Lessons from a 4× CMO: AI, Brand Voice, and Annual Planning in B2B Marketing (with Ruth Zive)

#29 - AI is reshaping B2B marketing - but what does that actually look like inside a CMO’s org, plan, and P&L? Four-time CMO Ruth Zive (Voices; ex-Ada, LivePerson) joins host Mandy Walker to share practical plays marketing leaders can use right now across customer experience, brand, content, and go-to-market - without losing the human edge.

You’ll learn:

• AI in CX & Brand: Why voice is the next brand asset (like your logo) and how leading brands license voices ethically and at scale.
• Marketing Team + AI: Where AI accelerates content, research, and competitive intel - and where skilled humans still matter.
• Annual Planning in the AI Era: Ruth’s planning flow - start with revenue, set a few big bets, align pipeline ownership with sales, fund what works.
• Lessons from a 4× CMO: Ruth’s approach to sales–marketing alignment, org design, and why her mantra is outcomes over strategy.

About our guest:
Ruth Zive is a 4× B2B SaaS CMO who has built and led high-performing marketing teams across AI-driven products. She currently leads marketing at Voices, helping brands show up through voice in an AI-first world.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Growth Activated: Elevating B2B Marketing Leaders
• 6:02 Ruth Zive’s Journey: From Agency Founder to 4× CMO
• 13:35 AI in B2B Marketing: Transforming Customer Experience and CX Strategy
• 19:23 Brand Voice as the New Logo: Why Voice Matters for Modern CMOs
• 25:40 Marketing Teams + AI Tools: Balancing Efficiency and Human Creativity
• 30:31 Annual Planning for CMOs: Frameworks That Drive B2B Growth
• 37:17 Sales and Marketing Alignment: Ending the Attribution Turf Wars
• 43:45 The CMO Playbook: Building GTM Teams with an “Assembly Line” Model
• 50:38 Events, Demand Generation, and the Future of B2B Marketing Channels
• 56:12 Lessons from a 4× CMO: Outcomes Over Strategy for Marketing Leaders

Transcript

00:00 — Welcome to Growth Activated: Elevating B2B Marketing Leaders

Welcome to Growth Activated.  I'm Mandy Walker, your host with 15 years of experience leading marketing teams ranging from small startups to large service organizations.  I've built high performing teams of all sizes and have seen firsthand how fast the landscape is evolving,  making marketing leadership more complex than ever.  Today, I help marketing leaders elevate their strategies,  lead with confidence and build careers they love.

00:28

If you're ready to drive impact and unlock growth for yourself and your company, you're in the right place.  Let's get started.  AI is changing everything about how marketing gets done, but how are CMOs really adapting to it inside their teams, their strategies, and their leadership? Hey everyone, welcome back to Growth Activated. I'm your host, Mandy Walker, and today I'm joined by four-time CMO Ruth Zive.

00:53

who has led marketing at multiple AI-driven SaaS companies and now heads up marketing at Voices,  a company redefining how brands show up through voice in the AI era. In today's episode, we cover AI in customer experience and how it's reshaping interactions and the future of brand identity, AI in the marketing team and the tools Ruth's teams uses and why humans still matter, annual planning in the AI era,

01:21

and Ruth's framework for setting bets and aligning with sales and lessons from a four-time CMO, from sales and marketing alignment to her ultimate mantra, outcomes over strategy. This conversation is full of perspective from the front lines of AI, brand and executive leadership. And I know you'll walk away with ideas you can apply right away. Let's get into it. Hey Ruth, welcome to Growth Activated. We're so excited to have you here today. Thanks Mandy. I'm super excited to be here.  Awesome.

01:49

Well, Ruth, I'd love to start a little bit with your background and some information about your career. I know you're a four-time CMO and I think a three-time CMO at an AI-driven company. So I know you've got a lot of experience to bring to the table, but bring us through a little bit of your background and how you got to where you are today. Yeah, I mean, four-time CMO, think more than anything just makes me sound old, which I am. I won't bore you by going all the way back.

02:18

But um I did before I worked in tech as a CMO, I did work for about a decade in the nonprofit world doing marketing and fundraising. Fundraising is really just glorified  sales. You're just selling goodwill instead of goods and services.  And um after my kids were a little bit older and in school full time, I thought, I want to ramp up my career a little bit. um

02:46

you know, dipped my toe in the water through an acquaintance  in the water of like the tech world and started doing some freelance marketing on the side of my nonprofit job. And I caught the bug  and um I launched a marketing agency  and  most of my clients were in tech and software, B2B SaaS. And eventually one of those clients coaxed me in house  and the rest is history since then.

03:12

I've worked, as you mentioned, at four different software companies, scaling marketing teams  and delivering pipelines so that sales can hit their revenue numbers. Amazing. Amazing.  What was the uh hardest shift for you when you went from an agency to in-house?  I did the flip-flop of that. I was  in-house for my whole career and then just started with an agency about a year and a half ago. It is hard.  It's a hard transition.

