Kristi Melani 0:00
I need to build a team who is going to be high performers who is going to be agile and just started to go hire the leaders and then entrust them to go and build that second layer and the Next Gen Next.
Ben Kaplan 0:14
This is the podcast where we go around the globe to enough marketing leaders for the world's biggest brands, fastest growing companies and most disruptive startups, re ideas packaged a certain way want to spread, they want to be told us someone else's simple, surprising and significant data. Unlocking viral creativity is to make it rapidly scalable. This is top cmo with me, Ben Kaplan. Today I am chatting with Christie Milani CMO of telesign, an industry leading digital identity company whose current mission is to connect, protect and defend digital identities, enabling companies and customers to engage with confidence. Christy is no stranger to the fast paced world of marketing with a rich career path that does senior lead marketing operations for global brands, including Anaplan, Polly, and Plantronics. Now at telesign, and a CMO, Christie is pushing the boundaries of marketing strategy and team building. Let's find out how, with Christy Milani. Welcome to Top CMO, I'm chatting with Christine Milani, CMO at telesign. And Christie, one of the things that not every cmo gets to do but you've recently done is had a chance to build a marketing team from the ground up. And I mean, over a couple of year period, you started with a handful of folks, now you're up to 60. Folks, take us through the process, how you approached it, and what were the steps to kind of move along and building that team?
Kristi Melani 1:42
Yes, thank you. So I will say it's a marketer's dream, to be able to come in and really start from the ground up, I came to telesign, a little shy of two years ago, and there was a handful of very talented marketers, but they were all a little bit in that sort of non specialist role. And I sat down and mapped out what I think is my minimal viable product to basically get started. And I'm a little bit old school, when it comes to, I haven't really changed that much. And what I think needs to be there for a marketing organization to be successful. One is marketing operations have to have a marketing operations team. Otherwise, we're spending money and we have no idea how it's being spent, you have to have the comms group that's going to actually develop the press releases, the thought leadership, the social engagement, growth marketing, which has all of your paid field marketing events, product marketing, which is there as sort of the pillar of the intersection point with the product team. And then looking at corporate marketing. So who's going to be creating the content, who is going to be developing the campaigns, you name it, the only thing that existed was a slight shape of growth, marketing and product marketing. So as I slated this out, I have to admit, I've worked with a lot of really smart people. And I start with my network. Because I had to move very quickly, we were in the process of going public via a SPAC. So we had a lot to do in a very short amount of time. So I did sort of first tap into who I trust, who I know can do the job, and who can also be those activators, for us to build them quickly. And as I've said to my team, we've grown fast. And you know, with that comes a little growing pains, right, you still have to learn the dance. But we're growing purposefully, that I want us to be a measurement focused marketing department, who delivers results to our sellers, to our partners. And as I think you and I have talked before, I never want to be the place that you come and take budget from. So I need to build a team who is going to be high performers, who is going to be agile, because even though we're 16 year old company, there's still some startup feels to us. So you got to roll up your sleeves and be a practitioner and a leader and just started to go hire the leaders, and then entrust them to go and build that second layer and the links next and next. And so starting to see when we were about 25 or so the divisions were developed, then you have to pause a second I really look at your resource mapping, okay, where are the gaps? Our ratio of field marketers to sellers is off, right? I want one field marketer to every eight sellers. That's kind of my you know, Mo we got to go and build that and then partner with all the other teams that have The sales organization is going to go triple in size, they're going to be very disappointed if marketing doesn't scale at the same time. So making sure that you kind of look up and partner with people as you're starting to grow. Otherwise, I might have, you know, 10 Social media people, and I have nobody who's interested in social media, you know, outside of marketing,
Ben Kaplan 5:26
from the beginning, it sounds like you were focused on we're going to be a driver of revenue, as opposed to a cost center number one. So we're going to try to do that. And that's going to Yes, will protect our budget, but also will become valuable to the overall direction of the organization. Yes to as you hired sounds like you were defining the user terminal product, in this case, like almost like minimum viable team, correct, right? Minimum Viable teams? Like what are the areas the coverage you need? Did you go and get the head of these divisions first? Or did you try to get the ground troops? Or there's no time you kind of did it all at once? How did you think about that about sometimes you can have good people without a good manager managing them, then they can kind of not get good results. But then again, on the flip side, sometimes managers don't want to really jump on board, especially if it's new, and it's not built out unless they know they have people who can do all the things so that their sort of success, so you can feel like a catch 22? Do we have like the team? Do we have the managers? We need both to get the other? How did you think about that. So I
