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Always Be Testing explores the experiments, insights, and growth stories shaping the future of affiliate and partner marketing in B2B SaaS. Hosted by industry veterans, the show dives deep into real-world lessons from the people driving measurable impact at companies like Google, HubSpot, Ramp, Webflow, G2, and beyond.
Each episode uncovers what happens when today's most innovative marketers challenge assumptions, run smarter experiments, and build programs that scale revenue through meaningful partnerships. If you’re in affiliate, partnerships, or SaaS growth — this is your front-row seat to how the best do it (and what they’ve learned along the way
Welcome to a very special episode of the
Always Be Testing Podcast.
I'm your host, Ty Degrange, and I'm
excited to have Sunil Kaki on.
Sunil, how are you?
I'm doing well, Ty. This is great.
It's good to see you. It's been a moment.
Great to reconnect.
Yeah, likewise. You go way back a decade.
You we do, we do.
Yeah.
We do go back to the the the ancient
dinosaur days of our tenures
at Commission Junction, which is insane.
That's right. Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
In in in beautiful Santa Barbara where you
are now.
Yeah, I made a full circle. I had to kinda
come back.
So we moved back five years ago.
But this is where my career started where
you and I worked at Commission Junction.
Yeah. So it's kind of a full circle
moment.
It's great.
It's a special place. I I'm excited to be
back there in two weeks and
~ excited to be back there when I can.
Yeah, and we'll we'll catch up as well.
That'd be fun.
Absolutely, absolutely. So this is a big
one,
a good one for everyone interested in
growth,
in the progress of a CMO and how it all
came to be for Sunil after Commission
Junction. Sunil kind of did it all,
I I'd say in some capacities. ~ he's the
founder and CEO of Clove Growth,
a fractional CMO service. So he's doing
fractional CMO service and custom
AI agents and workflows. but after his
ancient history with me back at CJ.
he was at Amazon, Intuit, Beach Body,
Zalilli, Figs, B P and CMO in a lot of
those roles.
So ~ a really wealth of information.
This is a this is exciting one.
You've done a lot, man. I I gotta say,
it's a very impressive
Yeah, no, it's been two decades of doing
and learning and bringing a lot
Mm-hmm.
of things and then relearning and so it's
been it's been really fun
and it's the world has changed so much
over the last two decades,
as you know, right?
Yeah.
Like everything from Google to Meta to
everything else in between.
It's it's been really fun.
My perspective on you is like high
intelligence,
high output. Like what what is it that
kind of allowed you to pull off what you
did?
'Cause I think it's some kind of people
probably are curious and they're like,
Wow, how did that's a really impressive
run.
No. It's it kind of goes back to what my
dad said when I first graduated college
and I was sort of thinking about jobs and
all that kind of stuff
and he said something that I I keep
reminding him that he said it to me
and he sort of forgot that he said it but
it sort of stuck with me.
He wa he it was very simple actually.
He was just like career kind of advice
sort of thing and he just said like
in your twenties, take every job that you
think you'll learn something from.
Don't worry about the money, don't worry
about the titles,
don't worry about any of that stuff.
You don't need a lot of money to live on.
Just take every job that you think you're
scared to take and just take it.
And that helped so much.
It took the pressure off, the corporate
ladder climbing,
the titles, the money, the bonuses.
Like all of the stuff that that,
you know, usually people get distracted
with in their late twenties
or early twenties was just off the table.
And that sort of made it super easy.
just go find the job that I knew I was
gonna
get my behind totally kicked and ~
Yeah.
really, really helped. And then he said,
in your in your 30s, focus on how you're
going to
be part of teams and you're gonna enable
teams to get better.
So it's not just about you learning,
it's about how people around you are going
to get better.
So look for companies, leaders,
opportunities where it's about team and
not just individual performance.
So that's where like Intuit was fantastic
because it's such
Mm-hmm.
a great organization. It's all about team.
It's all about individual development,
but how you work within a team.
Incredible leaders that I got to see
firsthand.
And and that was such an amazing sort of
run.
And then Amazon was great. And then he
sort of said,
In your forties, make money. You like
Money will follow. Like you will get
titles,
money, all that stuff will start to come
late 30s and
Yeah.
40s. Even if you don't want it,
opportunities will come your way.
And sure enough, that's kind of how it
panned out.
And it was just like, you know,
you do these 15 years, 20 years of work
and not focus on like titles and stuff.
The money and the titles start coming in
your forties,
Yeah.
late thirties, forties. And that's kind of
how it happened.
