Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  0:18  

Happy Friday. I am Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson, a digital strategist here at BWG Connect. And we are a network and knowledge sharing group. It's what we do, we stay on top of the latest trends, challenges, whatever it is that shaping the digital landscape. We're on track to do at least 500 of these webinars this year, due to the increase in demand to better understand everything digital, and we will be doing at least 100 in person small format dinners. So if you happen to be in a tier one city, definitely shoot us an email, and we'd be happy to send you an invite, the dinners are typically 15 to 20 people having a conversation around a specific digital topic, and it's always a really fun time. Here at BWG Connect, we spend the majority of our time talking to brands understand Top of Mind challenges new trends in the market, we'd love to have a conversation with you. So feel free to email me at Tiffany@BWGconnect.com. And we can get some time on the calendar. It's from these conversations, we generate the topic ideas for future webinar and in person events. And it's also where we gain our resident experts such as Adobe and Pedowitz Group who're here today. So welcome you both. Anybody that we asked to come talk to the collective community has come highly recommended from multiple brands within the network. So if you're ever in need of any digital service providers of any sort, always feel free to reach out to me, we have a shortlist of the best of the best. And I'd be happy to provide that list to you. And we know a lot of people are hiring right now. Hence the topic of conversation for today. So do note that we have a talent agency BWG Talents that I can get you in contact with as well if needed. So a few housekeeping items, we started a few minutes after the hour. So rest assured, we're going to wrap up at least three to four minutes before the end of the hour to give you time to get to your next meeting. And we want this to be educational, fun, conversational. It's a Friday, let's do this. So put in the comments, you have any questions you have in the chat bar. If you feel more comfortable, you can always email me directly at Tiffany@BWGconnect.com. And we will be sure to get to them. So with that let's rock and roll. And we're making the case for growth leveraging the great resets for modernizing marketing that Adobe and Pedowitz team have been great partners, friends of the network. So I'm going to kick it off to you, Majda and Tarah, and if you could introduce yourselves, that'd be great. And then we'll jump into the information.

Majda Anwar  2:46  

All right, hey, y'all, my name is Majda, y'all from Atlanta. I've been with The Pedowitz Group for close to 14 years, and my life is revenue marketing. So modern marketers who are looking to make a revenue impact. That's what I do all day, every day. And big fan of Adobe, we've been working with Adobe since basically our inception as an organization. And really believe that, you know, the Adobe Suite, really, really goes hand in hand with revenue growth, through the best tools that you have out there. So there's my commercial. And hi, everyone.

Tarah Speck  3:24  

Good morning. My name is Tarah Speck. Um, I've been at Adobe for about five years and be five years in July. And I came to Adobe by way of the Marketo acquisition. So in before Marketo, I had worked in martech, for about five years prior to that. So most of my career has been in marketing technology, and being on the marketing team for marketing technology companies. So quite a nice place to have a career. But it's been really fun. And my role now with Adobe and has been for the last three years now is a senior strategic value advisor. And really what that translates into is I get to take all of my marketing experience and martech experience and I get to help our prospects and customers who are maybe new to digital strategy or digital transformation, or early adopters of Adobe products and help them think about their growth strategy. Help them think about what's next. Okay, well, we started here, how do we grow into the next kind of level of complexity in our digital strategy. And so that's, it's basically the best job in the world. And I'm having a lot of fun with that. And I just have about a million pocket stories of customers and things that people have done and creative problem solving they done and the way they've organized their team, so I'm excited to share some of that experience here today with

Majda Anwar  4:55  

you. Totally, I hope we get into what I like to call the digital trenches. As you know of these anecdotes and stories, yeah, because there's there's definitely been a huge change.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  5:05  

Huge. Absolutely. And just a reminder, I did put in if anybody has any questions, comments, definitely put it into the chat, and we will get to them as so there's a lot to unpack here. Let's good topics. Should we start with the great resignation? And what is this? resect? Think we all know, but let's really dig into what it is.

Majda Anwar  5:28  

Yeah. I'll go ahead and start that off. So yeah. So I would be surprised if anyone here has not been impacted by the great resignation. In fact, I believe Tiffany, we've got a poll. Yeah,

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  5:43  

I think it's a Friday fun. Let's do this poll. It's actually two questions here that we're going to do. So one is have you been impacted by the great resignation on a scale of one to five? So by being Yes, absolutely. One being no. And then two, do you feel you have the right people skills or roles needed for marketing to make a revenue difference? And that's from one to three? So I'm going to launch this and we'll give it a few seconds. We'll give it 15 to 20 seconds to be precise.

Majda Anwar  6:23  

Yep. And just to kind of set the expectation here, we this is not a presentation based webinars is definitely a conversation. We we have all been on those webinars where it's been slide after slide after slide. So we're definitely looking forward to an interactive, engaging conversation here. And really appreciate your input so we can continue with that conversation. 100%. Somebody's going to cue the Jeopardy music.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  6:57  

Dee dee doo doo. All right, the last five seconds. That's looking good. All right.

