201: Scott Brinker: If he reset his career today, where would he focus?

What’s up everyone, today we have the honor of sitting down with the legendary Scott Brinker, a rare repeat guest, the Martech Landscape creator, the Author of Hacking Marketing, The Godfather of Martech himself.

• (00:00) - Intro
• (01:12) - In This Episode
• (05:09) - Scott Brinker’s Guidance For Marketers Rethinking Their Career Path
• (11:27) - If You Started Over in Martech, What Would You Learn First
• (16:47) - People Side
• (21:13) - Life Long Learning
• (26:20) - Habits to Stay Ahead
• (32:14) - Why Deep Specialization Protects Marketers From AI Confusion
• (37:27) - Why Technical Skills Decide the Future of Your Marketing Career
• (41:00) - Why Change Leadership Matters More Than Technical AI Skills
• (47:11) - How MCP Gives Marketers a Path Out of Integration Hell
• (52:49) - Why Heterogeneous Stacks are the Default for Modern Marketing Teams
• (54:51) - How To Build A Martech Messaging BS Detector
• (59:37) - Why Your Energy Grows Faster When You Invest in Other People

Summary: Scott Brinker shares exactly where he would focus if he reset his career today, and his answer cuts through the noise. He’d build one deep specialty to judge AI’s confident mistakes, grow cross-functional range to bridge marketing and engineering, and lean into technical skills like SQL and APIs to turn ideas into working systems. He’d treat curiosity as a steady rhythm instead of a rigid routine, learn how influence actually moves inside companies, and guide teams through change with simple, human clarity. His take on composability, MCP, and vendor noise rounds out a clear roadmap for any marketer trying to stay sharp in a chaotic industry.

About Scott

Scott has spent his career merging the world of marketing and technology and somehow making it look effortless. He co-founded ion interactive back when “interactive content” felt like a daring experiment, then opened the Chief Marketing Technologist blog in 2008 to spark a conversation the industry didn’t know it needed. He sketched the very first Martech Landscape when the ecosystem fit on a single page with about 150 vendors, and later brought the MarTech conference to life in 2014, where he still shapes the program. Most recently, he guided HubSpot’s platform ecosystem, helping the company stay connected to a martech universe that’s grown to more than 15,000 tools. Today, Scott continues to helm chiefmartec.com, the well the entire industry keeps returning to for clarity, curiosity, and direction.

Scott Brinker’s Guidance For Marketers Rethinking Their Career Path

Mid career marketers keep asking themselves whether they should stick with the field or throw everything out and start fresh. Scott relates to that feeling, and he talks about it with a kind of grounded humor. He describes his own wandering thoughts about running a vineyard, feeling the soil under his shoes and imagining the quiet. Then he remembers the old saying about wineries, which is that the only guaranteed outcome is a smaller bank account. His story captures the emotional drift that comes with burnout. People are not always craving a new field. They are often craving a new relationship with their work.

Scott moves quickly to the part that matters. He directs his attention to AI because it is reshaping the field faster than many teams can absorb. He explains that someone could spend every hour of the week experimenting and still only catch a fraction of what is happening. He sees that chaos as a signal. Overload creates opportunity, and the people who step toward it gain an advantage. He urges mid career operators to lean into the friction and build new muscle. He even calls out how many people will resist change and cling to familiar workflows. He views that resistance as a gift for the ones willing to explore.

“People who lean into the change really have the opportunity to differentiate themselves and discover things.”

Scott brings back a story from a napkin sketch. He drew two curves, one for the explosive pace of technological advancement and one for the slower rhythm of organizational change. The curves explain the tension everyone feels. Teams operate on slower timelines. Tools operate on faster ones. The gap between those curves is wide, and professionals who learn to navigate that space turn themselves into catalysts inside their companies. He sees mid career marketers as prime candidates for this role because they have enough lived experience to understand where teams stall and enough hunger to explore new territory.

Scott encourages people to channel their curiosity into specific work. He suggests treating AI exploration like a practice and not like a trend. A steady rhythm of experiments helps someone grow their internal influence. Better experiments produce useful artifacts. These artifacts often become internal proof points that accelerate change. He believes the next wave of opportunity belongs to people who document what they try, translate what they learn, and help their companies adapt at a pace that competitors cannot easily match.

Scott’s message carries emotional weight. He does not downplay the exhaustion in the field, but he reinforces that reinvention often happens inside the work, not outside of it. People who move toward new capabilities build careers that feel less fragile and more future proof.

Key takeaway: Mid career marketers build real leverage by running small AI experiments inside their current roles, documenting the results, and using those learnings to influence how their companies adapt. Start with narrow tests that affect your daily work, share clear outcomes with your team, and repeat the cycle. That way you can build rare credibility and position yourself as the person who accelerates organizational change.

If You Started Over in Martech, What Would You Learn First

Cross functional fluency shapes careers in a way that shiny frameworks never will, and Scott calls this out with blunt honesty. He shares how his early career lived in two worlds, writing brittle code on one side and trying to understand marketers on the other. He laughs about being a “very mediocre software engineer” who built things that probably should not have survived contact with production. That imperfect background still gave him an edge, because technical fluency mixed with genuine curiosity about marketing created a role no one else was filling. He could explain system behavior in a language marketers understood, and he could explain marketer behavior in a language engineers tolerated. That unusual pairing delivered force inside teams that usually worked in isolation.

Scott makes the case that readers can build similar momentum by leaning into roles where disciplines collide. He argues that the most useful skills often come from pairing two domains and learning how they influence each other. He highlights combinations like:

Marketing and IT for people who enjoy systems.
Marketing and finance for people drawn to modeling and forecasting.
Marketing and sales for people who want to connect customer signals with revenue conversations.

He believes these intersections are crowded with opportunity because organizations rarely invest enough in communication across teams. You can create real leverage when you speak multiple operational languages with confidence.

“The ability to serve as a bridge of cross pollinating between multiple disciplines has a lot of opportunity.”

Scott also shares the part he would invest in first if he were twenty two again. He spent years focusing almost entirely on what systems could do. He cared deeply about architecture diagrams and technical possibility, and he assumed people would adopt anything that worked. He later realized that adoption follows trust, clarity, and emotional comfort, not mechanical excellence. He now sees communication, empathy, and stakeholder management as the real power tools in martech. Readers who learn how teams make decisions, how personalities shape timelines, and how fear slows adoption gain an advantage that lasts longer than any specific tool certification.

Scott closes with a point rooted in experience rather than theory. AI will automate chunks of implementation, but persuasion, collaboration, and internal alignment still require people who can read the room and guide a group. Careers rise faster when someone combines baseline technical fluency with the ability to help others understand why a change matters. He wishes he had invested in those people skills far earlier, because they influence everything from adoption to strategy to long term momentum.

And for all the fellow introverts out there, there’s still plenty of tactics for cultivated people skills. Scott builds people relationships as an introvert by keeping things small, honest, and personal. He avoids the crowded networking scenes that drain him and instead leans into one to one conversations where people stop performing and start speaking like humans. He likes to grab a beer with a single colleague, ask what challenge is weighing on them, and listen without rushing to fill the space. He treats active listening as his edge, because it helps him understand the real issue behind a request and offer help that actually matters. He also sets clear boundaries, usually wrapping up after a couple of drinks so he can stay fully present without exhausting himself. That simple rhythm helps him form relationships built on trust rather than volume, which gives him more influence inside complex organizations than any large meeting ever could.

Key takeaway: Build range across two functions and learn how people actually work. Technical fluency paired with cross departmental empathy gives you leverage that tools cannot match. You can grow faster by translating between teams, guiding stakeholders through change, and spotting gaps in understanding long before they slow a project down.

Why Continuous Learning Fuels Marketing Operations Careers

Continuous learning defines the work of every marketing operations professional, and Scott talks about it with a kind of grounded realism that feels earned. He draws a straight line between marketing and software development because both roles deal with constant churn. New tools arrive before teams finish evaluating the old ones. New models appear before companies understand the last batch. Scott jokes that becoming a masseuse offers more stability, and he uses that joke to highlight a truth that many avoid. You work in a field with permanent velocity, and the only real strategy is to stay willing to learn, even when the pace feels unfair.

“Marketing and software development are the two fields with the craziest acceleration of new things you need to learn.”

Scott explains that he never charted a master plan for his own career, and he encourages marketers to release the pressure of pretending they need one. He shares stories about his path from entrepreneur to engineer to blogger to platform leader to analyst, and he frames each chapter as a reaction to curiosity rather than a climb toward a title. He suggests a simple structure for navigating a field this chaotic.

Follow the work that energizes you.
Treat each role as a chance to expand your range.
Expect meaning to appear when you look back, not when you plan forward.

He describes marketing as a field with enough depth to support decades of growth without constant role changes. Reinvention becomes fuel for those who love variety, but long-term focus can produce equally rewarding careers for people who prefer to stay anchored. He talks about marketing operations as one of the few disciplines where someone can develop real technical authority, real organizational influence, and real strategic impact without chasing job titles every two years.

Scott points to a shift that many organizations still overlook. More CMOs come from operational and technical backgrounds, and he views this as a logical response to how modern companies function. Leaders need to understand customers and markets, but they also need to understand systems, data, processes, and the machinery that actually delivers value. He sees a growing group of CMOs who start in operations and eventually move into CEO roles because they balance market awareness with operational command. This combination creates leaders who can articulate direction and run the engine that supports it.

“People who truly understand the customers, the market, and the operational discipline of making the trains run on time, that is a superstar type role.”

If Scott was starting over today, the 1 habit that he would build to stay ahead would be committing to a flow-driven learning rhythm that follows genuine curiosity rather than rigid daily rituals. He encourages people to test different formats, such as short courses, technical reading, writing to process ideas, and hands-on tool exploration, then keep the ones that energize them instead of forcing a routine that feels mechanical. 

He shares that he does his strongest work when he locks onto a topic for long stretches and stays with it until the momentum naturally fades, because uninterrupted immersion brings out sharper thinking and more original ideas. He still anchors his calendar with real commitments, such as the podcast recording we scheduled, but he keeps the rest of his day flexible so he can return to whatever is pulling his attention into deeper work. He believes martech professionals often over-engineer their learning systems, and he stresses that people move faster when they respect their attention patterns. He views flow as a legitimate learning system that encourages experimentation, creative leaps, and stronger comprehension because it gives the mind space to explore without pressure or quotas.

Key takeaway: Continuous learning anchors every marketing operations career, and momentum comes from staying curious even when the pace feels unreasonable. Build your learning habits around what reliably pulls you into flow. Anchor your calendar with the commitments that matter, leave intentional space for deep exploration, and rotate through formats like courses, reading, writing, and hands-on tool experimentation. That way you can stay ahead in martech through curiosity instead of forcing routines that drain energy or creativity.

Why Deep Specialization Protects Marketers From AI Confusion

Depth has become a survival skill in martech. Scott has spent countless hours testing models like ChatGPT and Claude with highly specific implementation questions, and he keeps seeing the same pattern. The models generate polished, confident answers that mix smart ideas with invented mechanics. He notices the invented parts immediately because he has lived through the real constraints of martech systems. He believes early career marketers would miss those flaws without genuine depth in a specialty, and he sees that gap growing as AI accelerates content generation.

“You get a few nuggets, and then mixed in with it is quite frankly some bullshit.”

Scott stands behind the T shaped model, and he treats it as more than a diagram on a slide. He sees three parts that matter in practice.

One specialty where you develop judgment through repetition.
Adjacent domains where you build enough literacy to collaborate.
A linking muscle that lets you cross pollinate ideas across teams and systems.

He values depth because it grounds every decision in real experience. He values breadth because martech work cuts across analytics, content, data, and automation. He values the connective tissue because marketing stacks behave like ecosystems, not isolated tools.

His personal examples carry emotional weight. When he asks an LLM how to implement MCP inside a stack, the model creates answers that feel convincing. It creates terminology, invents sequencing, and presents everything with calm confidence. Scott can parse every sentence because he understands how martech plumbing fits together. He has enough experience to filter the noise from the signal. He views this as an essential skill for anyone working with AI, and he sees it becoming more urgent as models become more fluent.

Scott would still double down on one specialty if he were starting his career now. He would want a domain where he could build real expertise before adding breadth. He would use curiosity to explore the rest of the stack, and he would treat AI as a thinking partner that still needs human judgment. He believes this mix builds durable careers because it blends grounded expertise with enough range to work across teams and disciplines.

Key takeaway: Build depth in one specialty so you can judge AI outputs with confidence, then add adjacent skills that expand your range without weakening your core. That way you can collaborate across martech systems, spot bad AI answers quickly, and make stronger decisions in an environment where tools generate confident misinformation at scale.

Why Technical Skills Decide the Future of Your Marketing Career

Technical depth shapes the direction of modern marketing work, and Scott speaks about it with a kind of lived-in confidence that comes from years of wrestling with real systems. When asked whether he would lean into skills like SQL, Python, promptcraft, and API orchestration if he were mid-career today, he answered without hesitation. He would invest heavily in those capabilities because someone still has to make the machinery function. He has seen countless big ideas collapse under the weight of messy data and brittle integrations, and that experience shaped his perspective. He would choose the technical path because he enjoys the process of making complex systems dependable.

“AI is largely a commodity. It is the data that we work with that turns it into something truly differentiated.”

That line captures the heart of his argument. You cannot buy an advantage through the model alone, but you can build one through the quality, structure, and movement of your data. Scott highlighted the skills that make this possible.

Querying data with confidence.
Building lightweight pipelines.
Understanding how tools communicate through APIs.
Shaping datasets so models produce useful outputs.

These abilities raise your value on any team because they connect strategy to execution. They also give you agency when your backlog grows longer than your patience.

Scott’s optimism about creativity carries a different kind of energy. He believes people with strong creative instincts gain new power as AI tools remove the mechanical barriers that used to slow them down. He described artists, writers, and designers who always had ambitious ideas but lacked the technical muscle to bring them to life. Removing that constraint changes their entire working rhythm. You can almost hear the relief in the way he talks about it because he knows how many people felt blocked by production bottlenecks for years.

He then pointed to an area that rarely gets credit in martech conversations. Financial modeling is becoming a crucial part of marketing work because marketing is now tightly connected to revenue mechanics. Scott believes teams thrive when they contain multiple T-shaped contributors who each carry a unique specialization. One person digs deep into data infrastructure. Another builds creative direction. Another works closely with the CFO’s office and understands forecasting. He sees this blend as the structure that helps marketing earn more influence inside a company.

Scott closed by grounding his answer in personal truth. He would choose the technical path because it gives him energy. He encourages others to choose the specialty that sparks their curiosity, then build surrounding skills that support real collaboration. Marketing moves faster when people build from enthusiasm rather than obligation, and teams perform better when each person carries a distinct strength across the broader stack.

Key takeaway: Build enough technical fluency to move confidently across data, APIs, and AI workflows, because those skills give you real leverage and open doors across every part of the stack. Choose a deep specialty that energizes you, then add cross-functional range so you can partner effectively with creative teams, finance leaders, and technical contributors. That way you can grow your career through the work you enjoy while becoming someone your team relies on for real impact.

Why Change Leadership Matters More Than Technical AI Skills

Change leadership shapes the outcome of every AI and martech rollout, and Scott treats this as a non-negotiable skill for anyone who wants their work to matter. He has watched organizations pour budgets into tools while skipping the slow, human work that turns a new system into a living workflow. He sees teams hope the technology will fix misalignment, patch over weak processes, or magically create momentum. Those hopes collapse because real adoption grows through people who guide the shift and stay close to the friction points.

Scott brings up Avinash Kaushik’s old ratio about investing far more in people than in tools. The exact number does not matter. What matters is the pattern Scott keeps seeing when implementations stall. Teams resist the new workflow because it feels unfamiliar. Skilled operators avoid asking for help because they fear looking behind. Leaders introduce new processes without explaining why the change benefits the company. Politics creep into decisions because influence rarely flows in straight lines. These situations build pressure inside the organization, and that pressure eventually unravels the entire initiative.

Scott shares a moment from his time at MIT when he prioritized technical courses and dismissed a class about political dynamics as unimportant. He wanted the advanced subjects that felt serious and concrete. Then he returned to the real world and realized that the material he ignored held the instruction manual for how companies actually function. He learned how influence spreads through informal networks and how decision patterns form in unexpected pockets of the organization. He wishes he had leaned into that earlier because it would have strengthened every technical skill he brought into his career.

Scott encourages marketers to build change leadership as a primary skill rather than a side project. He believes people can grow this muscle through deliberate practice. You can start with a few core habits that consistently improve adoption.

Identify the influencers who quietly steer decisions, even when they hold no formal authority.
Learn how each team reacts to new expectations so you can frame the change in language they understand.
Create simple ways to explain the shift and repeat that explanation so expectations stay consistent.
Support people as they transition to the new workflow and normalize the discomfort that comes with it.

Scott views these habits as the difference between running an implementation and leading a transformation. He sees a future where the most valuable operators combine technical depth with the patience and social skill needed to pull an organization into new territory.

Key takeaway: Treat change leadership as a core part of your martech craft. Map influence patterns, learn how different teams handle uncertainty, build repeatable ways to explain change, and stay close to the moments where people struggle. When you guide adoption with steady communication and patient support, you create the conditions that allow AI and martech investments to produce real impact.

How MCP Gives Marketers a Path Out of Integration Hell

Composable architecture keeps gaining momentum because teams feel real strain when rigid stacks bottleneck their ability to run experiments. Scott explains that brands want modularity because real marketing work changes constantly. Vendors push the opposite way because they prefer customers to stay inside their systems. That tension shaped the past decade of martech growth. Scott remembers the early years when the landscape ballooned from 150 tools to thousands, and integration work multiplied with every new addition. He describes those days as an era when every connection felt like a custom renovation project that nobody budgeted for.

Scott sees composability as a more durable alternative. Modular stacks help teams iterate faster because every component becomes easier to replace or upgrade. Personalization engines evolve. Data models shift. Experimentation requires frequent testing. These cycles move at a pace that engineering roadmaps rarely match. Scott notes that marketers lose momentum when they wait for someone else to wire up the plumbing. He frames composability as an operating system for curiosity, a structure that lets marketers move at the speed of their ideas because swapping components feels far less dangerous.

Scott shares a moment that changed his outlook on interoperability. He remembers discovering MCP, the Model Context Protocol, and immediately realizing how overdue it was. MCP introduces a shared format that lets systems communicate without custom integrations. He reacted with relief because it created the first real possibility of baseline interoperability without relying on heavyweight ecosystems or one-off adapters. He sees MCP as a simple but meaningful step that helps tools talk to one another through a consistent handshake rather than bespoke wiring.

“It is the first time in the history of our industry that we might have a standard way for all these systems to talk to each other.”

He believes MCP pushes the industry toward a future where vendors support a universal layer of interoperability. Customer pressure drives this shift faster than vendor preference, and marketers increasingly select tools based on whether they can participate in a modular ecosystem. Scott sees more teams insisting on flexibility during procurement and more experimentation programs depending on architecture that can bend without breaking. Composability becomes a strategic advantage because it gives teams more room to test ideas, explore new capabilities, and adjust personalization flows without months of technical debt.

Key takeaway: Composable architecture strengthens your ability to experiment because every component becomes easier to add, replace, or refine. MCP accelerates that momentum by giving tools a common language so you spend less time on integration and more time on testing. If you run a modern martech stack, prioritize tools that support modular design, favor open standards, and build an environment where you can adjust your personalization strategy as fast as your team generates new ideas.

Why Heterogeneous Stacks are the Default for Modern Marketing Teams

Heterogeneous stacks have become the default for companies that rely on real customer data instead of tidy vendor promises. Scott describes this shift with total certainty. He has watched teams move from isolated suites to wide networks of tools that depend on shared data layers. He keeps pointing to platforms like Snowflake and Databricks because they function as common ground where product, support, sales, and marketing finally connect. They create a shared source of truth that behaves like a company-wide nervous system.

“Tech stacks are heterogeneous. The ship has sailed.”

