TOP CMO: Jessica Gilmartin, Calendly- 'Redefining Team Dynamics'

Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  00:00

The three most underrated functions and marketing are project managers, analytics and solution marketers. Those are the things that actually drive real results.

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Ben Kaplan  00:09

This is the podcast where we go around the globe to interview marketing leaders for the world's biggest brands, fastest growing companies and most disruptive startups. Great

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00:18

Ideas package a certain way want to spread live want to be told to someone else's simple, surprising, and significant data to unlocking viral creativity

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Ben Kaplan  00:27

is to make it rapidly scalable. This is TOP CMO with me, Ben Kaplan. today I'm chatting with Jessica Gilmartin, CMO of Calendly. The go to platform for anyone who earns their living through meetings.

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00:43

Good things happen when people connect and Calendly is how you connect so you can make those good things happen. Calendly

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Ben Kaplan  00:51

simplifies scheduling, making it easy and efficient to arrange meetings without the back and forth before landing at Calendly. In 2023, Jessica sharpened her marketing prowess at Asana, the company behind the project management software. Jessica's diverse background, spanning key senior roles at Google, Dell on her White House, AI and Piazza showcases her adaptability. So what can we do to enhance cross functional collaboration and project management and marketing teams? And how do you invest in the future, even as you keep your feet rooted in the presence? Let's find out with Jessica Gilmartin. Jessica, I know you have very strong ideas about the prevalence of you've called it random acts of marketing. And most marketing shops, teams departments are maybe built to deliver random acts of marketing, and you promote a different way. So first of all, what is a random act of marketing, and what is the alternative to that.

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  01:56

So what I see here, and I would say marketers love chasing shiny objects, we like doing things that are splashy and exciting and get immediate results. But and we also, we like to build campaigns and run things in silos because it's really easy to build a campaign and launch a campaign in a silo. And it's really hard to navigate and maneuver and get multiple teams to be excited about something and do something at the same time. So what I have seen over the course of my career is that you almost have like a ticket tape parade of you start with one group, and then you kind of move down the line. And you start with if someone has an idea for a campaign, and they send a ticket out to a content person, and they send a ticket out to demand in person, they send a ticket out to a brand person and they kind of expect those people to just do the work without asking questions without understanding the strategy behind it. And you end up with a campaign that you launch and doesn't have the best results because it tends to not be strategic, the people involved and understand why they're doing things and they don't, you can't provide input as to how to make it better. It has the

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Ben Kaplan  03:08

appearance of being cross functional, because you do have people in different functions, doing different things contributing to the whole, but they've maybe not been a part of the thinking from the start, they're not really a part of the strategy of our goal they'd been assigned something to do, they do it. But they're not really problem solving or figuring out a better way, or maybe suggesting something else. They're kind of doing their part, we deliver the campaign, we go on with our day or week or month until we get the next assignment it was at the aquarium.

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  03:41

That is a beautiful way to say I think one of the things I've also noticed is that marketers love to jump from campaign to campaign and not spend time looking at the results. And that's a huge issue that I've seen when you have these silos is that no one is ultimately responsible for the outcome of the campaign. Your content person is like, Yep, I check the mark. I launched a campaign, I gave you the content. And then the campaign marketer says, Okay, check, I've launched it. But no one is ultimately responsible for saying, Did this actually generate revenue for the company, which is what our job should be. And so by having a cross functional team that owns the success of the campaign, there everyone is incentivized to look at those results and say, did we achieve our outcomes? And if not, why? And how do we do things differently and better next time?

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Ben Kaplan  04:29

So what would be the difference if we didn't sort of like distribute all these tickets and we wanted to everyone have a steak? Everyone has a say, everyone's involved maybe earlier on in the process. What does that look like? How do you bring everyone together? And how do you prevent sort of having so many cooks in the kitchen, that you can't get anything done because everyone has their two cents and you have the team meeting and everyone kind of like wants to look smart or stand up for their team or, or feel like they made their impact? asked, and how do you then move forward. And

