We’re living through a marketing reset.

AI is compressing product differentiation. Barriers to entry are collapsing. Entire categories are flooding with lookalike competitors. In this environment, one idea keeps surfacing:

Brand is the moat.

And yet the average B2B company still allocates roughly 70% of its marketing budget to demand generation and only about 25% to brand.

Even more paradoxical?

73% of leaders say brand makes demand more efficient.

So if we believe brand fuels performance, why are we overwhelmingly funding demand?

That was the tension at the center of my conversation this week with Bill Macaitis — former CMO of Slack, Zendesk, and Salesforce — and now advisor to a new generation of AI-native companies.

Here were my five biggest takeaways.

1. We Know the Budget Mix Is Wrong — But We Keep Funding Demand

“What people want to do versus what they actually do — there’s this massive disconnect.”

The benchmark data makes that disconnect visible.

Across 168 B2B technology companies, the median allocation today is 70% to demand and 25% to brand. But when leaders were asked what the ideal mix should be, the answer shifted to roughly 50% demand and 40% brand.

That’s a 20-point swing.

Marketing leaders don’t believe the current balance is optimal. They believe brand deserves materially more investment. And yet when budget season arrives, short-term revenue pressure wins.

The paradox isn’t philosophical. It’s operational.

We believe in brand.
We budget for demand.

who can grow with the moment and not just replicate the past.

Check out my full conversation with Bill on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

2. Brand Loses Because It Isn’t Measured Like Demand

“When you are not tracking brand… you just can’t defend brand investments. They just get slaughtered in the budgeting season.”

Only 45% of companies report actively measuring brand metrics, and just 28% say they can directly tie brand investment to pipeline.

By contrast, demand performance is rigorously tracked. The top reported ROI metrics are:

• Pipeline dollars (79%)

• Number of opportunities (70%)

Brand’s most common metric? Website traffic.

That asymmetry explains why 55% of leaders say they would protect demand budgets during cuts — and only 11% would protect brand.

Demand has daily dashboards tied to revenue.

Brand often has lagging or superficial indicators.

In a capital allocation conversation, what can’t be defended gets deprioritized.

3. Leaders Believe Brand Drives Efficiency — The Data Supports It

“The cities that we ran these brand campaigns in — all funnel metrics also improved. The pipeline, the leads, everything else.” 

According to the benchmark data:

• 63% of leaders say brand directly fuels demand generation.

• 73% say brand makes demand more efficient.

The belief is already there.

But Bill’s experience at Slack adds operating proof. When they ran brand-heavy campaigns in controlled markets, they didn’t just see higher aided recall — they saw measurable lift in pipeline, leads, and deal performance.

Brand wasn’t separate from demand.

It amplified it.

The gap isn’t conviction. It’s instrumentation.

4. We’re Spending “Demand” Dollars Without Knowing Who’s In-Market

“There is incredible level of targeting now… you can target down to the individual.”

Another revealing finding:

Only 39% of companies know how much of their budget is focused on in-market buyers versus future buyers.

That means the majority are allocating 70% to “demand” without clarity on whether those dollars are truly capturing active buyers — or simply generating noise.

This challenges an outdated assumption that brand equals broad, untargeted spend.

Modern targeting allows you to saturate specific buying committees, run precise brand campaigns, and layer demand messaging on top. The technical capability exists.

The constraint isn’t targeting.

It’s segmentation clarity and measurement discipline.

5. We’re Underinvesting in the Most Efficient Growth Lever: Expansion

“The biggest metric for marketing teams is leads… so everything past the lead, they don’t spend time on.”

The report highlights a structural imbalance:

• Roughly 40% of SaaS growth comes from existing customer expansion.

• Only 10% of marketing budget is allocated to expansion ARR.

That gap is enormous.

When marketing’s primary KPI is MQLs, behavior concentrates at the top of the funnel. Expansion, cross-sell, and retention become secondary priorities — even though they often carry faster sales cycles, higher win rates, and lower acquisition costs.

Brand doesn’t stop at acquisition. It compounds through loyalty and expansion.

Ignoring that is leaving capital-efficient growth untapped.

Closing Thoughts

My biggest takeaway from this conversation with Bill is this:

Brand and demand aren’t competing strategies.
They’re compounding forces.

The data shows we believe brand makes demand more efficient. We know the current mix is off. We see expansion is underfunded. And yet we still instrument and optimize demand far more rigorously than we do brand.

In an AI era where products are replicated quickly and categories saturate overnight, performance alone won’t be the moat.

Preference will.

That’s why I believe brand — and specifically brand humanity — is the last durable advantage. Not awareness for awareness’ sake. Not pipeline at all costs. But building emotional connection and differentiated experiences that make demand more efficient over time.

If you want to go deeper into the data behind this conversation, Bill and his co-authors published a 62-page Brand vs. Demand Benchmark Report based on conversations with 168 B2B leaders. It’s an incredibly useful resource heading into planning season.

And on a programming note — this episode closes Season One of our podcast, the Brand Humanity Show.

Season One was about exploring the tension in this new era. Season Two is about building what comes next.

I can’t wait to tell you more.

Thirteen years. Hundreds of events. Countless parodies.

Nick Mehta’s run at Gainsight wasn’t just about building a software company — it was about building a movement. One that redefined what it means to lead with heart in a high-velocity, high-expectation world.

Now, after stepping away from the CEO seat, Nick is entering a new chapter. One that’s less about growth metrics and more about meaning — about what it means to stay human in an increasingly synthetic world.

In our conversation, he shared what he’s learning about closure, curiosity, and the next evolution of leadership.

Here are five lessons that stayed with me.

1. Have the Courage to Say, ‘I Don’t Know’

“The leaders I admire right now are the ones who can say, ‘I don’t know what the future looks like — but I’m curious enough to find out.’”

Nick sees this moment — where AI rewrites rules faster than humans can interpret them — as one of profound uncertainty. The playbooks that guided an entire generation of business leaders are collapsing. Every assumption is being challenged.

The truth, he said, is that no one knows what the future will look like.

For years, leadership was built on the illusion of certainty. Confidence equaled competence. But now, intelligence is expanding faster than our understanding. The leaders who stand out today aren’t the ones predicting outcomes — they’re the ones modeling curiosity in the face of ambiguity.

Admitting uncertainty doesn’t weaken your authority; it deepens your credibility. It tells your team that you’re awake to change, honest about the unknowns, and humble enough to explore together.

In a synthetic world, “I don’t know” might be the most human thing you can say.

Check out my full conversation with Nick Mehta — now with my co-founder and co-host Scott Salkin — on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

2. Stay Curious When the Rules Disappear

“A lot of what we’ve all done before needs to be re-approached from first principles.”

Nick described this new era as one where speed and automation are rewriting everything we thought we knew about leadership. Playbooks are collapsing. Experience is being outpaced by experimentation.

The leaders who will thrive are the ones who stay curious when certainty disappears — who approach every challenge with fresh eyes instead of recycled answers. Nick said he’s seen too many people cling to what once worked, mistaking pattern-matching for wisdom.

But curiosity is the new competence.

Real leadership isn’t about having the right playbook; it’s about having the right posture. The humility to learn again. The openness to question what used to feel obvious. The willingness to lead not from expertise, but from exploration.

In a synthetic world, curiosity keeps us human.

3. Authenticity Can’t Be Scripted

“People can feel when it’s real. Vulnerability isn’t a strategy — it’s honesty.”

Nick talked about the subtle performance trap many leaders fall into — the choreography of openness. We’ve been told to “lead with vulnerability,” but somewhere along the way, the message turned into a tactic. We’ve started curating our authenticity, turning emotion into optics.

He warned that the moment you script your humanity, it stops being human. Real vulnerability isn’t about disclosure — it’s about truth. It’s having the self-awareness to share what’s true before it’s tidy, to speak with clarity rather than polish.

As AI floods our feeds with flawless communication, sincerity becomes the rarest currency. People don’t want leaders who look perfect; they want leaders who sound real.

The future of leadership will belong to those who can stay present, unscripted, and emotionally available.

4. End Well to Begin Again

“When you finish something, the best-case scenario is that it feels complete — that whatever comes next will be great, even without you.”

When Nick walked away from Gainsight, he didn’t feel sadness — he felt peace. He’d prepared the team, mentored his successor, and left knowing the story didn’t need him to keep going.

The ending wasn’t an ending at all — it was completion.

He shared how easy it is for high performers to rush from one peak to the next, to fill the silence that follows achievement with another goal, another climb. But endings deserve reverence. They mark the moment where meaning catches up with motion — where you finally understand what the journey was for.

