Erica Seidel:

That's cool.

Erica Seidel:

Any other tips about how you hire, or other favorite interview

Erica Seidel:

questions that you have?

Claudia Lee:

I love to ask folks, tell me about one or two of your

Claudia Lee:

accomplishments that you feel was most successful in your prior role.

Claudia Lee:

Tell me about a project that you thought was very successful and

Claudia Lee:

tell me what it was, your role in it, what did you accomplish?

Claudia Lee:

I love to start with the best of someone, and if they can tell me what

Claudia Lee:

they're highly proud of, that gives me a sense of what they value and how they

Claudia Lee:

did it and just about them, basically.

Erica Seidel:

I like that.

Erica Seidel:

I used to have a client who would ask that, and then she would ask, " Tell

Erica Seidel:

me about an accomplishment you were proud of at the time, but you're

Erica Seidel:

less proud now looking back."

Claudia Lee:

Hmm.

Erica Seidel:

So I give that to you as another, like extension for yours,

Erica Seidel:

because people evolve over time.

Erica Seidel:

Like, oh, I thought that was so cool.

Erica Seidel:

I did that ten years ago, or five years ago, whatever.

Erica Seidel:

But now with this lens, I would've done X, Y, Z differently.

Erica Seidel:

And of course, if they don't say they'd anything differently - right?

Erica Seidel:

- Like, then you know.

Claudia Lee:

Totally.

Claudia Lee:

Yeah, because that indicates self-awareness and thoughtfulness

Claudia Lee:

and intellectual curiosity, which are so important to the adaptability

Claudia Lee:

that we just talked about.

Erica Seidel:

Yeah, yeah.

Erica Seidel:

Cool.

Erica Seidel:

I know we're getting to the end of our time, but I wanted to ask you

Erica Seidel:

one thing, since you're in career transition and you, clearly, were

Erica Seidel:

meeting with at least one CEO.

Erica Seidel:

I'm wondering what were you asked in your interviews for your next CMO gig?

Erica Seidel:

Was there anything that was surprising to you or that you think would

Erica Seidel:

be interesting for other CMOs in transition to hear and to prepare for?

Claudia Lee:

Mm-hmm.

Claudia Lee:

Wow.

Claudia Lee:

That's such a great question.

Claudia Lee:

It's a big question.

Claudia Lee:

I think for a CMO, a CMO role is obviously going to be multi-step.

Claudia Lee:

There's a pretty lengthy conversation, set of conversations.

Claudia Lee:

So that's why it's a big question because I do think that when a CEO is looking to

Claudia Lee:

hire a CMO, they really wanna understand that person as well as they possibly can,

Claudia Lee:

in as efficient a way as possible because you're envisioning taking somebody into

Claudia Lee:

your leadership team that you can count on and can be by your side and make the

Claudia Lee:

right decisions and that you can trust.

Claudia Lee:

That's really hard to interview for.

Claudia Lee:

So in that process there's a lot of "How would you solve these

Claudia Lee:

problems?" kinds of conversations.

Claudia Lee:

But then there's also the how questions.

Claudia Lee:

So I do think that how you show up in the process in terms of how you think

Claudia Lee:

about team building and how you think about your approach to leadership and

Claudia Lee:

how you would approach either building or growing or evolving a team helps folks

Claudia Lee:

envision what would you do in the role.

Claudia Lee:

That's really what everyone's always trying to do in an interview process.

Claudia Lee:

Could I envision this person in the seat at my company doing the right things, and

Claudia Lee:

that I can trust to do the right things?

Claudia Lee:

That's just so hard.

Claudia Lee:

So it's the strategy, it's the marketing philosophy, it's the how would you

Claudia Lee:

build our brand and our presence?

Claudia Lee:

Feeling like you have passion and some semblance of understanding of

Claudia Lee:

the product is super important, too.

Claudia Lee:

Don't just jump to the marketing tactics.

Claudia Lee:

Try to understand, okay, how could marketing tell this story better?

Claudia Lee:

I think an important part of the thought process is could I

Claudia Lee:

envision this person being my chief evangelist for why our company is

Claudia Lee:

doing great work for our customers?

Claudia Lee:

There's so many facets, I think, to that process of a CEO deciding on

Claudia Lee:

is the CMO the right person for us?

Erica Seidel:

Right, right.

