[00:00:44] Kelsey Krapf: so much for joining the next CMO podcast today. Aaron, I'm super excited to have you on the show and learn a little bit more about you and what you do at Merkle. So can you tell our audience a little
[00:00:55] Erin Hutchinson: bit about. Yeah, well, hi Kelsey. Hi Peter. Thank you so much for having me here today.
I am really excited. Um, yes, I can tell you a little bit about myself. Um, I grew up in Canada. I moved to the U S I, I work in Pittsburgh now and I am the global CMO of Merkle. Um, I've been with Merkle since 2001 and have been the CMO, uh, for the last two years. So I'm excited to be here and excited to.
Talk with you all.
[00:01:27] Peter Mahoney: That's great. And, uh, 20 years that is serious stain power. Aaron. That's very impressive. I assume you've done a lot during the time that you've been at Merkle. So just set the table for audience. Tell us a little bit about Merkle, uh, what, what Merkle does and, uh, so we can understand a little bit more.
[00:01:47] Erin Hutchinson: Sure. Yeah. So Merkle, um, actually Merkle computer systems. It was founded in 1971. Um, our CEO, who was our CEO until last year, his name was David Williams. He bought the company in 1988. He was 25 years old. He was their 24th employee. Uh, it was about $3 million in revenue in 1988 and he grew it to what we are today.
Um, and we're a $1 billion company, um, in 2020. So, um, we are technically. Data-driven customer experience management company. So what that means is basically we use data, technology and analytics, um, to help our clients make their advertising more addressable, um, make experiences more personal and manage consumer relations.
Over time. Um, we were acquired by Dentsu in 2016, um, and we Dentsu set up in three service lines. So creative media and CXM. Um, so customer experience management and Merkle is the CXM arm of debts.
[00:02:50] Peter Mahoney: Awesome. And, and it sounds like one of the things we were really excited about talking with you about today, Erin is the fact that you've been through recently a pretty significant brand transition for Merkle.
So we'd love to hear a little bit about sort of what drove that a wedding you're in. Tell us a little bit about the brand transition you're going.
[00:03:10] Erin Hutchinson: Yeah. Yeah, no, that sounds great. Thank you. We have gone through a brand transition. Um, you know, I think Merkle's brand has evolved over time. Um, you know, originally, we were building and managing marketing databases and then wrapping analytics and strategy with those.
Um, and we were a database marketing agency and then we shifted into the digital space. Built out our experience capability sets and digital media capability sets. Um, and now we're embarking on kind of what we internally call Merkle 5.0, which is bringing those things together. Um, and it's about customer experience management.
So, um, the way we look at that in our vision, as we look at. As we look into the future, we see kind of that data transformation piece. So just how companies collect data, manage that data, create insights out of it and activate it. You know, that's a big strength of ours. And then when you pair that with digital transformation that I, I ability to create experiences, um, at all of the different customer touch points, across sales, service, marketing, and commerce.
If you bring those together, you've got, you know, Customer centered strategy. Um, so we work with our clients to help them build those strategies, to meet consumers, kind of where they are, meet the consumer demand, context and motivation, um, with experiences that are personalized, innovative, um, to, to help them create, to help.
Create competitive advantage in their space. So what
[00:04:42] Peter Mahoney: do you think you had to change? What was the, what was the thing that drove the change? Was it this shift in strategy? Was it the shift in the market? A little bit of a combination. There's often some kind of a catalyst for a major brand trends, transformation.
What was that for you?
[00:04:59] Erin Hutchinson: Yeah. Well, I think that's a great question. And I think it's, you know, when we look at it almost as a pivot, but we look at it as something that's kind of it's w years in the making to get there and then years in the making to bring it to fruition. So I think, um, you know, it's, as we've seen, you know, data transformation on its own and, and having data and using data.
Is really important, but without the digital piece to put it together, It's it sits there and it is what it is, it's data. Um, but if, but there's so much you can do with it, it's so powerful. So we see, you know, with our customers, um, and you know, we work with marketing, the marketing organizations really within fortune 1000 companies.
