September 26, 2024 • 39 mins
In this episode of the SaaS Sessions podcast, we hosted Bill Macaitis who is currently the founder & CEO of SaaS CMO Pro.
SaaS CMO Pro helps you learn B2B SaaS and AI marketing with fun and easy-to-understand videos.
Previously, Bill was the CMO at Slack and Zendesk. Before that, he held the title of SVP of Marketing at Salesforce.
Bill shares his rich career journey from media companies to leading roles in SaaS giants like Salesforce, Zendesk, and Slack.
The discussion covers essential strategies for building a marketing career, navigating career pivots, and capitalizing on emerging opportunities like AI.
Bill emphasizes the importance of continuous learning, staying employable, and managing stakeholder relationships.
This episode concludes with practical advice for aspiring marketing leaders, including managing work-life balance, leveraging career opportunities, and understanding AI in modern marketing.
Connect with Bill on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bmacaitis/
Subscribe to SaaS CMO Pro Newsletter - https://www.saascmopro.com/
Subscribe to SaaS CMO Pro YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@SaaSCMOPro/
00:00 Introduction
00:46 Bill Macaitis' Career Journey
05:28 Transitioning to B2B SaaS
11:12 The Importance of Career Pivots
13:59 From Individual Contributor to Director
21:09 Building Relationships with Stakeholders
21:52 The Visibility of Marketing
22:18 Climbing the Marketing Ladder
23:58 The Importance of Continuous Learning
29:00 Navigating Career Choices in B2B Marketing
34:14 Lightning Round: Quick Tips and Recommendations
Visit our website - https://saassessions.com/
Connect with me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunilneurgaonkar/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sunil (00:08):
Hey everyone, welcome to the latest episode of the SaaS
Sessions podcast.
today we have Bill Poseidis onthe show with us.
Bill is currently a growth andmarketing advisor for many B2B
startups.
plus he's running his ownYouTube channel where he talks a
lot about B2B SaaS, which iscalled the, B2B, sorry, which is
called the SaaS CMO Pro.
And, you should, you can findthat out on YouTube, or you can
(00:31):
also type sascmopro.
com without the spaces, withoutthe hyphens or anything, and it
will land you to, Bill'snewsletter.
hey, hey, Bill, such a pleasureto have you on the show.
Bill (00:42):
Hey Sunil, thanks so much for having me, excited to talk
today.
Sunil (00:45):
Awesome.
Awesome.
Bill, I, I gave a very shortintro about you, but, there's a
lot to unpack in your career.
And today the topic that we havechosen is, talking about a
marketing career, right?
Like how do you build one?
and your career has been likereally great, right?
you've had five exits in yourcareer.
You've had whole, like C levelpositions at amazing daily use
(01:08):
SaaS companies like Slack,Zendesk and Salesforce, right?
To name a few.
And, I couldn't think any.
day, that I have not used Slackfor the past eight years.
So yeah.
yeah, unless obviously I'm likeout of office, that's the whole
thing.
But again, being in C levelroles, Being at the helm of
leadership, At such companies, agreat, position to be in.
(01:31):
So there's a lot to learn fromyou, obviously built.
So thanks a lot for, taking timeand coming here.
But before we get onto theepisode itself, again, as I
said, would love to learn moreabout you and please share, more
about your career journey withus.
Bill (01:45):
Yeah, sure.
exciting to talk with you andwith everyone listening today.
And so my background is Ialways, I don't know, I was a
weird one.
I always loved business growingup.
I just knew really early that Iloved business.
I loved marketing.
I did a, I started up a startupright out of college with a
couple other friends.
there was in a gaming spacecause that's what we did in
college.
We played a lot of online gamesand we did ladders and rankings
(02:07):
and tournaments and we grew thatand sold it.
I did about, 15 more years onthe B2C side.
So working for media companieslike IG Entertainment.
So if you like games, you'veprobably been there for a
review.
Rotten Tomatoes, Ask Men.
and then actually we got itacquired there and then went
over to News Corp.
And so News Corp, I ran acentralized marketing function
for all their sites.
And that was everything from,Fox sports to American Idol to
(02:30):
Wall Street Journal.
and it was amazing cause theygot to help build these brands
up, help build the traffic tothem.
and then I got like this really,out of the blue call from a
company called Salesforce, whichwas, starting to sell SAS
business software and theywanted someone with a little
more B2C DNA, in their kind ofin their culture to bring them
in.
And.
(02:50):
I just, fell in love with it.
Mark was an incredible leader,an amazing philanthropist, just
a really good guy.
And I loved how he wasdisrupting how software was
built and sold and used.
Because before that, likeanytime you're selling software,
you had to sell it into the CTO.
you had to buy him steak dinnersand you could only go through I.
T.
And now SAS comes around andanyone can just go to a website,
(03:12):
right?
And log in and start using it.
I love those type of models,more modern disruptive models.
so it's about four years there.
Went to Zendesk, as you hadmentioned, came in there as a
CMO and built up that team fromscratch, maybe a couple of
people there, but maybe when Ijoined there, maybe 60 people.
And we went through.
successful IPO and then went toSlack and same thing joined
maybe about 50 people, built outthe entire marketing team and
(03:34):
then went on to also lead up thesales success and support team.
So really all the customerfacing teams and we had an
eventual IPO there and eventualacquisition by Salesforce.
So my two companies got backtogether, which was fun to see.
And, and then I was like, whatdo I do?
And I, I just, I've always had apassion for helping other people
out and helping them learn.
(03:55):
And so I decided, to go into theadvisory type business.
So I was helping B2B SaaS and AIcompanies and helping them grow
and scale, build their marketingteams.
but I kept getting a lot of thesame questions, right?
And I was like, you know what?
What if, I could democratizethis information and help,
Anyone else that's especiallylike growing their career or
something I miss like when I'mnot in these full time roles is
(04:17):
I always enjoyed managing andmentoring and helping educating
people.
And so that's when I createdthat SASS CMO Pro.
I just launched it about a weekago.
And so it's just fresh out, butbasically the idea here is I
love videos.
I know some people like to read.
500 page long white papers and Iwas always the one that like
show me the YouTube video orshow me the short of it.
And so it's just a bunch ofvideos on everything about
(04:38):
learning marketing and SaaS andAI.
and I talk about a lot of careerstuff, like how to grow as an
individual in your career.
Talk about a lot of likemarketing, branding topics,
multi such attribution, highvelocity, PLG.
So it's been a ton of funfilming those videos and just
starting to launch them now.
Sunil (04:54):
Nice, nice.
That's really.
interesting journey, right?
Like from media to, SAS thatyou've got there.
and again, kudos to youstarting, the SAS CMO pro.
I think, we share that, tradeoff, giving back to the
community, right?
helping people elevate fromtheir role, even if they're
learning, like one small thingfrom you, it can It's a good
(05:14):
feeling at the end of the day.
congrats on that.
And I hope like everybody who'slistening would go and take,
subscribe to the episode andalso subscribe to the, YouTube
channel there.
So awesome.
as I mentioned, like a greatcareer journey from media into
SAS.
So what, when you join the B2BSaaS company, like behemoth
company in B2B SaaS, which isSalesforce, right?
So what made you shift, makethat career move, right?
(05:37):
Because we're talking aboutbuilding a marketing career.
So obviously there's always thisquestion comes up, right?
Hey, should I, take a B2B role?
Should I stick with a B2C role?
it's obviously two different,worlds altogether.
everything's is different.
Obviously that is like a lot offundamentals, that stays the
same.
But, when you have to go deepand you have to build a career,
you have to pick one path.
(05:58):
but you obviously did.
Pick one path, in sort of media,and then you shifted or made
your way into B2B SaaS, right?
and starting with Salesforceagain, amazing, company there.
So what made you decide that?
And can you please talk usthrough, that career change?
Bill (06:13):
Yeah.
so for me personally, growingup, I always had a passion for
business.
I had a passion forentrepreneurship.
I had a passion for marketing.
I had a passion for just go tomarket.
And I don't think I ever waslike, I only have a passion for
B2C.
I was like more like I have apassion for business and I want
to help companies grow and scalein a modern way.
(06:35):
And that was something that was,really important for me was,
Hey, when I work with thesecompanies, I want to help them
out to where they can grow andscale, but do it in a more
modern way, right?
I want to leverage the best ofmore, most modern practices.
And so really when I heard aboutSalesforce originally, I love
the fact that, Hey, they weredisrupting how software was
(06:58):
marketed, sold and used, right?
Like we'd mentioned earlier,historically, literally like the
only way you could buy thesoftware in the past was only
enterprises could afford it.
SMBs couldn't, it was way tooexpensive, way too small, medium
sized businesses.
Sorry, I'm going to dropacronyms here and in, in this,
allowed a way for a smallbusiness to just go to a website
(07:18):
and use it like Amazon.
That's where Mark got originallyinspired by.
I was like, why can't, why don'tI just go to Amazon and be able
to buy something?
But for all the software, youhave to literally buy, CDs and
install it on their own servers.
And it's this massive laboriousprocess, right?
So I was always attracted tocompanies that were disrupting
things, doing it in a moremodern way, doing it in a more
customer centric way.
(07:39):
And so for me, that was anatural extension.
But even when I went to the B2Bside, though, it was interesting
because Salesforce was supermodern in a lot of ways.
But in a lot of ways, too, theother B2B companies were very,
dated, right?
Like even some of the marketingtactics they use, they weren't
using anything that I hadlearned on the B2C side.
They weren't leveraging SEO.
(07:59):
They weren't leveraging reallyweb analytics or conversion rate
marketing or ABM targeting orjust all these more advanced
principles.
and so for me, that was reallyfun.
I got to bring in a lot of themore advanced marketing
strategies from B2C into B2B.
And I will say, for those thatare thinking about a career in
B2C or B2B, I think doing bothis really helpful.
(08:19):
You learn so much more, like forinstance, one of the things
that, I was doing a video on waslike, Hey, how to measure brand.
