(upbeat music) - All right, welcome everybody to another episode of the sales pipeline radio. I'm your host Matt Hines, very excited to have you all here as we get close to the end of July, hit the dog days of summer. Hope y'all are enjoying a little bit of the season and wrapping up the month successfully as well. If you are watching us live today on LinkedIn, thank you so much for joining us on LinkedIn Live. You have a chance to be on the show, to be part of the show. If you give us a comment, we'll be able to see that, we can react to it, we can put it up on the screen. Love it when we get interaction with people that are able to watch live in the middle of their workday. So thank you so much for that. If you are watching listening on demand, thank you so much for downloading, for listening, for subscribing. Every episode of sales pipeline radio, past, present, future, always available at salespipelineradio.com. Today, very excited to have with us the Chief Marketing Officer of ABC Fitness, and we're gonna get to this also the head coach of the, I wanna get this right, Dallas United Crew, we're gonna get into that a little later, Christine Cow, Christine, thanks for joining us today. - Hey, hey man, how are you doing? - I am good, I am good. Well, I mean, there's so many things we could talk about in a lot of fronts and we'll get to a few of them, but the one thing I wanted to start with is just the role of the modern CMO in an organization and what I have to wear, and you shared with me something that you found, actually, I think your CEO forwarded to you recently around the eight roles the modern CMO has. So maybe just quick for people to don't know, you introduce yourself and then intro this concept of the eight jobs. - Yeah, well, thank you for having me, by the way, Matt. I've been a long time listener, so very excited to be participating live for the first time, so amazing to be here. Yes, first of all, I wanna give shout out to my CEO, Bill Davis of ABC Fitness Solutions. He was the one who forwarded me this article, written by Ravi Rupre, and it's a very much of a P back use letter, and I've been in the P world for the last three rounds now, so I thought this was something fun for us to talk about. The modern CMO needs to be eight things. Again, not three, not four, eight. Revenue accountable, a sales leader, a customer journey designer, a brand builder, pricing committee member, strategic growth driver, corporate development officer, as well as a financial steward, just a few things, right? - Couple, just a couple, yeah. - Just a couple. I'm sure other folks will have a few more. I personally have two more to add as well, but for a list of eight things to get started with. - Well, it's interesting, 'cause I think you can get, I mean, you can get tired just thinking about all those different things you have to do, but my reaction to that is like, okay, like some of these seem a little more tactical, but I like the idea that we wanna CMO to be a strategic growth driver, we want them to be a financial steward, a corporate development officer, like this is not something the arts and crafts person does in an organization, so as you expand those jobs and elevate the responsibility there, I think that's a good thing with the CMO role in general. What do you think? - Absolutely, and I would add that, 'cause this is not unique to a PE environment, this is very much applicable to any modern marketer that you have to be adaptive and agile to the various things that the business needs and you modulate between these eight roles. I suspect in the PE environment, revenue accountable will always probably be number one, how do you get to the rule of 40 versus maybe some of the more consumer brands or other brands are more about brand and storytelling, product marketing. And so, yeah, I really do think it's not, you have to do it all at the same time, but rather how do you prioritize accordingly to the business need? - You said you wanted to add two more things to the list, what were your additions? - Okay, so again, I'm a big believer more of a mission led type of company and so I'd be remiss not to add cultural champion as a CMO, as well as I'm a fan of also alliteration is a product pundit, you have to know, especially in the world of product like growth now, which is we're seeing more and more of, you have to really be obsessed with the customer and buyer journey. - Absolutely, it's honestly a buyer journey, it's a user journey, it's a brand Adam's and sometimes talks about it as a like, don't screw things up journey, right? Like as we go about our day, just try not to like disrupt things. It's a mindset, right? If you take that posture syndrome with the protecting the status quo, keeping those things come together, it's important to keep those in mind as well. We're talking today on sales pipeline radio with Christine Kal, she is the chief marketing officer of ABC Fitness. And you mentioned having done a few tours of duty in private equity land, which is unique, right? This is not startup land venture capital, private equity is somewhat of a different thing. But you cut your teeth in a lot of healthcare spaces, you've been over eight years at GE Healthcare, not a startup, right? - And that's terrible. - Talk a little bit about going from a global enterprise mega corporate GE and getting into private equity land, what were you able to bring from your experience that was of benefit and what were some of the new lessons at the learning skills to build, to be successful with an earlier stage company? - Oh, wow, man, that's a throwback. GE Healthcare for me was more than a decade ago. The one thing that I really