03:40

Yeah, well, you'll I think you'll relate to this. The biggest difference was that, um you know, when I went in-house, I was able to focus on one brand and one company, and I didn't feel so pulled in a million different directions.  Of course, the expectations are very different. What you're expected to deliver for that one brand is a lot more than what you have to do when they're a client of your agency. But I really  enjoyed the focus  and, you know, getting into the details and

04:09

building a team singularly focused on one brand, I don't think I would ever go back to agency life personally. Yeah, I was just going to ask if you'd ever go back to the agency side. I have had such an interesting  journey with it myself. I think at one point I had probably 10 or 12 clients, and that was exhausting to me. After like five hours of a workday, I was probably twice as tired as I was after an eight-hour workday. And I thought, OK, this is not.

04:38

First of all, sustainable.  agree. It can be very depleting. I think if you can be disciplined and sort of set standards around how many clients you take on at once and um if you can also standardize the type of work you do for each client. But you end up getting pulled in a million different directions. It's challenging. It's not for  everyone. think  I'm in a later stage of my career now. Maybe one day I would go back to consulting, but I would be very disciplined about how many clients I took on.

05:12 — Ruth Zive’s Journey: From Agency Founder to 4× CMO

Yeah, yeah, interesting.  Well, I'd love to talk. you're the last  the four companies that you have been a CMO at I know have it seems like from my perspective have a lot of similarities in terms of  it seems like a very AI driven software product for either the marketing or branding or customer experience space. I'd love to hear your perspective on ah was that on was that on purpose? Is that an area that you're really passionate about and what

05:38

What have you taken? I guess what have you learned with each of those companies? Yeah, I wish I could say it was on purpose. I don't think it was. I didn't intentionally join an AI company. um The first company I was at that was really AI driven was a company called Ada. And what appealed to me in that case was that it was just a very early stage  startup that had strong.

06:03

product market fit, it was clear that they were onto something and I wanted to really  try my hand at growing a team from  very small to very big. I wanted to ride the wave that I believe they had caught, which proved to be true. um This is  before Generative AI hit Main Street, they were selling an AI customer support chat bot essentially.

06:30

Um,  and their product was really very elegant and exciting and they had an interesting, uh, customer base.  And that was a wild ride.  Um,  I guess almost five years in a bigger, more public company that was in the exact same space  came knocking and recruited me. And I was curious to see what life would be like in the public, you know, in a public company with a much bigger global team.  Uh, it was a very.

06:59

AI driven product suite as well, but it wasn't just, was, was a much broader uh product that served multiple use cases. And so that was interesting to me as well. um I had a great experience there. What I think I learned is that I didn't want to be in a public company.  I also didn't really want to be selling AI for the customer support use case. That is an extremely crowded, confused market.

07:29

But at this point, know, generative AI had hit Main Street, chat GPT has disrupted everything. And I wanted to um really see out the next phase of my career in the AI world, but with a particular use case in mind. And that is Voices, where I'm at currently. We,  I wouldn't, I don't know that I would characterize us as an AI company per se.

07:57

I would say that we are somewhat AI adjacent. We are selling products and solutions and services  that are scarce  and in high demand in the world of AI. um Our offering in and of itself isn't really an, I mean, everything is an AI product today. It's, you know, become white noise for vendors to say that they're selling AI.  Yeah.

08:24

we're not really selling AI in the way that you would imagine. We are selling solutions and services and products to supercharge other people's AI solutions.  So um it's a really interesting space to be. uh And yeah, I think it's all played out largely through happenstance, less so because I had some uh big grand plan around it.

08:51

Well, you could have had me fooled. have been  following you. I don't know if I've shared this with you, but I have been  following you since your ADA days. uh I always used,  when I was at a B2B SaaS company at the time, I don't remember how I came across ADA. uh It might have been just from seeing you and your personal brand on LinkedIn, but ADA was like the uh sort of best in class for me. Like I would...

09:16

leverage what you guys were doing in terms of your website and product marketing and how you approach, because product marketing was relatively new for me. I came up in the services industry  that doesn't really do solutions marketing or product marketing well or know it at all. ah But there was, yeah, there was a lot of things that I would refer back to  Ada  and capture. And then I sort of followed you throughout your journey and it seemed methodical.

09:44

lot of smoke and mirrors and that's so kind of you to say Mandy you're swelling my head. was blessed at ADA and even in my subsequent roles with such you know talented people on my team that they've all made me look good. um I think we did some really special things at ADA. I'm proud of the work that we did there. It was a really exciting ride.

10:07

um Of course, what you should know is that I was also copying other vendors and pulling from their best practices. I had my own brand crush on Gong at the time. I was obsessed with all of Gong's marketing and  the product marketing.  So I guess we all recycle some of the best ideas, which I think is a great way to run  a high performing marketing organization.  Absolutely. Well, I'm so curious. um

10:35

When you talk about Voices and how it's not really, I think you had shared, it's not really like an AI company, but you're, at this point, everyone has an AI product. uh How are you, from a CMO perspective, uh driving your company through what's happening in the marketplace when it comes through AI? So I'm in the services industry as an example, Ruth, and we,  the companies that I work for and compete with,

11:05

don't have an AI product. And so we're trying to figure out,  how do we stay ahead of the marketplace? The marketplace is shifting that way.  There's tons of companies that are popping up as AI products and services that will potentially change  the play that we're doing. And I just would love to hear, how are you advising  voices, I guess, in terms of being future forward in how you position yourselves in the marketplace moving forward?

