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.
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