The Revenue-Driven CMO Chris Mechanic

Today’s guest has over 15 years of global experience across various domains from product to GTM to core marketing. Genefa Murphy is the CMO of Udemy and is a Limited Partner at Stage 2 Capital. Udemy is a global destination for online learning and is on a mission to improve lives through learning. Genefa joins Host Chris Mechanic to share why marketers need to operate without fear and how marketers can do that to overcome imposter-syndrome. Genefa also dives into the relationship between sales and marketing teams and why it’s so much more impactful for the business when they work as partners rather than competing against each other.
 
Takeaways:
One of the secrets to success in marketing is to operate without fear. Fear often manifests itself as self-doubt or imposter syndrome. It's important to confront these feelings, take ownership, be confident in your ability to contribute, and understand the value you bring to the table.
Create and reflect on your personal narrative or "highlight reel". This involves acknowledging your accomplishments and learning from your mistakes. This reflection helps feed positive stimuli, counters feelings of fear or inadequacy, and encourages continuous learning and growth.
Sales and marketing are more effective when united as partners to accomplish a shared goal. They must work together rather than compete against each other. Both departments are parts of the company and the overall success of the business depends on their ability to collaborate.
Marketers need to step out of their ‘marketing shoes’ and experience other roles, like sales, customer success, etc., to gain different perspectives and better understand the complexities and challenges of those roles.
Experiment with different marketing channels to reach your target audience and hit your KPIs. This might include performance marketing for D2C businesses or adopting an ABM approach for B2B companies. Other channels might include community-building initiatives, events, content syndication, and social media.
With the big changes occurring in tech and how we use it, such as AI, continuous learning and upskilling are essential. There are many opportunities for both individuals and businesses to learn, upskill, reskill and stay up-to-date, so take advantage of them.
 
Quote of the Show:
“One of my biggest pieces of advice for marketers is go and do a job outside of marketing.” - Genefa Murphy
 
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/genefamurphy/ 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GenefaMurphy 
Udemy Website: https://www.udemy.com/ 
Stage 2 Capital: https://www.stage2.capital/ 
 
Shoutouts:
Christopher Lochhead: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherlochhead/ 
Category Pirates: https://www.categorypirates.com/ 
The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson
Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller
Amp It Up by Frank Slootman
 
Ways to Tune In:
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7334aa0c-702a-47aa-8c55-760fa2cf4dda/the-revenue-driven-cmo 
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-revenue-driven-cmo/id1444680950   
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=60a093a194c64c17 
iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-revenue-driven-cmo-99614345/ 
Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-revenue-driven-cmo-chris-mechanic-rdU1oESluqs/
YouTube:
 
The Revenue-Driven CMO is sponsored by WebMechanix, the performance marketing agency that makes you smarter. Learn more at https://www.webmechanix.com/ 
 
The Revenue-Driven CMO is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/ 
 

Today’s guest is an innovative and forward-thinking marketing leader who has been described as a combination of ‘Mad Men’ and ‘Math Men’. Prior to his current role, he led marketing at companies like SAP and Commvault. Chris Powell is the Chief Marketing Officer of Qlik, which simplifies the way people use data by making it a natural part of how they make decisions. Chris joins Host Chris Mechanic to share how to use a data-driven approach in marketing successfully, the challenges of merging brand names after an acquisition, and the importance of company authenticity in today's marketplace.
 
Takeaways:
To succeed as a marketing leader, it’s imperative to think about the big picture of what you're trying to achieve as a business. Make sure marketing’s goals are connected to the goals of the business as a whole.
In everything you do in marketing, ask yourself "what is the job of this" and make sure that the purpose is not lost and remains the guiding light for that endeavor.
Using frameworks for your marketing campaigns can be doubly effective because not only can you decrease the duplication of efforts but it can also unify the marketing team behind it.
There are five main growth levers you can pull as a marketing leader, you can: grow the brand, grow existing customers, grow new customers, grow partnerships, and grow each other.
Because of how many different and wildly varied responsibilities CMOs have, being a CMO is almost like running your own company as the CEO.
 
