The one where I get promoted to VP of Marketing (and Josh explains why)

Back in December, Josh told me: come January 1st, my promotion to VP of Marketing was official. Then the holidays happened, and somewhere between Christmas and a company kickoff deck, I had a mini memory wipe.

He didn’t.

He announced it live at kickoff, complete with a full Pokémon-style evolution of my ghosty. You know, the one modeled after my close friend, confidant, and lifelong collaborator, Taylor Alison Swift.

Heart glasses. Flower crown. Fully evolved into some kind of souped-up, Pimp My Ride ghosty.

In this episode of This Meeting Could've Been a Podcast, Josh sat me down and did something CEOs don't often do. He explained, point by point, exactly why he promoted me. 

By the end, I'd been audited, complimented, and mildly roasted — sometimes in the same sentence.

What you’ll learn 

• Why 'what can I take off your plate?' is sort of a red flag
• How a 30-60-90 plan built for one interview became an operating system a year later
• Why earning a founder's trust has nothing to do with being liked
• Why the biggest bets often look the riskiest right before they pay off
• How to know when to ask for resources instead of absorbing more work yourself
• What Josh says separates a marketing leader from someone who just manages marketing

TOP THREE TAKEAWAYS

Takeaway 1: Stop listening like a marketer. Start listening like a CEO.

 What's the story here? What's the angle? What can I turn into content?

For most of my career, sitting in a leadership meeting meant listening for one or all of those things. It was right at the time. But, it was definitely smaller than what was required of me at Vector.

Josh pointed something out to me that I would never have noticed all on my lonesome. Somewhere along the way, I stopped gleaning for content ideas and started listening for problems. His problems. Product problems. Whatever was making him lose sleep that week.

It sounds like a tiny shift. Well, it isn’t.

When you're only half-listening for your own department, you catch your own department's stuff. When you're listening at the level of the whole business, you catch what the CEO's worried about.

That's the difference between managing a function and running one.

Takeaway 2: Make the big bet

My first pitch to Josh was a podcast that didn't talk about the product. Risky business, I know.

On paper, it's an absurd first move. You join a startup, you're trying to prove yourself, and your first big idea is to make a show that never sells the product. 

I had a plan. Mostly.

Eminem said you only get one shot. There was no way I was wasting mine on branded pens and a newsletter nobody asked for.

No pressure or anything.

You can tell pretty quickly whether your boss wants ideas or insurance. Josh wanted ideas. He'd back you, but he'd also tell you when it sucked. If something worked, we'd double down. If it didn't, we'd learn something and move on. The one outcome we couldn't stomach was fading into the beige sameness of B2B marketing.

Big bets are easier when failure is still useful.

Takeaway 3: Thesis match trumps résumé (every time)

When you're hiring your first marketing leader — or trying to become one — everyone tells you to look at the résumé.

Demand gen experience? Check.

Product marketing chops? Check.

ABM background? Keep the “checks” coming.

Josh didn't hire me because I checked those boxes. I didn't even know what pipeline was. Not how to measure it, anyway.

All he wanted to know was if I saw marketing going where he did. His bet was that the world was tilting back toward art over science — everyone was about to be a scientist, so he wanted the artist. And I'd spent my whole career being just that. 

So when I think about whether a role is right for me (or whether a candidate is right for you), it comes down to three things:

1. Do I believe what this founder believes?
2. Are we betting on the same future for marketing?
3. Can my particular set of skills push that belief forward?

I checked all three boxes here.

Every CEO has a thesis, whether they've said it out loud or not. Find it before you worry about the résumé.

 Catch the full episode (and subscribe to This Meeting Could’ve Been a Podcast) on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform.