Marketing Qualified
Welcome to the Marketing Qualified Podcast, your home for discussion on all marketing things that are utterly fucking absurd. Co-hosts Chris Newton and Mike Griffin have 20+ years of marketing experience between them. Said differently: They've seen some shit.
Tune in every week(ish) for a new, less than 40 minute long episode, with discussions ranging from failed marketing tactics to marketing facts to campaign ideas to profanity laden rants about whatever may be top of mind. You may even learn something new.
Visit us at www.marketingqualified.io or follow us on your favorite social network of choice, as long as that social network is Instagram, because we don't have anything else (and neither should you).
Marketing Qualified
One-Star Reviews And Real Feelings
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A one-star review is never just a one-star review. We kick off by reading some truly chaotic SaaS reviews from G2, Capterra, and beyond, then we do what marketers can’t resist: we diagnose the real problem. Was it the product, the onboarding, the expectations, or an unlucky run-in with a specific rep? From a CRM meltdown to GA4 reporting frustration to the legendary “Jessica from support did nothing wrong, but Kyle…” moment, we break down what angry customer feedback actually signals and how it can mislead teams that treat review sites like pure truth.
Then we zoom out to the bigger thing sitting underneath all that frustration: marketing work right now. We react to a LinkedIn post that nails what many teams are feeling, marketing is being treated as disposable, with ROI pressure rising as headcount drops. We talk through why brand, SEO, and long-cycle demand gen keep getting judged on unrealistic timelines, why on-site mandates and relocation asks are pushing great marketers away, and why 90-day probation periods at startups feel like a rigged game.
Finally, we get into AI in marketing and the sudden rise of titles like “marketing engineer” and “gen marketer.” We debate whether this is a real shift in how marketing teams operate or just marketing ops with a new label, and why AI agents and automations are a recipe for disaster if your workflows are already a mess. If you’ve ever felt disrupted and angry at a tool, a process, or the state of the job market, you’ll feel seen here. Subscribe, share with a marketer friend, and leave a review with what triggered you most.
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Friday Banter And LinkedIn Doomscrolling
SPEAKER_02Hey everybody, welcome back to Marketing Qualified. I'm Mike Griffin.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Chris Newton.
SPEAKER_02Chris, uh, we are we are doing this here on a on a Friday afternoon, actual Friday. I remember that one time we had to fake a Friday for the sake of not making our listeners feel bad. Uh, I'm assuming you have a really lovely weekend lined up. Confirm deny.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, I don't think we have much. I'm probably just gonna go out and do some do a little yard work, trim the bushes a little bit that haven't been trimmed in like five years. So basically doing doing some stuff that my lazy ass should have been doing this whole time. Uh but yeah, it's finally getting nice out here in New England. So yeah, it's not a not a bad thing to do to be outside. How about yourself? Uh got any big plans in the big apple?
SPEAKER_02There is some routine maintenance around the place that I probably should be doing. The reality is we'll do an outdoor. There's like a there there's uh the cherry blossoms are in bloom in the park. We'll go and check those out. There's a nice little like tulip garden that we'll likely get uh some outdoor picnic kind of set up for and doing, and uh it's gonna be it should be pretty nice. It's the weather's gonna drop down a little bit. It's not gonna be as hot. It's been sort of at time of recording, it's middle of April. It's been very hot, like 80s hot in the city. It's supposed to drop down a little bit this weekend to be like more seasonal, but uh, you know, I don't know. We'll figure sit out with the family and get some decent eats in, give some marketing takes that I'm the only one that cares about, and uh just tell them what triggered me on LinkedIn recently. It'll be it'll be really nice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So basically you're having uh the kind of weekend that you would have any other time, just basically Doom scrolling LinkedIn and being like, this guy's a fucking asshole. This guy's a fucking asshole. This guy's also an asshole.
SPEAKER_03This guy's an asshole, but he kind of made a fair point, so I'm gonna save the post and make a yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02No, that's that's exactly it. Uh if I I I think that they should introduce I guess this is already a thing via like the commenting feature, but you should be able to just like I don't know, rate someone as a as a creator, right? Like give them a quality score kind of stuff, like leave feedback on them. Uh I don't know. I'll I'll I'll pitch LinkedIn.