Um, so when they're looking to meet their customers, get in front of their customers, it's not just about through advertising anymore. It is really across the entire. Touch point a consumer has. So you need to bring those things together to say, okay, if somebody calls into a call center, or somebody goes onto a website or somebody is getting served up an ad on their phone, or, um, was there some AI and AI video?
Created to help a customer understand a product. All of those things have to be seamless and work together. And really, you know, we use the term and I think it's a pretty prevalent term, but we really believe we are in the customer experience. Oh, I'm sorry. Um, we are in the customer expectation economy, um, and really we need to help our clients be there.
And what customers are expecting now is different than what they were expecting. Certainly a couple of years ago, if you look before the pandemic, but that trend has been growing over time. And I think the pandemic has really just accelerated it.
[00:06:49] Peter Mahoney: Absolutely. There's been just this huge. That I think it's a trend.
It's a trend line that's been going on for a long time. And then all of a sudden there's a step function in the trendline that happened. I want to come back to that in a second, but I wanted to poke into this Five-O thing that you mentioned. Does that mean this is the fifth generation of the merch of Merkle's brand.
Is that how you think.
[00:07:15] Erin Hutchinson: Yeah, really. If we look at it since 1988, when David Williams bought it, you know, that's kind of what, when we say 5.0, it was kind of, this was a data processing company. And then what, then we wrapped like kind of, oh, we're going to bring analytics and technology in here. And it became a database marketing agency.
And so an a performance marketing agency. And so this. Customer experience management company, um, is really, like I say, it's an evolution of those things. So it's not like it's a drastic pivot. I would say it's more of an evolution, but yeah, over time we would say that this is kind of our fifth pillar.
[00:07:52] Peter Mahoney: The reason I ask is that in my previous experience, I we've mentioned before.
When I chatted, I spent about 13 years at a, a software company, uh, that ended up at about $2 billion in revenue. And we went through in my 13 years, we went through four era's, basically in brand. And that was fairly accelerated during that time. And in the trick is of course, That your, your values and your overall brand promise is the thing that tends to be enduring, but the way that the, the market changes or the market shifts or the, the strategy change that you have along the way tends to make these evolutions happen.
And I think a lot of people don't especially appreciate when someone's been there for a long time, that you you've seen the. Significant changes and evolutions happen over time. And as you said, we were in the middle of this really rapid change. That's go on. That's going on right now? So back to that, Tell me a little bit about sort of what you've seen in, uh, in the market, what you've seen your customers have to respond to now that the expectations of consumers around the, the, uh, the consistency of digital experience and just access, uh, into enterprises via digital means has, has accelerated so much to tell me what that means for your customers.
[00:09:29] Erin Hutchinson: Yeah. So, you know, when we talk about this customer expectation economy and, and like we said, with the pandemic that has just been accelerated, um, so if we look at all of us as consumers or as marketers, you know, what, what we've had to transform or how we've been forced to transform how we do things, um, you know, since, uh, COVID, um, Good little story.
I was talking with our CEO, his name's Craig Dempster, and this was early on in the pandemic. And we were talking about our experiences with our parents and Craig's mom lives in New York city. And my parents are up in Canada and all of them while they have smartphones and iPads use them in a pretty minimal way.
And then we, you know, fast forward a few weeks into the pandemic. Craig's mom was ordering her groceries online and my parents had set up weekly zoom calls for our family to be able to get together. They were all on social media, engaging with their friends. They were ordering online from big box stores and we're getting frustrated when things took longer than two days to get there.
And all of a sudden we said, whoa, this is an acceleration in the way consumers are engaging with brands. Um, so we're at this great inflection point and I think as marketers. It is probably the greatest inflection point we've seen in decades. And so when we look at that consumer experience across, you know, as I mentioned, sales, service, marketing commerce, um, for us as a business, we're seeing those companies that had really focused on customer experience.