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  05:03

by the way, doing it this way is really hard. And I would say my team kind of hated me, when I came in and tried to create this new culture, it's really a massive culture change. And it takes a lot of discipline. And it takes a lot of time to get this right. So I'd say that the number one thing is, is my job as a CMO is to set very clear priorities, and very clear goals for the team. And those need to ladder up to the company priorities to every person on my team knows that if they are not working on campaigns, and projects that ladder up to those three priorities that I've said, then they need to rethink their priorities, they need to focus on those campaigns that drive those priorities. So at the beginning of every quarter, we set the campaigns as a team that we believe will be most impactful and effective at driving those priorities. So I think one of the challenges with marketing is that there's so many priorities, so many campaigns, it's hard to understand what everybody should work on. And so we kind of solve that problem by by defining upfront what the campaigns are, then we have project managers that are responsible for making sure those campaigns work end to end. And they set up the initial conversations, they bring in representatives from every single team. And they have this meeting, where they say, Hey, this is what we're doing. And then everybody gets to provide input, I want to hear from every single person that's part of the of the campaign, what they think is the right thing. And then we do have campaign managers that are ultimately responsible for deciding which of the ideas are the right ones, creating the milestones, the project manager is the one that puts it in Asana. And then they're the ones that actually execute it, and and make sure that all the milestones are followed.

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Ben Kaplan  06:48

So the issue is that if you're gonna get a lot of cooks in the kitchen, you better have someone who can orchestrate all the cooks, rather than the project manager, you have to have sort of more infrastructure to do it. Do we as marketers, do we not value project management enough? Would you say compared to other other disciplines, like I don't know, development, I rewriting code, and you need people to do complex things. You have project managers, maybe we valued there, maybe not as much of the marketing team. Yeah,

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  07:16

I actually read a LinkedIn post a couple weeks ago, and it got a ton of engagement. And because I said the three most underrated functions and marketing, our project managers, analytics and solution marketers, and a lot of that is the infrastructure because it's not the sexiest thing. But I have, I really hadn't had strong project management functions before Calendly. And when I came here, and I had incredibly strong project managers, it was this aha moment where I realized what I was missing. Because at previous companies, we had that issue, where we had all these people that had great ideas and wanting to launch campaigns. And it was such a struggle to get them done on time, because there was nobody that was bringing everybody together. There was no one that was creating that sense of accountability. There was no one that was holding people to milestones, and helping people identify and adjust priorities, and thinking about what were the outcomes and making sure we had the data, the analytics to support it. Those are the things that actually drive real results.

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Ben Kaplan  08:21

Picture orchestrating a marketing campaign where every element from digital ads to PR weave seamlessly into an overarching strategy. This isn't just about coordinating tactics. It's about crafting a narrative that resonates at every touchpoint, enhancing brand perception and driving results. As leaders, our challenge is to harmonize these elements, creating campaigns that aren't just heard, but felt. Let's lead our teams to create marketing masterpieces that echo our brand's core message and purpose.

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09:11

Jessica, how do you know a good project manager when you see one of our agents, we have a top we're a global marketing agency, we have a lot of people who are dedicated project managers, especially on really complex client parts with a lot a lot of pieces. We interview a lot of people too. And there's sometimes a sense that a project manager is someone who, you know, I messages everyone that you're supposed to do this stuff is kind of like nagging you a little bit if you don't, or following up and it's just the person that like, you know, kind of makes sure the trains run on time, just by like, following up with everyone, but you almost feel like it's, you know, it's like everyone's kind of treat, like I have two little kids like toddlers, right? He's got to follow up with the toddlers like do you do this? He does, like say it 20 times and by the 20th time it will get done. And so science project manager can feel like that. That's probably not great project management. In your experience, we have this aha moment. What is great project management that the smell different than than just a person who like chases everybody?

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  10:08

Yeah, God does the worst job in the world. Yeah, so that's definitely not my ideal project management. So I think number one is, you have to actually have buy in from the top that this is important. So I believe this is important. I create the processes and the structure and the tools to make this important. So you know, I came from Asana, which

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Ben Kaplan  10:28

is the project management tool, your title there, I believe it was the head of revenue at Asana. Okay, so one your marketing Asana, but to you kind of bought the Kool Aid as well yourself now that you're no longer there. You still use it? Well,

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  10:40

we drink the Kool Aid, it is duck. Yeah. So I think I think the difference between a what you've talked about as a project manager, and what we have is we have really strategic project managers. So what they're doing is they're identifying areas where we probably will fall into a bad situation or identifying areas where they're seeing things that are starting to go off the rails and they are jumping in wait before that. And that is the fundamental differences. They are bringing people together. And they're actually seen as part of the critical core team. And they're involved in every conversation, every discussion, they're not just, you know, they don't just have a spreadsheet, they're actually a core part of the team. So they're in every discussion, they're understanding where there are differences or where there are misalignment, and they're proactively going to the team members to figure that out. I think that that's the difference. If they're not just like, Hey, your your thing is due in two days. Okay, so

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Ben Kaplan  11:35

they're like proactive troubleshooters, psychic troubleshooters, maybe that's it. Like, they're, they're sort of seeing the future what's coming and they're seeing the trouble before it happens and taking steps to mitigate that probably some CMOS listening to this, Jessica saying that sounds good. I'd like that. Where do I find these people? How do I hire them? How do I tell the difference? What questions can I ask them, you know, run on the mill project manager to like, you know, super project manager with a cape?