Scott talks about this with a sense of grounded enthusiasm. He knows how much changes when marketers can read signals from the product instead of only looking at campaign metrics. He has seen teams pull behavioral patterns from user activity and use that information to guide messaging or trigger lifecycle programs. He loves the idea of firing workflows based on real customer support interactions because those moments often show intent that campaigns never catch. He sees a world where marketers watch the entire customer journey as it happens and build systems that respond to it in real time.

Scott believes marketers who understand these cross-functional connections create more leverage inside their companies. He sees career growth for the people who treat their tools like interconnected components rather than independent systems. He calls out several practical moves that help marketers become ecosystem thinkers:

Spend time with the product team to understand how people actually use the product
Partner closely with support to map where customers struggle or lose trust
Learn basic warehouse concepts, including events, tables, and joins
Explore integration points that help teams coordinate decisions

Scott describes ecosystem thinking as a path to influence. He believes the marketers who understand data movement gain a seat in conversations that shape product decisions, customer experience, and operational strategy. Those marketers become translators for the business because they understand how signals move across teams. They grow into roles that hold real strategic value as stacks keep expanding in both size and complexity.

Key takeaway: Build your career around how systems connect instead of committing to a single vendor identity. Spend time learning how data flows across product, support, and sales because that knowledge lets you design programs grounded in real customer behavior. Focus on shared data layers and integration points so you can shape journeys that move with the customer, not just the campaign calendar.

How To Build A Martech Messaging BS Detector

Product marketing jargon spreads across martech websites like fog. Scott talks about how often he lands on a homepage, reads every section a few times, and still cannot map what the product actually does. He has spent enough years evaluating vendors to recognize patterns that confuse buyers, including heavy reliance on category labels, invented terms, and phrases that promise transformation without describing mechanics. His frustration feels earned, because he has done the work of sifting through endless claims while trying to make partnership decisions.

He explains that this confusion pushed him into a new habit. He uses AI browsers such as Comet and Atlas to translate marketing speak into something a human can understand. He goes to pricing pages that hide numbers and asks the browser to provide a realistic estimate. He visits product sections filled with vague benefit statements and asks the browser to rewrite them in clear language. He laughs at how often the AI generates a more accurate and direct explanation than the vendor’s own site.

“I’m just trying to come to your website and understand what you do. When I can’t figure that out after ten or fifteen minutes, something has gone wrong.”

Scott points out that differentiation in martech often comes from four places. He calls out
technical traits,
functional capabilities,
economic advantages, and
cultural alignment.

Each category influences whether the tool will fit the buyer’s environment. He gives culture extra weight because teams work more effectively with tools that match their rhythm and communication style. He admires product marketers who treat culture as a real differentiator because they understand that buyers select vendors partly based on how the company behaves behind the scenes.

He closes the thought by reiterating that great product marketing acts as a competitive advantage. Vendors who write with clarity build trust more quickly, earn better conversations, and attract customers who understand exactly what they are signing up for. He sees clear communication as a signal of operational maturity, because companies that explain their value clearly usually work cleanly internally as well.

Key takeaway: Build your BS detector by focusing on clarity, not claims. Read vendor sites with a critical eye, ask AI tools to translate vague marketing language into plain descriptions, map the product against real differentiators, and pay attention to cultural fit. That way you can identify the vendors who communicate honestly, shorten your evaluation time, and choose tools that match your team’s actual working style.

Why Your Energy Grows Faster When You Invest in Other People

Energy allocation becomes real when Scott talks about how he chooses where to invest himself. He describes his life with a sort of amused acceptance. He works in martech, thinks about martech, and genuinely relaxes by reading more martech. His joy still comes from immersion in the craft, but his sense of purpose has widened. He pays attention to the spark someone shows when an idea clicks. He feels pulled toward those moments because they create a different kind of reward, one that sticks with him long after the task list fades.

“I take a lot of joy in seeing the light bulbs go off for other people.”

Scott traces this shift back to the early chapters of his career. He spent years trying to prove himself. He chased credibility, output, and contribution. He poured enormous focus into tasks and treated productivity as a personal scoreboard. Many operators recognize that loop. Scott eventually realized that the work felt richer when he noticed the people moving alongside him. He started finding energy in the conversations where someone figured out their direction. That sense of shared momentum motivated him more than polishing his own metrics.

His time shaping the HubSpot ecosystem gave him a concrete way to see how this pattern works at scale. A single company can hire engineers, build products, and ship features, but an ecosystem multiplies the effort of thousands of companies. Partnerships, extensions, and experiments bloom in ways no central roadmap could predict. Scott watched that compounding effect unfold and internalized the dynamic. He realized that energy invested in enabling others produces far greater output than anything he could build on his own.

He now applies that same instinct to the broader community. He sees creator platforms as accelerators for ambition. He sees operators discovering new paths because someone shared a story or broke down a concept clearly. He wants to put his time into the work that strengthens these ripple effects. He knows a single conversation can shift someone’s trajectory. That pull guides where he spends his attention. He wants more light bulb moments, more clarity conversations, and more chances to help someone step into what they want to do next.

Key takeaway: Direct your energy toward leverage points that expand other people’s capacity. Watch for the conversations where someone gains clarity, then invest in those moments. You create more impact by helping others accelerate their path than by trying to optimize every personal task on your plate.

Episode Recap

Mid-career marketers often dream about escape plans, and Scott admits he has imagined a quiet vineyard more than once. He always circles back to the same truth. People want a healthier relationship with their work, not a different field. That perspective sets the stage for how he talks about AI, because the pace can feel overwhelming, but he sees momentum hiding inside that overload. The people who explore instead of freeze tend to gain influence faster than they expect.

Scott’s own path shows how much power lives at the edges of different functions. He shifted between writing fragile code and translating for marketers, and that mix helped him realize how valuable it is when one person understands multiple operational languages. He encourages readers to build that range and to do it in small moments, not grand gestures. He shares how introverts can grow strong relationships by choosing quiet settings, slowing conversations down, and listening until the real issue surfaces.

Learning becomes another part of the story. Scott ignores strict routines and instead follows long stretches of curiosity. He stays with whatever topic pulls him forward until the momentum runs out, then moves to the next. He wants readers to treat experimentation as a rhythm rather than a performance. That rhythm also explains why depth matters so much. He tests AI models with specific martech questions and sees how often they produce fluent nonsense. Only experience lets him spot the cracks. He believes every marketer needs at least one true specialty to develop that kind of judgment.

From there he moves into the technical backbone of modern marketing. He talks about SQL, Python, APIs, and data shaping with the calm of someone who has lived inside them for years. He thinks these skills decide whether a team ships work or stalls. He cares just as much about the human side of transformation. He learned the hard way that political dynamics and influence patterns shape adoption far more than any tool. He urges readers to notice who actually steers decisions, explain changes in simple language, and stay close to the people who feel the most friction.

The story widens when he talks about composability, MCP, and the rise of heterogeneous stacks. Scott sees MCP as a long overdue handshake that finally lets tools communicate without custom wiring. He thinks modular stacks give marketers the freedom to experiment without waiting for engineering cycles. He also laughs about vendor jargon and uses AI browsers to translate opaque marketing pages into something readable. His final point lands with quiet weight. He now puts his energy into helping others reach clarity because those moments create more momentum than anything he could build on his own.

✌️ 

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Intro music by Wowa via Unminus
Cover art created with Midjourney

What is Humans of Martech?

Future-proofing the humans behind the tech. Follow Phil Gamache and Darrell Alfonso on their mission to help future-proof the humans behind the tech and have successful careers in the constantly expanding universe of martech.

[00:00:00] Scott: there's this whole thing around like the political spheres of like, you know, how organizations actually work.

[00:00:05] I remember at the time thinking like, what a waste of time this, this whole thing is.

[00:00:12] You know, can we get down to the technology? What's going on in the media lab? having graduated from that and gone back into the real world, had I basically ignored absolutely everything else and only focused, you know, on the like, oh, well wait a second. How do you like manage the political dynamics and the informal networks Oh man, that would've been like 20 times more valuable, than any of the more technical subjects. this idea of the change agent, the people who actually help an organization make these transformational leap.

[00:00:40] at the end of the day, it, without that, none of the rest of this stuff, works.

[00:00:46] ​

[00:01:12] In This Episode
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[00:01:12] Phil: What's up everyone? Today we have the honor sitting down with the legendary Scott Brinker, a rare repeat guest, the MarTech landscape creator, the author of Hacking Marketing, the Godfather of MarTech himself. The theme this episode is essentially his God's advice if he was to reset his career today.

[00:01:28] Where do you focus? Like how to make time for continual learning? Should you specialize or generalize? Should you lean more into tech skills or focus on change leadership skills? How to build a MarTech messaging BS detector, and how MCP gives marketers a path out of integration. Hell, all that and a bunch more stuff after a quick word from two of our awesome partners.

[00:01:49] ​

[00:03:53] Phil: Scott, thank you so much for your time today. Such an honor to have you on a second time.

[00:03:58] Scott: Wow. Being a [00:04:00] repeat guest, I, I'm actually glad to know that with all this AI that I'm now using, that I still qualify as a human of MarTech, so thanks for having me.

[00:04:09] Phil: Yeah, we're gonna have to do some t-shirts now where like folks can walk around at conferences and I am a human of MarTech and I am not a robot, I'm not a machine customer yet. Uh, but we'll see about that. Machine customer is one of the topics I did want to chat with you about, but, um, I, I had a bunch of different ideas for like, Scott's coming back on the show.

[00:04:31] What can we talk about? And something I started doing recently is just chat with a lot of listeners who follow the show on LinkedIn. So I'll reach out to connect and I'll just be like, Hey, thanks for following the podcast. And then I ask them a couple of questions and I tell 'em that like, I'm planning for content, whatever.

[00:04:48] And one of the questions is like, what keeps you up at night? And resoundingly, one of the common themes is this whole idea of. Things are changing so fast, I have no idea what I should be investing [00:05:00] my time in. How do I future proof my career? And so I thought the episode to do with you would be really fun if we just focused on like, alright,

[00:05:09] 1. Scott Brinker’s Guidance For Marketers Rethinking Their Career Path
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[00:05:09] Phil: if Scott had the opportunity to reset his career today, where would we focus on?

