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Welcome to The B2B CMO Podcast, a show for marketing executives who are redefining what it means to be a strategic leader. Join Jon Miller and Sydney Sloan every week as they talk with the very best Chief Marketing Officers who are navigating the modern marketing playbook and positioning themselves as strategic leaders.
Each episode, we unpack what it really takes to lead through complexity, earn trust at the strategy table, and shape the future of growth.
We’re building the community, research, and frameworks CMOs need to reclaim their strategic role and drive sustainable growth.
For more marketing leadership resources, visit [b2bcmoproject.com](http://b2bcmoproject.com/).
B2B CMO - 011 - Kyle Lacy
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Jon Miller: All right, well, hello and welcome [00:00:25] to today's episode of the B2B CMO Podcast. I'm Jon Miller and I'm [00:00:30] joined by my co-host Sydney Sloan. Our guest today is one of the [00:00:35] few marketing leaders I've met that's willing to say that all this AI efficiency [00:00:40] gospel, uh, might actually be quietly killing marketing.
Jon Miller: So Kyle [00:00:45] Lacy has spent two decades billing and scaling high growth software companies, [00:00:50] including leading global content marketing at Exact target. And helping to [00:00:55] build Lessonly from the early days to a $300 million acquisition by Seismic. [00:01:00] He went on to serve as the CMO of Jellyfish, and today he's the Chief Marketing Officer at [00:01:05] Docebo, an AI first learning platform built for enterprise learning skills. [00:01:10] I've known Kyle for a long time and what I really appreciate about him is that he's an operator who [00:01:15] leads with a point of view.
Jon Miller: Uh, so Kyle, welcome to the [00:01:20] podcast.
Kyle Lacy: Thank you for having me. It's much appreciated. This is a pleasure.
Jon Miller: we, [00:01:25] uh, we know that you're no stranger to podcasts. Um, you've been a lot, but we're gonna make [00:01:30] today's a little special and a little bit different.
Kyle Lacy: Let's do it. I'm ready.
Jon Miller: let's start by just [00:01:35] getting to know you a little bit. Um, you know, every, every superhero has their [00:01:40] origin story, so can you tell us what is your CMO origin [00:01:45] story and what would be your CMO superpower?
Kyle Lacy: Ooh, A CMO [00:01:50] superpower. Oh crap. Uh, I'll have to think about that one. My origin story. [00:01:55] Um, I mean, outside of what you said in the, in the bio, which I very much appreciate you reading, John, [00:02:00] I, it reminds me that I need to rewrite it because it's, every time I hear it, I [00:02:05] kind of cringe 'cause I'm like, man, I really need to think about how I tell that story a little bit [00:02:10] differently.
Kyle Lacy: But,
Sydney Sloan: how would you, that's
Sydney Sloan: like,
Sydney Sloan: That's a good que. I mean, maybe,
Kyle Lacy: maybe
Kyle Lacy: that's where we [00:02:15] start. Um, I don't know. I think that, I think that you, it's been the same. I think what [00:02:20] bothers me the most is that it's prob pretty much been the same for the past [00:02:25] four or five years. So I probably need to switch it up a little bit, but I, I, if we can maybe, [00:02:30] maybe I'll draft off of this origin story and edit it for the future.
Kyle Lacy: So maybe this is [00:02:35] what we'll use it for. Um, I, I think it, I think honestly it started [00:02:40] when my father, uh, my junior year of high school, he drug me [00:02:45] to two events. One was a disc personality profile [00:02:50] event in Chicago, where it was me, my father, and [00:02:55] a bunch of people that were talking about HR and talent, and I had no idea what they [00:03:00] were talking about.
Kyle Lacy: That was the first one. It then proceeded into him making sure that all [00:03:05] my girlfriends took the disc personality profile and he would give [00:03:10] me those documents so I could read them to better understand who they are. [00:03:15] Um, and then the second event was he drug me to a networking event in Indianapolis where [00:03:20] I was a junior in high school and I had a name tag, and I went and met a bunch of insurance [00:03:25] agents and real estate agents and bankers.
Kyle Lacy: All, all the people that you could [00:03:30] think would show up at one of these, and that kind of set the stage for me to [00:03:35] care deeply about how people function, how you communicate with people [00:03:40] appropriately, and basically eq. And I think that any, any marketer with a [00:03:45] low EQ is not a great marketer and will never be.
Kyle Lacy: And [00:03:50] that my origin started there and through that led through. [00:03:55] Uh, but also from my father led through, uh, learning music, the music business [00:04:00] world. It's what I would've went into outta college, um, if the music [00:04:05] industry wasn't collapsing when I graduated college. And so you have a combination of [00:04:10] learning what it means to understand how people function and what [00:04:15] drives, drives them to the creativity and taste that you have to have in order to fully [00:04:20] understand what type of music would resonate with an audience.
Kyle Lacy: And so that [00:04:25] led to marketing and then business and owning an agency, and then joining ExactTarget [00:04:30] and writing and all that stuff leading up to where we are today. So I might take that transcript and [00:04:35] tell Claude to rewrite my bio.
Sydney Sloan: Yeah.