Kristi Melani 6:25
went the leader role first and hired the lead of each of those functions, because I'm a big believer of, I want to bring in the person who is going to think in a very growth minded way. And then I want them to recruit their team, I want them to be invested in the growth with me, instead of the here, you're just adopting a certain you know, team, and you get what you get, you don't throw fit. In this case, that also means you recruit the type of person who is a builder, right? Who is somebody who is I've always said, Don't give me a pretty packaged and told me to hold it, I want the package to not even be wrapped. Maybe it looks like you know UPS had the field day delivery. Again, it's all tattered and torn, because that's what that's what fills my bucket. And so I found people who were so excited, some of them went and did the same thing I did and tapped the shoulder of their rockstars from previous lives, and then started to go and recruit externally. But I think what I see now is this true love for their teams, and a pride of ownership really have I helped build this. And when you're working fast, because at the same time, we also had to create a new brand, a new logo, a new tagline all these things, I needed people who I knew were going to really just get along. But also understand, we have to move fast. But we have to do it in a very smart way. I did lean on agencies a little more in the earlier part when I didn't have all of the individual contributors and all of the producers, but then started to phase that back a little bit and start to see that wow, I got a lot of internal talent to be almost our own agency. In many cases.
Ben Kaplan 8:27
What was the biggest challenge in all of this? What were the blockers? Where did you run into difficulty? Was it all smooth sailing for one and a half years? Or you mentioned trying to achieve balance across the team? Was that an issue? What were the challenges you faced?
Kristi Melani 8:41
So I think luckily, I work for a CEO who is 100% committed to marketing. So when I did have to go and say, just kidding, I need three more headcount, I need two more here, I need to increase the budget, he was very supportive, knowing that we were sort of growing, you know, from from the ground up, theoretically, as was the Board. The part that was interesting is as you are building out new functions, you know, my definition of what marketing operations does might be different than the new leader I brought in and that's okay, I didn't want people that are just gonna do this sort of, you know, cookie cutter approach, but we had to pause and do charters. I've got a charter for each sub function as well as marketing's charter give me that elevator pitch on what it is that you're going to do for the company. What are the roles and responsibilities that fit underneath? And who are the partners that are going to be key in your success? I don't mind if people you know, are kind of dipping their toe when in other swim lanes but I do mine I always say you know, it's like if you're in your swim lane and the person next to you is kicking and splashing and I can't even swim I'm, you have to stop at that point and make sure that you are the smartest person in that function. But you know who you have to work with. So there is a level of collaboration, that charter work. I have done that for all of my leadership roles over the past, you know, two decades, and it's pretty key. And then we shared it with everybody, the whole marketing organization, and then with my peers, this is what we do.
Ben Kaplan 10:28
Assembling a marketing team from the ground up is an intricate task, anchored on strategic hires, especially in leadership roles, they form the backbone of your team, driving both division and execution. Developing clear functional charters streamlines collaboration, ensuring each component of the team is primed for success. A measurement focused approach reinforces marketing's pivotal role as a revenue generator, bolstering its impact and perceived value across the organization. Thus, a well structured, strategically built marketing team becomes an instrumental driver of organizational growth. So you mean by charter, you mean that for each function within marketing, that they have a clearer, Northstar? what their purpose is that there's maybe a lot of things they might do, but this is our priority, this is our direction, we're clear on that. And then we need to share that with other marketing functions. So they know our purpose. And we know their purpose as well. Yeah. And
Kristi Melani 11:30
also that empathy amongst the groups too, is that you look at the charter for corporate marketing and go, gosh, they're not just a service organization. They're also developing messaging and content and look and feel. So that allows the growth team to understand we're not the only people that are making requests of them, right. And so we in those charters, we've got five or six columns underneath, that's very clear. So you know, who's sort of that one cheat ticket, and where projects start and stop. And then there's a lot of stuff in the middle that kind of gets tossed back and forth. But there's, there is such a thing as you know, debilitating collaboration, where you can't get anything done. Sometimes in large organizations, not going to paint that, you know, paint them all with that brush, but 14 people to approve something, we don't have time for that. So being really clear, whether it's a RACI model, or the roles and responsibilities, it's got to be pretty bulletproof to where as I say, do not have this be like a volleyball game where everybody watches the ball, hit the sand and go, oops, I thought you were gonna get it, you know, who needs to call that ball, and who is going to be on point.
