#288: Marketing in the Age of AI: CMOs Separating the Hype from What’s Real

#288 AI in Marketing | In this episode, Dave is joined by three B2B marketing leaders: Sara Ajemian, Head of Brand & Communications at SOCi, Jennifer Delevante-Moulen, CMO at Knak, and Tara Robertson, CMO at Bitly. Together they share real-world perspectives on how AI is actually shaping marketing teams today—what’s working, what’s not, and how leaders are adapting.

Dave and the panel cover:

• The most overhyped AI use cases in B2B marketing (and where human nuance still wins)
• Real success stories, including building an AI-powered content research engine, scaling global localization, and using AI to make creative teams more data-driven
• How CMOs are personally using AI as a strategic thought partner for board prep, customer insights, and team coaching

Whether you’re experimenting with new tools or figuring out how to bring AI into your strategy, this conversation gives a grounded look at what B2B marketing leaders are really doing today.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - – Intro
  
• (03:08) - – Meet the panel: SOCi, Knak, Bitly
  
• (07:08) - – Has AI met or missed expectations?
  
• (11:53) - – The most overhyped AI use cases
  
• (15:08) - – Why human nuance still matters in personalization
  
• (20:08) - – The imposter syndrome of AI adoption
  
• (23:08) - – The power of AI with memory
  
• (25:48) - – Best AI use cases from the panel
  
• (31:43) - – Scaling global localization with AI
  
• (34:43) - – Training brand teams to be more data-driven
  
• (38:43) - – How CMOs personally use AI in their workflow
  
• (42:43) - – Using AI as a strategic thought partner
  
• (46:43) - – Coaching teams with AI feedback loops
  
• (48:43) - – The frustrations of iteration and tool updates
  
• (52:43) - – Is leadership pushing AI adoption?
  
• (56:43) - – Budgeting and building a modern AI-enabled tech stack
  
• (59:43) - – Final takeaways and closing

Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.com
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Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership

***

Today's episode is brought to you by Knak.

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It’s the only way you can truly “own” your audience.

But when it comes to building the emails - if you’ve ever tried building an email in an enterprise marketing automation platform, you know how painful it can be. Templates are too rigid, editing code can break things and the whole process just takes forever.

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***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

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Dave [0:00:00]: You're listening to B2b marketing with me, Dave Gerhardt.

Dave [0:00:03]: What's up everybody?

Dave [0:00:17]: There's already...

Dave [0:00:18]: There's been a hundred people.

Dave [0:00:19]: There's a hundred people backstage right now.

Dave [0:00:21]: Sorry.

Dave [0:00:22]: I'm just...

Dave [0:00:22]: I'm f with, I got all these crazy, you know, monitors and all this nonsense I'm I'm gonna look at you here in a second, but I just wanna make sure I get the get the chat up.

Dave [0:00:30]: Anthony entities here early.

Dave [0:00:31]: Madison right off the bat, will this be available on demand.

Dave [0:00:35]: Absolutely.

Dave [0:00:36]: We believe that...

Dave [0:00:37]: We believe in the people here at X Exit Five will make all these recordings available to to everybody.

Dave [0:00:42]: So, yes, This be this will be recorded.

Dave [0:00:44]: So hey.

Dave [0:00:45]: If you don't know me, I'm Dave Gerhardt I'm the founder of Exit Five.

Dave [0:00:48]: I spent my career in marketing.

Dave [0:00:50]: I went from P r intern to Cmo over the course of about ten years, and then a couple years ago, I started Exit Five, which has grown into...

Dave [0:00:58]: The top community out there for b b marketers.

Dave [0:01:01]: We do online events like this one.

Dave [0:01:03]: We do in person events, like we just did, with drive here in Vermont.

Dave [0:01:07]: We're doing thirty events all around the world.

Dave [0:01:08]: And, once or twice a month, we do these live sessions.

Dave [0:01:12]: Don't you listen to me?

Dave [0:01:13]: Don't you dare call this a webinar.

Dave [0:01:15]: This is absolutely not a webinar.

Dave [0:01:16]: This is a live session, and we bring in subject matter experts and marketing leaders to talk about what's going on in their world and, super excited for this one We have an insane response to this session today.

Dave [0:01:28]: I think the last time I checked this morning, there was over thirteen hundred people registered, we'll probably have four or five hundred people live here today.

Dave [0:01:35]: Totally worth it because I have an awesome panel of three marketing leaders, Jenny Tara and Sara.

Dave [0:01:40]: We're gonna talk about not just what's working in at with Ai right now, but also, like, real stories and hear from these marketing leaders, but what's actually going on inside of their org.

Dave [0:01:49]: And maybe they might even tell us that some of the Ai stuff actually isn't working the way they thought it might be.

Dave [0:01:56]: So I'm gonna say what's up to everybody real quick.

Dave [0:01:59]: So this is this is just a really helpful thing that I can do to know that my audio and everything is working.

Dave [0:02:04]: But, if you're listening to us right now.

Dave [0:02:06]: Can you put your name in the chat where you're writing in from?

Dave [0:02:08]: Yes.

Dave [0:02:09]: Webinar is officially out.

Dave [0:02:10]: So Adam said, greetings from San Francisco so I'm just gonna put

Tara [0:02:12]: this in the chat right here.

Tara [0:02:13]: Dave

Dave [0:02:15]: in Vermont.

Dave [0:02:15]: You was like I...

Dave [0:02:16]: I got these two monitors here.

Dave [0:02:17]: One lady last time she yelled him me and she said the host is really distracted.

Dave [0:02:20]: He's always looking at.

Dave [0:02:21]: His other screen.

Dave [0:02:22]: Well, lady.

Dave [0:02:22]: I'm trying to host at the same time.

Dave [0:02:24]: Let's see.

Dave [0:02:25]: Lara in Birmingham, Alabama, Errands in Maryland, Christine in Vancouver, Jennifer Jones is in the house in New York, P from India, New York City, Jenny Breeze.

Dave [0:02:34]: What a great name, Jenny Breeze from Pittsburgh mayor.

Dave [0:02:36]: I can't S.

Dave [0:02:37]: What's upstream from Boston Hello?

Dave [0:02:38]: Y from, Long Island, the home of the ryder cup, that the odd small audience for that here here.

Dave [0:02:44]: This is insane.

Dave [0:02:45]: This has to be a new record.

Tara [0:02:47]: I can't even keep up.

Tara [0:02:48]: Oh, my goodness.

Dave [0:02:49]: This is crazy.

Dave [0:02:49]: Also, Lindsay O'brien, I saw you in the chat.

Dave [0:02:52]: This is not a Ai background.

Dave [0:02:53]: Dan producer, Dan convinced me to step my game I think it's just because I'm wearing this nice shirt, and it just matches the fives here today.

Dave [0:03:00]: I'm trying to save this fiddle fig tree if anybody has any tips behind here.

Dave [0:03:03]: I trimmed off the brown spot, but you know, email me, David x Exit Five dot com.

Dave [0:03:08]: If you got any fiddle fig tree saving tips.

Dave [0:03:10]: Okay.

Dave [0:03:11]: Real quick.

Dave [0:03:12]: Before we hop in, we're gonna talk about Ai, we're gonna talk about what these Cmos are actually doing.

Dave [0:03:16]: But I just really quickly wanna shout out our friends at Mac, just a quick ad read before we get into this session.

Dave [0:03:21]: This session is brought to you by Knak.

Dave [0:03:24]: By the way, last time, I did an ad read and a bunch of people in the chat.

Dave [0:03:27]: Like, boom.

Dave [0:03:28]: It's an ad or where I'm like, dude to marketer.

Dave [0:03:30]: So we're literally marketers.

Dave [0:03:31]: So I just wanna give a shout to our friends at Knak.

Dave [0:03:34]: That they're sponsoring the session, email still today in my opinion is the number one marketing channel of all time.

Dave [0:03:41]: It's the only place where you can actually reach your audience directly.

Dave [0:03:43]: But when it comes to building emails.

Dave [0:03:45]: Well, if you've ever tried building an email in an enterprise marketing automation platform I'm not gonna name any names here.

Dave [0:03:51]: I don't wanna call anybody out, but some of them are pretty dang difficult to work with.

Dave [0:03:55]: You know how painful that can be.

Dave [0:03:57]: The templates get too rigid editing code can break things.

Dave [0:03:59]: The next thing you know this is what we do.

Dave [0:04:01]: You're asking chad Gb to debug your code and the whole process just takes forever.

Dave [0:04:05]: We start using Mac here at Exit Five, and it's awesome It makes our emails look beautiful.

Dave [0:04:09]: Mac is a no code email and landing page creation platform that makes it easy to create on brand high performing content without the bottlenecks.

Dave [0:04:16]: So if you are one of those markers out there that's frustrated by the clunky email builders.

Dave [0:04:20]: You should get Knak.

Dave [0:04:22]: You can check him out at Knak dot com slash exit dash five.

Dave [0:04:25]: We'll put the link in here, but I just wanna give a shout out to Jenny, Nick and the team at Knak.

Dave [0:04:29]: They've supported us here at Exit Five for two years shout out to that.

Dave [0:04:32]: The best type of customers are the ones that renew and Knak has been that for us are an awesome company.

Dave [0:04:36]: Go check them out if you need an email landing page platform.

Dave [0:04:39]: And without further ado.

Dave [0:04:40]: I'm Pumped, Let's get into, Anna, producer, Anna, who's sitting in for for Allison who's out today.

Dave [0:04:45]: Can you can you send my my awesome group of of a marketers up to the stage, please?

Dave [0:04:50]: Thank you.

Dave [0:04:51]: Check Heck, yeah.

Dave [0:04:52]: What's up ladies?

Dave [0:04:53]: The the a am my Ai ladies.

Dave [0:04:54]: How's it going?

Tara [0:04:56]: Great.

Tara [0:04:56]: Lulu.

Dave [0:04:58]: So...

Dave [0:04:58]: Alright.

Dave [0:04:59]: Real quick.

Dave [0:05:00]: Let's just go around the horn.

Dave [0:05:01]: Let's go, Sara Jenny Tara.

Dave [0:05:03]: Quick intro.

Dave [0:05:03]: Who you want?

Dave [0:05:04]: Like, who are you?

Dave [0:05:05]: What your company doing?

