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"AI-powered is one thing, but I feel like we're seeing this renewed focus on human-powered. Buying the tool is just a tiny little part of that journey, making the most of it, getting it implemented; there's a human story there." — Phil Gamache
One year of Making Sense of Martech, and for the anniversary episode, Jacqueline brought in her main competitor: Phil Gamache, host of Humans of Martech and one of the most honest voices in marketing operations.
Six years in, Phil treats practitioners not as insight-dispensing experts but as actual humans navigating a chaotic, often lonely job. He's still figuring it out alongside everyone else. That's the point.
His in-house career spans 13 years across WordPress, Close.com, and everything in between. Now a full-time solo creator, he runs a production stack powered by Claude and Cursor, crafts episode cover art in Midjourney by hand, and has strong opinions about why nobody should let a language model make every decision for them.
This one gets into the martech island problem, what actually made Humans of Martech a viable business, the attribution philosophy battle, and why the vendors winning in 2026 are leading with humans, not features.
Timestamps
03:06 — Why Humans of Martech Really Exists: Built for practitioners lost on the martech island, including people who just lost their jobs and don't know what's next. Never about consulting leads. Always about the humans.
08:00 — AI-Powered Is the Default Now: The new differentiator isn't having AI in your stack; it's how well you show the product and the humans behind it. Buyers are increasingly making decisions on vibes, not G2 scores.
18:30 — You're Not Alone on the Island: The core emotional value of Humans of Martech: knowing that practitioners at Canva, Uber, and Meta are wrestling with the same problems you are is genuinely reassuring.
25:01 — AI Mock Interview for Guest Prep: Phil uses Claude Code to build a dynamic guest persona, run a mock interview across three rounds, and surface better questions through iterative, AI-driven prep before a human ever reads the output.
33:00 — The Full Production Stack: From transcript ingestion to blog post generation to Midjourney cover art by hand, Phil walks through every node in his solo creator workflow and where human judgment still has to show up.
41:42 — The Empathy Gap in AI Hype: If you're not getting laid off, you're five times more stressed with five times more expected output. The practitioners behind the tools are caught in a genuinely difficult inflection point.
51:18 — Attribution Is a Philosophy Battle: Getting attribution right is a philosophical one: data teams think like statisticians, marketers think like investors, and those two worldviews have to be reconciled before any tool can help.
55:54 — Truth, Feeling Seen, and What's Next: The show's enduring mission: bring truth to the industry and help practitioners feel seen. One year in, that mission is just getting started.
Sponsor
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Creators and Guests
What is Making Sense of Martech?
Unfiltered takes on the biggest shifts in marketing technology. We spotlight what matters, who's leading (or lagging), and what's next. In Martech, clarity is power — and we're here to deliver it.
00:00:01:08 - 00:00:29:11
Speaker 1
One year of making sense of martech. And for our anniversary episode, I booked my main competitor. Celcom has been doing this longer episodes of Humans of MarTech are built on the same belief that drives the show. The most interesting thing about our industry? It's not the tech. It's the people trying to make it work. The ones who are on their martech island at 11 p.m., wondering if anyone else is dealing with the exact same mess we're peers with jokingly frenemies and genuinely good friend.
00:00:29:13 - 00:00:49:20
Speaker 1
We're not just trying to shape what the industry looks like based off of the tools. We're trying to change how it treats the humans inside of it. And this felt like the right conversation to mark year one. Phil has quietly become one of the most trusted voices in this industry. Not because he has all the answers, but because he's been honest about not having them.
00:00:49:22 - 00:01:13:10
Speaker 1
And he's created a safe space where other smart people can be honest, too. And that is far rarer than it sounds. But a little bit about him first. So, Phil, not only, of course, is the host of Humans of MarTech, where conversations are happening with the sharpest minds in the industry. He's also really earned his stripes across 13 years of in-house experience for marketing and growth at companies like WordPress and closer.
00:01:13:10 - 00:01:32:17
Speaker 1
Com casual and spanning B2B, B2C, B2B to see. He's also confessed that if money were no object, he'd probably be running a fantasy hockey newsletter. I've got some questions. He did rivalry ones, and still is coming to terms with how nice that actually is. Welcome, Phil. Really glad you're here.
00:01:32:19 - 00:01:50:21
Speaker 2
Yeah, thanks for having me. Really excited. Big fan, obviously. And, a long time coming. I feel like I'm excited to to chat with you finally on the record, we chat all. Yeah. Off the record and all cleaned up and polished. This will be in terms of, like, censoring ourselves a little bit.
00:01:50:23 - 00:02:13:08
Speaker 1
No such thing. Yeah. For folks who don't know, we first met formally when I was getting interviewed, and I had just left Grammarly, and that was also the same week you were going full independent and quit your full time job. So we've kind of been parallel on similar journeys this whole time without realizing it for a while.
00:02:13:09 - 00:02:16:23
Speaker 2
Yeah, we're both, flying through the sky on our on our jetpacks.
00:02:16:24 - 00:02:26:09
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's still true. Well, let's dive in and start with some rapid fire. What was your first martech tool?
00:02:26:11 - 00:02:37:09
Speaker 2
You'll love this answer. I know you're a big fan of the tool. Part of it was my first marketing big marketing tool. Like you guys. Like, Photoshop is really the answer if you can't Photoshop. But it doesn't really.
00:02:37:11 - 00:02:42:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, I thought about that. Yeah. I've been on Photoshop nearly 20 years. Yeah.
00:02:42:05 - 00:02:58:13
Speaker 2
But yeah, part of it, worked at a tiny little startup. And I'm in Ottawa in Canada. And like, in the, the depths of, a suburb, we had this, like, little, engineering firm, and they had a ton of, like, top of funnel. And we had a big newsletter, and they gave me the keys to Pardot right out of university.
00:02:58:13 - 00:03:02:05
Speaker 2
And as my started marketing automation, then never looked back.
00:03:02:07 - 00:03:06:07
Speaker 1
Love it. I'm glad you started with the hardest in the best.
00:03:06:09 - 00:03:12:24
Speaker 2
And at the time I don't know if that's the case anymore, but I feel like the best looking UI, the most enjoyable one.
00:03:13:01 - 00:03:17:02
Speaker 1
It's still more enjoyable than Marketo. Oh yeah. Let's be honest.
00:03:17:04 - 00:03:18:22
Speaker 2
No debate.
00:03:18:24 - 00:03:29:07
Speaker 1
Okay, so your podcast, you don't do it for consulting leads or sponsors or really anything. Like what is the real reason why humans of MarTech exists?
00:03:29:09 - 00:03:36:23
Speaker 2
Well, the humans of martech exist for the humans. The, the lame answer there, but, but but.
00:03:37:00 - 00:03:37:11
Speaker 3
Got.
00:03:37:13 - 00:03:58:13
Speaker 2
To be. The humans are like. Obviously we do it now for for sponsors like we do it through sponsors. Before I thought we were going to do this because it was going to lead to credibility and consulting gigs and like I do it for the people that are lost in this crazy galaxy of marketing tools and the AI tools or the people that, like, just lost a job and are trying to figure out what is next.