Majda Anwar  7:05  

We're gonna end this share results. Already, let's see. Yeah, no, I can see yes, we've got a little bit of the middle of the road here, some two and some fours around the resignation. Right people like we're kind of in the middle. The I think that's I think that's pretty fair, especially if everyone is already in, in digital marketing roles, you can probably expect some some increase as well from that great resignation. Tara, do you have anything to add to the poll? questions or answers?

Tarah Speck  7:46  

I'm not particularly I just think it's I think it's interesting that 33% I'm assuming the way that this is worded, that 33% of folks believe that they do have the right people, or do they not believe they have the right people? Um, they do. They do believe so. The majority of folks do not believe they have the right people and skills. And I'm curious, you know, if that's related to the great resignation, or if that's something that they were feeling

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  8:16  

before that whole? And that's a great question. If anybody wants to share, you can send this privately to if you feel more comfortable, if you want to put in the chat, you can email me again, Tiffany@BWGconnect, if you want to share your experience, that would be wonderful. And again, we won't be using names and talking about it, but definitely curious.

Majda Anwar  8:40  

Absolutely. So no, in the title, it talked about the great reset, right, we're, we're all you know, all in alignment, we've seen, we've experienced a great resignation. And I think the great reset is really much a byproduct of the great resignation. And that, you know, we are seeing this attrition, we are seeing people are really making moves in their career. I think a lot of that just stems from the way we work, the way we engage our employees has fundamentally changed. And I really think, I really think especially in the you know, in the demand generation world, that that couldn't be more true. Right. So, you know, we've, in the last two years, we've seen this huge shift to digital, I don't know, a single marketer who has not been impacted by that. And, you know, with that has, you know, I think people are starting to really evaluate, you know, can I keep up with that, you know, can we do this? You know, what, what does this look like and some people are like, no, no, I can't I want to go do something else. Or it's just happening so fast, you know, that we aren't able to keep up with it. So Tarah to know if you had any anything to add there.

Tarah Speck  9:55  

Yeah, I mean, I know at Adobe, we felt the squeeze even of the Great resignation ourselves. And I think it's been interesting to see, you know, the teams that are hemorrhaging folks. And then the teams that are gaining a lot of new folks and kind of the trend. And at least I've been trying to pay attention to the trends of the the types of teams that are losing folks and types of teams that are gaining folks. Because within Adobe, we love we love to, we try and keep our people. And so since it's so big, you could move to a different part of the organization and feel like you're at a different company. And so there's been a lot of that, and and so at least in my experience, it's been more, at least for our team, we've been hiring a tonne of new folks from other parts of the business to our team and kind of hearing the reasons why they were leaving have been really, really fascinating.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  10:45  

And that ties in with this comment, thank you for sharing the shift to digital and event experiences are the main reasons we can't hire and train our employees fast enough to have the skill

Majda Anwar  10:58  

sets. Yeah, and I'd love to comment on that, you know, while attrition has been an issue, there has been this fundamental change, right, in how we go to market and what our customers are expecting, right? And a lot of times, you know, when I think about like the great reset, and you know, what we can do, I think we need to fundamentally change, you know, how we are approaching gaining those skills, right? So for example, you know, a lot of times, I just lost my digital marketer, I just lost my Marketo person, I just lost whoever. And instead of going for a backfill, I think we have to kind of think about what are our options, right? There is training out there, there is hiring practices that could be enhanced. There are also these concepts like, you know, the fractional CMO or the fractional, you know, insert marketing unicorn here, that really kind of helps people keep momentum, while also being able to meet the dynamic changes of the environment, and, you know, take the time to make a better hiring practice in the interim. So I think it really is, I think it really is interesting, an interesting opportunity for marketers, especially.

Tarah Speck  12:16  

I think one of the one of the themes that I've been hearing of why people are leaving is, it's a lot and I think this has to do with the great reset to is just that same old, same old people are getting really burned out or doing this the same things over and over again, maybe they're working, maybe they weren't. And I think it's saying burnout here. I totally agree. I think people are getting burnt out. They're spinning their wheels they're doing they're feeling like cogs in a wheel doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same results. And I think there is great appetite for trying something new. And oftentimes that means going to a different company to try it. And so I think there's something to learn here for all of us, who might be people managers or leaders within our teams, of kind of rethinking how teams operate, and giving more folks opportunity to innovate, and think out of the box and try new things. Because I do I think I think folks are really burnt out or doing the same old thing. That curious what you would you would say about that Majda?