[00:05:15] And so the first question I have for you is focusing on like mid-career folks. So folks that are maybe like 10 ish years into their career. Um, I just saw this post on an email Slack community and someone was asking for advice about ditching marketing ops completely and going back to school to become a vet.

[00:05:33] And they were seriously considering doing that just because of how crazy this base is. What advice do you have for someone that's like 10 ish years into their career who might feel the need to like reset their trajectory now today? Just curious your thoughts there.

[00:05:47] Scott: Okay. I mean, like, if you're gonna go off in an entirely different direction, like, you know, veterinary medicine, um, yeah. Uh, I mean the, the, the world is your oyster. Um, uh, you know, I mean, every now and again I [00:06:00] entertain the thought of, uh, you know, uh, starting a vineyard and like, you know, making wine. But, um, uh, you know, it's, uh, running a winery is one of those things that they, uh, the old saying goes right.

[00:06:12] You know, how do you make a fortune in a wine business? You know, small fortune. Well, you start with a large fortune. Alright, I totally messed that up. Anyways. Um, I don't know. Let's, if, if, if we maybe constrain the universe of possibilities to saying, okay, I still actually do want a career in marketing. Um, I mean, it's a little bit cliche, but.

[00:06:34] Embracing these new AI possibilities. Um, I, it is, first of all, there's just so much that's happening and so much that's becoming possible. Uh, I mean, you could literally spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week, uh, you know, trying to stay up on the cutting edge of this and being able to like, you know, experiment and learn and understand that, uh, and you'd still be barely scratching the surface.

[00:06:59] And you might be saying [00:07:00] like, yes, Scott, that is the whole problem. But here's the thing. It's like everybody is in that, you know, same boat and the vast majority of people, unfortunately, you're just gonna resist it. Um, you know, I mean, change is, change is hard. Uh, and it's almost like just one of those universal truisms.

[00:07:19] Um, but as a result, like people who are willing to lean into the change. Really have the opportunity to first of all, differentiate themselves, uh, you know, and what is still a crowded, you know, market. Um, uh, but also like really be able to like, discover things like, uh, you know, have that, that, that joy of being one of the pioneers, uh, of what you make possible.

[00:07:44] So, I don't know. I, you know, one of the things I've been known for over the years, uh, not that crazy landscape, maybe we'll get to the crazy landscape, um, is like 10 years or so ago, I like drew on a napkin. I think it was literally a [00:08:00] napkin. You know, like it's two curves of, you know, like the exponential rate of technological change.

[00:08:05] Uh, and then juxtaposed up against that, you know, this sort of almost logarithmic curve, uh, of the rate of organizational change. Um, and, you know, we could, it's, it's a best and empirical hand wavy sort of like, you know, yes. But I think it's. I think it's accurate. I mean, we're just in a world where, you know, organizations are not able to change at the rate the technology is, but while there's no silver bullet to it, the opportunity for some organizations to change faster than their competitors is a significant competitive advantage.

[00:08:40] And so, and anyways, all that was saying like, yeah, if you're a mid-career, you know, MarTech person, I think leaning in to these capabilities to figure out how do you help your company change faster than your competitors is a huge opportunity.

[00:08:54] Phil: Yeah, I completely agree. I can't say that I'm totally surprised by your answer. I wasn't expecting you to say like, I think most [00:09:00] marketing honest people should quit and should go to a veterinary school. But it's crazy. Like that was an actual person asking that question, who is in a very technical field and like email development.

[00:09:10] And I was like, man, it like people must be thinking about this because like there is, like you said, a lot of resistance to it. There's a lot of fear. Like you read one article and it's like, you know, AI isn't replacing anyone. They're just like giving people super human powers. And then there's another article that's just like in three years most people will not have a job anymore unless they're blue collar and they're like using their hands for work and it's like, who is gonna be right?

[00:09:35] We don't really know yet, but there's like that fear element to it that I'm sure some people are just like, well. People are always gonna have pets. Like there's, you're always gonna need a vet. Are you always gonna need someone to code emails? Like, I don't know, like those, those thoughts are legit, but maybe, maybe vet is like a bit too far displaced

[00:09:53] for

[00:09:53] Scott: I mean, I, what immediately comes to my mind is like, okay, well marketing operations. You know, it's been a lot of [00:10:00] plumbing, uh, so you're like, oh, well wait a second. What about actual plumbing? Like, people are still gonna need help with that. And certainly, I can imagine a number of people in marketing ops can feel like, you know, I've had to deal with a fair amount of, you know, backed up crap.

[00:10:13] You know, so like, all right, nevermind. That's silly. Carry on.

[00:10:18] Phil: I saw your comment on, uh, LinkedIn earlier. Uh, you were joking about like going to Home Depot and like, it doesn't matter how many tools you have in your cart, like your, your, your skills at like blue collar at home, your handyman work like aren't up to par and totally agree. Like even though I'm very adept with tools online when it comes to at home and actually using physical tools, like my wife's actually more handy than me.

[00:10:41] I'm shamefully uh, admitting

[00:10:44] Scott: In my case, actually it happens that, uh, my terribleness at home improvement is, uh, perfectly inversely correlated with my father-in-law, who is absolutely amazing in all of this, and always comes over, is able to fix all the things that basically I've been unable to [00:11:00] like, do anything about for like years.

[00:11:02] You know? And then it actually also very patiently explained to me, you know, how it all happened? I'm like, yeah, no, nah, I hear you, but this is being wasted on me. Uh, but please allow me to explain what's happening in marketing technology to you and, you know, but

[00:11:15] oh

[00:11:15] Phil: like a fair trade to me. Um, what, what if I asked you the same question, but we like scroll back to time a little bit more. Like do you have a different take on, if we go earlier in your career,

[00:11:27] 2. If You Started Over in Martech, What Would You Learn First
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[00:11:27] Phil: so imagine Scott Brinker is 22 and the year is 2026, and you're armed with a lot of the knowledge you have today, but you're starting from scratch in today's MarTech landscape.

[00:11:39] What area would you focus on first to build a thriving career? Would you dive into like specific things like buyer side agents or MCP or would you focus on joining a big marketing ops team at like an enterprise team to get system experience? Like where does your head go first in terms of like just starting from scratch again?

[00:11:58] Scott: That's interesting. [00:12:00] Um. So I would say at, at the highest level is sort of one thing I feel like I got right, that if I was going back, I would, I would double down on. Uh, and then there was another dimension to this that, um, boy, it took me actually a really long time to appreciate. And so if I could go back in time, I'd be like, uh, yeah, I'd, I'd invest a lot more there.

[00:12:23] Uh, the one I kind of feel I got right is, um, this idea of cross pollination. Um, you know, in my case, you know, I'd been like a software engineer. Uh, uh, you know, I mean, I deeply understood the technical dimension of what was happening. Uh, but I became fascinated by marketing and marketers. Uh, and I found that like, okay, as an engineer, I just can confess, I would say.

[00:12:48] Not a particularly great software engineer. I mean, you know, like I, I wrote code. Let's just say, uh, you know, it's the thing of like, um, you know, the, you know, people built buildings the way, uh, [00:13:00] architects made buildings, the way software engineers built software, first woodpecker to come along would, you know, destroy civilization.

[00:13:06] You know, that that's kinda where I was at as a software engineer. So very mediocre software engineer. Um, but being able to take what I knew about software and how these sorts of, you know, dynamics, you know, of technology and systems and architecture and bring it into the context of marketing. Okay.

[00:13:24] Actually, that was something where most of the people in marketing didn't even really have any sort of concepts of, you know, how to do that. And so being able to like, translate that and bridge that and like show them what that could make possible, uh, and vice versa, you know, um, no offense, but you know, most people who you know have been in IT and software.

[00:13:43] Even if they were building systems for use by marketers and customers, a lot of them actually didn't have the framing of like, well, what, what is marketing actually doing? Right? It is that old, um, you know, Dilbert choke, uh, you know, marketing that's just liquor and guessing. [00:14:00] Um, you know, it, you know, and so this, this, this ability to serve as a bridge of cross pollinating between multiple disciplines, um, I think just has a lot of opportunity.

[00:14:11] Uh, you know, and again, it could be like it and marketing, but it could be, it could be finance and marketing, you know, it could be sales and marketing. I think people who are just basically acting as these bridges across these different disciplines, there's a lot of career opportunity you can unlock there.

[00:14:28] The thing that I kinda missed, um, maybe this was my, uh, software engineering, you know, uh, background, um, is, and why I love this show so much, um, is I overindexed on like, okay, well what's actually technically possible? You know, what's the architectures, you know, what are the things that, you know, from a just a purely mechanical, uh, level, we can actually create, and I, I kind of under index on like, okay, well wait a second.[00:15:00]

[00:15:00] How do you actually bring people along? Uh, you know, on that journey? It turns out that like, you know, you don't like build it and they just come, uh, even when you're talking about, you know, internal systems. Uh, and I think one of the things I've learned over time, and one of the reasons why I feel like actually, you know, a lot of people can be in a really good position even with all this ai.

[00:15:20] Because the most valuable part, you know, of this work is not the technical implementation of it. Uh, it's being able to bring people together. It's being able to truly understand and empathize the customer. It's being able to truly understand and empathize with the different stakeholders inside your organization.

[00:15:40] Um, it took me a long time before I had realized like, uh, that is actually the greatest lever, uh, you know, in this work. And it, it takes work, uh, to do it. You really do have, I mean, I dunno, maybe there are some people who truly naturals at it. I certainly wasn't. Uh, you know, but I think like investing in [00:16:00] that sort of like people dynamic dimension, um, if I could go back 10, 15, 20 years, yeah, I would definitely need a lot more focus on that.

[00:16:10] Phil: Yeah, I, I totally agree. I, I see myself in your answer also. Like what, what, what advice do you have for folks who maybe are a bit more on the introverted side? Like I, I see myself in your answer because like, I focus more on just like doing good work. I had my head down. I would just like finish projects and send it off and then go do the next thing and didn't spend enough time building relationships and like coming out of the work and understanding that just because you buy a tool, you set it up, people don't naturally like adopt it and like doesn't naturally develop into their daily habits.