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  12:03

Yeah, yeah, one thing that we do occasionally, and we did it on my past companies, and I don't know how you could hire without it, is we have every person go through a an actual example of things that they've done in the past. So the last thing in the interview step is they do a principal presentation to the team. And that really gives us a good sense of their capabilities. And so when you think about a project manager, know, we want to see examples of their work, we want to see examples of how they have helped to make a campaign successful or make a process more successful, and not just, you know, sort of ask the basic questions of, Hey, are you organized? And can you communicate well, but I think that that's really important, it's just seeing that demonstrable way that they have helped to orchestrate new processes, helped to be a strategic guide, you know, might one of my project managers has helped us revamp our Okay, our process for the marketing team. And she did that completely on her own. And I tried it at first. And she made it much, much better, because she was able to take examples from her past that, hey, this is these are the challenges that we experienced, I've talked to 20 people on the team, these are the things that they've told me. And so this is my recommendation for ways to make our processes better, which

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Ben Kaplan  13:15

actually brings up a related topic, it kind of started with campaigns, which is usually a bit different in the sense that it's more of a sort of bespoke, one off creative, you know, endeavor, let's say doesn't have to be but but it's often like that, you're talking about processes. And you didn't use the term standard operating procedure. But there's, you know, these processes, these procedures that put in place, that's a little bit different, because that's meant to be recurring. That's meant to be like, Okay, this is in doctrine. And this is like how we do the things we do. So what role do you have as CMO as like, an improver of process as opposed to an executor of campaigns that get results for the business? Yeah,

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  14:03

so I feel like my job as a CMO is to create the culture and a circumstances for everyone on my team to be successful. And so I think a lot about that, which is how do I create a culture where everybody understands the work that they have to do and what success looks like, we create a culture of responsibility and accountability. And we create a culture of high standards. And so all of that, to me is when you create a culture of accountability and high standards, good communication, then unblocking, giving people the processes and the tools and the budget that they need to be successful. That's my job. That's my main job. And what I need to do then is hire great people who can understand what the vision is and execute within that. And

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Ben Kaplan  14:49

as you're doing all of that, how important is aligning up front even what the strategy is even what the key Campaign is even what we're doing. Are you from the school of? We have to I've heard it done two ways, either A, we have to have a written brief, the written brief is the gospel truth. This is what we refer to, we must have it. I've actually had been in other meetings when people say, we should know each other. So well, we should know each other, our team and be so connected, we don't need the written brain, we could finish each other's you know, sentence, you know, we know what Bob's going to eat for lunch, and how he's going to salt and pepper that puppy and, and put the hot sauce on, we're aligned. And we don't have to do the written break. So how do we get a line on the overall strategy? Do you believe in written briefs? Or do you believe in some kind of other form of sort of alignments,

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  15:42

I would love to know what magical worlds someone could live in where they know each other so well, that they don't need anything in writing, that is certainly never been the case. For me, even when I've had a very small team. I mean, if I've had teams of five and 10, and we still need something documented, you know, even we're literally sitting at the team table every single day. I just think that people need, they need a strategy, they need clarity, they need to understand what the goals are, they need to understand how what the work that they're doing ladders up to the team goals and ladders up to the company goals. And that has to be in writing, because everybody has to refer back to it because information when it is passed verbally, it it never is the same from when you know I say it from on my CEO says it to when the Head of Product Marketing says it to down to the all the people that work for them. So it absolutely has to be written down and you have to constantly refer to it. So my my MO is that I tried to create year long objectives. So things that hopefully don't change too much. But then the goals and the campaigns within those objectives are changing constantly. And everything is written down. And it's very, very clear what everyone's goals are and how everyone's measured.