Um, and the transformation required for that prior to the pandemic. And if they weren't disrupted because they were in a disrupted age, uh, industry, maybe travel. Um, but those that invested heavily really succeeded and really scaled during the time of the pandemic. And what we're seeing is that those that under invested.
Other, I'm sorry that have under invested, um, either have gone away, unfortunately are, or are now investing in focusing on the opportunity of transformation. So, um, as a business, I think right now, we're at a point in time, it's just, um, transforming this opportunity, um, to create competitive advantage and in a different way, or in a very accelerated.
[00:11:38] Kelsey Krapf: I think one thing that a lot of B2C brands have done really well, you know, prior to the pandemic is that customer experience and they've, they've been at the forefront. And obviously with the pandemic, it's now really a fact that the B2B brands and, you know, and gaining that customer experience and making sure they're getting the same out of what a B to C brand would
[00:11:58] Erin Hutchinson: have.
So what
[00:12:00] Kelsey Krapf: can we learn as a B to B, to B business from the B to C side of things to really bring in that customer experience in that entire, um, you know,
[00:12:10] Erin Hutchinson: Yeah, I think it's, I think it's a great question. And I think, you know, as B2B marketers, um, yes, we are marketing to businesses, but those businesses are run and fueled by consumers.
So it's understanding what their needs are, anticipating them and again, meeting them where they are with, um, you know, it's, it's what we've been doing a long time. Getting a relevant message in front of them, helping them solve something that they're struggling with. Um, and now we're just, we're doing it in different ways.
So, you know, I know for B2B marketing, especially, you know, trade shows or conferences or events, that was a big part of a lot of B2B marketing strategies and that's gone. It's been gone. So there was a big shift to virtual and there was a big shift to how do we engage with these brands in a different world?
Um, and you know, I think so many of them with the shift to remote work and people setting up home offices, And these B2B brands, um, they're managing, it's kind of, they're managing so much and how we can just adjust and support and see the trends as they're coming. Um, I think we're w there's an expectation that we're doing that at the same pace that the BDCs are, although you're right.
Uh, they're, they're the B to C focus is what we, as consumers have seen so much, um, through the.
[00:13:36] Peter Mahoney: The other lens that would be interesting to explore Erin is, is enterprise size and how that's different because it's one thing. If you're a digital native kind of company, you're young, you don't have any tech debt to deal with, but you're dealing with large enterprises.
The thousand biggest companies in the world is where Merkle tends to focus anyway. So I assume that that would be a daunting thing to think about if you're a CMO or a CEO or a CIO or CTO, or one of those C's in, in one of these large enterprises. So how should they start? How, how should you think about, I've got this old line 40 year old business that's been around forever.
It's wildly complicated. Now, where do you start to think about this kind of transformation?
[00:14:30] Erin Hutchinson: Yeah. And Peter, how do you mean, I'm sorry, I kind of lost the thread. Sorry of your questions.
[00:14:35] Peter Mahoney: Yeah. Let, let me try and let me try and say it again. So if you're, if you're a small company, you, you can transform your business. You can create a different kind of experience. Pretty quickly because your business is simple and you're probably digitally native, but if you've been around for a while, for decades may be in your large enterprise, it's really complex.
And you have to go through this transformation, uh, and, and become more customer experience focused. How would a company start to think about that? So you can't just snap your fingers and say, I'm, I'm going to create this great customer experience and it will be so. What's the first step that people need.
[00:15:18] Erin Hutchinson: Yeah, I think. Okay. That is a great question. Thank you for framing it. Um, yeah, you know, I think when there is a shift, when we think of, you know, marketing and, and how marketers it traditionally in the past, You know, they, they can't be siloed. And so we're seeing a real shift, um, with customers and, and with ourselves as well in terms of bringing together a broader C-suite.
So it's not the marketers making the decisions, it's the CIO or in the discussion, the CTO's are in the discussion. It really is an organizational shift. And so, um, in order for an organization to. To have that figured out and be, you know, focused on CRM, loyalty advertising, but also sales, service, marketing, and commerce.