Majda Anwar  13:25  

Yeah, I couldn't agree more, I think, you know, and I think that, that burnout, it's a time for marketing leaders to look at this and go, Wait a minute, you know, what sort of environment Am I creating for my team to be successful. And I think the more successful organizations are really trying to create, you know, an innovative, inspired, even experimental sort of environment to where you can fail fast, and you can fall fall forward. And you have the ability to try things and try to be, you know, that marketer who does connect with the customer more often than not, if you're doing the same ol, same ol if you're doing things that are stale, if you feel yourself being beholden to, you know, what I would consider more traditional roles of marketing, then yeah, I think you're gonna see a lot of people leave. And I think you're going to see, it's going to be really hard to attract the right talent that you need. So there has to be this fundamental shift in, you know, the culture of your team. And I do think those successful teams have that innovation, inspiration and experimentation.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  14:32  

Yeah, it's such an interesting point in 2020, when I was director of eCommerce for a home furnishing company, overnight, the company decided we're going online, like we're, we're already online, but it was still like a part of the business. It didn't become 100% of the business. And as a director overnight, it was like now you've inherited this staff that needs to learn digital and eCommerce. And what I realized very quickly was the past culture of 20 plus years was is failing was scary failing you didn't want to talk about because you were in that status, like update Monday morning meeting, something didn't work. And everybody just kind of shuttered and was, frankly, scared to talk about it, right? Because it was like you're putting under a microscope. And in digital and eCommerce, it's the complete opposite, you fail, you fail fast, you learn from it, you move on, it actually is celebrated. And so realize that that was a cultural shift, that you had to really work with the staff to be like, it's okay to fail. No one's going to reprimand you, embarrass you or whatever, let's talk about it, celebrate it, laugh about it, and then move on. And, you know, that didn't happen overnight. So I'm just curious if you've seen that

Majda Anwar  15:43  

as well. I've definitely seen that. I think that, that, that. And I think that really also kind of comes into, you know, when you think about what is the perception of marketing? What is the perception of marketing from a digital lens? And, you know, if you have that traditional mindset of, I'll call this being the pens and mugs department, shall we say? Versus like, you know, a data driven business units? That's a huge change. Right? And there are some people who are super onboard with that. And there are some people who are like, No, thank you, I want to I want to do this. You know, so I think that, I think it's very accurate. And to bring it back to, you know, thinking about the marketing unit of, you know, it's a fundamental shift, culturally, but also that shift is, is rooted in, I think, a couple of basic needs. One, marketing is now being expected. And we are being expected to provide more growth, more revenue opportunities for organization, versus that traditional brands comms PR sort of role. And with that expectation, we also know the expectations of our customers are becoming extremely, you know, like a b2b, b2c sort of, you know, sort of feel. So between those two, yeah, it's a it's a culture change. But it's also, you know, it's a you got to get on the boat change, or, you know, you're not going to be able to grow sort of thing.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  17:16  

Definitely. So Nikki has a question here. How do you do that create an environment of failing fast failing forward, when we are all still on Zoom? And it's very transactional? Vicki? So Right.

Tarah Speck  17:32  

Yeah, I would love to question that one. It's a great question. And it's something that my own team is trying to solve. So we are a team of 10, that maybe 12 now, and we're scattered all over the country. So we're all remote. There are some of us in Denver. So sometimes, the smaller group of us will get together and brainstorm. But we've really had to come up with creative ways to creatively problem solve, because it's true. We also were noticing that, you know, when everyone is online and having to have meetings through this kind of channel, it's hard to be creative. It's hard to brainstorm. So we started using a tool called Miro, it's a digital whiteboarding tool. And it has really transformed our team in the way that we work together, we have come up with really enormous pieces of thought leadership. So like, original workshops that we've developed, that we've put in market all digitally, because we have something like Miro, and I think to another thing, so so the right tools helps, like it's just impossible to get on a whiteboard anymore, like a real whiteboard. And so something like Miro, it's not as good as a whiteboard with humans in a room. But it's to me, it's the next best thing. So it's Miro, and the other piece is slowing down. And I know how hard that is in digital marketing, because your Go Go going. You've got, you know, 30 email campaigns to put out in a month. And your team is just churning and burning, taking orders and cranking it out and grinding. But if we don't, as leaders, take the time to slow our teams down. And do you know a proper retro, or even just a planning session, then you're just going to continue to grind and your team starts to burn out because the does start to feel like I'm just a crank Turner here. And Bing it when you slow down that's when the real beautiful stuff happens. Like the juicy creative ideas that you didn't even know were in your team start to come out. But you cannot get there. In a grinding environment. It's just not possible like the brain. The brain can't be creative when it's grinding nine hours a day, it just can't. And so that's something that our team has been trying to really kind of focus on and hold each other accountable to is no we're actually going to block out two hours to just brainstorm and come up with an idea. Or, you know, we're doing these things called work that we call workshops. And we're noticing some things like aren't going well for us. And instead of just continuing to grind and hope it gets better, we're pausing and we're doing actual retros about it, and then actually making changes. But yeah, that thing time is, I think, critical in why a lot of people burn out, because they're not having that space to just be creative. And think in that brain needs that downtime. Anyway.