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Ben Kaplan  16:51

And you set the objectives. But obviously, we've been going through a very tumultuous time started with pandemic to lots of sort of post pandemic effects to changes maybe in the nature of how we work and how we show up for work and where we show up for work to, you know, you know, maybe an era of just now I pride described as uncertainty, are we in a recessionary almost in a recession, we're not in a recession doing more with less? How does all of that work, setting objectives sending setting a vision, in an era of change, having to not be changing with the way the wind is blowing every day? But sometimes it's a pretty big gust, and you need to adjust to how do you deal with that assemble? Yeah,

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  17:37

so I think number one is you have to create a culture where people understand that that is normal. And that's necessary, and you have to communicate really well. So I prioritize communication about almost everything else. And giving people context about why there's changes is the most important thing. Because if you're just randomly telling people every day, hey, now do this. And now do this, and now do this. They don't understand why they're doing it. And they also can't do their best work, because they're just waiting for you to change things again. And so I think it's really important for people to understand, this is a time of change, why this is the time of change what we're hoping to accomplish, and giving people context about why things change. So if one, you know, last month, we were very focused on this customer, and we're like, hey, we think education is an industry we want to go into. And you're like, we're gonna set up campaigns, we're gonna do things for that. And then the next month, it's actually, you know, we were focusing now on financial services. That's, that's normal. And that happens, right? You maybe you had a hypothesis that didn't work out. But what's really important is, then you go back to the team and said, Hey, we tried this, it didn't work out, these are the results. This is why we're trying this. Now. These are the singles that we're getting that this is going to work. And so and so I again, I think the like the objective, the higher level objective should not be so tactical. So the higher level objective shouldn't be, we're going into the educational industry, the higher level objectives should be, you know, we are going to have an industry focused approach. And then some tactics underneath that are we're going to try this and this and so you're giving yourself a lot of room for experimentation within

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Ben Kaplan  19:10

that. And what do you do keep people motivated on this path to because also, change can be it can be exciting. You can like learn a lot of new things, but it can also be demoralizing. When you're like I've spent six months working on this project. I was told this was a priority objective. I was told the company is behind it. And now we're scrapping it. We're not doing any more than is basically all for naught. And now I need to go work over here. And what do you do about that? So sort of cultural morale, motivation and times of change.

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  19:45

So I think number one is how do you recognize people for the work that they do? We have a ton of different mechanisms within my team to recognize people and we do written kudos we do kudos that are all hands. We give them monetary rewards and and we just do everything that we can to make sure that people understand that the work that they're doing matters. Number two is that we, we, as I said, we do a lot of communication around priorities. And I think the thing that I have seen is most motivating for high performers is that they want to work on things that are important to the business. And so if you're just telling them, Hey, work on this project, work on this project work on this project that is so demotivating, who wants to do that, but if you go to them and say, Hey, I know you're working on this, and and now I want you to work on this. And this is why this is why it's so important. And then you keep reinforcing that over and over again, in your all hands in communications, people will get excited about it, because they recognize that the work that they're doing really ladders up to something that's critical, and it may change, and it may keep changing, and you just have to keep reinforcing the message of the work that you're doing matters because of this, and sharing with people that is probably going to keep changing. And just being really honest, I think honestly, you also have to be realistic that there may be some people that can't handle that. And so people that were in your company, when in an environment when everything was going up to the right, and it was very constant, and it was very, it is very easy to hit your numbers. Maybe that's not the group that is okay with constant change. And you have to be okay, with letting those people go and letting those people find a company where it may be it's a little bit more stable. And so I think that that's really hard for a lot of people to accept. But I think it's kind of important to say that not everybody needs to be here in this moment. You said you prioritize

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Ben Kaplan  21:35

communication over almost everything else, what are the channels of communication that you use, you know, on a day to day basis on a weekly basis on a month to month basis to to communicate? I'll give you one example CMO friend of mine, he says this channel is underrated, being really redundant. He says you need to like say the same thing over and over and over just so it's like it almost like resonates in people's mind. They have similar decision to like hear the voice. And he says like, oh, it's like like being like original and what you're saying? Like is overrated. My channel is like redundancy. I say the same thing over and over until people don't think of anything else. But that that's one channel, the redundancy channel. What about for you? What are the channels that you use? How do you improve communication?