Sydney Sloan: it fits with how I would describe you too. So [00:04:40] that's always good that your, your brand, you know,
Sydney Sloan: perception. 'cause I, I think of you as [00:04:45] one of the most creative CMOs that I know like you have
Sydney Sloan: done,
Sydney Sloan: just out of the box, things that [00:04:50] stand out that have never been done before. So,
Sydney Sloan: I appreciate that. Thank you, Sydney.
Sydney Sloan: fits.
Jon Miller: I'm [00:04:55] actually just super curious. Do you remember what your disc profile is?
Kyle Lacy: Oh yeah, it's been the same. I have [00:05:00] taken it, I have taken it 12 times since I was a junior in high school. It's the [00:05:05] same. It's di and I have zero S and C. Actually, I'm, I'm pretty [00:05:10] much d all
Jon Miller: Okay, so I'm going to, you know, so I'm a, I'm a [00:05:15] high D and a moderate C. Um, so I'm just guessing we got a bunch of D's on this [00:05:20] podcast. Is that fair? Sydney?
Kyle Lacy: Sydney, I would
Sydney Sloan: a DI was a d actually, Kyle Porter. And I had the [00:05:25] exact same dot when, when I worked at SalesLoft. That was funny and explained a lot of our [00:05:30] dynamic.
Sydney Sloan: Um, and, but I moved to an id, so I was
Sydney Sloan: like 11 [00:05:35] o'clock, 1130, and now I'm like 1202. Like I, ID, yeah.
Kyle Lacy: Oh, [00:05:40] interesting. Yeah, I'm, I'm d little, I, I've al I've been that since I was in high school. It's very weird, [00:05:45] but
Jon Miller: Yeah. All right. So we got all D's and, and, and now we know, we know everything we need to know about me [00:05:50] versus Sydney. 'cause I'm a C and she's an I. So there we go.
Kyle Lacy: John, I will say [00:05:55] it's kind of rare, the DC you're, you're in a, it's a, it's a rare group of people, [00:06:00] so congratulations. That's great.
Jon Miller: Uh, thank you very much. I appreciate [00:06:05] that.
Kyle Lacy: That's this. This podcast is sponsored by [00:06:10] Disc Personality Profile. I'm kidding.
Jon Miller: Anything else about your, uh, how you got into [00:06:15] marketing or sharing?
Kyle Lacy: Yeah, I mean like outside of what I said [00:06:20] before, it was because I absolutely loved the way that record [00:06:25] labels marketed artists. And then that led to more of the nonprofit world where I [00:06:30] think the most creative ad campaigns actually are produced from like large [00:06:35] nonprofits. And then that led into my love of social and the internet [00:06:40] and uh, design, product design, web design, and it all kind of accumulated [00:06:45] into, into the world of marketing.
Kyle Lacy: And ExactTarget was an interesting. Place for [00:06:50] me because they initially hired me to just speak at conferences because I wrote a book on Twitter. [00:06:55] They needed to sell Twitter 'cause they had just bought, um, co, co twee, [00:07:00] I think. Because I almost had it, they had just bought Code Suite and I was on the [00:07:05] road and, and as I was speaking and talking, content marketing started, you know, Joe Puli [00:07:10] and the, the content marketing world started becoming interesting and Hanley [00:07:15] and that's when we started a content marketing team.
Kyle Lacy: And it kind of, it, it ballooned [00:07:20] from there. I always knew that I wanted. To be a marketing leader and eventually a [00:07:25] CMO. So after we, you know, after ExactTarget was acquired by [00:07:30] Salesforce, um, I had the opportunity to work at a venture capital firm, and that kind of led to me [00:07:35] then joining, um, Lessonly as a VP of marketing and then A [00:07:40] CMO as I am today.
Jon Miller: Yep. Well, content marketing in is marketing in many cases. You [00:07:45] know, it just kind of blurs together.
Kyle Lacy: Yep.
Sydney Sloan: So how does, how do you in your five [00:07:50] to nine fuel your creativity or gives what gives you [00:07:55] energy outside of work other than
Kyle Lacy: Oh, I, yeah, I know [00:08:00] this, this my, our, our CEO Alessio has a great question at, at [00:08:05] dinners where he asks if you, if money didn't matter, what would you be doing? And I feel like it has a [00:08:10] good overlap, but I, I have a hard time with this question because [00:08:15] I, I love what I do. And I, and for [00:08:20] me, it's my family. And, uh, we [00:08:25] have our neighborhood, we're, we're pretty ingrained in our neighborhood and our friends and going to [00:08:30] the, the pool, the community pool that's here.
Kyle Lacy: So I'd say that what fuels me [00:08:35] is friends, my family, um. And then I [00:08:40] love a good book history book. I mean, I'm pretty much the [00:08:45] quintessential, what suburban 42-year-old father who's like, we [00:08:50] should read about World War II and the Civil War, and let me tell you about Rome and all that [00:08:55] stuff. But I do love a good, a good book that ha I don't usually read [00:09:00] business books.
Kyle Lacy: Um, I, I get enough of it from. Six to [00:09:05] seven or however long we work as individuals. But yeah, I mean for me it's friends and [00:09:10] family for sure.
Jon Miller: And you're crushing it at Orange Theory,
Kyle Lacy: And Orange Theory. And Orange Theory, yes. I love Orange [00:09:15] Theory for sure.