And so if you're in B2B hist, Iwould say probably of all the
companies I've worked with 95percent don't track brand, don't
know how to track brand, don'tknow any of the brand metrics.
Just because B2B historically isall about leads.
How many leads do you produceand how many leads do you hand
(08:41):
over to your sales team?
And that's just how it was done30 years ago.
there, when you have someexperience in a different area,
like B2C, I learned about brandand I, again, working for all
these large media companies andlearned about, Hey, how to track
it.
and understanding metrics likeaided recaller, unaided
recaller, sentiment, sure voice.
There's a ton of good brandmetrics.
And I was able to bring thatwith me and go, Hey guys,
(09:03):
because historically B2Bcompanies will just run like
demand gen campaigns.
They rarely run brand campaigns.
Cause again, if it doesn'tincrease the leads, they're
like, why would we do it?
But in a lot of ways, demand genis just short term leads brand
builds up these long term leads,right?
So I think there's like tons ofgreat crossover that you can
have.
And, and I wouldn't say justbecause you choose one, don't
feel like you're locked inagain.
(09:24):
there's, it's more about,keeping and developing your
skills and learning.
And so that's how I looked atit.
Sunil (09:32):
Oh, nice.
Nice.
And, I think, like looking atbrand and, taking that as the
centerpiece for you, right?
Like you learned that in themedia world, and then joining
like Salesforce, obviously, Ithink, they were like very brand
heavy, I think, right from thestart, investing on building,
building that Thank you.
That, that kind of an image ineverybody's mind that when you
(09:53):
think of a CRM, you have tothink Salesforce, right?
Like even the ticker that they,got IPO'd on is also CRM, right?
that's how much branding, means,And that's how much in depth
that you have to think, right?
So I feel like, you played areally strong, trade from your
side where you were.
belonging to the world where,you knew how to measure
(10:14):
branding, how do you scale it?
How do you implement, thataspect?
And then, it very well gluedwith what Salesforce, marketing
vision as well, was as well, atthe time when you joined, right?
So obviously you played a verystrong suit, in your, as a
skill, I would say, and, made acareer pivot in that sense,
right?
I, that considering that as a,like a key pivot in your career,
(10:36):
can you talk us a, can you talkus like what, maybe if there
were, any other career pivotsthat you have done, this one and
be like, how can somebody,figure out like, what's that
skill that they can, that theypossess.
Maybe they don't, maybe they areaware of it.
Maybe they're not.
but, and find that.
company or find that industry orfind that vertical where they
(10:58):
can go and apply it.
just like how you did withrespect to branding and your
experience in media, and thenjoining a company like
Salesforce where branding waslike super valued and a key part
of their strategic alignment.
Bill (11:12):
Yeah.
So for me, I think one of themost important things is don't
fear a pivot.
Pivots are good.
Sometimes pivots are reallygood, right?
Like it's okay to pivot from thejob you're in to a different
type of job, to a different typeof industry, if you believe more
in where you're going.
I know like my sister, one of mysisters, she went to school for,
interior architecture, and shewas designing like office
(11:34):
buildings.
And she liked it.
But, she, there wasn't as muchmoney there.
And she was like, Hey, I wantto, pivot into it.
And she took, two more years,she got her master, she pivoted
into it.
And that's what she does now.
And she loves it.
And so I think there's always ina lot of ways, you have to think
about the industry you're going,is it growing?
Is it scaling?
Are there more opportunitiesthere and try to align your
skill sets behind it?
(11:54):
probably one thing that reallyshaped me.
One of the best piece of adviceI ever got was it was one of my
first jobs out of college and wedid an after, it was one person
he was leaving and we'd alwaysdo a last day lunch, right?
Hey, and I would always askpeople on these last day
lunches, like when they wouldleave, Hey, what's your best
piece of advice?
what would you say?
And he said, bill, it doesn'tmatter if you're employed or
(12:15):
not.
What matters is if you'reemployable and what he meant by
that was You need to beconstantly building your skill
set.
You need to be constantlylearning, right?
And it doesn't matter if, evenif you got that job, even when I
was at like Salesforce, I just,I wanted to learn.
I wanted to keep improving myskill set and learning more and
(12:36):
more.
and and that's the thing withmarketing too.
Like for those that areinterested in marketing, like I
love marketing, but it is alwayschanging and adapting and new
technologies are constantlycoming out on how to target
individuals on how to nurture,educate, obviously have a
massive wave of AI coming outright now, which is going to
completely disrupt so manydifferent industries that it's
(12:58):
more about like those skill setsthat you develop.
And when you develop thoseskills, you can make these
pivots a lot easier because alot of these companies are going
to need, the newer skill setsthat are coming out.
And some people won't.
Some people are like, Oh, I gotmy job.
I don't have to do anything.
I'm just going to sit there and,do the bare minimum or whatever.
And just, I'm employed.
That's all that matters.
that advice always stuck withme, right?
(13:19):
just think about how you'reemployable that you always have
the skill sets so that you'reemployable and that way too.
God, we've all been in jobs thatlike.
I want to believe that this isblissful nirvana where everyone
is happy and everyone lovestheir job.
But I know at some point we allget jobs that.
We just don't like for whateverreason.
And if you don't have theskills, a lot of time, you can
get trapped there.
(13:39):
But if you have the skills andyou're employable, you can
always move to something else.
So I found that reallyliberating.
Nice.
Sunil (13:46):
that's really interesting.
and, do you, can you mention anyother like key decision, that
you have taken in our careersand that has helped you shape it
in a very nicer manner?
Bill (13:57):
I think so for me.
another good one is when you'retrying to make the move up from
an individual to a manager to adirector, what I found is a lot
of first time directors willfail a lot and that they'll go
into the role.
And they'll just go heads downand they'll keep doing what they
(14:18):
had done before.
So in other words, like maybethey were great at demand
generation, right?
Or maybe they were great atproduct marketing, or maybe
they're great at content.
And when they get promoted upinto that really first, like
higher level leadership role,they will just go in all day.
They will make content or do PPCads or do whatever, because
that's what they've known.
And when you're an individualcontributor or an IC, that's
(14:41):
what you focus on.
But what I found is like, whenyou move up to director, like
you really have to startthinking about a completely
different set of dailyactivities.
Some of them are doing what youhad done, but I would say 30, 40
percent of your day should bespent on identifying who are all
these different stakeholdersthat you're servicing
(15:01):
internally, right?
So who are your salescounterparts, your marketing
counterparts, your financecounterparts, your, the C suite,
the board, right?
how are you educating them aboutwhat your team is doing?
How are you building support forwhat your team is doing?
A lot of things I've done, likethese big projects.
One is the Salesforce.
I had led the initiative to putin marketing automation, which
(15:23):
at the time we actually didn'thave.
And that was a hard one to getthrough, right?
That we were spending a goodamount of money to do it.
We had to, change a lot ofhearts and minds.
We had to show people whatmarketing automation was, the
importance of it, how toimplement it.
we had to tactically implementit, but we had to build support
for it and you'll find inmarketing a lot of times these
initiatives you want to do,especially to get up to the
(15:45):
director level.
they need a lot of resources.
You need to hire new people.
You need program spend.
You need to, sometimes getdevelopment resources to help
implement it.
and a lot of your time needs tobe spent on evangelizing,
educating these stakeholders andreally representing your team.
And it's funny, like I literallyjust did a video on this.
So this one's live.
If you go to the YouTube Sassimopro channel, it's first time
(16:08):
mistake, directors of marketingis make, but I talk about that,
right?
All of these different things.
And a lot of times.
will happen to is I've seendirectors of marketing that are
fantastic, really know theirstuff, but they spend no time
identifying those stakeholders,building relationships with
those stakeholders, tellingthose stakeholders what are
happening and the perceptionwithin the organization is like,
(16:29):
Oh, this person doesn't knowwhat they're doing.
they're terrible, right?
And a lot of times their careerends, right?
it's very sad and sometimesscary, but that happens.
So I would just say That's areally important thing that I've
learned over the years is that,when you start managing people,
like you are responsible forthem, the perception of them,
right?
And, you need to educates allthese other folks on what
(16:51):
they're doing, because here'sthe thing, too.
I love marketing, right?
If you're listening to this,watching this, you probably love
marketing too.
Love business.
But here's the thing.
Everyone in the company is amarketing expert.
Everyone that, watches a TV adthinks, Oh, I know how to do
advertising.
Anyone that's bought somethingin a grocery store.
(17:12):
It's I know how to do pricingand right.
So you have a lot of strongopinions in the room in the
company for, what marketingshould and shouldn't be doing.
And, you have to really managethose perceptions.
You have to educate these otherstakeholders on what marketing
is, what are the right metrics,right?
Like even the brand stuff,right?
Like I don't be like, Oh, you'rejust wasting money.
(17:32):
You just spent all this money onbrand campaign.
My God, you flush it on thetoilet.
it's a lot easier to go.
Actually, we've been trackingyour aided recall for our
company.
Our five competitors and we seewhere we're going.
We were actually lagging behindwhen we ran this brand campaign.
We went up seven points andaided recall.
And we, here's the impact thathas on pipeline and leads,
right?
a lot of that has to happen and,and it's a natural instinct, I
(17:53):
think, for ICs or individualcontributors to just focus on
what's going on.
What they've done heads down andnot really do those
communications, not really buildthose relationships, not really
identify those stakeholders.
So that would be another thingthat I found is really important
for those that want to make thatleap from being an individual
contributor to actually managingand leading these teams.
that's a really important skillset to build up.
Sunil (18:15):
Nice.
Yeah.
And I totally agree with thefact that you mentioned, right?
everybody can, has an opinionabout marketing, and they would
just come in and tell differentteams, right?
Hey, what's happening with thead and maybe you can do it
differently or, and, in, inmarketing as well, If there is
one specific function where I'veseen like people, give a lot
more opinion than all the otherfunctions, compared, I think
(18:39):
it's social media, right?
everybody like, reads and,engages with like different
brands on social media.