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  22:23

I see that all the time. I literally tell people all the time, I say when you start getting nauseous hearing it, that's that's about the time that you should stop saying. So I could not agree more. The thing that I do that I haven't seen anybody else do. And every place I've worked at said that this is the most valuable thing that I do is every Friday, I send a note to my entire team. And I just give them a rundown of my week. And I tell them, you know, the important things that I worked on what we talked about at the executive team meeting, what we talked about the leadership team meeting, what are my priorities, what things have changed. And that giving people that insight into my world where most people don't have that insight, really helps people understand a lot of the context. And they also can then say, Oh, hey, like, I didn't actually realize that this is what we're doing. And they can ask questions. And then they can go to their manager and say, Hey, Jessica said this. What does that mean? Because what I have found is that when I only go to my leadership team and tell them these things, then everything just gets filtered down differently. And we end up playing operator. And so I want people to hear directly from me. I also every Tuesday have an all hands where we talk about key projects on the team. And I also share updates and do ask me anything in those all hands. So I and finally I do get to know you sessions, at least every couple of months where anybody on the team can set up time to spend time with me and asked me any questions that they want. So I just create a lot of opportunities for people to hear unfiltered directly from me about what I'm thinking I'm working on

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Ben Kaplan  24:00

the Friday recap is interesting is that have you found that to be most effective to be like what you're working on like you personally as opposed to the team? Or here's what the team has accomplished? Or here's a rundown on what the team has, do you feel special, like insight into you, as CMO that people need to understand or do you think it's no, it's more of like, teams for team game. Here's what we all have done. It's more of a recap of us. It's all about me.

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  24:27

I don't know my like things to be wrong about me. But in this case, it's all about me because the team, we have many mechanisms by which the team knows what each other is working on. And there's no way for people to know that things that I'm working on. And they really crave that because it just, you know, having insight into what I'm talking about with our CEO and our CFO, they just don't get that anyplace else. So I don't want this to be a redundant channel where they because they already know we've launched a campaign. They already know the other things that we're canvas and they're working on it, they know but they are not in those meetings with me.

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Ben Kaplan  24:55

I see and what is one thing that you You wish you could do better? What's one thing now, either at Calendly organizationally on the marketing side, or you personally as a CMO, what would you like to improve in the next two or three years?

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  25:11

So I think the year we're all struggling with, obviously is, what are all of these technology changes going to mean to us as marketers? And so particularly with AI, particularly with economic issues? And so I think a lot of what I think about is, how do I balance what we need to do as a company right now? And then how do I also plan for? What does it feel like 100% You know, how to present ability that to see what the future looks like, I just think we're in such a massive, potential evolutionary or revolutionary change, and we don't know what that's going to look like. And so I think the thing that I think a lot about is, you know, how do I be very tactical and very execution oriented and help my teammates members now and help the company now? But then what do I need to do to reorient my team and refocus my team? In a creative, incredibly uncertain future? And it's just it's hard to know, you know, am I gonna get flat footed? Caught flat footed? Because I haven't seen around those corners? What do

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Ben Kaplan  26:10

you what is driving that? Do you mean like generative AI transformative, how we work and then you make a calendaring product that conceivably AI could just like, do that for you? And you wouldn't have to do is that what you mean? Just like unknown around the product in this? Do you mean unknown around how we're going to use these kinds of tools as marketers, and maybe I don't know, the content calendar that we normally spend all this time on to create meaningful content, be thought leaders, is suddenly going to be, you know, done a different way? Or automated? Is that what you mean? Or do you mean something else? What is so uncertain for you that you think it's such an important time?

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  26:43

Both exactly right. You know, so obviously, we're investing a lot in AI from a product perspective, we're also investing a lot in AI for marketing perspective. And so thinking about how do we tell that story in the market? How do we, and Calendly has such an incredibly strong branding? You know, it is it is so synonymous with scheduling, and and how do we, how do we change and transform the way that people think about us as a company, while also staying true to our roots? Those are things that I think every marketer can relate to? And how much do we start to push in this AI space? How much do we talk about the new capabilities and what we're doing? And how do we think about the competition that is everywhere? And I think that that's something that we all think about a lot, which is, you know, who is our real competition? How do we position ourselves against this against the competition? How do we expand and evolve the brand, while staying true to who we are? Who's our real customer base? And so yeah, these are all things that that I think about a lot.

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Ben Kaplan  27:46

In a landscape where change is the only constant agility is our edge. embracing new technologies and trends isn't just about staying relevant. It's about projecting a vision of what could be a CMOS, we're not just adapting, we're setting the pace, using insights from Ai, data analytics and emerging platforms to redefine engagement, and customer experience. It's our role to anticipate the winds of change, and adjust our sales accordingly, leaving our brands to Uncharted, yet promising new waters.