11:33

Great question, lots to unpack there. Voices is a very established company that has a two decades long history in the traditional voiceover world. I don't know if you've ever used our services or our marketplace, but we have over 4 million professional voiceover talent on our platform. And historically, what we've done is we've matched the biggest brands in the world with

12:02

voiceover talent for their campaigns and their videos um and the content that they're pushing out. And  Voices had a successful business  that they built on the back of that use case and that marketplace. um What happened a few years ago is that we started to notice, and in fairness, this long predated me, um but Voices started to notice that AI companies were coming to them.

12:45 — AI in B2B Marketing: Transforming Customer Experience and CX Strategy

um to build data sets, audio data sets, to tap into our network of  voiceover talent  and to curate audio data sets for these AI companies to train their models. um You can imagine that voice data is  in scarce supply. You can scrape from the internet.  That's not really very ethically sourced and it's not gonna have all of the different variables that an AI company needs.

12:59

to train models in a really scalable and durable way. And so we started to notice this interest um through our marketplace even.  And we uh took that interest, that demand,  and we  have been working to productize that  and build a repeatable solution and go to market motion around that use case. And that's been a significant growth vector for us. And my challenge as CMO is to

13:28

sort of connect the dots in our go-to-market motion between our history and voiceover and our future orientation around AI. It's not just data and another use case that has become very apparent to us that I think is exciting for voice's customers, but also for the talent  is  AI voice licensing. So as voice becomes the default interface of the future, which I believe it will be in five years time, we're not gonna be.

13:57

typing and texting as much as we're speaking into  our devices and interacting with the brands that we love. As that becomes more popular  and um more prevalent, brands need a voice to front end that experience.

14:17

Brands are starting to think about their actual voice as an element of their brand identity, the same way they think about their logo or their website or their font or their colors. um And it's no longer  sufficient to just choose a voice out of the box from your AI provider or pick a synthetic voice from what's available through some other vendors out there. They want to curate a voice based on a host of considerations.

14:47

know, language,  age, gender, accent, tone of voice, acting skills, character, emotion, all of those things ultimately ladder up to brand. And so we're seeing a lot of brands come to us the same way they did for traditional voiceover to help them find the perfect voice to represent their brand in an AI-driven uh world.

15:10

So that was a long way of saying that, you know, where we're at in this new world order at Voices has sort of evolved organically. And it's my job to  figure out how to tell a compelling story that um stretches across all of those different use cases because we still very much sell voiceover services. um And how do we evolve that story? Not just from

15:37

uh go to market perspective, but from a product perspective, what new things are we building? What new solutions are we packaging? um And then how do we position those to the people that matter in the market who are interested in buying these things? So  I that answers the question. Totally. And actually, as you were talking, it reminded me a couple of years ago, I  ran a very large event series and we were  putting out video marketing was still

16:04

it felt rather new at the time.  And I remember having to choose the music that would go along with the videos. And it was, we had never thought about that before. Like the brand associated with your music. We just would put in different music and think, no, that doesn't, that doesn't feel right. That doesn't feel associated, but we had never actually defined it. And as you were talking about the voice to me, I was like, oh, this is the next music.  Uh, at least in my experience,  I'm  really happy to think about that.

16:32

Yeah, I can give you sort of uh a practical example.  You know, I mentioned that voice is going to become the interface of the future. Well, if you think about the automotive industry, this is happening quickly in that world because when you're in your car, you need to be hands-free, right?  And so all of these cars have voice assistants  to answer your questions or to interact with, you know, the tech in your car.  And

16:59

You know, these manufacturers take very seriously the sound of the voice that is um contributing to that experience. What is that voice? Do they own that voice? Has it been properly licensed? Do they have all of the legal entitlements?  Can they make change? And that is an AI voice.  Do they have access to the actor behind the voice so that if they want to evolve it,  they can do that. If they want to train it on specific new use cases, they can do that.

17:27

all of these considerations. And I think as  consumer facing brands start introducing tech that is voice forward, um you  bank on your phone today, right? And you do that through typing and texting. It's only a matter of time until that is happening through voice.  And every bank is gonna wanna have their own voice representing their brand in that experience. So I think this  introduces massive opportunity for voiceover talent.

17:56

because they want somebody that can be coached, can be directed, can do character uh voices. um And so I think the opportunities are actually going to grow. I think they're gonna be different than what they were historically. And I think how brands think about voice is changing very rapidly. Wow. Well, it's so interesting to hear you  talk about the marketplace and I can just...

18:33 — Brand Voice as the New Logo: Why Voice Matters for Modern CMOs

It's inspiring because I think a lot of the peers that I talk to right now, we're thinking about AI in the CMO seat in terms of, or it feels like a lot of my peers are thinking about it in terms of how are our, like the insular part, how's our marketing teams leveraging AI in order to be more productive or how's our organization leveraging it to be more efficient? And what I rarely hear is  the sort of future facing of how are you productizing what you're doing and the changes in the industry?