Dave [0:05:06]: And then just set context of the stage of the company for people so we can get a sense of where you're coming at things.

Dave [0:05:11]: And then, you know, I actually got some killer prep for this.

Dave [0:05:14]: I got a bunch of questions that I wanna go through.

Dave [0:05:16]: I did this myself a little help from the Ai machines, but I got some good questions here.

Dave [0:05:20]: So Sara kick us off, please.

Sara [0:05:21]: Awesome.

Sara [0:05:21]: Yes.

Sara [0:05:21]: Hi.

Sara [0:05:22]: I'm Sara Ajemian.

Sara [0:05:23]: I run the branding and communications department at SOCi.

Sara [0:05:26]: We're a hundred million dollar Arr late stage enterprise Ai platform for local marketing.

Sara [0:05:32]: Mouthful, but we offer, a suite of local marketing solutions.

Sara [0:05:37]: Our company is about five, six hundred people, primarily based in North America, our marketing team is about forty to fifty people and that encompasses demand gen, product marketing, Sdr str, and then my team which I oversee branding creative, content and social, communications and P, market research, but I partner broadly with our full marketing team on on really our integrated pink plan.

Dave [0:06:04]: Okay.

Dave [0:06:04]: I'm gonna ask you.

Dave [0:06:05]: I come I come up with this on the flatbed, but I asked each of you.

Dave [0:06:07]: At this stage in the game, based on where we were two or three years ago, has Ai met, exceeded or under delivered on the expectations that you've had for for your company.

Sara [0:06:18]: Can I go with an all of the above?

Tara [0:06:22]: Sure.

Tara [0:06:22]: Yes.

Tara [0:06:22]: That's good.

Sara [0:06:23]: Right?

Sara [0:06:23]: I think Machu has exceeded my expectations?

Sara [0:06:27]: I think there are some new tools like level that are are meeting them that I'm eager to try.

Sara [0:06:32]: And I think there are some things that have fallen in short, particularly Ai video with Avatars.

Sara [0:06:38]: Like, I'm still not there yet.

Dave [0:06:40]: Yeah.

Dave [0:06:40]: I hear you.

Dave [0:06:41]: Okay.

Dave [0:06:41]: Alright.

Dave [0:06:41]: Good answer.

Dave [0:06:42]: Jenny You're up next.

Jennifer [0:06:43]: I'm with you.

Jennifer [0:06:43]: Can I plus one to that too?

Jennifer [0:06:45]: Yeah.

Jennifer [0:06:46]: Yeah.

Jennifer [0:06:47]: Hi everybody.

Jennifer [0:06:47]: I'm Jennifer Delevante-Moulen.

Jennifer [0:06:49]: I am the chief marketing officer at Knak.

Jennifer [0:06:52]: Love the intro, Dave.

Jennifer [0:06:54]: I've been at Knak for four months now.

Jennifer [0:06:56]: So still fairly new at Knak, but previously, I was Knak obsessed customer, and I have held Cmo and demand gen leadership roles at Saas companies.

Jennifer [0:07:06]: Knak is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, and we focus on North America.

Jennifer [0:07:11]: I'm based out of Stamford, Connecticut so just right above New York City.

Jennifer [0:07:14]: And I'm not gonna go into it too much but as Dave said, like, we're an Ai powered no creation platform.

Jennifer [0:07:20]: Really excited that we're bringing creation back into the hands of the marketers.

Jennifer [0:07:24]: So our team can create those emails and landing pages fast, on brand, ready to send without touching code or relying on agencies, and we're at a growth stage.

Jennifer [0:07:34]: So we're at growth stage Saas Ai company, We're roughly about hundred and twenty people.

Jennifer [0:07:39]: We're serving large enterprise marketing teams that are in high tech pharma, financial services, insurance retail, like, B and B.

Jennifer [0:07:47]: And my role spans all of marketing from brand to product marketing, demand gen, you know, really focused also on obviously pipeline and revenue growth in our marketing operations.

Jennifer [0:07:59]: So really excited to be here.

Jennifer [0:08:01]: And, yeah, Ai has exceeded in most areas too, but when it comes to video when it even still comes to image creation, I think there's still ways to go, but I see it changing literally by the minute.

Jennifer [0:08:15]: So, I'm really excited for this discussion today.

Dave [0:08:18]: Alright.

Dave [0:08:18]: We'll get we'll get it we'll get into the need of it.

Dave [0:08:20]: Miss Tara, what's up, Girl.

Dave [0:08:21]: Good to see you, Tara and I are Vermont friends by the way, and we've officially, after two years of avoiding each other, we're actually gonna go for pike in two thank for that.

Dave [0:08:30]: So who are you, Tara?

Tara [0:08:32]: Which we strategically planned this morning, so go us.

Dave [0:08:34]: Yeah.

Dave [0:08:34]: Well, you might wanna wait till I get the lights out of the system.

Tara [0:08:37]: I do.

Tara [0:08:37]: Well, I think you're okay.

Tara [0:08:38]: Thank you be okay.

Tara [0:08:40]: Well, hi, everyone.

Tara [0:08:43]: So nice to be here.

Tara [0:08:44]: Thanks for including me in the in the non webinar.

Tara [0:08:46]: But my name is Tara Robertson.

Tara [0:08:48]: I'm the chief Marketing officer at Bitly.

Tara [0:08:50]: I see some Bitly marketing team members in the chat and also some friends, so hi to everybody that I know and hi to everybody that I don't know.

Tara [0:08:59]: Excited to connect.

Tara [0:08:59]: Who is Bitly, Bitly is us synonymous with Links.

Tara [0:09:03]: If you know who we are, but we are the world's leading connections platform where we, essentially drive links, qr codes, landing pages and robust analytics for mainly marketing professionals.

Tara [0:09:14]: Bitly is a fully product led business.

Tara [0:09:16]: We're roughly around a hundred and thirty million Arr, But we we drive a lot.

Tara [0:09:22]: We have two main website properties that bring over four million new users on a monthly basis.

Tara [0:09:27]: We drive roughly, one point four million Net.

Tara [0:09:31]: That's our most recent number sign ups between trials and sign ups on a monthly basis, which then bring roughly almost eighteen thousand new subscribers.

Tara [0:09:38]: So we've got six hundred thousand customers worldwide and continue to grow, and I have the absolute honor to serve and work alongside.

Tara [0:09:46]: The amazing marketing individuals, roughly about thirty people.

Tara [0:09:50]: That are doing all the crazy amazing work that I'll be talking about today.

Tara [0:09:54]: So if you're on, Thank you.

Tara [0:09:56]: If you're listening.

Tara [0:09:56]: Thank you.

Dave [0:09:57]: We already got some love for your marketing.

Dave [0:09:59]: I'm blaming huge fan of Bitly marketing emails Lately.

Dave [0:10:02]: Someone on your team is crushing it my man this does the same thing.

Tara [0:10:06]: That is Devin.

Tara [0:10:07]: And I will say as we get into Ai, Devin and Joanne on our life cycle email team, they actually do not use Ai.

Tara [0:10:14]: We get a lot of questions.

Tara [0:10:15]: When we send out the emails of, like, oh, yeah.

Tara [0:10:18]: Ai conversation, you're just, you know, not a human behind this, but actually incredible creative team.

Tara [0:10:23]: So And

Dave [0:10:24]: a perfect...

Dave [0:10:24]: That's a perfect example.

Dave [0:10:25]: By the way, like, those are the things that, like, yes, Every company has a newsletter every company sends out emails, but the way that you're standing out is actually by putting, like, the human in the mix and and spending time to to write.

Dave [0:10:36]: Okay.

Dave [0:10:36]: I got my questions over here.

Dave [0:10:38]: So let's go in in reverse order or, you know, feel free if someone's super passionate about this to to jump up, but I wanna get right into the right into the...

Dave [0:10:45]: What's not working.

Dave [0:10:46]: So we all we all have examples of, Ai and and and it's so great and how it's working and and everything.

Dave [0:10:52]: But give me the most over hyped Ai use case, something that you've tried, a tool you've bought vendor you've worked with a a thing you did that you saw online that some Linkedin influencer wrote about something you tried, but actually didn't didn't deliver.

Tara [0:11:07]: So reverse order, I guess that's me.

Tara [0:11:08]: Honestly, it's all over the map.

Tara [0:11:10]: And so I would say the number one thing that's not working that is the biggest challenge is this expectation that overnight Ai is going to fast track our ability to do all of the things.

Tara [0:11:20]: There's probably through everything that I've already heard, Jenny and Sara and Dave two talk about.

Tara [0:11:26]: It's taking us time to learn how to do it.

Tara [0:11:29]: And I would say that there's these expectations that, like, oh my god, Ai video or Oh, wow.

Tara [0:11:34]: There's all this that we can do with using these, and then you go in and you start to have a conversation, and you gotta learn how to prompt, and you gotta learn how to do all the different things.

Tara [0:11:43]: And we're doing some incredible stuff, but it is all taking us a good amount of time energy and training in order to become proficient in order to become and get to some of the results that we'll talk about.

Tara [0:11:54]: Probably the most recent one that's not working, but I'm really excited for what it does work.

Tara [0:11:58]: I saw Sam, who's our Vp of acquisition on the call.

Tara [0:12:01]: Is doing a tremendous work job working right now with one of our analysts on the marketing team and building out essentially an Ai chatbot that will be able to give us visibility into our acquisition performance insights.

Tara [0:12:14]: And so rather than me going into a million dashboards, or Slack and Sam, I can go in and have a conversation with this really incredible chatbot agent that T our amazing analyst has built.

Tara [0:12:26]: But we're still working through it.

Tara [0:12:27]: And so this week I'm complain around and I'm like, hey.

Tara [0:12:29]: How are our trial working out and it's, like, Your trials are super off.

Tara [0:12:33]: You need to start working on things right away to fix all the things and it took me five times to get to how the trials were actually performing, which is ahead of goal.

Tara [0:12:42]: And so I think you've gotta learn how to use the tools.

Tara [0:12:45]: You've got a trust in the process that it takes to actually become proficient and then also recognize that you still need that human strategic element to layer in before you trust the stuff that you're doing without assuming that you'll get to ten x right out of the gates.

Dave [0:13:00]: Jenny, we don't wanna build on that or share what's here something that's not working for you.

