Practical Tips for Future CMOs

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah 2 00:00:04.740 --> 00:00:09.300 hey everyone welcome back to be to be growth. My name is Olivia Hurley and 3 00:00:09.300 --> 00:00:14.910 today I'm joined by Crystal flojo, who's the VP of marketing at Fortress I. 4 00:00:14.910 --> 00:00:19.900 Q. Hi crystal, how you doing today? I'm good Olivia. Thanks for having me on. 5 00:00:19.910 --> 00:00:25.410 Oh my gosh of course I'm so excited. So to kind of recap some conversations 6 00:00:25.410 --> 00:00:30.110 we're having previously, I was asking you one thing that you were noticing in 7 00:00:30.110 --> 00:00:34.320 the market and anything that you would suggest doing a different way and you 8 00:00:34.320 --> 00:00:41.690 were saying that you you here and you see a general resistance to demand gen 9 00:00:41.690 --> 00:00:46.000 marketers being CMos and you were saying oftentimes cmos come up through 10 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:51.350 the product marketing line and you disagree with that and I want to just 11 00:00:51.350 --> 00:00:56.710 jump right in and hear why you think that is why you think that see demand 12 00:00:56.710 --> 00:01:00.090 gen marketers aren't necessarily given the chance and also why you think that 13 00:01:00.090 --> 00:01:05.150 they're totally equipped To be in that seat? Yeah, for sure. So I think if you 14 00:01:05.150 --> 00:01:09.660 think about the demand gen roll, right, it's relatively new. There was no 15 00:01:09.660 --> 00:01:16.760 demand gen 20 years ago. And I think today now a lot of those people that 16 00:01:16.770 --> 00:01:22.200 are, became the demand gen experts early on are now getting to that stage 17 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:26.340 in their career where they're vying for CMO jobs. And I think there's a 18 00:01:26.340 --> 00:01:32.910 resistance because of tradition and product marketers or brand marketers 19 00:01:32.920 --> 00:01:39.480 make better cmos. And to me, you know, you need a full stack CMO. Uh, and I 20 00:01:39.480 --> 00:01:43.870 think that that's starting to happen as well where people are requesting full 21 00:01:43.870 --> 00:01:49.630 stack cmos because you can't just be single threaded. Um, if you're a CMO, I 22 00:01:49.630 --> 00:01:55.310 think it's one of those jobs where you have to juggle so many balls at the 23 00:01:55.310 --> 00:01:59.890 same time, right? So, you know, one minute you're talking about revenue and 24 00:01:59.890 --> 00:02:02.880 demand gen and the next minute you're talking about brand and then the next 25 00:02:02.880 --> 00:02:06.330 minute you're talking about customer marketing and advocacy and also their 26 00:02:06.330 --> 00:02:11.640 stuff. So you have to pivot fairly quickly. But I think the problem with 27 00:02:11.650 --> 00:02:15.850 being just focused on a product marketer, like if you're a ceo looking 28 00:02:15.850 --> 00:02:20.150 for a CMO, you know, you're trying to solve the problem that you have today 29 00:02:20.740 --> 00:02:25.050 and you're not necessarily hiring for someone who can solve all the problems 30 00:02:25.060 --> 00:02:30.860 there are going to happen down the line. So I think when folks are looking for a 31 00:02:30.860 --> 00:02:36.760 CMO, look for a full stack CMO and look for someone who's a little bit stronger 32 00:02:36.760 --> 00:02:43.130 and demand gen, just because I think you need those skills to be able to be 33 00:02:43.130 --> 00:02:48.140 a successful CMO. So what are the skills and experiences that product 34 00:02:48.140 --> 00:02:55.170 marketers have that demand gen marketers might not. So I think the 35 00:02:55.170 --> 00:03:00.410 technical savvy of the product, right. Um, if I look at the individuals that 36 00:03:00.410 --> 00:03:04.700 are closest to product management, understanding the product right there, 37 00:03:04.700 --> 00:03:11.700 the translators of sometimes very technical things into marketing 38 00:03:11.710 --> 00:03:16.740 messages. And I think that's one skill that demand jin if you've just been 39 00:03:16.740 --> 00:03:20.660 demanding and you haven't been