And then they're like, Hey, weshould do this and we should do
they see how they have done andwe can, copy it and something
like that.
And, one, one trick I.
I used, in, in, two years of my,one of my previous companies
was, whenever they're like, Icreated like a form internal
(19:00):
form when anybody has like anyidea with respect to, let's say
social media, just put it thereand then we'll say Hey, we'll
consider this idea.
We'll obviously didn't considerit, but then, every quarter when
you are visiting, our strategyfor the next quarter.
we would just go and keep like10%, like of our, budget and
efforts and, things for, thesenew ideas that are picked from
(19:22):
the team.
And it's good to have those,lying around because you're not
creative three, 65 days, right?
Like You always, there are likeups and downs.
And when you're down and youdon't know what to do next in
this quarter, you can always goback, I will always go back to
the sheet and we'll skim throughthe, ideas that different people
like, engineers, PMs, andeverybody has put down.
And then we just pick like a fewof them, and, execute them in
(19:44):
the, in that quarter.
it's just good to hear theiropinion as well.
And, and then obviously notifythem like, Hey, we, took your
feedback of sorts.
Bill (19:53):
Absolutely.
And I think that's half of ittoo.
It's just knowing people'sperceptions about marketing,
right?
Or your function, right?
If you're leading DemandGen, youjust got promoted, you're
leading DemandGen.
what does everyone else thinkabout it, right?
What does finance think abouthow DemandGen's been doing?
What does sales think about howDemandGen's been doing?
What does, the CEO think abouthow demand Jen's been doing.
(20:15):
and I remember a story where Iwas a Zendesk and I was CMO and
we were having a board meetingand I had proactively reached
out to a couple of the boardmembers at a time and just, same
thing like, Hey, how do youthink marketing is doing right?
What do you wish to be doing?
What shouldn't be doing?
And most of them are like, Oh,doing great.
And one of them was like, Ireally wish we had more customer
(20:35):
stories, right?
and I had to pull it out ofthem, but I could tell he's
like, why don't you have morecustomer stories, Bill?
And the cool thing was we had aproject where we were actually
building like 10 more customerstories out and they're almost
done.
And I might not have evenmentioned that in the board
meeting when it, cause usuallyyou'll do like a marketing
section.
Here's what's going on.
But I had known that, Hey, he,this was top of mind for him.
(20:57):
And this was really importantfor him.
And actually good news.
We had done it.
So I was able to tell him.
And also in the board meeting,Hey, here's a process.
Here's where we interviewed him.
Here's the assets, thedeliverables, the stories,
here's how we're leveragingthem.
But a lot of times you don'tknow, like if, again, if you
just go heads down, And youhaven't identified these
stakeholders.
You haven't built relationshipswith them.
You haven't just even askedthem.
(21:18):
And by the way, it's not thathard.
It's just go, Hey, what do youthink?
Mark?
I'm just curious.
I want to, we want to improve,what do you think marketing is
doing?
what do you think we couldimprove?
Just understand.
what are their.
What are they hung up on?
and then you can, slowly overtime, you can start to educate
them about, Hey, here's whatwe're doing there.
Or maybe it's something youdon't think we should be doing,
but you have, at least, that,and then you can start to
(21:38):
educate them as to how to, howto improve in those areas.
I don't think like you said, Forevery function in a company, if
you're a backend developer, Idon't know if you have to do
this because not a lot of peoplego to a backend developer and
Hey, I was looking at your codeand I don't know why you're
doing it that way.
You shouldn't be doing it thisway.
But marketing is it's sovisible, right?
all our assets are so visible.
The website's so visible.
Like you said, everything you doon social media is very visible.
(21:59):
If you're in an ad campaign,it's super visible.
So you're just going to have alot of strong opinions.
And I really think it makessense to manage those.
Sunil (22:07):
Yeah, I think like sales, I think marketing marketers are
also built, people built withthick skins, I would say Yes.
So you get a thick skin too.
That's a good way, Yeah.
Good advice.
yeah, just shifting gears, will,what were those, like three
things?
That you can share that reallyhelped you, climb the ladder,
And, help you become a bettermarketing leader.
Bill (22:30):
it's a great question.
So maybe one for me is.
And this is just my mindset.
Like I've always thought there'sopportunities out there.
Think of like opportunities aslike these floating bubbles,
right?
And there's these opportunitiesin your career all around you,
right?
And I've noticed there's twotypes of people, right?
One type of person is they'llhave all these bubbles floating
(22:52):
around them and they will nevermove.
They're just comfortable withwhat they're doing and at the
level they're at and just, I'mjust going to keep doing that.
And there's a risk to go afterone of those bubbles, right?
Like it's risky.
And sometimes you're puttingyourself out of your comfort
zone.
But I think one, you have tolike, you have to go for it
(23:13):
sometimes you have to take thoseopportunities.
I know for myself, I grew up inthe Midwest.
I did my first startup, like Imoved, we moved, I moved to
Denver.
And then I moved all the way outto San Francisco and I didn't,
know a lot of people out here,but it was like, That's where
there were a lot ofopportunities, right?
And I wanted to do it.
Like I always live by a mottocarpe diem.
It's Latin.
It just means seize the day.
(23:34):
It means like always, every dayis precious and seize it.
Like you can do it.
You absolutely can do it.
Those opportunities are withyou, but sometimes you have to
do it.
And switching from B2C to B2B,that probably was risky.
But it was like, Hey, I thoughtit was a great opportunity.
I wanted to go for it.
so I think one that's, excuseme, that's very helpful, right?
(23:55):
Is always to think about likehow you can take on those
opportunities.
to, we talked a little bit aboutbefore, but again, always be
curious, always be learning,right?
I think that's really helped meout.
I'll give like a practicalexample, like when I was working
for, IJ Entertainment, I, SEOwas becoming really big at the
time, and it was still in thevery early days of it, but,
(24:16):
there was no school or class Icould go to, no one had an event
at SASS CMO Pro, so I had to, Iwas like, but I want to learn
about this stuff, right?
So I spent, Every day afterwork, I would get home.
I spent four hours reading everysingle piece of content I could
in SEO.
I went to forums.
I learned about like black hat,SEO, white hat, SEO, domain
authority, link popularity,anchor text.
(24:38):
Like I just absorbed it.
For a couple months until Ireally knew it then.
And I went to conferences andafter speaking on it, we
developed like this advanced SEOstrategy.
It totally helped our traffic.
It skyrocketed, but like thatwasn't, you had to do that on
yourself.
and and maybe I'd say the thirdthing now is like, Hey, the
great news is anyone listeningto this, anyone watching this
podcast, trust me, the entiremarketing landscape is being
(25:02):
completely rewritten right nowwith AI, right?
And I am a big believer, you arenot going to lose your job
because of AI, you're going tolose your job because of someone
else that knows AI and youdon't.
or knows how to use the prompts,knows how to use the tools.
So this is a great example ofwhere the people that are
listening is watching this.
And by definition, you arefalling into the carpe diem
(25:24):
camp, right?
You're trying to improveyourself by watching this.
You could be just watchingNetflix or doing something else,
but you're like, Hey, listen toBill and Sunil talk about like
B2B marketing and how to improveand stuff.
But AI is completely rewritingeverything.
And so I would.
I would personally, I would diveinto it.
That's what I've been doing,right?
what are the best tools?
How do you use it?
Practice using prompts,understand all the different
(25:47):
players out there, whether it'sGemini where it's open AI,
where's the industry going,constantly read content on that,
listen to podcasts, figure outlike how you can, even if you
have a marketing role, maybeyou're just, associate manager
and you're just starting out.
or associate analyst, whateverit is, but think about your day
throughout your day.
How could you use AI to simplifyit, to improve it, to make it
(26:09):
faster, even if you're under nopressure to do so right now,
right?
cause you're going to be in sucha better position because some
people will avoid it.
Oh, this is a new tech.
I don't need to know it.
I don't want to learn it.
It's going to take time, andthat person's going to, again,
they're not going to beemployable.
They're going to be, justemployed.
And maybe at some point they'reunemployed, which is scary.
But so I don't, for me, that's,that'd be my other big piece of
(26:31):
advice is just, constantly belearning, have that hunger.
And if you do that, you're goingto be in a great position.
Sunil (26:37):
Nice, nice.
that's really, solid piece ofadvice, right?
Like people can, start rightaway.
And I think this has been echomany times in like different
formats by like different peopleand it is just easy to miss it.
and the one thing that I thinkyou mentioned, doesn't matter if
you're employed or not.
What matters if, what matters isthat you are, if you are
(26:58):
employable or not, And I thinkevery quarter, every six months
or every, whenever, now, andthen you have to keep yourself
elevating, to, to a newer leveland, always be learning, Like
sales can do like always beclosing and marketers can do
like always be learning.
Always be learning.
Yeah.
Yes.
Just stay ahead of the curve.
Bill (27:18):
The other thing too is if you again and everyone look, I
respect all paths, right?
Some people want to stay in ICfor their, for their career.
And it was interesting.
I remember at Slack, we builtout a career ladder, right?
Where you could advance upthrough pay and through title as
an individual contributor or youcould advance as a manager,
right?
Manager or people leader.
(27:38):
I think we were Cool.
More of an outlier though.
A lot of companies though, likethe only way to move up is by
managing people, manage morepeople.
And so that's another thing islike when you're learning,
you're going to, whatever you'redoing right now, you're going to
be great at, if you start offwith demand gen, you'll learn
it, demand gen really well, ormaybe you start off on the PR
side, or maybe you start off onthe content side or the
(27:59):
marketing up side, whatever areayou started off with.
when you want to move up bydefinition.
You have to start taking on morefunctions, and you need to know
those functions too, right?
And so that's another one is forthose that want to eventually,
become, a director, a VP, a CMO,you have to start learning about
all these other marketingdisciplines, right?