SPEAKER_00Like, dude, I don't think LinkedIn does this, but uh like a Reddit type of like upvote-down vote thing. Yes, yeah, you can just see on on Reddit the people that are always like, Why am I getting downvoted? And then like you have the one brutally honest guy who like tells them why.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. Comes in. Is that is that you? Is that your burner account that comes in?
SPEAKER_00No, I actually I I I mostly just uh lurk on Reddit. I don't really engage that much, but Oh good for you, good discipline.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, every single day I get to like typing out a draft of a comment and then just like, you know what, I need to protect my piece and just not just not do this right now. Uh well,
Introducing The Who Hurt You Scale
SPEAKER_02listen, that's actually something we're gonna talk about today is people that maybe should be protecting their piece or maybe they should just continue to do what they're doing. We're talking about uh segment we've been trying to get to and will actually today, because it's top of the agenda. Uh, who hurt you? So we're gonna look at some uh I think you called them strongly worded G2 or chapter reviews and you see what's going on with these folks. Uh and then from there, uh kind of actually going to LinkedIn. There was some there's some takes I came across I would like your raw reaction to. These are always fun. Um uh trigger warning for yourself and our two listeners. You may uh you may find some of these upsetting, but uh we'll we'll talk about them. And that's where we're headed today. Uh with that, I I pass the mic to you. What uh what kind of interesting reviews uh have you have you lined up here?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the the way this will work is we'll read out some of the most unhinged uh one-star reviews from G2, Captera, Trust Radius, etc. Um, so these were you know reviews were clearly or maybe a little bit less clearly, there's a little bit more going on in the background than than meets the eye from the the initial review. Um so basically what I'll do is I'll I'll read the review. Um you and I can kind of discuss it, kind of run a diagnosis as to what actually happened, and then we'll uh render a verdict. Uh so the the verdict will be on a one-to-five scale, um, on the one to five who hurt you scale, with one being a legitimate gripe, two being mildly salty, three being clearly a bad week, four being a personal vendetta against one specific AE named Brad, and five, should not be uh posting on Captero, should probably be talking to a therapist about this instead.
SPEAKER_02That sounds terrific. Poor poor Brad. Poor Brad.
SPEAKER_00Um we can also uh if if we do end up making this a more of a recurring uh bit, uh you know, like a more of a recurring segment, we can uh develop the Brad Index, which is how many reviews per category mention a specific rep by their first name. That's always a red flag. Like those are always brutal. Like I've done you know customer service in the past, and like I've probably had my fair share of bad reviews working at the Olive Garden and you know, other places I I worked at back in college and and stuff like that. But to be called out specifically by name on G2, I don't know if I'd be able to recover from that.
SPEAKER_02That's tough. Because like G2, I mean think about like the things that are being reviewed. It's one thing if you were like, yeah, a server at a restaurant or whatever, you're called out on Yelp or whatever. I that's like somewhat fair, right? If you're like a jerk to folks or whatever the case is, but man, for the software, that's that's tough. That's really, really tough. Have you done this, by the way, if we're gonna do like the reviews as like either like a like a brand build or like a demand capture play? Have you ever been in charge of soliciting reviews and then like using them for your marketing stuff?
SPEAKER_00Uh we could have we could spend an entire podcast talking about how much I fucking hate G2. Like it's right up there with LinkedIn as far as I'm concerned. Um the whole thing is it's a it's it's a racket in my mind. Like it's all it's all a racket. Um we can get to that another time, but we can maybe layer in some of our thoughts on like G2 and Capter and some of these other exploitative sites uh throughout this uh segment as well.
SPEAKER_02Beautiful.
SPEAKER_00Okay, get show me the bread. Alright, let's kick this off. Um so first one the person who's kept score. Um how how how should we do it? Should I mention the product that it's reviewing just so that there's context? Because this one actually mentions it in the review itself, but not all of them mention in the review.
SPEAKER_02I think if it's relevant to the review, then go ahead. If it can be agnostic, then just take it for Yeah.