exposed to all the other departments, that's 40 00:03:20.660 --> 00:03:25.480 something that's hard to do, especially if you're in a field. Uh, you know that 41 00:03:25.480 --> 00:03:30.950 you're trying to market that is very technical, right? I got my stripes. I 42 00:03:30.950 --> 00:03:35.760 think if you want to call that when I was at map are, which is a Hadoop 43 00:03:35.770 --> 00:03:42.210 technology and I had no idea what it was. And if I didn't have a very strong 44 00:03:42.210 --> 00:03:47.400 product marketing team and a very strong partner to be able to translate 45 00:03:47.400 --> 00:03:52.230 all that stuff so that I can go, you know, create ads and you know, do do 46 00:03:52.230 --> 00:03:56.760 fund campaigns. I don't think I would have been successful. So I do think 47 00:03:56.770 --> 00:04:02.730 they are the translators for that technical part of the company into the 48 00:04:02.730 --> 00:04:08.500 marketing organization. So why is it valuable to have a demand gen 49 00:04:08.500 --> 00:04:14.270 practitioner in the C suite? So I guess a broader question might be actually a 50 00:04:14.270 --> 00:04:19.170 more specific question might be like what are the problems that a CMO is 51 00:04:19.170 --> 00:04:26.130 going to encounter? That a demand and practitioner can best resolve? Yeah, 52 00:04:26.140 --> 00:04:31.970 great question for me, the demand practitioner is usually very logical. 53 00:04:31.980 --> 00:04:38.340 They're the they're the science part of the brain, right? Like I am, you look 54 00:04:38.340 --> 00:04:42.860 at my career, I am way more science than I am art. I appreciate art. I can 55 00:04:42.860 --> 00:04:48.660 dabble in art but you know that's not that's not my background. So I think 56 00:04:48.660 --> 00:04:53.250 the science of it in the logical conversations that you have to have 57 00:04:53.250 --> 00:04:58.080 when you're in the C suite the numbers and tying those two revenue and being 58 00:04:58.090 --> 00:05:02.690 able to understand those metrics and make decisions off of those metrics. I 59 00:05:02.690 --> 00:05:07.800 mean if you look at product marketing there are really no metrics for product 60 00:05:07.800 --> 00:05:12.560 marketers other than content creation. And you know you can extrapolate some 61 00:05:12.560 --> 00:05:18.080 sort of information from the content that they produce. But traditionally 62 00:05:18.080 --> 00:05:23.100 they're not, they have not been metrics driven marketers where demand gen like 63 00:05:23.110 --> 00:05:29.170 we live and breathe with metrics and how much pipelines created and uh you 64 00:05:29.170 --> 00:05:34.410 know conversion rates and and all that other stuff. So I think that as you get 65 00:05:34.420 --> 00:05:39.230 into a CMO role or an executive role that starts to become really important 66 00:05:39.240 --> 00:05:44.100 because at the end of the day, you know the decision is what are the things we 67 00:05:44.100 --> 00:05:48.790 want to go invest in for the most R. O. I. And demand gen marketers and that's 68 00:05:48.940 --> 00:05:55.210 that's a daily conversation. So I think just in that regard um they have the 69 00:05:55.210 --> 00:06:00.290 skills to be able to to be in the C suite. Um I also think demand jin 70 00:06:00.300 --> 00:06:04.530 crosses multiple functions, right? If you think of all the things that go 71 00:06:04.530 --> 00:06:10.350 into a campaign that go into website development that you could go into any 72 00:06:10.350 --> 00:06:16.110 sort of initiative run by demand gen you're pulling in people from a bunch 73 00:06:16.110 --> 00:06:19.690 of different parts of the organization, right? Like product marketing for the 74 00:06:19.690 --> 00:06:24.650 message calms if there's a press release attached to it content uh you 75 00:06:24.650 --> 00:06:27.770 know, wherever that sits of its own role if it rolls up to product 76 00:06:27.770 --> 00:06:35.080 marketing so you have this person that can collaborate. You know, if there are 77 00:06:35.080 --> 00:06:38.900 good demanding market right, collaborate across different aspects of 78 00:06:38.900 --> 00:06:42.910 the organization to be able to go get stuff done. Uh And I think that's 79 00:06:42.910 --> 00:06:48.250 another key skill is this, uh, the ability to collaborate not only within 80 00:06:48.250 --> 00:06:52.060 the marketing organization, but obviously across other organizations. 