Jennifer [0:13:04]: I'm gonna share something that's that's also not working for me because I...

Jennifer [0:13:07]: What I'm also curious is I'm I'm looking to see if others have practice code, this buyer signal intent and then, you know, personal the outreach to meet the buyer where they are.

Jennifer [0:13:17]: That, I felt, we fallen into tools.

Jennifer [0:13:20]: We fall into platforms that promise so much to, hey, we're going to learn about your buyers.

Jennifer [0:13:26]: We're gonna watch their behaviors.

Jennifer [0:13:27]: We're gonna see what those signals are.

Jennifer [0:13:30]: We're gonna, you know, then feed these warm opportunities to you and your team, and we're gonna work with you to actually you know, develop the personalized content that's gonna go out to that buyer so that you could get them in your cycle really quickly.

Jennifer [0:13:44]: That has not worked.

Jennifer [0:13:45]: And there's been a lot of, I feel, like tools and companies and, you know, tools even them together that promise a lot of that.

Jennifer [0:13:51]: And turning that into, you know, whether it's Ab programs.

Jennifer [0:13:54]: I have not found that to match reality yet.

Jennifer [0:13:58]: So I love that I'm seeing, like, we are working with clay right now too, which, you know, I think that's fantastic to see that.

Jennifer [0:14:06]: They're in the best orchestration that it looks like us, someone on the chat says, so I am...

Jennifer [0:14:11]: I'm open to this because that's one that I'm I'm so passionate about, but really where the buyer intent Ai has been.

Jennifer [0:14:18]: I think I feel like right now, it's been a lot of promise without the fruit so far.

Sara [0:14:23]: Yeah.

Sara [0:14:23]: I'll jump in and build on both of those because I think they're I think can they're connected.

Sara [0:14:27]: So Terry, your point about doing it all and kind of the time and training it takes and then Jenny your point about personal.

Sara [0:14:32]: I think a lot of what we've done is sort of skipped a couple steps.

Sara [0:14:36]: With Ai and just gotten to the end result and kind of miss the strategy and say, okay, ai, I can do these things.

Sara [0:14:41]: So, like, here take the output.

Sara [0:14:43]: But for the point of personalization specifically, and I do think Clay is...

Sara [0:14:47]: It I'd also agree with that They're doing a great job on the orchestration front.

Sara [0:14:51]: There are nuances to humanity that only humans can pick up.

Sara [0:14:55]: Right?

Sara [0:14:55]: So only we can know that somebody just posted something on Linkedin about their kids.

Sara [0:14:59]: The time it would take to feed all of that into some type of Ai tool to then spit it out.

Sara [0:15:05]: Is complicated.

Sara [0:15:06]: Right?

Sara [0:15:07]: Like, it takes too much time where you could just go person a person and say, hey, This isn't a big deal, but I saw this about me and it resonated because of why can we talk...

Sara [0:15:16]: And you see those examples proliferate on Linkedin over and over again.

Sara [0:15:20]: Human touch the reality of it, kind of that per interpersonal connection.

Sara [0:15:24]: And then, you know, to the time and training, if the tool works really well then great, put the effort in and spend the time, give your team the time and latitude to try and test because that takes hud space.

Sara [0:15:35]: But if not, let it go, we don't have to use all the tools.

Sara [0:15:39]: It's okay to use one really well and not try seventeen other things.

Dave [0:15:43]: It's so funny because I feel like I...

Dave [0:15:45]: Because we're at the forefront of this and whether it's through, you know, running running tools for our own business or we have companies that sponsor us or we have members that suggest using tools.

Dave [0:15:54]: Like, I feel like, my company because of what we do at identify where it's, like, the center of, like, the marketing nerd, you know, tech, like, let's use all the tools.

Dave [0:16:02]: And it is...

Dave [0:16:04]: There's a lot of good stuff out there, but I'm also surprised by, like, and sometimes I give myself this kinda like impostor syndrome rolling and I'm like, man.

Dave [0:16:11]: I kinda only use Chat tea.

Dave [0:16:13]: That...

Dave [0:16:15]: And that's okay.

Dave [0:16:16]: Because I think that line that you had, and I tried to type it in the chat and then I was got distracted talking to producer dan behind the scenes, but the line you said about the nuance is, like, I don't know if you've seen this at all, but there's this movement of, like, the younger folks, Gen z.

Dave [0:16:30]: They're making videos with, like, the old school cameras.

Dave [0:16:33]: You know, you've seen...

Dave [0:16:34]: There's a movement where, like, analog is back.

Dave [0:16:37]: Analog is coming back and the things that feel like almost messy or messed up or or not perfect.

Dave [0:16:44]: Right?

Dave [0:16:44]: That stuff is like, really working really well.

Dave [0:16:47]: And so it's like, I wonder that in this quest for, like, trying to automate everything and, like, cool.

Dave [0:16:52]: We can automate the shit out of our marketing.

Dave [0:16:54]: That's amazing.

Dave [0:16:55]: But what exactly what you said Sara, that line about the Nuance and, like, humans understanding the Nuance like, maybe that is going to be the differentiator, and it's, like that homemade, you know, why is a homemade chicken par gonna be better, no offense if you love the Olive garden.

Dave [0:17:10]: Right?

Dave [0:17:10]: But, like, the, you know, matt matt's moms chicken par.

Dave [0:17:13]: I don't even know if they chicken part.

Dave [0:17:14]: That might be, like, real weak italian stuff Sorry, Matt.

Dave [0:17:17]: But whatever they eat Right?

Dave [0:17:18]: That might be...

Dave [0:17:19]: The...

Dave [0:17:20]: The Olive Garden meal is gonna be not not not as appealing to everybody.

Dave [0:17:23]: I I think there's something there.

Dave [0:17:24]: We're, like, we gotta...

Dave [0:17:25]: How do we keep that human touch in nuance in in marketing.

Dave [0:17:28]: I really like that sir.

Jennifer [0:17:29]: Yeah.

Jennifer [0:17:29]: We tell you a lot a noise and rising above the noise and that true human element.

Tara [0:17:34]: If the compartment is not a italian place.

Tara [0:17:36]: Yeah.

Tara [0:17:38]: And you know what a funny one is.

Tara [0:17:40]: One thing that's not working, and this is just thinking back to yesterday.

Tara [0:17:42]: So I don't know if everyone's been following along with the, have Ai roast your profile picture.

Tara [0:17:48]: Yeah.

Tara [0:17:48]: Tried them out.

Tara [0:17:49]: It was hilarious.

Tara [0:17:50]: But then then Chad chi was, like, hold my beer.

Tara [0:17:53]: I got a better one for you.

Tara [0:17:55]: And the picture that it gave back of me why awful.

Tara [0:17:59]: Like, so awful.

Tara [0:18:00]: And those are the kinds of experiences where those are the things you just can't rely.

Tara [0:18:05]: I'm, like,

Dave [0:18:06]: You all see the Will Smith concert thing?

Sara [0:18:08]: I haven't seen that one.

Sara [0:18:09]: No.

Dave [0:18:11]: No chat.

Dave [0:18:11]: Where are you at?

Dave [0:18:11]: I know Chad has seen it there.

Dave [0:18:13]: Will Smith got Roasted because he posted this video of, like, him at a concert and it was, like sold out ten thousand people in Miami at the Will Smith concert, and it was, like, someone zoomed in and it was, like, an Ai generated video and, like, everyone in the crowd has, like, you know, fingers like this and, like, faces are melted.

Dave [0:18:30]: It's amazing.

Dave [0:18:33]: You gotta...

Dave [0:18:33]: You gotta look it up if you if you haven't seen.

Dave [0:18:36]: Okay.

Dave [0:18:36]: So so that's fair.

Dave [0:18:37]: I I I would say if I to summarize that it's not necessarily one tool, but it's kind of just, like, maybe like, falling for this mass adoption of just, like, just press the Ai button to our marketing, and it's all gonna just be Ai and we're good.

Tara [0:18:51]: Exactly.

Tara [0:18:51]: Yeah.

Tara [0:18:51]: More.

Sara [0:18:52]: I think we fall pray to that both as sort of marketers of the craft and also as marketers to to audiences.

Sara [0:18:58]: Right?

Sara [0:18:58]: You know, if you look at the the past year in particular.

Sara [0:19:01]: And for our marketing at so as well.

Sara [0:19:03]: We made a lot of conclusions.

Sara [0:19:05]: So everybody's gonna jump at the speed of us because we're pressed to try Ai.

Sara [0:19:10]: We're adopting it.

Sara [0:19:11]: Everybody's, you know, looking for efficiency, but then you forget on the other end that.

Sara [0:19:15]: You know, there are industries our whole spots of people that just aren't set up to do that or they're not testing at that speed and they're still at the education phase.

Sara [0:19:22]: So I think some of that has allowed me in particular, my team just slow down a bit to say, okay.

Sara [0:19:28]: To your point, Dave of just using one tool.

Sara [0:19:30]: Okay to only use Chat for a while and get it fine tuned really, really well to do a couple of use cases, but don't have to boil the ocean here because not everybody else is either.

Tara [0:19:40]: Yeah.

Tara [0:19:40]: And Dave, I think something that you said is really powerful is so important to say, and I would say for everybody.

Tara [0:19:44]: On the call is I don't think there's one person that I've talked to, especially over the last six months last year is this has been rapidly growing.

Tara [0:19:52]: That doesn't feel some form of impostor syndrome when it comes to Ai.

Tara [0:19:56]: None of us know what we're doing.

Tara [0:19:58]: We're all in this and learning together in various speeds, and I found that one of the best things for me has been just absorbing and learning and being okay with you don't know what you don't know.

Tara [0:20:09]: And just making sure that you can continue to learn from each other, and everybody around you because everyone's doing something a little bit differently, but no one's got it right.

Tara [0:20:18]: No one knows this playbook.

Tara [0:20:20]: There isn't a playbook.

Jennifer [0:20:22]: I agree with you, Tara, and you're not going to either because tomorrow is gonna be different.

Jennifer [0:20:26]: I mean, this is the fastest tech we've seen.

Jennifer [0:20:29]: And what was happening three months ago is obsolete now in some cases.

Jennifer [0:20:34]: So keep that in mind too.