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Ben Kaplan  28:26

Jessica, how do you think about projecting a vision for a company in uncertain times about where we're going, so we can do all this in the marketing department. But also one of the roles of a CMO is you're part of the C suite, which means the different from being, you know, sort of the senior vice president marketing and being CMO is that you're supposed to have input, I think, in the overall direction of the company, even outside of your expertise in marketing and everything else. So how do you think CMOS should one help steer the overall ship and be part of that C suite team? And how do you do that? In uncertain times, as well? Yeah, that

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  29:06

was always a surprising thing to me about being about being CMO is how, what what little percentage of my time I spend on marketing, and how big a percentage of time I spend on the company, and making sure that the company understands what we're doing. And so I spend a huge amount of my time, supporting products, supporting finance, supporting sales, really everyone in the company thinking about what is our narrative? How do we tell that story? How do we get our employees motivated and excited, inspired? And I think the big thing that I think a lot about is, you know, what is it what's a realistic, but inspiring, exciting vision for what we could be. And it's not necessarily what we will be. But I think it's really important for us to have a Northstar about what we could be and how we see ourselves in the market and how and always in the lens of the customer. What customer problem are we solving what customers resonate with what we're doing now and what Big things can we change? And what big things can we do for our customers to make their lives better? So I think if we stick with everything being from the customers lens, then I, it's hard to go wrong with that. I've

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Ben Kaplan  30:11

got to ask you one final thing, which is, I also do a show called CEO, actually podcast as well. We speak to a lot of CEOs and specifically focus on, you know, moments of great change in companies, and how do you cope with it? What in your experience, should CMOS know about CEOs to help them understand them a little bit better? And how you can sort of help and be part of the team? And what is CEOs need to get about CMOS? So they can support CMOS better? If you are the CEO with her helping bridge? My two business shows here, bring them together? Can't we all get along? CEOs and CMOS? What do we need to know? What do we need to know about each

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  30:54

other? I don't know that I'm saying anything that is extraordinarily shocking. But I would say that CMOS, and CEOs tend to not talk the same language. And I think a lot of CEOs come from the product world. And they tend to think that, you know, if you if you need marketing, it's actually a failure of the product. So I think they see marketers and CMOS as a necessary evil. And I think it's you as a CMO, you have to spend a lot of time justifying why you're investing what you're spending money on, and the results of the company. So I'd say the number one thing a CMO can do is to be very data oriented, and have and really set the structure in place so that you can report on every single dollar you spend. And just recognize that you have to spend a lot of time educating your CEO and your CFO about the results. And if you are a CMO that does not like numbers, I think you'll have a hard time, especially in certain industries, like tech.

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Ben Kaplan  31:50

Sure, sure. Well, I think so if you're a CEO, listening, and you want to do a little bit more, what is your advice to CEOs, if you want to say like embrace your marketing team, empower your marketing team? What can you do on the other side, the CMOS, be data driven, justify your existence, show where every dollar goes, CEOs, what can you do, if you're listening this to to help out your CMO a little bit more that

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Jessica Gilmartin - Calendly  32:16

CEOs that I love to work with, have had a healthy skepticism but have asked questions and the spirit of curiosity. And so I love when CEOs care about marketing, they have perspectives, they come from it generally of a place of I want to learn and not I want to attack and I want to reduce. And so you know, as a marketer, I love when a CEO wants to learn more about what we're doing, wants to be engaged, wants to be involved, wants to be part of the storytelling wants to invest in marketing, not only in $1 perspective, but from their time. So you know, in a dream CEO is somebody that is willing to do the press tour is willing to speak at events, is willing to come to the marketing team and talk about the and talk about what we're doing and why we're doing it. And that is really exciting to me and so I don't mind being questions, but I think when you come to it with a with a lens of I'm want to learn more, and I want to support you and I want to invest those to me that productive conversations.

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Ben Kaplan  33:20

According to Jessica Gilmartin. Succeeding in marketing is a lot like succeeding and scheduling. It's all about being strategic and steering clear of random aimless tactics don't have a real purpose. So break down silos and spark a culture of teamwork and high standards. Get everyone on the same page, or at least in the same calendar slot. Embracing adaptability in these fast changing times, particularly with AI and tech, constantly reshaping the landscape isn't just smart. It's essential. Be quick on your feet, ready to pivot, and always keep your head up. Looking ahead. For TOP CMO. I'm Ben Kaplan

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34:06

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