00:03:58:13 - 00:04:18:04
Speaker 2
In my career, I was in a dead end job. I stumbled upon your lifecycle martech saga and dived into it, gave me the courage to start consulting, and now I consult, live on my own account and make my own decisions. Left that like dead end job and I'm so much happier now. Thank you for like putting out this content that actually people like seeing value out of this.
00:04:18:04 - 00:04:20:20
Speaker 2
So yeah, that's why we do it for the humans.
00:04:20:22 - 00:04:33:11
Speaker 1
I love that you can't staying too long at your first job. The biggest mistake of your career since you do talk to people a lot about their careers, what would you tell that version of yourself today?
00:04:33:13 - 00:04:52:16
Speaker 2
Yeah, I'd go back and I'd tell junior failed to, like, not spend as much time at that one company. So, like, maybe I was a bit too comfortable and thought that I could, like, make it big in Ottawa tech scene. And I would tell Phil that, like, there's there's such a bigger world out there. There's a bigger martech ocean.
00:04:52:16 - 00:05:12:08
Speaker 2
And, I don't know if it would lead to a different outcome, really. But that's the advice I give to a lot of folks that I mentor is like, don't get too comfortable in the gig that you are right now. Like you always have to be hunting and thinking about what's next, whether it's a side project or like this, like base of advisors you have like what is next?
00:05:12:08 - 00:05:25:04
Speaker 2
If you get laid off, no one's safe these days in this space. So, yeah, that's the advice I give myself, like four years at a job. First job at a university. It's kind of okay, but I don't know if it's the advice I'd give folks still do today.
00:05:25:06 - 00:05:47:18
Speaker 1
That makes sense. And it feels so antithetical to what we grew up on. Like, no, you stay at a company forever, and at least for years, I mean, I was told by my grandparents at four years, you know, what you're doing. And like I disagree. I knew a long time before that. So one of your unique things, when you're screening guests and people to come onto the podcast, you ask what irritates them.
00:05:47:20 - 00:05:58:03
Speaker 1
I don't remember being asked that, but maybe you did. What does this answer tell you about whether they're worthy of a conversation, or that they'll bring insights to your audience? Yeah.
00:05:58:03 - 00:06:29:06
Speaker 2
I can't remember if, like when we started rolling out these like pre interview questions. I stole this from Lenny. Like Lenny does the same thing. Like, regardless of who the person is, he has like these list of questions that he sends over. I don't do this for like everyone recently like I've gone down this train of just, like, inviting, reaching out to folks that have written something really cool that, like, piqued my interest, challenged what someone else said on the podcast, and they come in and they kind of debated or I've had a couple authors that released a book recently, and like I read the book ahead of the conversation.
00:06:29:06 - 00:06:49:08
Speaker 2
We dive into like one chapter really deep. But for some folks that, like, haven't written a lot of stuff or, you know, we're just looking to come on the podcast and we're not really sure what the topic is going to be. I send over that list of questions, and immediately the thing that jumps out with the conversations that I think are going to be interesting is when they have stories in the answers.
00:06:49:10 - 00:07:11:19
Speaker 2
I think a lot of people answer, and but the best interviews are the ones where people have a story and they're just like, this one thing happened at my company. We had GTM ops under OBS, but then we moved over under finance and like everything was in shambles. And so they want to like tell that story about how they brought the band back together or how they ditched MTA.
00:07:11:19 - 00:07:27:19
Speaker 2
But then they had to crawl back and reintroduce it because they had nothing to give them real time signals on all the performance stuff they were doing. Like, there's so many of those people that come on that are just, I want to talk about this one thing, but they don't attach it with any like, stories of on the ground, in the trenches.
00:07:27:19 - 00:07:33:22
Speaker 2
So there's the folks that I have, like the, the coolest answers are the one that have the real stories. The human stories.
00:07:33:24 - 00:07:56:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, it sounds like those who are willing to be relatable by telling the truth. Yeah, anyone else makes sense and also makes for better content and a better interview for sure. Okay, you said that AI powered is no longer a differentiating factor. It's the default. So what is the differentiating factor? Now that we're in the year of 2026?
00:07:56:19 - 00:08:04:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. The differentiating factor is that you have to be AI pilled. I know it's your favorite word right now. I had to let it slide today.
00:08:04:21 - 00:08:06:10
Speaker 1
I'm saying like token.
00:08:06:14 - 00:08:07:02
Speaker 2
It's okay.
00:08:07:02 - 00:08:10:16
Speaker 1
Those are real triggered words at this point. Let's be frank.
00:08:10:16 - 00:08:28:23
Speaker 2
The privilege of like being really selective with the consulting that I do right now, and I do a little bit of that, I have this like bird's eye view of martech, and I love giving people some of this advice, like, your site is really cool. I think you're like features that the menu is on point, but there's nowhere on this site where I actually see the product in action.
00:08:29:00 - 00:08:48:16
Speaker 2
Help me. And I'm like, I don't care about those G2 review snapshots of like so-and-so at unknown company. And like, that doesn't tell me anything. Even the logos you have on the site. Like maybe it's someone in this one tiny little department at notion that's using the tool. And I really like anyone meaningful or a meaningful department at the company or whatever.
00:08:48:18 - 00:09:13:15
Speaker 2
So like show me how. What does that mean to like scale or supercharge revenue with your IT gen tech workflows? Like what does that actually mean? Show me the product. Like show me demos of people using it, hide the sensitive data, whatever. But like tell that story, the product story. So that's that's part of it. And the other part is, you know, powered is one thing, but I feel like we're seeing this renewed focus of human powered.
00:09:13:15 - 00:09:36:02
Speaker 2
I don't know about you, but like when I buy martech, part of is a product decision for sure. But there's such a human factor in which RFP I end up going with based on who the sales rep was, how were my conversations, the vibes with that salesperson in the conversations with the potential CSM that's going to take over that account on your website, showcase the human part of it.
00:09:36:03 - 00:09:56:21
Speaker 2
Who are the humans that built the product? What was their story? Why did they build it? Who's the accounting that's going to get you? Set up the success team? Are you going to have Marketo Adobe style support or do you have like dedicated slack channels and people that are going to help you out? So I feel like those two things showing the product, what does I actually mean visually?
00:09:56:23 - 00:10:07:14
Speaker 2
And then like talk about the people that are going to help you implement this thing, because buying the tool is just like a tiny little part of that journey. Making the most of it, getting it implemented. Does a human story there.
00:10:07:16 - 00:10:32:21
Speaker 1
Yes, I cosign everything and I am well known for being a sales rep. Worst nightmare or absolute dream customer. And I actively will say I need a new sales person if they are not up to snuff, let's just say yeah, it doesn't go off very well, but it is required because we want to put the best foot forward for both sides.
00:10:32:23 - 00:10:57:04
Speaker 1
Okay, I want to dive in with you because something that sets you apart isn't who you have on your podcast, isn't how many episodes, but it's the format. I love that you took Humans of New York that approach to in how our industry is talking and frameworks and vendor decks, and instead you're pointing the mic at the messy human reality beneath the surface.
00:10:57:06 - 00:11:18:18
Speaker 1
I know I've been a long time follower of humans of New York, and so I just I love how that has become part of what you've built. So where did that instinct come from for treat martech practitioners as people worth actually knowing as humans, not just experts, to extract insights and frameworks and advice from?