Jennifer [0:20:36]: You have to be curious.

Jennifer [0:20:37]: You have to be agile.

Jennifer [0:20:38]: You have to be okay with change.

Jennifer [0:20:40]: You're not gonna master something right away because again, it could be very different tomorrow.

Jennifer [0:20:44]: Totally.

Dave [0:20:46]: Yep.

Dave [0:20:46]: I will say though speaking of that chat Gp, you're not gonna pre...

Dave [0:20:50]: You you could pry that thing out of my cold dead hands because he's not that for me.

Dave [0:20:53]: And I think I I heard Da talk about this.

Dave [0:20:56]: He's a founder of Hubspot He was talking about this on the podcast recently, but what I'm super interested in is I think that beyond the little use cases and examples, I'm really and I'm really bullish on, like, the chat Or whatever your Ai for your company having memory.

Tara [0:21:12]: Mh.

Dave [0:21:13]: And the memory being, like, the killer feature, because, like, as example, we've been growing our team here at X Exit Five and what's amazing with with onboarding, Like, onboarding a new teammate.

Dave [0:21:22]: Right?

Dave [0:21:23]: I can now create a custom Gp or whatever you use whatever tool.

Dave [0:21:27]: Right?

Dave [0:21:28]: Mh.

Dave [0:21:28]: And I can say, like, Here's our Ic.

Dave [0:21:30]: Here's our pain points.

Dave [0:21:31]: Here's the history of our companies.

Dave [0:21:33]: Here's the best, you know, ten best what webinar not webinars we've ever done.

Dave [0:21:37]: Here's the ten best emails we've ever sent.

Dave [0:21:38]: Here's the ten best customers we have.

Dave [0:21:40]: Here's the ten best worst customers.

Dave [0:21:41]: And now you can onboard someone with this, like, amazing brain of knowledge.

Dave [0:21:46]: Imagine that over the lifetime of a of a company.

Dave [0:21:49]: Right?

Dave [0:21:50]: Imagine you could chat with something at Bitly.

Dave [0:21:52]: And you're like, at Terry, You've you've been there for a couple years now, but, like, Hey, did we ever try this growth experiment?

Dave [0:21:57]: Like, you know, back in the day?

Dave [0:21:58]: And we ever tried changing pricing to be done out?

Dave [0:22:00]: Like imagine having that level of context into a into a company.

Dave [0:22:03]: I think.

Dave [0:22:04]: There's something really powerful there that will hopefully be available to all of us and then if you're able to plug in, like, the conversations from your teams, you know, Slack and email and and have some way of of leveraging all that stuff.

Dave [0:22:16]: Even even now, like, the Ai features in Slack I did it the other day, there was a prop said, like, Hey.

Dave [0:22:22]: What did I get done last week?

Dave [0:22:23]: And I kinda feel like I had, like, a weird unproductive week?

Dave [0:22:26]: I my...

Dave [0:22:27]: One of my kids was home sick That...

Dave [0:22:28]: Are you going to Slack and I'm like, what did I get done last week?

Dave [0:22:30]: And it's like, and it showed me the fifteen things that I shipped, and I was like, Yeah.

Dave [0:22:35]: You didn't do so bad.

Dave [0:22:36]: I think there's a lot of stuff like that.

Dave [0:22:37]: It's not just like the sexy, like, Ai video editing tool, you know?

Sara [0:22:41]: Mh.

Sara [0:22:41]: Yeah.

Sara [0:22:42]: I love that.

Sara [0:22:43]: I'll just say one thing that I I do with my team is, like, especially if first step.

Sara [0:22:47]: So to your point about, like, the comp compelling the knowledge and the brain and say, okay.

Sara [0:22:51]: Hold on.

Sara [0:22:51]: Let's just try something.

Sara [0:22:52]: I'll pull up Chat And I'll say, we're talking about this.

Sara [0:22:56]: Here's the problem.

Sara [0:22:57]: We're stuck on this point.

Sara [0:22:58]: I know we've talked about this before, pull up some things.

Sara [0:23:01]: And we kind of use it as that sort of third party brainstorm and it lets us show some value.

Sara [0:23:07]: So one example recently we're talking about spinning up a competitor take down landing page.

Sara [0:23:12]: My content marketing lead had written a copy we were going through it.

Sara [0:23:16]: I said that's great.

Sara [0:23:17]: You know what?

Sara [0:23:18]: You...

Sara [0:23:18]: We haven't looked at the competitor's page for us.

Sara [0:23:21]: So let's look at that.

Sara [0:23:22]: Actually, let's throw this copy into the g Gp.

Sara [0:23:25]: Ask it, what are we missing?

Sara [0:23:27]: What are we not seeing?

Sara [0:23:28]: Like, what could we pull up stronger?

Sara [0:23:29]: And it was eye opening.

Sara [0:23:31]: And so I've used it in that way a little bit to my team to teach them give them feedback, but not make it feel like I'm putting too much on their plate, and you're just constantly adding to that brain power I think is pretty fun.

Dave [0:23:43]: Kimberly in the the chat is amazing right now by the way.

Dave [0:23:46]: Like, this is so fun.

Tara [0:23:48]: Sorry this chad is so good.

Tara [0:23:49]: Kimberly in the

Dave [0:23:50]: chat said my chad.

Dave [0:23:51]: I love to I say my chad.

Dave [0:23:52]: My chad Thinks I'm obsessed with Oreo Speed wagon because I quoted it one time.

Dave [0:23:58]: I love that.

Dave [0:24:03]: Alright.

Dave [0:24:03]: Here now.

Dave [0:24:04]: Next next question My.

Dave [0:24:04]: Now, let let's flip us over.

Dave [0:24:06]: You can only pick one, and you have to give me a specific example.

Dave [0:24:11]: I wanna know could be something on your on your...

Dave [0:24:14]: Some...

Dave [0:24:14]: Something someone did on your team.

Dave [0:24:16]: A specific example, give me your best use of Ai right now in the last three months, whatever.

Dave [0:24:22]: I can think of one off the top of my head.

Dave [0:24:24]: Like, oh, we...

Dave [0:24:25]: Everybody that bought a ticket to drive, for example, our event.

Dave [0:24:28]: We asked them what their biggest pain points are in marketing, and then we analyze all the data we use Chat To then match people together and do breakout groups.

Dave [0:24:34]: That's that's a cool one.

Dave [0:24:35]: Give me one specific one like that.

Dave [0:24:38]: Let's go I'm not gonna call...

Dave [0:24:39]: You...

Dave [0:24:40]: You you just get off the mic.

Dave [0:24:41]: If you got one, go ahead.

Jennifer [0:24:43]: I got one that my team created that I know we all absolutely love.

Jennifer [0:24:47]: They created an L powered, basically a content research engine.

Jennifer [0:24:52]: So basically, we we run these, like, query fans across L like per complexity, chat Gp.

Jennifer [0:24:59]: We analyze their responses.

Jennifer [0:25:01]: We're storing that.

Jennifer [0:25:02]: We scrape the citations that...

Jennifer [0:25:04]: Come back from that response.

Jennifer [0:25:06]: We analyze and store that in the database, and they built a custom agent that literally identifies our content gaps compared, you know, like, it's really looking at neck content, snack knowledge files, and it's comparing not to our brand and saying, well, here's what you're missing.

Jennifer [0:25:21]: And then it's even helping us, like, giving us ideas on content and writing that content.

Jennifer [0:25:25]: We really look at this as, like, our our Ai research workflow, and we can run a competitive analysis, on every query every response and come up with ways to leverage that on how we can rank better.

Jennifer [0:25:39]: So, like, essentially helping us with topics helping us, you know, kind of see us, like, what are our competitors even missing.

Jennifer [0:25:46]: And the results that we've been looking at, have been really strong just from.

Jennifer [0:25:49]: Like, we're focused on...

Jennifer [0:25:51]: If we're quantifying this success, like, how are we growing in at organic reach and getting new inbound demand that didn't really exist.

Jennifer [0:25:57]: A year ago and giving us that insight to do so.

Jennifer [0:26:00]: And so we've seen, like impressions on Google like Go Sky high, but also just from our hand razors that are coming in, how many now are saying web search or chat Ep as how they heard about us.

Jennifer [0:26:12]: And so it really unlocks something that...

Jennifer [0:26:15]: We don't even say, like, saved to us time, like, we couldn't do.

Jennifer [0:26:17]: We couldn't achieve prior to this.

Jennifer [0:26:19]: So my team really worked hard on that and it's been incredible for us.

Dave [0:26:23]: Just to build on that...

Dave [0:26:24]: Where did that question go?

Dave [0:26:25]: Man there's someone here right now.

Dave [0:26:27]: Daniel on the chat says, do you have did somebody help you build that?

Dave [0:26:30]: Is that a...

Dave [0:26:31]: Does the Ai specialist that did that I work for a small company that seems una tangible?

Jennifer [0:26:35]: Our teams actually...

Jennifer [0:26:36]: Yeah.

Jennifer [0:26:36]: We we have Ai experts in house, but so we have...

Jennifer [0:26:40]: You know, we've got marketing operations, and then we've got Ai developers in house that work together with my team to build it?

Jennifer [0:26:47]: We're a small team, but they are they are mighty, and they figure it out.

Dave [0:26:52]: What where does the content engine live inside of Chat?

Dave [0:26:54]: Where does your team access insights and access the insights and adjust the model.

Jennifer [0:26:59]: Yeah.

Jennifer [0:26:59]: We even...

Jennifer [0:27:00]: So they access it in chat Gb, but then we we also push these out into slack channels for us as well.

Dave [0:27:08]: Nice.

Dave [0:27:08]: Who else?

Tara [0:27:10]: I can jump in with one.

Tara [0:27:11]: And this is really hard.

Tara [0:27:12]: So I wanna cheat a little bit and then say how I got to my one.

Tara [0:27:15]: So one thing that we've implemented on the Bitly marketing team, which is probably my favorite internal use case and then I'll talk about external is essentially a weekly show tell.

Tara [0:27:25]: Series where we call it how huawei I Ai.

Tara [0:27:27]: And what we do is every single week, someone in the marketing team.

Tara [0:27:30]: They don't need to prepare anything.

Tara [0:27:31]: They don't need to do a presentation.

Tara [0:27:33]: They just present back to the rest of the marketing team.