Jon Miller: Mind, body
Kyle Lacy: So exercise. Exercise, [00:09:20] definitely. It's a, I highly recommend it.
Jon Miller: Yeah, mind, mind, body and soul. We need [00:09:25] all of them to uh, to be really successful. Kind of getting [00:09:30] into maybe the more meat of the discussion. You know, a key goal of the B2B [00:09:35] CMO project is we are trying to help CMOs really become [00:09:40] strategic members of the C-Suite. Um, I've heard you talk before, uh, [00:09:45] and where you're, you're supportive of marketer becoming the CRO, [00:09:50] but that you're pretty anti-marketing getting absorbed into the.
Jon Miller: [00:09:55] Revenue organization. Uh, can you just talk a little bit about why you [00:10:00] think that? What do you think the role of marketing and strategic marketing is, [00:10:05] cetera?
Kyle Lacy: Yeah, I, I can, can I amend statements that I've said in the past? [00:10:10] Is that a fair, is that a fair thing to do on this podcast? I
Kyle Lacy: think we're always learning.
Sydney Sloan: [00:10:15] set the record straight. Yeah.
Kyle Lacy: Always be learning. I, I would say I [00:10:20] still, it's easy for me to say as a marketer that that sales should report into [00:10:25] it, of course.
Kyle Lacy: But, I just think I, I'm coming to the point now where I believe [00:10:30] that the two should be separate anyway. But the reason why I don't think marketing [00:10:35] should report into sales is because you lose I, I believe, unless it's [00:10:40] a, unless it's a great CRO, I believe you lose a lot of the creative and [00:10:45] brand elements that are super important today, even more important today than [00:10:50] they were two years ago.
Kyle Lacy: Because sales is mostly [00:10:55] science for the most part, and great marketing [00:11:00] has taste and creativity that. I don't think you get through [00:11:05] building a sales team, honestly. Now can a marketer run a sales team? I don't know. I, I ran [00:11:10] a BDR team back at Lessonly and so that gave, you know, my ego and then I was like, [00:11:15] well, marketers can run sales.
Kyle Lacy: And now, you know, I'm not even sure if I would want to do that. Right. But you [00:11:20] also have CROs, like I work with Mark Sallow, who is from Outreach. He came over to Docebo. [00:11:25] That guy could run marketing a hundred percent. So I think it's dependent [00:11:30] on the persons, depending on, on, um, how focused they are on that [00:11:35] storytelling and creativity.
Kyle Lacy: Because most of the time when marketing rolls into either product or [00:11:40] sales, you lose that completely and then you're just like everybody else. And that's boring as hell.
Jon Miller: [00:11:45] Yeah, you don't, you don't want, I mean, too often when it's reporting up to sales, marketing just becomes the demand [00:11:50] function, right. It, it loses, you know, all the other kind of key pieces that [00:11:55] you're talking about. If, if, you know, if you were a CMO [00:12:00] that, you know, was getting pressured or pushed to move under [00:12:05] revenue, kind of what, how, how would you, you know, argue against that?
Jon Miller: What kind of case would you [00:12:10] make?
Kyle Lacy: Other than I, uh, putting in my [00:12:15] resignation.
Sydney Sloan: what I
Sydney Sloan: would say. I was like, can I say how I would like, I quit.
Jon Miller: [00:12:20] Total option. Um, life's too
Kyle Lacy: okay. No, that, that's, yeah, I, I [00:12:25] really think a lot of times when, when it really depends on why somebody's trying to do [00:12:30] that. Like a lot of times they're moved under sales for efficiency reasons. [00:12:35] When No, nobody really understands what [00:12:40] actually they're trying to measure. Is it customer acquisition costs? Is it like sales and marketing is [00:12:45] one line item to the CFO.
Kyle Lacy: So if the CFO is a type [00:12:50] A and owns a lot of the board and the executive team discussion, I can fully understand why you would [00:12:55] put marketing under sales because it's one line item. It's, you know, you're spending money. It doesn't [00:13:00] matter if you hire an AE or you, or you buy a billboard in, in New York on the New York [00:13:05] in, in the in Times Square, right?
Kyle Lacy: Um, but I think that. [00:13:10] For me, it's just try trying as much as possible to, [00:13:15] to surface examples where you surprised and delighted [00:13:20] people because it's just so hard to measure those things. It's like you have [00:13:25] an event, let's just give an example. You have an event where, [00:13:30] um. You have a pipeline number, you have an influence pipeline number for people in the room.
Kyle Lacy: You've [00:13:35] got a customer account number that you want. You've got like a targeted account list number that you want you, you know, you want [00:13:40] 10% of the people there, whatever. However the hell you're measuring it from a sales perspective. And you could [00:13:45] hit all those. But if you don't have a marketer, thinking about the little things [00:13:50] like when they walk into the room, how do they feel?
Kyle Lacy: What does it look like? What are you giving them as [00:13:55] a, as a parting gift? How are you doing the follow up as a direct mail [00:14:00] that is not just a damn t-shirt or some Yeti mug that I'm gonna send to Goodwill? Right. [00:14:05] That type of stuff. And then if you do that appropriately, you [00:14:10] get people on LinkedIn posting about it, or the CEO randomly hears about it from an [00:14:15] investor, the CEO randomly hearing about an, an event you had from an investor [00:14:20] is pays back from a measurement perspective more than we can attribute anything [00:14:25] to the pipeline in the room.