Ben Kaplan 12:48
And then there's a school of thought also. And maybe this extends both to teams, as well as individuals, that if multiple people are responsible, no one is responsible, because it's just not clear. So you can have multiple people be accountable, there's people who have a role to play, but ultimately, responsibility, whether it's one person or if you're at the team level one team, it's got to be assigned, because that creates ambiguity, if multiple people are doing it about who's supposed to hit that ball that's about to drop. So you've got to have that level of clarity,
Kristi Melani 13:19
right. And it's also I think, what I've seen over the years, is that it's very empowering when somebody knows exactly what they're supposed to do. And it also alleviates any excuses if you don't have a high performer and they say I didn't know I was responsible for that it wasn't clear, you get out all of that muck to where where you can focus on the charter for marketing is to deliver high value pipeline and create a long lasting brand impression with our customers and prospects. And so if you're, if you're dealing with the Wi Fi, I was doing that, and I thought I was doing that. That is unproductive time spent. And when you're in a slightly smaller organization, like ours, there's really no time for that. But people love knowing. And that also means you get to make the decision, I hired you to make the decision.
Ben Kaplan 14:16
And how do you go from because there's always this challenge. If you don't have role clarity, you always want people to take initiative and be proactive and make something happen. And there's great value in that. And it's sort of more rare than you think. But sometimes, if the team isn't functioning great, you know, you'll just have someone said like, yeah, I wasn't supposed to do that. I wasn't assign that. Is there something in the culture that gets people sort of more proactive, more doing is it just hiring well, and you've just got to hire us word builders, but also doers would be another way to say it. Where do you get that sort of level of ownership? That's not just ownership, like at the lowest level, which is like you're doing this task you've been assigned it, therefore you do it too. You are seeking out tasks because your mission, your vision, your purpose. If we were in the military be your Commander's Intent is so clear that you automatically assign yourself things to do and do them because you know, it moves the organization forward.
Kristi Melani 15:09
And one of our company values is really a kind of getting things done culture. And that is part of the hiring persona. Is the are you a self starter? Are you somebody who needs everything, you know, black and white, and marketing is not black and white, it changes, it's changed so much from as you know, when I started 20 years ago to now so finding those people that have that mindset is key. But I also do like the people who are going to be the task doers, because you need that, too. If you have 60 people who are charging ahead and there's carnage left behind it is that's also not good. And so finding that balance, but the other piece that I have asked my team, especially at the leadership level, is you have to explain the why. Why do I need this today at five o'clock, I'm giving you a task, the why is still important to help that individual contributor or a manager level to understand why is this a 911, I'll look at another fire drill. If they understand the impact that their work has on the rest of the business, a light switch kind of clicks to toe where it might not be able to teach somebody who is not a go, go go. But at least it helps them understand I understand the value when I wake up in the morning, I know that I am help contributing to the mission of telesign. And so that's why I asked a lot of questions myself, you know, when I'm given a deadline, can you help me understand why the urgency Can we get a couple more days is going to the board tonight? Okay? That's a good answer. But not keeping people in the dark is so important from the specialist all the way to the the leadership side, I am a huge proponent of culture, we have our own culture team in the marketing group that sort of sits alongside culture of the company, because it's very important for me that we are a work hard play hard. I've always been like that I love to celebrate all the time. You know, we just did a call blitz that made sure everybody knew how proud I was. And but it's those little pieces that, you know, sometimes we forget when we're moving too fast. And that's unfortunate.
Ben Kaplan 17:46
Let's say we follow the playbook you've been following. And there's other CMOS listening, and we're building up our team. And we're filling in sort of the functions we need. You have some leaders in place, we have some builders, we have some doers, we have some people who follow through, you do all of that. But then it's not just the marketing team. There's the sales team, there's the customer success team, you don't exist on your own. And especially in a lot of type of software oriented organizations, there's famous battles between those divisions who, you know, famous thing is like marketing gives me crap leads, marketing says about sales, sales can't close the lead to save their life, then they close them. And then Customer Success does a horrible onboarding, we lose the new client we just had after we put in all this work, a dysfunctional model. How do you build a functional model also, when you're bringing in all these new people, right, so there's always new people benefit, clean slate issue, there's no precedence, we don't know how we operate to your How do you think about making your team function in the context of other teams.
