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Want to be CMO? Start with Soft Skills
15 Plays9 days ago
Brian Stoller, CMO at VentureBeat and former IBM marketing leader, joins B2B Marketing Pint to talk about what it really takes to earn the CMO seat.
Spoiler: it is not just brand brilliance.
Brian shares why soft skills, sales alignment, team trust, clear goals, and knowing your own gaps matter more than pretending to be great at everything. From managing big demand teams and international experience to navigating AI, publisher challenges, and the myth that every CMO must be a brand architect, this episode cuts through the usual career advice with practical lessons for ambitious B2B marketers.
Also included: hockey trauma, a bucket of Heineken, and one very honest answer about the future of marketing.
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Transcript
Intro
Podcast Introduction and Humor
00:00:27
Brendan Ziolo
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everyone, and welcome to the latest B2B Marketing Pint. Definitely looking forward to this episode because we've had some technical difficulties, some laughs already, so we we still have saved the best for last, or so I hope.
00:00:44
Brendan Ziolo
Brian, my co-host Brian, this is going to confuse the hell out of me, but introduce us to the other Brian, please.
00:00:52
Brian O'Grady
I would love to introduce you to the other Brian. For simplicity sake, I can be BOG short for Brian O'Grady is what they used to call me when the other Brian, Brian Stoller, on your screen, ladies gentlemen. And when we used to work together, we all had to come up with different names for the different Bryans we worked with to keep the confusion to a minimum. But who the heck is this Brian Stoller you're looking at on your screen?
Meet Brian Stoller: Marketing Journey
00:01:14
Brian O'Grady
Well, this is the kind of Brian Stoller who's had just about every seat in a marketing organization you can have.
00:01:21
Brian O'Grady
That ranges from agencies to startups to Fortune 50s. You've been a fractional CMO, I think, Brian, and now you're a chief marketing officer at VentureBeat.
00:01:31
Brian O'Grady
Back in the day, we knew each other at IBM and you were actually my boss there in the performance marketing team. you Managed north of $120 million dollars and crazy cast of characters in New York City. Built yourself a big demand team there. it was a lot of fun. And you still talk to me even though we work together, which is really cool.
00:01:51
Brian O'Grady
So thanks for that. And one point I should make is we have a shared trauma on the podcast today.
Path to CMO: Skills and Career Insights
00:01:58
Brian O'Grady
Brendan and Brian O'Grady, that's me, we're Ottawa Senators fans, as both of our long-time listeners know. Mr. Stoller here from Philadelphia, making him a Flyers fan.
00:02:08
Brian O'Grady
And our teams suffered the exact same fate in the playoffs this year at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes, a pox upon them. So we're not going to talk much about hockey if we can avoid it. Instead, we're going to talk about how marketers out there who are ambitious in the B2B space can end up in your seat, Brian, that CMO seat.
00:02:26
Brian O'Grady
So welcome to the pint. What are you sipping today?
00:02:29
Brian Stoller
you You told me there would be no hockey talk, so i but I'm glad I did.
00:02:32
Brian O'Grady
Sorry. Sorry.
00:02:35
Brian Stoller
I brought an entire bucket of beer to drown my sorrows in.
00:02:41
Brendan Ziolo
Who knew it would take this long for someone to bring a bucket of beer to the podcast?
00:02:46
Brian O'Grady
Well, I think he's the first guy from Philadelphia we've had. Yeah.
00:02:49
Brendan Ziolo
That could explain it right there. Yeah. all right. right.
00:02:54
Brian Stoller
Fair enough, but I am i am drinking Heineken today. And part of that is due to my own lack of time management skills, which we're not going to get into in terms of how a good CMO is, a skillset a good CMO should have.
00:03:07
Brian Stoller
But Bog was kind enough to send me a case of Heineken, which is my father-in-law's favorite beer. So I will dedicate this podcast to my father-in-law.
00:03:18
Brian Stoller
And so, yeah.
00:03:18
Brian O'Grady
Fantastic.
00:03:19
Brian Stoller
So Brandon, what are you drinking?
00:03:22
Brendan Ziolo
So I am, as again, our our loyal listeners know, I don't drink alcohol anymore. So drinking a non-alcohol variety, but I may have found the perfectly named beer for a podcast. It's called No Filter.
00:03:35
Brendan Ziolo
so i don't know if that's a good or a bad thing for the podcast. And I'm super worried I brought it to this episode, but we'll see where that goes. So this is a Harmon No Filter non-hazy IPA or sorry, hazy IPA, not the non part.
00:03:49
Brian O'Grady
Things are definitely getting hazy.
00:03:51
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah.