Erica Seidel:

And interesting, follow up on that.

Erica Seidel:

You didn't say anything about AI, so I'm wondering, did CEOs ask about your

Erica Seidel:

perspective on AI or your forecast on how it could change marketing?

Claudia Lee:

For sure.

Erica Seidel:

Or, or was it like, what are you using?

Erica Seidel:

What types of questions?

Erica Seidel:

'Cause I feel like everybody's, oh, everybody else is further ahead

Erica Seidel:

than me and they're trying to suss that out and learn in real time.

Claudia Lee:

For sure.

Claudia Lee:

It's in every conversation.

Claudia Lee:

It's almost implied in every conversation.

Claudia Lee:

I think AI is in every conversation.

Claudia Lee:

I think that there is a deep understanding on all sides that it's

Claudia Lee:

going to change how we all execute.

Claudia Lee:

I do also think that we also need to still focus on the fundamentals, like

Claudia Lee:

all those things that we just described.

Claudia Lee:

Strategic intent - do you understand the product and what it does?

Claudia Lee:

What's the value for our customers?

Claudia Lee:

And then AI is a new set of technologies that can help you do that better.

Claudia Lee:

Don't get me wrong, it is groundbreaking.

Claudia Lee:

It is changing our lives for good and bad already as marketers.

Claudia Lee:

I just hope that we balance that it is a set of tools that we can leverage, but

Claudia Lee:

it's not going to eliminate the need for smart people to be doing the right things

Claudia Lee:

to get your story to the right people.

Claudia Lee:

There's always gonna be these ways of new technology that

Claudia Lee:

changes how we do our work.

Claudia Lee:

But again, it all comes down to thinking about how you

Claudia Lee:

enable the right conversations.

Claudia Lee:

So that's what I always come back to, because otherwise you'll just

Claudia Lee:

lose yourself in chasing tools.

Claudia Lee:

Always come back to that.

Claudia Lee:

Why are we here and what are we trying to do?

Erica Seidel:

I love that.

Erica Seidel:

Yeah.

Erica Seidel:

Strategic intent and experimentation.

Erica Seidel:

You know

Erica Seidel:

- Claudia Lee: Thanks for marketing me.

Erica Seidel:

I appreciate that.

Erica Seidel:

[They laugh]

Erica Seidel:

this has been great, Claudia.

Erica Seidel:

Thank you so much for sharing your perspectives.

Erica Seidel:

I love the thoughtfulness that you put into your career and I can imagine

Erica Seidel:

your teams really appreciate you.

Erica Seidel:

Thank you so much and good luck in the next role.

Claudia Lee:

Yeah.

Claudia Lee:

Thank you so much.

Erica Seidel:

That was Claudia Lee.

Erica Seidel:

Stay tuned for the next episode of the Get Coming in a couple of weeks.

Erica Seidel:

Thanks for listening to the Get I'm your host, Erica Seidel.

Erica Seidel:

The GET is here to drive Smart Decisions or, ah.

Erica Seidel:

The GET is here to drive smart decisions around recruiting and

Erica Seidel:

leadership in B2B SaaS marketing.

Erica Seidel:

We explore the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of today's top

Erica Seidel:

marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.

Erica Seidel:

If you liked this episode, please share it For more about the get

Erica Seidel:

visit the get podcast.com to learn more about my executive.

Erica Seidel:

To learn more about my executive search practice, which focuses on recruiting the

Erica Seidel:

Make money marketing leaders, rather than the Make it pretty ones, follow me on

Erica Seidel:

LinkedIn or visit the connective good.com.

Erica Seidel:

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

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About your host

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Erica Seidel

Erica Seidel recruits the marketing leaders of the 'make money' variety – not the 'make it pretty' variety. As the Founder of The Connective Good, a boutique executive search firm, she is retained to recruit CMOs and VPs in marketing, growth, product marketing, demand generation, marketing operations, and corporate marketing. She also hosts The Get podcast. Previously, she led Forrester Research's global peer-to-peer executive education businesses for CMOs and digital marketing executives of Fortune 500 companies. Erica has an MBA in Marketing from Wharton, and a BA in International Relations from Brown. One of her favorite jobs ever was serving as the Brown Bear mascot.

You can find her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericaseidel/, or on her website/blog at www.theconnectivegood.com.