And I'm I'm so grateful for that advice.
It just put your
Yeah.
put the focus on the right things at the
right time,
which was amazing.
Yeah, an impressive man and a great timely
advice.
And I've heard flavors of that before,
but in the context of what you've achieved
and and how you phrase
how that conversation was for you,
it's really cool and and very endearing
about who you are and how you grew up.
And for anyone getting into their career
or mid level career or even mature career,
it's a it's beautiful piece of advice.
Yeah. No, it's ~ certainly
Very cool.
well. And I think something that I pass on
to my teams as well when they
ask about career advice and career path
planning and all that stuff.
It's
Mm-hmm.
harder to do because it's it's harder not
to compare.
It's hard I didn't get promoted,
I worked for a couple of years,
all that stuff. But it is a good one,
so with a long term focus.
Did you not to go too far down this rabbit
hole,
did you in your earlier days, did you feel
like it let you what did
it unlock for you? Was it like going after
things you thought you would have shied
away from because it was too much?
Was it not worrying about the
distractions?
Like in your earlier days, what was it
that kind of made that an unlock for you?
I think I think it allowed me to take
opportunities with the right focus.
So I'll you an example. So like after
Commission Junction,
you know, Commission Junction was great.
I got promoted fairly quickly and there
was a career path there,
right? And you know, my title was like an
account manager or something like that.
Mm-hmm.
And but when I looked for the next
opportunity,
I wasn't looking for like a senior manager
with this level of calm.
I was just thinking, I've done like the
affiliate marketing stuff,
but there's so much in marketing that I
don't know.
So I just took a
A role that I had literally no business
taking,
but I ran all of paid search, which I had
never run paid search in-house before.
But I figured I would r I would learn it.
And so that was sort of my that sort of
helped,
right? And it was not a senior manager
Yeah.
role. It wasn't more money. It wasn't like
all the other things it didn't check
the boxes, but I knew I was gonna learn
something that I didn't know before.
I think that's sort of a good example
early on.
And then I took another role at a small
mobile startup that was just starting.
And I was gonna be a team of one.
And my prior role I had sort of gotten
promoted,
and I had three people on my team,
and I was managing a big budget and all
this stuff.
I would have never taken that sort of
smaller role unless I was solving for,
hey, this whole mobile thing is going big.
I gotta go figure out what this is.
And it was really that was a reason why I
took that job,
not like on paper, it was a dumb
career move. But it was the perfect move
Yeah.
because everything was moving mobile and I
got to learn a ton.
Yeah, you you and I have seen some really
impressive waves,
which we'll talk about. And I think I have
to say that resonates heavily with
me because I, you know, probably optimized
to learning almost to a fault.
I I'm sure ~ obviously a different path
but in but similar in some ways that
I I really it really resonates with me.
~ and not necessarily being comfortable,
~ but really optimizing for learning
almost
almost too far one might say. But it it
has served served well.
I think it's it's it's really cool.
~ I think the other thing is like when I
look at your experience,
you know, you done it for startups,
Fortune five hundreds, mid markets.
Are there are there things that you think
are kind
of like the this is just something that's
a truism that really
was a marketing principle for you that
that was true in all those cases that you
want to share and maybe
one that's kinda like, ~ kind of throw
that one out.
It gets talked about a lot, but it's just
not really as valued as people think
it is.
Yeah, that's a great question.
I think the divide between like what
people
consider DR or performance marketing and
like brand marketing,
I don't think that's ever been as
bifurcated or like in two polar sort
of sections of marketing as people used to
think,
right? I think that's sort of held true.
throughout my career is you have to think
of it as like a brand response world.
Even in like the most DR centric channel
like page search,
where it's like a few lines of text and
it's all about CTR and all the page rank
and all that stuff. Even if you get a
three percent click through rate,
ninety seven percent of people are walking
away with something.
And I think you kind of have to keep that
in mind.
And that's always been true.
in big companies, small companies,
very well known brands, very small brands
that are trying to make kind
of their presence known, all of that
stuff.
It's always been true. And and it's
something that I think now a lot more
people
are kind of thinking about the world that
way because all of the ad units,
because they're all video based and
there's a visual component to it.
I think now everybody kind of believes it,
but I think that's always been true.
for at least the last few decades that
I've been I've been doing.
Yeah. Yeah. I would agree with that.
So and that's probably something that's
a bit true. Yeah. And
Yeah, that's
a big one.