In a world obsessed with acceleration, the courage to pause is countercultural. Leaders who learn to close chapters intentionally — who step back instead of sprint forward — create space for clarity, renewal, and deeper purpose to emerge.

5. Hold Strength and Struggle Together

“Progress isn’t linear. You can hold grief and gratitude in the same breath — and that’s what makes us human.”

Nick shared that the last two years of his time at Gainsight were some of the most challenging of his life. He was carrying private personal burdens that few people knew about, even as he showed up every day as the CEO of a thriving company — leading a team, motivating customers, and being the public face of a movement.

That experience taught him what it means to hold two truths at once — to show up with hope while carrying heaviness.

He began writing daily poems during that time, not to escape the pain, but to stay connected to himself through it. To honor the ache and the awe. The exhaustion and the gratitude. The public confidence and the private uncertainty.

He said that’s what it means to be human — to live fully inside contradiction without losing your center. To let both truths exist, and to lead from that integrated place.

When leaders do that, they create something rare: cultures that feel safe, alive, and deeply human. Because it’s not our perfection that connects us — it’s our shared fragility, met with courage and grace.

Closing: Hope as a Practice

Nick ended our conversation with a line from his tattoo — a Taylor Swift lyric:

“To live for the hope of it all.”

Hope, for Nick, isn’t a mood. It’s a practice — the daily discipline of staying open when things are hard, believing in what can still be rebuilt, and leading with heart even when the world feels transactional.

That’s the legacy of human-first leadership he built at Gainsight.

He didn’t preach empathy — he practiced it. He showed that you can build a world-class company while still caring deeply about people, still making space for humanity in the middle of commerce.

The takeaway is timeless, and perhaps, never been more important than it is today as we step further into the Intelligence Age.

Because the story of human-first leadership is far from over. Nick just left us the blank space to write what comes next.

Sorry, had to.

The modern CMO is facing a reckoning — not because marketing has become less important, but because its strategic weight inside the boardroom has never been higher.

Jake Saper, General Partner at Emergence Capital (backers of Salesforce, Zoom, Veeva, Gusto, and a new wave of AI-native startups such as Bland, Bolt.new, Together.ai, Unify and others), sits on some of the most influential enterprise software boards in the world. He has a front-row seat to how marketing leadership is being evaluated — and redefined.

It’s no longer about pipeline.

It’s about capital allocation, velocity, and narrative power in an AI-transformed market.

Here’s what boards are actually looking for from their CMOs:

1. Boards are Valuing Slope Over Experience

“I’ve seen CEOs recently, in a CMO search, opt for the high-slope, low-experience people over the experienced ones. It used to be that you’d look at someone who worked at six relevant companies, think, ‘they know the playbook,’ and want them to bring it here. But in a world where you have to rewrite the playbook, that experience can actually be not helpful — or even negative — because you’re anchoring on things that worked in the past.”

Jake made it clear that boards and CEOs are no longer defaulting to pedigree. Tenure at a big brand or a familiar SaaS logo isn’t enough anymore — and in some cases, it’s a liability.

What they want to see is slope — the steepness of a leader’s trajectory. That means:

• Demonstrating you can adapt to new market dynamics fast.

• Thinking independently, not pattern-matching old solutions.

• Bringing energy, curiosity, and problem-solving horsepower into the room.

Cameron O’Brien and Amber Weinberg from Aperture Partners echoed a similar sentiment last week — that founders are looking for marketing leaders who can grow with the moment and not just replicate the past.

Check out my full conversation with Jake on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

2. Boards Want First-Principles Thinkers

“What I want in a conversation with a CMO candidate isn’t a résumé recital — it’s a dynamic problem-solving discussion. I might say, ‘The pricing model we’re using isn’t working. What would you do?’ There’s no perfect answer — but how they think is everything.”

Jake’s message was clear: boards are less concerned with what a candidate has done and far more interested in how they reason through complexity.

The market is moving too fast for static answers. What matters is a leader’s ability to:

• Break big, ambiguous problems down to their fundamentals.

• Ask sharp, strategic questions that reveal depth of understanding.

• Think in systems, not tactics.

This is what separates operators from strategic partners. First-principles thinkers don’t just react to shifting conditions — they help define the path forward. In a boardroom setting, that’s the kind of thinking that earns a voice in the real decisions.

3. Boards Expect CMOs to Think Like Capital Allocators

“When I think about someone with the C-level title, the question I want to ask is: if you’re going to be on the executive team here, how should we spend our money? It’s less, ‘show me the funnel,’ and more, ‘how should we invest across the business to drive growth?’”

Boards aren’t just evaluating marketing leaders on pipeline anymore. They’re evaluating whether CMOs can sit at the same table as the CFO — shaping investment strategy, not just defending spend.

That means:

• Understanding the company’s cash position and critical milestones.

• Tying marketing investment to revenue leverage and strategic inflection points.

• Recommending where dollars should flow — and where they shouldn’t.

The CMOs who stand out in boardrooms are the ones who speak the language of tradeoffs and return on capital. They can articulate why a specific investment matters in the context of the company’s long-term trajectory, not just quarterly pipeline.

4. Boards Expect CMOs to Own the ICP Conversation

“The best early-stage marketing leaders are leading the effort to define and institutionalize an ICP.”

ICP work may not make headlines, but in early stage boardrooms, it’s one of the sharpest strategic levers a CMO (or Head of Marketing) can pull.

Jake described the ICP arc as an hourglass: cast a wide net early, then narrow aggressively to the segment with the strongest pull — only expanding outward once you’ve earned it. CMOs who lead this work bring clarity to chaos, ensuring the company grows intentionally rather than reactively.

Owning ICP isn’t just about targeting. It’s about discipline. It’s about making choices — and standing by them when the temptation is to chase every logo. Boards are paying close attention to who brings that level of focus to the table.

5. Boards Expect CMOs to Keep Up with Velocity

“The very best companies in this era are going from zero to a million in four months. Some are hitting $100 million in less than two years. Things are growing much, much faster than they used to.”

The clock is moving faster — and boards know it. Especially in AI-native markets, growth is measured in months, not years. That means marketing can’t be a drag on velocity. It has to amplify it.

CMOs who stand out are the ones who can:

• Build lean, high-output distribution engines that scale quickly.

• Operate with urgency and strategic clarity.

• Turn early momentum into sustainable loops that create compounding advantage.

Velocity isn’t just a GTM metric anymore — it’s a strategic differentiator. Boards are watching closely to see which leaders can translate narrative into motion and motion into market position. The ones who can’t keep pace don’t last long.

Closing Thoughts

Jake made an observation that every marketing leader feels in their bones: the CMO seat might be the hardest in the C-suite.

It sits at the intersection of every critical function — product, sales, finance, pricing, customer experience — and the expectations have never been higher. Boards know this. They see how wide the aperture has become.

But his most important point was this:

“If you’re not feeling anxious right now, you’re doing something wrong… There’s so much change happening in your job, in society, in technology. Anxiety is data that the changes are afoot and you have to figure out how to fit into this new picture.”

Anxiety is proof you’re awake to the shift that’s happening all around you. The market is moving faster than the playbook. Channels are evolving in real time. Pressure isn’t something to escape from — it’s the weight of being in the arena when the game is being rewritten.

Boards don’t expect certainty. They expect clarity under pressure. They expect leadership in the unknown.

The CMOs who will define this era won’t be the ones who silence their anxiety — they’ll be the ones who turn it into fuel. They’ll stand taller in the tension, bring conviction when others hesitate, and help build the future instead of waiting for it.

Anxiety is more than a warning sign.

It’s an invitation.

The old CMO archetype — the tenured operator with a big-team résumé and a bulletproof deck — isn’t what founders are hiring for anymore.

In today’s AI-driven, hyper-competitive market, CEOs are looking for something else entirely: builders who can move fast, operate tactically, and earn trust through execution, not just vision. That shift isn’t theoretical — it’s playing out right now in real searches at some of the fastest-growing companies in tech.

I sat down with Cameron O’Brien and Amber Weinberg of Aperture Partners, one of Silicon Valley’s most sought-after go-to-market executive search firms. They’ve helped companies like Anthropic, Elastic, Fal.ai, Fivetran, Synthesia, and Retool place world-class GTM leaders — and they have a front-row seat to how the CMO role is being rewritten in real time.

Here’s what they’re seeing:

1. Aptitude Over Experience

“Where hiring used to be experience, experience, aptitude — now it’s aptitude, aptitude, experience.”

The single biggest shift in the CMO hiring market is this: pedigree is losing its power.

Where a long résumé, big-company logos, or a record of building large teams used to be the currency of credibility, founders are now hiring for something more dynamic — raw aptitude.