Tara [0:27:36]: Someone else interested on what they're doing in their day to day because every single role in marketing.

Tara [0:27:41]: For the most part is generally different, and we're all using different tools, we're all trying different use cases, and I am learning so much from the way that my team is also leveraging Ai in the day to day kind of to the question.

Tara [0:27:55]: We don't have people that are specialized in Ai at Bitly.

Tara [0:27:58]: We're all on the journey of learning it together, but we're trying to enable how.

Tara [0:28:02]: Do we learn together in a place where as we mentioned earlier, everyone enters in with some kind of impostor syndrome.

Tara [0:28:08]: So how do we make it less scary, but also recognize that we have to learn this.

Tara [0:28:13]: We have to do this as we grow in our careers not even just within our organization, but for ourselves.

Tara [0:28:19]: As I'll speak to one of the ones that I'm probably most jazz about at this very moment because it's unlocked an opportunity for us.

Tara [0:28:27]: And so over the last few years, we know that Bitly is a global organization, but we've always really struggled with localization.

Tara [0:28:35]: At scale because it's expensive.

Tara [0:28:37]: It's challenging.

Tara [0:28:38]: It's something that typically it would take a lot of time energy and effort to be able to do a true global execution.

Tara [0:28:45]: And so we implemented a tool called freeze, and it was roughly about a year ago, along with claude.

Tara [0:28:51]: We use Claude.

Tara [0:28:52]: We use Chat, all sorts of different Ll for different use cases.

Tara [0:28:55]: And our localization team has done just a tremendous job shifting from previously.

Tara [0:29:01]: They were really localization experts in language.

Tara [0:29:04]: They would go in.

Tara [0:29:05]: They would manually do a lot of Qa.

Tara [0:29:07]: To now they're able to fast track the velocity and the things that I'm learning from them in these Huawei Ai series is truly mind blowing into not only are they able to localize in their languages using both phrase and claude, but local in languages well beyond their own capacity And what we've seen already is in the first four languages that we've gotten into market, a sixteen x increase in overall sign ups.

Tara [0:29:30]: And now these were areas we knew, we needed to do.

Tara [0:29:33]: And so it's not about just these efforts have achieved those results.

Tara [0:29:37]: It's more about how quickly can we get new markets out and move at a faster velocity.

Tara [0:29:42]: And so our acquisition And I were even talking this morning about new markets we wanna enter into.

Tara [0:29:47]: And suddenly, we've opened up this door, leveraging these different tools in these different strategies that the team has really just dived in and rolled up their sleeves and figured out to be able to say, alright.

Tara [0:29:58]: Where do we go next?

Tara [0:29:59]: And to start to unlock what was previously I think for anybody that's ever tried to live within a global marketing background, it's hard.

Tara [0:30:09]: And so it's not that it's not hard anymore, but we're able to move at a much faster rate.

Tara [0:30:13]: And as a result, drive stronger sign ups.

Dave [0:30:17]: That's a great one.

Dave [0:30:18]: There's a bunch of people plus wanting that in in in chat, you know, particularly as a company scales using Ai for localization.

Dave [0:30:24]: Is there a similar nuance that, you know, there's obviously a nuance in in language?

Dave [0:30:29]: Maybe the Ai localization services are good enough, but is there still some element of, like, you would want a human to go and and just kinda of gut check all that stuff?

Tara [0:30:39]: Yeah.

Tara [0:30:39]: And that's the part that we're building that playbook.

Tara [0:30:41]: You know, it's kinda the the old...

Tara [0:30:43]: Building the flame or flying the plane while you're building it, building it while you're flying it.

Tara [0:30:47]: That's it.

Tara [0:30:48]: So we are figuring that out in which markets are critical global markets for us that we need to make sure that quality is always at the utmost.

Tara [0:30:56]: And so you've got that extra final Qa.

Tara [0:30:57]: Process in place, and this is part of the element of...

Tara [0:31:00]: And I think you've got this in a future question dave, but how we're shifting roles and how we're thinking about defining the change management for the team.

Tara [0:31:07]: Previously, everything was Qa.

Tara [0:31:09]: Now it's strategically thinking about end market and then layering on Qa and being able to just do the same level of work, but in a completely different way.

Tara [0:31:19]: And what markets do we need to have a very strategic and on critical eye into quality.

Tara [0:31:25]: And what markets, you know, is it better for us to just kind of grow and be okay with being ninety four percent accurate.

Tara [0:31:31]: And then putting that playbook in place so that we can scale, do it smart, but also do it strategically and not over engineer, essentially the process.

Dave [0:31:41]: Nice.

Dave [0:31:41]: Sorry.

Dave [0:31:41]: You got one on the brandon and the, comm side of things.

Sara [0:31:45]: I I do, but it's it's more internal to the team.

Sara [0:31:48]: So we are doing some of the same things.

Sara [0:31:50]: We have...

Sara [0:31:50]: We started an Ai council.

Sara [0:31:52]: We have some Ai teams organizational.

Sara [0:31:55]: But something that's sucked to me Terry you just said this, the point of, you know, doing the same level of work in a very strategic way.

Sara [0:32:01]: So one of the best ways that Ai is ai has been helpful for my team, particularly on the brand side is a lot of brand and calm centric teams aren't as data driven or don't know how to get access to the data that's say growth or demand team does.

Sara [0:32:15]: So a big part of my role is helping them to think that way because I'm a huge believer that if you can speaking in growth language then you're really a a fully shaped marketer.

Sara [0:32:24]: So we've used it, again, with just choppy In a way to where I've got my team uploading their Q reports.

Sara [0:32:32]: Their Q two reports are bi weekly, performance data for social to help teach them help to be data driven marketers.

Sara [0:32:40]: So asking at questions like, okay, what are the three things that might have changed this week based on what you know about our high performing posts or low performing posts and our engagement drops?

Sara [0:32:49]: Based on this, what are something that I could try.

Sara [0:32:51]: Here are some trends based on that and the way that people are responding to our content, how might this help me think differently about our plans.

Sara [0:32:58]: But the other thing it's done is given them a level of confidence and reporting back particular to.

Sara [0:33:03]: Particularly to our leadership and creating structured plans for other teams.

Sara [0:33:07]: So that point of, you know, doing the same level of work, but in a very strategic way.

Sara [0:33:12]: I think resonates a lot for me on the back end standpoint of, like, the hidden side of Ai that really benefits people.

Dave [0:33:18]: No.

Dave [0:33:18]: I love that.

Dave [0:33:19]: So just because it's not, like, some sexy, like, we made a, you know, Ai avatar of our Ceo doing back flips or whatever, Like, that's a perfect use case so much of marketing over the years, I found is, like, about training, you know, team training, internal marketing, enable men.

Dave [0:33:37]: And your use case is a great one.

Dave [0:33:39]: I've had a hard time hiring, like, content creative, social type people because I found that Typically what I want is growth.

Dave [0:33:46]: I want results out of those...

Dave [0:33:48]: A business results out of those channels.

Dave [0:33:50]: But typically the person who might be greet great at video, social creative is not necessarily thinking about the metrics in that same way.

Dave [0:33:57]: And so that's a perfect example of, like, hey, help me analyze all the things that we've done on social.

Dave [0:34:02]: Let's understand what's working what's not, like, be my analyst.

Dave [0:34:05]: That...

Dave [0:34:06]: That's a great one.

Dave [0:34:07]: I I connected our marketing automation system to Claude.

Dave [0:34:11]: And said, hey, it looks like our email list has really grown a lot in the last ninety days.

Dave [0:34:16]: Can you tell me why?

Dave [0:34:17]: Mint, it was better than any report I've gotten from, you know, anyone other than like a director level ops person in the past, which I would have had, like, submit a request for would have taken weeks, whatever it was, like, okay.

Dave [0:34:29]: Great.

Dave [0:34:29]: Here, you know, here here's what's going on.

Dave [0:34:32]: Like, these three lead magnets that you have are really performing well.

Dave [0:34:35]: The conversion rate on this one is really high, It must be because, oh, this is the your salary report that you did.

Dave [0:34:39]: Your audience really loves insights about salaries.

Dave [0:34:41]: It was amazing.

Dave [0:34:43]: And that's a perfect example of, like, Ai being our assistant in marketing.

Dave [0:34:47]: I'm not using it to, like, replace a lot of the creative work, but can you help me analyze?

Dave [0:34:52]: Like, hey, hey, our our website traffic is down in the last ninety days and, like, it's impossible to understand Ga four.

Dave [0:34:58]: Can you tell me can what what could I...

Dave [0:35:01]: What can I give you to tell help me understand that?

Dave [0:35:03]: I think that that's a great use case.

Sara [0:35:05]: Yeah.

Sara [0:35:05]: I also just add in our, to the point about growth metrics and board reporting...

Sara [0:35:10]: To the point where you can, and you've got, obviously sort of Ai safeguards from an enterprise standpoint and your security team, but, you know, so often teens look at that and say, oh, I don't get this data or I understand Q, but I don't understand how we added, you know, value to that.

Sara [0:35:24]: And it's not perfect, but it's a great place to start to ask questions because I think sometimes, you know, a lot of times you might not even know the question to ask, but I'm a I'm a big proponent and it sounds like people in the chatter are excited about that too, particularly.

Sara [0:35:38]: The idea of messy data.

Sara [0:35:39]: Like, Okay.

Dave [0:35:40]: Here's my next question.

Dave [0:35:41]: This is going great.

Dave [0:35:41]: There's no chance we're gonna get to all my questions.

Dave [0:35:43]: But, lesson I learned back in the day being a podcast host was you wanna over prepare.

Dave [0:35:48]: So if the conversation sucks, then you have lots of questions to ask.

Dave [0:35:51]: And if it goes great, then you just kinda let it go and that's exactly what's what's happening right now.

Dave [0:35:55]: So I wanna hear from each of you at in your role as a marketing leader, a personal example of how you use Ai, it can be just chat Eb in in your everyday workflow could be like, I use it to prepare for a board meeting?

Dave [0:36:11]: I use it to 2x x y and z.

Dave [0:36:13]: Do you have a killer or just...

Dave [0:36:15]: How is Ai become a part of your personal workflow as a marketing leader?