Quote of the Show:
“You have to be a special type of lunatic to be CMO” - Chris Powell
 
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophermpowell/ 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/justpowell 
Company website: https://www.qlik.com/us/ 
 
Ways to Tune In:
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7334aa0c-702a-47aa-8c55-760fa2cf4dda/the-revenue-driven-cmo 
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-revenue-driven-cmo/id1638785560  
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=60a093a194c64c17 
Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9tb3JlbWFya2V0aW5nLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz 
iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-revenue-driven-cmo-99614345/ 
Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-revenue-driven-cmo-chris-mechanic-rdU1oESluqs/
YouTube: https://youtu.be/Io0UrhT7DkQ 
 
The Revenue-Driven CMO is sponsored by WebMechanix, the performance marketing agency that makes you smarter. Learn more at https://www.webmechanix.com/ 
 
The Revenue-Driven CMO is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/ 
 

Today’s guest started her career in market research which kickstarted her affinity for data. She’s turned customer insights into healthy growth for companies such as Upwork, American Express, Farmer’s Insurance, and The Nature Conservancy. In recognition of her work, she won the 2020 Demand Gen B2B Innovator Award. Kirsten Markson is the CMO of Keap, a $100M ARR start-up that brings the power of marketing and sales automation to SMBs. Kirsten joins Host Chris Mechanic for a conversation on the importance of listening to your customers, how to align sales and marketing teams, and why great marketers are both internal and external storytellers.
 
Takeaways:
Listening to customers and understanding their needs, language, and pain points is critical for any successful marketer. This can help when developing effective messaging and creating solutions that resonate with your target audience.
Two great ways to listen to your customers are to listen to recorded sales calls and to ask sales reps about what they hear from the customers they interact with every day. Find out how your customers describe their problems and assess your solutions.
As a marketer, it’s important to build a strong relationship with the sales team and ensure alignment. This leads to better communication, shared goals, and improved conversion rates.
Brand awareness and community building are key priorities. Marketers should invest in strategies that not only increase brand visibility but also foster a sense of community among customers. This can include creating valuable content, engaging with customers on social media, and facilitating customer-to-customer conversations.
It’s crucial to conduct segmentation research to identify the most profitable and ideal customer segments. By understanding the different segments and their unique needs, marketers can tailor their messaging and offerings to maximize results.
Creating compelling offers that customers can't refuse. Marketers can focus on developing offers that provide real value and address customers' pain points in a unique and irresistible way.
 
Quote of the Show:
“We have to be storytellers that bring people in and that requires listening” - Kirsten Markson
 
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirstenmarkson/ 
Company website: https://keap.com/ 
 
Shoutouts:
Jennifer Erwing, CRO of Keap: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-erwing-27586866/ 
Brené Brown - Author: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brenebrown/ 
Adam Grant: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adammgrant/
Tallwave: https://tallwave.com/ 
 
Ways to Tune In:
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7334aa0c-702a-47aa-8c55-760fa2cf4dda/the-revenue-driven-cmo 
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-revenue-driven-cmo/id1638785560  
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=60a093a194c64c17 
Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9tb3JlbWFya2V0aW5nLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz 
iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-revenue-driven-cmo-99614345/ 
Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-revenue-driven-cmo-chris-mechanic-rdU1oESluqs/
YouTube: https://youtu.be/dTZaduuqF78
 
The Revenue-Driven CMO is sponsored by WebMechanix, the performance marketing agency that makes you smarter. Learn more at https://www.webmechanix.com/ 

The Revenue-Driven CMO is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

Today’s guest is a transformative and customer-focused leader that has helped grow huge companies including PayPal, Facebook, and BlueVine. Dhiraj Kumar is the CMO of Dashlane. Dhiraj and Host Chris Mechanic discuss the importance of paying attention to the details of your customers, why getting a fresh perspective is so important to developing great marketing, and how to cut down your copy to find the magic.
 
