Renegade Marketers Unite

Great leadership leaves fingerprints. You can see them in how much stronger the people around that leader become.  High-performing teams need room to think out loud, enough trust to say the thing that might be wrong, and enough clarity to know where they stand. A lot rides on what leaders do in the small moments, from who gets heard to how feedback lands to whether autonomy comes with clear responsibility. And with AI changing more of what people do every day, those decidedly human moments are becoming harder to dismiss.  In this episode, Drew sits down with Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer at VaynerX and author of Be Yourself at Work, to look at what helps people grow, contribute, and show up more fully as themselves. They talk about why leaders who take up less oxygen can make the room smarter, what good feedback sounds like when growth is the goal, and how much trust depends on giving people clear ownership. Claude's version of people-first leadership comes with plenty of heart, but nobody gets a hall pass on candor, growth, or accountability.  Three Ways Leaders Get in Their Team's Way: Acting like the smartest person in the room Keeping the armor on and giving people nothing human to connect with Leading from "I" when the team needs "we"  What You'll Learn:  Why the smartest room usually has more than one voice in it How connection changes the way tough feedback lands Where "be yourself at work" ends and oversharing begins How autonomy and accountability can grow side by side Tune in for how leaders can make more room for people to think, grow, and take ownership, and why those human leadership skills matter even more as AI changes the work around them.  For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegademarketing.com/podcasts/ To learn more about CMO Huddles, visit https://cmohuddles.com/

When everybody has a favorite version of the company story, repositioning becomes an exercise in choosing what survives.  Sometimes the company has already changed before the story catches up. At Nutanix, the business was evolving beyond its on-prem roots, so the story had to keep pace without giving up the credibility the company had already earned. Sales, product, and leadership all had good reasons to care about different parts of the answer, so the new story had to do more than please the room. It had to be simple enough to remember, credible enough to hold up, and useful enough for the company to keep carrying forward.  In this episode, Mandy Dhaliwal gives Drew the inside story on how Nutanix turned a major business shift into a company-wide repositioning effort. Ellie Victor of Zoom Marketing brings the outside eye that helped test assumptions, challenge the favorites, and keep the work grounded in what customers were actually saying. They share how the research shaped the positioning, how the company brought that story to life across the business, and how "Run Anything Anywhere" gave that broader shift a simple expression.  What You'll Learn: Why repositioning has to become a company decision first How to align strong internal voices without watering down the answer Where customer research can challenge assumptions and break ties What makes a new position stick across the company and in the market  Tune in for how Nutanix and Zoom Marketing worked through a multi-year repositioning. You'll come away with a clearer way to align opinions, use customer research, and make the new story land. 

One interested buyer can get an enterprise deal moving. Then the buying committee shows up, each with a question, an objection, or a reason to hit the brakes.  That first bit of interest only carries the deal so far. Finance wants numbers, technical teams want proof, champions need help making the case, and priorities can take a hard left at the worst possible moment. So where should marketing stay involved, and how do you keep adding value without turning the whole process into one giant group project?  Joining Drew are Michael Callahan (Salt Security), Brooke Ames (Q2), and Guy Yalif (Webflow). In this episode, they follow a B2B deal past the hand raise and into the part where momentum gets fragile. They get into where buying groups get complicated, what happens when interest starts to cool, and how much coordination it takes on the seller side to keep things moving. In enterprise, there's a fine line between staying in step and stepping on each other.  In This Episode: Michael breaks down how to build depth of contact across a buying group and give each stakeholder the proof they need to keep moving Brooke walks through the operating model she built to turn strong starts into strong finishes, with five initiatives, clearer ownership, and scorecards tied to what teams can influence Guy digs into what enterprise buyers need to feel safe saying yes, plus how LLMs are reshaping shortlists, reputation, and the story buyers hear before sales gets in the room  Plus: How to map a buying group without creating a thousand threads Where marketing should stay involved after the handoff What keeps a stalled deal warm without another hard sell Why the reps and sales engineers closest to the deal often have the best insight  Long enterprise deals rarely stall all at once. Tune in to spot where momentum starts slipping and where marketing can step in to keep the deal moving.  For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegademarketing.com/podcasts/ To learn more about CMO Huddles, visit https://cmohuddles.com/

Search visibility has officially outgrown your website.  SEO still has a seat at the table, but now it has a lot more company. LLMs can build answers from sources scattered across the web, including places your buyers might never visit themselves. So where does authority live now? Which prompts are worth chasing? And how do you keep "everything everywhere all at once" from becoming your channel plan?  Ross Simmonds, founder of Distribution.ai, has spent years obsessing over what happens after you hit publish. In this episode, he and Drew start where the money is, tracing high-intent prompts back to the sources shaping AI answers and showing why off-site authority suddenly matters a whole lot more. From there, the focus widens to something marketers can't automate away. You still have to make something worth finding in the first place, then keep enough brand and humanity in the mix that people care when they find it.  AI may be changing where brands get found, but boring the humans was never much of a growth strategy.  Three AI Visibility Misunderstandings Marketers Have:  GEO is just SEO with a new name Ranking number one is still the finish line Your website is where AI visibility is won  What You'll Learn:  Why Reddit and YouTube are becoming major sources for AI discovery How to trace high-intent prompts back to the sources AI cites Which on-site SEO fundamentals still matter before you go broader Where human brand preference fits in an agent-driven buying journey  The internet got messier. Your channel strategy can still stay focused. Tune in for a smarter way to decide what to create, where to distribute it, and where the citation trail says to place your bets.  For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegademarketing.com/podcasts/ To learn more about CMO Huddles, visit https://cmohuddles.com/

You've got the experience. The interview is where you make it clear, memorable, and unmistakably yours.  Years of stories, wins, lessons, and opinions are great raw material. Then an interview asks you to pull the right one out, fast. That's where answers can sprawl, too much context can take over, and too much polish can make you sound less like yourself. So how do you stay specific, answer cleanly, and ask smart questions of your own? A little structure helps you do all three without sounding scripted.  Joining Drew for this episode is leadership interview coach Dalena Bradley, who has spent the last nine years focused entirely on leadership interview prep. They get into tightening the stories you want to tell, handling everything from "tell me about yourself" to why the last role ended, and asking what matters most in the job early enough to shape the rest of the interview.  Do that well, and the interview gives them a feel for how you think, how you listen, and how you'd actually show up as a leader.  Three Interview Mistakes Executives Make:  Staying too general instead of giving a specific example Rambling when nerves or context take over Sounding robotic from over-rehearsing or memorizing What You'll Learn: How to interview the company while they interview you Handling layoffs, short tenures, and awkward questions cleanly How midstream questions make interviews more conversational Why mindset, body language, and your setup can work for or against you   Tune in for CMO interview advice on telling tighter stories, handling tough questions, and showing up in a way that makes your leadership easy to see. For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegademarketing.com/podcasts/ To learn more about CMO Huddles, visit https://cmohuddles.com/