Tara [0:36:20]: One recommendation, I would say to everybody on this call the ai driven leader is a book that I would highly, highly highly recommend.

Tara [0:36:28]: Some of the things that have helped me in my day to day in my workflow, I actually took as strategies from that book as I kinda went down my own journey.

Tara [0:36:37]: And so I would say I'd answer this twofold.

Tara [0:36:39]: The first dave is when everything really started to escalate them and we're like, alright.

Tara [0:36:44]: We all gotta do this.

Tara [0:36:45]: We're leaning in.

Tara [0:36:46]: Everyone's gotta learn is rolling up my sleeves and doing it myself.

Tara [0:36:50]: And so my first step was every webinar or live event or any kind of article or anything I saw, I would sign up.

Tara [0:36:58]: I would attend, I would try the thing out, and I would build it myself because Am I is a leader to go out and say, we all need to be doing Ai.

Tara [0:37:05]: And not know how to build a custom Gp on my own.

Tara [0:37:08]: And so first and foremost, it's just being a sponge and learning.

Tara [0:37:12]: And in some ways, Pretty excited about it because I feel like I haven't learned in marketing like this in years.

Tara [0:37:18]: And so we're learning how to be new kinds of marketers and in marketing leadership, you don't always get to do marketing, so it's actually really fun to go in and try to figure it all out together.

Tara [0:37:28]: But the strategy I would say to the original question of what do I do as a leader is something I pulled out from the Ai driven leadership book that I just recommended, which is essentially using Ai Azure thought partner building on what Sara was just sharing on...

Tara [0:37:42]: I do use Ai when it comes to board prep when it comes to strategic prep, by essentially going in and saying, Hey Claude, chat Gp, Gemini and I, whatever Ll you're in for the day.

Tara [0:37:54]: I'm the Cmo of Bitly, and need you to be my strategic thought partner.

Tara [0:37:59]: I want you to ask me one question at a time This is the problem that I'm trying to solve.

Tara [0:38:04]: Do not give me any solutions, ask me these questions so we can get to the output we can get to the answer before we can start to build out the strategic direction I'm working on.

Tara [0:38:13]: In my most recent board meeting, we were presenting an updated strategy, we wanted to get buy from the board.

Tara [0:38:19]: I'm not gonna go into.

Tara [0:38:20]: The deep details on what that is because I'm not allowed to.

Tara [0:38:23]: But what was actually really eye opening and honestly, like, in a lot of ways humbling is, Ai, I will come back and be like, cool tara that sounds great.

Tara [0:38:31]: But what does your board actually care about?

Tara [0:38:33]: Me care about revenue?

Tara [0:38:34]: Okay.

Tara [0:38:34]: Well, then how does this tighter revenue?

Tara [0:38:36]: And then would start to really ask the questions that typically my board members would ask or you know, my Ceo would ask that in those meetings if you're not prepared, you're like, oh, I'm sweating.

Tara [0:38:47]: And it really kinda helped get through how do I set up the presentation in a way that maybe, I wouldn't have done on the first draft before?

Tara [0:38:54]: And so that...

Dave [0:38:57]: Book is it the Ai driven leader by Jeff Woods?

Dave [0:38:59]: Or is it Ai driven leadership by Moldy?

Tara [0:39:02]: I think it's Jeff Woods.

Tara [0:39:03]: Jeff As we're talking through.

Tara [0:39:05]: Yeah.

Tara [0:39:05]: But, yes, that that prompt to asked me one question at a time.

Tara [0:39:09]: And go through before you actually build the actual output has essentially changed the way that I can leverage a lot of my presentations, a lot of my communications, and I do it probably almost every day.

Jennifer [0:39:21]: I love that.

Jennifer [0:39:21]: I plus one for that as well.

Jennifer [0:39:22]: I think that you know, even as I was coming into neck and we were going through positioning, and it really did support and help me there.

Jennifer [0:39:29]: There's also...

Jennifer [0:39:30]: You know, as I came in snack about four months ago learning.

Jennifer [0:39:34]: It helped me to get up to speed a bit quicker.

Jennifer [0:39:38]: And even understanding our customers and our prospect trends.

Jennifer [0:39:42]: We have a corporate chat Gp.

Jennifer [0:39:45]: So I'm able to load, you know, some sensitive data and information, I know, you know, Sara's you're talking about loading performance data metrics.

Jennifer [0:39:52]: Caveat, just make sure you're doing that in our, you know, secure corporate environment.

Jennifer [0:39:57]: But, we have gong, and we record all of our sales calls, our Sdr seo calls, our calls with our customers with Cs, And so I'm able to actually learn and find trends?

Jennifer [0:40:10]: You know, why have we been losing specific deals?

Jennifer [0:40:14]: Why are we winning?

Jennifer [0:40:15]: Is there a trend that cuts...

Jennifer [0:40:17]: That keeps coming up in terms of pain point?

Jennifer [0:40:19]: Or is there something new that surfacing that we can learn, and we're actually even been creating some custom Gp that represent our customers as well so we could even see, like, with this positioning resonate, with this message really really work well.

Jennifer [0:40:32]: So it's been great in, you know, understanding and identifying trends for me as well, and I use that for competitive intelligence too.

Jennifer [0:40:40]: So especially as somebody new coming on board to a new company, you wanna get up to speed as as quickly, but also, you know, as deeply as possible and it's really helped me in that as well.

Sara [0:40:52]: Yeah.

Sara [0:40:52]: I'll I'll plus hundreds of both of those.

Sara [0:40:54]: I think,

Dave [0:40:56]: yeah it's it's it's plus one you can do plus sign.

Tara [0:40:58]: Yeah.

Tara [0:40:58]: I think multiple thousand

Sara [0:41:00]: plus thousand support those both immensely.

Sara [0:41:03]: I think two other things too.

Sara [0:41:05]: I I continue to talk about in the way that I use it to sort of help my team because that's truly been beneficial to me as a leader who doesn't have a lot of time, but I have some, you know, junior to mid level.

Sara [0:41:15]: Team members particularly on the on the com side, and the writing side, where they do need that collaboration in partnership, But I don't often have an hour to sit with them and say, here's what I would change and here's what I'd move around.

Sara [0:41:27]: So sometimes They'll take their submission.

Sara [0:41:31]: I'll just throw notes in.

Sara [0:41:32]: And and my own Gp has gotten to the point where It's like, okay, I can read Sara shorthand, but it will structure my feedback in a way that helps me coach the team without rewriting their work.

Sara [0:41:43]: Here's why I made the change.

Sara [0:41:44]: Here's what you need to think about.

Sara [0:41:46]: Here's a draft that starts it.

Sara [0:41:48]: Do you see why I made A b and C decision, and that's been like, a light bulb moment to they Like, oh, no.

Sara [0:41:54]: I I see it.

Sara [0:41:55]: I see the thought process I understand.

Sara [0:41:56]: But the second part is, like, I try to break my Gp sometimes too.

Sara [0:42:01]: So if someone gives me something, my first question is why?

Sara [0:42:04]: Like, tara to your point about the question.

Sara [0:42:07]: No now, Don't get too far ahead.

Sara [0:42:08]: Let's come back here.

Sara [0:42:09]: Why would we do it this way?

Sara [0:42:10]: Okay.

Sara [0:42:11]: That's okay, but I'm not convinced on that.

Sara [0:42:13]: Here's another, you know, parameter in this.

Sara [0:42:15]: Why would we do it this way?

Sara [0:42:16]: And And I saw someone once sort of use the Ai in and that way as a a decision making tree to try to see okay, Can we get to a source of truth or dis distilled this down into something really simple and kind of eliminate the fray.

Sara [0:42:29]: It's not been perfect, but I find that to be just a fun interesting extra sides for me personally.

Jennifer [0:42:35]: I wanna just allude to something that we also talked about a little bit earlier because you could easily get discouraged.

Jennifer [0:42:40]: We were talking about how...

Jennifer [0:42:41]: It takes that time and effort, and you've been, you know, when...

Jennifer [0:42:44]: If you're building a custom Gp, like, it can break.

Jennifer [0:42:48]: I have an example of this of, like, my creative director, Peter, shout out to Peter.

Jennifer [0:42:53]: He worked for days on building a custom Gp for, you know, building images on brand.

Jennifer [0:42:59]: And it was...

Jennifer [0:43:01]: You know, and then we he iterate reiterated probably for weeks on this, and it was incredible when he showed it to me, I was blown away, and we were, you know, just about to be, like, great.

Jennifer [0:43:11]: Everyone can use this internally.

Jennifer [0:43:13]: You know, then then there was an update and the whole thing broke.

Jennifer [0:43:16]: And so, I mean, again, just to go back that, you might you're...

Jennifer [0:43:21]: You might get there, but just it it is...

Jennifer [0:43:23]: You're gonna constantly iterate.

Jennifer [0:43:24]: We have to then talk with our internal Ai, you know, experts to see if they can help us, we realized that we just had to change some things for, you know, to speak kind of the Gp five language, and we're getting it back up and running.

Jennifer [0:43:39]: But if we didn't have that access to our Or Peter might have just been like, oh,

Tara [0:43:43]: my god.

Jennifer [0:43:44]: All that work.

Jennifer [0:43:44]: All that time, all that effort.

Jennifer [0:43:45]: It was fantastic for a second, and now it's gone.

Jennifer [0:43:48]: He might have given it up.

Jennifer [0:43:49]: So just keep in mind, like, there's still gonna be those frustrations.

Jennifer [0:43:53]: It might not be perfect.

Jennifer [0:43:54]: You're gonna put all this time and effort into it, and tomorrow with an update.

Jennifer [0:43:58]: It could it could get a little hairy, but, you know, keep going and keep trying because it's, you know, but there's a lot of time effort put into it and just understand that it could be not so smooth of a road.

Dave [0:44:14]: Rachel in the chat said that, you know, there's a concern about how agreeable these Ll are, like, you say something and they think that you're awesome.

Dave [0:44:20]: And I would just push back on that because they're...

Dave [0:44:22]: It's the only time in my life as a marketer that someone inside the company actually cares about my work.

Dave [0:44:27]: Understands and thinks I'm awesome.

Dave [0:44:29]: So I'll take it.

Dave [0:44:30]: I want that.

Tara [0:44:31]: One thing I would add to that code Really.