18:53

um of where we're headed. it's. for what it's worth, I also think about the internal use cases for AI and how can I help my team to be more efficient. So that's also very top of mind for me. And I want to go there.  But before we do, I'd love your opinion on what are you seeing just at these past companies? And I know you talked about the customer experience company being a really saturated space. uh Or sorry, the customer support function. um

19:21

But I'd love to hear  where are you seeing the blend of brands remaining human and also leveraging AI? Like what are  the guardrails here that we should be thinking about? So  one thing I'll say is that I've worked mostly in B2B enterprise SaaS. And that was certainly the case at ADA and then at my next company, LivePerson. So my frame of reference is very enterprise oriented. And we worked with um

19:51

companies in very highly regulated industries. So think, you know, travel and hospitality, banking, insurance,  telco, those were sort of the customers that we had.  And  a few things,  I think, some interesting takeaways. The first, and this one won't be a surprise, there is a massive appetite to adopt AI. I think everybody, especially now, three years after a chat GPT was introduced, um

20:19

everybody realizes that this is going to change the way that we do business and change our lives more generally. That appetite though notwithstanding, there is a lot of confusion and trepidation around how to roll this out, especially consumer facing because there's real risk there. There are regulatory considerations, there are ethical considerations, um legal considerations,  it's complicated. uh

20:49

We  navigated this tension uh by introducing AI agent facing, if you think about customer service, rather than this was less so the case at Ada, more so the case at my  last company.  There's less risk if you're using AI to drive greater efficiency of your internal teams.  And if you can sort of use AI to coach your agents and to get them to the answer faster.

21:19

to  help them to handle more customer inquiries at a time.  That's an efficiency gain, which is a cost savings gain, and it  doesn't introduce the same amount of risk.  So I think that tension is going to persist for a while, especially in highly regulated industries. We see that at Voices as well. There's a real appetite to adopt AI voice, to train AI models, but brands increasingly want to know where was that data.

21:46

sourced? Has it been appropriately licensed? What rights do I have if I use this voice?  Is there some sort of liability that I should have in mind? Is someone going to sue me down the road?  You know, so I think all of that is still very murky.  And  because of that, I mean, this isn't the only reason that I believe what I'm going to say next, but  largely because of that, humans are very much still in the loop. ah And I think they will continue to be in the loop for some time.

22:15

Um,  I don't think at all that this is a flip the switch proposition. Yeah. Yeah.  No, totally fair. And,  uh,  I'd love to hear, I think, in terms of how that translates to how you run your marketing team too.  Uh, in my mind, I would imagine you're very future forward or forward thinking and your team is probably well adopted, uh, and mature when it comes to AI, but, tell us where, where do you guys actually sit?

22:44

What's going well ah and where are you hoping to take the team? Yeah, I wouldn't characterize. The team is incredible and we are definitely leveraging AI, but I wouldn't say we're on the  bleeding edge of that. um I mentioned  I'm old, so  I bring with me a lot of experience doing things without AI. So for me, it's been a learning curve as well, even though I've been in this space for some time. oh

23:11

We certainly use AI to create content. And this is kind of where I cut my teeth was as a writer and a content creator. And I absolutely encourage my team to use AI to write, to get them  70 % of the way there. Why wouldn't we do that? I mean, it's good,  it works. um But I also believe that you need a human in the loop.

23:36

to get you the rest of the way and to make sure that your content is authentic sounding and differentiated and aligned to your brand identity. um And really talented writers, I think, are going to continue to play that role. So I do think I have  been able to free my writers internally from a lot of the more mundane  work. How do you get started? How do you get to draft one?  And they're able to.

24:04

work a lot more efficiently  and ship a lot more content that is high quality because of AI. So that's, I think, of table stakes for marketing teams. We're also using AI to do market research,  either for prospecting purposes or competitive analysis  or how to position, how to understand our ICP, um how to identify.

24:29

gaps on the website or risks  on the website. So a lot of market research use cases for AI.  then lastly, and this one, know, most folks in marketing are talking about this, but I think SEO is going away as people start searching through AI search. And then the question is, how do you show up in those AI searches in a way that is really meaningful?

24:50 — Marketing Teams + AI Tools: Balancing Efficiency and Human Creativity

And so we have a very brilliant person on our team who has  gone deeply down this rabbit hole  to understand  all of the moving parts around this. I don't think anyone's cracked the code here necessarily and  the LLMs are changing  regularly. So just when you think you have it locked down, it's sort of what search was, however many years ago.  We're trying to understand those algorithms and those inputs and. uh

25:22

really important to the business though, because I think we'll continue to see web traffic diminish um altogether.  It's not gonna just transfer to AI search. People's searches are being resolved inside of the LLM. They don't need to visit your website. So how does that experience change what we do? Absolutely. I had a guest on a couple of weeks ago. I'll have to grab the name of the software for you, but he was sharing a software that he uses that uh

25:51

basically shows what  each of the LLMs are prioritizing. Have you seen these?  I also forget the name of this. I think there are a few of them out there. We have used one of those. um I can't speak to it with any real expertise or authority, but I do know we are exploring all of those things, all of those tools. And the person on my team who is spearheading this himself has built some AI agents that we are using internally to do that analysis. um

26:20

He's done some really exciting things. I've said to him, like, you should go do the podcast circuit and talk about what you're doing. It really is groundbreaking.  And it's exciting. It's greenfield. Like everyone's learning. And so  I do think being ahead of that curve is a competitive advantage. Absolutely.  And for the content creation and the market research, I'm curious,  are you just encouraging your, are your teams just using chat GPT or have you built like custom GPTs or?

26:49

AI agents, how have you made that more efficient for the team? I think for content, it's mostly chat GPT. um I have  used other tools and other jobs. um We were using a tool, and I forget the name of it, to help BDRs craft tailored sequences, also to do some of the research automatically. There are some great tools out there.