Yeah. And I think the outdated thing,
at least during my tenure,
it was it was all around like channel
expansion.
Like every business had to be in every
single channel.
They had to have you know ~ they have to
be in the mobile networks
and ad networks and affiliate channel and
paid search and meta and Instagram back
in the day and then Facebook and then
Every single channel, every new channel
had to be tested,
every single I think that's not I think
that's that's different now because
all of these all of these like companies
have sort of aggregated to
a point where their reach is not a
limiting factor anymore,
right? Like meta pretty much can reach
every single potential customer out there.
So
Yeah.
channel expansion, you're not getting much
except for multiple touch points,
right? But even that can be solved through
these one or two channels.
I think I think it's more about focus and
that focus compounding over time
and getting really, really
Yeah.
good at one or two of these channels and
not getting distracted
by every new channel. Especially if your
teams are lean and you're like
a sub hundred, hundred and fifty million
dollar company and you don't have
a hundred people on your marketing team.
I think it's a distraction. And
Yeah.
most most founders that we help now and
I've sort of worked with
They fall into this trap. They'll go to a
conference,
they'll listen to a podcast, or they'll
read something
Yeah.
and they're like, we gotta we gotta do
this new channel thing,
right? And whatever that
Yeah.
new shiny
thing is. And they don't understand and
realize the distraction that
it creates within the org and the burnout
that it creates for their team.
Because every time they go to a new
conference,
there can be a new channel that is the
best thing ever.
Right. So I think it's
Mm-hmm.
just getting out of that and and having
the discipline saying,
like, if you do like
one to two things well, that compounds way
better over time than than like
Mm-hmm.
ch chasing the new shiny eye.
Yeah. And I think the, you know,
as someone that suffers from shiny obje
object syndrome,
myself, ~
Yeah.
I can understand it. I also think there's
a degree at which a lot
of people it's it's natural. We're kind of
wired for it a little bit,
right? There's a mix of fear and
excitement,
greed and fear, if you will, in the market
or whatever you want to say.
And it's like there's some of that you get
rewarded for,
but you know.
Especially as marketing has evolved and
matured,
I think you're onto something where how
many times have we been
on Teams where you've got like,
I don't know, six channels putting out a
random number somewhat,
but sort of true that you're you're
clearly not optimizing fully.
And imagine what you could be getting out
of that if it was you were actually going
deep enough for that one channel that's
not being served fully.
So
I know you've seen that first hand.
Yeah, no, exactly, man. Like I think it
that's part of like my my role
now is one, like having done all these
things for so many years
at all these different companies,
my feedback usually holds a bit more
weight with the founders and then being
like,
Hey, that is a great opportunity.
Let's let's keep on this path that we're
on and and really nail down these
two or three things that we aligned on.
And then this will be a fast follow.
Like I want to test, but this will be a
fast follow up.
But that just sort of
Yeah.
deferring and and giving ourselves just an
extra three,
four months, the the shininess fades ~
with time.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
So I think that also helps helps the helps
the team.
And you know, yeah, maybe not always be
testing all new channels all the time,
as the pod name says, but maybe you're
always evolving and iterating within
the channel that you're focused on,
perhaps is the way to phrase it.
That's exactly right. Yeah.
And and it's it's like getting deeper,
right? Like how how does a what is your
unique sort of expertise in that channel
is where you wanna get to, right?
If you're doing kind of the same thing on
Meadow or Instagram specifically that
everyone else is doing, like that doesn't
you're gonna hit sort of a plateau.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
But being deeper
and always be testing
on how you sort of make that your thing,
I think that's where that's where the moat
is
Yeah.
and that's what we try to help though.
Not
not to lead the witness, but do you find
that you're helping brands
and founders and CEOs sort of determine
what their alpha is and say,
okay, you have a distinct advantage in
these channels?
You could you could meet other brands at
parity in these channels.
You're gonna be at a disadvantage in
these.
Like how do you kind of do? I mean,
is that sort of what you're doing?
And how does what does that look like
sometimes?
Yeah, that's that's exactly right.
Like we we sort of help founders and teams
sort of focus on three to five
big bets at any given point, right?
And that three to five big bets,
it takes a lot of discipline to kind of
nail it down to three to five big bets.
There's usually a lot more ideas than
three to five.
And those three to five are, you know,
everything from first user experience
testing,
landing page testing, new channel
expansion,
creative, product expansion.
it it ranges, right? And and it's really
takes a lot of discipline to kind
of nail down three to five things.