Tara [0:44:33]: So one one trick you can do, you can set up your rules within them, but I actually sometimes will go in and ask claude or chat Gp to you take truth serum.

Tara [0:44:43]: Tell me like it is and don't...

Dave [0:44:46]: Ac actually.

Dave [0:44:46]: Right?

Tara [0:44:47]: Actually say you take truth serum.

Dave [0:44:48]: I just took truth.

Dave [0:44:49]: You just took twelve note...

Tara [0:44:50]: Benjamin ops.

Tara [0:44:51]: Take truth serum.

Tara [0:44:52]: Tell me like it is.

Tara [0:44:54]: And sometimes, it's deep.

Tara [0:44:56]: Like it is mean when that comes to that's what it is, but it's not wrong.

Tara [0:45:00]: So it is helpful.

Tara [0:45:01]: If it's me too grateful.

Dave [0:45:03]: No.

Dave [0:45:03]: That's good.

Dave [0:45:04]: And look, I I I do think it's so...

Dave [0:45:06]: I think it's super important to remember that like.

Dave [0:45:08]: Is something that I learned at our event a couple weeks ago.

Dave [0:45:11]: Like, I think most of us, the thing that we love about marketing is the marketing stuff.

Dave [0:45:16]: It's the creative.

Dave [0:45:17]: It's the storytelling.

Dave [0:45:18]: It's the, you know, creating campaigns.

Dave [0:45:21]: It's launching something.

Dave [0:45:22]: It's getting attention and getting people to buy the thing that you created and it's like, that that stuff is...

Dave [0:45:27]: That's the fun part.

Dave [0:45:29]: And so let's...

Dave [0:45:30]: Like, how can I push on that?

Dave [0:45:32]: If it's not so much like, look, if all my competitors, if everybody wants to just, like, blindly follow whatever this, like chat Suggests thing to do.

Dave [0:45:39]: Like, honestly, my response that is, like, hell yes.

Dave [0:45:42]: Because that means that I'm not, like, my new...

Dave [0:45:44]: The nuance here and, like, the way that I...

Dave [0:45:47]: An example of this is, like, I write all my Linkedin content, and sometimes I'm, like completely like ratchet.

Dave [0:45:52]: I'm sitting, I'm just grumpy, and I'm just firing off things with, like, you know, miss and typos and weird, you know, like, lowercase letters and that's what works.

Dave [0:46:02]: Right?

Dave [0:46:02]: And so I think there's a lot of that.

Dave [0:46:04]: There's a bunch of questions here that I think are probably worth diving into.

Dave [0:46:08]: Just wanna just cross reference my list one more time.

Dave [0:46:11]: Okay.

Dave [0:46:12]: Let's...

Dave [0:46:12]: Let's just do, like, a, a, just a rapid fire this one.

Dave [0:46:14]: I just wanna hear a pulse check, like, as leaders in your respective companies, is there pressure from the Ceo from the board, from whoever manages the company.

Dave [0:46:25]: Is there pressure from them, like, for you all to...

Dave [0:46:28]: Hey, you you better adopt Ai.

Dave [0:46:30]: Like, you better use Ai, tell me about what you're doing Ai Just...

Dave [0:46:33]: I'm curious to hear, like, you know, maybe behind closed doors is there are there forces that are kinda also also pushing this beyond the fact that, like, we think it's cool as marketers and we're genuinely curious, but is there another factor here what's happening at the leadership level?

Jennifer [0:46:46]: We absolutely have it happening at the leadership level, but it doesn't feel like that kind of mandate.

Jennifer [0:46:51]: I think that...

Jennifer [0:46:52]: And I think Sara, you you talked about this as well, like, we've infused it into the business both with our products and and with our teams.

Jennifer [0:47:00]: Like, when we say we're in an Ai company, it's not just that our product is Ai.

Jennifer [0:47:03]: It's our whole company Ai.

Jennifer [0:47:05]: And And I think that Knak has done it in a great way where we have an Ai committee.

Jennifer [0:47:10]: We have Ai champions that are on each of our departments.

Jennifer [0:47:13]: And we encourage them to have discussions and think, like, how could we do this better or, you know, what do we wish we can always do?

Jennifer [0:47:20]: And you think Ai almost like, we say c copilot, you know, it's it's a skill set.

Jennifer [0:47:25]: So, you know, as you're thinking about your marketing or, you know, any other areas of your org, like, how can it support and help your team.

Jennifer [0:47:33]: And And then we encourage the teams to test it out and try it.

Jennifer [0:47:36]: Like, when I talked about Peter building his not, like, they they...

Jennifer [0:47:40]: And then we share it and we share success stories.

Jennifer [0:47:42]: We share things that didn't work.

Jennifer [0:47:44]: And I think that that's kind of infused in our culture, so it doesn't feel Like, we've given everybody the ability to be curious.

Jennifer [0:47:51]: We've given everybody the ability to test and try and learn and iterate.

Jennifer [0:47:55]: And I think that's, you know, it's why I...

Jennifer [0:47:58]: We're not...

Jennifer [0:47:59]: I don't feel like we're having a problem with adoption.

Jennifer [0:48:01]: It's really, you know, we're encouraging it.

Jennifer [0:48:03]: And it is coming though from the top all the way to our board.

Jennifer [0:48:07]: Our board is very, you know, invested in it as well, and it's all for we're like, again, How do we...

Jennifer [0:48:11]: How is this gonna help us to grow the company, you know, faster, at greater lengths.

Jennifer [0:48:15]: And so everybody is really just encouraged and supported to do so.

Tara [0:48:21]: I would plus one thousand for that one.

Tara [0:48:24]: I would say there's probably two things that are happening.

Tara [0:48:27]: Yes, there is pressure from Ceo from the board for a various number of reasons.

Tara [0:48:32]: One, you see externally A lot of companies are talking about, like, as you think about hiring as you think about teams.

Tara [0:48:38]: Well, why why do you need this person to do this job and what can it do that Ai can't.

Tara [0:48:43]: Like, those are the kinds of questions you have to be able to answer?

Tara [0:48:47]: I think in this new age that we're in?

Tara [0:48:49]: But I think the pressure for us is really twofold fold.

Tara [0:48:51]: One, it's the internal, and I would say that, you know, we do have a mandate, but the mandate, I hate the word mandate because it feels so, like, there's a mandate versus I feel pressure on myself as a marketing leader in the current environment that we're in.

Tara [0:49:07]: It is our job to go in and serve and build up the people that work within our organizations.

Tara [0:49:13]: And we really wouldn't be doing a good job at that if we weren't preparing our team members and ourselves for what this new way of working is going to look like.

Tara [0:49:23]: Because as you look at new job descriptions that are showing up, everything I saw some of this in the chat.

Tara [0:49:28]: It's like, you need four years of experience in ai, Well, that's not a thing, but you do need to be experienced in Ai.

Tara [0:49:34]: You do need to be good at prompting.

Tara [0:49:35]: You do need some experience having worked with these different tools, and I think there is that internal pressure that we all need to have, whether it's coming from the tops down or just...

Tara [0:49:44]: Pressure that we bring together on how do we all ride this way if in a way that feels supported, but it also feels necessary because that's that's the way this is going.

Tara [0:49:55]: The other part, I would say that, you know, I'm we're on this early stage, I would say with our board with my Ceo with other Cmos that I talked to.

Tara [0:50:04]: We are a product led business.

Tara [0:50:06]: I shared some of the data points before and where we're driving one point four million sign ups on a monthly basis.

Tara [0:50:12]: We've got four million users in new traffic from two different websites.

Tara [0:50:16]: Well the entire industry right now is going into this complete unknown space of what is Seo versus Ge versus Ae versus whatever, and we've gotta learn what these new strategies look like.

Tara [0:50:29]: To optimize for the L how to optimize for zero click conversions, and we have to protect both on the offense and the defense are funnel.

Tara [0:50:37]: Seventy percent of those numbers that I shared comes from organic, and it would be silly of us to just assume if we don't do the work.

Tara [0:50:45]: That that's gonna maintain.

Tara [0:50:46]: And so we are measuring this proactively, and I would say, part of my job right now that I've been working very closely with our leadership team on is to bring that to the board before the board brings it to us, And so I've added slides into our board presentations that just say, like, hey.

Tara [0:51:01]: No issues right now.

Tara [0:51:03]: Everything's stable.

Tara [0:51:03]: Here's what we're monitoring.

Tara [0:51:05]: Here's what we're looking at, and here's what we're doing to make sure that we kind of get ahead of that before this pressure comes down on, like, what are you y'all doing?

Tara [0:51:13]: And I feel very lucky that, and I think we're all in this boat.

Tara [0:51:16]: Ran in a product led space and where you kinda have to, Like, people I talk to that are in industries outside of Saas, right now, which I'm sure there's people on this call are on various different journeys of what this will look like for me?

Tara [0:51:30]: And what does this mean for my traffic, What does it mean for my content, but it is kind of this.

Tara [0:51:35]: Like, I think, I saw a post on Linkedin yesterday, and it stood true for me.

Tara [0:51:38]: Like, we're in the era of working harder, not necessarily working smarter.

Tara [0:51:42]: We're gonna get back into this, like, work smarter work Harder or both of them, but there's a lot to learn and a lot to figure out.

Tara [0:51:48]: And I think that that pressure not only needs to come from the top, but it needs to come from everywhere because it's fundamentally changing how we do our jobs.

Sara [0:51:56]: Yeah.

Sara [0:51:56]: Mh.

Sara [0:51:57]: Yeah.

Sara [0:51:58]: I I I don't have anything else to add to those, I think we feel the same thing.

Sara [0:52:02]: But to me, there's an excitement that underlies all of this to get back to sort of the the core reason of probably why a lot of us got into marketing to begin with.

Sara [0:52:11]: Like, to be able to test to be able to try to be able to think creatively.

Sara [0:52:15]: And, like, not everything be stagnant.

Sara [0:52:17]: And I think this has given us that opportunity.

Sara [0:52:20]: Finally, I mentioned it before, like, heads face to dedicate time to test and learn and try new things and see what works in a world that's constantly changing.

Sara [0:52:28]: It's really fun.

Tara [0:52:30]: Yeah.

Dave [0:52:31]: Yeah.

Dave [0:52:31]: Well said.