(28:20):
And talking with people andunderstanding like what they did
and what worked and what didn'twork.
and, you're going to be a bunchbetter marketer people are gonna
be more comfortable promotingyou if Oh, you've shown interest
in a lot of different areas andyou know what you're talking
about versus someone that if allthey know is one thing, right?
And you need a leader that'sgoing to take on four different
functions.
that's, risky, right?
(28:41):
At least from the decisionmakers standpoint.
It's really important, right?
to, to just to learn, to have,try to build that curiosity, and
I get it like when we're allgoing through school, it's we're
forced to learn.
And so I'm done.
I don't have to do that anymore.
But it's for those of youthinking about your career, like
that's really
Sunil (28:57):
important.
No, that's true.
And yeah, before we go on to thelightning round, which is like
last section of the episode, Iwould love to know from your,
again, your extensiveexperience, Bill, right?
where do you think people gowrong about, their B2B SaaS
marketing career, right?
what are some of the thingsthat, they get wrong?
Bill (29:19):
I think in a lot of ways.
You do have to develop a VCmindset.
So what I mean by that is, VCventure capitalists, VCs spend
their entire days, months, yearsobsessing over which company
they should invest in, right?
(29:39):
They're going to look at thiscompany on.
their sales efficiency, theirpayback.
They're going to look at theirgrowth.
They're going to look at their,product market fit.
They're going to look at allthese different lenses, right?
They're going to spend a lot oftime doing due diligence on this
company.
what are the leaders?
What are they ranked onGlassdoor?
What is, A hundred differentthings they're going to look at,
(30:00):
right?
Because they're spending theirportfolio's money and they need
to make sure, Hey, this is agood investment.
What I've noticed a patternsometimes though, is when people
have their own careers and theyhave to choose their own
companies that they're going totie up their future career with,
they spend very little time onthat.
(30:22):
it's Oh, I just got a job offer.
Oh, it pays 10, 000 more.
I'm going to take it.
That would almost be like a VCthat just had one person say,
Hey, do you want to invest inus?
Yeah, sure.
Let's do it.
it's hard, but you have somemistakes sometimes in B2B
marketing or for their career,and I think sometimes that's
too, spend time there, reallythink about it.
that's a massively importantdecision.
(30:45):
Does this company, what do youthink their prospects are?
hopefully you're going to go inand make an impact, but still,
are, what are their currentgrowth rates?
What are their growth rates?
What are their competitors?
What are their landscape?
Do they have a native AIsolution?
Are they about to get disrupted?
what does the team think oftheir leader?
that's an important one, too, isfind out the philosophy, the
marketing philosophy, does italign with your philosophy,
(31:05):
right?
like I'm very customer centricand not all B2B, SaaS and AI
companies, the leaders feel thatway, right?
I think ultimately you want todo it because you get more word
of mouth that way, you grow moreefficiently.
It's a great capital growthengine, but not everyone feels
that way, right?
I was very intentional when Ijoined Slack to make sure that
everyone there and Stewart wasincredibly customer centric.
(31:26):
I felt it was just a greatalignment there.
Take care.
But you have to send cyclesthere.
I always say when you'rethinking about moving jobs, that
is a full time job, right?
Exploring all the opportunities.
Don't just take the first thingthat pops up.
Really look like when I before Ijoined Slack, I think I had five
different job offers I wasdoing.
Deciding between, but that tooka ton of time.
(31:48):
Every one of those, I had toresearch, I had to talk to, I
had to do a lot of due diligenceon, and that's one of the most
important decisions you make isyou're aligning yourself with
another company and you want tomake sure that.
with your values that they, youthink that they're set up well,
that you can help them out.
So I would just say, spendcycles on that.
I know it's tempting becausewe're all busy and it's Oh, I
(32:09):
just got this offer and great.
But like really, like if you'regoing to look, it's the same
thing with getting married,right?
You don't want just the firstperson you date, Oh, we're good.
Let's go.
Yeah.
I'm going to spend the next 50years with you.
But I spent five minutes gettingto know you and decided on it.
you want to.
These are really importantdecisions and spend the
appropriate amount of cycles onit.
No,
Sunil (32:28):
that, that's a good way to look at it as well.
I think it's a good perspectivethat, people can think and,
when, and just thoughtfullydecide on, what is this like a
good step for me at this moment,with this company is that is, as
you said, as a VC, like if itwould be a VC, would you take a
bet, bet on this, right?
(32:48):
Would you put.
Your money in this company,right?
Because you're obviously puttingyour time there, right?
So would you put your money aswell?
that's one way to think as well.
Bill (32:57):
And ask them those questions.
this is look, interviews are twoway street.
You are interviewing them asmuch as they are interviewing
you.
Yeah, You're about to make oneof the most important decisions
of your life.
You're going to align yourcareer to that company.
Ask them about it.
Hey, what are your growthprojections?
I'm, what do you, I've beenreading about this competitor
that's in your space.
(33:17):
How are you going to addressthat?
How are you guys thinking aboutAI?
How are you going to leveragethat?
are you thinking about goinginternational?
Like I'm a little worried about,and in a weird way, like
sometimes I've done this too,where the interview dynamic then
all of a sudden shifts andthey're trying to sell you now.
They're like, actually we're,
Sunil (33:32):
we're
Bill (33:32):
doing really well.
We're growing here.
And it's you're like an elusive,prospect now and they want to
bring you in.
So it's just, it's important.
That's a really importantdecision.
And I found just too many peoplewith their B2B careers are just
careers in general, right?
We just don't spend the time andI get why we're busy, we're
tired.
It's a lot of work to do, but ifyou're, if you're.
listening to a podcast likethis, and you do care about your
(33:53):
career, then that is a superimportant decision that you're
going to be making.
Sunil (33:57):
Totally.
Yeah.
And I think, I think peopleshould, normalize, asking
questions in an interview orfrom the other side as well.
Even if you're interviewing, youcan definitely ask questions,
right?
So it's not that it's notallowed or anything.
You can ask questions for sure.
awesome.
Awesome.
Bill, been a great discussion,but, to top it off, let's do a
(34:17):
lightning round.
it's not like I've not asked youtoo many questions already, but
I'm going to ask you like threemore.
Yeah.
I'm going to ask you like threemore and, you have to come up
with something right on the topof your mind.
So let's get started.
First one.
So what's your one tip formanaging a work life balance?
Bill (34:39):
Just spend cycles on it.
it's a delicate balance, yougotta spend cycles and it's
unhealthy if you're not doingone or the other.
Sunil (34:47):
Nice.
Nice.
and the second one.
So what is the one thing thatyou wish you would have known
when you first started?
Bill (34:58):
I would have wished I would have known just that
there's unlimited opportunitiesout there, and that you just
have to go for it.
I think everyone is a little bitrisk averse initially.
but ironically, when you'reyoung, like this is the time to
do it.
It's not like you've got amassive family or, a ton of
people depending on you, youcan, and should be more risk
(35:20):
averse early in your career.
take big risks, move to places,get out of your comfort zone.
sometimes you're going to take ajob that you don't fully know
how to do right away.
And that's okay.
Most people don't, You're goingto take on some functions you've
never managed before, but it'sokay.
But yeah, I think just, knowthere's a ton of opportunities
out there and know that, youhave to take some risks to, to
(35:42):
take them
Sunil (35:42):
on.
Nice.
Nice.
and the third and the last one,So what's one, book
recommendation that you have forthe audience?
I'm going to give a
Bill (35:52):
podcast recommendation.
first I'll say Sassimo Pro,check out the YouTube channel,
TikTok, wherever you like towatch fine, fine materials.
I know TikTok's banned in India,but hey, other places it is.
And you probably have a globalaudience, Hey, there's people
watching this from all over.
but I would give another podcastrecommendation.
I love Manager Tools.
it's one that I have spent a lotof time in traffic, and I listen
(36:13):
to a lot of podcasts.
By the way, Sassy Mo Pro has apodcast, too.
but anyway, you can, I learned aton about just being a better
manager, being a better leader.
everything from like, how to runa one on one, how do you give
feedback to your, to youremployees.
how to set up your calendar, howto write better emails, how to,
whatever it is.
It's just I know it's weird.
(36:34):
Like I went to business school,but they didn't really teach
like how to be a manager there.
And I found that's a reallyimportant skill set.
Cause again, like the mostcommon use cases you're in, I
see an individual contributor.
You're great at what you do.
And at some point you get put incharge of managing.
Teams and managing people and noone's ever told you how to do
that before, right?
(36:54):
So and I think that's why intech, especially there are some
really bad like people managersout there Because maybe they
were great at whatever skillthey were, but they got promoted
and they're just a horriblepeople manager So I just learned
a lot there and just know thatyou don't know a lot walk into
it like I didn't know like Ididn't know Hey, I should be
running weekly one on ones withall of my directs and that takes
(37:16):
a lot of time but It's a reallygood practice to do right and
how to structure those one onones and how to give feedback,
how to set goals.
There's this whole, all theselittle skill sets that I learned
a ton there.
So the podcast is manager tools.
I think it's super helpful andit was something that, I learned
a lot and I just get podcaststoo.
Cause I know, there's a lot ofgreat books too, but it's just
for me, a lot of people arespending more of their time
(37:40):
there, right?
Because they're in commutes orthey're, while they're working
out or doing whatever, it's avery accessible way to learn.
Sunil (37:46):
Nice.
Nice.
I'll definitely link this,podcast that you mentioned in
the, description of the episode.
And obviously.
I think I'll link that in thedescription as well.
So people can subscribe to it.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Bill, again, thanks.
Thanks a lot for taking time onthis, lovely Tuesday morning.
it's been like a pleasure tohost you on the show.
There's ton of insights that youshared with us.
(38:08):
Thanks.
Thanks once again.
Bill (38:10):
Oh, no worries.
It was such a great pleasure.
maybe just one last thing I'dsay to everyone out there
listening to it is you are in afantastic time to learn and grow
as a marketer.