appreciated about GE as a whole, at least in the late 90s, early 2000s with the obsession around six sigma and operational efficiency. This is where I really got a firsthand experience into operational design and using data and system and process to design whether that's change management to any discipline for that matter. And so I still find myself today applying a lot of that six sigma lean thinking into everything I do. And I think that has helped me in the PD environment where, you know, very technical, very process driven, right? Oftentimes you have to build things from the startup, right? So people process and technology is your three pillars always when you effectuate any change. And so I find myself applying a lot of that still in the world today. And again, being comfortable with data and processes has, I think, helped me a long way. - So you're kind of in a unique position to be able to speak from direct firsthand experience about six sigma, pragmatic marketing, agile, right? Are those overlapped or do they build on each other? Or how do you think about and how to use in your own will you operate combining elements of the three that work best for you? - You know, we're getting philosophical now, man. I love it. But that's the funny part, isn't it? That modern marketing now is not just your traditional marketing. In fact, in that newsletter that we were just talking about from Ravi, he opened up with, it's a shift from a role focused on building brand awareness and vanity metrics. Again, his words not mine to more of a revenue powerhouse responsible for direct revenue impact in the bottom line. And so when I think about all the things I've had exposure to, whether that's six sigma, to pragmatic, to agile, it all contributed to appreciation for a couple of things in my mind. One is this idea of being able to adapt to the mix of the business and the maturity of different things. Second, I would say I really got comfortable with iterative learning, right? You fail fast, learn fast and getting into more of a sprint cycle and be comfortable testing always for anything you do. And then I would say, the one thing that I took away from agile, especially I applied some of the agile design and team design, we now have squats in marketing. And in that concept of squat, you know, having always obviously a business partner to kind of help develop initiatives and programs, but bringing the best of different expertise within the team at a moment in time as a squat has helped us very much along the way of how we scale over time, as well as being efficient, because we're always strapped for resources, right? So with a few resources that we have, how do we bring a squat together to be very concentrated and very impactful a quarter at a time? So again, most of all, I think again, marketing is bringing view of technology and process, I think has been a great addition to the arsenal of fuel. Yeah, I agree with that. Especially if you've got eight to 10 jobs as a CMO. And if you have those jobs in your teams trying to execute on some of that strategy and vision as well, knowing what you need to get done, being disciplined enough to get that work done efficiently, but also be open to new ideas, right? And some of those ideas, some of those new things are pivots, right? You start to hear what they plan. Here's what we're going to go do. Some of it works, some of it doesn't. You can't just stick with the plan if it's suboptimal. So you make pivots, but then new ideas come in. You weren't so clairvoyant at the beginning of the year. You knew everything that was going to happen. So how do you lead and then manage and encourage a team when things are always kind of changing? And you kind of need to adapt to that over time. Yeah, we often joke that we all should have that friends shirt with the couch pivot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like at least in the PE world, and especially now in marketing, we all should be wearing that shirt on the daily. You know, I'm a big fan of long-range planning. And I'm sure a lot, all the companies do it. And the reason why I start with that is because you have to have a plan with the end in mind. And in my mind, the pivots and the priorities may change. The input of these things may change. For example, like what you did last month may not work again this month and happens a lot. And so how do you pivot from there? But directionally, you should never steer away from your North Star. And if you find yourself departing from that path, boy, that's an immediate conversation with your executive leadership team, your CEO and your board, to course correct, to validate. And that's where I think folks can maybe get stuck or get caught up in the pivot, meaning constantly changing what feels like direction. But when in reality is, in my mind, it's more about course correct to the same North Star that the rest of your team is also running towards. Yeah. And I think context on that is important, because if people don't understand the context of why you're making this pivot, they're like, this is a rudderless ship, right? Like we don't know where we're going and we're just making things up and trying to find a way of doing it. So I think sometimes over communicating, someone told me once, they said every one of your employees has an enormous bull, right? And your job is to fill that bold information in context. And if you don't provide that, if you don't over communicate, they're going to fill that bull on their own. That's right. And they're not like what they put in it and what they put in other people's balls as well. So sometimes the truth is not always like a fun story to tell, but if