[00:16:44] And so like what does that look like in practice?

[00:16:47] 2.2. people side
---

[00:16:47] Phil: Like how can people get better at. The people side of MarTech within a company. Let's say someone works at a big org right now, like what can they do tomorrow to get better at the people side of things?

[00:16:58] Scott: Yeah. Well, I'll confess, [00:17:00] uh, I am definitely an introvert, uh, you know, as well too. Um, uh, so I can empathize, I think. You know, there, there, there's clearly a spectrum of introversion. You know, I think for me, you know, the sort of thing of like, you know, classic sort of like networking and Yeah. You know, I'm always gonna be like hosting, you know, these like big groups and we're gonna be, you know, yeah.

[00:17:26] That's, that's not who I am. And you know, it would, it would be very painful for me to, you know, try and like, be that. But for me to be able to say like, okay, well actually here is a person that I'd like to get to know a bit better, and I'd like to just understand like, you know, one of the challenge they're having and I'm buy them a beer and, you know, um, at least for me as an introvert, introvert, those kinds of interactions, I don't.

[00:17:52] I don't find is draining. I mean, you know, with a limit. After,

[00:17:56] Phil: Right.

[00:17:57] Scott: after we've had a couple beers, I'm like, you know, [00:18:00] thank you. This was great. Learned a lot, have a nice night. Um, you know, but like, I, I, I find that sort of, you know, one-to-one engagement, um, actually doesn't, isn't as draining from an introversion perspective and in many ways is a much better driver of, first of all, just the true insights of like, okay, you know, most people actually when they're in these larger groups, in these sort of settings, you know, are, tend to be guarded, you know, and you know, they're, uh, they're performing, you know, as much as they're actually, you know, you know, sharing what they genuinely are wrestling with.

[00:18:33] But you get into this sort of like, you know, one-on-one engagement and, you know, people are willing to open up, uh, about yeah, what they're curious about, what they're afraid of. Um, and so I think that can just be an incredible learning. And then to the degree that you listen. You understand, Hey, great thing about an introvert.

[00:18:52] You should be able to embrace the active listening thing. You know, listen and understand, and be able to both also like help inform then like, [00:19:00] oh, okay, here's what I might be able to do that could help with that, you know, and then be able to genuinely help this person. Uh, you know, that's the sort of thing that builds great relationships.

[00:19:12] And so, I don't know, I, uh, one, one way or another it's, it's very hard to, um, lean into the people side without actually engaging with people at some way in the process.

[00:19:25] Phil: Yeah, I like your advice of doing it one-on-one 'cause it is less draining and less intimidating. 'cause like, you, like I, I think the whole like. Event thing where you're just like walking on the floor with like a drink in your hand and like you have to like walk up to a random group of people, you're not sure who they are and you're just doing small talk.

[00:19:44] It's a small talk that like, just, just drives me crazy. And this idea of like having a podcast and like interviewing people for an hour about a specific topic and we get to like, go back and forth ahead of time on what the topics are gonna be like, to me it's just way more valuable. [00:20:00] And if I had an hour long conversation with a stranger at a trade booth, like about small talk and just like the rainy weather or whatever, like, it's just a cold, the, the completely different experience.

[00:20:11] So I like your advice. I worked at a startup where, um, we had this like Slack app, I think it was called Donut, but basically every two weeks or something like that. You could opt in for it and it would just like match you with another coworker from the company and it would just like plug, find an open time in your calendar and you'd have a one-on-one 30 minutes with this random person from another team in the company.

[00:20:32] And like, I built so many allies and like new, new friendships and relationships by, by doing that. So that was cool as an introvert, like you didn't have to go out and like ask people like, Hey, do you wanna have a chat? Or like, go for a beer. Is this kind like done for you? We were a remote company so it was like the reason behind it.

[00:20:49] But yeah, things like that are super helpful.

[00:20:52] Scott: Yeah, yeah. HubSpot did that actually. Uh, too. And uh, same thing like yeah, I, I made some allies, you know, and [00:21:00] like changed what we were thinking about from the platform perspective,

[00:21:03] that those connections, yeah. Probably wouldn't have happened had it not been for Yeah. That little bit of a random function, uh, there.

[00:21:11] So, yeah. Good stuff.

[00:21:13] 4. life long learning
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[00:21:13] Phil: One thing that I think you embody is this idea of like a lifelong learning as a core skill. Uh, you see it in your writing and a lot of your analysis. Um, but this is also a theme that comes up a lot with MarTech professionals nowadays, is just like how quickly we have to learn and adapt to all the craziness in, in our industry.

[00:21:33] Um, you've actually noted that with AI technology, we're improving at this exponential rate. We just talked about it, but like humans and bigger enterprises especially are way slower to adopt. Like that curve is a lot slower. It creates this like interesting tension for folks. You personally, I know you've kind of reinvented yourself multiple times throughout your career.

[00:21:53] You started off as an entrepreneur before you were, uh, an an engineer. Then you went to the blogger analyst route. Then you [00:22:00] worked at HubSpot as a platform ecosystem leader. Now you're back on the analyst route. Like what advice would you give to marketers about this idea of continual learning and reinvention?

[00:22:10] Just curious your thoughts there.

[00:22:12] Scott: Yeah, I mean, I just don't know that we have much of a choice in this field. Um, you know, there probably are fields where there's, you know, less, uh, I don't know, for instance, like maybe if you wanna become like a masseuse, uh, you know, maybe there's a certain stability, you know, you know, to that skill set and that dynamics.

[00:22:32] But yeah, marketing, I mean. The o there's basically two fields to me that like, are just crazy, crazy acceleration of new things you need to learn. Uh, one of them is marketing because that just, that environment keeps changing. Um, you know, the other one is actually, uh, you know, technology and software development, you know, software developers.

[00:22:54] It's like, oh my goodness, sorry, I need to do this new language, this new tool, this new library. [00:23:00] You know? So, wow. Marketing ops and MarTech people who get to be at the intersection of those two things. Um, yeah. If, if, you know, this idea of of having to continually learn just is not appealing to you, then yeah.

[00:23:17] Perhaps that veterinary and medicine like start to consider some other options. 'cause I, I, I don't think it's gonna slow down.

[00:23:23] Phil: Yeah.

[00:23:24] Scott: I think the reinvention thing is a little bit different. Like, I don't know, I mean. I've had sort of like a weird and windy, uh, career that I could try and, you know, look backwards and say, ah, yes, here's the master plan of how all these things connected.

[00:23:46] Um, but yeah, that would be a complete and total fiction. Uh, you know, I had no idea what I was gonna be doing, you know, from one set of years to the next. Uh, and that's fine. I, I, I, I enjoyed that journey, but I, I [00:24:00] don't think people have to do this sort of like significant, you know, career jumping if they don't want, I mean, marketing itself is, again, just such a deep and rich field.

[00:24:11] That's of all, if you're gonna say like, Hey, listen, I'm gonna be a phenomenal marketing leader. I'm gonna be a phenomenal marketing operations, you know, leader, or at least that's my vision of what I want to do for this next five or 10 years. And then maybe at some point beyond that, I want to, you know. Um, uh, yeah, uh, you know, maybe go for marketing operations into truly becoming like the CMO.

[00:24:34] Maybe after being the CMO for a while, you're actually like, you know, I wanna just run the whole company on this way. Um, and it's funny, you know, marketing's one of those fields that I suspect a lot of marketing ops people can appreciate this. Um, you know, the top jobs of CMOs generally didn't come from an operations background.

[00:24:53] That that wasn't what marketing was, you know, uh, primarily valuing

[00:24:57] for pretty much the history of the field [00:25:00] up until relatively recently. Uh, you know, and I'm seeing more and more like top marketers who actually, they have a serious background in operations, you know, and technology. They have a wider view than just that, but that's sort of their foundation.

[00:25:14] Um, and I've also as not, not unrelated to that, is as you start to see these rise of more like operations, um, centric and experienced CMOs. Also be in the position to be in the running for the top job of becoming the CEO of the company. Because, you know, I mean, if you're able to sort of combine, you know, that, that perfect synthesis of like, okay, I understand the customers, I understand the market, you know, I understand like, you know, the actual value of how we get this out to the world.

[00:25:44] But I also understand like the operational discipline of like how to actually make these trains run on time. I mean, you know, on one hand this is what makes marketing so challenging is you, you really are being asked to have these like Herculean combination, [00:26:00] you know, of skills of all kinds, but those who can truly master at least a few of them and really understand collectively all of them, I mean, that is, that's kind of a superstar type role.

[00:26:13] And so, um, yeah, don't reinvent, like lean in.

[00:26:20] 4.5 habits to stay ahead
---

[00:26:20] Phil: What comes to mind if I was to ask you, like if you start over today, like what habits would you build to stay ahead? Like this whole idea of staying on top of tools, like whether it's maybe carving out daily time, like blocks of time in your calendar to play with new tools or networking with innovators or like taking courses or maybe yourself, like reflecting and writing content.

[00:26:43] I know you do that a lot like. What are your thoughts there? Like what are the daily habits that you recommend folks take to kind of embody this idea of like lifelong learning to stay on top of the crazy industry we're in?

[00:26:56] Scott: Yeah, well, I mean, different people learn in different ways and [00:27:00] so, um, you know, whether you're a course person or you know, read, uh, you know, write, I mean there's just, you know, tr try a number of the different ones and find like which one actually like you enjoy most. Um, and, you know, you find really stick, I would say.

[00:27:17] No, I'm just, I, I feel like this is a, a, a confessions, uh, show. Um, I actually don't have a lot of daily habits. Um, for me, I actually work best in a mode where I will glom onto something and kind of dig into the flow of that and carry and put a lot of things to the side to like, yeah, pursue that, you know, and then step up and then there's a set of choices of what to do next.

[00:27:42] Uh, you know, and, uh, I don't know. There's probably some people who would look at that and be like, so in other words, Scott, you are completely disorganized. Um, you know, uh, and they may not, may not be wrong about that, you know? Uh, but for me, like the most valuable [00:28:00] thing is this idea of flow, uh, a flow state, you know?