Majda Anwar  20:31  

Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that with that statement, Tarah. So we also use Miro internally, we've and just to kind of give you guys a little bit of background about The Pedowitz Group, we have always been a virtual organization since 2007. So all of our innovation, all of our work has been in a digital environment. And, you know, the thing that really kind of threw us for the loop was, you know, we couldn't have in person workshops with our clients. But things like Miro do help. And I do want to touch on something else that, Tarah that you said, as well around the brainstorming and think time. For my team, I'm a big believer in what's called maker time versus admin time. So make your time is going to be at those peak times of the day, for you or that individual contributor, I asked my team to block off, you know, some time we've talked about this, you know, to block off that time to give yourself that think time, just as if it wasn't meeting, right. And there's admin time, the things we got to do, you know, the things that you know, are kind of nose to the grind. But if you optimize your day, that's, that's, you know, a part of it. Another thing that we have found is the, the expectation of asynchronous communication. So let me kind of say what I mean by that, you know, you're in teams, you're in Slack, and you have questions coming to you all the time, setting an expectation that you have to stop what you're doing and respond to that right away, is also a huge disrupter in the digital environment, you know, setting aside time to be like, Yeah, I'll check my email twice a day, maybe versus like, every 15 minutes or five minutes, is another way to make sure you don't break that time. Because that productivity can absolutely be impacted by the need to respond to, you know, whatever, asynchronous chat or email or something, you know, we have to respond to it. No, you don't you can you can, you can take a minute or two, you know, no one, no one died from digital marketing. We're not in a dire industry here. And so I think, I think that's, you know, one one way to do that. So I lean to your question, how can you change the culture and mentality to embrace the slowdown, I do think, you know, empowering your people to have maker time is one of those things. I think another thing to do, especially if you're meeting heavy organization, implementing a 55, 45 minute, you know, or, or 20 minute meeting times. So that way, there's actually space between meetings, that gives your people time to absorb what they just did, and then transfer to the next thing if they need to, it kind of gives you that that break time in between. But yeah, we have. We have people all over the all over the country. And you know, making sure that we have an environment where people can engage digitally has definitely been something that we've been doing for a while.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  23:40  

That's a really great way it's like setting expectations and knowing like, Yeah, you don't have to respond immediately. Even though it's become human nature. We're here paying, oh my gosh, like, we have to go, you know, tackle that whatever it is. And also just thinking back of the going 150 miles down the freeway, you needed an oil change, but you don't have time for the oil change and be like we have to stop and we have to reset and take time to really be creative brainstorm and put the other things aside is so very important.

Tarah Speck  24:11  

Yeah, and I'll even give it a real life example of that, that very thing that happened just three weeks ago for our team. So I think I mentioned that our team is doing these workshops, and the workshops the content is fantastic. When people show up they love it because it really is like it's it's a hands on, you know, roll up your sleeves workshop about a specific marketing challenge. But we were having challenges with registration. And so we three of us were team of 12 There's three of us that live in Denver. We were like you know what, like, this is frustrating. We don't want to do one of these born another one of these workshops. We're getting low reg. Let's just go to let's go to breakfast and just get out of our heads a little bit. So we went and went to this cute little breakfast place and had breakfast had a nice time and it was towards like the latter half of breakfast that the topic of the reg came up again. And just being just over breakfast, eating, not being on a zoom call, and just having a chat, we were able to problem solve. What honestly, wasn't rocket science who came up with this idea of and I won't get into what the idea was because that doesn't matter. But we came up with an idea that is going to solve for that reg problem, because we were able to take a step back and just think, like, why aren't people registering for this, this is like, really valuable stuff. And it's free, like, this doesn't make sense. And once we sort of, like, deconstructed it, and really thought about it from, you know, the eyes of the person registering, we're like, oh, well, we'll just do it this way, this makes sense. And we're already getting a lot more interest. So it's just an, that's a slow down mentality, like, it's okay for us to stop what we're doing and go have breakfast for an hour and a half, we're gonna go do that. And thankfully, we've got a wonderful director that, you know, is supportive of things like that. Because when we do things like that, we are able to solve problems, because our brain gets a chance to slow down, and not just, you know, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind all the time. So it's like giving ourselves pockets of opportunity to connect with each other and even disconnect, even, it's so important, because then that's where the creative, juicy stuff comes out.