HubSpot CRM Rage And The Brad Factor
SPEAKER_00Okay. Uh first one. HubSpot CRM was a complete disaster for my real estate business. 15-minute deal creation versus one minute in Salesforce, email features, and list errors. After wasting $2,291.68, I terminated on $5.5, 2025. I filed complaints with the FTC, Massachusetts AG, consumeraffairs.com, ripoffreport.com, and BBB. They don't mention why. It's just uh you know, something clearly happened here, so uh I guess turn it over to you. What um what's the diagnosis, Doctor?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, okay. So just answer the question of who hurt him. Clearly HubSpot did.
SPEAKER_00I don't understand how I don't understand how that happened. Who at HubSpot? Was it the onboarding team? Was it the AE named Brad? Was it uh support? Maybe he didn't qualify for support. Uh you know, maybe it's what what what's the chatbot's name, Breeze?
SPEAKER_02Breeze.
SPEAKER_00Maybe Breeze said some purple things. That okay.
SPEAKER_02So this is 100% the sales rep's fault. Like, I'm sorry, unless this guy completely self-serviced and like did you know like the trial or whatever, the free CRM and then like evolved, dude. Like it it it if he believes truly, and you and I were discussing about a similar situation for some past client of ours years ago, whatever the case is like. If you if you believe that Salesforce is the solution to you instead of HubSpot, you are wrong a hundred percent of the time. That's just that's just not the case. Although I do have to say, now I saw recently there's like a HubSpot for Google Sheets, and so like it when you and I were there, it was clearly like an upstream like enterprise acquisition motion. Now clearly it's like, hey dummies that don't, or like people that are more comfortable in sheets. Like that that's a thing. So all that to say, it's for sure the sales rep's fault.
SPEAKER_00What was the uh what you're trying to say is that a sales rep at HubSpot would actually oversell the product?
SPEAKER_02They would attack. Has that never happened before? What I'm suggesting may sound preposterous, but hear me out. Uh that's what happened here. So yeah, I think this is a Brad thing. Just to be just to be really prescriptive about this, that what was number what was the three scale, the one before Brad?
SPEAKER_00Um before Brad, it was uh number three, clearly a bad week.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, no, this is not a bad week. This is like very clearly.
SPEAKER_00You think it's you think it's a four, you think it's a Brad?
SPEAKER_02I I do, yeah. Like I would love a follow-up post to like close the loop on what happened, and like I don't know, what I'm just not so sure about this. What what's your reaction? What do you think?
SPEAKER_00I'm aligned. I think it's uh I think it's number four. I think that clearly this guy was uh this guy was hurt in ways that uh you know only Brad could do to him.
SPEAKER_02Only Brad can do it. Okay, fair. Good one to start.
SPEAKER_00Alright, uh here's the next one. Um this one's called The Reluctant Poet. Um that used to be your slack handle, didn't it? Yeah, it was my my aim screen name back in eighth grade. Um alright, so uh here we go.
The Vague One-Star Meltdown
SPEAKER_00Clunkiest piece of shit software I have ever used. It's slow, it's completely counterintuitive, it's bulky, pretending not to be. That's it. That's the whole review.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. Other than the software part, it sounds like my personal trainer talking about me, but if I if I if I said that uh if I set that aside for a moment, that's the entire review. Um, listen, this is this is someone that's having this is someone that's having a bad week, right? Because like there is no level of specificity offered in it, but there isn't like an exclusive or an explicit call out of someone. I think that this is like, you know, this person has woken up, their coffee was burnt, or they spilled it on them, they had some things that needed to be done. They're behind schedule because they have terrible time management skills and they're hoping that the software can be like the silver bullet for helping them get back on track, and it's simply not the case. And so suddenly it's clunky and slow and whatever the case is. I I think this person probably needs like either a break or a beer or it's something in between. But yeah, I think I think it's a bad week here. What do you think?
SPEAKER_00I'm I'm with you on that one as well. Um, in addition to possibly needing a beer, um, maybe they could just use like a Jimmy Johns Coke with a little bit of Jim Beam in it. I mean I'm just spitballing. Just just spitballing. I mean, nothing super specific, but uh, you know, there's you know, the there's fountain drinks for a reason. That's what they okay.