That shift is rooted in the pace of the market. Companies — especially AI-native ones — are moving too fast to wait for someone to “get up to speed.” Founders want leaders who can step in and build momentum from day one: scrappy operators who understand go-to-market deeply enough to build and execute it themselves, not just orchestrate from above.

It’s not that experience doesn’t matter anymore — it just matters differently. Experience only carries weight when it’s clearly tied to how the candidate will operate in this specific context.

A big title doesn’t impress founders anymore. Showing how you create traction does.

Check out my full conversation with Cameron & Amber on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

2. The New Mandate: Distribution, Growth, and Taste

“A lot of these AI-first founders are really concerned with three main things. One is distribution. The second is this idea of growth. And the third is taste.”

Underneath every shift in founder expectations sits a simple truth: the modern CMO is being hired to own three things — distribution, growth, and taste.

• Distribution is about reach — how effectively a company gets its story into the world and turns attention into momentum. Founders want CMOs who know how to build distribution engines that scale fast without bloating headcount.

• Growth is about impact — tying marketing to revenue, velocity, and measurable business outcomes. Gone are the days when a great campaign was enough; today’s CMOs must be growth architects.

• And taste is about signal — the ability to shape a narrative and aesthetic that cuts through the noise. In an AI-fueled landscape where everyone can generate content, taste is what makes a brand memorable.

These three forces together create the new power center of the CMO. It’s no longer enough to excel at one of them. Founders are looking for leaders who can operate across all three — building brands that scale with both precision and soul.

3. Marketing Has a Messaging Problem

“The way people are talking about marketing simply isn’t resonating with today’s audience.”

One of the most striking signals from this conversation: marketing leaders are increasingly losing the room with founders — not because their ideas are wrong, but because their language is.

Founders — especially technical or AI-first ones — are skeptical of marketing jargon, funnel talk, or brand abstractions that don’t map directly to outcomes. They want clarity: How does this strategy make the company grow faster? How does it turn attention into revenue? How does it give them leverage?

The best CMOs are fluent in both worlds.

They understand the craft of marketing but can translate it into founder-speak — crisp, practical, impact-oriented. They frame storytelling as distribution strategy. Brand as revenue infrastructure. Demand generation as a lever for growth velocity.

This isn’t about watering down the discipline. It’s about meeting founders where they are. The CMO who can make their work legible to a founder mindset builds trust — and gets invited deeper into the business.

4. Playbook People Are Losing Ground

“Playbooks aren’t the story anymore. Context is.”

Perhaps the most defining undercurrent of this market: the old playbook pitch is dying.

For years, many CMOs built their personal brands on what they’d done at big companies — a signature move or a proven framework they could replicate elsewhere. But founders have become more discerning. They know what worked at Company X won’t automatically work at Company Y — and they’re looking for original thinkers, not just pattern matchers.

Top candidates now win by showing how they think in context. They can articulate not just what they did before, but why it worked then — and how they’d approach this moment, this product, this market differently. That intellectual flexibility is a differentiator.

For experienced CMOs, this can feel uncomfortable — but it’s also liberating. It’s less about defending your past, and more about demonstrating your adaptability. For founders, it’s a reminder to hire for judgment, not just résumé.

5. AI as an Accelerant, Not a Credential

“AI is changing how companies scale. But it’s not a skill badge — it’s a lever.”

AI is on every job description, every strategy doc, every investor deck — and yet, its role in CMO hiring is more nuanced than it looks.

Founders aren’t impressed by candidates who simply drop “AI” into their narrative. They want marketing leaders who know how to use AI to multiply their impact — whether that’s scaling content velocity, sharpening customer insights, or automating operational complexity so teams can move faster.

The best CMOs in this market are positioning AI as a force multiplier, not a credential. They’re not trying to compete with the technology; they’re showing how they can wield it strategically to create unfair advantages.

For CMOs, this means demonstrating how AI fits into your operating system — not as a bullet point, but as leverage.

Closing Thoughts

I’ve spent the better part of my career in the SaaS era — a time when marketing leadership was often defined by scale. Big teams. Big launches. Big decks. The playbook was clear: build the machine, manage the machine, optimize the machine.

But the AI era is rewriting the brief.

This new wave isn’t asking CMOs to be machine operators. It’s asking us to be builders again. To get closer to the product. To move with speed, precision, and taste. To speak the language of founders, not just marketers.

The companies that will define this era won’t be the ones with the slickest decks or the most polished positioning. They’ll be the ones that move fast, tell sharper stories, and build brands that feel alive in a sea of synthetic sameness.

And the CMOs who thrive won’t be those clutching the old playbook — they’ll be the ones writing a new one in real time.

This isn’t just an evolution of the role. It’s a return to its essence: vision, craft, and velocity.

The AI era will demand more from marketing leaders — but for those willing to build, it might just be the most exciting chapter yet.

A Little Childlike Joy for Your Thursday

And because we couldn’t end this newsletter on just a serious note… we dusted off our studded belts, flat-ironed our side bangs, and wrote a 2000s emo anthem about replacing marketing teams with AI agents.

It’s dramatic. It’s nostalgic. It will 100% make your inner My Chemical Romance fan scream-sing in the kitchen. 😎

Watch the video above and let’s cry-scream about the future of marketing together (eyeliner optional).

For decades, Nancy Duarte has helped the world’s most iconic companies and leaders tell stories that move people. Her frameworks have shaped Apple keynotes, TED Talks, and internal narratives that catalyze entire industries.

But as AI rewrites the rules of business, some wonder: does story still matter?

I spoke to Nancy this week to find out. Our conversation reminded me — more than ever — that story isn’t just a marketing tactic. It’s the most human technology we have. And in an age of acceleration, the brands that lead will be the ones that tell stories that make people feel.

Here are five takeaways from my conversation with Nancy Duarte that I found most relevant to founders and marketers:

1. Stories Are What Bind Us Together

“Story isn’t just something that moves us emotionally — it binds us together for those who were there to hear it.”

Great brands don’t communicate information; they create shared moments.
Story builds belonging — the sense that “I was part of this.”

I suppose I never thought about it like that.

I’ve always believed in the power of story to inspire action, but had never considered that the experience of hearing a story could have a communal impact.

Product launches, campaigns, all-hands meetings, conference keynotes — they aren’t just transactions. They’re opportunities to create shared emotional experiences that unite customers, employees, and community around a common purpose.

When your story is strong, people don’t just remember the facts — they remember how they felt in the moment. And that feeling can turn audiences into believers.

Check out my full conversation with the legendary Nancy Duarte on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

2. Stories Literally Rewire the Brain

“It’s the story that makes people feel something. The data helps them justify it — but the feeling comes first.”

This was one of my favorite moments in the conversation.

Nancy explained that stories light up multiple parts of the brain — not just the language centers, but the regions tied to emotion, sensory experience, and memory. Data alone tends to activate only the rational centers. But story creates a whole-brain experience.

When you lead with story, you’re not just making a point — you’re creating a physiological response. Your audience feels what you’re saying. And when they feel it, they remember it, retell it, and act on it.

If data is the proof, story is the spark.

And in a noisy, algorithmic world, the spark is what gets remembered.

3. AI Can’t Replace Story — It Can Only Support It

“AI can clarify data or suggest structures. But it doesn’t feel emotion. It doesn’t sense empathy.”

AI is a powerful accelerant. It can help you outline a deck, structure a narrative, even generate language that sounds compelling.

But it can’t feel.

It can’t understand the tension in a founder’s journey, the grit of a team in the trenches, or the nuance of a customer’s lived experience.

AI can make storytelling faster, but only humans can make it meaningful.

Founders who over-automate their narratives risk sounding flat and interchangeable. CMOs who delegate too much of their voice lose the ability to connect. But those who use AI as a partner, not a replacement, can spend less time on mechanics and more time on the emotional craft of storytelling.

4. Empathy Is the Core Operating System

“If you have one cognitive reference you want to create in people’s minds and build from there — that’s what resonates.”

Nancy’s famous framework — the contrast between “what is” and “what could be” — is rooted in empathy.

Great communicators don’t just deliver their message; they start in the audience’s reality and build a bridge to a better future.

For marketers, this is the heartbeat of brand. Instead of leading with product features, you lead with the human stakes: the pain you’re solving, the change you’re inviting people into.

For founders, empathy is how you move from a pitch deck to a movement. Investors don’t just buy into your numbers; they buy into your belief in a better world. Customers don’t just buy your product; they buy what it means for them.

When your story is anchored in empathy, it doesn’t just get heard. It gets felt.

5. Your Ideas Need More Than a Deck — They Need a Narrative

“Too many great ideas die on the conference room floor.”

We’ve all been there. You bring a bold idea into a leadership meeting — and watch it get buried under competing priorities or misunderstood in the shuffle.