00:03:51
Brian Stoller
I do like the microphone on the label.
00:03:54
Brendan Ziolo
Oh, that's true. oh look at this. It's like, this is the, Harman sponsor us.
00:03:59
Brian O'Grady
Okay. All right.
00:03:59
Brendan Ziolo
How can we not now?
00:04:01
Brian Stoller
but but but But Boggs is the only one with a microphone.
00:04:05
Brian O'Grady
It's true.
00:04:05
Brendan Ziolo
That's weird.
00:04:05
Brian O'Grady
I'm clearly on a podcast.
00:04:06
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:06
Brian O'Grady
You can see the microphone.
00:04:07
Brendan Ziolo
I'm talking into the beer microphone. BOG what are you drinking?
00:04:12
Brian O'Grady
I brought what I consider the second best beer on planet earth today. It's a Czechvar far from, I think I can call it Czech Republic. I know the country name changes a little bit, but they make great beer, whatever you call the country and the people are good people.
00:04:26
Brian O'Grady
That's my fav for the day. Should we talk marketing?
00:04:31
Brendan Ziolo
Well, since apparently hockey is off the table because we don't want Stoller to have to go buy another bucket of beer. I'm going to kick us off with the first marketing question then.
00:04:40
Brendan Ziolo
So based on the intro and our pre-brief, Brian, I know you have held various marketing roles in various organizations from startups to SaaS to media to enterprises.
00:04:55
Brendan Ziolo
I'm sure I've missed a few in between. With that varied a background, what do you see as the difference between or what does a strong marketing leader need to be ready for the CMO role?
Leadership Skills and Team Dynamics
00:05:09
Brian Stoller
Well, when I find a strong marketing leader, I'll let you know. company not included.
00:05:12
Brian O'Grady
Of course.
00:05:13
Brendan Ziolo
Oh, oh.
00:05:17
Brian Stoller
present company not included
00:05:19
Brian O'Grady
course
00:05:19
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah, and all and all of our listeners, please don't be offended. Yeah.
00:05:33
Brendan Ziolo
Thank you.
00:05:48
Brian Stoller
I really think that while experience is important and giving yourself that well-rounded element, you know even even in my current role here at VentureBeat where I'm on the publisher side, right so I've been able to see the advertising agency side, the client side at IBM, and then the third leg of the stool, if you will, inside in the publisher side, while having all those experiences really do prepare me for being that that marketing leader, it's the soft skills that I actually think make a big, big difference in in becoming that strong, I'm going to use the air quotes, strong marketing leader.
00:06:19
Brendan Ziolo
Thank you.
00:06:23
Brian Stoller
and And by soft skills, I mean, you know, When you're leading people, it it really comes down to like understanding who's what their strengths are. you know when When Bog and I worked together, I recognized that he was a very, very talented search engine marketing person.
00:06:38
Brian Stoller
And so you my my you know everything I defaulted to you is you know when a question came up about search, SEM, SEO, where do we go? It was always bring the expert in. Make sure the expert has a seat at the table.
00:06:48
Brian Stoller
Make sure you listen to them too. and i think that
00:06:50
Brendan Ziolo
Thank you.
00:06:52
Brian Stoller
part of those soft skills are listening. And and that takes a lot of practice. I hope my wife...
00:06:59
Brian O'Grady
Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Stoller. Did you just say you actually listened to me back in the day we worked together?
00:07:02
Brian Stoller
i you You actually taught me more than you know, because I... you know The ability to recite things that you hear may be another marketing skill, but to be able to listen in, you know understand, connect the points, and then you know be able to go back to senior leadership or or or back to another client and and and give them the the feedback and the understanding.
00:07:23
Brendan Ziolo
Thank you.
00:07:25
Brian Stoller
But also in a team setting, and I think that part of being a strong leader is is is being a a team, sort of understanding the the dynamics of a team, the strengths and weaknesses, your own weaknesses, the weaknesses of people on the team, the strengths of people on the team, and playing to those strengths and weaknesses.
00:07:40
Brian Stoller
I was going I hope my wife doesn't listen to this, because, you know,
00:07:44
Brian O'Grady
Now I'm interested.
00:07:45
Brian Stoller
Yeah. Well, you know, my wife and I, apart from all of the marketing roles that I've played, my wife and I actually own a little brick and mortar store and we sell furniture and she mostly does all the work.
00:07:50
Brendan Ziolo
Thank
00:07:57
Brian Stoller
I will give her credit for doing all the work She's the brainchild behind it. But, you know, when we get together, she is very much a independent contributor in terms of how she operates.
00:08:07
Brian Stoller
And so I look at her she's got her own marketing firm as well, by the way. She's got her own little PR firm. which She's doing very, very well. She's got some great clients. But she'll never rise to the CMO sort of like, you know, taking on a larger, larger responsibility because she's very much operates as an independent contributor. And even in our little store, getting consensus, you know, finding consensus around what is the right way that we should be approaching weekend sale or an e-commerce push, right? And those are the sorts of things that like, you know, she she gets frustrated very quickly and kind of pushes me aside. Yeah.
00:08:40
Brian Stoller
working with Working with your spouse is probably a little bit different, but you know it's the same idea.
00:08:40
Brian O'Grady
Sounds like an entrepreneur.
00:08:45
Brian Stoller
It's like you know it's it's understanding you know if you to become the leader of of a Fortune 500 or a large organization or an international company. There's an element of really understanding the people that you're working with and listening to them and having those soft skills.
Aligning Marketing with Sales
00:08:57
Brian Stoller
I mean, you you guys both run agencies. I'm sure you've got experiences where you've seen good leaders, bad leaders, specifically in how they operate.
00:09:05
Brian O'Grady
I think I've been both depending on the day.
00:09:06
Brian Stoller
and i Yeah.
00:09:10
Brian Stoller
But I'm sure you can you can relate to some of the the ideas of having those good soft skills and and in terms of leadership.
00:09:17
Brendan Ziolo
And I think it's also a maturity or as your per career progresses, because I know when I look back, I see this to your point around, you know, hiring experts, listening to experts, having them in the room.
00:09:31
Brendan Ziolo
Sometimes people aren't confident enough to, you know, hire those people in the first place, bring them in, et cetera, but it pays massive dividends as you grow your career, your agency, your program, your marketing, all of that stuff, right?
00:09:46
Brendan Ziolo
Like you gotta listen, in you gotta to do that.
00:09:47
Brian Stoller
Yeah.
00:09:48
Brendan Ziolo
So I can totally relate to that and look back at how my thinking or approach there has probably evolved through the years.
00:09:49
Brian Stoller
you
00:09:58
Brian Stoller
We can certainly talk.
00:09:58
Brian O'Grady
I'll say.
00:10:02
Brian O'Grady
you me? Ryan, you may have answered. the part of this already with the soft skills. So I'm going to poke at it because there's the marketers who are listening, probably a number of them have a, have a vested interest in how do I get to be where Mr. Stoller is here, the CMO title.
00:10:18
Brian O'Grady
And I don't think that job has gotten any smaller, any easier in recent years. If I go through a very short list of what it touches, you know, you mentioned brand there's demand,
00:10:28
Brian O'Grady
There's alignment with sales, there's product, there's investor relations, there's analyst relations, there's data, now there's mops, operations, all of it. All of it ends up under that purview and more. And it's unlikely that any one person is going to have all of the skills to do all of that. So is there one, for the people are listening who want to sit where you're sitting, what's the most common weakness or gap you see if someone's trying to make that leap from,
00:10:55
Brian O'Grady
where they where they are now to the chair you're in right now, is there is there a common gap? Is there one that's the the biggest one that could be addressed or not?
00:11:04
Brian Stoller
It's a good question. Yeah. I mean, having having a little bit of understanding of everything and again knowing your weakness, knowing when to put the right person forward, hiring, to Brendan's point, hiring people who are stronger than you in the skills where you know you're weak, right?
00:11:20
Brian Stoller
That's all important. But if if you were it's going to go down the list of the things you just identified, the one that stood out, as you said, it was sales alignment. that is the And it's part of the listening component, right?
00:11:30
Brian Stoller
We talk about wanting to be the voice of the customer and putting the customer first and and and all of that. right But the sales guys talk to the customers or talk to the clients as well.
00:11:40
Brian O'Grady
Thank you.
00:11:40
Brian Stoller
And so I find and what I've really had to hone in practice was was building the relationship with the salespeople. understanding what it is that they need, especially in B2B marketing. because The sales guys are on the front line and they're hearing the problems. you know They've got issues with their pipelines. right So, Brian, you might remember we i did my little our little subway charts. Do you remember at IBM we did the subway charts?
00:12:10
Brian O'Grady
I do.
00:12:11
Brian Stoller
And we would map everything from
Career Lessons and International Experience
00:12:12
Brian Stoller
brand awareness through performance marketing components. So what are the different tactics that are driving into the landing page? and then and then And then continue after the lead was created, the lead gets passed over, and goes into Salesforce whatever, it's just the sales guys are using. But continuing to map that and understanding where in the sales pipeline is the salesperson falling down? Is it at the contract stage? Is it earlier? And then then really leaning in and saying, how can marketing help you with that component? you know, it's not all about painting pretty ads and doing branding and all. its there's There's a lot of components that happen even just in the negotiations, the one-on-one where marketing can come in and it really you know help support the sale and support the person who's there on the front line.
00:12:56
Brian Stoller
okay
00:12:56
Brian O'Grady
That makes sense to me. And and you've just reminded me, probably unintentionally, one of the worst meetings I ever had early in my career, where I didn't know that part that you just said at all. So I was a marketer, I came in with my charts and my graphs and my results, and I was ready to rock and roll and blow some minds. And then somebody at the back of the room asked, okay, so what happens to all those great leads after you generated them?
00:13:19
Brian O'Grady
And there was that awkward silence in the room. And what do What do you mean? My job's over. Like, no, no, it's not. What happens to the leads after you've generated? Oh no.
00:13:27
Brendan Ziolo
Thank
00:13:28
Brian O'Grady
Yeah. so there's a whole other side to that that involves sales alignment.
00:13:29
Brian Stoller
and and in And in search, I mean, in search has a whole other challenge with that because of course, all right, I got a lead. Well, now the sales guy's called on the person. They're going to search for you and they're gonna look at your reviews and they're going to look at other what other customers are saying and how do you appear in those results. And so there are elements that, you know, even search can help with the post lead gen component of marketing.
00:13:51
Brian O'Grady
It was a valuable lesson learned painfully and quickly at the time and I've never forgotten it.
00:13:56
Brian Stoller
I'm sure it was an IBM... nice Sorry.
00:14:01
Brian O'Grady
Well, you weren't in that particular meeting. I had other bad meetings with you, but I had some good ones too.
00:14:07
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah, I think the sales the sales alignment is very interesting, Stoller and ya an ongoing struggle and in in many, if not most companies. But I want to ask a bit of a different question because we've touched on, you know, what makes a strong marketing leader? What are some of the skills and stuff like that? But once you get to...
00:14:28
Brendan Ziolo
the The CMO chair where where you have sat at various things, there's lots of big moments, lots of big transformations you're going through.
00:14:31
Brian Stoller
Yeah.
00:14:36
Brendan Ziolo
I know you led a rebranding at one point, you've integrated acquisitions, prepared companies for acquisition or listing, you know, and then we flip it around and we look at, you know, how the landscape change, you know, with different tools, with automation.
00:14:53
Brendan Ziolo
You know, AI, we won't dwell on that, but AI in the in the mix and stuff like that. all of All of this to say there's a lot of ambiguity you're going to face. There's a lot of change you're going to face in the CMO chair.
00:15:06
Brendan Ziolo
And how do you how do you adjust to that? How do you work with that without, you know, how do you manage the chaos?
00:15:16
Brian Stoller
the The cliche answer here is you know communication and communication, and we've got to communicate right now.
00:15:22
Brian O'Grady
over communicate
00:15:22
Brian Stoller
That's what everyone's going to say. But on a more tack, because of of course that's part of it, but what are you communicating? And I think that, you know, pick Pick your model, whether it's OKRs or whatever. Having goals, having a distinct level of goals and set of goals really does make a difference. I mean, an example, one company I worked for, this is when I was doing fractional CMO work, came in. i came in and the guy said, like, I have one goal.
00:15:48
Brian Stoller
I want to be listed on the NASDAQ. Like, they you know, we're a small startup and that was that was it. It was just OK, great. All of the other components kind of fell aside. It's a slight different priority and it became an investor relation. It became a Nasdaq relation, the analyst relation, sort of, you know, very much focused on that element.
00:16:06
Brian Stoller
you know and in In my current role in publishing, you know we are fighting the large language models and fighting you know traffic. And it is all about how do I make sure that the traffic I have doesn't degrade, doesn't fall down? And how do I find more? And how do i keep my return readers...
00:16:26
Brian Stoller
coming back. And that that is really you know building a loyal audience and building a community That is the focus right now. It's like all about community, keeping a high return visit rate, and and all of the other components.
00:16:32
Brendan Ziolo
Yes.
00:16:39
Brian Stoller
you know When we sat down, I just came out of a sprint planning session, and the whole point was, what's the touchstone? What's the thing we're trying to do here? Is fixing that problem on the website really going to drive the performance that we want to get in terms of you know creating that loyal loyal customer? Or is that something that we can kind of punt to another sprint and focus on something that's going to drive more engagement?
00:17:00
Brian Stoller
And so i don't know how you guys feel about that. You know you see a lot of clients on your own.
00:17:07
Brian O'Grady
This is true.
00:17:07
Brian Stoller
seven of my
00:17:08
Brian O'Grady
Well, it it resonates with me and I'll say something, I'll say it here and people can all write in the comments, tell me how wrong I am, but I'm such a believer in a common goal in terms of unifying your team to march in the same direction that I will go so far as to say, I'd rather have the wrong goal identified as long as we're all working on it together, because there's,
00:17:31
Brian O'Grady
If you all work on it together, you will rapidly learn it's the wrong goal and switch to the correct one. But I'm such a believer in unifying people with the common goalpost that I would, I would do the wrong thing together rather than do the right thing separately.
00:17:44
Brian Stoller
or Or you could have a client like me that kept moving the goalpost on you. which
00:17:48
Brian O'Grady
I wasn't going to bring that up.
00:17:49
Brian Stoller
want
00:17:50
Brendan Ziolo
That never happens.
00:17:52
Brian O'Grady
No, none of neither Brendan's clients nor mine have ever done that.
00:17:53
Brendan Ziolo
Nope.
00:17:55
Brian Stoller
Well, that's how you push people. you know you got to like you know you can't You can't be happy with either getting the star. You've got to get another star.
00:18:04
Brian O'Grady
Fair enough. Fair enough. That explains a few executive meetings I've been in actually. I want to take us a different direction. I want to take us overseas.
00:18:15
Brian O'Grady
If you agree that that's a good idea or not. And here's where I'm going with this. You seem like a friendly neighborhood Philly boy, but you've got some significant experience overseas. Rumor has it you speak Mandarin.
00:18:30
Brian O'Grady
Is that true?
00:18:31
Brian Stoller
Well, we hija eating then but I'm a little bit rusty. I'll be honest with you.
00:18:37
Brian O'Grady
Xixi shifu
00:18:37
Brian Stoller
Yeah.
00:18:38
Brian O'Grady
That's pretty cool. In that case, this is...
00:18:41
Brian Stoller
Thank you, taxi driver. Is that what you just did?
00:18:43
Brian O'Grady
I thanked the master. I think I did, or I might have caused a blood feud. I'm not sure. One of the two. The reason I'm asking this and bringing it up, other than to embarrass myself speaking another language poorly, is A cma CMO role, especially if you're a large organization is going to operate across borders. It's going to operate across time zones, going to operate across cultures.
00:19:06
Brian O'Grady
If somebody wants to be in your chair, how important is it that they go and get some experience or know what they're talking about or speak another language or go to those places or know how to interact and work in other places?
00:19:18
Brian O'Grady
Or can you get away with just a North American perspective?
00:19:21
Brian Stoller
So so there's two there's two answers to this, right? And my my father when I when I my father gave me advice when I was kind of trying to figure out what it was going to be when I grew up.
00:19:31
Brian Stoller
and i And I admittedly it was failing remedial algebra, but I was taking Chinese in high school and acing Chinese. And he sat me down one day after no one had, like after everyone else in my class had applied to colleges and I hadn't even applied to one yet.
00:19:45
Brian Stoller
And he gave me the, you know, no son of mine is going to pump gas sort of, you know, like lecture. And, you know, you seem to like Chinese. Do you want to go to China? So I think my father was you were talking about those soft skills and like identifying something that interests me Clearly, I apply myself to something that interests me. So he gave me a thousand dollars on a trip to China and I went and learned Chinese and I came back. And that.
00:20:04
Brian Stoller
Marrying that skill is very good. It was like he he was very pointed about take a skill and marry it with marketing, right? Bring two things together, whether it's a bioengineering degree and going and working in pharma, you know, pharma marketing, something, you know, along those lines where you're marrying two things together.
00:20:21
Brian Stoller
I admittedly don't use my Chinese much anymore, but it did get me into the door at Ogilvy Mather
00:20:22
Brendan Ziolo
Thank you.
00:20:25
Brian Stoller
I was able to get into you know a global ad agency where I spent 25 years and got a lot of experience. I did do international components. And so there is an element of there's a track of sort of having that skill and having that component that help will help you along with your career. Now, does it have to be a language? Does it have to be international?
00:20:44
Brian Stoller
I don't know. I don't know if that's necessarily the way I, you know, i feel like I said, I don't use it today, but I do use the skills that I've learned. When when I was overseas, you know you you have that cultural experience.
00:20:54
Brian Stoller
understanding that sort of that you've you've got to understand where other people are coming from and the nuances of of just you know people's emotions and and managing people. and And those are, again, the soft skills that have come with me into all of my my like my more recent you know roles where, again, i'm not I'm not using my Chinese skills today and in in my marketing role. but I do feel like I'm constantly relating back to people, even people who aren't, to your point, like they're not necessarily, you know, international people. They're all people here in North America. And apart from the Canadians have a different culture. But but the, you know, just understanding, you know, people's,
00:21:35
Brian Stoller
family backgrounds, people's situations outside of work are are all very different. And just having that patience and sort of that understanding to say, yeah, I get it. You know, you've got something going on outside of the office that requires you to be as to be a little bit more,
00:21:50
Brian Stoller
congenial I don't know what the word I'm looking for, amenable to to the the circumstances that you're going through. And I think that really has helped me as a leader build a team.
00:21:55
Brian O'Grady
Mm-hmm.
00:22:03
Brian Stoller
you know I think the team, having that team camaraderie where it's like, yeah, I get it. Things are going on. You you might drop the ball here, but no one's going to yell and stomp their feet. I mean, it's freaking marketing, right? We're not we're not saving lives.
00:22:14
Brian Stoller
We're we're selling stuff. Yeah. And so there's, you know, having that understanding, you know, it goes a long way with building a team and and having the team sort of say, you know what i
Future of CMO Role: AI and Soft Skills
00:22:25
Brian Stoller
I get it. I understand, you know, this is important. We gotta to get these things done, but I've got stuff going on. and And he's a really great leader because he understands that too. And I pride myself on being able to sort of understand that cultural I think it has stems from my background and understanding cultures to some degree.
00:22:41
Brian Stoller
But no, i you know that could translate into running. the Look, in in big companies, though, i mean, if you do want to go and work at an IBM, you want to work for an any large multinational corporation, having some experience overseas. And I think we even saw it.
00:22:59
Brian Stoller
When we were at IBM, bo they there were a lot of people who would inevitably go and do a a stint overseas in some foreign office, and it always helped them them jump ahead.
00:23:10
Brian Stoller
So I would encourage everyone to sort get some level of international experience, even if you're leaving Canada and coming down here to New York for a little while.
00:23:18
Brian O'Grady
I was the international search expert for a while.
00:23:20
Brian Stoller
It's true.
00:23:21
Brian O'Grady
I think it, I think it was a joke, but I liked it anyway.
00:23:24
Brendan Ziolo
All right.
00:23:25
Brian O'Grady
That's a great, that's a great response. I like it. And for anyone who's following the math out there, a degree these days, north the border will probably cost you close to a hundred grand. And Brian just got a thousand bucks and plane ticket and learned Chinese and came back and made it happen.
00:23:39
Brian O'Grady
he probably got a degree along the way too, but,
00:23:41
Brian Stoller
I gotta, I gotta say, yeah, there was another degree that happened along the way, but.
00:23:44
Brian O'Grady
but in terms of ROI, that ain't bad.
00:23:47
Brian Stoller
but My father says to this day, still the best $1,000 ever spent.
00:23:52
Brian O'Grady
Fair enough.
00:23:55
Brendan Ziolo
So I kind of, I hinted at this earlier, Stoller, but we'll dust off the crystal ball here or dust off your beer, your bucket of beer, whichever you prefer. i mentioned AI, I mentioned automation, I mentioned a lot of factors that, you know, disrupt marketing. You know, given your background, given where you sit today, you know, what does the CMO role look like five years from now? and And what does the team that supports them look like as well?
00:24:23
Brian Stoller
I have no idea. have no idea.
00:24:25
Brian O'Grady
There's
00:24:25
Brendan Ziolo
Thank you.
00:24:26
Brian Stoller
I'm not going to sit here and do that. Here's what I...
00:24:30
Brian O'Grady
honesty in Heineken.
00:24:31
Brendan Ziolo
right
00:24:31
Brian Stoller
here's what i do Here's what I do know, right? And and what's interesting is, you know, I'm i'm i'm here at VentureBeat and we cover a lot of AI. And what I'm learning in the last, you know, few weeks as I've been here, don't know what I like don't know. Like it's it's coming at us so fast. I sit in these editorial meetings and I listen to the guys who are pitching stories and I understand every third word they say. Like it's coming at us quick.
00:24:54
Brian Stoller
My own, you know, and I'm, I've taught myself how to code in Claude it, something I didn't ever expect I had to do. you know we we We were talking about skills earlier on like what skills you would tell what you would teach people. I probably wouldn't tell people to go learn how to code anymore. like That's something that you know everyone was learning you know in the the last 20 years. It was, go learn how to code, learn how to code. Well, you know I've just figured out how to code a very detailed program, and I did it in about an hour and a half. yeah using Claude, and it works.