Takeaways:
The minutiae within how customers behave and think matter immensely. Although it may not be easy, marketers need to train themselves to notice the fine details and use that insight to inform how they interact with customers.
In order to pay attention to the minutiae, marketers need to be intentional in their approach. An important part of that is to give yourself and your team permission to question things that are thought to be fundamental. Question all assumptions. 
Another way to both find and decipher insights from customer details is to involve another person who has nothing to do with this project or customer. They provide a fresh set of eyes and a new outlook that empowers everyone to look at it differently. 
Look for solutions and ways to analyze customer behavior from areas outside of your business, industry, etc. People behave similarly across their lives, so look for other ways that people in situations parallel to yours have solved the problem. 
As stewards and advocates for the customers, it is the job of marketers to look at a campaign or any messaging in the way that customers would look at it. Put yourself in the customers' shoes when assessing a campaign.
Great customer-first thinkers tend to question the necessity of every piece. When editing copy, ask yourself if you really need to include x. When you get to the point where you cannot remove anything else, that is where the magic comes from.
 
Quote of the Show:
“A marketer's job, in my mind, is to draw down those blinders and see the obvious, to see the minutiae of customer behavior, because that's where great insights come from.” - Dhiraj Kumar
 
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhirajkumar/ 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dk2weet 
Company website: https://www.dashlane.com/ 
 
Shoutouts:
Subtract by Leidy Klotz: https://a.co/d/iz0qRUW 
The History of Rome by Mike Duncan: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-history-of-rome-39177 
Talking Politics: HISTORY OF IDEAS by David Runciman: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/talking-politics-history-of-id-1177614
The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee: https://a.co/d/700RYiK 
 
Ways to Tune In:
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7334aa0c-702a-47aa-8c55-760fa2cf4dda/the-revenue-driven-cmo 
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-revenue-driven-cmo/id1638785560  
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=60a093a194c64c17 
Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9tb3JlbWFya2V0aW5nLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz 
iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-revenue-driven-cmo-99614345/ 
Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-revenue-driven-cmo-chris-mechanic-rdU1oESluqs/
YouTube: https://youtu.be/ElziPYXRYOE 
 
The Revenue-Driven CMO is sponsored by WebMechanix, the performance marketing agency that makes you smarter. Learn more at https://www.webmechanix.com/ 
 
The Revenue-Driven CMO is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/ 
 

Today’s guest is an inspirational leader who has built B2B marketing teams from the US and Europe to Australia and Japan for over 15 years. They have a proven track record of helping businesses scale whether they are large enterprises, hyper-growth, or somewhere in-between. Tom Bianchi is the SVP of Product & Solutions Marketing at Acquia. Tom and Host Chris Mechanic explore the importance of product-market fit in the success of marketing campaigns, why larger companies must pursue a solution-market fit, and which companies have nailed their product-market fit.
 
Takeaways:
Understanding product-market fit is imperative for marketers. Once you understand the pain point that the audience that you're trying to market to is truly feeling, every part of marketing downstream becomes easier and more effective. 
A key part of launching a successful marketing campaign is to enable the members of your company’s sales team to sell. Prior to the launch of the campaign, the sales team needs to understand the messaging of the campaign and the pain points of the customers. 
If your campaign messaging makes sense because you understand your product market fit, it becomes easier to enable your sales force to best respond to anything that comes from that campaign because they know exactly how to articulate the pain points.
Startup and Hyper-growth type companies, especially in SaaS, tend to understand their product market fit better than larger and more established companies. In more mature companies that have made acquisitions and play in multiple categories, there is a higher likelihood that they do not understand their product-market or company-market fit. This gray area complicates messaging problems for larger companies.
For larger companies offering multiple products, the focus must shift from a singular product-market fit to looking at the solution-market fit where the “solution” provided to customers is a combination of the multiple products the company offers. 
The solution offered to customers must be more valuable than just the sum of its parts. The multiple products that comprise the solution must synergistically work together to provide a greater value to the customer. Companies should diligently make acquisitions of products that enhance the capability of their solution.
 
Quote of the Show:
“For me, it's all been about understanding the product-market fit.” - Tom Bianchi
 
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-bianchi/ 
Company website: https://www.acquia.com/  
 
Shoutouts:
The ONE Thing by Gary Keller
Dries Buytaert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/buytaert/ 
6Sense 
Playing To Win by Alan G. Lafley and Roger Martin
All-In Podcast: https://www.allinpodcast.co/ 
Make Your Bed by Admiral William H. McRaven
 
Ways to Tune In:
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7334aa0c-702a-47aa-8c55-760fa2cf4dda/the-revenue-driven-cmo 
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-revenue-driven-cmo/id1638785560  
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=60a093a194c64c17 
Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9tb3JlbWFya2V0aW5nLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz 
iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-revenue-driven-cmo-99614345/ 
Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-revenue-driven-cmo-chris-mechanic-rdU1oESluqs/
YouTube: https://youtu.be/BkRoj5RmauA
 
The Revenue-Driven CMO is sponsored by WebMechanix, the performance marketing agency that makes you smarter. Learn more at https://www.webmechanix.com/ 
 
The Revenue-Driven CMO is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/ 
 

Today’s guest is a longtime B2B SaaS marketer who has amassed some impressive wins throughout his career. Ben Slater is the SVP of Marketing at Beamery and of the company’s now 400+ employees, he was the sixth employee hired. Ben and Host Chris Mechanic dive into the power of telling big stories, why organizational alignment is so important to successful integrated marketing campaigns, and the impact of using clear messages in your marketing.
 
Takeaways:
The secret to effective marketing is telling a big story across all marketing channels with a single consistent message. This is key to running a successful integrated campaign strategy. This also helps in avoiding random acts of marketing and ensures a focused and impactful message.
Build your marketing strategy upon a single, clear message that aligns with the overall strategy of your company. This message should address the market shift and existential threat your customers face, capturing the attention of CEOs and decision-makers.
Leverage Account-Based Marketing to personalize experiences for key accounts and ensure effective alignment with the sales team. This approach can result in higher ROI and stronger engagement.
Ensure that all departments within the organization understand the campaign message and can articulate it. This alignment will create a cohesive and powerful narrative across the entire company.
 Identify the changing skill requirements in your industry and focus on upskilling and developing your workforce accordingly. This helps in staying ahead of market trends and improving efficiency. Investing in your team strengthens your company’s ability to compete.
Successful campaigns require commitment and consistency. It may take six to twelve months, or even longer, to truly make an impact and change market perception.
 
Quote of the Show:
“The secret is telling a big story through a unified and integrated campaign strategy with a single consistent message across all channels.” - Ben Slater
 
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-slater-96298367/ 
Company website: https://beamery.com/ 
 
Shoutouts:
Wynter: https://wynter.com/ 
The Path to Power by Robert Caro
Not Fade Away: A Short Life Well Lived by Laurence Shames and Peter Barton
Outlive by Peter Attia
 
Ways to Tune In:
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7334aa0c-702a-47aa-8c55-760fa2cf4dda/the-revenue-driven-cmo 
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-revenue-driven-cmo/id1638785560  
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OCuYchAG8TlGv82YARRhy?si=60a093a194c64c17 
Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9tb3JlbWFya2V0aW5nLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz 
iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-revenue-driven-cmo-99614345/ 
Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-revenue-driven-cmo-chris-mechanic-rdU1oESluqs/
YouTube: https://youtu.be/rafTMYt_gT0
 
The Revenue-Driven CMO is sponsored by WebMechanix, the performance marketing agency that makes you smarter. Learn more at https://www.webmechanix.com/ 
 
The Revenue-Driven CMO is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/