the truth is the truth, the people you want on the boat, in the boat with you, in the bus, whatever transportation analogy you want to use, like they're going to appreciate the openness. They're going to appreciate that, yeah, things do change. And let's just start rolling the same direction. Yeah. I know it's cheesy, but it's true, you know, people understand the why behind it. They will move along with you in the same direction, for sure. And I think you're trying to segue to my dragon boating experience. Do you think you're trying to like talk about rowing the boating on your action and going to talk about this? I'm looking at LinkedIn as LinkedIn, this long history of boat clubs. And I'm always impressed by like smart, successful people that also have an investment in significant things outside. And this is clearly a throughline for you. So can you talk a little bit about where you're passionate for? I don't want to call it boating because it's not fair because it's not yacht club, right? No, it's a boating club. You know that one is so important to you. You know, as we were just talking about the why, one of the things I've really enjoyed over the years was actually coaching people, helping them find their passion and achieve what was thought impossible. I have worked with breast cancer survivors. I've worked with teenagers. I've worked with senior adults as old as 80 who never thought they could compete in a team as an adult. And they did the best feeling in the world. Really, they look at you with that just a pure satisfaction of knowing that they've done something that they couldn't do a year ago or two years ago. It's pure joy for me. And so as an athlete also in transitioning to coach, that's something I've really enjoyed outside of work. And I tell you though, Matt, if you've never been on water in a kayak or a canoe or whatever, I encourage you to do so. There's something about the sea life. The salt, the water is pure, pure meditational for me. It's cleansing and it's calming. It's the best way to, honestly, to distress as well. I've done that, but only recreationally, right? Not when I'm trying to get somewhere as fast as possible. I was a big fan of the boys in the boat. It was a super interesting story. When it first came out, I went to University of Washington. That boat house is still there. It's infinitely good to hold fundraising around, trying to renovate and keep it there forever. And I got a friend who we worked at a startup and he was an alternate in the Olympic growing team back in the day. He just talks about what it means just in terms of tenacity and mental acuity throughout life. And honestly, he came to us as a sales rep with zero experience. But we're like, I think the mental makeup of an Olympic alternate is going to be okay. And he became a sales leader. Surprise, surprise very quickly. Since the pandemic, it's a lot easier for people just to sit in our basements and work from home and still have these insular lives. Can you talk about the importance of getting out? Not only getting on the water, but doing with other people that are trying to pursue a similar challenge. Yeah. And the fact that I could do that with my company now as well, which is a jelling and interlock of best life and interest, if you will. You know, the one thing that I'm a firm believer of is that health and family always comes first for that reason. I'm a breast cancer survivor. I've had health scares. My family has gone through a lot of things. And I'm really a fan of active lifestyle as a preventative way to living longer, living healthier, enjoying your life. And you're right, it is easy nowadays, especially after COVID, right? To simply stay home and do nothing. And this is why I think a team sport has been transformational for me, is that when you have a human connection, whether you're at the gym or you're on the water with your team, that sense of connection and community is so important nowadays. And that's not something you could replace with watching TikTok or Instagram or being on screen or even just virtual interaction, I suppose, like this. And in ABC Finish Solutions and not to plug for the company, we help 40 million people around the world doing exactly that, finding healthier habits and exercise that makes them happy. And so I can't encourage everybody enough to, even if it's just 10 minute walking. One step more is then what you had yesterday. So stir small and next year you will be running marathons. We've all got to pay bills and there's a lot of places we can go to work to do that. But there's a lot to be said for places you can do that that are purpose mission driven, right? That are trying to do something different in the world. You don't have to change the world entirely. But if you have an impact on a few other people, that's meaningful, right? So take the money home, but you also know that you're doing something good for the world overall. Christine, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate it. Glad you are open to us veering off into a little bit of philosophical as well. It's all about paddling as well. So thanks again for doing that. Absolutely. Thank you for having me again. I look forward to connecting with folks online. And as the CMO community, I look forward to hearing from folks. What else do you think we should add to the list of the eight? Absolutely. Awesome. Well, thanks everyone. We're going to be on Hades for the next couple of weeks. I'm on vacation with the family for a couple of weeks. We'll be back in the middle of August with more episodes. Until then, thank you so much. Enjoy your summer. We'll see you next time on sales pipeline radio. [Music]