Nancy’s point is powerful: ideas don’t fail because they’re weak. They fail because they’re not packaged in a narrative people can see, feel, and retell.

For a founder, this can mean the difference between sharing a product vision that inspires investors, customers, and recruits… and one that stalls in your head.

For marketers, it’s the difference between a campaign that dies in legal review and one that aligns the entire org around a shared future.

A strong narrative gives your idea momentum. It gets repeated in boardrooms, sales calls, and investor decks. It lives beyond the meeting where it was born. And that’s how movements — not just marketing plans — are made.

Closing Thoughts

I’ve been a fan of Nancy Duarte for a long time. Her work has shaped how I think about communication — not just as a marketer, but honestly as a human. So getting the chance to sit down with her for this conversation was a real honor.

What stood out most wasn’t just her mastery of craft. It was her clarity about why story matters:

Story makes people feel.
Data helps them justify.
And emotion is what makes brands unforgettable.

In the AI era, the biggest risk isn’t that your product won’t work.

It’s that it will work just like everyone else’s.

Features can be copied. Speed can be matched. Products commoditized.

But the way you make people feel — the emotion, the empathy, the story you tell — can’t.

That’s the moat.

Storytelling isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s the difference between being another product in the feed and becoming a brand that leads a movement. The companies that rise above the sea of sameness won’t be the ones that build the loudest tech…

…they’ll be the ones that tell the most human story.

🔥 Next Week on Goldenhour Live

Next week on Goldenhour Live, we’re going deep on the future of marketing leadership.

I’ll be joined by Cameron O’Brien and Amber Weinberg, co-founders of Aperture Partners — the executive search firm quietly shaping the next generation of CMOs and GTM leaders.

We’ll unpack what they’re learning from the frontlines: how the CMO role is evolving in the AI era, how founders can attract top talent, and how to find work that makes you come alive.

📅 Thursday, October 16th at 10 PST / 1:00 EST — RSVP here

This is going to be a big one. Hope to see you there.

The 9-9-6 mindset — working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week — is fast becoming the unofficial mantra of the AI era.

As AI accelerates, the pressure on humans is to keep pace — to move faster, do more, and sleep less. Founders glorify output. Teams wear exhaustion like a badge. And for CMOs trying to balance brand, team, and self, it can feel like the only choice is to hustle harder.

But the truth is more nuanced.

There are seasons when intensity is required — launches, events, end-of-quarter, moments that test what we’re made of. The problem isn’t hustle itself.

It’s staying stuck there.

That’s what I explored with Amanda Goetz, CMO, founder, and author of Toxic Grit (which you can pre-order here). Our conversation opened my eyes to a transformative realization: we all play different roles in different seasons — and true freedom comes from knowing which one you’re in.

Here are five takeaways that stayed with me — lessons for any leader navigating ambition in an age of acceleration.

1. Recognize the Character You’re Playing

“There are seasons where hustle makes sense — and seasons where it doesn’t. The toxicity comes when we ignore those transitions.”

Amanda’s idea of character theory reframes leadership as a set of roles we inhabit over time: the Builder, the Parent, the Partner, the Creative, the CEO. Each requires different energy, priorities, and pace.

Toxic grit sets in when we blur those roles together — when we try to perform as every character at once and inevitably burn out.

For CMOs, that might mean scaling a company while raising kids, driving creativity while firefighting operations, or being both a visionary and execution machine.

Healthy leadership begins with awareness.

Know the character your season demands — and give yourself permission to play it fully without guilt for pausing the others.

Check out my full conversation with Amanda on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

2. Redefine Success by Season, Not Standard

“You can have it all — just not all at once.”

Balance is a myth if you define it as equal attention to everything. Amanda’s point is that balance isn’t about symmetry — it’s about sequence.

There are seasons to scale and seasons to sustain. Moments when the company needs 120% of your time, and moments when your family or your health takes priority. The danger is trying to measure every season by the same yardstick of constant growth and visibility.

CMOs live under unique pressure to perform continuously — to drive pipeline, generate demand, ship campaigns, and stay “always on.” But high performance is cyclical.

When success is defined by season, we stop judging ourselves by impossible standards and start showing up fully for the moment we’re in.

3. Use Hustle as a Tool, Not an Identity

“If someone has to work 12 hours a day to do their job, they’re probably not very good at their job.”

Hustle has value — it’s a form of focus. It compresses learning curves and forces creative breakthroughs. But when hustle becomes the only gear we know how to use, we lose strategic altitude.

Amanda’s view is that hustle should be cyclical, not chronic. There are chapters that demand 9-9-6 intensity — like launching a product, entering a new market, or reestablishing a brand. But those sprints should serve a purpose, not a persona.

When leaders attach their identity to being “the hardest worker in the room,” they unconsciously create cultures that reward exhaustion instead of effectiveness. Over time, those cultures burn bright — and then burn out.

The best CMOs treat hustle like interval training: a mix of effort and recovery.

You sprint to build momentum, then slow down to reflect, learn, and reimagine. The art isn’t in going faster — it’s in knowing when to accelerate and when to stop pressing the gas.

4. Focus on What Really Moves the Scoreboard

“At the end of the day, I ask myself — what are the two things that would make today a win? Then I let the rest go.”

Amanda calls this her “two points on the board” rule — a simple way to reframe productivity.

Each morning, she identifies the two meaningful outcomes that would make the day feel like a success — not ten, not twenty, just two. Then she measures herself against that small, intentional list instead of an endless one.

It’s not about lowering the bar. It’s about lifting the weight of unrealistic expectations.

For CMOs, this shift is transformative. Marketing leadership is infinite in scope — every day brings more inputs than one human can handle.

By defining two daily “points,” Amanda protects focus and energy. She moves the ball forward without drowning in the noise.

The takeaway: productivity isn’t about doing everything. It’s about doing the right things with full presence — because real progress happens when you move the work that actually makes an impact.

5. Lead From Wholeness, Not Depletion

“If you’re not healthy — emotionally, mentally, physically — you’re not going to create something sustainable. The energy you bring into your work, your team, your brand… it all reflects back.”

I shared during our conversation my belief that a brand can only be as healthy as the humans who lead it — and Amanda expanded on that truth beautifully.

She connected leadership health directly to creative output and brand vitality. When we lead from depletion, our brands feel anxious and reactive — constantly chasing relevance. But when we lead from wholeness, our brands feel grounded, magnetic, and alive.

The market mirrors your energy. Teams mirror your tone. Creativity mirrors your capacity.

If you’re running on empty, your brand eventually will, too.

AI can automate information. But it can’t replicate the emotional texture that human leaders bring to the table — the warmth, courage, and empathy that actually move people.

Closing Thoughts

The 9-9-6 mindset isn’t new — it’s just louder in the AI era.

But the CMOs who will thrive aren’t the ones who work the most hours; they’re the ones who understand their season.

They’ll know when to step into the Builder, when to channel the Creative, and when to prioritize Partner, Parent, and Self.

They’ll measure success not by perpetual motion, but by presence, rhythm, and wholeness.

Ambition isn’t the enemy of balance — it just needs boundaries.

🔥 Special Announcement 🔥

Next week, we’re honored to welcome Nancy Duarte as our featured guest on Goldenhour Live.

Nancy is a best-selling author, communication visionary, and CEO of Duarte, Inc. — the largest communication firm in Silicon Valley. She’s shaped how the world’s most influential brands and leaders tell their stories, guiding everyone from Apple to TED speakers to craft messages that move audiences and inspire change.

She also happens to be one of my all-time heroes — so I’m personally thrilled to learn from her in real time.

Click the image above to join us live on LinkedIn, Thursday October 9th at 11:00 AM PST / 2:00 PM EST.

We’ll look forward to seeing you there!

Thanks,
Anthony

For years, PR has lived in an interesting spot on the marketing priority list. It wasn’t dismissed — founders and CMOs understood the credibility that comes with being written about in TechCrunch or quoted in the Journal. But for most B2B startups, it often wasn’t a burning priority beyond funding announcements or big product launches.

That calculus has changed.

In the Intelligence Age, large language models are shaping what the market knows about your company. These systems give disproportionate weight to third-party, credible sources like journalism and trade publications. Corporate blogs matter, but they don’t carry the same authority.

Which means: if reporters haven’t covered you, your story risks being invisible — or worse, defined by someone else.

That’s what I unpacked with Emilie Gerber, founder of Six Eastern and longtime comms leader for startups and venture firms. Together, we explored why PR has shifted from supportive to existential — and how CMOs and founders can reimagine their comms strategy for this new era.

Here are the takeaways:

1) LLMs trust third-party sources more than you.