Kyle Lacy: The problem is you can't measure all that. So
Kyle Lacy: it's like [00:14:30] giving examples is the best way that I, I know how to do it. [00:14:35] And, and trying to fit within that budget number as much as you possibly can.
Jon Miller: [00:14:40] Yeah. I mean, what you don't wanna count on is luck, right? That like, it just so happens that they happen to [00:14:45] talk to somebody. But I think, man, you know, the best people manufacture their own luck [00:14:50] by, you know, as you said, create those stories, you know, and those Yeah. and
Kyle Lacy: But I don't, [00:14:55] it's so hard though. I mean, you, the three of us know this. It is super [00:15:00] hard to walk into a room and try to justify a Lego [00:15:05] series direct mail that I wanted to do. It's very hard to justify it [00:15:10] if you're going the traditional route of measurement and, but [00:15:15] do I have hundreds of examples where people have been over [00:15:20] the moon on a margarita kit?
Kyle Lacy: We sent them during COVID. I. [00:15:25] Like just, I just, there's just tons of different examples of that. Um, [00:15:30] it's just really, for me, it depends on who you're talking to. If you're asked to go under mar, if [00:15:35] you're asked to go under a CRO, if it's the CFO, it's different than the CEO. Then the [00:15:40] board, it's use case specific, which is kind of a non-answer.
Kyle Lacy: So, I'm sorry.
Sydney Sloan: [00:15:45] It. I, I think it's one thing though that we have to figure out how to do market
Sydney Sloan: [00:15:50] marketing or justify our role. I mean, this is one of the reasons we're doing the B2B CMO project, [00:15:55] and I've always anchored on like the market, like [00:16:00] we, we have to be the ones in the market talking about [00:16:05] what we do, the big vision, where things are going, setting, setting the vision [00:16:10] with the analysts, influencing them. And I don't see how you can do that role if you're. [00:16:15] Just. You know,
Sydney Sloan: focused on pipeline, which is what happens when you get put under. So I think like, [00:16:20] holding onto the market part of it, like we own market, I sometimes alliances [00:16:25] and how can we craft the story there. And, and if you can partner with [00:16:30] the CEO, it's harder when they don't get marketing or if they're an introverted engineer, you [00:16:35] know, where they, they're not as comfortable out there, but if it, if like you can work with them to like, here's the [00:16:40] story we need to tell and I'm gonna help you tell it. Like, fingers crossed. Otherwise [00:16:45] you're just in service to pipe. Blind. Um, and
Sydney Sloan: it just makes it harder. Um,
Kyle Lacy: True, [00:16:50] but it's also, I think that kind of fits the example of you, you, it kind of [00:16:55] fits what I was talking about previously, which is you have to have examples of the things like you can talk all [00:17:00] along about telling the best story in the market and all that, or [00:17:05] getting your CEO on podcasts and thought leadership and analyst relations.
Kyle Lacy: But if, if there's [00:17:10] no, uh, I guess evidence maybe, maybe evidence is the best word. You have to [00:17:15] have evidence outside of your revenue numbers. And if you can't figure that [00:17:20] out, and I've got tons of examples of how I do that, but if you can't figure that out, you're always gonna be [00:17:25] lumped into the pipeline, which I have been talking about for a decade, because it [00:17:30] gives you a seat at the table as a CMO.
Kyle Lacy: But nowadays you need to, [00:17:35] you need to have more Can you give us one
Sydney Sloan: of those examples, like
Sydney Sloan: a colorful story?
Kyle Lacy: Yeah. Yeah. [00:17:40] So I, so, uh, one thing that we do at Docebo is that we have, we created [00:17:45] what we call a brand score. Which is a, which is a, is a weighted [00:17:50] score that takes in all the different things we think are interesting to the brand in the market.
Kyle Lacy: [00:17:55] That includes a EO LLM data that we're pulling. It [00:18:00] includes, um, brand branded traffic. It includes social [00:18:05] data, social stats. It includes how many people we're interacting with from an influencer [00:18:10] perspective and what they're doing. Um. It also includes [00:18:15] competitive share of voice. That's from our PR firm.
Kyle Lacy: And, [00:18:20] NPS employee, NPS and customer NPS. [00:18:25] Um, and we, we've tracked that for six months now, [00:18:30] just to get some benchmark, but it kind of helps us give more [00:18:35] visibility into what all of these things will do. And, and there's crossover, right? Like the more [00:18:40] PR we can do, the better the LLM, you know, the better the pickup with a EO or whatever.[00:18:45]
Kyle Lacy: Damn acronym you want to use, which I get confused on. Yeah, yeah. [00:18:50] Uh, so brand score is a good example. I always try, I have the 80 20 [00:18:55] rule in budgeting that I always do, which is 80% of what we do should go to drive a metric [00:19:00] that affects the business, which is pipeline and revenue upsell, cross sell, however you wanna [00:19:05] define that.