Kristi Melani 18:45
So it took me a while in my career to realize how important the peer relationships are. And the further you get into the organization, the more important that is, I've seen it play out to where marketing and sales did not get along. And that trickled throughout the whole organization. And it's toxic. And I told myself when I am a chief marketing officer, I am not gonna let that happen. I don't understand why people couldn't see that this was a marriage that has to actually work. So right out of the gate, I spent a ton of time with sales to understand even though there was very light marketing, what worked, what didn't work, what do you expect of marketing, and I actually used a lot of that information to inform who I was going to hire, who and how I was going to model the team and also to my CS peer of the what do you expect marketing to do for you, with you around you, and then building a model that shows that, you know, we're the three legged stool are now were referred to as The Three Musketeers I'll take it is we're all responsible for hitting our new revenue targets.
Ben Kaplan 20:10
Aligning your marketing team with other functions, particularly sales is vital in creating a harmonious and effective organization. Prioritize understanding the needs and expectations of these peers to guide your team formation and operations. The shared knowledge and synergy can inform hiring and structure, ensuring a tailored fit that amplifies overall productivity. And recognize that revenue targets are a shared responsibility embedding this understanding across your team, this cross functional collaboration can be the secret to turning your marketing organization into an invaluable driver of company growth and success. What's an example of something that surprised you that you wouldn't expect as soon as you hear and say, okay, sales, you know, just wants me to deliver a certain volume of leads, that's what they need, maybe I have a little bit more of a charge to like, do some thought leadership, some education bring the quality, not just the number of lead, but the quality of lead a little bit closer? That's kind of normal stuff. So what is it about talking to them or sort of aligning more something surprising that you wouldn't have thought to do if you hadn't had that pure relationship and ask them,
Kristi Melani 21:16
What was most surprising to me, as I was saying really before is that everybody has a different definition of all kinds of things, all functions, roles, whatnot. And what I was realizing is that the expectations were actually pretty low for marketing, because it was relegated to we do really good events, it was sort of the you know, so let's keep doing really good events. And it said, Well, what about contribution to the pipeline? What about helping you expand? What about ABM? What about, you know, all of these other things. And so there was a little bit of the well, there's only up to go, but also convincing, a little bit of these are things that marketing can actually help you with, and I don't want to just be events, events are amazing, they do great things for us. But holy cow, you know, I need to help them understand why I have to build this size of team, because they clearly survived with a team of six. Right? And so what am I bringing that different that they weren't used to? And that's where we spent a lot of that time. So you're increasing
Ben Kaplan 22:28
expectations? Exactly. And you're increasing expectations in a way. But you know, part of building trust is saying what you're going to do, and then going doing it so that people can rely on what it is. So how did you do that? And how did you measure raising expectations, because you're not used to a robust marketing function, but then you have to deliver everything you've promised to deliver. And you're building the team at the same time, right? So it's kind of like you're skydiving on a plane and you're promising to land at the spot, you're supposed to land but you're like building the parachute why you go because you don't have the team yet. So how did you balance that and say, like, we've got to raise expectations, but we've got to meet expectations as we raise them. You
Kristi Melani 23:04
know, part of it, I think it was sort of two parallel tracks. One is starting to develop a brand narrative that sellers could get their heads around a playbook, a brand book, creating a new mission, creating a new look and feel that the analysts were loving that the customers were loving, sort of the kind of the softer side of the marketing where you start to get the holy cow. They know what they're doing and kind of what I traditionally think of as marketing. So we got to do that we got to nail it, we got to do it fast. At the same time, building out a formulaic model on how the three teams are going to actually create pipeline and effect conversion rates effect in you know how an opportunity is going to merge quickly, faster into a sales accepted lead, and going all the way nurturing them all the way through. We measure on a monthly basis, what all of the departments are doing and delivering on and we brought a lot of new tactics, a lot of new demand gen content syndication, a new digital focus, and we hit our numbers and we didn't lowball the numbers, this was an aggressive look at what we needed to do. And we hit the numbers and it was the you know, rising tides lifts all boats it was you were starting to see that excitement come from actually measuring and monitoring at this way and taking sort of pride in well if we work together, look at how we can actually affect the time to close you know the acceleration that we're seeing. So kind of placing a bet that we were gonna hit the numbers right being confident because I've been there done that I pretty solid that this is going to work and then being able to deliver on the same side is if we missed on something, we had to just fess up. I've seen this before. We're marketers, we love to market everything, right? I've mark it to my son when I'm trying to get him. Ready, I'm trying to make it as sexy as possible. But when something goes wrong, just say it. Hey, you know what we missed? We came in short, here's our remediation plan for the next go round. So results get trust, but so does just transparency. And that honesty of Nope, you're right, you're right, that one didn't work, or that wasn't the best hire, or, you know, taking that feedback, and not being defensive. The good news is my partners are so amazing that they have the same philosophy where I can also give them feedback, and they will listen. And that's the go to market strategy side of my role is to make sure that we're all in sync. And that, you know, we're following a plan that rolls back to the ultimate goals of the company.