81 00:06:52.440 --> 00:06:58.800 So I'm curious what you might recommend a demand and marketer do or be involved 82 00:06:58.800 --> 00:07:05.840 in. If they are hoping to end up in that CMO seat, get as much experience 83 00:07:05.850 --> 00:07:10.650 as you can, right? If you want to be a record, be recognized as a full stack 84 00:07:10.650 --> 00:07:15.770 marketer, you know, sit in all those meetings, volunteer for projects. Um, 85 00:07:15.780 --> 00:07:20.860 one of the things that I did early on in my career, uh, when I was a field 86 00:07:20.860 --> 00:07:26.810 marketer is I sat in a lot of sales meetings. Uh, and I got asked, you know, 87 00:07:26.810 --> 00:07:31.150 to be part of sales leadership and I was kind of the marketing 88 00:07:31.150 --> 00:07:35.860 representative. But what it allowed me to do is understand how sales works, 89 00:07:35.870 --> 00:07:40.730 understand things about pipeline, understand deal Dynamics, understand 90 00:07:40.730 --> 00:07:45.180 more about customers and what they wanted and just being an active 91 00:07:45.180 --> 00:07:50.270 listener in those situations. I was then able to then take that back into 92 00:07:50.270 --> 00:07:55.110 the programs that I was running and execute them. I think better than 93 00:07:55.120 --> 00:08:00.910 anybody else because I understood what was happening at the field level and I 94 00:08:00.910 --> 00:08:05.220 wasn't necessarily contributing a ton like right to some of the forecast 95 00:08:05.220 --> 00:08:09.620 calls and but I listened. Um, and if you can make the time to listen to 96 00:08:09.620 --> 00:08:14.310 those types of meetings, I think it's really important. Um, same thing with 97 00:08:14.310 --> 00:08:19.390 analyst relations, right. I I spent most of my career thinking analyst 98 00:08:19.390 --> 00:08:23.770 relations was just this magic that happened and it didn't relate to 99 00:08:23.770 --> 00:08:28.860 anything that I was doing. And you know, when I got to to host analytics as the 100 00:08:28.860 --> 00:08:34.950 CMO and an analysts were very, very important to to our go to market motion 101 00:08:34.960 --> 00:08:41.200 and seeing how that translated into air cover for demand gen and things that we 102 00:08:41.200 --> 00:08:47.120 could go do with analysts. That allowed us to have better impact for our 103 00:08:47.120 --> 00:08:50.980 programs. I mean it was eye opening to me and I wouldn't have known any of 104 00:08:50.980 --> 00:08:57.090 that until like I actually had to go do it. Um but you know, just my advice is 105 00:08:57.090 --> 00:09:01.420 listen as much as you can and asked to sit in on meetings and so you can kind 106 00:09:01.420 --> 00:09:07.590 of understand how all the pieces are supposed to fit together. So sales and 107 00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:13.410 analysts be involved sitting on their meetings listen to them. Is that going 108 00:09:13.410 --> 00:09:17.170 to translate not only into knowledge and understanding and anticipating 109 00:09:17.180 --> 00:09:22.860 problems to come, but is it also going to translate into how you speak to 110 00:09:22.870 --> 00:09:27.480 other members of the C suite er, or the communications across the executive 111 00:09:27.480 --> 00:09:34.020 board? Yeah, for sure. I think it allows you to see how effective 112 00:09:34.020 --> 00:09:39.760 communication happens, right? And you know where you lean into certain things 113 00:09:39.760 --> 00:09:44.620 and where you, you know, just become an active listener in the background. So I 114 00:09:44.620 --> 00:09:49.930 think that's one of the skills as an executive that is not taught anywhere, 115 00:09:49.940 --> 00:09:53.840 right? Like can't take glass on that and just kind of understanding the 116 00:09:53.840 --> 00:09:57.660 dynamics, right? Because every single person in that C suite has a different 117 00:09:57.660 --> 00:10:02.300 