Kyle Lacy: And then the other 20% can be used for cool brand stuff. [00:19:10] That isn't working. You know, that that has worked for me for a while, and [00:19:15] as, as these things get more intertwined, it's harder to do that. But I still use that [00:19:20] as a parameter to, to kind of set the stage for any type of budgeting [00:19:25] conversation. But you gotta have evidence, I guess.
Jon Miller: I'm curious about this brand score. [00:19:30] Um, you know, 'cause you kind of made up the number a little bit. You know, how, how did you get [00:19:35] Mark, you know, your CRO or, or your CFO or, you know, lessio, your CEO [00:19:40] to sort of know, care about this like number, uh, [00:19:45] understand that what this number
Jon Miller: does.
Kyle Lacy: still, we're still working on that, John. [00:19:50] Like, I, I don't, they, they don't. Look I am, I am super [00:19:55] lucky that I have a boss and a partner and, and a appear in [00:20:00] Mark that deeply understand marketing. They [00:20:05] understand. They understand why, why influencer relationship development are important. They [00:20:10] understand why social is important.
Kyle Lacy: They understand why dis ai discovery traffic is [00:20:15] important. So it's not as much about convincing them that it's important. [00:20:20] It's, it's, uh, making sure that what we're doing is [00:20:25] visible and how does that affect the competitive landscape that we're in right now. [00:20:30] And so if you're, if you have a brand, let's let, okay, so let's flip it.
Kyle Lacy: I have a brand score [00:20:35] mark's like, this is bullshit. What are you even doing? I don't wanna listen to any of this. [00:20:40] Um, I would connect discovery, traffic, anything that you can do out [00:20:45] of that brand score, connect it to what he would care about, which is what? [00:20:50] Pipeline coverage for his account executives. Right.
Kyle Lacy: If you can [00:20:55] connect it to that, the rest of the stuff doesn't matter. Social engagement, hosted [00:21:00] events, branded web traffic, all the stuff that I put in there that my team [00:21:05] measures and we care about, they're not gonna care about the rest of it because you, [00:21:10] you are showing them that there are things that we're doing that you might not completely understand as a [00:21:15] sales leader, which is fine.
Kyle Lacy: That are hitting your coverage model so that you're not [00:21:20] coming to me saying, I don't have enough pipeline, even though I, I don't know if I've ever been in a situation where [00:21:25] we've had an ungodly amount of pipeline, but Yeah. you know.
Jon Miller: Yeah. I mean, tying those, tying those [00:21:30] dots is I think the magic, you know, when you can make it happen. I mean that, that, that's when it [00:21:35] works. But I think as you said, it's a journey to make that happen.
Kyle Lacy: Yep, for
Jon Miller: One more. I wanna ask one more [00:21:40] question about brand. Um, and, and what I wanna get to here is, is personal brand [00:21:45] because, you know, you've invested, I think, a lot as a CMO in [00:21:50] building a brand of your own, uh, and having a point of view.
Jon Miller: [00:21:55] Uh, is that, is that important for the modern strategic CMO? Have you done [00:22:00] it?
Kyle Lacy: Well, I think all three of us have invested quite a bit of time and energy in [00:22:05] our, in our personal, I don't. Is it important? [00:22:10] Yes. I, I have, I have always felt, I mean, I talked about my father dragging [00:22:15] me to networking events that started my brand journey, my personal brand journey, [00:22:20] and then it led to me writing a book about it very early on in my career, and I still talk about it.
Kyle Lacy: [00:22:25] I mean, when, when people joined Docebo, my first comment to them is like, [00:22:30] my whole goal is to help you not ever have to use your resume to get a job ever again. [00:22:35] Because I help, we, we do great work and it shows [00:22:40] and we market that great work appropriately. Um, I think in [00:22:45] today's age, in tech especially, you don't have an option not to do it.[00:22:50]
Kyle Lacy: Our, we, you know, I'm not, I'm not sitting at a company for 30 years. I'm just [00:22:55] not. We all know that. Right? And so for me it's about the only thing that makes [00:23:00] you different from anyone else is your unique story that you can tell. [00:23:05] And you're the only one that can tell it. Right. I'm the only one that can talk about the spray [00:23:10] painting, 3000 golden miniature llamas to send to people when I was a Lessonly.[00:23:15]
Kyle Lacy: That is, that, that's the. That's my story, right? I'm the only one that can talk about the different [00:23:20] experiences I had, you know, marketing and selling to engineers at jellyfish. So [00:23:25] I, it's like any story that you're trying to tell, it's a differentiator in the [00:23:30] market and it's really the only thing people remember.
Kyle Lacy: I can talk about pipeline [00:23:35] all day long. I can talk about, uh, 130% of pipeline [00:23:40] attainment when I was at jellyfish. Like I, where I'm not making forward looking statements as, as, as the [00:23:45] CMO Docebo, of course, but I can think about, nobody's ever gonna remember that. All that they're gonna [00:23:50] remember is the, for those of you listening, I'm pointing at the back of my swag, [00:23:55] whatever I have back here, but they're only gonna remember the cool shit that you do.[00:24:00]
Kyle Lacy: The golden llamas or the event that had a speaker that they'd never seen. And so I think [00:24:05] that that's why the personal brand's so important because it's unique to you, and that's no [00:24:10] different than trying to market a piece of software.