It really requires all of those stakeholders to sit down and map out. What does a customer journey look like? How do customers engage with the brand and then to start, you know, and start small. We use these terms like start small and move fast. So because it can be overwhelming and daunting, but I think looking in and saying, what technologies do we have?
Are these the right technologies? What data do we have and how are we marrying those two to get the biggest value out of it? And how do we need to build on those? Um, as we move forward and want to grow,
[00:16:43] Peter Mahoney: th that makes sense. I'm sure there's a level of self-reflection and assessment that you need to go through before you say, I'm just going to go transform you.
You need to do that. That inspection of what that journey is like for your customers. I imagine that's tricky for some people, because the, I know having worked at some companies that, that have been around for a little while, in some cases, those journeys get really complicated. And so do you, do you recommend that, that these clients.
Do they start really broad or do they start really narrow? Should they start and say, I'm going to fix this one thing for this one customer segment, uh, and make sure there's an end-to-end thing here, or should I lean back and squint and look at the whole thing and then define an overall strategy, then I'm going to try to move toward,
[00:17:37] Erin Hutchinson: yeah, that's a great question.
And. Um, I feel like I'm not answering it, but I'm going to answer it by saying it is a bit of both, because I think there has to be a kind of like you say, stand back and squint and look at the whole organization and what are the main goals of, you know, what are the end goals? And so you're not operating in this myopic space, but then to your point, I think taking a small piece and we see this time and time again, um, with organizations.
Taking a small segment, um, focusing on it, putting things in place and driving results is then easier to then take that in front of the other stakeholders and say, look at, look at the results that were driven when we executed this, when we changed things up here and then it's easier to expand it out in the business.
So I would say certainly have a holistic view and, and have that mindset going into it. How is this one piece going to. Help with the overall plan and strategy, but I, I think those small pieces, um, can help make bigger change and help make it quicker because you're, you're gonna have results to share. And you're going to have something very specific to be able to look at and use as an example.
[00:18:59] Kelsey Krapf: I think that's an excellent point. I think marketers nowadays are really focusing on, you know, let's not look at the tactical and. So these mini
[00:19:08] Erin Hutchinson: campaigns are
[00:19:08] Kelsey Krapf: running. What's the holistic view. What's the business value of marketing that we're adding to an organization. And the sooner that marketers kind of make that transition and realize that they're going to gain the trust and they're going to gain the respect in the organization.
And I guess that brings me to my next point is, you know, congratulations, you just became a global COO for Merkle.
[00:19:27] Erin Hutchinson: Um, obviously
[00:19:28] Kelsey Krapf: our listeners are aspired to be CMO someday, if not, you know, trying to keep their job as a COO. So what. Or I guess, how did you get to the position that you are today and what were some of the biggest learning lessons for you?
[00:19:42] Erin Hutchinson: Yeah. Well, thank you. Um, yes, so I, well, I'll give you a quick snapshot, two minutes of how I got to this. Um, my role here, um, I actually studied to be a teacher and I studied databases and I was really interested in databases, wanted to pursue that. So I started with Merkle. I was a SQL developer. That was my first job with Merkle and the day.
Um, I moved into the client, um, client services group within databases and, you know, and I was new and I wanted to learn, um, and sales and marketing were kind of one in the same and I just offered to help. Can I help? Can I, what do you need? What, what can I do? And I was doing it on the side. And then, um, after a couple of years, uh, I moved over to marketing and started to build out that as a real function within the business.
Again, Merkle was about 350 people, about a hundred million dollars, $150 million in revenue. And we built up a marketing focus of really focused on events, PR and communications. Um, we built that out and then I was really building out the events side of things and. Then fast forward, you know, our group just kind of continue to grow and I would take on different areas of the business and help to grow those and bring them together.