In fact, there's never been abetter time.
Like in a weird way, like AIcoming out is such an equalizer.
It doesn't matter if you've had20, 30 years experience.
Like the fact that AI is comingout, it's completely rewriting
(38:31):
all these functions.
So you have, This is a greatthing for you.
This is something where if youcan get ahead of it and on top
of it, you're going to be wayahead of your peers and way
ahead of your older peers whofor whatever reason, don't want
to learn about it because it'ssome new crazy tech or they're
not worried about or whatever itis.
this is a great opportunity tostart a business too.
Like the cost of entry, cost ofareas have never been lower.
(38:51):
this is like carpe diem, go getit.
Sunil (38:53):
Awesome.
Thanks.
Thanks, Ben.
Bill (38:56):
All right.
Thanks so much.
Hey everyone, welcome to the latest episode of the SaaS
Sessions podcast.
today we have Bill Poseidis onthe show with us.
Bill is currently a growth andmarketing advisor for many B2B
startups.
plus he's running his ownYouTube channel where he talks a
lot about B2B SaaS, which iscalled the, B2B, sorry, which is
called the SaaS CMO Pro.
And, you should, you can findthat out on YouTube, or you can
(00:31):
also type sascmopro.
com without the spaces, withoutthe hyphens or anything, and it
will land you to, Bill'snewsletter.
hey, hey, Bill, such a pleasureto have you on the show.
Bill (00:42):
Hey Sunil, thanks so much for having me, excited to talk
today.
Sunil (00:45):
Awesome.
Awesome.
Bill, I, I gave a very shortintro about you, but, there's a
lot to unpack in your career.
And today the topic that we havechosen is, talking about a
marketing career, right?
Like how do you build one?
and your career has been likereally great, right?
you've had five exits in yourcareer.
You've had whole, like C levelpositions at amazing daily use
(01:08):
SaaS companies like Slack,Zendesk and Salesforce, right?
To name a few.
And, I couldn't think any.
day, that I have not used Slackfor the past eight years.
So yeah.
yeah, unless obviously I'm likeout of office, that's the whole
thing.
But again, being in C levelroles, Being at the helm of
leadership, At such companies, agreat, position to be in.
(01:31):
So there's a lot to learn fromyou, obviously built.
So thanks a lot for, taking timeand coming here.
But before we get onto theepisode itself, again, as I
said, would love to learn moreabout you and please share, more
about your career journey withus.
Bill (01:45):
Yeah, sure.
exciting to talk with you andwith everyone listening today.
And so my background is Ialways, I don't know, I was a
weird one.
I always loved business growingup.
I just knew really early that Iloved business.
I loved marketing.
I did a, I started up a startupright out of college with a
couple other friends.
there was in a gaming spacecause that's what we did in
college.
We played a lot of online gamesand we did ladders and rankings
(02:07):
and tournaments and we grew thatand sold it.
I did about, 15 more years onthe B2C side.
So working for media companieslike IG Entertainment.
So if you like games, you'veprobably been there for a
review.
Rotten Tomatoes, Ask Men.
and then actually we got itacquired there and then went
over to News Corp.
And so News Corp, I ran acentralized marketing function
for all their sites.
And that was everything from,Fox sports to American Idol to
(02:30):
Wall Street Journal.
and it was amazing cause theygot to help build these brands
up, help build the traffic tothem.
and then I got like this really,out of the blue call from a
company called Salesforce, whichwas, starting to sell SAS
business software and theywanted someone with a little
more B2C DNA, in their kind ofin their culture to bring them
in.
And.
(02:50):
I just, fell in love with it.
Mark was an incredible leader,an amazing philanthropist, just
a really good guy.
And I loved how he wasdisrupting how software was
built and sold and used.
Because before that, likeanytime you're selling software,
you had to sell it into the CTO.
you had to buy him steak dinnersand you could only go through I.
T.
And now SAS comes around andanyone can just go to a website,
(03:12):
right?
And log in and start using it.
I love those type of models,more modern disruptive models.
so it's about four years there.
Went to Zendesk, as you hadmentioned, came in there as a
CMO and built up that team fromscratch, maybe a couple of
people there, but maybe when Ijoined there, maybe 60 people.
And we went through.
successful IPO and then went toSlack and same thing joined
maybe about 50 people, built outthe entire marketing team and
(03:34):
then went on to also lead up thesales success and support team.
So really all the customerfacing teams and we had an
eventual IPO there and eventualacquisition by Salesforce.
So my two companies got backtogether, which was fun to see.
And, and then I was like, whatdo I do?
And I, I just, I've always had apassion for helping other people
out and helping them learn.
(03:55):
And so I decided, to go into theadvisory type business.
So I was helping B2B SaaS and AIcompanies and helping them grow
and scale, build their marketingteams.
but I kept getting a lot of thesame questions, right?
And I was like, you know what?
What if, I could democratizethis information and help,
Anyone else that's especiallylike growing their career or
something I miss like when I'mnot in these full time roles is
(04:17):
I always enjoyed managing andmentoring and helping educating
people.
And so that's when I createdthat SASS CMO Pro.
I just launched it about a weekago.
And so it's just fresh out, butbasically the idea here is I
love videos.
I know some people like to read.
500 page long white papers and Iwas always the one that like
show me the YouTube video orshow me the short of it.
And so it's just a bunch ofvideos on everything about
(04:38):
learning marketing and SaaS andAI.
and I talk about a lot of careerstuff, like how to grow as an
individual in your career.
Talk about a lot of likemarketing, branding topics,
multi such attribution, highvelocity, PLG.
So it's been a ton of funfilming those videos and just
starting to launch them now.
Sunil (04:54):
Nice, nice.
That's really.
interesting journey, right?
Like from media to, SAS thatyou've got there.
and again, kudos to youstarting, the SAS CMO pro.
I think, we share that, tradeoff, giving back to the
community, right?
helping people elevate fromtheir role, even if they're
learning, like one small thingfrom you, it can It's a good
(05:14):
feeling at the end of the day.
congrats on that.
And I hope like everybody who'slistening would go and take,
subscribe to the episode andalso subscribe to the, YouTube
channel there.
So awesome.
as I mentioned, like a greatcareer journey from media into
SAS.
So what, when you join the B2BSaaS company, like behemoth
company in B2B SaaS, which isSalesforce, right?
So what made you shift, makethat career move, right?
(05:37):
Because we're talking aboutbuilding a marketing career.
So obviously there's always thisquestion comes up, right?
Hey, should I, take a B2B role?
Should I stick with a B2C role?
it's obviously two different,worlds altogether.
everything's is different.
Obviously that is like a lot offundamentals, that stays the
same.
But, when you have to go deepand you have to build a career,
you have to pick one path.
(05:58):
but you obviously did.
Pick one path, in sort of media,and then you shifted or made
your way into B2B SaaS, right?
and starting with Salesforceagain, amazing, company there.
So what made you decide that?
And can you please talk usthrough, that career change?
Bill (06:13):
Yeah.
so for me personally, growingup, I always had a passion for
business.
I had a passion forentrepreneurship.
I had a passion for marketing.
I had a passion for just go tomarket.
And I don't think I ever waslike, I only have a passion for
B2C.
I was like more like I have apassion for business and I want
to help companies grow and scalein a modern way.
(06:35):
And that was something that was,really important for me was,
Hey, when I work with thesecompanies, I want to help them
out to where they can grow andscale, but do it in a more
modern way, right?
I want to leverage the best ofmore, most modern practices.
And so really when I heard aboutSalesforce originally, I love
the fact that, Hey, they weredisrupting how software was
(06:58):
marketed, sold and used, right?
Like we'd mentioned earlier,historically, literally like the
only way you could buy thesoftware in the past was only
enterprises could afford it.
SMBs couldn't, it was way tooexpensive, way too small, medium
sized businesses.
Sorry, I'm going to dropacronyms here and in, in this,
allowed a way for a smallbusiness to just go to a website
(07:18):
and use it like Amazon.
That's where Mark got originallyinspired by.
I was like, why can't, why don'tI just go to Amazon and be able
to buy something?
But for all the software, youhave to literally buy, CDs and
install it on their own servers.
And it's this massive laboriousprocess, right?
So I was always attracted tocompanies that were disrupting
things, doing it in a moremodern way, doing it in a more
customer centric way.
(07:39):
And so for me, that was anatural extension.
But even when I went to the B2Bside, though, it was interesting
because Salesforce was supermodern in a lot of ways.
But in a lot of ways, too, theother B2B companies were very,
dated, right?
Like even some of the marketingtactics they use, they weren't
using anything that I hadlearned on the B2C side.
They weren't leveraging SEO.
(07:59):
They weren't leveraging reallyweb analytics or conversion rate
marketing or ABM targeting orjust all these more advanced
principles.
and so for me, that was reallyfun.
I got to bring in a lot of themore advanced marketing
strategies from B2C into B2B.
And I will say, for those thatare thinking about a career in
B2C or B2B, I think doing bothis really helpful.
(08:19):
You learn so much more, like forinstance, one of the things
that, I was doing a video on waslike, Hey, how to measure brand.
And so if you're in B2B hist, Iwould say probably of all the
companies I've worked with 95percent don't track brand, don't
know how to track brand, don'tknow any of the brand metrics.
Just because B2B historically isall about leads.
How many leads do you produceand how many leads do you hand
(08:41):
over to your sales team?
And that's just how it was done30 years ago.
there, when you have someexperience in a different area,
like B2C, I learned about brandand I, again, working for all
these large media companies andlearned about, Hey, how to track
it.
and understanding metrics likeaided recaller, unaided
recaller, sentiment, sure voice.
There's a ton of good brandmetrics.
And I was able to bring thatwith me and go, Hey guys,
(09:03):
because historically B2Bcompanies will just run like
demand gen campaigns.
They rarely run brand campaigns.