Fountain Drink Refills And Fine Print
SPEAKER_02This is a complete divergence. So for me, like I I don't know if I saw I saw this on Reddit somewhere. I don't know if it's real fake or if it's like a particular franchise's decision, but some McDonald's is now not permitting free refills on the fountain drinks. Have you seen this? Good luck enforcing that. Yeah, right, dude. I mean, you can do you're gonna have to fucking pry me away from that thing, but mouth open directly in. Forget about the cup.
SPEAKER_00Well, I remember back in the day, back when I was younger, like the whole reason that we like going to BK was because um they had like the public like fountains or whatever, and you could like refill your cup as much as you wanted to. You know, as a kid, that was a big deal. Um and I remember going to McDonald's, like if if you were sitting inside or whatever, they would just fill out the drink before you behind the fountain. But I guess a lot of them like have the fountains now, and like if you're gonna do take away the free refills, why not just not have the fountain out in the lobby or whatever?
SPEAKER_02Right? Right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Man, there's nothing nothing that'll frustrate a marketer more than like legal fine print in an ad. Like, see the asterisks or like the terms and conditions below, whatever. And I was at my fucking fintech company, it was like two-thirds of the page was just like the T's and C's versus the actual offer that presents it. So that I think it was a specific McDonald's franchise. Good luck putting fucking ads in the paper now, right? So people and setting expectations appropriately. Not that I think they would, but anyhow, back to this.
SPEAKER_00All right, you ready for the next one?
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00Alright, um I'm just gonna say what this one is just because it's uh for GA4. You know, obviously mostly stunning or uh mostly stellar reviews about GA4. You know, I've never met a marketer who hasn't been super enthusiastic to use that, but your favorite.
GA4 Data Latency And Salty Reporting
SPEAKER_00Um the data latency is a joke. Taking 12 to 24 hours to report on what is happening prevents this from being an actionable tool. I wish I wasn't backlogged for the past few years and thus could have realized this before. Um not really the best review. I mean, first of all, like I'm pretty sure GA4 is or Google Analytics has always had that issue. It's not just a GA4 thing. Like I can think of all the other things that GA4 does wrong that people are pissed about now, but the data latency is like not one of them.
SPEAKER_02I before reacting to like the level of hurt that this person experiences, I want to call out what may or may not have been an intentional attempt at a flex here. Like if I haven't been so backed up for the last like how what did they say, fucking years or something like that? Like maybe I would have noticed it sooner. What are you talking about, man? What do you mean what? It's like I yeah, I don't know. It's like I I don't have a good analogy right now, but that that's what stood out to me more than anything. It's like, okay, Lieutenant Harder, you've been so fucking busy you don't have the the time to tweak an occasional GA report and then fight, yeah, whatever. Whatever. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I think this guy is just uh I think he's a two. I think he's mildly salty, and like his manager wanted to like know what happened on the website today and he didn't have a good answer for him or something, and now he's pissed at GA. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02I think so. Yeah, he's he's just mildly salty. Um it's probably useful he probably hasn't seen it, right? He logged in and like he was still what what was the thing? What was it? Um what was it before GA for it was just like uh the title of the syllabus?
SPEAKER_00Uh just uh universal analytics.
SPEAKER_02Universal, yeah, exactly. He that's probably the last time that he saw something inside of Google Analytics and suddenly what is the fucking quote from the office, right? Remember the office where they have that like uh that that that lewd, is that lewd the right word? Like the explicit like cartoon that is like watermarked on all the paper, and there's the crisis Michael has to call like the the um like press conference or whatever and they interview Creed. It's like, you know, you've been at this for however long, and like the one year you don't do your job, you gave the thing. This poor guy. Anyway, yeah, salt, salt, salt in the sky.
SPEAKER_00All right, uh, next one. Um this actually might be one of my favorites. So the the just so just to be clear, I'm not reading the full review, I'm just reading a snippet from one-star reviews. Uh, because some of these can be actually quite long, and as you know, the free zoom doesn't allow for uh the the free zoom is optimized for brevity, which I appreciate. Sure. Um as is this uh review snippet.