Sydney Sloan: Yeah, I mean, a great brand as we know, [00:24:15] puts you on the short list. And
Sydney Sloan: so if you're out there, people are like, I wanna hire Kyle Lacy, or [00:24:20] I wanna go buy Cebo because we built the brand. Those two
Sydney Sloan: things are, you know, synonymous. And if [00:24:25] you can prove that you can do it for your yourself, why wouldn't you then be able to do it for your company? So I [00:24:30] do, I am curious when you're going down, like the pull thread on storytelling for Doce Bo, [00:24:35] um, did I get it right?
Kyle Lacy: You sounded much better than I did.
Sydney Sloan: Okay. how do you evaluate [00:24:40] the story when you come into a new company? Like what was Doche Bo's story and, [00:24:45] and were they telling the right story? Or what signals do you look for to [00:24:50] be able to, okay, here's what our story needs to be moving forward.
Sydney Sloan: How did you, [00:24:55] how did you address that when you got there?
Kyle Lacy: Well, I, it wasn't as much, [00:25:00] well, I can, I can speak to how we address it today, but the, when I joined, [00:25:05] what the story was, was actually decent. Like we were, we [00:25:10] were telling Alessio had been the CEO for. [00:25:15] Five or six months. So he had kind of already started telling that story. [00:25:20] And when you have earnings calls, kind of helps when it comes to the evolution of your [00:25:25] messaging anyway, right?
Kyle Lacy: 'cause you have touchpoints every quarter. Um, [00:25:30] it was more that the identity of docebo. The, the how, the, [00:25:35] the internal brand, the external, how we showed up at events. [00:25:40] What the website it looked like I walked into, I'll never forget this. My first [00:25:45] trade show, I was at a Learning Technologies uk and I walked in and [00:25:50] our.
Kyle Lacy: I could not tell the difference between our booth and like three other [00:25:55] people. It was white and blue and you couldn't tell the difference between [00:26:00] Dayforce and Docebo as an example. And that was the first for me, [00:26:05] it was like, well, if, if my goal if to, I mean, this is my team's [00:26:10] goal. Make Docebo impossible to ignore.
Kyle Lacy: That's like our, that's our mission statement. [00:26:15] As a marketing team, if I want to make us impossible to ignore, we have to stand out differently. [00:26:20] Aesthetically, you have to. And so that was the first step [00:26:25] for me. And then, and then the story evolved as we, [00:26:30] we repositioned the product and brought on more, uh, brought on new [00:26:35] execs and tried to figure out the direction for the company as a whole, which was already going.
Kyle Lacy: But [00:26:40] for me, it was more visual than it was the messaging part. [00:26:45] So I'll pause there. But I, I think the way that I manage that now is, is there [00:26:50] are market inputs that we take in regularly. Like what are people saying in the market? What [00:26:55] are our peers saying? What are our competitors saying? But also, what are other tech [00:27:00] companies saying, like, um, Eric, the CEO at Ramp, they just raised.[00:27:05]
Kyle Lacy: An ungodly amount of money. I had a God. Yeah. No, like, like 7, [00:27:10] 7, 750, 700 million at a $43 billion valuation. Something crazy like [00:27:15] they're brilliant. He had a simple Google doc that he sent out with the [00:27:20] announcement that was messaging around the raise and why it's important. Uh, we, I'm taking [00:27:25] that and I'm taking that in and reading it and trying to figure out, 'cause I love how they position themselves in general.
Kyle Lacy: [00:27:30] And then we have a product internally called our Audience Insights dashboard. That's all that we built [00:27:35] through, um, AI of course, where we're pulling data from every [00:27:40] gong call that we have with a prospect and customer and it flags trending. Um. [00:27:45] Messaging. Uh, on a pretty much [00:27:50] regularly all the time. If, if it's mentioned multiple times so that we can start.[00:27:55]
Kyle Lacy: I don't want to go back to like the bubble, what was the bub word? Bubble? Was that what it's called? Word Cloud The
Kyle Lacy: [00:28:00] word cloud. Thank you.
Kyle Lacy: Word cloud. Like a word Cloud of, of trending messaging. [00:28:05] And so we take that into account as well. And it's pretty much how do we, how do we keep [00:28:10] redefining what it means to be a learning management system or, or an AI [00:28:15] first learning management system.
Kyle Lacy: And how do you make sure you pull. Bolt on the different things like knowledge [00:28:20] and skills and learning and all the things that are part of our feature set. So [00:28:25] has to do with product, has to do with the audience, has to do with the market. Um, and then [00:28:30] we evolve that based off of how we want the next six months to to [00:28:35] feel.
Kyle Lacy: But it's really three months just because the world's changing true dramatically right now.
Jon Miller: so one [00:28:40] more question on AI and, um, you know, 'cause, 'cause as I said, the intro, you, you've [00:28:45] actually worry spoken about the fact that you worry that ai, [00:28:50] uh, efficiency is going to kill marketing. Um, how are [00:28:55] you protecting, you know, your differentiation and story, you [00:29:00] know, at Docebo while still using ai?