Ben Kaplan 26:08
How important is it to empathize with sales with customer success, we've had CMOS on the show who've come from a sales track, or they've had a sales role before, or they've had something in product or somewhere else. And they've said that that has helped them, because they know what it's like to like rush at the end of a quarter try to get that last bit to make the difference between hitting your quota or not, and what you need, when you're like on the phone all day trying to track down every last person to make it that last mile. How important is empathy in your role even to other leaders of other units?
Kristi Melani 26:44
110% important because and I did carry a bag early, early, early, early on for Anheuser Busch. So I know what that was like to try to displace the competition and all of that. So I know that challenges, and I think we are all sellers, we should all have the mentality that we are all salespeople for the company we work for, we just happen to package our story and how we get there a little differently, right? Whether it's the top of the middle of or the bottom. So I asked many of my team members, especially Field Marketing, who's working so closely is asked if you can sit in on a call. Are there recordings of a call? Can we hear what it is that sales is getting badgered for that our website didn't answer? Can we sit down with the AES and say, what are the challenges after they become a customer, so we can help with retention messaging or customer advocacy program, I have them come into my staff meeting, right next month is going to be a day in the life of CES, tell us what it's like. Because if we are sitting over here, just in our own worlds, we are not the ones on the phone, we are not the ones the STRS trying to cold call and see if this works. But being there with them to say, here's a different script, see if this works. See if this tell me what doesn't work. We're doing a focus group with sales. Bring it? What do you not like? What do you want, you know, and marketing, we can be defensive sometimes, like you're telling me my baby's ugly? Well, you know, I'd rather you tell me that my baby's ugly than a prospect or our competitors, or the press or whatnot. So it's just you have to be confident enough in what you do. So you can open the arms a little bit and, you know, bring them in. And there's been some things that we've learned from sales going, you know what this message does not resonate at all. Okay, let's test it one more time this way. If it still doesn't, we're changing it. We're changing it. I'm not you know, you can't be married to anything so much that you're gonna fall on your sword for it and sales is failing. Nobody likes it. No. Are you sure it tested really well, like well, but now let's in the real world, and again, I think that's where that empathy comes in. They see that you're willing to do that. They do the same. You get that in return.
Ben Kaplan 29:23
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Ben Kaplan 29:46
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Ben Kaplan 30:10
let's say as part of our process, I mean, you built up the marketing team, you align them, they had their charters, they had their focus, then you took that whole marketing group aligned them with the other groups you're talking about in terms of sales in terms of customer success, you've done all of that you've used empathy as a tool, you've used kind of alignment and focus as a tool, you've used relationship building as a tool to do all of this. But then you still have to relate to the customer. Everything we've talked about thus far has been just internal to get us aligned working together. How do you get that final bit where yeah, we can do all of that. And if we don't align with the customer to we have a great culture and functioning team that will not be successful if we don't align with the customers. Well, how do you think about that?