And, um, excuse me, then took on the role of CMO here in the Americas. And as our business grew and our footprint was expanding globally. Um, I moved into the role of global CMO. So, um, it's been a journey and I certainly, when I started. I didn't know exactly where I wanted to be. Um, but I think that would probably be you asked for what my piece of advice would be.
I think it's the idea of be curious and be open. Um, so I, I was always open if. I saw marketing and I'm like, well, I'm not on the marketing team. I work in the database group, I'm a developer. Like, what am I, but to walk over. And maybe some of that came with the naivety of being really young. And I walked over and said, Hey, what can I do to help?
I'd love to learn what you guys are doing. And so I just learnt and. I would pop into our CEO's office and say, I'm just really curious, like, why did we do this? Or what are we doing with this client? And I think just perpetually being curious and, um, and being open to new experiences has allowed me to be in a spot that probably wasn't where I thought I would be when I started my journey with.
[00:22:11] Peter Mahoney: I think that's great advice, Aaron and I I've seen the people who move, uh, furthest in their careers and make the biggest impact, tend to be people who have done a few things is as you just highlighted, one is they don't especially take a straight path. Sometimes it's a circuitous path to get to where you want to be.
And you may not even have any idea in the beginning that that's, that was your goal, but you were sort of open to exploring and understanding. And part of what that does is you sort of pollinate your experience across the business. And all of a sudden, you, you have a deeper understanding as, as someone who is writing SQL you, you knew a little bit about marketing and as you started, uh, as you started getting more and more into marketing, you had a deeper appreciation for what the value proposition of Merkle was because you were acting.
Delivering the value proposition over time. Uh, and, and then sometimes it takes a, it takes a, a non-direct path to get there. And, and the idea of curiosity I think is really, is really fantastic. So now that you're here, so you've got, now this giant organization, there are 12,000 people at Merkle. They're probably not all in marketing, but maybe there are a few fair amount of them out there.
How, how do you manage a marketing? Function in a company that broad, how do you keep, keep people on point on focus for the most important initiatives of marketing initiatives inside Merkle?
[00:23:47] Erin Hutchinson: Yeah, that is, um, a great question. I think, you know, Um, I think, uh, when I think about, you know, w w why, how, how it works and when most important pieces, I think there's clarity and, um, and alignment I think are really important.
So I think for our teams, we do, you know, Merkle offers a lot of services and solutions that we want to promote. Um, we've got internal comms to focus on, um, forever. You know, we've got teams that are focused on all of the different functions that sit across marketing. And I think as long as the team has a clarity and the business has a clarity.
So while Merkle is operating and we're going through this pivot and we're a large organization, there is a real clarity of what, what our jobs are, what we do every day, what Merkle comes to work to do every day. And I think that. Enables us to be able to build plans. Um, and you know, I think we saw it through the pandemic, especially, um, w you know, having as every marketing team does, you know, having your plans.
It's really important because then when something happens that completely derail them, you at least know, Hey, what were we trying to achieve? What were our outcomes? And now how can we adjust to try to drive those same outcomes, um, in a really disrupted world. So I think clarity. Communication, of course.
So we've got marketing folks that sit in the Americas and in a lot of different states in the Americas, um, that sit throughout EMEA that sit throughout APAC. Um, and I think just making sure that we've got, and, and I give a huge kudos to our it teams that make it easy. To communicate. Um, I know sometimes we get frustrated with the technology every, you know, the odd time when, oh, can you hear me?
Or you're on mute. Um, but in general, having that foundation of the technologies to be able to communicate, to be able to share content and plans and to make sure when things change. We're all changing and we're all aligned. And, um, it's so that is how, yeah. Our marketing organization really functions. And I think we have, uh, you know, as part of, I would say marketing, um, as I'm sure is the case in many organizations, it becomes kind of the driver and the champion for culture as well.
Um, so I look to that group, um, The business, the work we're doing, um, externally, but then it's also, we're the ones who are driving culture. We're the ones who are bringing all these messages from across the business together. Um, and so I think we're at a really, uh, we're kind of right at the center of everything that's happening in the business.