00:25:23
Brian Stoller
So, you know, I'll tell you the team, the the the teams will, and and we're going to talk about, you know, jobs and losing jobs to AI and all that kind of stuff.
00:25:34
Brian Stoller
Yeah, I mean, the teams are a little bit thinner. And what I can do now by myself with with a little bit of AI is is really, really powerful. And I assume that that's going to continue to go.
00:25:46
Brian Stoller
i think the other thing that that you may find that that I'm starting to realize is some of these little startup companies that do lead gen components and all, there are AI tools that can replace them.
00:25:57
Brian Stoller
And so I think you're going to see some shakeup in the industry in terms of you know the sorts of vendors that keep calling and knocking.
00:25:59
Brendan Ziolo
Okay.
00:26:03
Brian Stoller
And I, you know, my... my linkedin and facebook feeds are full of uh all these third-party marketing companies that i think are going to struggle a little bit with these you know especially the software-based ones that are you know promising me to do intent-based data and i'm like i can start to create some of that intent-based modeling using claude and and so there's there's definitely things that are that are going to change but i don't know i mean you You're in the agency world, and I do believe that the the role of the agency is to bring that sort of level of innovation. So I would almost say that you guys probably have a better understanding of where you think the the world's going to go than I do.
00:26:39
Brian O'Grady
i would I would second your answer then. Five years from now, I'd settle for five weeks from now at the at the pace to the trite expression of drinking from a fire hose.
00:26:43
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah.
00:26:46
Brian Stoller
Right.
00:26:51
Brian O'Grady
Yeah, what we can all, i think anyone here can do things today that they literally couldn't do two years ago. So that matters.
00:26:59
Brian Stoller
Yeah.
00:27:03
Brian O'Grady
Maybe we'll have to do another episode in five months and then five years and we'll see what the changes were.
00:27:10
Brian Stoller
Well, then by then, by then, quantum computing will be out and we'll all be out of work. So just
00:27:15
Brian O'Grady
Yes, but we'll be fed and have guaranteed income and all those wonderful things.
00:27:18
Brian Stoller
just. Yeah. listen
00:27:21
Brendan Ziolo
Do you want to bring us?
00:27:21
Brian O'Grady
Brendan, what do you think?
00:27:22
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah. Do you want to bring us home, BOG I'll give i'll give our our favorite question to you this episode.
00:27:29
Brian O'Grady
I love it. Mr. Stoller, everything else has been a preamble to this moment. Are you ready?
00:27:35
Brian Stoller
Oh, gosh.
00:27:36
Brian O'Grady
This is your opportunity.
00:27:37
Brian Stoller
Wait, I think I need another sip.
00:27:39
Brian O'Grady
Yeah, get that into ya for sure. Get that into ya because we want more truth. So far you've had no problem sharing the truth. So let's keep that going.
00:27:48
Brendan Ziolo
You see? No filter.
00:27:49
Brian O'Grady
No filter.
00:27:52
Brian O'Grady
And here's the question. There's a lot of baloney in our industry. More than I would have cared to admit or even knew about when I started. I thought these these suit types, they all know what they're talking about No, there's a fair bit of baloney our industry. So this is your opportunity to let some air out of that balloon, correct the record and tell anybody who wants to be a CMO or or any other marketer for that matter,
00:28:16
Brian O'Grady
They're all ambitious people. what's What's the part that is a complete myth or fabrication about what you need to do your job as a CMO? What's the the urban legend or the big lie that you wish would just go away?
00:28:31
Brian Stoller
Yeah, that's an easy one, actually. it's It's not about branding. Now, I'm going to say that with a caveat. It is about branding. The brand is the most important thing there is, right?
00:28:45
Brian Stoller
But to back to going back to knowing your strengths, knowing your weaknesses, know you can be a CMO and not have a strong branding background. right You don't have to necessarily be the guy who knows the core. I'm colorblind. right i can't I can't see colors. right Don't ask me to tell you what Pantone color we're looking at. I have no idea. right So like brand guidelines and all, I know to bring someone else in and and for those sorts of things.
00:29:05
Brian Stoller
Yeah, I've gone through brand rebranding and exercises with several companies.
00:29:08
Brendan Ziolo
you
00:29:10
Brian Stoller
And you know the the biggest thing is just know where the good ideas come from. it's it's Sometimes you've got to go to an agency. Sometimes you've got to hire outside people. If you know your strength isn't branding, I know my strength is performance marketing and and and building internal teams and running you know and leadership skills. But when it comes down to branding, I need to bring other people in.
00:29:29
Brian Stoller
And so I don't think you need to be that CMO. right I think so many people look at a CMO and go like, oh, you know they're they're architecting a brand. To some degree, you have to understand the values of the brand.