00:11:18:18 - 00:11:41:01
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think those things come better as stories when people share the learnings along the way. Like how did you get to that tactic? Because that tactic can be applied blanket like every company that you work at. So knowing the story, the business model, the failures along the way, where it broke, where it didn't broke, where it didn't break.
00:11:41:01 - 00:12:06:19
Speaker 2
And so like, I feel like that's part of it. Everyone sees this on LinkedIn, like people share in this one thing. I built this thing with one prompt and like everyone feels a sense of FOMO and imposter syndrome like, oh, I'm not good enough in my role not doing this, and I'm not doing that. And part of like this synthesis of sharing human story is, is sharing the feeling that, you know, it's you're not doing that bad, that you're doing okay.
00:12:06:19 - 00:12:28:14
Speaker 2
You look at these people, at these amazing brands, they're in a very similar spot as you like. They don't know what they're doing either. They're still figuring out as they're going. They've added this. They've added that they're still debating package or platform CDPs. They're still talking about meta or not. They don't know how to report marketing like you're not doing that bad, you're doing okay.
00:12:28:14 - 00:12:43:23
Speaker 2
You're figuring stuff out. You're asking the questions, you're curious, you're trying to learn like you're already better than the most people. So I feel like that's the humanizing part of it is like, no one's perfect. People on LinkedIn like to make you think that, you know, they have it all figured out. But reality is like most people don't.
00:12:44:03 - 00:12:55:02
Speaker 2
So we talk about the tactics and the strategies that come from the learnings and the journey along the way. So it's like our Humans of New York version of it, if you will. But yeah, that's just my take.
00:12:55:04 - 00:13:18:23
Speaker 1
I wholeheartedly agree, that's why I was ever drawn to when we met. I was like, you get it? Because does everyone wants to be seen. We want to be heard. We want to be validated because we're often on our own, little like isolated martech island internally or more opt island and only your few stakeholders understand. Or that's if you're lucky, frankly.
00:13:19:00 - 00:13:26:05
Speaker 1
And so I think the most beautiful part of our industry is the community. And I'm grateful you're a big part in it.
00:13:26:07 - 00:13:47:24
Speaker 2
Yeah, and I'm only a part of it because of the people willing to share those stories. And so I feel like there's there's a shout out here to everyone that is willing to not just be heads down, lost in the sauce doing the work, but also willing to spend time sharing with other people and contributing to the community and helping younger folks coming up.
00:13:47:24 - 00:14:09:24
Speaker 2
Learn from where they've been and and take that advice like there's there's so many people still today, six years into this, thousands of people listening. I still have a hard time sometimes, like getting a hold of someone to come on the podcast because they don't invest in personal branding. They work at this big consumer tech brand and like, they're not worried about finding another job if they lose it.
00:14:10:02 - 00:14:38:02
Speaker 2
They've never done any public speaking. They're just like heads down doing the work. And then they clock out at the end of the day. But along the way, they've learned from people, people that have shared freely, that have given back to the community, and they decide to not give back. And maybe it's like an introverted thing or not, but tons of respect for the folks that have gotten somewhere in their career and are at a stage where they have learnings that they're willing to like, share with other people, and they have the courage to come on behind the mic and share it with other folks.
00:14:38:02 - 00:14:45:06
Speaker 2
Not everyone is willing to do that, and that's totally fine. But yeah, kudos to the folks that are willing to to share that for sure.
00:14:45:06 - 00:15:15:08
Speaker 1
I mean, I relate to that deeply and that is why I want to create my own platform too, because I was that person that was not responding to anything, not because I didn't want to, but because I literally never logged on to LinkedIn, because I was working. I was doing all of the work. And it's it's and also I'm introvert, but really it's when you're so heads down because you're doing good work, there's so many people that are forgotten or not known.
00:15:15:10 - 00:15:37:20
Speaker 1
And, I think we all deserve to be elevated to where we're supposed to be, whether we realize it or not. Okay, you do a lot of prep, and I know this a very well. You send the guests a loose kind of template ahead of time. I do something similar, but you're clearly after something more than just the polished answers.
00:15:37:24 - 00:15:42:16
Speaker 1
So how do you get someone to drop the professional armor and actually talk?
00:15:42:18 - 00:16:03:03
Speaker 2
We end every episode on like this. Happiness? No. Like, What's your personal system for staying aligned with work? What makes you happy? And I, I tease out that question by naming, like the professional roles and the home life roles of everyone on the show, and sometimes they don't speak too publicly, so I don't really know what their home life roles are.
00:16:03:05 - 00:16:22:17
Speaker 2
And so before we press record, I tell them I gave this last question about happiness. This is the professional roles that I have for you. I know nothing about your personal life. What can I write down like, are you an avid gardener or you a parent or grandparent? And and so we kind of like get them loosened up a little bit by sharing about their home life.
00:16:22:20 - 00:16:44:23
Speaker 2
What what else like, gives them energy, what makes them happy. And so we're writing like hobbies and or other like personal home life roles. And then we get into actual recording so they feel like that maybe helps with like losing them up a little bit, getting into the mind frame of like, hey, you're a human. We're not just talking about like how to buy martech or how to lead marketing, like we're interviewing you, the person as the operator.
00:16:44:23 - 00:17:03:15
Speaker 2
Not necessarily. You know what you think other people should be. I feel like that's like a good way to ground that conversation. Maybe it doesn't always like remove that professional armor because like you said, like we're we're both introverted. And I feel like some people that come on the show, they don't do a lot of public speaking, like have those like prepped answers.
00:17:03:15 - 00:17:23:17
Speaker 2
And you can tell sometimes that, like, not that they're reading the script, but they're kind of like defaulting to what they wrote down and stuff like that. And so it doesn't always like come through. But I feel like that's the least we can do a little bit. And sometimes we like prep them for some of the topics, but we don't give them the exact questions so that sometimes it is like a bit of a surprise.
00:17:23:17 - 00:17:41:14
Speaker 2
But I love to do the prep thing and and like the loose script so that they can actually think about like example and stories. You and I talked about like some of the questions ahead of this, and they came up with like stories that I could bring for this question and that question on the spot. And the moment.
00:17:41:16 - 00:17:49:17
Speaker 2
No way would have thought about any of those. Maybe it makes me a bit more interesting and less like corporate armor, but better. Not sure if in there.
00:17:49:19 - 00:17:55:18
Speaker 1
After so many conversations. What is the most unexpectedly hopeful thing you've learned about our industry?
00:17:55:20 - 00:18:27:19
Speaker 2
I love chatting with people that are at unknown brands like startups up and coming founders in martech, but I obviously love getting an inside look at companies that are like OpenAI or Uber or Canva. Meta like anthropic, like some of the cool companies that I've had on the show. But I think that the thing I love the most, and some of the feedback that I've gone from folks, is that regardless of how cool these brands are, I feel better after listening because sometimes they talk about stuff that I've never heard of or I've never done.
00:18:27:19 - 00:18:47:20
Speaker 2
I'm like, oh crap, I need to go and learn that thing. But sometimes they talk about something that I've actually figured out already, or they talk about something that I'm also figuring out. I'm like, whoa, the person I, Canva, is still figuring that thing out that I'm figuring out I'm at the same level, or like, I'm on the same wavelength as that person from this really cool company.