Jessica Tried And Kyle Caught Heat
SPEAKER_00Um so this one's the unsolicited org chart. Um I want to be clear that Jessica from support did nothing wrong. Jessica tried, but Jessica's manager, Kyle, should not be in that role. And if you read this, Kyle, you know why. Two out of five stars.
SPEAKER_02I love this. Uh yeah, this first of all, fuck you, Cal.
SPEAKER_00Uh it's funny that that's actually where mine went to. She's go to go to hell, Kyle.
SPEAKER_02Um that guy, that guy's got some serious reassessment to do. I would love to know what that conversation was like or email thread or interaction. Uh, we should also, while we're saying fuck you, Cal, give like a brief hand clap to Jessica. Sounds like you did your best there. Sometimes the deck is just like stacked against you. Uh when it comes to the the scale that this person was on. I mean, if you swap in Kyle for Brad, this is clearly that, right? It the the personal personal vendetta, what number was that?
SPEAKER_00Is that personal vendetta was um that that was number four, that was the same as Brad.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's Brad. Yeah, okay. Yeah. This feels like a personal, which is so interesting, right? Because like the person probably initially had a problem with like the software, clearly, but like what it was burned enough where they went out of their way to then like pivot the focus of the review to to to a person trying to support the software. I think that is that is incredible. Uh I don't know that there are any winners here besides Jessica. I think that the other two people involved are probably just terrible. So that's your thoughts?
SPEAKER_00Uh it's too bad that Jessica won't get promoted from that um review though, because Kyle definitely won't be uh taking any action on it. He's definitely not going to show his boss, be like, hey, look at how good Jessica did in this review.
SPEAKER_02No, if anything, Kyle's probably gonna fire Jessica shortly after this review is posted.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, he can't he can't have somebody like out overshadowing him. Like the managers always find a way to like turn it into something that you did wrong. Like she could have set better expectations and defended Kyle better.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, exactly. Always the victim. Always the victim.
SPEAKER_00Alright. Um we'll uh we'll wrap up with this one. Um so this one's called the Canadian at War.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Disrupted And Angry
SPEAKER_00Um I've been using Salesforce Marketing Cloud for about three years at my job in Montreal. There are no words about how much I find this tool a c utterly piece of trash. I'm I'm w uh I think English might be this guy's second language. There are no words about how much I find this tool a utterly piece of trash. I'm just editing myself. I'm working, then suddenly there is a pop-up not displaying correctly. As such, I must reload the page and then I'm out of the working document. Fantastic. Now I'm disrupted and angry. So um I'm just gonna go ahead and say what we were both thinking. Um now I'm disrupted and angry is the single most accurate self-assessment I've ever seen written on a review website.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
unknownYep.
SPEAKER_00Like, does anybody ever leave one star review when they're not disrupted and angry?
SPEAKER_02They can't, right? They can some great self-awareness there from the poster. You know what? Uh there are a thousand one French names that could come to mind because you think Canada, right? ESL might be like French as a second language, and God help me, the only name that I can think of is fucking Jean Bonifont. Like that is the only thing a throwback to our loyal listeners who had to an earlier episode. Uh I wonder I hope he's well. I hope he's recovered from the public embarrassment that probably came from his shitty ass advice.
SPEAKER_00I'm sure he probably found some other uh you know bad advice to latch on to that was just completely disproven a week or two later.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Maybe the joke's on us. Maybe he's like a meme account or something like that. Anyway, okay, so staying on track here. Uh I the level of self-awareness actually makes me think that maybe this guy needs maybe he needs therapy, right? He's already there, just like a little more tools to enable like uh, you know, the the reflection and what he could do. It would also we would also be remiss if we didn't say like he's talking about the Salesforce Marketing Cloud specifically, right? I think is what the review was.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, about Salesforce Marketing Cloud, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. I I would wager that he's in like the majority of the pie chart of people that have tried it and feel that exact same way, especially if you're accustomed to almost anything else, any other tool alternative, right? So he's he should feel validated in the safety numbers, he should be proud of the self-awareness, he should continue that conversation in a professional therapy environment. That's my take. What do you think?