And and a lot of it is like I I take it
off of the team's plate
to go negotiate with the founders if they
have something near and dear
to their heart that they do not want to
give up,
but you know, we don't believe that
there's a high conviction,
that's part of some things that we sort of
take on.
But it is always to kind of continuously
sort of focus because
Without that, you're not gonna go deep,
right? You're not gonna go become an
expert in creating credible
UGC content for like affiliate networks or
whatever,
right? Like it's not gonna happen.
So that's that's where that really,
really helps. And often the fear is like,
what if these are not the right bets and
we're six months later
and we're not growing, right?
And my answer to that is we will know.
It's not a black box that we will find out
in six months or eight months
if this is working or not. We will know
very quickly because we're measuring along
the way. If we're saying like,
hey, we did all the right kind of things
and we're not seeing the early signal,
we will pivot and and pick a new big bet
to go after,
and that's okay. And that usually sort of
gives the confidence that there
is a rigor and a process and not just like
hope.
So
Yeah, hope is not a strategy. I like that.
~
Yeah.
what what do you kind of think about a
company that's ready to really scale paid
acquisition? What is that thing that
they've kind of mastered or what
how do you think about that knowing that
moment when they're ready?
I think it's it's clear understanding of
their CAC LTV,
right? Everything around like the new
customer margin model is what we call
it and and the agency and what I've sort
of built for companies.
It's truly understanding all the different
puts and takes of what makes that first
order profitable or not profitable.
And then really a great understanding of
LTV.
For some businesses easier than others,
right? Like for subscription businesses,
the LTV is like almost very, very
predictable, can create these efficiency
or the churn curves and stuff,
and you know exactly what it is.
For more sort of consumer products,
infrequent purchases, it's much harder.
So you try to sort of make that first
order margin neutral to margin positive.
So you really have to be disciplined on
that.
And so we build this really a margin model
that we refresh every three
to six months, depending on how the
business evolving and changing
and what phase they're in. But
Having a really good grasp of that CACL TV
is incredibly important.
The the the second part is really
Yeah. Gotta have the uneconomics right.
exactly getting the user user economics,
the unit economics right. And aligning
with like the finance team,
having the buy-in from like the CFOs and
the finance team,
that is incredibly important. You start to
build trust as well.
And and that that really helps.
That's that's very foundational.
The second thing is understanding
your audiences, who you're speaking to,
have you saturated that market?
Truly like defining, going back and and
kind of doing that work of like this
is our core audience. These are the next
concentric circle of audiences that
are relevant for our product, but we're
not speaking to,
truly understanding like, okay,
got it. Like we are speaking to this
audience really,
really well. These are the other three or
four audiences we need
to start to directly speak to.
Once you have that picture, then I think
you're like,
Poised for poised for scale, everything
else starts to kinda ladder ladder.
That's great. Practically speaking,
kind of how are you thinking about testing
and in like order mentality?
Are you looking at like audience offer
creative landing page?
Like what what's the what's the
prioritization in your mind?
No. I think in today's sort of media
landscape,
like especially digital channel landscape,
I think there's two really important
things.
One
Mm-hmm.
is looking at creative, ensuring that you
have enough creative diversity,
that you're speaking to specific audiences
very directly or not.
You're mapping creative production,
creative testing to specific audiences.
So audience understanding.
Making sure your creative is actually
speaking to those audiences spits okay or
not.
The second thing is first user experience.
This is something that I have to harp on
over and over and over again.
Most sort of companies and brands,
they're like, yep, we're doing some
itty-bitty 10,
15% optimization. We're doing landing page
testing and all this stuff.
But
you have to look at the first user
experience more holistically.
And that starts all the way from an ad
impression to the time that they they
convert, right? Like that entire
experience is incredibly important.
And and you have to like you have to make
no assumptions.
Like you have to question all of it.
And come up with like three or four big
tests you want to do throughout the year.
It's not about the little itty bitty
change the button color
know, put the image here, there,
like that stuff is fine, but that's not
gonna yield the step function change that
you really want to see. Like really being
intentional about three or four
big bets you want to make through the year
in that first user experience.
Those two things I think I would
prioritize over or everything else.
Highest leverage sort of ~ places.
Yeah.
The the user experience stuff I have to
say I I really grabbed a hold
of after my Amazon experience and always
had an affinity for it.
This like art science, consumer
psychology,
user testing, talking to customers,
looking at data. You know, as you know,
we we were very f you know, had a pretty
heavy line
of work doing doing that type of thing.
And I think that
It's amazing how much optimization there
is there that that people
at very reputable companies, very mature
companies recognize where there's leakage
and where there's you know that first
customer experience issue that you
referenced.
So it it hits pretty hard for me and it
obviously can make it a very much more
efficient game and much more lucrative
game if you tighten that
up for for customers, right?
Yeah, exactly. And when I sort of share
examples and case studies
and data points just from my career,
like you can reduce your CAC by like
forty,
fifty percent in some cases, just by
rethinking how a user is being introduced
into
your ecosystem, your product, your brand.
Like people are blown away. They're like,
No, no, we've been doing this for ten
years.
There's no way that we're gonna decrease
our cap by that by improving
our conversion rate. I'm like,
No, I think you'll be surprised.
Like you just need a fresh pair of eyes
and kind of
Again, with that same mindset tie,
like we've talked about, just with sort of
the appetite for bigger swings with
the focus and the discipline just sort of
changes changes what's
Yeah.
feasible.
We saw a lot of that problem is people
being super micro focused when there
was such a bigger ocean out there for them
to test and improve the experience
at a larger level. Obviously some of those
things are,
you know, can be can be small,
but you've gotta it's ha it's gotta be
worth the effort and time and money
and in and operating them. So it's really
resonates with me as well.
You you've in obviously you've been
involved with with growth brand.
Obviously those as you talked about at the
beginning are
you know, much more, I think, understood
to be more intertwined than they used
to be. when mar marketers kind of
inadvertently do harm
to brand for maybe trying to get
performance.
~ I was actually talking about an example
with my wife,
which I might share with you as as we get
through the conversation.
But ~ what does that look like?
what what it what have you seen in that
realm and and what's what is that
What does that kind of exhibit itself?
Yeah, it's you know, I've I've made that
mistake several times,
right? It's ~ you you
Me too.
sort of get into these very specific KPIs
or metrics that you're trying
to solve for and and it takes takes time
in making mistakes that you sort of like,
my god, like why why did I do that?
But it's the best sort of way that I
explain
it for hyper performance, hyper like DR,
hyper like
metrics oriented marketers is let's take
the best case scenario,
right? You're taking you're getting
creative is amazing,
audience, everything, you're getting a
three percent link click-through rate from
meta, right? Like that is amazing
consistently.
Then you have 97% of the people that are
walking away with something,
right? You're solving for three percent of
the people.
You go from three to three and a half
percent,
what do you be doing for the other
ninety-six and a half percent of
the people that are seeing the ad.
walking away with something. Like what are
they seeing?
Are they just walking away saying like,
this is a discount brand that has sort of
given me forty percent today,
sixty percent off tomorrow, you know,
b two for one deal next week. Like what
what are they walking away from?
Yeah. Giving
them an impression, like the they're
they're they're drawing conclusions
whether
you like it or not.
Exactly.
Yeah. And then and then you wanna charge
them full price for their second order?
Like why would they pay that? So think
about what you're leaving with
and and not just solving for this one
metric up front,
right? So it's sort of a balance.
I'm not saying offers and deals are bad,
but I think being intentional
Yeah.
about what you're putting next to your
brand is incredibly important.
And if it's always like X percent off,
then no one's ever gonna pay full price
and they're just gonna
deeper discount down the line.
And so
Yeah.
I think just being intentional,
like always sort of zooming out and and
making sure that you're putting
a human hat on and saying like,
okay, well what do I what what do I want
people to think about our brand when they
when they don't click through,
when they don't respond? Like what is it
that I'm
Yeah.
leaving with? That's incredibly important.
Yeah, absolutely. Obviously we we grew up
around affiliate deeply.
it has its triggering word for some
people.
I think I have a love hate relationship
with it.
I I love it more than anything.
~ I think it's evolved
Yeah.
significantly and I think we approach it
quite differently.
And it sounds like you do as well.
Like how how do you advise brands around
the fun word of affiliate,
which which where we met?
Yeah. I think now ~ I mean it's always
been the case,
but now more than ever, if if an affiliate
is introducing your brand
new product to a new audience that you
don't have access to,
or from a new perspective, or if they're
adding sort of additional context that
you are not able to provide directly,
I think that is worth, you know,
its weight and gold.
But if they're purely like a discount
couponing site,
all of those things that you and I've sort
of,
you know, 20 years ago grew up with and
they were like the biggest affiliates
in almost every network, I think those are
the ones that I I tend to shy away from.