00:18:47:22 - 00:19:13:14
Speaker 2
So it's that feeling of hello being seen, being validated, being reassured that you're not the only person in this alone on this little island of Reef tech or marketing ops or revenue ops in your company, and maybe you feel like you don't have that authority to, like, speak about some of these things, but then you hear from someone at this really cool company seeing this other thing that you've been saying, and now you have like a bit more ammo bring back to your company.
00:19:13:14 - 00:19:23:20
Speaker 2
So I don't know, like no one has it all figured out regardless of like what company or brand they're at. We're all kind of like learning as as we go. And you're not doing that, that you're going to be okay.
00:19:23:22 - 00:19:45:01
Speaker 1
Speaking of not doing things so shabbily or badly, the singular Scott Brinker has told you that Humans of MarTech is one of his favorite and of hundreds of podcasts. What does it mean to you? But this so-called godfather of martech gravitas towards conversations that sit with the complexity rather than self certainty. And with you at the helm.
00:19:45:01 - 00:20:07:22
Speaker 2
I feel like Scott is the epitome of that. Like I grew up on reading to more Dicom and it's like still my de-facto newsletter. It means a lot. It means a ton. Throughout the years, like I've gotten to become friends with Scott, like Scott's come on the podcast twice and we've collaborated on On There, this stuff together. He's such a like voice of reason in the industry.
00:20:07:22 - 00:20:31:07
Speaker 2
Like, everyone loves Scott, everyone thinks of Scott when they think of martech, so it means a ton. And I was just like pondering this. Like, imagine our industry if there were even just like three times more people today that were like Scott, that actually like stepped out of their heads down work and shared what they were learning, like Scott does.
00:20:31:07 - 00:20:50:11
Speaker 2
Like, I can imagine how amazing or more amazing the community would be, like how fast or other people would be learning if there was like 7 or 10 other chief martech comms people that other brands like share and stuff along the way. So grateful for, for Scott, for everything he's done for me in my career and in the creator journey that I'm on, for sure.
00:20:50:16 - 00:21:16:17
Speaker 1
That's amazing. I think you're underselling yourself. I think you're one of those people as well. Okay, I want to dive into tech more specifically. And you have been using AI, leveraging it, especially because you've been on paternity leave a number of times. You've had all your babies on your chest. So I was taking, and that turned your curiosity into a whole new content layer for the show.
00:21:16:19 - 00:21:27:06
Speaker 1
So at a high level, we walk us through your actual production stack. Where is I actually helping in assisting you and where is it continually letting you down?
00:21:27:08 - 00:21:50:13
Speaker 2
We started six years ago just recording on audio and not even having show notes. And you know, we had like, you know, like less than 100 people listening in. It was fun. We were doing it just for fun. But yeah, I had my first kid and it was still working in house at the time, so had decent pat leave benefits and baby was like sleeping on me.
00:21:50:13 - 00:22:12:03
Speaker 2
Like, babies sleep pooping, cry. I was like, researching a lot, like prepping episodes. And that's around the time that the earlier versions of of GPT, HTML and I went on this like deep exploration of like, what does the role of marketing look like with LMS? Like, how are LMS chasing everything? And everyone was like wondering those questions, asking them at the same time.
00:22:12:03 - 00:22:38:01
Speaker 2
So I happened to like, write and post episodes about this at this perfect inflection point right before everyone else did. And it was like saturated that we we can see kind of in the download spikes, like, right around the time where GPT was kind of coming around and a couple of weeks after that, like when I went back to work, big project we were working on in-house was debating the package CDP versus the composable CDP.
00:22:38:03 - 00:22:38:11
Speaker 1
Familiar.
00:22:38:16 - 00:22:45:03
Speaker 2
Something that most people don't like to argue about nowadays. I feel like the battle has been settled. We can talk about that. You'd be.
00:22:45:03 - 00:22:48:22
Speaker 1
Surprised. Depends on the company structure.
00:22:48:24 - 00:23:07:02
Speaker 2
100%. But like I did a whole series around that as well. Package versus composable CDP and like had both sides of the coin and those episodes did super well. Also, I don't know if like it was the AI stuff that did better first or if it was CDP was all like around the same time, but super randomly.
00:23:07:02 - 00:23:34:20
Speaker 2
I started having like founders of CDP companies reach out to to come on the podcast. I think what is what is happening here going on. I even had a PM shout out to Katie who is at Sensus, and she invited me to host a webinar with Darrell Alfonso and Scott Brinker and the CEO and founder of census. Just like what is happening here, like, I just happened to stumble upon this really interesting debate a lot of people are going through right now.
00:23:34:22 - 00:23:57:03
Speaker 2
And the AI thing really got me into like, what is the future of marketing and marketing operations and what does that mean for me, like on my own production stack today? Like I went down this like recent journey in 2026 of like fully embracing cloud code and cursor as like the main command center for the pre-production and the post-production stuff.
00:23:57:03 - 00:24:21:12
Speaker 2
I've got a couple of cool systems and processes where I'm feeding a couple of different documents, and like outputs of scraping different like documents of stuff that people have read that are coming on the show. I feed it like LinkedIn experience, LinkedIn posts, the pre-interview answers that I shared, and then I have like a pre-production system that suggests a bunch of different content angles for the episode.
00:24:21:18 - 00:24:39:19
Speaker 2
And so I have this like human checkpoint where I'm actually like picking the angle for this. I actually, like reach out to the guests sometimes like, hey, there's like three ideas here. Which one do you enjoy the most? And then based on that, cloud creates this like dynamic version of the guests dynamic profile based on how much like information they've shared.
00:24:39:21 - 00:25:01:23
Speaker 2
Online, sometimes it's really loose. Sometimes someone like Scott or like an author has like a full book to go off of. And then it has like a mock interview with that dynamic persona of the person, and it improves its own questions, like through the mock interview does like three rounds of it, and it shows me like the output of the questions that were improved based on the mock interview outputs.
00:25:02:00 - 00:25:20:18
Speaker 2
So I take that. I send it to the guests, we go back and forth a little bit on on the questions. They highlight the ones that they like the most. That becomes like the core thesis for the the pre-production side of it. And then post is like where I do the most stuff, like right around like the early days, I was converting everything into a blog post version of it.
00:25:20:20 - 00:25:39:12
Speaker 2
In the old days I had this like long ChatGPT prompt as like a three step prompt to remove all I slop out of it, or as much as possible, and I would just take like, all right, help me create this blog post passage from this question. This is the question I asked, and this was the guest answer.
00:25:39:16 - 00:25:59:16
Speaker 2
And I was doing this all manually, like copy paste, sending that to ChatGPT, pasting that output PC in the second version of the prompt like all right, improve this again. Remove this, remove that. So I was doing it all manually stitching it together in this like long thing in my WordPress blog. So that part of it has just been all automated in in cloud code.
00:25:59:16 - 00:26:31:05
Speaker 2
Now, like I feed it a transcript, it automatically finds all the different questions, the answers, and it chunks it into different spots. It cleans it up where it's repetitive, it kind of cuts it. It fixes like the missed transcriptions, and then it outputs like a section for that. And then by the end of it, it has like a long blog post goes through it in one shot, like synthesizes, summarizes, combines similar ideas, outputs a blog post, and that blog post becomes like the the center of all the assets that I'm going to repurpose from it.