“Overall, the two highest cited content types were corporate blogs and journalism… press releases were only 5%, which shocked me.”

LLMs aren’t listening to your pitch deck. They’re citing the places the market already trusts. Studies confirm that credible journalism and corporate blogs dominate citations, while press releases barely register. Which means the stories being told about you are shaping how both machines and people understand your brand.

I admit that I’m learning in real-time here, but it struck me that founders are already searching for their companies in GPT, and sometimes drawing false conclusions about what “matters.” The reality: what matters is consistent, credible coverage in the sources algorithms actually apply weight to.

Check out my full conversation with Emilie on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

2) Credibility can’t be manufactured.

“PR is never going to be something that’s driving direct leads… but if you have an SDR going out and DM’ing a bunch of prospects, having that third-party validation they can share — not just your own link to a website — goes a really long way.”

PR has always been about legitimacy, not lead-gen. A trusted outlet writing about you creates a level of authority you simply can’t replicate on your own channels. Especially in early-stage B2B, credibility is the difference between being taken seriously or being ignored.

I’ve seen this firsthand with our AudiencePlus launch. When we paired our owned efforts with credible press coverage on Techcrunch, the impact was disproportionate. Prospects didn’t just take meetings — they showed up already trusting us.

3) Reporters want influence, not noise.

“At the end of the day, they care about what’s having the most influence. They’re always going to care the most about the OpenAIs, the Anthropics, the frontier models… but if you can show how your work connects to that, or share a tangible outcome with a real customer, reporters will pay attention.”

In a world flooded with funding announcements and launch news, reporters have to be selective. They prioritize stories that shape the frontier of AI — or that show meaningful, real-world impact. Application-layer startups face an uphill climb unless they can credibly tie their story to the bigger picture or highlight outcomes that move the industry forward.

However you don’t need an imminent funding round to engage media. Emilie explained that strong AI spokespeople, credible technical depth, and appearances on niche podcasts or newsletters can establish thought leadership. Customer stories — if they’re tangible and meaningful — also go a long way.

From my perspective, that was one of the most practical takeaways of the conversation. If you can bring technical credibility, or share authentic lessons on your brand’s transformation to AI, you don’t need to wait for the next term sheet to tell your story.

4) Sorry CFOs, PR is a long game.

“It takes time, it takes effort, it takes relationship building. You’re not going to see wins on day one… but as those relationships get built, the impact compounds.”

Founders often get impatient with PR because results feel slow or hard to measure. That’s the nature of the work. Reporters don’t operate on your deadlines, and credibility doesn’t happen overnight. But when you’ve built the relationships, the returns compound — often exactly when you need them most.

I told Emilie about a dinner we hosted for a client that ended up (somewhat accidentally) including a journalist. The immediate outcome was small. But the downstream impact? That journalist now had context, a relationship with my founder, and perspective that shaped how they covered the industry later.

In PR, patience isn’t passive — it’s an investment.

5) Authenticity is the ultimate differentiator.

“We usually start by pitching a person… their background, what they believe, what makes them compelling. We try to write emails that sound like you’re just sending a note to a friend — super short, super human, no marketing fluff.”

Reporters don’t want hype. They want people. The most effective PR starts with human stories — the struggles, the hard lessons, the authentic perspective. Boilerplate language gets ignored; authenticity cuts through.

In the end, what makes you memorable isn’t your features — it’s your humanity.

People don’t connect with faceless companies or jargon-filled press releases. They connect with people. If your comms strategy doesn’t showcase the human side of your brand — the executives, the lessons, the values — you’re not just missing coverage. You’re missing the opportunity to build trust in the most human way possible.

Closing Thoughts

PR today isn’t about vanity coverage — it’s about survival. LLMs are shaping what the world knows about your company, and they privilege credible third-party voices over anything you say about yourself.

That’s why waiting for a funding round or launch is a mistake. The brands that win will show up consistently, invest in relationships before they need them, and lead with authenticity instead of hype.

We live in a business culture obsessed with speed.

Faster launches. Faster funnels. Faster content. But in our rush for efficiency, something essential is slipping away: the creativity, humanity, and soul of marketing.

That’s what I unpacked with Robert Rose, best-selling author of Valuable Friction and co-founder of the Content Marketing Institute. Our conversation made one thing clear: marketing can’t survive on optimization alone. To build brands that last, we need to slow down, add friction, and make room for the art again.

Here are the takeaways:

1) We’ve over-rotated to science and lost the art

Performance dashboards, A/B tests, and multivariate tweaks have created an environment where marketers spend more time pushing buttons than exercising creativity. Robert worries this shift is driving people out of the profession.

“Performance marketing has become the myopia of so many businesses… and what we’ve lost in the process is our real focus on creativity, telling great stories, creating competitive advantage.”

I’ve felt this firsthand. I’ve been in boardrooms where our work was reduced to building a “dollars in, dollars out” pipeline machine. That’s never been the full picture — marketing has always been half art, half science.

When we ignore the art, we lose the very thing that makes marketing strategic.

2) Real beats perfect — especially now

AI tends to smooth everything into safe, predictable outputs. But that’s not what audiences remember.

“There is so much value in putting something out that doesn’t work… tremendous value in making a decision that goes completely against the grain of everything the patterns suggest.”

Robert pointed out that AI, by design, looks for patterns — it reinforces what has already worked. But breakthroughs often come from doing the opposite: making a risky decision, publishing something messy, or trying an angle that feels uncomfortable.

He warned that when brands over-rely on technology to generate “safe” campaigns, they end up with content that is average at best — the least provocative, the least interesting, the safest bet. That kind of marketing might avoid mistakes, but it also avoids impact.

Perfect is sterile. Real is human. And real is what builds trust.

Watch my full discussion with Robert here:

3) Practice “valuable friction”

Friction isn’t a bug — it’s the spark that creates purpose. Robert calls this “valuable friction,” the conscious pause that helps us choose meaning over momentum.

“The most valuable thing you can hear on a basketball court is the squeak of the shoe… that conscious spark to move at the appropriate speed you need to get the creative human work done.”

Robert used Netflix’s “Skip Intro” button as an example. It may get viewers to the content faster, but it also erases part of the art — the storytelling, mood-setting, and memory-making of a show’s opening sequence. The same thing happens in marketing: we rush to ship campaigns that grab quick attention but sacrifice long-term meaning.

The pressure to “just get something out the door” is real. But when we pause, even briefly, it forces a different question: are we simply checking the box, or are we building something people will remember a year from now? That kind of friction is uncomfortable — but it’s also where real impact lives.

4) Use AI to deepen creative work — not replace it

The dominant narrative is that AI will replace human labor: fewer people doing the same work, faster. But Robert challenged that idea with a contrarian take:

“My blog posts used to take me three hours… now with AI they take me five, six, seven. Because I’m using it to pressure test my ideas, to look for clichés, to find the gaps.”

Instead of making his process shorter, AI makes it longer — because he’s using it to push deeper into the creative process. That’s the opportunity most leaders are missing.

The risk, as Robert warned, is that companies embrace the opposite model — letting AI generate the strategy while humans simply “stay in the loop” to correct its mistakes. That further strips the soul from marketing and reduces people to button-pushers.

5) Treat your content like a product

Robert argued that the very definition of “owned media” is shifting. For years, we thought of it as platforms we controlled — websites, blogs, newsletters. Today, he sees it differently:

“What we really thought of as owned media was our platforms… Now what we’re seeing is a resurgence of classic content marketing — owned media, period. In other words, shows, series, long-form projects… distributed across rented land.”

That nuance matters. It’s not just about where you host your content; it’s about whether the content itself is strong enough to travel. Shows, original research, and community-driven projects can live natively on LinkedIn or YouTube while still building brand equity.

The truth is, I still haven’t figured out the perfect way to move a rented audience into a truly owned relationship. And if I’m honest, I don’t think anyone has. But what I took from Robert is that the hard part isn’t the migration — it’s making something worth following in the first place.

Closing Thoughts

What struck me most in my conversation with Robert is how much his call for “valuable friction” extends beyond marketing. Yes, CMOs need to create space for creativity, resist the pressure of immediacy, and push their teams to favor meaning over momentum.

But the same is true for us as humans.

The cult of speed isn’t just a business problem — it’s a life problem. The constant rush to the next meeting, the next post, the next milestone leaves little room for reflection. Ancient practices like silence, solitude, and Sabbath were designed to do exactly what Robert is calling for in marketing: introduce intentional pauses that make the work of life more meaningful.

In a world that glorifies hustle and constant motion, slowing down is a quiet act of resistance. Choosing silence over noise, presence over distraction, and rest over relentless striving doesn’t just make us better leaders — it makes us more human.