driver, right? The head of sales, their biggest drivers revenue, right? And 118 00:10:02.300 --> 00:10:07.780 making their number right? So if you can tie anything that you're asking for, 119 00:10:07.780 --> 00:10:13.130 if you can tie the conversation to what they're going to get out of it, then 120 00:10:13.140 --> 00:10:17.110 you're going to be successful and then translate that to finance right? Like 121 00:10:17.120 --> 00:10:22.130 marketers spend a lot of money. So if you can understand what is important to 122 00:10:22.130 --> 00:10:27.920 the CFO, right? Things like the CAC and Ebitda and those terms and what does 123 00:10:27.920 --> 00:10:32.970 mean it's relatively easy for you to go walk into a meeting and say, I think I 124 00:10:32.970 --> 00:10:38.770 can go help reduce cost here or I think I can ensure that we hit our pipeline 125 00:10:38.770 --> 00:10:42.380 number by doing this. Those are the conversations that are going to have, 126 00:10:42.390 --> 00:10:47.470 they're not gonna care about number of MQ LZ or they're not gonna care about, 127 00:10:47.480 --> 00:10:51.790 you know, I have to have a new website because I hate the design, right? Like 128 00:10:51.800 --> 00:10:56.020 you are never going to get more money from a CFO, if that's your leading 129 00:10:56.020 --> 00:11:01.390 argument, right? The argument has to be around increasing conversion rates and 130 00:11:01.400 --> 00:11:05.880 you know, I could spend less on campaigns if I had a website that 131 00:11:05.880 --> 00:11:10.070 worked better. Uh and here are those conversion rates. So I think those are 132 00:11:10.070 --> 00:11:14.100 the things that you need to learn to be able to get what you want as a marketer, 133 00:11:14.100 --> 00:11:18.730 right? And what's good for the business. I had a head of sales early early on in 134 00:11:18.730 --> 00:11:24.040 my career um at a Reba who told me, and he, one of the first things he said to 135 00:11:24.040 --> 00:11:27.960 me, he was like, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. And it was 136 00:11:27.960 --> 00:11:32.310 literally that right? Like you look out for me and I will look out for you. 137 00:11:32.310 --> 00:11:37.370 Like you understand my business and I will help you get, you know what you 138 00:11:37.370 --> 00:11:42.480 need. And that that is true today, right? Like if you can, you know, 139 00:11:42.480 --> 00:11:48.340 there's a gift of the get and and you have to know that as an executive, a as 140 00:11:48.340 --> 00:11:51.820 a marketer, you're probably brainstorming outside the box ideas to 141 00:11:51.820 --> 00:11:55.480 engage your prospects and customers working remotely. And you've probably 142 00:11:55.480 --> 00:11:59.290 thought about sending them direct mail to break through the zoom fatigue. But 143 00:11:59.300 --> 00:12:03.490 how do you ship personalized gifts to remote decision makers When you have no 144 00:12:03.490 --> 00:12:07.460 idea where they're sitting at BBB growth. We use the craft and platform 145 00:12:07.460 --> 00:12:11.720 to send hyper personalized gifts to anyone. Working from anywhere. Crafting 146 00:12:11.720 --> 00:12:15.140 makes it easy for your prospects and customers to pick and personalize their 147 00:12:15.150 --> 00:12:19.860 own gift in real time and offers highly secured data capture. So decision 148 00:12:19.860 --> 00:12:22.830 makers feel comfortable submitting their home addresses for shipping 149 00:12:22.830 --> 00:12:28.060 purposes to get your own personalized craft and gift, go to craft um dot io 150 00:12:28.070 --> 00:12:32.080 slash growth to schedule a demo and receive a complimentary personalized 151 00:12:32.080 --> 00:12:35.920 gift from craft um to claim your personalized gift, go to craft um dot 152 00:12:35.920 --> 00:12:44.100 io slash growth. So I'm curious what you think. If someone didn't take any 153 00:12:44.100 --> 00:12:49.130 of your advice about sitting in on meetings with sales and analysts and 154 00:12:49.130 --> 00:12:54.700 various other departments and just learning as much as they could. Do you 155 00:12:54.700 --> 00:13:01.310 think a demand jin practitioner or a product marketing practitioner would be 156 00:13:01.310 --> 00:13:06.770 better equipped based on their typical day to day to have those C suite 157 00:13:06.770 --> 00:13:12.290 conversations? I think I think they both could. I mean I'm partial to to 158 00:13:12.290 --> 00:13:16.720 demand jin just because I do think you're exposed to a lot more than you 159 00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:20.660 are in product marketing. You know there's there's different aspects and 160 00:13:20.660 --> 00:13:24.270 different departments, even just within demand generation that a product 161 00:13:24.270 --> 00:13:28.120 marketer doesn't necessarily have. I also think the metrics piece right? 162 00:13:28.130 --> 00:13:33.180 Like I said before, there's not a lot of metrics in product marketing and 163 00:13:33.180 --> 00:13:37.490 it's fun and I think that's fine. Right? I think I think that's okay. Uh not 164 00:13:37.490 --> 00:13:41.270 everything has to be a metric but as you grow, you know in your career and 165 00:13:41.270 --> 00:13:46.020 you get to the C suite metrics do become relatively important. So I mean 166 00:13:46.020 --> 00:13:49.650 I think they both can do it. I think the full stack marketer is probably the 167 00:13:49.650 --> 00:13:54.790 best person suited. Those are rare. But if you look at CMO tenure, right, it's 168 00:13:54.790 --> 00:14:00.010 the shortest tenured executive in the C suite. And I do think it's because 169 00:14:00.020 --> 00:14:05.170 people hire for the problem we have today, not for the long term. Well, you 170 00:14:05.170 --> 00:14:08.930 hit on exactly why I asked that question which was, which was 171 00:14:08.940 --> 00:14:12.200 mentioning the product marketing doesn't necessarily work with metrics 172 00:14:12.200 --> 00:14:16.880 in the same way. And so I love that you cleared that up for me. And then I'm 173 00:14:16.880 --> 00:14:23.530 curious if we could take this all the way back to the studs here and think 174 00:14:23.530 --> 00:14:28.850 through if somebody wants to, somebody who's early in their demand and career 175 00:14:28.860 --> 00:14:34.050 wants to end up in that C suite. What's the first thing that they have to do? 176 00:14:34.060 --> 00:14:37.870 Really, really, practically what are the relationships they need to be 177 00:14:37.870 --> 00:14:41.960 making? And you mentioned sitting in on meetings, but more than that, you know 178 00:14:41.960 --> 00:14:47.580 what is step one? What's step two, nail your job that you have today, right? 179 00:14:47.590 --> 00:14:51.750 Get to the point where you can do your job and your sleep, you know the 180 00:14:51.750 --> 00:14:55.660 metrics, right? Like you just, it's almost robotic, right? Like it's just 181 00:14:56.040 --> 00:15:00.370 you know what to go, do you know what to look for? Uh you know how to fix 182 00:15:00.370 --> 00:15:05.950 things? Um So just get really, really good at your job, understanding the 183 00:15:05.950 --> 00:15:10.920 text ac, right? All those things and have a playbook. Have the playbook that 184 00:15:10.920 --> 00:15:16.040 you can in any job you could go refer to and say this is my demand gen. 185 00:15:16.040 --> 00:15:20.560 Playbook. This is what I look at. This is what I do first and start to compile 186 00:15:20.560 --> 00:15:25.410 that because that will help you as you get another job right? You just kind of 187 00:15:25.420 --> 00:15:29.350 take out that playbook and say, okay, what do I need to change? But you know 188 00:15:29.350 --> 00:15:33.980 this is kind of the standard that's made me successful. Once you do that, 189 00:15:33.990 --> 00:15:38.660 then start trying to understand all the other pieces and spend some time in 190 00:15:38.660 --> 00:15:42.760 product marketing, you know, spend some time with your finance business partner. 