And ~ and you know, the the browser plug
in kind of affiliates,
the discount kind of things I try I tend
to stay away from.
But if
Yeah.
there's any affiliate that's adding any
value in either audience,
or awareness or the storytelling aspect,
then I lean into them very aggressively.
Yeah, I love that. There there's a very
reminds me of a your experience,
this conversation reminds me of a a very
reputable fractional CMO,
to think I maybe mentioned to you who I
mean,
he was involved with eBay and so many
great barrier you just formative consumer
brands and leading them and ~ is kind of
in this world that you're in
of this like fractional CMO motion and
I remember meeting with him in San
Francisco and we had some great
conversations
and he was like, Yeah, hands down,
some of the best and I wasn't really
expecting him to say it.
some of the best people in growth and in
marketing leadership had a came
out of an affiliate background.
And I think, you know, you're one that
comes to mind.
There's not a lot. but I think it in a lot
of part is because I think affiliate does
have this, in my view, multi-channel
framework.
It it you can kind of
If you manage it properly and kind of,
you know, round out those edges and give
it the proper standards and tenets
to run with and the right incentive
motion,
it can be can be a bit of a multi channel
lever with content
and introductions and reviews and
communities.
So I think you're you're thinking about it
how how we would as well.
Yeah. And you're absolutely right about
that,
right? Like affiliates at least,
you know, when when I was at CJ,
my first job was like customer service for
Billy.
I don't know if you remember Billy still,
but I used to work for his team and I used
to pick up the call.
yeah, I thought you said Billing.
Not at a Billy,
Now I know it's Billy. I have to chuckle
yeah. And
from hearing that name, it's been so long.
So it's so long, yeah. So I used to work
for him and I would pick up the phone
call if affiliates called in for like tech
support,
right? But it was it was such an that's
how you learn.
my goodness. That's how you start out.
That's how you learn. Going back to what
you said earlier.
That's how
I learned. And my shift started at like
four in the morning or five in the
morning.
I can't remember. It was like super early.
There was that early morning when the
my lord.
international affiliates would call.
Yeah, yeah,
West Coast. ~
exactly.
So it would start it would start super
early.
But the reason I bring that up is that
You know, most of the affiliates are
absolute experts in
~ yes.
a certain channel or a certain
way. Like that's how that's why they've
sort of spun off and started
Yes.
their own thing because they're absolute
experts.
So these guys were like, you know,
Yeah. Their survival depends
spending
on that intelligence and that ability to
execute.
Exactly. Exactly. So like some of these
affiliates,
they were search affiliates that were
spending their own dollars
and sometimes a million dollars a month of
their own money to
huh. huh.
go promote other businesses, right?
And they were arbitraging
Mm-hmm.
on a cost per click that they were paying
to a commission that they were getting
on the other end. So they had to be
really,
really good. And that's who we got to
learn stuff from,
right? So it makes total sense that people
that grow up in the affiliate world then
they
Sort of have this one like view that
there's multiple ways to sort
of slice and make things work.
And that if you're an absolute expert in
something,
you can really scale and make it make it
work,
right? Across different businesses.
So yeah, I totally agree with you.
I think like people that grow up either
being an affiliate or
in the affiliate space, I think absolutely
they have a different point
of view for how the world works.
Yeah, it's like d when your survival
depends on it,
when there's a lot of learning
opportunities,
when there's ~ multi-channels,
it it presents an interesting mindset and
ability and skill set that
not everybody has. ~ and I think even now,
again, not to go too far down the the the
the the rabbit hole or or or talk my book,
if you will, but like the AI thing almost
makes it even more fascinating
in my mind because it it really is a
it really is a means to gain some more
visibility in that realm,
which isn't the end all be all,
but it's it's massive growing.
It's where a lot of people are starting
that journey.
So I think it's sort of almost bringing it
back up again,
a little mini mini renaissance perhaps.
~ you the the relationship with finance is
so important.
You talked about this earlier.
How do what give me some thoughts on going
deeper on that
and that credibility that's needed to kind
of develop that trust
and understanding with finance?
It's so critical and would love to hear
your perspective because you've had
to do it such a high level so many times.
It's such a great it's such a great
question because oftentimes when
I was earlier in my career I would I would
think of finance as like another like
monthly meeting and I have like have to
like truck through it and it's gonna
be a pain in my ass and like all that
stuff,
right?
Mm-hmm.