Kristi Melani 30:54
So I think the alignment with sales is actually a big piece of that, because they are the ear to the ground, they are going to tell us what their the buyers are asking for, we did have to create new personas. And so you hear that all the time. Again, I'm not going to say something that, you know, another marketer hasn't said to get those personas. But the reminder of I am not one of those personas, nobody in my marketing department is a persona. We are not the target market for our products. Many times that's the case unless you're in CPG. When I worked for Anheuser Busch, yep, I was a target. But in so many cases, when you're dealing with that, I'm not buying verification API's for my company. So getting the feedback from sales, listening, going to, you know, watching the communities that they follow, doing the persona work, and then creating content that follows them all the way through their journey. And telesign is a digital identity company, we stopped fraud, right? We stopped the bad guys from getting in, there is a way to scare people into buying what we sell, right? That it's look at all these bad guys. There's attacks happening every two seconds. But we went the other route of how do you make your buyer the hero that if you can actually say, as the product manager who bought the API, put it in their on demand services app and goes to their manager and says, We just saved $140,000 in fraud, that's good. That's good for them. And so leaning more into the hero message, and we're b2b, but we focus a lot of our messaging on a b2b to see. So we help them understand that your end user expects you to protect their identity. And so think about what it's like if a mom has let a child use an app, and there was no security built in and they're looking at stuff that they shouldn't be looking at. That was one of our first brand videos, was actually focusing on a mom and a child. So they could understand, again, kind of the why the wow, what I'm doing actually has an impact on families on people, right. And so when our mission is to create a trustworthy place of the digital world, for everyone get in on this right and be part of that. And that has resonated really well, as opposed to going down the ghetto, you're losing this much money, and there's a people attacking you all the time. And that scary piece, some of that is reality, we have to give you those stats, but realizing that I can make Ben a hero, if you put this into your application to your website. That is what is a different type of empathy. As opposed to you have a pain, we have the aspirin, both of them work, it's just a matter of how you want to be worth, you know, presenting your brand as well.
Ben Kaplan 34:20
Well. And so as you've done that you've built up the marketing team aligned the marketing team with everyone else repositioned the brand in the minds of a little bit more of a human approach to delivering value, and specifically your targets talking about the value they deliver to an end user as opposed to just their business value that they get from your service. What's next, you're a couple of years in what is left to has to be done. Those are all foundational things you are doing but sometimes once the foundation is built, you got to build the house. So what's next on your agenda? Maybe it's a final question. Where do you hope to take this in the next year? Well,
Kristi Melani 34:55
I think we've barely scratched the surface on the opportunity Senator out there. And you know, when I think about every every app on our phones, and I've thought, oh my god, I gotta scroll five times, right? Every app on my phone is a potential customer for telesign. So now it is making sure that we can proliferate these messages that we find the right channels, we're going to be going heavier from an ABM standpoint, ABM is a tough one. It's not typically something you do right out of the gate, you have to get Account Based Marketing,
Ben Kaplan 35:30
Account Based Marketing, focusing on specific your ideal customer of the ideal type. Sometimes it's a whale sometimes it's that perfect thing and going after them with laser focus, if we're talking ABM Yes,
Kristi Melani 35:42
exactly. And that is not something you can really just start right away, right, because you have to have the marketing operations, you have to have a clean database, you have to have the interactions with Salesforce, all those things. So we're gonna start going kind of more in that piece. And then it's that thought leadership, balancing the thought leadership and the practice leadership is, we're in a world right now, unfortunately, where we hear about fraud, cyber crimes, so much is going on, do you need a password do not need the password, we need to make sure now that telesign is known for trust and what our stance is on it, and what we can do for you. And so, you know, we jumped we went from here's our brand, and then then then selling that middle part is the part that we have to make sure everybody knows who we are, and why we are here what our mission is. Because if we don't do that, I believe our job is to help sales open the virtual doors. Well, it's really hard. If everything feels like a blind date, that you don't know anything about us. Sure, I'll take a call. Nobody does that. Do you know how many emails I delete before we even start my day that are just cold, cold, cold, cold. So I think that's where we now need to make sure globally, there is an awareness so that it makes the bottom of the funnel work a little easier for us from an acceleration standpoint, and then getting really tight on that Account Based Marketing, as well as what we can do. We focus a lot of on landing, what's going to be our role in the expanding side of this as well as we do have different use cases and things that we sell. So now I kind of call it the now we polish the pearl, right? We're doing good. Now it's time to polish. And really this is when it gets really fun, because now we can start to test things knowing that the main engine is running, it's functioning, we got this.
Ben Kaplan 37:56
According to Christine Milani. CMO of telesign. establishing clear roles involving team leaders in the hiring process, and promoting a culture of accountability based on results forms the backbone of a robust marketing team, Christy says, emphasize empathy, and understanding various stakeholders, particularly those from sales and customer success teams focus on the future, and have an unwavering commitment to continually refining existing strategies. And remember that striking a balance between soft skills and a results driven mindset can lead to exceptional outcomes. Let's remember, in marketing, and in life, success often pivots on understanding others, setting clear roles and expectations and perpetually striving for improvements. For top CMO. I'm Ben Kaplan. This amazing episode was brought to you by top thought leader don't forget to rate review and subscribe
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