191 00:15:42.760 --> 00:15:47.960 I mean that for me allowed me to understand how finance operated, I had 192 00:15:47.970 --> 00:15:53.580 the most fantastic business, a finance business partner when I was a jive and 193 00:15:53.580 --> 00:15:57.760 he had no idea about marketing, you know, he was like, I don't know, I just 194 00:15:57.760 --> 00:16:01.010 know you guys spend a lot of money, you know, and I was trying to build a 195 00:16:01.010 --> 00:16:05.140 waterfall because they didn't have one yet, right? Like defining that newly 196 00:16:05.140 --> 00:16:10.650 and SQL SQL all that other stuff. And it was the two of us working together 197 00:16:10.660 --> 00:16:14.850 and him understanding my business, me understanding the questions that he was 198 00:16:14.850 --> 00:16:20.110 asking, um, that we were able to build this very seamless waterfall that 199 00:16:20.110 --> 00:16:24.320 everybody understood all the way up to the Ceo and that gave me exposure to 200 00:16:24.320 --> 00:16:30.390 the CFO, It gave me exposure to a lot more people, A very small project right 201 00:16:30.400 --> 00:16:33.370 in the grand scheme of things. It was pretty big. But you know, just the two 202 00:16:33.370 --> 00:16:38.250 of us working together, um, to go figure this out that, you know, was 203 00:16:38.250 --> 00:16:42.460 something that usually has a lot of tension built around it, right? 204 00:16:42.460 --> 00:16:45.380 Likewise, marketing spending all this money, there's no results. Sales 205 00:16:45.380 --> 00:16:49.350 doesn't have leads. You know, finance gets involved, they start to do all 206 00:16:49.350 --> 00:16:54.730 this, you know, agnostic reporting. It tends to become a very uncomfortable 207 00:16:54.730 --> 00:16:59.340 position for all parties. So do things like that, right? Like get to know your 208 00:16:59.340 --> 00:17:03.240 finance. People understand what they're looking for and that will give you that 209 00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:07.849 exposure and then just, you know, within the organization, like sign up 210 00:17:07.859 --> 00:17:13.329 for projects. I don't think we're as siloed as we used to be when it comes 211 00:17:13.329 --> 00:17:18.089 to projects. I think, you know, teams are strapped and and people are, you 212 00:17:18.089 --> 00:17:22.130 know, you need help on all sides. You know, one of the things I did early on 213 00:17:22.130 --> 00:17:28.480 in my career is website stuff I signed up to help do. QA. I signed up to, you 214 00:17:28.480 --> 00:17:34.970 know, learn how to do S. C. O. Um, what what words mattered. Um and as you, you 215 00:17:34.970 --> 00:17:39.270 know, kind of go into the different organizations, you'll if you listen, 216 00:17:39.840 --> 00:17:43.920 you'll be able to see where you can step in and and either help or or be an 217 00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:49.110 active listener. What were the positive results in your career that came from 218 00:17:49.120 --> 00:17:52.760 taking initiative like that? And getting involved in learning so much? 219 00:17:53.340 --> 00:17:58.100 Good question. So I think, you know, at a Reba I was one field marketing 220 00:17:58.100 --> 00:18:04.210 manager, um I was hired, it was one of three early on and I just asked to do 221 00:18:04.210 --> 00:18:10.150 more and did more events. I talked to a lot of people actually had somebody 222 00:18:10.150 --> 00:18:14.340 pretty recently asked me like, God, you know, so many people. And my first 223 00:18:14.340 --> 00:18:19.030 reaction is always like one old um right? Like I've been around for a 224 00:18:19.030 --> 00:18:22.820 while and you know, like I have all these connections and but the truth of 225 00:18:22.820 --> 00:18:29.030 it is like, I'm an active networker and I'd stay in touch with people and I've 226 00:18:29.030 --> 00:18:34.640 made friends outside of my little bubble that I started early on in my 227 00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:42.490 career, right at Ariba. And so for me, I think it's leveraging those when you 228 00:18:42.490 --> 00:18:47.240 need to but also always being there, you know when somebody needs a piece of 229 00:18:47.240 --> 00:18:53.110 advice or just wants to check in. But so back to Reba, you know, I took on 230 00:18:53.110 --> 00:18:56.900 after about six months, I took on the whole field marketing organization, you 231 00:18:56.900 --> 00:19:01.230 know, I stepped up to the plate, I