Dave [0:52:31]: Okay.

Dave [0:52:33]: I you wanna hit on a couple of these quickly in the in the chat.

Dave [0:52:36]: Liz said, in the q and.

Dave [0:52:37]: How do I convince my company?

Dave [0:52:39]: We need a business team chat Account right now?

Dave [0:52:41]: Our teams just have plus individual accounts and besides sharing custom Gb.

Dave [0:52:45]: I don't think it's worth it.

Dave [0:52:47]: I put this one in Chat?

Dave [0:52:48]: I think you should just do that.

Dave [0:52:50]: There's benefits around security and compliance, centralized knowledge, the cost and Roi, this is where, like, I know that there's some companies that are have to, you know, budgets are tight and their cutting cost right now.

Dave [0:53:00]: But man, the cost of these Ai tools, and particularly chad Gb, like, I don't know We have six people on our exit x Exit Five team right now.

Dave [0:53:08]: We probably spend twenty five...

Dave [0:53:10]: I would say less than three grand a year on Chad As a team.

Dave [0:53:13]: That seems like an insane Roi on that, and I think you just need to be thinking, you know, offensive minded And so, like, most of these tools are, you know, two hundred bucks a year per person.

Dave [0:53:24]: Can you think about, abundance?

Dave [0:53:26]: Can you have a growth mindset here on on some of this stuff.

Dave [0:53:29]: Curious to you all.

Dave [0:53:30]: Where does the Ai stuff?

Dave [0:53:32]: This is from Alexander, How are you incorporating Ai in the budget?

Dave [0:53:35]: Is it a new line item, does it fall under your tech stack?

Dave [0:53:38]: Anyone have an opinion on that?

Sara [0:53:40]: For us, I can just jump in It falls under our tech stack, but we've been, you know, mindful of that.

Sara [0:53:45]: We have a corporate mandate essentially that any tool we bring on has to have some component of Ai, so we have to use it if it doesn't, then it kind of d attracts us from, Jenny earlier point about being an Ai company that embraces Ai internally.

Sara [0:53:58]: So we actually did a whole audit of our tech stack earlier this year and every decision now when we go through the procurement process has to include both a business case and a...

Sara [0:54:09]: And, like, a team need as to why that tool and then how it either connect to our tool stack or sort of is additive to something that we don't have already.

Tara [0:54:17]: I would add same Parse is also our tech stack right now.

Tara [0:54:20]: We don't have a mandate that it has to have Ai.

Tara [0:54:23]: However, we are going through a full overall go to market tech stack, not just within marketing, but as we think about marketing, sales, success, product, What does our tech stack currently look like and how do we need to modernize that tech stack with the way that these tools are advancing.

Tara [0:54:37]: And so it sits within the tech stack budget, but we're also evaluating the entirety of our tech stack as we kind of go through this transformation.

Tara [0:54:45]: I would say, and I do feel very lucky that we've kind of set aside budget also for learning with an Ai.

Tara [0:54:51]: We do have strong security clearance that we need to go through to bring on any tool that we need to test.

Tara [0:54:57]: However, right now, we don't have a mandate of, like, you can only have one L right you have to have budget to do this.

Tara [0:55:03]: It's like, if there's a tool out there, but you can have a business case for that you can show some kind of Roi.

Tara [0:55:09]: And so I think Dave, kind of to what you were saying with chat Gp.

Tara [0:55:12]: The way I would recommend looking at it is it's not the cost of the tool.

Tara [0:55:16]: It's the savings that you get from leveraging these tools is as we look at our teams, you know, we're we're looking at these as enhancements to taking out the stuff that previously we were doing that was Monday mundane.

Tara [0:55:28]: It was repetitive.

Tara [0:55:29]: It was challenging that you can start to automate and then opening up our ability to move faster on strategy, like, going back to our very first question.

Tara [0:55:36]: What is the thing that Ai would disappoint you on?

Tara [0:55:39]: It's strategy.

Tara [0:55:39]: Like, ai, I can't do strategy.

Tara [0:55:41]: They can be a strategic thought partner to you, but you need to own that, and you can do so much more.

Tara [0:55:46]: It's the number one thing we've heard for years, how do I get to do more strategy?

Tara [0:55:50]: It's now you have the opportunity.

Tara [0:55:52]: And so if you can put together the business case that says, strategy you know, I spend two hundred dollars, but I'm gonna get two thousand more hours back in order to reap reapply to these other things.

Tara [0:56:02]: That's the the way to really think about talking to your Ceo or your Cfo.

Dave [0:56:06]: Right.

Dave [0:56:06]: Like, what's what's the Roi of us getting, like, a faster Internet connection in our office, you know?

Dave [0:56:11]: Mh.

Dave [0:56:12]: It's like, it's hard.

Dave [0:56:13]: Okay.

Dave [0:56:14]: We're trying to roll a poll for feedback.

Dave [0:56:17]: It you all should see it right now if I I I don't know if I can see it, but There's a poll feedback one through five.

Dave [0:56:22]: We rate every meeting internal external public.

Dave [0:56:25]: There we go.

Dave [0:56:25]: Rate today's session one through five, five being the worst one.

Dave [0:56:29]: Now I'm just kidding five being the best, five being the best it's amazing.

Dave [0:56:32]: That that was awesome.

Dave [0:56:34]: Lot of fives, a lot of fours.

Dave [0:56:35]: And if you have a quick takeaway from today?

Dave [0:56:38]: Like, just based on the what you saw in chat, and...

Dave [0:56:41]: Did it change how you think about Ai or my takeaway is...

Dave [0:56:45]: And I'm weren't trying to get you this, like, I think there's a lot of smoke mirrors on there.

Dave [0:56:49]: I think the Linkedin stuff that like, everyone's doing all this cool sexy crazy stuff with Ai, and I think, you come in this live session, and I think there's a there's a big gap between what's what's being talked about and what's actually getting done.

Dave [0:57:00]: Did did you all feel that a little bit?

Dave [0:57:01]: Yeah.

Jennifer [0:57:02]: And I think, you know, I keep hearing it's that you know, it's also your mindset too.

Jennifer [0:57:07]: Right?

Jennifer [0:57:07]: So there's not...

Jennifer [0:57:08]: There's a lot of shiny tools out there.

Jennifer [0:57:09]: Sometimes not that shiny two tool is not gonna be your breakthrough.

Jennifer [0:57:12]: Right?

Jennifer [0:57:13]: That it could be, you know, you sitting as a team, spotting that you need to completely overhaul or reimagine a work flow, and that's where Ai can really come in and support you.

Jennifer [0:57:23]: So it's that having that constant curiosity, asking, I think tariffs are you were saying, like, asking a lot of questions.

Jennifer [0:57:29]: Right?

Jennifer [0:57:30]: Asking a lot of questions, understanding more and building that, those habits around that kind of mindset, You know, and thinking as Ai as your c copilot as your accelerator, but you as the human, you're still in a driver's seat, you're still setting the strategy, and it's there to help and and support you.

Jennifer [0:57:47]: I feel like that was coming through a lot.

Jennifer [0:57:49]: And I think that that curiosity is gonna be critical for anybody that's looking to grow and and learn and, you know, that's what I would suggest.

Jennifer [0:57:57]: And that's kinda what I've heard coming out of this as well.

Dave [0:58:01]: Cool.

Dave [0:58:01]: Alright.

Dave [0:58:01]: Awesome.

Dave [0:58:02]: Thank you all for hanging out with us.

Dave [0:58:03]: I appreciate you hanging for this exit live session we'll do more of this.

Dave [0:58:07]: I saw a comment in the chat about, some more specific very tactical use cases and examples, quick plug for our community Exit Five dot com.

Dave [0:58:14]: We have a couple thousand members in there that is where we do things.

Dave [0:58:17]: Like, actually, last month, Matt Ran, share your custom Gp contest and everybody shared kinda how they're using Ai in very specific and tactical ways.

Dave [0:58:26]: For this session, we wanted to do more from the leadership level, what's going on with Ai.

Dave [0:58:29]: And I think the three you over delivered, it was awesome.

Dave [0:58:32]: Enjoy the rest of your day.

Dave [0:58:34]: We'll have this out.

Dave [0:58:35]: They'll be recording podcast clips video, all that stuff for anybody who may have missed it.

Dave [0:58:39]: Appreciate you all send me a note, David Exit Five dot com connect with all of these speakers on Linkedin.

Dave [0:58:44]: They're all active there, and I guarantee they'll respond to you.

Dave [0:58:47]: And, I'll see you soon.

Dave [0:58:49]: Tara, personally I'll see you in two weeks.

Dave [0:58:51]: Sara, Jenny, I'll see you on the Internet and enjoy the rest of your day.

Dave [0:58:54]: Okay?

Tara [0:58:55]: Bye bye.

Tara [0:58:55]: You.

Tara [0:58:55]: On.

Tara [0:58:56]: You.

Tara [0:58:56]: Thanks everyone.

Tara [0:58:57]: Bye.

Tara [0:58:58]: Bye.

Dave [0:59:03]: Hey.

Dave [0:59:03]: Thanks for listening to this podcast.

Dave [0:59:05]: If you like this episode.

Dave [0:59:06]: You know what?

Dave [0:59:07]: I'm not even gonna ask you to subscribe and leave a review because Hi I don't really care about that.

Dave [0:59:11]: I have something better for you.

Dave [0:59:12]: So we've built the number one private community for B marketers at Exit Five, and you can go and check that out instead of leaving a rating no review, go check it out right now on our website, Exit Five dot com.

Dave [0:59:24]: Our mission at Exit Five is to help you grow your career in B2b marketing, and there's no better place to do that than with us at Exit Five.

Dave [0:59:31]: There's nearly five thousand members now in our community, people are in there posting every day asking questions about things like marketing planning.

Dave [0:59:39]: Ideas, inspiration, asking questions and getting feedback from your peers, building your own network of marketers tutoring doing the same thing you are so you can have a peer group, or maybe just venting about your boss when you need to get in there and get something off your chest.

Dave [0:59:52]: It's a hundred percent free to join for seven days so you can go and check it out risk free, and then there's a small annual fee tutoring to pay if you wanna become a member for the year.

Dave [1:00:01]: Go check it out, learn more, Exit Five dot com, and I will see you over there in the community.

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