[00:28:03] Uh, and so to me to like optimize towards, in any given day, like what is the thing that's pulling me into a flow? Um, is much more valuable to me than like, okay, it's 10 15, I have to jump and do this. And then at, you know, 11, 11 0 5, you know, I've got this other thing. I mean, other people might find that structure actually the most effective for them.

[00:28:27] Um, I've sort of leaned in the other direction.

[00:28:30] Phil: Nice flow state. Uh, I kind of call it tunnel vision. Like rabbit hole, like going down rabbit holes. I feel like, yeah, when you do something, a project and you look at the time and then you, like you start doing some stuff, you're down this rabbit hole and then you look up at the time again and it's like four hours of pass.

[00:28:47] You're like, whoa. That's like flow state to me. That tells me like, you enjoyed what you were doing. You didn't have to like look at the time, all right, I'll check Slack or I'll check emails, see what's going on. And then it's like two hours later And you haven't gone back to [00:29:00] the thing that you were doing?

[00:29:01] Uh, yeah. A big fan of Flow State and when I worked in-house, like I was trying to figure out how do I manage my calendar so that I make time for Flow State. And in a remote company, I feel like it's a bit easier to do than when you're in person. Like how do you, like, you close your door when it's like an open floor plan.

[00:29:18] You can't really close your door. It's like, Hey Scott, do you have two minutes? Like, I guess, but like I was in flow state, like, what do you want?

[00:29:26] Scott: Yeah. And, and I mean, again, this is the reality for most folks is we have a bunch of things we do actually have to have on our schedule. I mean, you know, uh, we, we, we set up this appointment, uh, you know, to do this podcast and I didn't blow it off because, you know, oh yeah, wait, actually I've got something else I'm right in the middle of.

[00:29:41] 'cause you're like, you are never coming back on this show again. Um, you know, so again, we have those certain responsibilities, but I think it's more a question of like. You know, depending on who you are and how you work best, some people like to add more structure into their days, and if that works for you, that's great.

[00:29:58] Um, but I guess I just wanna [00:30:00] like, you know, if there's other folks out there who, uh, you know, want some, uh, permission is the wrong board for it, but like, no, there are others out there who are like, no, actually a little less structure can also be an incredibly effective way of working. If, if that's what actually, um, uh, unlocks the best, uh, of what you're able to do.

[00:30:18] ​

[00:32:13] Phil: so

[00:32:14] 6. Why Deep Specialization Protects Marketers From AI Confusion
---

[00:32:14] Phil: one thing I wanted to ask you about is. Specialists versus generalist, or we could call it like a, I don't know, a term, like an orchestrator in the age of ai, if you will. But when you first joined us on the podcast episode 82, way back in August, 2023, um, this is gonna be episode 201.

[00:32:34] So we've covered a lot of ground since then. Um, you said that when I asked you this question, early career marketers should choose a focus area first. Then worry about where AI kind of fits and layer that on top of it. And that was kind of your advice versus not really recommending folks to go down and try to like master a bunch of different things and, and try to go down like a bunch of different rabbit [00:33:00] holes if you will.

[00:33:00] Um, you kind, your main argument was like depth in one specialty builds foundation for the long-term growth, even as like AI is kind of disrupting things. So in less than three years you've seen this better than others. Like the landscape has exploded. We keep adding new tools, AI's lowering the barrier to entry for a lot of new tools.

[00:33:20] The reality of like the old specialists versus generalist debate is a bit more relevant than than ever. So I'm curious to ask you the same question again, but like, if you were resetting your career today, how would you balance. Specialization versus adaptability. Would you still double down on one thing, like marketing ops or analytics or content marketing and build your kinda edge in one of those things?

[00:33:43] What are your thoughts there, Scott?

[00:33:45] Scott: Yeah, well the, the phrase that had been used for a number of years for this, of like the T-shaped marketer of, um, you know, like, okay, I've got, you know, one or two things that I'm actually really deep in, but I also just recognize the fact nothing lives in a silo, uh, at this [00:34:00] point. And the degree to which I at least have a, um, a broader understanding of many, many different things.

[00:34:06] And in particular, this even goes back to that, you know, cross pollination thing we were talking about earlier. You know, this ability to then relate my expertise, you know, across these more general, uh, a, a, a broader set, uh, you know, of disciplines. I actually still think, uh, the deep expertise is incredibly valuable.

[00:34:27] And I mean, I'll drive this home with, um, you know, I mean, I now spend an inordinate amount of time with chat GPT and Claude and, you know, all these sorts of things. And I, I very often am asking it in like, you know, the super deep research, heavy thinking mode, asking 'em questions of like, okay, well, you know, how are you, how do you see like MCP being implemented here, you know, in a MarTech stack?

[00:34:53] And it'll come back with answers that are incredibly, like, strong sounding answers. [00:35:00] And in it some nuggets of like, oh, that's a really interesting, I thought about it that way, but intermingled with those nuggets is quite frankly some bullshit. Uh, and I'm like, no, no, actually that, that isn't how that

[00:35:14] works. And if I didn't have the depth of expertise on this. Boy, I would've totally been rolled over, uh, you know, on it. And I think that applies across all of these specialties and all these disciplines. I mean, AI is what it can synthesize is amazing. And particularly, I think it's better acting as a journalist, uh, than anything else.

[00:35:36] I think having the strength of being a specialist to actually know what's real, what's not real, what's the, what's the things that's not being, you know, um, uh, covered by the way the AI is coming up with a particular answer. I think it's more valuable. Um, so yeah, I'd still double down on that.

[00:35:58] Phil: is such a good answer. I feel like, [00:36:00] you know, a lot of people talked ahead of time, like a couple years ago, like you have to give context to, to ai, like it gives you a much better answer. I find that now my experience has been like when I give too much context to ai, the answer is actually worse.

[00:36:15] Like the prompt is too long and it forgets like the start of it, and. Like when you have that deep subject matter expert and the question that you're asking, you're able to spot that bullshit a lot more than, you know, if you didn't have that context to give it in the first place. So I totally see that in, in a lot of my responses too.

[00:36:33] Like we, we summarize all the episodes in like a blog post version of this, and I do like a quick pass every time before I publish it. And I often spot this like, hmm, like what? No, Scott didn't say this at all. Like, how did you pick that up? What happened here? Um, give me a prompt to like fix this so it doesn't happen again in the future.

[00:36:54] Um, but I love your point about cross pollination there, Scott, I feel like it's bit coming [00:37:00] out, uh, as a bit of a theme in, in the episode here. Um, one question I wanted to ask you about that, so like diving in a bit more on cross pollination, like. One question I had is like, becoming data and AI fluent versus like focusing more on people and like the, the marketing skills of things.

[00:37:17] And I feel like the cross pollination idea is a bit more on the people side of things like the humans and, and like dealing with people inside of your company. Um, but like obviously, you know,

[00:37:27] 7. Why Technical Skills Decide the Future of Your Marketing Career
---

[00:37:27] Phil: mapping the MarTech landscape for so many years, you've seen patterns in what skills are rising in importance.

[00:37:32] And you actually noted that data engineering, prompt crafting, orchestrating across dozens of APIs is becoming more of a marketing skillset. Um, and today marketing is as much about data pipelines and AI model insights and connecting tools together. So my question to you is like, if you were mid-career again today, how much would you lean into the technical skills in that like ts shape?

[00:37:56] Uh, should marketers learn things like sql, [00:38:00] python, prompt engineering. Or do you kinda like see this more as like you need to also balance that cross pollination, like the creative marketer. What would you focus on, um, in the next couple five years, whatever.

[00:38:13] Scott: I mean, again, this is one of these things where it's like, okay, well what would I focus on? Uh, yeah. I would lean more into the technical side because yeah, for all these grand dreams of what is possible, turns out there's still actually a lot of work to actually make that come together and, uh, you know, build these things.

[00:38:30] Um, you know, but that's what I would think of as my, my strength that I would bring to a marketing team is like, oh, I can help you with, you know, making sure that the technology we're putting in place, you know, to execute all this stuff that's solid. You know, that, you know, I mean, the data, you know, we all have come to the realization that, uh, yeah, AI.

[00:38:53] AI is largely a commodity. Uh, it is the data that we work with, you know, that turns it into something [00:39:00] truly differentiated. Um, but the truth is, you know, I mean there are just so many things that are facets of what makes marketing successful. You know, the creative side of it. Um, I actually am in the camp who believes that, you know, this next wave with AI is not gonna be the death of creativity.

[00:39:20] I think it's gonna be a golden age of creativity, because there's gonna be so many of these creative people who have had all sorts of wild ideas in their head, but they had no prayer of actually being able to execute just because of, you know, you know, technical, uh, you know, barriers to it. Um, and as ai, you know, drops those barriers, I think people are gonna let their imagination run wild.

[00:39:41] Um, I have a lot of respect, you know, for those different skillsets. I have a lot of respect for, you know, like there's another dimension that's, you know, uh, you know, around the financial modeling, you know, of these things. As, you know, just marketing becomes more and more tied to the way in which the business is actually, uh, you know, generating revenue [00:40:00] through all these things.

[00:40:00] Like the relationship between marketing and finance, um, is such a crucial one, you know? And so having someone on the team who's like. Doesn't consider that a chore that actually like, loves that, you know, and loves understanding that modeling, you know, and like pairs perfectly, you know, with their counterpart in the CFO's office.

[00:40:19] That's a brilliant thing. I mean, so to me, like a a a marketing org that consists of multiple people who have that sort of t-shaped approach, but each one of their, you know, long stands of the t you know, is different. I think that's the way to do it. So yes, I would focus on the technology side because, you know, that's what turns me on.

[00:40:42] Um, but uh, that would not be my advice to say like, oh yeah, and you shouldn't pursue the creative side because if you know that's really what you know gets, uh, uh, gets your sparks flying, please go that route. We need amazing creatives to make this thing beautiful.

[00:40:58] Phil: Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. [00:41:00] Um,

[00:41:00] 8. Why Change Leadership Matters More Than Technical AI Skills
---

[00:41:00] Phil: one thing I wanted to ask you about is your framework for AI agents. So you posted this on LinkedIn, you're kinda working through it as a work in progress. Um, but you included human change agents as like one of the unsung heroes of driving transformation. Just talked about this with like cross pollination.