And and they ask a lot of questions and
you're like,
just leave me alone. Like I gotta go do
this thing and let me go grow the
business,
like why am I spending time? But once I
sort of Yeah,
I've been there, unfortunately.
That's not the right
exactly. Yeah, and and ~
mindset. I had the same attitude at
It's not the right mindset.
at times.
Exactly. It's not the right mindset.
And I think like when when maturity kicked
in,
I was like, okay, well, I think there is a
way.
What they're trying to do is, you know,
make sure that they're paying attention to
all the blind spots that
I'm not looking at and making sure the
Mm-hmm.
business stays afloat, that I'm not me or
anyone else isn't doing anything dumb
to sink the business down the line,
right? Like that's what their job is.
So they're trying to do their
Mm-hmm.
The the thing that was really important
for me to understand was that finance,
CFO, colleague, you know, they're looking
at as the world is today,
right? And and with some projections and
things that they can kind of think of,
like supply chain efficiencies or tax sort
of changes or whatever else,
like those are the inputs that they're
getting.
And what marketers are tent mostly doing
is living in the future.
We're trying to figure out
How are we going to deliver the outcome in
six months,
a year? Like, what does a war look like in
six months or a year or 18 months or so?
So to me, that was
Love that.
the biggest delta that I think always
shows up.
Because you're like, why aren't you as
excited as I am for this new thing that
I'm doing, this new campaign I'm
launching,
new product that I'm launching?
Like, I see the potential. Why aren't you
as excited as I am?
And why aren't you as excited as I am to
go spend $8 million on this
new thing that we're
And they're like, we cannot afford eight
million dollars,
buddy. Like, I don't know what you're
talking about.
Don't you want all these customers that we
or these imaginary people?
All these customers, imaginary people,
~
at like half the cack
that's gonna happen, like what are you
talking about?
So for me, I think it was is more around
bridging that gap,
right? Like once I figured out that my job
is to go bridge that gap,
and my job as the CMO or head of marketing
or whoever is to make sure that they also
understand what my vision is,
but
I also understand what the constraints
that they're working with today.
And I think it's that sort of need and
want
to learn both the like what does the
finances for the company look like?
What are the puts and takes? Where are
like what can we afford to go invest
for the future? Really understanding our
PL and asking questions
and like really spending time
understanding their world and their
constraints.
And then bridging the gap to where I want
the world to go to as a marketer,
where I believe the world is going to be
in six months,
a year, 18 months, and then helping them
bridge that gap and doing it frequently,
right? It's not once every six months or
once a year when you're planning
and forecasting and all that kind of
stuff.
It's really every quarter we sort of bring
them along.
And also giving them more visibility than
you would think.
Like I shared our
marketing roadmap, the three to five big
bets,
like I would educate them on like why this
new channel is so exciting,
why we want to invest in like UGC or build
our own in house studio or whatever.
I would bring them into our world more and
more and more.
And that helps sort of bridge that gap
significantly.
Yes. That's so epic.
Then you become like
then CFO becomes like your partner in
solving problems rather than always being
on the other side of the table.
Which is just not a fun way to opt.
I couldn't agree more. I I've had like
some really good conversations over
the years in my in-house roles and even as
an external agency with you know finance,
tech, sales, and it's just when you can
there's it's so easy
for those relationships to not go as
planned or not not be constructive
or not go well. But when you can,
you know, help e help one another and hold
each other's hands and become true.
partners on the same team, it's it's so
much fun and you get so much more done
that
way. Legal even, it's a it's a good point.
Yeah. Yeah, legal legal
It's a good point.
as well. Yeah, absolutely. But also
understanding
Yeah.
like the numbers that are most important
to the the the CFO or the finance team
as well. Like truly understanding what
like gross margin means for the business.
What does like margin mean? What does net
profit mean?
What is like what are the inputs and
takes?
Like what does that really mean for each
business that's different?
Like but truly understanding their
language and spending the time
to understand their language, I think is
incredibly important.
Otherwise
You lose trust if you if you mix gross
margin and net margin
and profitability and EBITDA, you mix all
those things numbers,
you lose trust.
Yeah.
You have to truly understand what that
means for that business.
Yeah, and you you have to have that
understanding so that when you,
you know, enlist the help of an a a third
party or an a consultant that that
you can ensure that they're speaking in
those terms and thinking
in those languages and like that.
That's a a big reason why we have to be
super connected and plugged
in and and thoughtful and get the
knowledge and have be an extension of the
team.
So it's it's just a spot on, spot on.
What
what's something that you're kind of
paying attention to right now that
you think other marketers are
underestimating a little bit?