Um, so I think that also helps bringing the teams together and working as a cohesive unit because we're kind of sitting at the middle of everything that's happened.
[00:26:44] Peter Mahoney: And has that changed in the last, in the last year or so during the pandemic sort of, uh, obviously you've, everyone's now, uh, more distributed than, than ever.
Ha have you found it difficult to kind of keep people on point or, uh, in, in what strategies do you recommend that marketing leadership employ to try to really keep the team aligned on the most important initial.
[00:27:11] Erin Hutchinson: Yeah, I think, um, you know, we've always had a relatively remote culture, you know, of course people were in the offices, but we had folks who were worked remotely or people were traveling a lot.
So, you know, we were used to being able to operate, not in person all the time. Um, but certainly that has accelerated. And I think keeping the teams, um, engaged and focused, that hasn't been, that hasn't been a concerned and actually. You know, I think if, if we look at just as feedback from employees and surveys, it's, they're probably working more than they ever have.
And you know, probably sometimes it's hard to disconnect when your computer's just sitting at your kitchen table all the time and you walk past, you think, oh, I'll send that email. Um, I would say employees have been very engaged in the work. And I think where there's been a change in kind of a, an opportunity for us as leaders is how do we keep employees engaged?
How do we help them feel the culture? And it feel experience that, um, and feel that they're part of a team part of an organization. And Merkle's culture is something that it's, it's a big part of who we are. It's why I've been there for 20 years. Um, the work is exciting and awesome too, but it's, it's a great place to be.
So I think putting a lot of focus there. Um, so some of the things that we've done, you know, as an organization, Um, you know, in terms of communicating, a lot of our communications prior had been, you know, focused on business updates or HR updates, or maybe an it update. And we really made them a lot more personal.
So starting and again, the pandemic accelerated that. So I think that was, if I see a silver lining, that would be one coming out of. Um, we had weekly video chats with our CEO and myself, um, where he was speaking directly with employees and he was talking to them about everything that we're doing, being very transparent.
And Hey, we're focusing on these things, um, being a sense of calm through all of this, I think when employees had a lot of questions, So I think that was really great. Um, teams across the business came together. Employees started this, um, program called Merkle moves and it was a global initiative, which again, kind of a silver lining.
You can't do a lot of things globally together. Um, but it was for everybody to choose something they wanted to train for or do. And, um, and we all did it on one day and we all were posting and we had people across the business. Feeling like they're part of a team, even though they were separate and operating independently.
So, and I think things like, you know, video happy hours or get togethers, um, things that have just helped to bring people together. We've been very focused on what are those things that employees are craving. Um, and I think, you know, those opportunities for personal connection, um, They've really have really resonated with our employee base.
Um, but there something that we probably probably should have been doing before the pandemic more, but the pandemic accelerated that. And I think that's been, like I say, a silver lining
[00:30:27] Peter Mahoney: totally makes sense. And, uh, and, and speaking of that, uh, sort of the, the change that's been accelerated by, by the pandemic, one of the things that.
For most marketers we've seen significant change. It's just their approach in their mix in marketing is all of a sudden very different. And obviously it's more heavily digital in, in a lot of cases that, and that's something that I think is, is now more permanently changing. So what do you think CMOs should do to help their organizations deal with that shift?
Because sometimes you've got a skill imbalance. Now, if you had a job. Physical event team. As an example, now, the all events should have some kind of a hybrid model. I think we've learned that even the physical events can, can, uh, benefit from a deep, deeper digital kind of component. So what, what do you think we should do be doing for our teams to, to help them adapt to the probably permanent shift we've seen in the way that marketing is delivered?
[00:31:36] Erin Hutchinson: Yeah, what a great question. And, and it's so true. I think the needs of the business have changed. And as you say, um, where we might've had a big events team, um, what happens with that team and how do they flex? And I think really, you know, the, the, for us actually, while events, while in-person events, um, went away.