[00:41:17] Um, technology alone doesn't guarantee success. Like anyone who's worked in MarTech marketing ops knows this takes people to reimagine processes, upskill teams, and champion new ways and, and implement tech. If you were resetting your career, how much would you focus on developing, changed leadership skills and like maybe give advice on like how can marketers position themselves as.

[00:41:38] The human catalyst who can ensure that new tools like AI or MarTech actually gets adopted and delivers value in this crazy world. That's like we're all obsessed with tech. Every founder I chat with is just like, oh, like I have this one problem, but I think if I can buy this one more tool, it can solve my problem.

[00:41:56] Like why might the ability to navigate organizational [00:42:00] change be one of the most future-proof skills in marketing?

[00:42:03] Scott: Yeah, the whole thing around the change agent there. Yeah. It was a little bit of a, you know, just, uh, play on words. Um, yes, we're talking about agents and agents and agents of, you know, all kinds. Yeah. You know, uh, this idea of the change agent, you know, the, the people who actually help an organization make these transformational leap.

[00:42:25] Um, it is at the end of the day, it, without that, none of the rest of this stuff, uh, works. I mean, you know, there's been different ways of framing this for years. Um, I go back to. Uh, Avinash, uh, calic, uh, you know, on the early guys in, uh, you know, the search and web analytics space, you know, used to be like, Hey, listen, it's, you know, invest 10% of the tools and 90% in your team.

[00:42:53] Um, and we could maybe qui quibble on that ratio bid 85, 15, 90 10, you know, [00:43:00] but that's really the right way of looking at it, is, you know, so many MarTech implementations. Um, we've seen people spend an enormous amount of money, you know, on the technology, and at the end of the day, they failed to deliver. Uh, and when you really start to pull back the covers, you know, there's actually, you can't really blame a lot of the vendors in that.

[00:43:23] I know people didn't like to blame the vendor. Um, and if you're gonna blame the vendor for anything, it was like the vendor downplayed the amount of change other than the, like, you know, technological change that you need to do, but you kinda have to take ownership of that yourself. Um, and so I think first of all, having like leaders in MarTech and marketing operations who understand that, that like, actually 90% of this job is not gonna be the technology implementation.

[00:43:53] It is going to be how do we like, engage people with this? How do we roll this out? How do we help them, like make the [00:44:00] shift from the old ways they were thinking about things or the old ways they were doing things, you know, and bring them to a, a, a, a new way of achieving that. ~Um, and a a as I confessed earlier, uh, this was something that I under indexed in, uh, you know, on.~

[00:44:08] ~So I'm probably not even like the best person, uh, you know, to advise us. But I will say, all right, let me answer it this way. Um.~ So I went and I got, uh, an MBA, uh, uh, at the, at uh, MITI had like this thing of like, oh, you know, I, I'd grown up at the sort of scrappy entrepreneur, um, and uh, I felt like, oh, well I really wanna do this.

[00:44:23] I want, I wanna become like, you know, like a professional, like, you know, manager and like, you know, raise VC monies and do all this sort of stuff. And I'm like, okay, so what I need to do is I need to go MIT and I need to like learn, you know, okay, well what is entrepreneurial finance and how does it, you know, do that?

[00:44:40] I mean all these like super technical subjects. Um, you know, and I remember taking this class, uh, of like, oh, well there's this whole thing around like the political spheres of like, you know, how organizations actually work.

[00:44:55] I remember at the time thinking like, what a waste of time this, [00:45:00] this whole thing is.

[00:45:01] You know, can we get down to the technology? What's going on in the media lab? You know, like, let's check this out. Um, having graduated from that and gone back into the real world,

[00:45:11] Phil: Yeah.

[00:45:13] Scott: had I basically ignored absolutely everything else and only focused, you know, on the like, oh, well wait a second. How do you like manage the political dynamics of like, helping these things do and the informal networks of, you know, who influences who in changing this stuff?

[00:45:28] Oh man, that would've been like 20 times more valuable, uh, you know, than any of the more technical subjects. And I, I, I guess I simply say that it's like to become good at that sort of like change management and helping organizations navigate, um, you really do have to, you have to study it. You have to practice it, you have to like lean into it.

[00:45:51] Um, and if that fills you with some sort of dread, like, you're like, ah, that's not what I want to do. [00:46:00] Well, that's okay. But recognize that is actually going to be probably the limit on just like what scale of impact you can have in transforming, uh, an organization. You certainly contribute to it. You know, like, all right, well we'll get the technical operations, we'll do that, but there better be someone else who's then actually driving the organizational transformation.

[00:46:20] If you wanna be that leader, boy, you're gonna have to invest time, energy practice. It's, um, it's, it's a big deal.

[00:46:31] Phil: Yeah. Yeah. So true. Love the cow, the shout out for, um, uh, Venish Cow Shit there. I, I'm still a subscriber to Hamm's Razor, still one of the best newsletters out there. He is still pumping out content and it's more relevant than, than ever today. But yeah, I totally empathize with that whole like, political sphere and especially early on in my career, it's just like, I just wanna do work.

[00:46:52] I don't wanna deal with politics or like these, like people problems and like all these opinions and people's feelings. [00:47:00] Like, can we just do the work and have it abstracted away from feelings, but it's just not. This is not how it works in, in the real world, and you quickly discover that. So I like your advice there.

[00:47:10] Um,

[00:47:11] 9. How MCP Gives Marketers a Path Out of Integration Hell
---

[00:47:11] Phil: Scott, I wanna ask you about, so something you talked about, um, in a couple of your articles is, uh, the composable canvas. And I know you've been really big on composability. We actually talked about it, um, three years ago when you came on the podcast, but. This new thing that you're chatting about is like you've noted the old divide between, you know, software as a service is kind of collapsing.

[00:47:33] Like what a lot of VCs shunned before is now kind of a differentiation through hybrid models like Ford deployed engineers. And even if you have like a service arm, it's okay. Um, and you've kind of tied this into like a larger mega convergence where, you know, point solutions versus platform or build versus buy is all kind of blending into the composable canvas.

[00:47:56] Um, you talked about this in the customer engagement book, adapt or Die [00:48:00] by Mo Engage. We both had the chance to contribute to that book. Um, in your section you argue that flexible composable MarTech stacks are now the foundation for personalization and experimentation. Unpack that for us, um, for folks.

[00:48:13] Really curious to hear your thoughts there.

[00:48:16] Scott: Yeah, and let's be honest, the composability, one of the reasons this has been such a challenge is while it is in the interests of like a brand, a company, someone who's actually running marketing to have composable solutions is in your interest to have that flexibility. I mean, one of the themes, right, we've been talking about here is this just crazy rate of change.

[00:48:40] You know? And while a lot of the things you need to do to deal with change are human in nature. There are actually some technical things that you can have an architecture that is more adaptable or more agile or less adaptable and less agile. And a lot about composability is this ability, you know, to more quickly change and adapt components, you know, within your [00:49:00] scent.

[00:49:01] So yes, on the brand side, composability is awesome. Um, let's just be candid for MarTech vendors, their incentives are generally not aligned towards composability. They're like, no, I don't want you using other people's stuff. I want you using my stuff. You know, um, but there's this tension because, well, I also have to sell you my stuff.

[00:49:22] And if you're gonna say, you're only gonna buy my stuff if it has these composable things, well, alright, damn it. I guess I'll, I'll do that. You know? And so there's this tension here and I think one of the things that is just been, to me, a really positive thing is over the past 10 years. The industry has been shifting to become more and more composable.

[00:49:45] Um, and I think in the current environment, um, it, it, it's almost mandatory. I mean, I will say one of the things I got most excited about, I don't wanna overhype this, but like the, the introduction of [00:50:00] the MCP, uh, you know, philanthropics mono contact protocol. I was jumping for joy. And don't get me wrong, it's a very simple protocol.

[00:50:07] Uh, but a lot of people I saying like, wow, does I this and I'm that. Yeah, there's a lot of work you have to around that. But it is the first time in the history of our industry here. Actually, well, we could at least at this foundational level, have a standard way of getting these things to talk to each other.

[00:50:25] Oh my God. Because, you know, I mean, part of the biggest problem people have had in MarTech, you know, from the beginning, from that very first like landscape of like 150 technologies, they're like, well, it's great you got all these things, but do they actually work together well? Okay. No. You know, and now that we have like 15,000 of 'em, you know, do they all work together?

[00:50:43] Well, not so much. So integration has always been the challenge, you know, and the way in which we've solved it to date or solved is probably over the way we've made progress to address it to date is like, okay, well you have these major platforms, you know, like a Salesforce, [00:51:00] like a HubSpot, you know, like a market or whatever it is.

[00:51:02] That's like, okay, we've got enough momentum around us that we will, you know, gravitationally pull other companies to build bespoke integrations to our particular set of APIs.

[00:51:15] Phil: Right.

[00:51:16] Scott: So that that got us further down the road. So if you pick, you know, again, like whatever it is, Salesforce, HubSpot, you know, Braze, whatever it is, you know, you then have a set of things that, you know, you can pull from in their ecosystem that are integrate.

[00:51:29] But there's probably a whole bunch of other things that you might wanna do that haven't integrated to get to a place where, you know, we've now got this emerging standard to say, well listen, if I just make something available as an MCP server, you know, and some other piece of software, you know, implements an MCP client, that kind of, again, a little hand wavy for a moment, but any MCP client being able to like, interact with any MCP server without anyone having to like, build, you know, custom bespoke integrations, I think that's [00:52:00] gonna be a massive unlock.

[00:52:01] And again, I'm sure a lot of vendors individually, if they could say like, the love of God, don't do this. They can, it's, it's, it, it, it's almost hit this tipping button. Mean this is the beauty of standards is once something becomes a standard and people are like, yeah, no, we kind of have to do it. Um, and so I actually think composability is going to be, gonna be almost like the defacto, uh, you know, um, architectural, uh, property, uh, of MarTech here moving forward.