said I wanted to do it and that was hard, 232 00:19:01.230 --> 00:19:05.670 right? Like I didn't know if I could do it. I had never done field marketing 233 00:19:05.670 --> 00:19:11.440 before and but I did it. And I think that kind of opened a ton of doors for 234 00:19:11.440 --> 00:19:14.610 me, right? I got put on sales leadership, I got to build a global 235 00:19:14.610 --> 00:19:20.020 team when marketing automation came out. All right. Like there was no demand 236 00:19:20.020 --> 00:19:26.880 John 20 years ago. And I was able to be curious and you know, understand what 237 00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:31.140 marketing automation was and how it could help and threw my name in the 238 00:19:31.140 --> 00:19:35.320 ring to say I want to take field marketing and make it a bigger demand 239 00:19:35.320 --> 00:19:40.500 general. Uh, and so I did and got to learn all about marketing automation. I 240 00:19:40.500 --> 00:19:45.200 got to build workflows in salesforce things that I don't think a lot of 241 00:19:45.200 --> 00:19:50.160 marketers have been able to do in their careers. And you know, that kind of 242 00:19:50.170 --> 00:19:56.490 elevated me to this demand gen metrics expert in the company, you know, and 243 00:19:56.490 --> 00:20:02.040 then from there kind of took that playbook and took it to to leo and did 244 00:20:02.040 --> 00:20:05.860 the same thing. They're built out a pretty big field marketing organization 245 00:20:06.240 --> 00:20:12.950 and built it out globally as well. So I think it's not being afraid to step 246 00:20:12.950 --> 00:20:18.800 into a role that you may not have all the skills for. Right. Um, and telling 247 00:20:18.800 --> 00:20:23.760 people that right. Like I had my ceo of host analytics, we were talking about 248 00:20:23.760 --> 00:20:27.590 where the Sdrs should live, whether it should be in sales or whether it should 249 00:20:27.590 --> 00:20:32.240 be marketing. I have worked with SDR teams, I built one but really didn't 250 00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:38.140 manage it. I left before I could manage it, but I have never done it. And his 251 00:20:38.150 --> 00:20:44.830 logic was give the process oriented person, which is me and metrics driven 252 00:20:44.830 --> 00:20:49.110 person, which is me, the people that need the most process and the most 253 00:20:49.110 --> 00:20:53.330 metrics in the organization and she'll figure it out. So, you know, have that 254 00:20:53.330 --> 00:20:59.020 reputation to be the figure out er, on the team because then you'll get, 255 00:20:59.030 --> 00:21:03.680 you'll get projects um and just be open to it. I think that's the big thing is, 256 00:21:03.690 --> 00:21:09.310 you know, I think there's a study that women don't, you know, put their name 257 00:21:09.310 --> 00:21:12.830 in the ring if they don't feel like they have, they don't check all the 258 00:21:12.830 --> 00:21:18.160 boxes from a career perspective and I think that's wrong. Uh right. Like 259 00:21:18.540 --> 00:21:23.690 everyone looks for a unicorn, but you know, you can't, you can't find that 260 00:21:23.690 --> 00:21:28.890 unicorn um, so be vulnerable, Tell them what you don't know how to do and then 261 00:21:28.900 --> 00:21:32.430 hire the right people around you that do you know how to do it and that will 262 00:21:32.430 --> 00:21:37.450 be your key to success. I I think this is probably my version of this is going 263 00:21:37.450 --> 00:21:44.010 to be a very reductionist summary of part of your story. But but I think the 264 00:21:44.010 --> 00:21:49.760 essence is still true. It was those first opportunities of initiative and 265 00:21:49.760 --> 00:21:55.900 learning and gumption and confidence that really set the trajectory 266 00:21:55.900 --> 00:22:00.390 obviously tons and tons of hard work and and like throwing your name in the 267 00:22:00.390 --> 00:22:03.250 ring and things like that and continuing to be like, I'll try it, 268 00:22:03.250 --> 00:22:09.060 I'll try it. But that, that early in your career mindset seems to have set 269 00:22:09.640 --> 00:22:13.820 the trajectory. That's so cool. And I think that's something that anybody in 270 00:22:13.820 --> 00:22:20.060 their career at any point can just kind of like shoulder on. That's awesome. 