27:16

We don't really have a suite at this point of specific tools. um I think it's opportunistic. We use a blend of just vanilla chat GPT  and then some of the folks on the team there, I'm encouraging them. I just had a meeting earlier today with one of our product markers  who said that she was using some vibe coding utilities to help with a product launch that we have upcoming. And so there is a real culture of voices of,

27:44

let's roll up our sleeves and figure out what's gonna work for us. This is all new and we need to be leading the charge um as marketers and as a company that has a point of view about AI. So  I think jury's out on which tools are the best  and we'll do this podcast again in a year and  we can see where we're at.  Absolutely, and it reminds me of,  have you heard, I'm sure you have, have you heard this term, the go-to-market engineer?

28:13

that's been floating around. Yes. What is your take on that? Is that something you believe we should be thinking about investing? Is it just rev ops with a bow? What are you? There's so many new titles popping up these days. Like I just we're hosting an event and somebody just registered chief AI officer, you know, like there are all these new roles. I think that

28:39

we are going to see a lot of go-to-market practices standardized as a result of AI. And so I think there's probably a place for that. Am I going out and hiring somebody? Are we building a team of go-to-market engineers? We're not, but I think certain functions are going to be more standardized because of AI in the coming years. And we all have to have an open mind about what that's going to mean for our organization. Yeah, totally. And actually that

29:09

transitions nicely into something that's top of mind for me right now, which is annual planning.  I don't know about you, but I always start in September for the following year. And um as I'm thinking about, it just feels, the space feels um chaotic, confusing, what's working, what's not, everything's saturated. Should I be spending more on marketing? Should I be spending less? Cause now I have AI. I'd love to think about  really,

29:41 — Annual Planning for CMOs: Frameworks That Drive B2B Growth

pick your brain on it, let's start with um what is your approach to annual planning? How do you approach it?  And is that changing, I guess, even this year? So,  you know, I have my own  sort of framework around how I plan for the start of the year. I can share a little bit about that. I would just say that it's always nuanced based on the organization, based on

30:03

you know, my executive counterparts and how, you know, based on the CEO point of view, this will be the first time that I do it at Voices, because I've only been, I've been there for not a full year yet. um So this is the first time that I'll really be involved in the planning process, you know, start, start to finish.  But the way that I approach it as a marketer and as an executive, candidly, is that we always start with the revenue target. That is sort of the starting point.  And, you know, what number are we chasing?

30:32

And then there's usually an executive level discussion around, okay, well, what market, are there new markets that we are pursuing to chase that number? Is there a new product that we're shipping to chase that number? Like what are the big levers that we can pull to get to that number?  And sometimes that's as simple as spending more, hiring more.  That's  certainly, that was certainly the case, you know, when I've been at like VC backed companies.

31:00

years ago, I think that the pendulum uh has swung a little bit in recent years and  companies are a little bit more disciplined with their spend and profitability matters maybe even more than growth in some cases. Certainly at Voices, we are very disciplined about how we grow and what we spend. um But it always starts with the revenue targets. Once I have a line of sight into what number we're chasing and what the big bets are that we think

31:28

we're going to invest in to get us there. Then, you know, I have a discussion with my sales counterparts about who's going to source what pipeline, what is going to fall to marketing, what number do I own?  And then I meet with my team to talk about, okay, how are we going to get to that number? How are we going to support marketing source revenue numbers? uh

31:51

what responsibility do we have to influence the balance because marketing isn't just about sourcing pipeline and revenue, it's also about influence, it's also about brand awareness. um And then we sort of build out our campaign strategy and our marketing strategy in support of the broader corporate goals that we've set. And then there's a budget discussion that happens alongside of that.  Once we know what revenue number.

32:17

We're chasing, there's a discussion with finance about how much is it gonna cost to get there? Do we have significant headcount gaps that we need to address? Are we dialing up  paid ads, for instance, because we know we're gonna get a certain amount of pipeline through that channel? um So that's kind of the process. um To the second part of your question, um how has AI changed that? I think that...

32:46

You know, it's a combination of this pendulum swing that I mentioned that, you you want to be profitable. You want to be disciplined. You want to maybe be less ahead of your skis than we might've been willing to be  five or six years ago.  And I think AI has made that more realistic. You can operate with leaner teams um with, you know, less tooling and

33:11

Certainly we're thinking about that at Voices as well. Do I need as many writers as I might've needed if I didn't have access to AI? Do I need as many people doing market research or competitive analysis if I have AI at my disposal? So I think it arms us with some power to operate leaner and faster. Awesome.

33:36

Well, I have a few questions  just that you sparked for me. Just to go back to the beginning when you were talking about working with the executive team on identifying the strategic bets that will really get you to the revenue target. Are you driving those conversations? Are you a part of those conversations? Do you feel like that's really like  the CEO's decision that then the team operates around? Because I find with a lot of my clients that they don't know what those strategic bets are. So a lot of times it's...

34:06

me pushing those conversations, but would love to understand from you,  how are you involved at the table for those? I love that question. um So some of it depends on the personality of the CEO and the personalities of the people around the table. But conceptually, know,  at least for the last  two times, I've been a CMO. I've been very clear when I was brought in that I'm not interested in being a departmental leader.