Cause again, if it doesn'tincrease the leads, they're
like, why would we do it?
But in a lot of ways, demand genis just short term leads brand
builds up these long term leads,right?
So I think there's like tons ofgreat crossover that you can
have.
And, and I wouldn't say justbecause you choose one, don't
feel like you're locked inagain.
(09:24):
there's, it's more about,keeping and developing your
skills and learning.
And so that's how I looked atit.
Sunil (09:32):
Oh, nice.
Nice.
And, I think, like looking atbrand and, taking that as the
centerpiece for you, right?
Like you learned that in themedia world, and then joining
like Salesforce, obviously, Ithink, they were like very brand
heavy, I think, right from thestart, investing on building,
building that Thank you.
That, that kind of an image ineverybody's mind that when you
(09:53):
think of a CRM, you have tothink Salesforce, right?
Like even the ticker that they,got IPO'd on is also CRM, right?
that's how much branding, means,And that's how much in depth
that you have to think, right?
So I feel like, you played areally strong, trade from your
side where you were.
belonging to the world where,you knew how to measure
(10:14):
branding, how do you scale it?
How do you implement, thataspect?
And then, it very well gluedwith what Salesforce, marketing
vision as well, was as well, atthe time when you joined, right?
So obviously you played a verystrong suit, in your, as a
skill, I would say, and, made acareer pivot in that sense,
right?
I, that considering that as a,like a key pivot in your career,
(10:36):
can you talk us a, can you talkus like what, maybe if there
were, any other career pivotsthat you have done, this one and
be like, how can somebody,figure out like, what's that
skill that they can, that theypossess.
Maybe they don't, maybe they areaware of it.
Maybe they're not.
but, and find that.
company or find that industry orfind that vertical where they
(10:58):
can go and apply it.
just like how you did withrespect to branding and your
experience in media, and thenjoining a company like
Salesforce where branding waslike super valued and a key part
of their strategic alignment.
Bill (11:12):
Yeah.
So for me, I think one of themost important things is don't
fear a pivot.
Pivots are good.
Sometimes pivots are reallygood, right?
Like it's okay to pivot from thejob you're in to a different
type of job, to a different typeof industry, if you believe more
in where you're going.
I know like my sister, one of mysisters, she went to school for,
interior architecture, and shewas designing like office
(11:34):
buildings.
And she liked it.
But, she, there wasn't as muchmoney there.
And she was like, Hey, I wantto, pivot into it.
And she took, two more years,she got her master, she pivoted
into it.
And that's what she does now.
And she loves it.
And so I think there's always ina lot of ways, you have to think
about the industry you're going,is it growing?
Is it scaling?
Are there more opportunitiesthere and try to align your
skill sets behind it?
(11:54):
probably one thing that reallyshaped me.
One of the best piece of adviceI ever got was it was one of my
first jobs out of college and wedid an after, it was one person
he was leaving and we'd alwaysdo a last day lunch, right?
Hey, and I would always askpeople on these last day
lunches, like when they wouldleave, Hey, what's your best
piece of advice?
what would you say?
And he said, bill, it doesn'tmatter if you're employed or
(12:15):
not.
What matters is if you'reemployable and what he meant by
that was You need to beconstantly building your skill
set.
You need to be constantlylearning, right?
And it doesn't matter if, evenif you got that job, even when I
was at like Salesforce, I just,I wanted to learn.
I wanted to keep improving myskill set and learning more and
(12:36):
more.
and and that's the thing withmarketing too.
Like for those that areinterested in marketing, like I
love marketing, but it is alwayschanging and adapting and new
technologies are constantlycoming out on how to target
individuals on how to nurture,educate, obviously have a
massive wave of AI coming outright now, which is going to
completely disrupt so manydifferent industries that it's
(12:58):
more about like those skill setsthat you develop.
And when you develop thoseskills, you can make these
pivots a lot easier because alot of these companies are going
to need, the newer skill setsthat are coming out.
And some people won't.
Some people are like, Oh, I gotmy job.
I don't have to do anything.
I'm just going to sit there and,do the bare minimum or whatever.
And just, I'm employed.
That's all that matters.
that advice always stuck withme, right?
(13:19):
just think about how you'reemployable that you always have
the skill sets so that you'reemployable and that way too.
God, we've all been in jobs thatlike.
I want to believe that this isblissful nirvana where everyone
is happy and everyone lovestheir job.
But I know at some point we allget jobs that.
We just don't like for whateverreason.
And if you don't have theskills, a lot of time, you can
get trapped there.
(13:39):
But if you have the skills andyou're employable, you can
always move to something else.
So I found that reallyliberating.
Nice.
Sunil (13:46):
that's really interesting.
and, do you, can you mention anyother like key decision, that
you have taken in our careersand that has helped you shape it
in a very nicer manner?
Bill (13:57):
I think so for me.
another good one is when you'retrying to make the move up from
an individual to a manager to adirector, what I found is a lot
of first time directors willfail a lot and that they'll go
into the role.
And they'll just go heads downand they'll keep doing what they
(14:18):
had done before.
So in other words, like maybethey were great at demand
generation, right?
Or maybe they were great atproduct marketing, or maybe
they're great at content.
And when they get promoted upinto that really first, like
higher level leadership role,they will just go in all day.
They will make content or do PPCads or do whatever, because
that's what they've known.
And when you're an individualcontributor or an IC, that's
(14:41):
what you focus on.
But what I found is like, whenyou move up to director, like
you really have to startthinking about a completely
different set of dailyactivities.
Some of them are doing what youhad done, but I would say 30, 40
percent of your day should bespent on identifying who are all
these different stakeholdersthat you're servicing
(15:01):
internally, right?
So who are your salescounterparts, your marketing
counterparts, your financecounterparts, your, the C suite,
the board, right?
how are you educating them aboutwhat your team is doing?
How are you building support forwhat your team is doing?
A lot of things I've done, likethese big projects.
One is the Salesforce.
I had led the initiative to putin marketing automation, which
(15:23):
at the time we actually didn'thave.
And that was a hard one to getthrough, right?
That we were spending a goodamount of money to do it.
We had to, change a lot ofhearts and minds.
We had to show people whatmarketing automation was, the
importance of it, how toimplement it.
we had to tactically implementit, but we had to build support
for it and you'll find inmarketing a lot of times these
initiatives you want to do,especially to get up to the
(15:45):
director level.
they need a lot of resources.
You need to hire new people.
You need program spend.
You need to, sometimes getdevelopment resources to help
implement it.
and a lot of your time needs tobe spent on evangelizing,
educating these stakeholders andreally representing your team.
And it's funny, like I literallyjust did a video on this.
So this one's live.
If you go to the YouTube Sassimopro channel, it's first time
(16:08):
mistake, directors of marketingis make, but I talk about that,
right?
All of these different things.
And a lot of times.
will happen to is I've seendirectors of marketing that are
fantastic, really know theirstuff, but they spend no time
identifying those stakeholders,building relationships with
those stakeholders, tellingthose stakeholders what are
happening and the perceptionwithin the organization is like,
(16:29):
Oh, this person doesn't knowwhat they're doing.
they're terrible, right?
And a lot of times their careerends, right?
it's very sad and sometimesscary, but that happens.
So I would just say That's areally important thing that I've
learned over the years is that,when you start managing people,
like you are responsible forthem, the perception of them,
right?
And, you need to educates allthese other folks on what
(16:51):
they're doing, because here'sthe thing, too.
I love marketing, right?
If you're listening to this,watching this, you probably love
marketing too.
Love business.
But here's the thing.
Everyone in the company is amarketing expert.
Everyone that, watches a TV adthinks, Oh, I know how to do
advertising.
Anyone that's bought somethingin a grocery store.
(17:12):
It's I know how to do pricingand right.
So you have a lot of strongopinions in the room in the
company for, what marketingshould and shouldn't be doing.
And, you have to really managethose perceptions.
You have to educate these otherstakeholders on what marketing
is, what are the right metrics,right?
Like even the brand stuff,right?
Like I don't be like, Oh, you'rejust wasting money.
(17:32):
You just spent all this money onbrand campaign.
My God, you flush it on thetoilet.
it's a lot easier to go.
Actually, we've been trackingyour aided recall for our
company.
Our five competitors and we seewhere we're going.
We were actually lagging behindwhen we ran this brand campaign.
We went up seven points andaided recall.
And we, here's the impact thathas on pipeline and leads,
right?
a lot of that has to happen and,and it's a natural instinct, I
(17:53):
think, for ICs or individualcontributors to just focus on
what's going on.
What they've done heads down andnot really do those
communications, not really buildthose relationships, not really
identify those stakeholders.
So that would be another thingthat I found is really important
for those that want to make thatleap from being an individual
contributor to actually managingand leading these teams.
that's a really important skillset to build up.
Sunil (18:15):
Nice.
Yeah.
And I totally agree with thefact that you mentioned, right?
everybody can, has an opinionabout marketing, and they would
just come in and tell differentteams, right?
Hey, what's happening with thead and maybe you can do it
differently or, and, in, inmarketing as well, If there is
one specific function where I'veseen like people, give a lot
more opinion than all the otherfunctions, compared, I think
(18:39):
it's social media, right?
everybody like, reads and,engages with like different
brands on social media.
And then they're like, Hey, weshould do this and we should do
they see how they have done andwe can, copy it and something
like that.
And, one, one trick I.
I used, in, in, two years of my,one of my previous companies
was, whenever they're like, Icreated like a form internal
(19:00):
form when anybody has like anyidea with respect to, let's say
social media, just put it thereand then we'll say Hey, we'll
consider this idea.
We'll obviously didn't considerit, but then, every quarter when
you are visiting, our strategyfor the next quarter.
we would just go and keep like10%, like of our, budget and
efforts and, things for, thesenew ideas that are picked from
(19:22):
the team.
And it's good to have those,lying around because you're not
creative three, 65 days, right?
Like You always, there are likeups and downs.