271 00:22:20.740 --> 00:22:27.860 Well, if there was one thing in this episode that you wanted people to do or 272 00:22:27.860 --> 00:22:31.050 resonate with, or, you know, take the heart or something like that, what 273 00:22:31.050 --> 00:22:36.860 would it be? You know, just listen, Right? And I think that's the hardest 274 00:22:36.860 --> 00:22:41.910 skill. You know, if I if I were to go back, uh, you know, 20 years and, and 275 00:22:41.910 --> 00:22:46.850 tell my 20 year old self, uh, the key to success, it would be to just listen 276 00:22:46.860 --> 00:22:51.050 and listen with intent, try to understand what's going on around. You 277 00:22:51.050 --> 00:22:57.390 don't be so silo, don't be so in your lane that you can't absorb what's going 278 00:22:57.390 --> 00:23:04.340 on around you. And I think that helps, right? Because I wasn't I didn't lead X 279 00:23:04.340 --> 00:23:08.370 project. I didn't, you know, I wasn't integral in a certain project when I 280 00:23:08.370 --> 00:23:12.730 was younger in my career, but I was a witness to it. And I saw what it looked 281 00:23:12.730 --> 00:23:17.670 like, right? And I saw the challenges that happened. Um and how how people 282 00:23:17.670 --> 00:23:23.080 overcame them. And and that's what you internalize. Um so that when that 283 00:23:23.080 --> 00:23:26.500 situation comes up later down the road, you're like, uh huh. I was part of 284 00:23:26.500 --> 00:23:31.340 something. Uh and this is how it went. Uh You know, this could be how we 285 00:23:31.340 --> 00:23:35.990 approach this particular situation. So listen and listen with intent and 286 00:23:35.990 --> 00:23:40.120 remember those things. Because that's how that's how you're going to absorb 287 00:23:40.120 --> 00:23:45.540 and learn Crystal. How can people connect with you and to learn more 288 00:23:45.540 --> 00:23:54.270 about you and more about Fortress, I q Sure. Uh so on linkedin crystal, how if 289 00:23:54.270 --> 00:23:58.040 you're gonna send me a link to an invite, make sure you tell me where you 290 00:23:58.040 --> 00:24:03.560 heard me talk but you can you can find me there on twitter. Marketing Stella 291 00:24:03.940 --> 00:24:07.450 style is my nickname by the way. And then Fortress like you. So I've been 292 00:24:07.450 --> 00:24:12.620 there for about a year. Uh we are revolutionizing the process, discovery 293 00:24:12.620 --> 00:24:17.970 space with computer vision and AI so check us out on Fortress like you dot 294 00:24:17.970 --> 00:24:22.170 com. We also have a podcast that I'll just plug. It's called Hello Human, 295 00:24:22.340 --> 00:24:26.210 that's where we talk about leaders and AI and talk about practical 296 00:24:26.340 --> 00:24:31.700 applications of AI. Uh and so that's a pretty fun podcast we have going. So 297 00:24:31.710 --> 00:24:36.260 definitely give that a listen. Thank you so much for joining me on BTV 298 00:24:36.260 --> 00:24:39.360 growth. Sure thanks for having me Olivia. This is fun. 299 00:24:40.940 --> 00:24:41.170 Mhm. 300 00:24:44.040 --> 00:24:48.640 Mhm. For the longest time I was asking people to leave a review of GDP growth 301 00:24:48.640 --> 00:24:53.100 in apple podcasts but I realized that was kind of stupid because leaving a 302 00:24:53.100 --> 00:24:58.270 review is way harder than just leaving a simple rating. So I'm changing my 303 00:24:58.270 --> 00:25:01.910 tune a bit instead of asking you to leave a review, I'm just going to ask 304 00:25:01.910 --> 00:25:06.010 you to go to be be growth in apple podcasts, scroll down until you see the 305 00:25:06.010 --> 00:25:09.650 ratings and reviews section and just tap the number of stars you want to 306 00:25:09.650 --> 00:25:15.450 give us no review necessary. Super easy and I promise it will help us out a ton 307 00:25:15.500 --> 00:25:19.470 if you want a copy of my book, content based networking, Just shoot me a text 308 00:25:19.480 --> 00:25:26.350 after you leave the rating and I'll send on your way, text me at 40749033-8.