Kyle Lacy: I, I think that the, I want to, [00:29:05] I want to revise that statement on, I don't think I've ever [00:29:10] seen, said AI efficiency. I think that the, I think the, um. [00:29:15] The dream of this weird, [00:29:20] I, I don't know. I can understand where it came from, but this idea that you fire an entire marketing [00:29:25] team and it's a bunch of agents is crazy.
Kyle Lacy: And I hope to God I'm long in my grave if that [00:29:30] ever happens, like, or I'm just retired and I don't care anymore. But I just [00:29:35] think that I am, I'm a huge proponent of efficiency with [00:29:40] tools. I will never, I will never [00:29:45] believe that these tools that we're building can replace [00:29:50] the creativity and taste of a human being. True creativity and [00:29:55] taste of a human being. And that's very subjective, right? Like you either have good taste or [00:30:00] you don't, and everybody thinks they have good taste, blah, blah, blah, blah. For me, I think that [00:30:05] it will allow marketing to, to lean in even [00:30:10] heavier into creativity and taste because a lot of these [00:30:15] workflows that we've had to do manually are now automated.
Kyle Lacy: And are getting [00:30:20] smarter as they automate themselves. Right. And I just. [00:30:25] I hope, like I said before, I just hope I'm out of the game if we're using [00:30:30] AI to come up with creative things that like get people like surprise and [00:30:35] delight human beings. Um, so the efficiency thing, I think it is driving [00:30:40] efficiency.
Kyle Lacy: It's driving a ton of efficiency and productivity, which is great, but I just don't [00:30:45] want it to, to rip out the creative a like designers is a great [00:30:50] example. You're probably gonna automate a lot of design, but I will never [00:30:55] believe that a robot could come up with a cool creative that a [00:31:00] human being could if they spend a little bit of time.
Kyle Lacy: Can we do it faster? Yes, we can. And that's [00:31:05] what's brilliant about it. But I just, I, I caution anyone who's trying to do that. 'cause I [00:31:10] just think you're gonna sound like when everybody has the same tools, your only competitive advantage is you're [00:31:15] human.
Sydney Sloan: And maybe that's where. You know, I think we, [00:31:20] John, actually it's John, it's your fault. Uh, you know, built these marketing automation [00:31:25] systems
Sydney Sloan: that, you know, were able to, uh, you need to invent something else, John,
Sydney Sloan: [00:31:30] uh, that,
Jon Miller: it.
Sydney Sloan: that were able to like, automate a [00:31:35] process, right? And, and that was great because then we could set up nurtures and people could get automated [00:31:40] emails.
Sydney Sloan: And I think we've, we've run that course and AI can now [00:31:45] do the signal. You know, identification of the signal, the [00:31:50] context layer, which is super important. So you get account level, context and context [00:31:55] level, context text. So you can craft a personalized message or you [00:32:00] can have something for the rep or the SDR to actually relate to.
Sydney Sloan: So they're not giving the same [00:32:05] vanilla. Response every time. So I'm curious if you, where are [00:32:10] you in the adoption of AI in your systematic processes? [00:32:15] Um, are you throwing out your old marketing automation system and designing from scratch? Like, where's your, where's your brain?
Kyle Lacy: [00:32:20] I, uh, I'm waiting for John to actually get his thing out into the market. [00:32:25] Well, I'm kind, that's actually not, that's not completely a lie. Uh, we're, we [00:32:30] are waiting for John to come out with his thing. But, um, I did not know that. So
Sydney Sloan: that's, I did not, I [00:32:35] promise I didn't tee up that question.
Kyle Lacy: I promise that. Yeah. It was not in the notes I [00:32:40] got for those listening. Um, I, so for us, [00:32:45] it, where, where we are spent, we're very lucky that we have a CI [00:32:50] CIO that has invested heavily into ai, uh, [00:32:55] where we have AI engineers on the IT team. We've got a stack, a [00:33:00] tech stack with. A ton of technology to help the entire company [00:33:05] try to figure out how to do this stuff.
Kyle Lacy: I think that what I have found [00:33:10] is that it's not as much where we're at in our journey is that we're still trying to [00:33:15] figure out what needs to be automated and what shouldn't be automated. [00:33:20] And, you know, workflows around lead, lead routing. Yes. [00:33:25] Automating it. Right. Um, anything that, that a marketing ops person, [00:33:30] rev ops person touches is fair game to talk about automation and how we [00:33:35] do that.
Kyle Lacy: I want to be very clear. That does not mean that it's replacing rev ops. Okay. [00:33:40] But it does mean that there's some workflows that they have been doing that are easier done [00:33:45] through ai. Um, content production a hundred percent. You know, [00:33:50] we have the, the amount of content and context we can pump up from a [00:33:55] product marketing team is triple what we were doing 12 months [00:34:00] ago.
Kyle Lacy: And the fact that we can do all this stuff with a pretty flat, but like a flat [00:34:05] budget is pretty amazing as well. Right? So from a systems perspective. [00:34:10] I would say our tech stack doesn't look that much different than what it was previously, [00:34:15] other than, you know, you have these other AI elements in there. Um, [00:34:20] and I would, I think that, I was talking to somebody recently, I don't know if any of you went to, did you, if you went to Saar, [00:34:25] but I think Anthropics, somebody from Anthropic talked and their tech stack [00:34:30] looked very similar to what all of us are dealing with.