34:34

I  like that part of my job and I certainly accept that as CMO, have that responsibility. But my first team  has to be the executive team. And really what I'm interested in doing is  driving forward the interests of the business more strategically. And I want to be able to  cross borders into other domains and influence  strategic discussions. m

35:00

I wouldn't say I drive those conversations, certainly not. think the CEO is the strongest and most credible voice in the room and should be, um but I'm absolutely participating in those conversations. And I also think that it's marketing's responsibility to deeply understand the market. Part of what we have to do is understand, you know, what does the market look like? What does the addressable market look like? Where are there gaps and opportunities?

35:28

Where are we constrained relative to our competitors?  Why do our clients  love us?  Why do they not love us so much? Like those  should all be inputs  on the bets that we make. And marketing has responsibility uh to um answer a lot of those questions and inform the discussion along those lines. And  that's certainly what I set out to do at an executive level. Yeah, yeah, that's great. I think that's something we could all.

35:57

do more of,  at least from talking to my peers for sure. And then the second question I was gonna have for you is, you talked about what part of the pipeline do you own and what part will sales  carry and things like that. And I'd love to,  in my past lives, um I have created unintentional friction.

36:27 — Sales and Marketing Alignment: Ending the Attribution Turf Wars

ah between and almost pitted sales and marketing against each other for this fight for  credit and attribution and have since tried to correct that. But I'm curious, how do you  with it, I especially knowing that you're going after enterprise level deals where there's likely multiple touches, it's sort of uh a team sport. uh How do you really, how do you sort through that with your peers and maintain the balance between sales and marketing while still being able to show marketing's value and contribution?

36:50

Well, you should  not beat yourself up too badly if you had friction in the past. There's always friction between marketing and sales and there should be. think the more interesting question is how do you ensure that that friction is constructive and that you're able to  harness  the friction in a way that's going to drive forward the interests of the business and get you to your numbers?

37:17

In an enterprise sales cycle, attribution is dumb, in my opinion, uh because the best deals in the world are the ones that the BDR was outbounding to try to open up, marketing was nurturing to try to grow brand awareness, and a partner was influencing by  recommending our product. And all of those touches are important, and the order in which they happen

37:44

doesn't really matter. Like at the end of the day, it's the constellation of those influences that result in the, you know, the greatest likelihood of winning the deal.  So I think a lot of it just comes down to trust and agreement  on  what it is you're signing up for.  So when I say it starts with the revenue target, you know, the next discussion I might have with sales is,

38:09

How much pipeline are you comfortable having your team or the partnerships organization chase independently?  are they going to outbound? um And here's what I'll sign up to try and inbound. And we start with that. We also have to shake hands on the definition of a pipeline-ready opportunity and what is  an MQL and all of that stuff.

38:30

Um,  and, and then we go and shake, we go and chase it and it all works out very nicely when you hit your numbers, it's when you're not hitting your numbers,  often the friction is very uncomfortable because then it's like this turf war. Well, I source this much, you only source that much.  Um, but if you trust each other and you have an openness to problem solve together and understand like, why didn't we hit our number? Then I think it's okay. Like you can't solve problems unless you're willing to talk about them. And so.

39:00

I try to cultivate a sense of trust with my sales counterpart.  I'm definitely a marketer that believes that my job is to provide sales with healthy pipeline coverage and to support their  revenue  pursuits. um And so  I welcome feedback from the sales organization about what we could be doing differently. And then I want them to trust me when I execute on a plan that I'm the expert in marketing. um

39:28

And I'm lucky in so far as  I think I've had that in  all of my companies where I've been CMO. Have there been some uncomfortable conversations and debates with sales and marketing for sure, but I have deeply respected the sales leaders that I've worked with. um The other thing that, and this isn't the case at Voices, but was the case in my three prior companies. I like having BDRs sit inside of marketing.

39:55

because I think it gives marketing more skin in the game and accountability on the pipeline front. It helps me to understand the quality of the leads that I'm generating, the impact of the messaging that I'm putting into the market because BDRs often close that loop. They are the  first touch brand ambassador for your company.

40:18

So I think that having BDRs sit inside of marketing can serve as a forcing function to drive better alignment between marketing and sales. I don't think it always needs to be the case that voices, don't sit in marketing.  You know, I've discussed this with my sales counterpart. Neither one of us is particularly territorial and we are very aligned on strategy.  So I think we just haven't made a change.

40:45

But I do think,  and I meet with the BDRs regularly and I get their feedback. And I think it's an important input into marketing strategy to get to close that loop as best as you can. Yeah, absolutely.  When I was in SAS,  I oversaw the BDR function.  And that was so helpful.  It changed my perspective in terms of  we've got to get people to a meeting, not just  this MQL that we kind of throw.

41:13

defense and how are we collectively working to get AEs in front of the right  people and meetings? And that really completely shifted my perspective. we were going out, it was much more aligned in terms of going after the same accounts and having very clear ICPs. Exactly.  I say,  makes me a better marketer. So selfishly,

41:37

Um, I've enjoyed having the BDR sit inside of marketing because it holds me and the rest of the team accountable in a completely different way. Yeah, absolutely.  Well, I'd love to hear a little bit about like what, what channels and tactics are you betting on right now? What are you seeing that's working? What are you seeing that's not as you think about next year? Uh, what are you really going to be leaning into within the team?  I'm  bullish on events.

42:04

um in-person events. I think they're making a real comeback. Maybe it's because of AI, maybe it's a post-COVID ah reaction. I don't know.  just think, I just feel so strongly that  as marketers, our primary responsibility is to make people feel something.  You're not going to deliver the pipeline expectations without making people feel something.