Majda Anwar  26:23  

Yep, absolutely. And if you're just like a marketer going, I don't have time to, you know, to do this, or, you know, we're

Tarah Speck  26:30  

gonna go to breakfast I can do for a while, right,

Majda Anwar  26:33  

I can't do these things. I think, you know, that does talk to the culture of the organization. And it's time to question that there is a very real economic impact of, you know, employers who are not looking for that well being unbalanced for their employees. And, you know, yes, as marketers, we do things fast, we do things, you know, I need it yesterday, sort of thing. But if your environment, if your work environment does not account for this burnout, this, you know, this this culture change, you will lose the talent that you need to to grow, you will lose that and you'll spend more time on hiring than you will actually trying to get to your revenue goals. Definitely, we see it all the time, we get, we get calls, I can't tell you how many, you know, CMOs, give us a call and say, Hey, I just lost my x person. And we start to dig in. And we're like, Alright, there's some, you know, systemic things here that that need to be addressed. We're happy to come in and do that backfill for you at this time. But we got to talk about these other things, or else, you're never going to meet your goals.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  27:42  

Definitely, and it looks like from the data that I've pulled of like, the Gen Z is really pushing this change, they're not the norm of how we've done business for the last 30 years is not going to work for this generation, and even the millennials, to a point that they are looking for change, they want to change. And that is a reality, because by 2025, there will be 27% of the workforce worldwide. So that's something to keep in mind that there is a generational shift happening as well on top of everything else that's happening in the world.

Majda Anwar  28:18  

So we've we've just kind of talked about, you know that the great resignation, all these things time management, cultural change, I think it'd be a good time to maybe start talking about you know, that that strategic impact, right, so you got to change your team to do this, you have to change team to do that. But at the at the core of it, marketing is already changing, right? Marketing is absolutely already changing. I've got some I've got some statistics here on my piece of paper, the guys can't.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  28:46  

So this would be considered the modern marketing, the modern, more modern market. Yeah,

Majda Anwar  28:50  

yeah. So I don't know if you guys are familiar with a CMO Council, or survey or survey, cmo survey.org. They've got some great stats that they talk to this. So for example, 71% of CMOS now have a quota and are assigned some sort of revenue accountability to their teams. That's a lot. 63% of marketers say they're under very high pressure to deliver high growth, and 53% are only moderately confident or worse that they'll meet those revenue targets. And then 57% think their CEO is only moderately satisfied or worse with marketing's performance. So just just a quick if you want to chat in the in the window, did any of those statistics kind of resonate with you as to where you are today right now within your organization or where your organization is? Don't everyone type at once?

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  29:47  

Come on, y'all. It is a Friday. Let's talk about the modern talk here. But I think like, as you know, people think about some ideas here is, as a modern marketer, Holy cats, you have technology changes, you have the pandemic, you have new generations coming into the workforce. There is now you have new expectations, new KPIs, now you're under the microscope more than you've ever been before. That is a lot to unpack for somebody. And like how to dissect it. And not resignated go hide in a hole? I

Majda Anwar  30:33  

don't know. That's yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's a new light. I love that it absolutely is a new light and shine on these teams to deliver revenue. And it's like, how do we do that? We're drowning in I don't know what not what number we're, I think, I think Scott Brinker stopped doing his, you know, martech super graphic because we are drowning in technology. But it every single piece that's been, you know, you know, given to us, it's all about this idea that marketing needs to deliver revenue marketing needs to show the impact on the business. And it's, it's, you know, making us kind of reevaluate our digital non digital channels. You know, what's, what's the best ROI. And on top of that, this hybrid work environment, this new way to work, there's a lot going on, y'all. There's a lot going on right now.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  31:31  

And I guess, so smart to, you know, and great to remind people of that, like that, just always remind yourself of that, that there is a lot going on, and to take that step back. And do that reset is so very important. Yep.

Majda Anwar  31:47  

So I did want to kind of add, you know, add just some dimension to that, too, as we're under all of these pressures. And we've talked a lot about culture, what I think is so, so important, you know, having, I think everyone knows the culture eats strategy for breakfast. True. You know, so I think there's, I think there needs to be, you know, a very strategic initiative, as leaders has to come from top down, you know, when you're doing this, are you feeling that pressure? Part of that is just, you know, being able to manage chains. And I just want to take a look, we've got some really cool comments in the chat here. Let's, let's take a look at those. Great.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  32:33  

So added burden to our team, ooh, this, I feel the pain here, the understanding from an executive level, that extra work needs more bodies, and better compensation for taking this on in my previous role. I experienced this firsthand. So yes, let's definitely chat about this. Because this has to be a common challenge. Yeah, my

Tarah Speck  32:54  

my team is going through this challenge at present, I mean, we our team has grown, like triple in size in the last year. So we've got the burden of training and onboarding, you know, these nine new people to the team eight, something like that to the team and just a year, but also being told that we have to perform, you know, three x within that year as well. And so something our team is learning to do, is being a lot more diligent about understanding what it is we can deliver and what it is that we cannot deliver. And then giving our executives options, and saying, This is what we can, this is what we can deliver with you with the research resources we have today. This is what we could deliver with you, to you if we had x more resources is is Option A with the resources we have okay with you, because this is what we can this is what we can promise or guarantee. And that's been a nice. Well, it's been a really tough challenge to do that, because we've had to sort of like reshift ourselves, and the way we think, but it's also been well received by executives. And a lot of times they'll say, oh, yeah, that looks good. Like Plan A, what? This is what we can give you with the resources we have, most of the time, they're thinking, Well, I don't want to give you more money for more headcount. So this looks good to me. And so but then then an expectation has been laid. And then there's not these wild expectations of what we're going to hit. But because we tell them early, like, we're not going to hit that that's not going to be possible unless we have these, but this is what we can do. And this is what you can expect from us and that has been that has been more successful for us.

Majda Anwar  34:48  

That's brilliant. Yeah, I would I would absolutely agree with that. So a lot of a lot of times we tell our clients, run marketing like a business and what I mean by that is a Um, you know, it's say that expectations, it's coming to the table with some data driven business case to, to explain, you know why this is happening versus that is happening. And I think it's also taking a critical eye at what your team is being asked to do. So I'll give you guys some real examples. So, you know, I had a client, who was just inundated with campaign requests from all over the business marketing, really, you know, what's the central, sort of like internal services sort of function? And it just got to the point where this was not scalable at all. So taking a step back from that, and saying, Okay, how can we create scalable campaigns? How can we be proactive about providing those templates to, you know, our customers, who are all these different functions around the business makes a huge difference. And they were able to explain that and say, Hey, right, now we're running at, you know, 50 miles an hour with no gas. But if we took a little bit of time to do this, we can do more, that's one dimension. second dimension is you don't have to do every single campaign that you're asked to. And I'll sing this from the rooftop all day, every day, which is, you know, you need to you need to have a way to evaluate a trend marketing, like a business, evaluate that campaign request, what is the expected return? But what is the expected, you know, what are you customer coming to me as a marketer? You know, what are you trying to, to to accomplish? And if we say up, you know, what, that doesn't fit into this quarter, you know, we're gonna have to put this on the back burner, or to Tara's point, we're gonna have something has to come off off the off the table, because I guarantee you a lot of these, everyone thinks there's a marketer, everyone thinks they are a marketer, and everyone, oh, let's do this thing. Let's do that. Right, there's a spark, there's an idea. And it comes down from the mountain top, take a pause, use data that you have at your fingertips, and, you know, present the case to say, is this a revenue producing endeavor? If not, it's going to take second year? And here's why. And then I think, yeah,

Tarah Speck  37:19  

I think like, not all campaigns are, are the words I'm looking for? Well, first of all, of all, not every camping request is the same. I mean, obviously, like they was some are take way more of a lift than others. Some are really reactive. You know, you're sure some of you in this room have had a C CEO say, Well, I want to put out a press release about x and use a digital marketer like, okay, oh, calm down. First of all, no one's gonna read your press release. And second of all, that's a huge waste of my time. Like, if I had to pay $1, for every time, I had to have that conversation with the CEO, or like a CFO, or whomever? Oh, oh, I'd be very rich lady. But I think to that end about hashtag true, I think you've all experienced that where you want to like, because you're like, This is not 2001, like you're a little press release isn't going to do anything. I think this comes back to that revenue conversation. And we have to learn as marketers how to speak to our executives and language that they can understand, we have a whole training on this, because this is a huge ubiquitous problem across the marketing industry, is we don't know how to talk about our successes to executives, because it is really difficult to tie one to one to revenue. Now there's some technology that exists now that can do that a lot easier. But not everyone has access to that that kind of budget. And so I think it's all a matter of having a conversation with your executive and building expectations on what you will be reporting, what you can report and when it does mean to the business. And at the end of the day, if if your marketing activities are not tying back to executive level priorities, they're not going to get it and they're not going to support you. And so it is imperative that you understand what your business priorities are first, at the very, very tippy top. And usually it has to do with either, it always has to do with money. It's either getting new, more revenue or being more cost efficient. So it's either cutting costs to save money, or making more money, and sometimes a combo of the two. And so everything about your marketing, you have to be able to make the case for any piece of technology that you want to buy. It's got to tie up to that. For any sort of campaign you want to run. You've got to be able to tie it back. I mean, marketer marketing leaders have to be good salespeople

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  39:53  

as it is they always just gonna say that you are a salesperson, every salesperson

Tarah Speck  39:56  

every single day and like as a leader, it is your job. She

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  40:02  

might not want to admit it, but you guys are.

Tarah Speck  40:07  

Yes, it is your job to advocate.