[00:52:35] Phil: Obviously you're super deep in, in the ecosystem space, like it, it was your, your bread and butter for, um, like your, your part, your time at at HubSpot. Right. Um, talk to us about like ecosystem thinkers with this whole MCP thing. Like

[00:52:49] 10. Why Heterogeneous Stacks are the Default for Modern Marketing Teams
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[00:52:49] Phil: how can marketers feature proof themselves by becoming ecosystem thinkers, whether they work at a MarTech vendor or they work in a house on, on the brand side, like someone who is adept at integration partnerships or is way more technical and super deep on the open standards instead of just like.

[00:53:09] Focusing their entire career on like one vendor and an all in one suite. Like what are your thoughts there? What does that future kinda look like for ecosystem thinkers In, in marketing?

[00:53:19] Scott: Yeah, I mean, I think the ship has sailed, like tech stacks are heterogeneous, you know, I mean, certainly within marketing, but. Frankly, one of the most exciting things happening right now is, uh, we're seeing not just integration within the marketing tech stack, we're seeing increasing integration across the company-wide, uh, tech stack.

[00:53:39] A lot of what's happened at the data layer, you know, with things like Snowflake and Databricks and these sort of systems that, you know, are becoming almost like a universal data layer across not just marketing, but you know, product and production and operations and customer service and sales, you know, which then, like even just from a marketer's perspective, suddenly like opens up this [00:54:00] opportunity of like, well, wait a second, can I learn from the behavioral insights of how people actually engage with our product or service?

[00:54:06] Or, you know, can I be triggering off of interactions that are happening, you know, with support, you know, or customer service and how that might change. What I mean, oh my goodness, that's, um. Yeah, I mean, it, it, it, we've barely begun to scratch the surface, you know, of the sort of new strategic, uh, opportunities this opens up, uh, you know, for marketing.

[00:54:25] So, um, yeah, I, you know, I got so excited about that proposition. I forgot what the original question was. Sorry.

[00:54:39] Phil: All good. I, yeah, I feel like we, we were getting, uh, pretty, pretty passionate about the ecosystem stuff there, but, um, like I, I had a fun question for you kinda related to this. Like

[00:54:51] 11. How To Build A Martech Messaging BS Detector
---

[00:54:51] Phil: in the ecosystem role that you had, I'm sure a big part of your role was. Just like looking at other companies, deciding whether or not there was a partnership opportunity there, and going through that research phase, going on company websites, looking at their homepage and trying to figure out what the heck the company actually did through all the jargon and the product marketing speak there, I'm sure was, was really tough.

[00:55:16] Um, you know, in an industry that's overflowing with product marketing jargon, if you were starting out now, like how would you develop your BS detector to even have an ability to communicate clearly? What the heck does Smart Tech Tool is doing?

[00:55:31] Scott: Oh man. Like you. Yeah, thank you. You sent me, I'm not gonna go off and become a veterinarian, but um, you know, if I was gonna like, do any sort of like career change, I'd be like. Yeah, I'm gonna go into product marketing, uh, because I have a real beef with how most of that's done. And I, I should disclaim.

[00:55:51] There are some product marketers in MarTech who are frigging phenomenal at it. Um, and, you know, they [00:56:00] stand out partly because so much of the other product marketing around MarTech, uh, I mean, again, I hate to offend like a, a whole swath of, you know, uh, people here, but a lot of it's just not very good. Um, you know, and then again, at the end of the day, the test for it is like, forget even about, you know, competitive comparisons.

[00:56:19] Like, I'm just trying to come to your website, understand what you do. Uh, and when I can't figure that out after 10 or 15 minutes, which actually, you know, now that I think about this, um, so I've just started playing around with like, uh, you know, where these age browsers like, um, you know, comet and Atlas, uh, and I've been having some fun of like, you know, going to the pricing pages of, uh, you know, MarTech

[00:56:45] Phil: Well, what does this company

[00:56:46] Scott: you know, they have no prices.

[00:56:47] And I'm like, okay, can you tell me what the real prices here are gonna be? And, uh, that's that. Yeah. And anyone in like, product market's like, wait a second. What you, you're not allowed to do that? You can, no, no. Uh, I'm [00:57:00] actually curious to like, yeah. Go to some of these sites and be like, okay, Atlas, I don't understand what they're saying here.

[00:57:04] Can you tell me what this company actually does? It, it, I bet it would have a, you know, a pretty good answer. Um, the flip side of this is, I mean, it it, it's hard, right? It's a noisy space. There's a lot of things about what these MarTech solutions are that do. Come down to some commodified mechanics, you know, and so trying to really crystallize what are the differentiations, uh, of your company.

[00:57:32] And some of them might be technical, functional, some of them might be economic. Some of 'em might actually be, quite frankly, cultural. You know, um, I think culture plays a much bigger role in the fit between a particular company and the vendors. Uh, it works with than we like typically give credit to. And I think some really smart, uh, you know, product marketers recognize that culture is actually one of [00:58:00] the feature dimensions, you know, that they can sell on and they can differentiate from their alternatives.

[00:58:05] Um, so I think like, you know, it's a, it's a very hard job, but it is one of those things that, boy, if you can be good at that, like. You can stand out. It is a, it is a competitive advantage, uh, to be great at product marketing in this environment.

[00:58:24] Phil: Yeah, it's such a tough job. I, I had a short stint when I [e-mail] on, uh, wearing a product marketing hat. And what what I discovered in like growth marketing roles is like anyone in the company can be a growth marketer. Everyone has campaign ideas. Like everyone thinks marketing is so easy, but when it comes to writing copy for the homepage, everyone has even more opinions about it.

[00:58:45] Like the CEO gets a chance to say like, what is gonna be on that homepage? And the finance person and the person who is in the ICP who also sits in that company and that department, like they have a big role to play. And it's just like, it's just like a word salad. And you have to, the [00:59:00] product marketer has to try to make sense and it gets.

[00:59:01] Even more complicated when it's not a startup that has a single product with one or two features, and it's like this suite of like seven different things. Like what is our H one gonna be if we have seven different products that serve seven? So I, I empathize with those folks, but I, I agree with you. It's so frustrating sometimes, especially when we're doing research for stuff on the podcast.

[00:59:22] Like, what the heck does this AI powered tool that supercharges my growth actually freaking mean. Scott, this has been such a fun conversation. I really appreciate your time.

[00:59:37] 12. Why Your Energy Grows Faster When You Invest in Other People
---

[00:59:37] Phil: I got one last question for you. So we're switching up a little bit this year. We've been asking the same question for the last five years, so this is the first time we're asking this question. It's very similar. As folks know, you're a former big tech vp.

[00:59:50] You're an author, public speaker, world renowned industry expert. You're also an editor, a Chief MarTech startup advisor, and you're a father and a dad joke enthusiast, you got a [01:00:00] lot going on in your life. One question we are gonna ask everyone on the show this year is how do you decide what deserves your energy at any given moment and what's your personal system for staying aligned with what actually makes you happy?

[01:00:15] Scott: Wow. That's a, that's a deep question. Um,

[01:00:21] Phil: While you think I'll preview what you said three years ago when I asked you this question, so you said, um, when we talked about this, you said your life might seem kind of one dimensional from the outside because you work and MarTech and your passion is also MarTech and those things kind of converge.

[01:00:40] You said something hilarious like, I still remember this. You were like, after a long day of working in marketing technology, I get home. I sit on my couch and I unwind by reading about marketing technology. You're like, that's not for everyone. But that's, that's for me and that's what makes me happy. So does your answer change a little bit?

[01:00:59] [01:01:00] Like what, what are your thoughts there?

[01:01:01] Scott: Yeah. All right. Well, I am still pretty unidimensional on, uh, you know, I don't have a lot of other hobbies. Um, but I think one of the things I've tuned in more and more is how much joy I take in seeing other people, like the light bulbs go off and like people like, oh, I, I, now I know what I wanna do, and they go off and they air able to do it, and they'll be successful.

[01:01:29] I mean, you know, I would say like, I, I feel like, you know, a big portion of the early half of my career was trying to figure out like, okay, well what can I do? And, you know, what, what, how do I succeed and what's my contribution, you know, to the world? Uh, and again, it was almost, again, like a, a sub variant of this thing of like.

[01:01:52] Too focused on the task and not focused enough on the people you know around. Uh, and I think just the, [01:02:00] you know, in, in the, in this latter half, you know, of the career, I'm just realizing like how much joy and satisfaction there is in helping other people, you know, succeed. It's a, it's, it's, it's kind of an ecosystem thing.

[01:02:15] I mean, one of the reasons I always got so passionate about like, you know, leaving the ecosystem at HubSpot, uh, was because, you know, HubSpot is a company, it could only do so much, even with all its engineers and product managers is only so much one company can do, you know, this ecosystem. Yeah. With thousands of companies, you know, with then each company having, you know, dozens or hundreds or thousands of, you know, this multiplication effect, you know, of what can actually come to life.

[01:02:42] It's astounding. Um, and I think, uh, yeah, you know, there's, that's, it's sort of like a microcosm of this much bigger pattern of, I mean, again, like even what you're doing here with humans of Vitech like this, you know, ability of it not just being what you personally are able to do, but how you're like [01:03:00] empowering other people and all the things that they can do.

[01:03:03] I don't know, like the more I've sort of like tuned in on like, oh man, the way I can do more of helping that like that is incredibly, uh, inspiring and joyful. So I hope I can do more of that.

[01:03:16] Phil: Very cool. Well, yeah, looking forward to you doing more of that. I know you're doing a ton, uh, with friends and, and all the industry reports that you're doing for folks in the industry. So you're, you're definitely helping a ton of people make sense of the craziness of MarTech. Uh, I know you just released MarTech for 2026, uh, a couple months ago.

[01:03:33] Um, so we'll encourage folk to, to check that out. We'll, we'll link out to it there. Um, tons of insights in there, Scott. Thanks for doing what you're doing and, uh, try hope, helping us make sense of this crazy world of, of MarTech that we live in. Thanks so much for joining me for a second time. This is, uh, an honor to have you on.

[01:03:50] Scott. Thanks so much for your time.

[01:03:51] Scott: Thank you so much. Alright, bye.