They're needed. We were flexing new muscles to say, how are we going to do this? We had to partner with different organizations to say, how are we going to host this client's summit virtually and allow people to engage. So I would say, you know, kind of recognizing that it, there is, there are these changes, as you say.
Um, and, and it was an opportunity to, for, I think our team and in marketing to say, um, Hey, we have a gap here. Um, and that gap, you might not, maybe that's not where you saw yourself, but kind of that being open. Um, I think when you've got a, um, a culture of being open to trying different things, or so we did a lot of that.
It was, Hey, we need these skillsets. Do we have the right people do, can we train the right people? Um, and that's what we've really, I think most organizations probably have done that to say, okay, we're shifting from X to Y. Um, and what do we have? Who do we have on our team already? Who we can be plugged in and who wants to, and that's something they want.
Or what skills do we need to bring in that we didn't have? Um, but it is, I think to your point, it's, it's not probably going backwards. We're always going to have this hybrid world. And again, it's accelerated where maybe we would have been in 2, 3, 4 years. It's accelerated that. So I think acknowledging that and saying, what do we need now?
And assuming these trends are going to continue, what are we going to need more of? And what are we probably going to need less of as we look forward? That's how we've been approaching it. Okay.
[00:33:38] Peter Mahoney: That's great. And it's, it's, we've had a, a broad ranging conversation here. Aaron, it's been really amazing. We're we're coming up to the, uh, to the end of our scheduled time, unfortunately.
So I guess I'll ask the penultimate question before, uh, Kelsey goes to finish us off here. That sounded violent. Finish us off. Uh, but the, uh, so just help our listeners understand how they can learn more about.
[00:34:05] Erin Hutchinson: Yeah, well, that's great. Um, yes, you can visit us online. Um, Merkle Inc com. So Merkle, M E R K L E I N c.com.
Um, yeah, check us out. Uh, we've got tons of webinars all the time talking about online events. So depending what area of marketing you're focused on, um, for you'd find something there that's interesting to you and. I really, really appreciate the time Peter and Kelsey. Thanks so much for the conversation and for having me on today.
[00:34:36] Peter Mahoney: Great. You know, you're welcoming, we'll put those links in the show notes for those listeners who are connected to a device where you can actually explore those things. Feel free to do that. And without I think Kelsey, we have our last.
[00:34:51] Erin Hutchinson: Yes. I know.
[00:34:51] Kelsey Krapf: I already asked a little bit of, uh, you know, giving advice to aspiring and current CMOs and you gave such a great answer of staying open, but you just got to the position you're at.
I'm sure you have some more tips and tricks for us. And I personally would love, I know our listeners would too. So any other last minute advice to wrap up this podcast for current and the spicy?
[00:35:13] Erin Hutchinson: Yeah, I would just say, um, you know, I think that idea of just always knowing we don't know at all. Um, so I think there's like a, actually, I don't know if you guys have ever watched the show Ted lasso.
Um, but he's actually got a great list of kind of, of tips and things to remember. And, and one of them is be humble. And I think I threw throughout my career and where I am now. I am very humble in the sense of, I don't know everything, but I am really lucky in the sense that I'm surrounded by really smart people.
We work with really smart people. And so I think just always being again, curious, but also have that humbleness to say, Hey, I don't know about this, but I really want to learn about it. And I know I have a lot to learn and I'm excited for the journey. I love
[00:36:03] Kelsey Krapf: that. Be humble and be open. Uh, that's how you got to a CMO role as, uh, Aaron would say, well, thank you so much for your time today, Aaron, this was such an excellent conversation.
I really enjoyed it. I know Peter did to make sure to follow the next CMO and Plannuh on Twitter and LinkedIn. And if you have any ideas for topics or guests, you can email us at the next CMO at Plannuh dot com.
[00:36:26] Erin Hutchinson: Have a great day, everyone. Thanks Erin. Thanks Sarah. And thank you.