00:26:31:10 - 00:26:40:23
Speaker 2
So it becomes like the engine for the clips that are going to come after it, like the short. So I have a bunch of cloud skills that look at like the best. Like most potential viral moments from it.
00:26:40:23 - 00:26:46:04
Speaker 1
I don't know what work still, and I think it's an iterative process.
00:26:46:04 - 00:27:08:08
Speaker 2
I did spend a lot of time like looking, like how many people in shorts, like, end up actually becoming subscribers and look at the long form stuff. And I looked at like other people's reports there also. And it's like, not a great signal. It's a different audience. It's like short form, like really passive listeners versus the people that actually stick around and listen to a full episode.
00:27:08:10 - 00:27:26:22
Speaker 2
But anyways, long story short, like the blog post gets repurposed into a bunch of different stuff. Also goes into like this newsletter engine that's still pretty heavy human intervention to kind of like clean that up and put it into my own voice. I'm always thinking about not token matching, but like what? What else could I be doing? Because it's like, it's so fun.
00:27:26:22 - 00:27:45:07
Speaker 2
I have a ton of fun with it. Like oftentimes our little one is like in bed sleeping and my wife's about crash and she's like looking over at me, and I've got this terminal window in Curser and she's just like, what are you working on? That looks like so gross and depressing. And I'm like, no way, man. I'm building a search app right now.
00:27:45:08 - 00:28:01:24
Speaker 2
My sign I finally connected to a railway database and I can see what people are searching for. And it's giving me like, content ideas. And now I can like surface episodes that chunked and talked about that based on the Wragg pipeline that I build some. Anyways, I could go on and on here, but it's so fun.
00:28:02:00 - 00:28:21:00
Speaker 1
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00:28:21:03 - 00:28:39:12
Speaker 1
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00:28:39:14 - 00:29:04:01
Speaker 1
And now back to the hot seat. Based off of what you're saying, I feel like you are leaps and bounds ahead of every company's content approval generation creation process. So I'm just going to take the moment to say, guys, you don't have to be in-house to know what you're doing. Just going to put it out there because while I know a number of companies doing advanced work, nothing is that advanced.
00:29:04:07 - 00:29:26:07
Speaker 2
Yeah. I've had the pleasure chatting with, some cool folks that are, like, deep into not to throw like, raw buzzwords out here, but like, content engineering, like my old co-founder, old goes John Taylor. He, like, left the podcast to build out his SEO agency, and now he's pretty much just become like a content engineer. He's created his own, like Miles ahead of anyone.
00:29:26:07 - 00:29:33:15
Speaker 2
And like, I learn a lot from those like marketing engineers that have been marketing engineers for a decade, the.
00:29:33:15 - 00:29:36:17
Speaker 1
Ones that just got created. So what are you talking.
00:29:36:17 - 00:29:42:24
Speaker 2
Yeah. In in April, the startup like one startup created, marketing engineers. Jaclyn, you didn't you.
00:29:42:24 - 00:29:47:17
Speaker 1
Didn't hear what the profound.
00:29:47:19 - 00:30:05:02
Speaker 2
But, yeah, it's fun to think like, sometimes you chat with folks who are like, all right, I'm doing really good. I'm ahead of those folks. Like, I'm not losing too much behind. And then you chat with, like, Austin Hays of the world and like, the Kit Jones and you're just like, all right. Wait. Sorry. What? Harness engineering. What are we talking about?
00:30:05:02 - 00:30:06:24
Speaker 1
What is that they want from us?
00:30:07:01 - 00:30:26:11
Speaker 2
What, like what is OpenAI doing right now? Symphony orchestration for slalom like. And so there's always going to be those folks that are in like that 0.1%. And if you're still like learning from them and you're ahead of like most folks, I think as long as you're having fun, I think that's the most important part. Having a ton of fun, definitely.
00:30:26:11 - 00:30:50:00
Speaker 1
If it brings you joy, you're going to keep on exploring and doing it. Okay. We've talked through how you set up all of your workflows. However you neglect it. Midjourney. Everyone adores your process. For Midjourney, I want to know, like how did you start that idea? There's a whole breakdown already on your podcast of how you do it, but I want to hear where that came from.
00:30:50:05 - 00:30:52:03
Speaker 1
In terms of your inspiration for cover art.
00:30:52:05 - 00:31:12:01
Speaker 2
Yeah, I actually didn't think of Midjourney when you said like the AI stack is for me, it's it's AI for sure, obviously. But there's such a manual process. There is an art to printing in Midjourney, even though it's not like human art, but I feel like it is what sets like some of the brand apart for for the show.
00:31:12:01 - 00:31:22:00
Speaker 2
Like a lot of folks have said that, especially in the earlier days, like especially the cover art, like, people are like, well, it's so cool nowadays it's less cool. Anyone can do it. And I'm like, it's great.
00:31:22:02 - 00:31:28:09
Speaker 1
No one's quite got the style and kind of consistency you do.
00:31:28:11 - 00:31:51:01
Speaker 2
Yeah, but it's it's fun. Like Midjourney I feel like is one of my favorite creative outlet. Part of this, once we've got it is like another output that I get called to do. So Claude takes like the header of each section of the blog post, which is essentially like all the questions in the topics that we cover, all the issues in the blog posts that become their own clips.
00:31:51:03 - 00:32:10:02
Speaker 2
And so Claude outputs like five potential Midjourney prompts for that one idea. I go through like some of my favorites. Sometimes Claude is really bad at doing that. I tried to come up with like, cool visual, like metaphors for something like we're talking about source of truth and or we're talking about marketing planning and can only do so.
00:32:10:02 - 00:32:30:12
Speaker 2
Many lighthouses in the horizon are so many, like compasses is out in the wild. You know, it's I'm like quickly running out of analogies, but it's fun. Feel like it's it's my favorite part. And before I used to be just like like a blog. Great. Like the the header for the blog. But now I becomes like the header for the clip, like it's something that shows up in the short.
00:32:30:17 - 00:32:49:17
Speaker 2
It's something that I use sometimes when I'm like repurposing an episode and just like sharing about it on LinkedIn. But yeah, like I had a mission, former Nike who does like a couple of AI courses on Maven. I had her on the podcast. She said one thing that really stuck with me because, like, I've always been thinking about, why am I not automating this part out of Midjourney?
00:32:49:17 - 00:33:16:02
Speaker 2
Like, I spend tons of money, tons of credits on this journey and like a lot of time and focus and energy. But she said something like, you should never automate things that bring you joy. You love doing a part of it, even though it takes a bit of time. Why would you automate something that you love doing and so and maybe reflect on that and like beat me pause on like, maybe I don't need to automate everything and a midjourney, but Midjourney is by far and above than the best image generator.
00:33:16:02 - 00:33:47:22
Speaker 2
Not for like concepts and for words. GPT today Dall-E, their engine is beyond Midjourney, but the features in Midjourney like being able to like change just like this one spot in the image, or have like a style reference or character references. These are all things that are like years ahead of the training models on on any of these other images, and it's what's allowed me to have a consistent style, at least like across episodes, like I come up with like the cover and then that becomes like the style reference prompt for all the other header images that that come.
00:33:47:22 - 00:34:05:18
Speaker 1
Out of it. When I think as a guest, the experience is also exciting too. You feel special because you're like, oh, it's this like custom cover art just for me based off of my interest or experience. And I think it's a it's a nice experience for all across the board brings you joy, brings customer and audience and everyone join.