Yeah.
I think with AI is sort of on everyone's
mind and all that stuff,
and I think we're going through now and
probably for the next six months we're
gonna
go through this transition where I think a
year ago everybody was like,
Chat GPT and Cloud can do everything and
you put everybody feels like they've
solved
a whole bunch of problems, they create a
project,
they add a little bit of context,
they upload a few documents and it looks
good enough.
I think we're gonna
Mm-hmm.
see that that's not good enough over the
next six months to a year.
We're already seeing all this sort of anti
AI slop things and all that stuff.
I think what what we're gonna realize is
that w every team,
every company operates differently,
that you have to build very precise custom
AI agents and workflows that work with
your team. I don't believe that AI is
gonna replace whole teams
or people necessarily. I think we have to
think of it as
a tool that adds superpowers to your team
and for the right sort of team,
right? People that are in like leaning
into using these tools just like
any other tool. And then leaders have like
their responsibility is
to make sure you're providing the right
kind of tool set for your team.
And and I think truly understanding what
that means.
I think that's what we're gonna start to
see.
I'm not sure how many like marketing
leaders are thinking about it that way.
and how that's gonna evolve over time.
But from our exposure or from what we're
seeing,
like it's we're s beginning to kind of see
that transition is that just having Cloud
Enterprise and Chat GPT Pro is not gonna
be the solution.
You really have to make it
Yeah.
work and build it the way your teams work
and your people work.
So
Love that. Love that, Sunil. This has been
just an epic episode with
a lot of amazing stuff. Just coming down
the home stretch for some fun things.
Give it give us hit us with your book
recommendations.
All right. ~ book recommendation.
Okay. So ~ Inner Game of Tennis,
have you ever read it?
Just finished it. It's
So good. It's
very good.
and I've been I've been going back to it.
I have copied my desk, but I go back to it
at least two or three times a year.
I read it, but it's such a great and and
it's it's so good because
I think it applies to work, life,
being a dad, family, like everything.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like it sort of is
this of it's not about tennis actually.
It's more about mindset and how you
approach problems and things.
Yeah.
in your life. So it's been such a great,
~ yeah.
great Yeah. And it's like ten
months on Amazon. So I buy it for
everybody and and I gift it to everyone
if they haven't read it.
It's it's
so funny you say that because like I read
it and I loved
it and I was like I'm gonna gift it to
this person and then I went about
to sell their things and didn't remember
that,
but you just got me to go back to that and
now I'm gonna gift it to that person.
So thank you. It's amazing.
Yeah, it's such a great book to read and
also to
give. And I keep going back to it.
So it's it's such a great one.
And then I'm actually reading Martyr,
which I actually have on my desk as well,
by Kave
Mm.
Akbar. And ~ I'm I'm forty five,
so I'm kind of you know, my parents are
getting older and
Mm-hmm.
you know, good or bad, I'm trying to
figure out like
my purpose in life and like what I'm
doing,
does it lead to something and all this
other stuff?
And like someone recommended this book and
it's such a great,
great book. I haven't finished it yet,
but it's it's such a great book around
sort of understanding what your purpose
is in life. When you're on your deathbed,
you're gonna look back at your life.
What does that mean? As your parents pass,
you're gonna think about death a lot more.
And what does that mean? And it's such a
great book.
So if you haven't if you haven't heard
about it or read it,
That's cool. That's awesome.
I would highly recommend it.
Love that. Appreciate
the suggestions. How about besides always
be testing your some other
pod suggestions?
Yeah. I for long yeah,
Smash the subscribe button.
exactly. Yeah.
for acquired for long drives and and
travel,
like their episodes are just fantastic and
three,
So good. So good.
four hours long, and they're just amazing.
And for brands that we all have grown up
with and we know about,
but the deeper story, like there's so much
that I I don't know.
So it's always a fun, fun listen.
And then ~
And then I think plain English is another
one that I think is is great.
They just sort of break it down,
break down like complex sort of concepts
and topics and stuff.
So that's that's always been fun.
So
Heck yeah. So Neil, you've been amazing,
man. I wanna just appreciate your
generosity with your time and I know we're
Or is this
we're gone almost over, but it's been
awesome to reconnect and excited to
see you in Santa Barbara soon and ~ have
an epic rest of your week.
Yeah, same man. It was so great to
reconnect
Thanks for coming on.
and we'll ~ hang out in Santa Barbara.
That's great.
Looking forward to it.