Kyle Lacy: And it's really just how do, [00:34:35] how do you, how do you automate the things that were manual? So do [00:34:40] I think that some legacy systems need completely replaced? Yes. And we [00:34:45] are doing that. There are legacy systems that we are rebuilding in house [00:34:50] that, um, and I'm not talking about our CRMs, I'm just talking about there's different [00:34:55] tools that we are using that we look at and we think, you know what? [00:35:00] Probably something we could, we could, we could build. And so that's why we have an ai, [00:35:05] um, operations developer role open now for the marketing team. And their whole [00:35:10] goal is to do what we're talking about.
Sydney Sloan: I saw the 30,
Sydney Sloan: 60, 90. Yeah.
Kyle Lacy: Yeah. And [00:35:15] kind of build out and, and, and I, I don't, it's changing [00:35:20] way too fast.
Kyle Lacy: Like that's why I was, I, I allocated budget to hire [00:35:25] this person. 'cause that we can't rely, I don't want, uh, I don't wanna rely [00:35:30] 100% on the central services team at Docebo. That's AI engineers. They're doing great [00:35:35] work. But I want somebody focused primarily on the efficiency on the marketing side. [00:35:40] So. Has our tech stack changed?
Kyle Lacy: Kind of, but not, not greatly. [00:35:45] It's more just how are we automating the workflows and lead Routing's a [00:35:50] great example, but the audience insights tool, we've got tons of different dashboards [00:35:55] and how we surface pipeline metrics and all that stuff. It's all [00:36:00] kinda, it's just the automation of things that just took too long, took too many human beings to do [00:36:05] a lot of reporting too.
Jon Miller: Got it. Well, this, this has been a [00:36:10] absolutely fabulous discussion and your approach to kind of [00:36:15] creativity and, you know, thinking about personal brand and company brand [00:36:20] is, I just, you know, I think a lot, a lot of, uh, CMOs can learn from kind of what you're doing. [00:36:25] We, we like to end every podcast with, um, [00:36:30] gratitude and, you know, none of us got to where we are, you know, [00:36:35] without, you know, the support of.
Jon Miller: Mentors and many other people. [00:36:40] So who do you wanna give a shout out to? And, and thank for helping you get to where you are.
Kyle Lacy: Ooh, [00:36:45] how many can I do? How many, what's the most? Somebody said three.
Sydney Sloan: two. Three [00:36:50] people have done three. Yeah.
Jon Miller: we did, we did not have an orchestra that will start playing though, so.
Kyle Lacy: [00:36:55] Okay. That's fair. That's fair. Um, alright. So. There, uh, [00:37:00] Jeff Roars was my boss at ExactTarget and he's pretty much the best storyteller on the [00:37:05] face of the planet, and I learned much of what I do today from him. Uh, [00:37:10] Joe Staples, who is the CMO at Interactive Intelligence and has since retired in his [00:37:15] teaching is the best example I have of somebody who [00:37:20] has lived his values, um, consistently his entire career and [00:37:25] life.
Kyle Lacy: And you can sh and you can tell it and you can see it. And I very much [00:37:30] appreciate how he approaches life. And then Ruth Zive, who's the [00:37:35] CMO of Voices and uh, she is pretty much [00:37:40] the most brilliant marketer I've met, but her, it's more than [00:37:45] just marketing. She. Deeply understands [00:37:50] and recognizes what it means to be human, and [00:37:55] talks very openly about her life and what she deals with, as well as how she [00:38:00] approaches building teams.
Kyle Lacy: And I, I learned so much from her on a, on a [00:38:05] daily basis. So those are, those are the three I would call it.
Sydney Sloan: That's awesome. Well, [00:38:10] Kyle, Lacy, it was educational as always inspirational and highly [00:38:15] creative like you are. Um, I did have the opportunity one time to be on Kyle's team [00:38:20] and remember that it was that stor a few years ago, and
Sydney Sloan: he whips out his iPad and he starts [00:38:25] drawing pictures and he creates a logo. I think it was a flying pig or
Kyle Lacy: Wait, we, like that.
Sydney Sloan: The, it was
Sydney Sloan: the,
Sydney Sloan: [00:38:30] flying pig piggies or something. I don't
Sydney Sloan: know. flying piggies or, It was not,
Sydney Sloan: and we won. So [00:38:35] thank
Sydney Sloan: you. Um, I,
Sydney Sloan: I left so I had nothing to do with it, but, um, it [00:38:40] was, it was great, uh, as always to be in your presence. Um, and [00:38:45] congratulations on being a top 100 B2B CMO. We do this because we [00:38:50] wanna learn from each other 'cause there is no playbook.
Sydney Sloan: For what we do, especially in, in
Sydney Sloan: this era. [00:38:55] And so if you're a listener and wanna learn more, we encourage you to go to the [00:39:00] B2B CMO project.com, where we have Kyle's podcast and many others as well as our [00:39:05] original research. If you are an at scale CMO, you can join our community. Um, [00:39:10] and we are very focused on education and research and just staying connected and learning [00:39:15] together.
Sydney Sloan: So I wanna thank everybody for listening to the podcast. Kyle, thank you so much for being our guest, [00:39:20] John, for being a awesome co-host. And we hope everybody has a great day. Thanks.
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