CMO Huddles

Huddlers in the News

A panel of Huddlers discuss the hottest B2B marketing topics, live!

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Tune in every Tuesday for bite-sized CMO wisdom from CMO Huddlers.

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The top podcast for B2B CMOs & other marketing-obsessed individuals.

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Read Q&As with the top B2B marketers today in Drew's Ad Age column. 

Ad Age

  • CMO Huddler Michael Welts on Renegade Thinkers Unite

    April 24, 2020 10:39 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 185: What a CEO Wants in Their CMO

    We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: no CMO can succeed without the backing of their CEO. Countless CMO guests on the show have talked about how crucial it is to have that top-down support, and on this special episode, we’re joined not only by the CMO of Wasabi, Michael Welts, but also by his CEO, David Friend. With a strong working relationship that most would envy, they talk about how they’ve built their brand and grown their customer base from 1200 to 15,000 in just two years.

    The key thing David was looking for was a “simplifier” CMO, and with Michael, he found just that. Through bold marketing, Michael and his team developed a strong value proposition, “1/5 the price of Amazon and 6x faster” and based their sales strategy around the three Wasabi “peas:” price, performance, and protection. Tune in to this week’s episode to hear how to build a B2B demand gen machine, measure metrics outside of revenue, and have the CEO-CMO relationship that dreams are made of.

    For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/

  • CMO Huddler Mika Yamamoto on Renegade Thinkers Unite

    April 17, 2020 1:16 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 184: Why CMOs Should Be CXOs Too

    Now more than ever, people want simplicity. They’re looking for simple solutions to complex problems, simple language to describe complex ideas, and simple experiences in an increasingly complex world. That’s why this week’s episode, recorded pre-COVID, is so poignant. Mika Yamamoto, the CMO and CXO of F5 Networks, joins us to share the ways she has transformed how they do business by asking one simple question: “Does this remove friction or add delight?”

    Mika discusses the advantages of combining the CMO and CXO roles, they’ve given her a unique end-to-end perspective that has ultimately led to innovative, measurable changes for F5’s employees, customers, and prospects. With the battle cry “code connects us all,” tune in to hear all about how to best measure customer satisfaction (spoiler, it’s not NPS) and how to align your employee’s day-to-day interactions with the larger goals of the organization.

    For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/

  • CMO Huddler Kathie Johnson on Renegade Thinkers Unite

    April 03, 2020 10:48 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 182: How Talkdesk Led the "Business Continuity" Curve

    It’s impossible to have business continuity during a crisis if your contact center software is only designed to run on-premises (on-prem for short) and your employees can’t come into the office. This has become a serious issue for many companies in the recent weeks, because if your customers can’t reach your service team, it stops business in its tracks and, ultimately, adversely affects your brand.

    That’s why Talkdesk, a cloud-based contact center solution, made it their mission to bring on-prem operations home quickly so that businesses could continue thriving while protecting their employees. Their first of many crisis-centered products launched one week before “business continuity” started trending, and Talkdesk CMO Kathie Johnson joins us this week to talk about how her team’s agility, commitment to goodwill, and holistic view of business put Talkdesk front and center in the conversation.

    Pulling together a new, recession-conscious product development team is just one way to retool your growth engine during a downturn. For more examples and tips, check out our recent guide to B2B demand generation.

    For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/

  • Huddler Kathie Johnson on Ad Age

    April 01, 2020 11:35 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Kathie Johnson was only a few months into her role as Talkdesk’s CMO when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Before the crisis, Talkdesk was enjoying growth in a traditional industry, providing cloud-based software for contact centers—rooms filled with customer service representatives answering questions over the phone and via chat. Before the pandemic, more than 3 million people in the U.S. worked on location providing customer service. Now they had to do it from home.

    There was no playbook for something of this magnitude, which Johnson knew was a challenge for Talkdesk, whose cloud-based solution could help. Convening a SWAT team from product development, operations and marketing, it took the company just days to develop a product that would help customers and other contact centers to continue operating.

    CMO Kathie Johnson discusses how Talkdesk enabled clients and other companies to stay connected to customers on Ad Age. 

    Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: Cloud-Based Software Helped Call Centers Remain Open—from Home

    Listen to the Episode: How Talkdesk Led the “Business Continuity” Curve

  • CMO Huddler Khalid El Khatib on Renegade Thinkers Unite

    March 27, 2020 1:12 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 181: Collaboration in a #WFH World

    Stack Overflow, an online Q&A community for developers, has a clear #WFH advantage—they’ve operated with a largely remote workforce for over a decade, and they’ve done it well, simultaneously growing their business and earning a spot on numerous Best Developer Website lists. That’s why, in response to COVID-19, they’ve made it their top priority to share their #WFH best practices and anticipate the challenges that more traditionally in-office businesses may be facing.

    On this week’s episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, we’re joined by Khalid El Khatib, Stack Overflow’s VP of Marketing, to discuss the things companies can do to not just keep their teams connected, but to continue collaborating and innovating as they work from their new home. Tune in to hear his well-informed take on virtual socializing, the future of events, and the wealth of resources and tools available as we navigate a virtual world.