Because in the end, friction isn’t about slowing down for the sake of it. It’s about creating space for what matters most.

Join me next week as I sit down with Emilie Gerber, Founder & CEO of Six Eastern, to explore the PR comeback in B2B marketing — and why third-party validation is becoming the new currency of relevance in the Intelligence Age.

Last week, I shared my perspective on the messy state of executive content on LinkedIn — and why leaders can’t afford to sit on the sidelines, even when posting online can feel more like playing the creator game than showing up with real humanity.

But I didn’t want to just stop at my own observations.

I reached out to Melissa Rosenthal because few people understand the intersection of brand and social better than she does. She’s built brands with content at the core of her playbook at BuzzFeed, Cheddar, and ClickUp, and now as co-founder of Outlever, she’s helping companies become the number-one news source in their industries.

Our conversation was clarifying, and in many ways, affirming. Melissa’s take: executives don’t need to become creators — but they do need to show up.

Here’s what that actually looks like in practice.

1. Show Up as a Human, Not an Avatar

“Executives are the brand today. People don’t just want to hear from companies anymore — they want to hear from the humans leading them.”

Not long ago, executive communication was tightly controlled — scripted talking points, media training, and only a select few “approved” voices. The brand spoke through polished press releases and official handles.

That gatekeeping is gone. Now, people expect to hear from the actual leaders of a company — unfiltered, present, and human.

Company accounts can broadcast updates, but they can’t build trust on their own. Trust happens when the people behind the logo show up with perspective, conviction, and authenticity.

2. Stop Trying to Beat the Algorithm

“Executives shouldn’t be obsessing over the algorithm. The content should be about building credibility — not playing for reach.”

Melissa was direct: executives don’t win by posting every day, baiting engagement, or hacking their way into the feed. That’s the creator playbook. And when executives chase those metrics, they dilute their voice and erode trust.

She made the point that reach is the wrong yardstick: “If 200 people see your post and they’re the right 200 people, that’s far more valuable than 200,000 impressions from the wrong audience.”

The algorithm is a moving target anyway. Instead of trying to hack distribution, executives should focus on the one thing the algorithm can’t fake: credibility.

As marketers, we’re conditioned to chase performance — CTRs, impressions, conversion rates. But executive content operates on a different plane. The posts that matter aren’t the ones with the biggest reach; they’re the ones that establish authority, sharpen conviction, and humanize the leader.

Watch my full discussion with Melissa here, or keep reading below for more on how executives should show up on LinkedIn.

3. Lead with Conviction, Not Content Strategy

“You’re not posting to become a creator. You’re posting because your customers, your employees, your community need to hear from you. It’s become a responsibility of leadership.”

You’re not there to run a content program or mimic influencers. You’re there to lead in public. When executives share their vision, it signals confidence to the market, alignment to employees, and credibility to customers.

This is where many leaders stumble.

They treat LinkedIn like a marketing channel, delegating it to comms teams or ignoring it altogether. But Melissa’s point is that executive presence isn’t optional — it’s leadership.

For me, this is one of the biggest benefits of showing up online. Every post creates a feedback loop. The comments, debates, and even critiques sharpen my perspective. It’s the public dialogue that forges conviction.

4. Be Authentic, But Stay Intentional

“Authenticity matters. But you have to know the difference between showing humanity and oversharing. One builds trust, the other can erode it.”

Melissa cautioned against “toxic vulnerability” — the trend of oversharing under the banner of authenticity. Leaders need to be human, but they also need to project stability and judgment.

This nuance is critical. Being human doesn’t mean treating LinkedIn like a diary. It means being transparent enough to earn trust, while thoughtful enough to reinforce credibility.

Executives should ask: Does this story reveal something meaningful about me as a leader, or am I venting for catharsis? The former builds trust; the latter undermines it.

5. Use AI as a Partner, Not an Autopilot

“AI can help scale content, but if it strips out the voice of the executive, it completely defeats the purpose.”

AI can make executives more efficient, but it also tempts them to outsource the very thing that makes them valuable — their authentic voice. The result is the flood of formulaic “AI slop” that fills feeds today: content that looks polished but says nothing.

Honestly, the risk here is existential. If executive content starts sounding like everyone else’s, you’ve erased the humanity that sets leaders apart. And once trust is lost, no algorithm tweak or engagement hack can win it back.

Personally, I’ve found AI most useful as a creative sparring partner — for brainstorming angles, stress-testing narratives, or tightening language. But the conviction, the perspective, the story? That has to come from me.

The principle is simple: brand humanity can’t be automated. AI can augment the work, but it should never replace the voice.

What This Means for CMOs

For CMOs, Melissa’s perspective sharpens the playbook in two ways: how you support your executives and how you show up yourself.

Supporting Your CEO/Founder

• Prep like a keynote. Don’t let executive content be ad hoc. Treat LinkedIn presence the same way you’d prep a conference keynote or media interview — clear narrative, strong delivery, authentic voice.

• Shift the metrics. Help your leaders stop chasing impressions. Redefine success around trust, conviction, and the influence they have with the right audience.

• Balance rented with owned. Use LinkedIn for reach, but design a path into newsletters, events, or community where their voice can build durability.

Showing Up Yourself

• Lead by example. Your CEO isn’t the only one customers and employees look to. When the CMO shows up online, it humanizes marketing and reinforces brand humanity across the org.

• Model authenticity with discipline. Share your perspective in ways that are human but purposeful. Vulnerability builds trust when it’s tied to lessons, not just catharsis.

• Use AI as a sparring partner. Experiment with AI to push your creativity and efficiency, but protect your own voice. As a marketing leader, you’ll be judged not just by what you say, but how authentically you say it.

In other words: don’t just coach this playbook — run it yourself. While I believe it’s critical for your CEO to show up online, your own presence as CMO signals conviction, models the culture of the brand, and builds trust in the market.

And as Melissa reminded me, there’s a personal upside too.

Showing up consistently isn’t just good for your company. It’s good for your career too.

If you enjoyed this conversation, you won’t want to miss next week. We’ll go beyond LinkedIn and explore how content marketing is evolving in the Intelligence Age with the one and only Robert Rose.

Robert is a trusted marketing advisor, best-selling author, and co-founder of the team that built the Content Marketing Institute into the leading voice of the industry. Today, through his firm Seventh Bear, he’s guided more than 500 brands — from ambitious startups to global enterprises — helping them build marketing that actually matters.

Join us live on LinkedIn and bring your questions: Thursday, September 4th at 10:00 AM EST / 1:00 PM PST.

The Internet can be a dark place. LinkedIn is no exception.

Just this week, a prominent CMO was unfairly called out in a post — labeled an “influencer” instead of recognized as the distinguished marketing executive he is.

I won’t share the link. No sense driving more engagement to it.

A recent Inc. Magazine piece argued that the rise of B2B influencers, combined with AI-generated slop, is making LinkedIn’s business focus almost unrecognizable:

“One’s feed is inundated with photogenic micro-influencers posting vague life advice alongside high-resolution photos of themselves on beaches, or in planes, or at glitzy conferences.”

These examples are reminders of something I’ve wrestled with since exiting AudiencePlus:

Have we lost our way with B2B content creation?

When I started AudiencePlus, it was with a belief that every business would need to operate like a media company, grounded in three convictions about the future of content:

• Create content that is human, not transactional.

• Use “rented” channels — LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. — to drive audience engagement.

• Convert that audience into owned subscribers, cutting out the algorithmic middleman.

I’ll resist the temptation to make this newsletter a post-mortem on the business.

But I’ve always been troubled by that second conviction. Playing on rented channels means playing by their rules — bending, manipulating, and diluting our messages in pursuit of reach. It feels anything but human. Worse, it incentivizes the kind of ugly behavior I mentioned earlier, all in the name of going viral.

I don’t want to be part of that game anymore.

The problem is, as much as I want out, I know executives can’t afford to sit on the sidelines.

Why executives should create content.

The reality is simple: people buy from people. Purchasing decisions may be justified with reason, but they’re ultimately made with emotion. And the best way to build trusted, emotional relationships at scale is by creating content and sharing it online.

I’ve seen what happens when you don’t.

After announcing my departure from the company, I essentially went dark for six months — no posts, no updates. The silence was so noticeable that friends and peers DM’d and texted me asking if I was okay.

About thirty days ago, I started back up. I launched a live podcast, restarted this weekly newsletter, and began posting consistently on LinkedIn — three to five times a week.

Even without formally announcing my new venture (beyond a vague post), that activity has already generated several leads, invitations to new podcasts, and even the possibility of being quoted in a book.

Why? Because showing up online matters.

• Content creates relevance. LinkedIn is today’s version of the trade show floor: if you’re not “exhibiting,” you’re forgotten.