00:34:05:20 - 00:34:07:00
Speaker 2
Win win win.
00:34:07:02 - 00:34:16:13
Speaker 1
Exactly. At what point did the show stop being a side project for you and start feeling like your main thing, and that you needed to commit it?
00:34:16:15 - 00:34:38:07
Speaker 2
Probably around the time where, like the AI exploration, the CDP, battle episodes really picked off. Like we weren't putting out episodes for a couple hundred people. All of a sudden at that point, we were chatting with like a couple thousand people and were like, well, what happened here? Like, we're actually generating downloads here. And at that point it morphed into like, all right.
00:34:38:07 - 00:35:05:05
Speaker 2
Our audience is like really, really niche. Does not a ton of other creators in this space, in this one niche thing, like how many people talk about CDP isn't composability and AI orchestration. There's not a ton any. I went on this like journey also working in the house at that time, but I was like, okay, maybe, maybe there's a world where like, there's a way to monetize this through through sponsorships because like, you know, there's brand awareness play here.
00:35:05:05 - 00:35:22:13
Speaker 2
Like, not everyone knows about all the CDP vendors and we're talking about CDP, like maybe a CEP vendor would be interested in, you know, sponsoring a couple episodes, doing it on a test basis. And so some of the first ones that we just like pitched this to, were NAC, NAC was like the the first sponsor that we had.
00:35:22:13 - 00:35:39:15
Speaker 2
They're still sponsored today four years into it, but like they're had a growth in their CMO at the time where it's like, hey, we're doing this content around marketing, operations and martech, and they're just like, yeah, never sponsored a podcast, but like, we'll give it a shot. We like the content, but we love you guys more than anything.
00:35:39:15 - 00:35:57:18
Speaker 2
We're happy to like, support you creating content for this community. We're building a product for this community. I think it's like a perfect match. And we had iterable CMO on the show. I know, you know, very well Adri and she came on the show. We're just like three had or like, hey, you think like iterable would ever consider sponsoring our tiny little podcast?
00:35:57:18 - 00:36:14:16
Speaker 2
Like, we actually had some pretty cool growth. Like, we're not like speaking into the void anymore. And she was like, yeah, it. Chat with this one person. Let's give it a shot for a quarter, see what happens. And then like iterable NOK, like two really cool brands were some of the first ones to to sponsor us. And like now these other vendors were it's like well all right.
00:36:14:16 - 00:36:40:04
Speaker 2
Like if iterable NAC are willing to like throw money at this like customer I okay I'm not in like this sponsored for a full year after that I might engage is sponsored after there were a couple CDPs come on like growth loop is a sponsor now. So yeah, it's been a journey and I feel like that was like that moment where like we had one really cool martech vendor, reputable brand, just be like, yeah, we're willing to pay you to put our logo on your content.
00:36:40:06 - 00:37:05:01
Speaker 2
That was like the moment where I was like, all right, maybe we have something here, like, we're never going to be Lenny and have like 100,000 listeners. But we live in this niche of a niche, and it's a fun niche and it's a high quality audience. And I think there's really cool content to mature with the audience and, and partner with some vendors that we like and trust in that their products.
00:37:05:01 - 00:37:29:07
Speaker 2
And so at that point, I was just like, it's my co-host and I like he ended up on his own ro like building his own thing. And I was just like, all right, I need to not focus on in-house anymore and like, just double down on the content and, and see what this like solo creator life does. And now Daryl Afonso, who used to be like a long time listener, he reached out and he was like, yeah, like I noticed you have an opening for co-host, like, I'd love to come on, just for fun, see what happens.
00:37:29:12 - 00:37:44:15
Speaker 2
Like, all right, like, everyone knows Daryl, like, for sure, but like, the silly, he was like, one of the most downloaded episodes in the history of our show when he came on. So, yeah, he's been on for a couple of years now. It's been super fun partnering with him on this.
00:37:44:18 - 00:38:05:05
Speaker 1
Now I want to take a step back. We've been in the weeds. We've been talking about how you navigate your own tech stack as it relates to your product and podcast, and your kind of mark on the industry as one of the more honest public voices about the gap between what more tech promises and what it actually delivers.
00:38:05:07 - 00:38:24:10
Speaker 1
And you don't tear the industry down, but you think it deserves better across the board. So you've said there's been so much focus on tooling and not enough on the humans behind it, but the industry is structurally incentivized to do the opposite. So do you think that's actually changing or are we just talking about getting better?
00:38:24:12 - 00:38:57:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's it's a really cool question. I think there's two sides to that argument because there is an argument to be made that less people powering martech tooling leads to poor utilization and poor ROI, and less purchasing of said martech products and less renewals. And so I feel like the vendors are incentivized to sell more, but they're also incentivized to make sure that the tools are well implemented and well funded, well backed, well onboarded.
00:38:57:06 - 00:39:20:13
Speaker 2
And that means also investing in awareness and training about the importance of having more than one person supporting a like 25 marketing department with like hundreds of tools. Right. And I think that the conversation with folks like Sarah Mack and Darrell and Scott have brought a lot of awareness to the problem that, you know, there isn't enough focus on the humans.
00:39:20:13 - 00:39:42:06
Speaker 2
And we're alone sometimes in our own little, like marketing ops, eco space. And even though people say we love us and we need us and we're so important, we have no authority in our role and we don't really own anything. We have the keys and where the admins on these tools. But like we don't make decisions on headcount or on staffing or company up priorities and stuff like that.
00:39:42:06 - 00:40:01:23
Speaker 2
So I don't know, I think rev ops was a way out of this a little bit. We're kind of leaving just the marketing sphere if you do work and then rev ops, and part of that's implementing a bit more influence on like the people side of things. But I don't know it's still tough in our market is even like weirder.
00:40:01:23 - 00:40:22:05
Speaker 2
Like if we're having this conversation like 3 or 4 years ago, I'd be telling folks, if you're not happy in your job right now and you're one person supporting this like crazy, terrible, stressful situation, tickets left and there's no process. Just like, leave that job and like you're extremely valuable and you're going to find a job. No problem.
00:40:22:05 - 00:40:47:06
Speaker 2
The market is different right now, and I feel like, you know, you can still make that same argument if you're really good at your gig. Like you can find something. I've chatted with people that are really, really good and are still out of work, like 3 or 4 months into a layoff. It's just a weird market right now for the humans behind martech, and we've actually pivoted like some of our content around what is the best CDP to buy, or the best marketing attribution tool to buy to?
00:40:47:08 - 00:41:05:01
Speaker 2
How the heck do you navigate this weird job market right now? How do you survive it? How do you answer the what have you done with AI recently? Or like what AI tools are using in the actual job hunt? When you're interviews, what questions should you ask to like? Make sure you're landing in a good spot. So stuff like that.
00:41:05:01 - 00:41:29:00
Speaker 2
But I feel like we are making progress, but it's still a long way to go and I feel like I hasn't helped the discussion there. It's made it even weirder because you see all these people replacing people with tools, or at least like sharing the narrative that you can replace people with tools, or they're doing the opposite and it's like, I don't want to cut anyone on my team, but I want my team to have the amount of output that they currently have.