    For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/

  • Huddler Khalid El Khatib on Ad Age

    March 25, 2020 11:41 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    As offices around the world go remote, employees are familiarizing themselves with the basics, including setting up a home office and maintaining a routine. Organizations with little experience working remotely face a steep learning curve to continue business as usual.

    At Stack Overflow—a question-and-answer site for programmers—40 percent of the work was already conducted remotely before the company went fully remote on March 9. Khalid El Khatib, VP of Marketing, discusses how he and his team are leveraging their knowledge and extending their Q&A-style tools to create a database with best practices about working remotely.

    Question-and-answer site for programmers shares best practices on working from home, including tools to stay connected on Ad Age. 

    Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: Stack Overflow Lends Its Expertise to the #Wfh Movement

    Listen to the Episode: Collaboration in a #WFH World

  • CMO Huddler Joshua Leatherman on Renegade Thinkers Unite

    March 13, 2020 11:10 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 179: CMO Mathematics with Service Express

    Joshua Leatherman has been CMO at Service Express for 9 years now—during that tenure, revenue has grown from 30 million to 130 million, marketing efforts now contribute a whopping 70% of qualified leads in their sales pipeline, and their NPS score is currently at 90. Behind these impressive numbers is a lot of hard work, gaining executive buy-in, inspiring staff with an employee-first organizational purpose, and building a customer experience that drives satisfaction and referrals.

    Leatherman is an expert on the metrics that matter, both the impressive ones listed above, and the ones that you look at behind the scenes to get there. It’s not about the number of meetings, it’s about the number of quality meetings; not the number of prospects, but the strategy behind how prospects are brought in and engaged. In this episode, you’ll get an up-close look at CMO math as Leatherman discusses how they calculate ROI and the essential steps to building a revenue-generating marketing engine. For more on measuring metrics that matter, check out chapter 10 of our B2B Brand Strategy Guide.

    For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/

  • CMO Huddler Mandy Dhaliwal on Renegade Thinkers Unite

    March 06, 2020 1:25 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 178: Why Dell Boomi is Booming

    According to a Gartner Report, Dell Boomi leads the way as an innovative strategic partner for its clients in the Enterprise iPaaS category, with over 8,000 customers and a churn rate below 3%. That’s the biggest compliment you can get, especially if you’re a company with a large service component. What role did marketing play in developing these relationships and garnering this reputation? Drew sits down on this week’s episode with Mandy Dhaliwal, Dell Boomi’s CMO and certified sommelier, to discuss how she kept Boomi’s marketing initiatives grounded in company strategy in order to modernize engagement across the board.

    When she joined in 2018, Mandy hit the ground running: she developed a company purpose within a six-week period (during a holiday, no less!), presented the positioning at the annual sales kickoff, and oversaw a complete rebrand with a clearer customer focus than ever before. This week’s Renegade Thinkers Unite is packed with remarkable insights. Check it out! Additionally, for a closer look at building a company purpose like Dell Boomi’s, take a look at chapter 3 of Renegade's guide to effective B2B brand strategy.

    For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/

  • Huddler Simon Schaffer-Goldman on Ad Age

    March 04, 2020 11:44 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    In his 20s, Simon Schaffer-Goldman had no plans to join the family business; he was too busy sheep-farming in New Zealand. Yet he would eventually become chief marketing officer at Case Paper, the company his grandfather founded, and would shepherd the 76-year-old organization through a successful rebrand featuring a modified logo, a fresh personality and a new purpose.

    How did he do it? Schaffer-Goldman focused on the strongest pillars of the brand’s rich history: irreverent humor and a commitment to customers. Adopting the purpose-driven tagline, “On the Case,” Schaffer-Goldman made sure that humor was part of every form of company communication, from its website to email signatures, from trade show booths to print ads. Schaffer-Goldman also established the “On the Case” awards to inspire Case Paper’s more than 400 employees to continuously exceed customer expectations.

    Empowering employees, says Case Paper's CMO, helps company to exceed consumer expectations on Ad Age. 

    Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: Paper Company Stamped Rebrand with Humor, Commitment to Customers

    Listen to the Episode: How Paper Company Rebrand Cuts Through the Noise

  • CMO Huddler Chip Rodgers on Renegade Thinkers Unite

    February 28, 2020 10:42 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Listen Here | From Renegade Thinkers Unite, Episode 177: A CMO's Guide to Cultivating Customer Champions

    How important are your customers to your business? This one should be a no-brainer—the relationships you build with your customers are vital to success. Leaders that actively focus on customer engagement and satisfaction are able to nurture a customer-base that will champion your product on your behalf and help push innovation. With a wealth of experience under his belt, Chip Rodgers, CMO of WorkSpan, knows the quantifiable value of cultivating customer champions and is here to tell us how he nurtured these relationships from WorkSpan’s early startup days to now.

    Chip puts a special emphasis on building and retaining trust, and shared a perfect Bill McDermott quote on the subject: “Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets.” For more gems like this, listen in to this week’s Renegade Thinkers Unite and learn about how cultivating customer champions can boost your business value, shape your product, and bring in new prospects. Plus, for additional material on the subject, take a look at the aptly named 8th chapter of our guide to effective B2B brand strategy, “Cultivate Customer Champions.”

    For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegade.com/podcasts/

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