Majda Anwar  40:09  

Yes, you have, you have to be an advocate for your team, but you also have to almost embody the role of a consultant. Right, let's go back to Tara's example of this, this executive right wants to sit and let's not have a press release, you know, first evaluate, is this something worth, you know, taking to the market? And if so, what are the channels that are more accessible, right, we can wrap that into our organic social media plan, and they can be, you know, that thing can be highlighted 123, you know, over the next two weeks, which will very much you know, get your, you know, your target audience versus, you know, going onto Sisson and, you know, putting out a press release, right? So being able to, yes, sell but also push back and remind your leaders, hey, we're trying to make a revenue impact. And this is how we can do it over and over and over. And this is how we are doing it. You know, it's, I think about all the advisory that we do for our clients. That's probably the number one thing that and ended up being therapists for them. But I think everyone's got a second job.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  41:28  

Like this session is a little bit of a therapy here. Little Bear. Yeah, healthy.

Tarah Speck  41:35  

Oh, I just want to say one more thing to that. Yeah. And that, if you're in a company, I'm sure there's some people on this webinar that are feeling this, if you're in a company that, okay, if we're having real talk, it's a Friday, if you're in a company filled with dinosaurs, who don't believe in digital marketing, in revenue marketing, and what can they can do for their business. This is where they're great resignation, it has its strengths is like, there is demand for you and your skills elsewhere at other companies. And I experienced this before the great resignation. We got a new CEO, they came in, they saw what my team was doing with digital marketing, I was leading the team, he was he asked me to just scrap all that work. And just do just get him in the news, get him in the press. This is a tiny little startup company, no one knew us. And I did push back. And I said, and I did tell him like, you know I can I can have my team pivot and try and get you in the press. But the likelihood of turning into revenue is very small, whereas this work that we are doing is already resulting in revenue. And he couldn't hear it wouldn't hear it, I got laid off. And the team dissolved. And I could have just said, you know, yes, sir. Sir, Yes, sir. I'm going to do this thing. But ultimately, you know, my team wasn't, we weren't a PR team. And so it wasn't the right fit for us. But that leader, and so we did all move on. And we all moved on to great roles at companies that didn't understand what it was we were trying to do. And with a great resignation, there's huge demand for people who think like you do. For people who are revenue focused, who are trying to do new innovative things, there is a demand for your skills. And so if you're feeling stuck, I just want to encourage you that you're not actually stuck. There are other options, because I know it's easy to feel like well, I just live here now. But you don't. You don't and there's other places for your that your skills would be appreciated.

Majda Anwar  43:38  

Whether your skills are at your current organization, or you're looking for those skills, I think it'd be kind of nice if we maybe, you know, went to in our third topic around people. Right, I think we're looking kind of dancing around that, you know, that that comment for for a bit. I think Tarah brought up a really good point around, you know, making the case for revenue. Right. So, going back, great, reset resignation, do I backfill? What am I looking for? How do I change my team? I think there are a couple of skills that the modern marketing organization needs to have on hand, these skills go across multiple roles. And there are things that you should be looking at when you're evaluating resumes, or when you're evaluating your team or helping your team acquire these skills that I think are important, and I'm gonna list a few and I'll put them in the chat just so that you know, we're all on the same page. But, you know, I think there's a couple there's so much more here, but I'm just going to list them out. customer centric data decision making, right? Is this in the best interest of the customer? The ability to analyze data cannot tell you, you can buy the most expensive, beautiful analytics platform in the world. But if you don't know how to interpret that data after you've cleaned up the data And then you are not, it's not going to do any good, right? So having analytics driven type mindset is going to really be there. They need to be agile. So especially in today's work environment, a lot of organizations pivot to more of an agile work environment versus a traditional waterfall, you know, project planning methodology, because things are so fast. And is technique is technology savvy. So, you know, I even do this, like when I'm interviewing I interview on Ms teams, Ms team is not an easy platform to get on. And that's kind of part of the point is I want to see how someone can, you know, acquire the skills on the fly to be able to tackle that particular user interface. You know, so are they technically savvy enough to be able to leverage all the tools that you have, you know, at your fingertips. And this is true from your campaign level of General Manager, strategist, all the way down to you know, your system admins and your your technology, people who are in the tools all day every day. And I think that, you know, obviously, is revenue driven. We've talked about that, I think, you know, all the way but understanding how marketing can influence that revenue is part of that. And then this is, this is probably an obvious one to obsesses over online behavior over digital behaviour, right. So whether you're a product marketer, whether you are even if you're like a brand, you know, if you're a brand if you're in digital, looking at that online data, because marketing is sitting on a mile high pile of data, right, and being able to understand how that all works together, is I think these are just really key things for every marketer on your team to have. I'll take a second to type that in chat. Let Tarah talk so that way we can, you know, get get through all