And when you're down and youdon't know what to do next in
this quarter, you can always goback, I will always go back to
the sheet and we'll skim throughthe, ideas that different people
like, engineers, PMs, andeverybody has put down.
And then we just pick like a fewof them, and, execute them in
(19:44):
the, in that quarter.
it's just good to hear theiropinion as well.
And, and then obviously notifythem like, Hey, we, took your
feedback of sorts.
Bill (19:53):
Absolutely.
And I think that's half of ittoo.
It's just knowing people'sperceptions about marketing,
right?
Or your function, right?
If you're leading DemandGen, youjust got promoted, you're
leading DemandGen.
what does everyone else thinkabout it, right?
What does finance think abouthow DemandGen's been doing?
What does sales think about howDemandGen's been doing?
What does, the CEO think abouthow demand Jen's been doing.
(20:15):
and I remember a story where Iwas a Zendesk and I was CMO and
we were having a board meetingand I had proactively reached
out to a couple of the boardmembers at a time and just, same
thing like, Hey, how do youthink marketing is doing right?
What do you wish to be doing?
What shouldn't be doing?
And most of them are like, Oh,doing great.
And one of them was like, Ireally wish we had more customer
(20:35):
stories, right?
and I had to pull it out ofthem, but I could tell he's
like, why don't you have morecustomer stories, Bill?
And the cool thing was we had aproject where we were actually
building like 10 more customerstories out and they're almost
done.
And I might not have evenmentioned that in the board
meeting when it, cause usuallyyou'll do like a marketing
section.
Here's what's going on.
But I had known that, Hey, he,this was top of mind for him.
(20:57):
And this was really importantfor him.
And actually good news.
We had done it.
So I was able to tell him.
And also in the board meeting,Hey, here's a process.
Here's where we interviewed him.
Here's the assets, thedeliverables, the stories,
here's how we're leveragingthem.
But a lot of times you don'tknow, like if, again, if you
just go heads down, And youhaven't identified these
stakeholders.
You haven't built relationshipswith them.
You haven't just even askedthem.
(21:18):
And by the way, it's not thathard.
It's just go, Hey, what do youthink?
Mark?
I'm just curious.
I want to, we want to improve,what do you think marketing is
doing?
what do you think we couldimprove?
Just understand.
what are their.
What are they hung up on?
and then you can, slowly overtime, you can start to educate
them about, Hey, here's whatwe're doing there.
Or maybe it's something youdon't think we should be doing,
but you have, at least, that,and then you can start to
(21:38):
educate them as to how to, howto improve in those areas.
I don't think like you said, Forevery function in a company, if
you're a backend developer, Idon't know if you have to do
this because not a lot of peoplego to a backend developer and
Hey, I was looking at your codeand I don't know why you're
doing it that way.
You shouldn't be doing it thisway.
But marketing is it's sovisible, right?
all our assets are so visible.
The website's so visible.
Like you said, everything you doon social media is very visible.
(21:59):
If you're in an ad campaign,it's super visible.
So you're just going to have alot of strong opinions.
And I really think it makessense to manage those.
Sunil (22:07):
Yeah, I think like sales, I think marketing marketers are
also built, people built withthick skins, I would say Yes.
So you get a thick skin too.
That's a good way, Yeah.
Good advice.
yeah, just shifting gears, will,what were those, like three
things?
That you can share that reallyhelped you, climb the ladder,
And, help you become a bettermarketing leader.
Bill (22:30):
it's a great question.
So maybe one for me is.
And this is just my mindset.
Like I've always thought there'sopportunities out there.
Think of like opportunities aslike these floating bubbles,
right?
And there's these opportunitiesin your career all around you,
right?
And I've noticed there's twotypes of people, right?
One type of person is they'llhave all these bubbles floating
(22:52):
around them and they will nevermove.
They're just comfortable withwhat they're doing and at the
level they're at and just, I'mjust going to keep doing that.
And there's a risk to go afterone of those bubbles, right?
Like it's risky.
And sometimes you're puttingyourself out of your comfort
zone.
But I think one, you have tolike, you have to go for it
(23:13):
sometimes you have to take thoseopportunities.
I know for myself, I grew up inthe Midwest.
I did my first startup, like Imoved, we moved, I moved to
Denver.
And then I moved all the way outto San Francisco and I didn't,
know a lot of people out here,but it was like, That's where
there were a lot ofopportunities, right?
And I wanted to do it.
Like I always live by a mottocarpe diem.
It's Latin.
It just means seize the day.
(23:34):
It means like always, every dayis precious and seize it.
Like you can do it.
You absolutely can do it.
Those opportunities are withyou, but sometimes you have to
do it.
And switching from B2C to B2B,that probably was risky.
But it was like, Hey, I thoughtit was a great opportunity.
I wanted to go for it.
so I think one that's, excuseme, that's very helpful, right?
(23:55):
Is always to think about likehow you can take on those
opportunities.
to, we talked a little bit aboutbefore, but again, always be
curious, always be learning,right?
I think that's really helped meout.
I'll give like a practicalexample, like when I was working
for, IJ Entertainment, I, SEOwas becoming really big at the
time, and it was still in thevery early days of it, but,
(24:16):
there was no school or class Icould go to, no one had an event
at SASS CMO Pro, so I had to, Iwas like, but I want to learn
about this stuff, right?
So I spent, Every day afterwork, I would get home.
I spent four hours reading everysingle piece of content I could
in SEO.
I went to forums.
I learned about like black hat,SEO, white hat, SEO, domain
authority, link popularity,anchor text.
(24:38):
Like I just absorbed it.
For a couple months until Ireally knew it then.
And I went to conferences andafter speaking on it, we
developed like this advanced SEOstrategy.
It totally helped our traffic.
It skyrocketed, but like thatwasn't, you had to do that on
yourself.
and and maybe I'd say the thirdthing now is like, Hey, the
great news is anyone listeningto this, anyone watching this
podcast, trust me, the entiremarketing landscape is being
(25:02):
completely rewritten right nowwith AI, right?
And I am a big believer, you arenot going to lose your job
because of AI, you're going tolose your job because of someone
else that knows AI and youdon't.
or knows how to use the prompts,knows how to use the tools.
So this is a great example ofwhere the people that are
listening is watching this.
And by definition, you arefalling into the carpe diem
(25:24):
camp, right?
You're trying to improveyourself by watching this.
You could be just watchingNetflix or doing something else,
but you're like, Hey, listen toBill and Sunil talk about like
B2B marketing and how to improveand stuff.
But AI is completely rewritingeverything.
And so I would.
I would personally, I would diveinto it.
That's what I've been doing,right?
what are the best tools?
How do you use it?
Practice using prompts,understand all the different
(25:47):
players out there, whether it'sGemini where it's open AI,
where's the industry going,constantly read content on that,
listen to podcasts, figure outlike how you can, even if you
have a marketing role, maybeyou're just, associate manager
and you're just starting out.
or associate analyst, whateverit is, but think about your day
throughout your day.
How could you use AI to simplifyit, to improve it, to make it
(26:09):
faster, even if you're under nopressure to do so right now,
right?
cause you're going to be in sucha better position because some
people will avoid it.
Oh, this is a new tech.
I don't need to know it.
I don't want to learn it.
It's going to take time, andthat person's going to, again,
they're not going to beemployable.
They're going to be, justemployed.
And maybe at some point they'reunemployed, which is scary.
But so I don't, for me, that's,that'd be my other big piece of
(26:31):
advice is just, constantly belearning, have that hunger.
And if you do that, you're goingto be in a great position.
Sunil (26:37):
Nice, nice.
that's really, solid piece ofadvice, right?
Like people can, start rightaway.
And I think this has been echomany times in like different
formats by like different peopleand it is just easy to miss it.
and the one thing that I thinkyou mentioned, doesn't matter if
you're employed or not.
What matters if, what matters isthat you are, if you are
(26:58):
employable or not, And I thinkevery quarter, every six months
or every, whenever, now, andthen you have to keep yourself
elevating, to, to a newer leveland, always be learning, Like
sales can do like always beclosing and marketers can do
like always be learning.
Always be learning.
Yeah.
Yes.
Just stay ahead of the curve.
Bill (27:18):
The other thing too is if you again and everyone look, I
respect all paths, right?
Some people want to stay in ICfor their, for their career.
And it was interesting.
I remember at Slack, we builtout a career ladder, right?
Where you could advance upthrough pay and through title as
an individual contributor or youcould advance as a manager,
right?
Manager or people leader.
(27:38):
I think we were Cool.
More of an outlier though.
A lot of companies though, likethe only way to move up is by
managing people, manage morepeople.
And so that's another thing islike when you're learning,
you're going to, whatever you'redoing right now, you're going to
be great at, if you start offwith demand gen, you'll learn
it, demand gen really well, ormaybe you start off on the PR
side, or maybe you start off onthe content side or the
(27:59):
marketing up side, whatever areayou started off with.
when you want to move up bydefinition.
You have to start taking on morefunctions, and you need to know
those functions too, right?
And so that's another one is forthose that want to eventually,
become, a director, a VP, a CMO,you have to start learning about
all these other marketingdisciplines, right?
(28:20):
And talking with people andunderstanding like what they did
and what worked and what didn'twork.
and, you're going to be a bunchbetter marketer people are gonna
be more comfortable promotingyou if Oh, you've shown interest
in a lot of different areas andyou know what you're talking
about versus someone that if allthey know is one thing, right?
And you need a leader that'sgoing to take on four different
functions.
that's, risky, right?
(28:41):
At least from the decisionmakers standpoint.
It's really important, right?
to, to just to learn, to have,try to build that curiosity, and
I get it like when we're allgoing through school, it's we're
forced to learn.
And so I'm done.
I don't have to do that anymore.
But it's for those of youthinking about your career, like
that's really
Sunil (28:57):
important.
No, that's true.