42:32

I think having face-to-face in-person interactions with the people that you're trying to influence,  nothing can beat that. And so I'm bullish on events, uh especially branded curated events that you're hosting. So we have a whole strategy around that. I mentioned AI search,  think. um

42:55 — The CMO Playbook: Building GTM Teams with an “Assembly Line” Model

It's less so that I think all of a sudden we're going to see a watershed of interest through AI search. It's more so that I know this is going to change  SEO. And SEO has been a very dependable channel for me, and I don't want to be caught flat-footed. So I think really leaning in there  and um understanding the implications around AI search.

43:20

And then I would say voice as a channel.  Obviously, I'm bullish on that.  That's what we're ultimately promoting at Voices.  And I think I need to  eat my own dog food  and think about how we're leveraging voice  from a brand perspective, from a voiceover perspective, really becoming the experts along those lines. So  that's also very top of mind for me. Interesting. And where do you

43:48

Where do you envision activating that lever? Well, listen, we produce a lot of videos ourselves. So how are we using AI voice to be more efficient um in our voiceover activities?  You know, I could imagine  maybe not in the coming year, but do we have on our own website a voice activated assistant?

44:14

that is guiding a visitor through their experience instead of the digital chat bot or the digital lead capture. Is there a voice activated experience? That could be something that we explore. um I think we're gonna learn as we go. And this is, I always like to say to the marketing team, let's make sure that we're spending 15 to 20 % of our time experimenting and getting really creative outside of all of the stuff we know we should be doing.

44:43

So maybe this becomes an experiment for us. Yeah. Awesome. And I'm totally with you on events for sure. I actually have been a big believer in events for a long time. We just happened to launch an event series back in like 2010 when Meetup was just becoming a thing. And we had 15 Meetups across North America. were doing 120 events a year. And it was a major growth lever for our company because our competitors weren't investing in events at the time.

45:13

Um, so I'm a huge fan. I'm so curious  where, like structurally,  um, where do you feel like, where do you put events? Do you put events with your demand generation team? Do you put events with your brand team? Like, where does that sit for you? I see events as part of, especially in-person events as part of field marketing. I have this whole assembly line structure for marketing that I've talked about before.

45:41

um I think that  the functional areas of marketing inside of B2B SaaS line up as a bit of an assembly line. have product marketing at the front of the assembly line. They are assessing the market opportunity, surveying the competitive landscape, hopefully sharing that information with product to inform the roadmap. And then once new product is shipped, they own that go-to-market motion. How is it messaged? How is it priced and packaged?

46:09

They're sharing that perspective about the market and the product with the next group inside of marketing, which would be the brand team.  And the brand team is taking that perspective and translating that into market facing assets. um That team then hands those assets to the next group, which is the field marketing team.  And the field marketing team is pushing those assets through campaigns and events pointed at specific segments of the market, obviously working very closely with sales.

46:39

um And then you've got next to that group, the demand team, which is taking a lot of the inbound leads coming through those events and those campaigns  and optimizing our channels to make sure that they're delivering a healthy volume of leads in service of these campaigns that are converting at a healthy rate and are  optimized from a budget perspective. And then the last group in the assembly line is the BDR group, which is both catching the leads from all of this work that's happening.

47:07

Um, but also working alongside of the field marketing team to outbound in a way that's coordinated with the campaigns and events. that's, that's on paper, how I think about it, where it actually sits depends on the skills of the respective leaders across the team.  at Voices, events sits inside of a team that I call brand and field marketing. I've compressed the team somewhat so that there are creatives on that team.

47:36

And then there are also people with more of a field marketing campaign oriented sensibility. um But that's kind of how I think about it. Interesting. That's fascinating. And it's interesting that I could see why  you've done that. I typically would have, I think, seen field marketing with the demand gen team. I've had it there before. Again, in my past job, I had a very strong leader who

48:03

had some experience with events. You could see events also as a channel the same way that um email is a channel or paid as a channel.  It's a way to drive leads, but um it's also an asset, a webinar, for instance, especially remote events are like a digital asset. it depends. I don't think this assembly line structure has to have like

48:31

clear lines between them. think you want to kind of assess the skills of the people on your team. But I do like this idea of setting it up in a framework that is kind of sequential. What I've been told by my team is it makes very clear like what the handoffs are in certain cases and how you operationalize a campaign. And then the other thing that's good about this framework is that everybody across that assembly line is working in service of two goals. PipeGen,

49:01

and brand awareness. And we sort of  set those goals across the full team and then they break them down based on their respective areas of responsibility. But I  found that it gets everybody sort of rowing in the right direction.  But I don't disagree with you.  events and field marketing could sit in a variety of places along that assembly line. I have the same thing with content. I've had content sit on product marketing, for instance,  depending on the skills of the product marketing leader.

49:48 — Events, Demand Generation, and the Future of B2B Marketing Channels

Um, at voices, it sits inside of the brand and field marketing team, but I happen to have somebody on my product marketing team who is an amazing writer. And so, you know, there, there's some blurriness sometimes between the lines. Yeah. Yeah.  No,  I love the visualization of it. I've heard about people aligning it to phases of the funnel before I've, I've actually never seen that in action work well, but I could see how the assembly line, um, even just conceptually.