Tarah Speck  46:57  

of our topics. Great points. Yeah, I think all of those are really great. And like, the big theme there that I'm hearing is analytical, really, someone who's very analytical and data driven, which is fantastic and so true. I think to supplement that I do sometimes see. Some teams be almost too heavy on that, because they're true. Yeah, I think I have seen many people come to Adobe, who only have the analytical people. And when you only have analytical and only analytical people on your team, what you can lose is those people skills. And I think the marketing teams that are the most successful are the ones who are also able to build really powerful cross functional partnerships. So to be a successful marketing team, you have to have beautiful relationships with your sellers, and your sales leadership. If you're b2b, you have to have beautiful relationship with your SOPs team. So your sales operations team, because if you are running any sort of marketing automation, you want that CRM integration to be tight. And so that partnership is is really clutch. Likewise, your any of your post sales team, so your customer success, depending on what your organization's goals are, is also really important. So having those like humans skills is also something that we don't want to forget. And it's really important. And also, so much of being a successful marketing Martin marketing team is being able to sell what you do internally. So you're not going to build those cross functional partnerships, or even like your upstream partnerships with your executives and your C suite, if you don't have these people skills, so you need folks on the team, who can put a really compelling PowerPoint together to go and sell this to the head of sales or go and sell this campaign to your CEO. And I think too, like we shouldn't forget, like the lost art of creativity as well. There's a lot of marketing content, there's a lot of content out there. I mean, it's overwhelming. It it takes a lot for me to decide that I want to get on a webinar and listen to something because there's just so I get invitations to webinars like 20 times 20 webinars a day, I'm invited to and that's maybe dramatic, but like it takes a lot for me to say yes to get on a webinar, because it's just so much content. And so it takes, you know, extremely creative folks to figure out a way to get through that noise. And so, while I completely agree analytical is probably the number one, I don't want us to also forget. You want your creatives and your Brainstormers and your big picture thinkers and your people people to to round out your team.

Majda Anwar  49:44  

Yeah, I think the old adage was, you know, left brain, right brain, you need both. There's no like, like one or the other completely agreed. Yeah.

Tarah Speck  49:56  

And a good leader knows how to how to pull the strings out of those

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  50:00  

sides of that team up anymore. So then to sum it up, we have let's touch on technology and process.

Majda Anwar  50:12  

The Beat. Yeah. So So Tarah had mentioned, you know, around these, like, you know, more more soft skills are being able to create cross functional relationships that cannot be expressed even more when it comes to technology operations, right? It's great, like, oh, yeah, sales and marketing, we're good. You're good is one thing, working together as a team and is another and you have to have that key technology that allows you to do so sales team, having your CRM marketing, having that marketing automation platform and website, like the holy trinity of technology and demand generation, you know, those three, those three elements. And I think that, you know, sales and marketing alignment, especially, is probably the most fundamental and foundational alignment that you can have to be a successful revenue marketer. So, what is your lead management looks like look like? Do you have a is both sales and marketing agreed on what a qualified lead is for sales, is marketing, looking at the right targets for sales is sales providing the right data, so that marketing understands what they're looking for, you know, all there's, there's an opportunity to, you know, to make a connection and make that connection, real through technology that you use every step of the way. And if one is missing, it's it's going to show it's going to show

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  51:42  

I think it does tie in with the great resignation, too. I've read a lot that people are frustrated without having the proper technology and tools to get rid of the mundane work, that that's another reason why they're leaving their current employer. Yeah, because they're just not efficient. 

Majda Anwar  51:54  

You find that champion in sales, and you really, really showcase what a true sales and marketing alignment can do, and have the data to back it up. It's incredible. It's absolutely incredible what that looks like, find your sales champion, you know, work with that person who knows, you know, how to sell you know, somewhat all salespeople are going to know everything about marketing technology, we understand that. But give them the data and really work closely with your sales team find that champion. And, you know, it's it's going to be I think, very powerful.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  52:29  

Absolutely. Awesome. are in the final minutes. Any final thoughts? Takeaways. Sum it up? I mean, we covered a lot of ground here. Great information,. Oh, this is a book is a whole new mind why right brain brainers will rule the future? That looks like

Tarah Speck  52:54  

a good read. That does. I'm sorry. Yes. Very cool.

Majda Anwar  52:58  

I am actually Tiffany, I'd love to at The Pedowitz Group, we've got a couple of books, that I'd love to be able to send this group like they're full, like available on Amazon right now. One of them is the Rise of the Revenue Marketer. I'd love to be able to give folks a link to this. So maybe afterwards, just so that you guys have it. And you don't have to buy it on Amazon. I'd be more than happy to send that over. I really appreciate your time.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson  53:25  

Yeah, no, that's great. And we will be doing connections we definitely encourage follow up conversation with Adobe and The Pedowitz Group. So we will put that link in with the follow up correspondence we will do on the post event. Ladies, thank you so much. This was such an awesome topic. I think this was a great way to end the week. Fun Friday conversation. So for everyone that attended. Thank you so much for attending. We hope to see you on the next event. Take care, stay safe and have a great weekend. All right, thanks.