00:29:37
Brendan Ziolo
Thank you.
00:29:38
Brian Stoller
You have to understand the value proposition. You have to understand the customer insights and all that kind of stuff. Being able to translate that. But being able to do proper like proper branding branding, you don't necessarily have to be that type of person. I get so many questions. Oh, you're a CMO. And they someone you know at a cocktail party immediately asked me a branding question. I'm like, you know, like, yeah.
00:29:57
Brian Stoller
I don't know. there i'm sure I'm sure, you know, big company picked the reason has a reason for why they went down that strategy, you know. but But having having people understanding, you know, that that being a CMO sometimes means leaning in on some other skills. And it's not just the big branding person. You don't have to be a branding person to become, you know, a big, big leader.
00:30:20
Brian Stoller
Not that I'm a big leader, but...
00:30:23
Brian O'Grady
I love that answer because it is kind of counterculture. I will confess that part of the briefings when we're doing prospecting with clients at SearchWarrant is I come out first and say, if you're looking for the Nike swoosh or the golden arches, that's not us.
00:30:37
Brian O'Grady
That's not what we do here.
00:30:37
Brian Stoller
He
00:30:38
Brian O'Grady
We're the money in the bank people, not the design and creative people, but I respect those people. That's just not who we are. Brendan, how how about you? you're You might be closer to the branding world than I am.
00:30:47
Brian Stoller
he does more branding than the rest of us.
00:30:48
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah.
00:30:49
Brian Stoller
what
00:30:50
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah. I mean, I, I totally agree to the point that I don't know that a CMO has to be the branding expert, so I can totally relate to that. But yeah, now, as you were talking, Stoler, I do, I can see where people would, would put those two together. But yeah, at the same time, and I know neither of you disagree with this, you know,
00:31:10
Brendan Ziolo
Branding awareness and all that stuff is obviously extremely important.
00:31:12
Brian Stoller
Yeah.
00:31:14
Brendan Ziolo
But yeah, whether you're doing it as a CMO or no, you can't and hire the agency to do it as long as you're focused on that. I do find it shocking sometimes that companies don't spend the time or effort on that and like just make silly branding mistakes, messaging, positioning mistakes along the way.
00:31:34
Brendan Ziolo
And it can have a big impact.
00:31:36
Brian Stoller
i think I think, especially if you're in a medium or smaller size company, knowing the role of the agency and often the overall agency for branding, it's a perfect opportunity to bring someone in for an agency and for branding because it's,
00:31:50
Brian Stoller
you know brand brand is forever, don't get me wrong, but but a branding exercise is a short-lived thing. So there's no need to bring that that skill set in-house, right?
00:31:56
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah.
00:31:58
Brian Stoller
You can bring in an expert who can guide you, set work with you, set up your brand guidelines, set up your sort of your vision, give you the strategic messaging that you need. but And then you know once you've internalized it, you can you can typically execute it yourself.
00:32:10
Brian Stoller
So yeah, the role of the agency is really, really important.
00:32:12
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah. And I think the outside.
00:32:13
Brian Stoller
hire us Zinc Marketing You should all hire Zinc Marketing and help us out.
00:32:16
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah. And I was go just going to say the outside perspective, I think is super valuable on the branding front. Cause when I've, been involved in larger organizations in my career, you know, sometimes that internal focus is just a death spiral to to a good, strong brand, right?
00:32:33
Brendan Ziolo
So the outside perspective can really add value there as well.
00:32:36
Brian Stoller
yeah
00:32:37
Brian O'Grady
I totally agree.
00:32:37
Brian Stoller
Thanks
00:32:38
Brian O'Grady
And I'm going to wrap this up. My closing comment will be, I do acknowledge that if the Nike swoosh people and of the Golden Arches people have done their job first, my job at the other end of the line is so much easier.
00:32:51
Brian Stoller
to you.
00:32:51
Brendan Ziolo
Yes, yes, exactly.
00:32:52
Brian O'Grady
So much easier. And with that, that's our parting shot.
00:32:54
Brendan Ziolo
Exactly.
00:32:57
Brian O'Grady
Mr. Stoller's got a whole bucket of beer to get through today. He can't do it and give CMO answers all the time.
00:33:02
Brian Stoller
thanks to you
00:33:04
Brian O'Grady
as As do we. So I want to thank you for joining
Episode Conclusion and Gratitude
00:33:06
Brian O'Grady
us. That was a great conversation. We just scratched the surface. We'll have to do it again. Cheers, gentlemen.
00:33:13
Brian Stoller
Cheers.