50:00

I have a new graphic and send it to you.  Oh, I would love that. We can include it in the show notes too. think people would really enjoy that. And I'm just curious. So when you walk into it, if you were to walk into a smaller company per se, um would you staff,  are there like critical things where you would say you're going to staff one person across that entire assembly line or would you almost start at the front of the assembly line and as you grow, you build the team along with you? Yeah, that's also a great question. Each

50:30

function doesn't require  headcount behind it. And when you see the graphic, there are bullets under each function that sort of indicate the different uh sub-functional areas. for demand, obviously, you've got SEO and paid ads and email and the usual suspects. You don't need a person doing each thing necessarily. What you prioritize and in what order depends on the age and stage of the company. It depends on the state of the market.

50:59

It depends on the nature of your  go-to-market motion. Is it a product-led motion? Is it an enterprise sales cycle? I was just meeting yesterday with a company that I've been sort of informally advising, and  they've got one marketer, they're thinking of hire number two, and they're like, what do I hire for?  And I said, well, it depends. It depends,  do you feel that you've got a bulletproof?

51:24

product and you've proven product market fit and really what you need is to drive demand, then hire like a growth hacker demand generalist as your next hire. If you feel like you've got organic demand coming in, but you're sort of  not 100 % certain about what your ICP is or where you fit in the market, then I think a strong brand product marketer is probably the right hire.  So I think you have to...

51:49

come in as a new leader, especially in an early stage company and really deeply understand the market opportunity and the constraints before you lay out how you're going to stack rank uh who you hire. Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that. One of the things that I do em as a part, I'm a fractional CMO, but I also will come in and do 360 degree marketing assessments with companies at certain stages. that's a uh lot of the times they want like a transformation blueprint in terms of

52:19

Marketing is a support function. How do we make it a growth function? How do we get there? And I've noticed my logic and POV constantly is evolving just based on who the client is. And it's like, there's not one set formula. So I'm glad to hear that that's actually the right approach as opposed to sometimes I'm like, man, I should have a really strong POV that could be applied to all these different companies. But I don't think it's a one size fits all proposition. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

52:48

Ruth, this has been such a fun conversation. I would love to hear outside of work, what's something that you do or prioritize that makes you a really successful CMO that you would encourage us to do? I run marathons and no, I don't do any of that. don't do any. Wow. Okay. I need to get out in. Honestly, I have five kids and four grandkids. Wow. And when I have

53:18

free time. I like to spend as much time as possible with my family. I also love to walk. I try to walk two hours every day. That's sort of my meditation, my time for like, you know, being inside of my own head, listening to podcasts and just, you know, alone time I think is important. Nothing super interesting. think I'm a pretty, I, you know, I'll share and this is humiliating, but I love reality TV.

53:48

My life is really busy. And so sometimes if I could just turn off a little bit and distract myself with nonsense. you know, I'm a big brother super fan.  Okay.  All right.  And  I  love it. And I'm a big fan of walking too. And actually I'm in Phoenix. And so the summertime is the worst for us because you can't really get outside.  And I can always tell that my

54:16

The mental state is not as strong as other times of the year, for sure.  We have that in Toronto. I'm in Toronto and in the winter, it's not possible to walk outside. So I'm always happy when like March, April hits. Yeah. You guys have, do you have the underground tunnels there though?  Are there like underground walking? There's a whole world underground in Toronto, but it's way downtown  and not super close to where I live. And  that's not really realistic for me.

54:46

but it is lovely if you're visiting. uh Sometimes I'll just go to walk the malls,  just so that I can be inside. So,  then Ruth, I'd love to just end here with, uh you know, what is one piece of advice you'd give it's aspiring CMOs in today's sort of crazy world with where we're at right now? I would say, and I often feel like a broken record saying this to my team,  out comes over strategy every day of the week.

55:22 — Lessons from a 4× CMO: Outcomes Over Strategy for Marketing Leaders

I think we tend to spin on strategy. It's safe to cultivate strategy and write out strategy documents. You've got to deliver outcomes.  And ah this isn't my idea. This is from a great book called Amp It Up with Frank Slootman, ah who's at, I don't know if he's still at Snowflake, but he was at ServiceNow then at Snowflake. And he talks a  lot about this in the book and it really resonated with me.

55:42

If you deliver a fantastic outcome in the absence of a great strategy, that's a win. If you have the most phenomenal strategy that delivers no outcomes, that's a fail.  So always over-index on outcomes.  And  I think that's what allows you to grow in your career best. I love that. I love that. Cool.

56:05

Well, Ruth, it's been such a pleasure today. um I'm sure, you know, if people wanted to connect with you, is LinkedIn the right place to do that? LinkedIn is probably the best place to find me. um Come visit voices.com.  But I am pretty uh active on LinkedIn and I try to answer direct messages um when they're meaningful.  Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks, Ruth. Appreciate your time today. Thank you so much for having me. This was great. Absolutely. Talk soon.

56:34

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Growth Activated.  I hope this conversation sparked new ideas,  challenged your thinking, and gave you practical tools to help elevate your impact as a marketing leader.  If it did, I would love for you to pass it along to a friend or a colleague in B2B marketing.  The more we grow together, the more we raise the bar for what marketing leadership can look like.  And as always, in the meantime, keep activating growth for yourself and your company.  See you next time.