00:41:29:00 - 00:41:48:12
Speaker 2
So if you're not getting laid off, you're like five times more stressed and like you have five times more bandwidth. So it's easy for me to say from behind the mic not working in-house, but I have all this empathy in the world for for the people, like behind all those tools. And it'll get better. It's just a it's a weird inflection point in in AI right now for martech, for sure.
00:41:48:12 - 00:42:24:11
Speaker 1
I love that you mentioned the niche of niche because it is something I find extremely important, valuable and a key differentiator from pretty much every other industry based podcast is like our conversations are for the decision makers. They are for the ones who are filling out the technical and business requirements with all the different platforms. So while maybe our total addressable market is much smaller than a Lenny's podcast, we actually have more influence and power in terms of how much money is being spent.
00:42:24:11 - 00:42:46:14
Speaker 1
So for every singular person, it's not, you know, just a click for an impression. And it's like, well, it could influence a $100,000 decision or $1 million decision. So that's where my head goes. It's like we're in this unique bubble in the best way, but it's also a hard one because it's not the standard approach where everything is more like cost per download, cost per this, how many clicks?
00:42:46:16 - 00:42:55:10
Speaker 1
And I was like, well, you know, brand awareness is getting back to the MTA multi-touch component. Like you can't really track it in the same way, but you want to be part of that conversation.
00:42:55:14 - 00:43:16:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. Oh man. We could have a whole episode on. I hate the word influencer marketing, but like, you know, creator marketing in a niche of a niche and a niche that is so high quality, that drives such high purchase decisions in a vendor space that has such high achievers, especially like in the enterprise sphere. It's like it's wild.
00:43:16:14 - 00:43:29:17
Speaker 1
Like when a CEO asks what's driving revenue? Where do we put our money next? Well, we have alluded to this with MTA and all of the question marks around it. What is the honest answer a marketer should give in this day and age with AI?
00:43:29:19 - 00:43:38:21
Speaker 2
Where should we invest our cash next? Token Maxine 100%.
00:43:38:23 - 00:43:40:24
Speaker 1
So much cringe, so little time.
00:43:41:01 - 00:44:08:07
Speaker 2
I meditate on this a lot. Actually, I'm advising one company on this right now. The answer is what is the outcome of the philosophical debates and battles you've had about what is attribution at your company? How are you measuring marketing? Because like what's contributed to revenue? Well, whatever is that thing that we decided that we should do to like, evaluate and measure marketing and that sounds like easier said than done.
00:44:08:07 - 00:44:24:13
Speaker 2
But you have to do that work. Like what is driving revenue? Okay. What is like how are we going to evaluate what is driving revenue? Well, right now we're just doing MTA. All right. Do we have experiments in motion or now we do. Okay. How many past experiments do we have? Okay. Do we have this culture of experimentation?
00:44:24:15 - 00:44:44:13
Speaker 2
Can we say we have an incrementality model in place? Yeah we do. We have a bunch of learning from last three years. Okay. Maybe we could start thinking about what is our. Strategy here because we have enough context. We have enough information. We have a data science. I can start building some of these models. All right. Like maybe we start thinking about causal AI because like we want to think about causality here.
00:44:44:13 - 00:45:08:07
Speaker 2
And then then gives us really good signals about where to actually invest in experiments like so that whole journey, it's way different. If you're like a 15 person B2B startup versus like, 100,000 person, like database in B2C like that, that's a completely different journey. You have to decide what is the right mix of triangulations signals, the right methods.
00:45:08:13 - 00:45:24:10
Speaker 2
If you start with just like last touch, like no one's going to fault you. Like with just that last such model in that first go, we're looking at probably a tiny little team. So you do one thing and then you look at revenue. Did revenue go up? Did it not go up, do a next thing next month. But for me, like you need to put in that work.
00:45:24:10 - 00:45:48:06
Speaker 2
And a lot of the times it's not just a tech discussion, it's a philosophy. Like it's a philosophical battle because the data team has a perspective. They think about it like statisticians and then marketers think about it like investors. And I'm reading Kathleen Sharp's book right now in like the big messy of of marketing right now. And she has this like four mindsets about how to think about marketing.
00:45:48:06 - 00:46:09:17
Speaker 2
And to the big ones are like thinking like statisticians and thinking like investors and having a mix of portfolio decisions and making bets. So you have to have those discussions internally that the philosophical battles on how we evaluate marketing, how we report on on revenue, what is driving revenue, then what should we do next? That's the whole planning discussion.
00:46:09:19 - 00:46:36:08
Speaker 2
And it shouldn't be a surprise about like, what do we do next? And like you pick from a list of stuff like hopefully you have some type of planning process where people pitch ideas. It goes into this evaluation backlog and every quarter or month or however often you do planning process, you prioritize these things. You either async or in person, decide on what are the things that are going to reach the metrics that you care about based on what has worked in the past.
00:46:36:10 - 00:46:54:06
Speaker 2
And so that's like my easy but like tough answer, the easy answer on like what drove revenue and what should we do next. Underlying answers to those are the harder parts. And there for a lot of companies like two years, like three year long battles and explorations and journeys.
00:46:54:06 - 00:47:06:24
Speaker 1
So yeah, I, petition for you to add a section to your episodes called Philosophical.
00:47:07:01 - 00:47:09:24
Speaker 1
It immediately popped in my head, as you said philosophically.
00:47:09:24 - 00:47:12:23
Speaker 2
A heavy philosophical take on that.
00:47:13:00 - 00:47:39:05
Speaker 1
Exactly. I would tune in for just that. Okay. Tables have turned. So you're a podcaster, a more tech veteran, a dad, two adorable kiddos, and a fantasy hockey enthusiast? How do you decide what deserves your energy and what's your system for staying aligned? What actually makes you happy?
00:47:39:07 - 00:48:01:00
Speaker 2
You've turned the tables on me. And it's funny because I've actually done these like roundup recap episodes of everyone's answer, and I use cloud to like, put them into different buckets. And I have like a two part or three part series on like the happiness systems that marketing operators use to stay happy under pressure and like fight boundaries and stuff like that.
00:48:01:00 - 00:48:26:13
Speaker 2
And so I have this like cool bird's eye view of like everyone's answer and how they tackle this and so meditated on this quite a bit. And ultimately for me, now that I work for myself, sole operator and like full flexibility on on my schedule, aside from some interviews is on the podcast here. Like ultimately I'm filtering my energy on on two core priorities my family and my health.
00:48:26:15 - 00:48:45:18
Speaker 2
Like my body. My health, like none of it really is going to happen in like ten, 15 years if I don't focus on my body and my health, if I'm not going to be around for my kids and my family because I have poor health, like, what am I doing here? So family health, like those are the cornerstone things of everything else that kind of revolves around it.
00:48:45:18 - 00:49:04:23
Speaker 2
And then I just have to be like super intentional with my time. After that, when I worked in house, I was a huge fan of doing coffee chats with like anyone, anyone, and everyone that reached out like, hey, you want to just like chit chat about this? I'm new in the industry. Like I would just do a ton of those and I would just like give my time freely.