• Content creates conviction. The feedback loop from posting — both positive and constructive — not only affirms value but helps sharpen the narrative I’m developing in public.

• Content creates opportunity. Whether new prospects, co-marketing initiatives, or unexpected partnerships, visibility draws people in and reminds them who you are and what you stand for.

In fact, I believe deeply that companies that fail to establish brand humanity — with modern content and audience-building as a core pillar — risk fading into irrelevance in the sea of sameness, especially in the AI era.

And brand humanity can’t just be a marketing slogan. It has to be embodied by the people leading the business. Executives who show up, create, and share their perspectives are the ones who give their companies a human face — and in doing so, earn the trust and attention algorithms alone can’t manufacture.

So rather than abandoning content altogether and moving to some remote parcel of land without Internet (trust me, the temptation is there), what we need instead is an amendment to the playbook — one that reimagines how we show up on rented channels without losing our humanity.

How to be a human on LinkedIn.

My intention on LinkedIn moving forward is simple: to show up as my true self and let my humanity come through. I wear many hats — former CMO, founder, husband, father — but “creator” or “influencer” isn’t one of them. Even if others use those labels, they’re not titles I claim.

With that as my True North, here’s how I’m reworking my playbook for rented channels.

1. Stop obsessing over engagement metrics. Organic reach is down nearly 50% across the platform — chasing the algorithm (and the stress that comes with it) helps no one. Rage-bait and controversy may or may not draw more eyeballs than genuine business insights, but ask yourself: is that really the version of your humanity you want to put on display?

2. Spend time in the comments section. Being human on LinkedIn means treating it like a real conversation — not just hitting “publish” and waiting for 100K impressions. I approach this in two ways: (1) staying present on my own posts and engaging with every single comment, and (2) carving out time to comment thoughtfully on other people’s posts — adding value, not noise.

3. Explore post formats that build trust. Do you really think people will buy from you without ever seeing your face? You’re more than an avatar. Post videos and photos (yes, even if you’re an introvert like me) so your audience can actually hear from you. Lately I’ve been experimenting with weekly live video — a format that cuts through polish and production to showcase authenticity in real time.

4. Use AI as a creative partner, not an autopilot. AI slop is obvious — and unhelpful. Even well-intentioned executives fall into the trap of letting ChatGPT churn out posts, complete with cookie-cutter formats and emoji overload. Don’t let the machine speak for you. Instead, use AI as a collaborator: to spark ideas, refine your thinking, or polish copy — while keeping your voice distinctly your own.

5. Don’t tie your identity to social media. It may feel strange to say this to seasoned professionals, but executives aren’t immune to the mental health traps of the creator economy. History may ultimately judge social media as more toxic than helpful. Treat it for what it is: a marketing channel, not a mirror of your worth. Build a healthy relationship with it — one where you show up with purpose, but never let it define you.

The truth is, whether we like it or not, LinkedIn’s algorithm is actually getting better. Unlike a year ago, it’s no longer about sheer volume — it’s about serving the right posts to the right people. Which means the old vanity metrics don’t matter anymore.

What matters is showing up as human. Not a creator. Not an influencer.

Do that consistently, and the outcomes will follow.

I’m excited to be diving into this topic with my friend (and content expert) Melissa Rosenthal on Goldenhour Live — this Thursday at 10:00 AM PST, 1:00 PM EST. It’s absolutely free to attend, so just click the image below to register and you’ll get a reminder when we go live.

For most of us, the promise of “freedom” is one of the reasons we got into leadership in the first place.

Freedom to shape the vision.
Freedom to choose the team.
Freedom to decide how we spend our time and energy.

But somewhere along the climb, that freedom can get replaced by something else:

• Endless meetings and politics

• Pressure to justify every decision to a board

• 80-hour weeks to keep the machine running

The title might say “Chief,” but the calendar says otherwise.

For a growing number of CMOs, the answer isn’t chasing the next corporate rung — it’s stepping off the ladder entirely. Fractional freedom is the chance to reclaim control over your time, income, and impact by working with a handful of clients instead of serving one full-time employer.

It’s not for everyone. But my sense is it’s a felt temptation by many operators who are considering the future of their careers in the Intelligence Age.

I wanted to learn more, so I sat down with my friend Sangram Vajre (co-founder of Pardot & Terminus, now CEO of GTM Partners) to talk about why now is the perfect time to consider making the leap, how to position yourself to win, and the mindset that makes it possible.

Why Now Is the Perfect Time

Boards and CEOs are rethinking executive hiring in the AI era.

“Every organization is asking the same question,” Sangram told me. “Do I really need all the top executives in the company at the level they are? Do I really need to pay $500K to each one of them?”

The math works both ways:

• For companies: High-caliber expertise for a fraction of the cost and time commitment.

• For executives: As few as three clients at $7K–$10K/month can replace — or exceed — a corporate salary, without the corporate grind.

The shift opens a window for senior leaders to work with multiple companies instead of tying their fortunes to just one.

Sangram and I agreed that, in today’s climate, consulting can actually be a more future-proof career choice than taking a risk on another full-time role — especially in an early-stage or mid-stage company where market shifts, AI disruption, or an unproven business model could quickly derail your plans.

The Mindset Shift

The biggest hurdle isn’t learning how to sell yourself — it’s believing in yourself.

“Everything is risky,” Sangram said. “There’s risk in taking a job, and there’s risk in leaving one. The question is, if not now and if not you, then who?”

His advice:

• Give yourself six months to try

• Bet on the decades of experience you’ve already earned

• Define what your version of freedom looks like

One thing that I’ve thought about in this context is asking what’s the worst that can happen? You can always go back and take a full time job.

Get Started With the End in Mind

Getting started building a consulting practice can feel overwhelming. The trap is thinking you need to market to everyone, everywhere. The reality? You need far less than you think.

“All you need is three to five clients,” Sangram said. “That’s it. Once you know that, everything you do — from outreach to pricing — gets simpler.”

When you start with the end in mind, you:

• Avoid the burnout of chasing endless leads

• Focus on relationships that actually fit

• Build stability faster

When you realize you only need a small handful of the right conversations to reach your goal, the noise falls away. You’re no longer running the hamster wheel — you’re building a path to life-changing freedom.

The Power of Niching Down

Not all fractionals are created equal.

“Positioning yourself as a fractional CMO is generic,” Sangram said. “A fractional CMO for legal tech companies? That’s magnetic.”

When you own a niche, you:

• Shorten your sales cycle (prospects already know you ‘get’ their world)

• Reduce competition (you’re not compared to generalists)

• Command higher rates (expertise is worth more than time)

Your expertise has value — the more precisely you define and position it, the easier it becomes to rise above the sea of fractional executives.

Building a Brand (Without Becoming an Influencer)

This isn’t about chasing vanity metrics.

“You don’t need 100,000 followers on LinkedIn,” Sangram said. “Most successful fractionals have 500-1000 followers, but the right people paying attention.”

What works:

• Publish consistently in your niche (once or twice a week is enough)

• Make it clear on your profile how to work with you

• Give people a simple next step (an assessment, course, or resource)

Personally, I’ve lost interest in gaming the LinkedIn algorithm — which makes this advice especially refreshing.

My Take

I’ve found myself experimenting with this freedom (almost on accident) for the last 10 months. It’s not without uncertainty — but it’s allowed me to be more present at home, prioritize my physical health, pursue continuing education, and choose projects that align with my convictions.

If you’re finding yourself asking the bigger career questions lately, you’re certainly not alone. Whether or not launching a consulting practice is the right next career move for you, I hope this post demystified the process a bit and gave you something to think about.

Thanks again to Sangram for sharing his learnings so openly. I always learn something new and valuable when talking to him.

More soon.

—Anthony

🎥 Catch the full episode of my conversation with Sangram below — including the role that faith plays in how he defines meaning at work.

Everywhere you look right now, B2B brands are sounding the same.
Everyone is “AI-first.” Everyone is “revolutionizing” something.
Customers are drowning in jargon.

In this week’s Goldenhour Live, I sat down with Mike Berger and Kevin Wu, co-founders of Harmonic Message, to talk about how to build a brand narrative that’s actually differentiated — one that connects the head and the heart.

They’ve done 20+ engagements in the past 18 months with some of the fastest-growing tech companies in the world, and they’ve seen the same patterns (and mistakes) play out again and again.

Here’s what stood out.

The Story Is the Strategy

Most teams treat the “story” as a communications exercise. Mike and Kevin flip that on its head.

Kevin:

“The story is sort of like the start of the strategy. It’s the core of how you convince anyone to see you in a different way.”

Mike added that it’s not just about marketing — a well-crafted narrative can shift who you’re building for, what your roadmap looks like, and even your internal culture.