And yeah, before we go on to thelightning round, which is like
last section of the episode, Iwould love to know from your,
again, your extensiveexperience, Bill, right?
where do you think people gowrong about, their B2B SaaS
marketing career, right?
what are some of the thingsthat, they get wrong?
Bill (29:19):
I think in a lot of ways.
You do have to develop a VCmindset.
So what I mean by that is, VCventure capitalists, VCs spend
their entire days, months, yearsobsessing over which company
they should invest in, right?
(29:39):
They're going to look at thiscompany on.
their sales efficiency, theirpayback.
They're going to look at theirgrowth.
They're going to look at their,product market fit.
They're going to look at allthese different lenses, right?
They're going to spend a lot oftime doing due diligence on this
company.
what are the leaders?
What are they ranked onGlassdoor?
What is, A hundred differentthings they're going to look at,
(30:00):
right?
Because they're spending theirportfolio's money and they need
to make sure, Hey, this is agood investment.
What I've noticed a patternsometimes though, is when people
have their own careers and theyhave to choose their own
companies that they're going totie up their future career with,
they spend very little time onthat.
(30:22):
it's Oh, I just got a job offer.
Oh, it pays 10, 000 more.
I'm going to take it.
That would almost be like a VCthat just had one person say,
Hey, do you want to invest inus?
Yeah, sure.
Let's do it.
it's hard, but you have somemistakes sometimes in B2B
marketing or for their career,and I think sometimes that's
too, spend time there, reallythink about it.
that's a massively importantdecision.
(30:45):
Does this company, what do youthink their prospects are?
hopefully you're going to go inand make an impact, but still,
are, what are their currentgrowth rates?
What are their growth rates?
What are their competitors?
What are their landscape?
Do they have a native AIsolution?
Are they about to get disrupted?
what does the team think oftheir leader?
that's an important one, too, isfind out the philosophy, the
marketing philosophy, does italign with your philosophy,
(31:05):
right?
like I'm very customer centricand not all B2B, SaaS and AI
companies, the leaders feel thatway, right?
I think ultimately you want todo it because you get more word
of mouth that way, you grow moreefficiently.
It's a great capital growthengine, but not everyone feels
that way, right?
I was very intentional when Ijoined Slack to make sure that
everyone there and Stewart wasincredibly customer centric.
(31:26):
I felt it was just a greatalignment there.
Take care.
But you have to send cyclesthere.
I always say when you'rethinking about moving jobs, that
is a full time job, right?
Exploring all the opportunities.
Don't just take the first thingthat pops up.
Really look like when I before Ijoined Slack, I think I had five
different job offers I wasdoing.
Deciding between, but that tooka ton of time.
(31:48):
Every one of those, I had toresearch, I had to talk to, I
had to do a lot of due diligenceon, and that's one of the most
important decisions you make isyou're aligning yourself with
another company and you want tomake sure that.
with your values that they, youthink that they're set up well,
that you can help them out.
So I would just say, spendcycles on that.
I know it's tempting becausewe're all busy and it's Oh, I
(32:09):
just got this offer and great.
But like really, like if you'regoing to look, it's the same
thing with getting married,right?
You don't want just the firstperson you date, Oh, we're good.
Let's go.
Yeah.
I'm going to spend the next 50years with you.
But I spent five minutes gettingto know you and decided on it.
you want to.
These are really importantdecisions and spend the
appropriate amount of cycles onit.
No,
Sunil (32:28):
that, that's a good way to look at it as well.
I think it's a good perspectivethat, people can think and,
when, and just thoughtfullydecide on, what is this like a
good step for me at this moment,with this company is that is, as
you said, as a VC, like if itwould be a VC, would you take a
bet, bet on this, right?
(32:48):
Would you put.
Your money in this company,right?
Because you're obviously puttingyour time there, right?
So would you put your money aswell?
that's one way to think as well.
Bill (32:57):
And ask them those questions.
this is look, interviews are twoway street.
You are interviewing them asmuch as they are interviewing
you.
Yeah, You're about to make oneof the most important decisions
of your life.
You're going to align yourcareer to that company.
Ask them about it.
Hey, what are your growthprojections?
I'm, what do you, I've beenreading about this competitor
that's in your space.
(33:17):
How are you going to addressthat?
How are you guys thinking aboutAI?
How are you going to leveragethat?
are you thinking about goinginternational?
Like I'm a little worried about,and in a weird way, like
sometimes I've done this too,where the interview dynamic then
all of a sudden shifts andthey're trying to sell you now.
They're like, actually we're,
Sunil (33:32):
we're
Bill (33:32):
doing really well.
We're growing here.
And it's you're like an elusive,prospect now and they want to
bring you in.
So it's just, it's important.
That's a really importantdecision.
And I found just too many peoplewith their B2B careers are just
careers in general, right?
We just don't spend the time andI get why we're busy, we're
tired.
It's a lot of work to do, but ifyou're, if you're.
listening to a podcast likethis, and you do care about your
(33:53):
career, then that is a superimportant decision that you're
going to be making.
Sunil (33:57):
Totally.
Yeah.
And I think, I think peopleshould, normalize, asking
questions in an interview orfrom the other side as well.
Even if you're interviewing, youcan definitely ask questions,
right?
So it's not that it's notallowed or anything.
You can ask questions for sure.
awesome.
Awesome.
Bill, been a great discussion,but, to top it off, let's do a
(34:17):
lightning round.
it's not like I've not asked youtoo many questions already, but
I'm going to ask you like threemore.
Yeah.
I'm going to ask you like threemore and, you have to come up
with something right on the topof your mind.
So let's get started.
First one.
So what's your one tip formanaging a work life balance?
Bill (34:39):
Just spend cycles on it.
it's a delicate balance, yougotta spend cycles and it's
unhealthy if you're not doingone or the other.
Sunil (34:47):
Nice.
Nice.
and the second one.
So what is the one thing thatyou wish you would have known
when you first started?
Bill (34:58):
I would have wished I would have known just that
there's unlimited opportunitiesout there, and that you just
have to go for it.
I think everyone is a little bitrisk averse initially.
but ironically, when you'reyoung, like this is the time to
do it.
It's not like you've got amassive family or, a ton of
people depending on you, youcan, and should be more risk
(35:20):
averse early in your career.
take big risks, move to places,get out of your comfort zone.
sometimes you're going to take ajob that you don't fully know
how to do right away.
And that's okay.
Most people don't, You're goingto take on some functions you've
never managed before, but it'sokay.
But yeah, I think just, knowthere's a ton of opportunities
out there and know that, youhave to take some risks to, to
(35:42):
take them
Sunil (35:42):
on.
Nice.
Nice.
and the third and the last one,So what's one, book
recommendation that you have forthe audience?
I'm going to give a
Bill (35:52):
podcast recommendation.
first I'll say Sassimo Pro,check out the YouTube channel,
TikTok, wherever you like towatch fine, fine materials.
I know TikTok's banned in India,but hey, other places it is.
And you probably have a globalaudience, Hey, there's people
watching this from all over.
but I would give another podcastrecommendation.
I love Manager Tools.
it's one that I have spent a lotof time in traffic, and I listen
(36:13):
to a lot of podcasts.
By the way, Sassy Mo Pro has apodcast, too.
but anyway, you can, I learned aton about just being a better
manager, being a better leader.
everything from like, how to runa one on one, how do you give
feedback to your, to youremployees.
how to set up your calendar, howto write better emails, how to,
whatever it is.
It's just I know it's weird.
(36:34):
Like I went to business school,but they didn't really teach
like how to be a manager there.
And I found that's a reallyimportant skill set.
Cause again, like the mostcommon use cases you're in, I
see an individual contributor.
You're great at what you do.
And at some point you get put incharge of managing.
Teams and managing people and noone's ever told you how to do
that before, right?
(36:54):
So and I think that's why intech, especially there are some
really bad like people managersout there Because maybe they
were great at whatever skillthey were, but they got promoted
and they're just a horriblepeople manager So I just learned
a lot there and just know thatyou don't know a lot walk into
it like I didn't know like Ididn't know Hey, I should be
running weekly one on ones withall of my directs and that takes
(37:16):
a lot of time but It's a reallygood practice to do right and
how to structure those one onones and how to give feedback,
how to set goals.
There's this whole, all theselittle skill sets that I learned
a ton there.
So the podcast is manager tools.
I think it's super helpful andit was something that, I learned
a lot and I just get podcaststoo.
Cause I know, there's a lot ofgreat books too, but it's just
for me, a lot of people arespending more of their time
(37:40):
there, right?
Because they're in commutes orthey're, while they're working
out or doing whatever, it's avery accessible way to learn.
Sunil (37:46):
Nice.
Nice.
I'll definitely link this,podcast that you mentioned in
the, description of the episode.
And obviously.
I think I'll link that in thedescription as well.
So people can subscribe to it.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Bill, again, thanks.
Thanks a lot for taking time onthis, lovely Tuesday morning.
it's been like a pleasure tohost you on the show.
There's ton of insights that youshared with us.
(38:08):
Thanks.
Thanks once again.
Bill (38:10):
Oh, no worries.
It was such a great pleasure.
maybe just one last thing I'dsay to everyone out there
listening to it is you are in afantastic time to learn and grow
as a marketer.
In fact, there's never been abetter time.
Like in a weird way, like AIcoming out is such an equalizer.
It doesn't matter if you've had20, 30 years experience.
Like the fact that AI is comingout, it's completely rewriting
(38:31):
all these functions.
So you have, This is a greatthing for you.
This is something where if youcan get ahead of it and on top
of it, you're going to be wayahead of your peers and way
ahead of your older peers whofor whatever reason, don't want
to learn about it because it'ssome new crazy tech or they're
not worried about or whatever itis.
this is a great opportunity tostart a business too.
Like the cost of entry, cost ofareas have never been lower.
(38:51):
this is like carpe diem, go getit.
Sunil (38:53):
Awesome.
Thanks.
Thanks, Ben.
Bill (38:56):
All right.
Thanks so much.
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