00:49:05:00 - 00:49:27:17
Speaker 2
And most of the time I was in the house. Right. And so like, you know, I was working 9 to 5, 30 minutes here, 30 minutes there, like the company was still paying me. Then I work for myself. Time is money and I'm spending 30 minutes. One day it becomes like 2 or 3 hours per week. And I'm looking at my calendar and it's like I spend a full day every week in the last month giving away my time for free.
00:49:27:19 - 00:49:51:06
Speaker 2
And I have no concept of whether that return is going to come back at some point in some shape or form. Not really in the consulting business. And so I'm like super intentional with my time. Sometimes that means like saying no to a bunch of stuff, like people that just want to like reach out and chat. So I turned down a lot of stuff, make sure that, like, I'm moving and like, and I like you said, fantasy hockey.
00:49:51:08 - 00:50:11:03
Speaker 2
I'm also like super into sci fi and fantasy books. Like specifically audio books, like with my two little ones that don't sleep super well without one of the two parents. So plug in an audiobook as they're like falling asleep next to me. Actually started a book club recently with, fellow marketing operators that are also big readers.
00:50:11:05 - 00:50:32:21
Speaker 2
And we have this a little tiny niche community of like 2020 people or so. We're reading the same book right now. I would like categories fantasy, hockey, fantasy books, Sci-Fi books, TV, movies as like healthy escapism. And that's not something that comes up for a lot of folks in this answer, but it's like it's a huge part of how like for me, it's not like a distraction, but like it's how I recharge.
00:50:32:21 - 00:51:04:18
Speaker 2
It's how I see yourself. Yeah. Mentally fresh. Like, I just like, dive into this crazy fantasy sci fi world. And then when I come back to real life, it's like, well, but anxiety is way less heightened because I'm not living in this, like crazy sci fi world where, like, as high stress all the time. And so the other thing that I'll say, I know we're close on time here, but like, I'm a big fan of having informal board of advisors, like just for life in general or even like business decisions and work like mentors.
00:51:04:19 - 00:51:25:05
Speaker 2
Super important. But just like a board of advisors for life. And it could be made up of like family, friends, mentors, people you worked with, like whatever. But I'm a huge fan of pressure testing ideas with like this board of advisors getting different POVs. People are a different parts of life, so it like keeps me grounded and sharp before I make certain decisions.
00:51:25:05 - 00:51:47:04
Speaker 2
It's like, save me from making some pretty bad calls that I didn't see sometimes. And last thing is, just like avoiding stuff that dreams me. And I say this from a place of privilege because I have the pleasure of working for myself. I know that everyone has the ability to do that, right now, but you know, you can still slowly claw your way into that at some point.
00:51:47:04 - 00:52:17:19
Speaker 2
There's always like an entry point in there. You're there. The thing that gives me the most energy is to just not do the things that drain energy for me, like, I have no interest in environments that are filled with like politics, internal politics about like whether this person should do that, areas of responsibility, like we've all had those things in house and I'd rather put my energy into like creative work, my podcast, relationships with people that actually care about that are meaningful.
00:52:17:21 - 00:52:23:08
Speaker 2
So yeah, long winded answer there. But I've had a lot of time to to reflect on.
00:52:23:10 - 00:52:35:03
Speaker 1
I need you to teach me your ways for us. Yes, to all of the above and need help. Before we wrap, we always ask, is there someone we should have on the podcast?
00:52:35:05 - 00:53:03:04
Speaker 2
Super like top of Mind. Angela from Expedia was an amazing episode. She talked about, like being on the spectrum, neurodivergent person in marketing ops and how she's like, use that as like a strength in her power is super cool episode. We had hope from SoundCloud. Hope Barrett, Nadia Davis from Caliber Mind had a really cool episode about like MTA, really like reshape my mind about how I think about measurement.
00:53:03:06 - 00:53:22:13
Speaker 2
Angela Rueda from meta, who's, us to say something, something amazing episode she talked about like hybrid versus like, in-house, martech stack decisions recently had Liz Dobbs, from Databricks, who is like EVP of like everything, including biotech there. And she's building super cool stuff.
00:53:22:14 - 00:53:23:09
Speaker 1
Casual job.
00:53:23:10 - 00:53:43:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, no big deal. Alita Solis, if you're like in your AI search, she's like one of the biggest, like, thought leaders in in the SEO space. And she came on the show. She was amazing, had an awesome conversation. So yeah, like I'll do intros for any of those people, any of the names that jump out to you like, happy to refer them over.
00:53:43:06 - 00:53:48:10
Speaker 2
But yeah, we've got plenty of people, women to recommend.
00:53:48:12 - 00:54:12:04
Speaker 1
That was a fantastic conversation, as it always is. And all right, I want to have some takeaways for you because one LA Phil, great conversation. As per usual. I like to see behind the looking glass of what he's actually up to. What's his why why, why is he thinking like this? And there's a couple of takeaways I think are well worth your time.
00:54:12:04 - 00:54:32:14
Speaker 1
The stack isn't the strategy and it never was. The vendors who will win aren't the ones with the best G2 scores. They're the ones willing to show you the product and introduce you and the humans behind it. Your audience does not have to be big to matter. One right listener can make $1 million decision. That job right now is really hard.
00:54:32:16 - 00:54:51:19
Speaker 1
Although the job market is genuinely hard right now. And if you're navigating it or a shrinking team or an AI transformation, you didn't ask for it. You are not behind. You're just human. So never automate the things that bring you joy. Phil, where can folks find you? Because we're all about spreading the love here.
00:54:51:21 - 00:55:13:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, humans in martech.com links out to all the other places that, podcast content is pushed out too. So all one word humans of martech.com. Very ugly WordPress.com website that I will eventually migrate out of whenever I find time. Maybe cloud can do that for me, but, yeah, I'm I'm stuck on the enterprise and a.
00:55:13:16 - 00:55:19:04
Speaker 1
Former WordPress employee leaving WordPress. Yeah, that is, headline in of itself.
00:55:19:10 - 00:55:27:24
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's, it's a weird time to, to be in the WordPress ecosystem these, last couple of years. Let's just leave it at this for sure.
00:55:27:24 - 00:55:46:12
Speaker 1
That's its own episode, and we could do that. I am grateful that I have been part of this sphere for a year alongside you, and I was very nervous when I told you that I was gonna go out on this limb. It was a whole. I had so much anxiety, and I couldn't tell you what it was until we had the meeting.
00:55:46:14 - 00:55:54:22
Speaker 1
And it was. And then you were so chill about it. And I was like, oh, okay. I had all this anxiety for no reason.
00:55:54:24 - 00:56:13:12
Speaker 2
And then all of this excitement when you told me you were gone solo and like, continuing it like that was my initial, like a reservation at first is like, yo, Juan's already like, cut. This one's like, how do you know he's not going to cut it again? But I'm happy that, like, he listened to you and he reignited it.
00:56:13:12 - 00:56:17:04
Speaker 2
And now that he's handed over the KCM, poem for you.
00:56:17:06 - 00:56:43:01
Speaker 1
Yeah, it all worked out. Everyone's happy. And, I'm excited for us to continue, hopefully bringing truth to our industry and making more folks feel seen from different perspectives and different angles and different reasons and the why behind things. As we wrap this episode, a special thank you to Christine Murtaugh for editing this episode, and to Jenna Carter for believing this from the start.
00:56:43:03 - 00:56:44:14
Speaker 1
Thanks so much. Bye.