They see this especially in three scenarios:

• A major launch (often tied to a keynote or event)

• A new funding round (especially coming out of stealth)

• An SKO — “one of the most important internal events for a B2B company”

For early-stage companies, the challenge is starting from zero. For mature ones, it’s breaking through years of inertia.

Brand vs. Product Marketing — It’s Not Either/Or

One of the big tensions inside companies: should brand lead the story, or product marketing?

Mike’s take: it’s about the person, not the function.
Kevin’s take: they need to work together, but product marketing often has the depth to decide what the story is.

The real danger? Brand teams that stay “in the clouds” and never ground the story in the product reality — or product marketers who nail the product but miss the emotional connection.

Why Most B2B Stories Fail

It’s not because the company doesn’t have a “why.” It’s because they stop there.

Mike:

“If you’re stuck at the ‘Just Do It’ level without explaining the what, it doesn’t matter. You’re not going to sell any shoes unless people know you’re a shoe company.”

Kevin introduced what he calls The Differentiation Sandwich:

• Why – The mission and emotional driver

• How – Your unique approach

• What – The tangible product and value

Most companies focus on the why and what, but skip the how — a missed opportunity for real differentiation.

Positioning in the Age of AI

Every company now has AI in its messaging. Most are pulling from the same models. So how do you stand out?

Mike:

“You have to convince someone how AI is significantly enhancing your core value prop — not just say you’re AI-first.”

Kevin warns that early-stage founders often underplay their AI advantage, instead of leaning into a bold, future-looking narrative.

They outlined six “surface areas” where AI differentiation usually lives:

• Data

• Context

• Memory

• Reasoning

• Actions

• Trust & Safety

Figure out where your edge is, and tell the story from there.

The Rebrand Is Dead

Kevin didn’t mince words here:

“The rebrand is dead. Long live the new rebrand — which starts with the narrative.”

Instead of hiring a big agency to create a “skin” (new logo, font, style guide), start with the deeper questions:

• Why do we exist?

• What makes us truly unique?

• How do we want to be seen?

Get that right first — then move to design after that.

Brand Humanity as the Last Moat

One theme we kept returning to: in a world where much of marketing is automated, the remaining advantage is human connection.

Mike:

“Pretty soon you could spend an entire day on social and not know if anything you saw was real. That’s when people will crave something human.”

Kevin’s challenge to founders:

“Why wouldn’t you want the most human brand tied to the best product? It can only help you.”

Is Category Creation Dead?

Mike’s answer: not dead, but rare.

“Five years ago, everyone wanted to do it. Now most realize it’s expensive, time-consuming, and only makes sense in rare cases.”

Real category creation happens when the product itself demands it. As Mike put it:

“If you try to change your category but your product doesn’t change, that’s BS.”

Final Takeaways

A great brand story isn’t fluff. It’s a strategic asset that:

• Guides your roadmap

• Aligns your team

• Differentiates you in a noisy market

• Creates emotional connection that drives buying decisions

In the AI era, anyone can copy your features.
They can’t copy your story — or the emotional connection built between your brand and your audience.

And the CMOs who win? They’ll be the ones who learn how to orchestrate the transactional with AI while doubling down on the human.

Thanks again to Mike and Kevin for sharing their wisdom with us. Honestly these guys are two of the best storytellers that I’ve met along the way — hope that you’ve been able to get some value from what they’re seeing.

More soon.

—Anthony

🎥 Catch the full episode of my conversation with Mike & Kevin below — including how they’ve helped companies reposition around AI without sounding like everyone else.

Somewhere between the headlines declaring the “death of SEO” and the breathless hype over GenAI, CMOs are left holding the bag. You’re still on the hook for pipeline. Still navigating AI disruption. Still expected to make the numbers work — without a clear playbook for what’s next.

That’s why I called in the ringer: John Henry Scherck.

John Henry isn’t just one of the smartest minds in organic and performance marketing — I’ve worked with him at nearly every CMO seat I’ve ever held. At Front. At Hopin. At AudiencePlus. He’s been part consultant, part therapist, and occasionally the only voice in the room saying the hard (but right) thing: that “traffic” isn’t the same thing as trust.

So what do CMOs need to know about search right now? We covered a lot in our conversation, but here are a few themes that stood out:

AI Is Reshaping the Playing Field—But Not Killing the Game

John Henry dropped a great quote from Ryan Law at Ahrefs:

“SEO is the worst it’s ever been. It’s also still likely your best marketing channel.”

Yes, clicks are down. AI summaries and overviews are gobbling up space before a user ever hits your site. But the demand for B2B solutions? Still there. Still discoverable. Still searchable — if you know what kind of content actually matters.

It turns out, we’ve been treating all traffic like it’s equally valuable. And it’s not.

“If someone needs to Google ‘what is a performance improvement plan,’ they’re probably not qualified to buy your HRIS.”

So much of what we used to call “top of funnel” was actually outside the funnel — unqualified, uninterested, and often unmeasurable. That’s what AI is now consuming. The real signal — the content that solves jobs to be done, speaks to high-intent use cases, or shapes emerging categories — is still incredibly valuable.

Brand Is Becoming a Performance Channel

This might be the biggest unlock for CMOs stuck between brand and demand.

We’ve treated these two as separate disciplines, even at AudiencePlus (ironic, I know). We wrote SEO anchor pages we didn’t believe in. We optimized for robots, not resonance.

And John Henry pushed us again and again — to write what we actually believed.

Because here’s the truth: Google has learned what buyers want. And what they want is trust. And trust comes from brand.

“Google doesn’t want you to win traffic. It wants the most trusted, probable answer. And that answer is almost always a brand.”

So yes, brand drives performance. Especially now.

GenAI Search, GEO, and the Great Saturation

We talked a lot about GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) — the idea that AI models are becoming the new interface for search. Instead of ranking your site, they summarize your expertise. Instead of sending you traffic, they consume your content and generate a “best guess” response.

Scary? Sure. But here’s the catch: it still rewards the same thing Google always has.

“If you’re everywhere on a topic, it would feel weird for the model not to recommend you.”

He calls it “surround sound SEO.” It’s not about ranking one page. It’s about being present in every conversation about the thing you do. Owned. Earned (yes, PR is back). Rented. Community. Media. Word-of-mouth.

You want to be the most likely outcome — like Apple in computers. That comes from saturation, not hacks.

Why AI Labs Are Launching Browsers (And Why It Matters)

As if things weren’t shifting fast enough, companies like OpenAI and Perplexity are now launching their own browsers. At first glance, this might feel like a land grab to compete with Google — and in some ways, it is. But the real play is deeper: data ownership.

As John Henry pointed out, companies like Cloudflare are now blocking AI scrapers by default. And when models can’t crawl your site, they lose context. These new browsers are a workaround — a way for AI labs to directly observe user behavior and collect proprietary, first-party data.

Why should CMOs care? Because the interface for discovery is changing. If these AI-native browsers gain traction, your website traffic may no longer be the front door. The browser itself might become the brand filter.

The takeaway: You can’t rely on owned channels alone. Your content needs to live where your audience already is — and it needs to show up with authority in multiple formats, multiple contexts, and multiple environments.

A Caution on the Hype Cycle

It would’ve been easy for John Henry to fear-monger his way to bigger contracts.

“The sky is falling! GEO is everything! Hire us now!”

But instead, he was refreshingly grounded.

We both agreed: this moment is real. And yes, a lot of roles will change. But most of the “marketing jobs” being automated were never the work we got into this field to do.

Writing the same 50 blog posts with slightly different keywords? Gone.
Tactical toil, fake email jobs, ad console tedium? Goodbye.
What remains? Taste. Judgment. Creativity. Strategy. Humanity.

The Human Element: Marketing in the Intelligence Age

We ended on something that felt personal. Both of us — after years of scaling, building, and burning out — have found ourselves rethinking the work.

What is our role as marketers in this next chapter?
What’s still uniquely human?
What should we spend our time doing?

For me, I believe brand humanity is the next charter of the CMO. Not as soft, arts-and-crafts fluff — but as the premium differentiator in an AI-driven world.

The brands that win will be the ones that build trust, evoke emotion, and create belonging. The ones that say something real. That spark movements. That people want to be part of.

And the CMOs who win? They’ll be the ones who learn how to orchestrate the transactional with AI while doubling down on the human.

Thanks again to John Henry for kicking off this new series with so much insight and honesty. If you’re feeling disoriented by all this, you’re not alone. But there is a way forward — and I think it starts by reconnecting with the parts of marketing that made us fall in love with it in the first place.

More soon.

—Anthony

🎥 Catch the full episode of my conversation with John Henry below.