SPEAKER_00I I definitely agree with that 100%. Poor fella. I feel bad for anybody using Salesforce Marketing Cloud, let alone Salesforce.
SPEAKER_02So that's real. That's real. Anyway, we're gonna go to our commercial break brought to you by Salesforce. I don't think we'll win that endorsement anytime soon. But what can you do? What can you do? Uh here's what you can do. You
Marketing Treated As Disposable Right Now
SPEAKER_02can give some spicy takes and reactions to some psychoanalysis of another kind, right? So this person that posted clearly needed some kind of therapy. Uh, we are doing some for this one. I I wanted to share with you because I felt some I felt I felt some validation in in what was being said is the truth. Um I think that uh how to put it. The well, let me just let me just read you the post. I know you have it in front of you as well, but for for the audio format here, uh I think I I think we've talked about uh Mr. Hughes on the pod before, um Evan Hughes, SVP Marketing Refined Labs. Got a lot, a lot of really good takes, good follow. Um, if you actually want to spend some like decent time on LinkedIn. But anyway, the post reads uh nobody wants to say it out loud, so I will. Marketing is being treated as disposable right now. ROI pressure goes up, marketing headcount goes down. It's becoming a formula. It's not even the layoffs that bother me the most, it's the talent that's quietly exiting the workforce entirely. Not jumping to competitors, not freelancing, just done. I looked at 12 roles posted for recently laid-off marketers in the last 24 hours alone. The majority? On-site mandates in cities where the cost of living never corrected. You can't uproot a family on a job offer with a 90-day probation period at a Series A startup. The companies that figure this out in the next six months will have an enormous hiring advantage. The ones that don't will be writing LinkedIn posts about talent shortages. What are you seeing there out there? Uh end quote. So I have I have some reactions to this, but man, I'm just gonna go on you and let you take it away.
SPEAKER_00Well, how much time do we have left here, Mike? Um Yeah, no, I mean I I think that he he hits the nail on the head that like marketing is changing, and I don't think it's necessarily changing for the better. I think that um being treated as disposable, I think he hits the nail right on the head there. Um And I think it's partly because everyone thinks that they're a marketer, whether you've been working in marketing or not, like the sales team thinks they're marketers and they have an idea of what marketing should be doing. The C level, you know, CEO and CFO and th and those higher level people have an idea of what they should be seeing. Like they only look at marketing as a line item and like an expense, but it's not directly tied back to revenue the same way that sales is. Um there's a lot that goes into marketing that isn't necessarily trackable, so to speak, like brand sentiment and like you know, SEO that doesn't directly lead into you know leads, like SEO can be the six to twelve month game and you know They just want to like look at things on a like a monthly basis, and what did you everyone has a different idea of what marketing should be, and if what your idea of marketing should be doesn't line up with what marketing's actually doing, then you just get rid of the marketing team and bring in a new C VP of marketing or a new CMO who will bring in their own team of people that they've worked with in the past and then you know just keep rinsing and repeating. And it's honestly like not the best way to like scale a company in my mind. Like I'll I'll kind of stop there and let you uh share your thoughts.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh, completely hear you on all that. It's it's not a good way to scale the company, right? You ultimately have to face a decision. Do you want to bring in someone that has like the strategy and can like trickle that down to the rest of like the people actually doing the work, or do you want to have someone that is like in the weeds and what have you and needs to do like some studying up on like broader strategy, right? I'm thinking about this specifically when it comes to the implementation of AI, right? And so in a lot of places now, they're trying to find folks that can do like a little bit well, depending on the size of the company, too, right? Like a lot of things I've been hearing recently in conversations, like the ability to slide up and down the ladder, AI native, all that stuff. And I think that there's just like a lack of, and there always has been, right? But I think it's more exemplified now, um, with AI being so prevalent. Like people just think that marketing in its entirety can be replaced with AI. And like while there are definitely like advantages to using it for content production and you know, there are a bunch of like analysis that can be done for like your campaigns, what have you, like ultimately there's still like you know, the wizard of oz, right? There's someone behind the curtain that's actually like pulling the strings and doing it, and they're super unimpressive when you see them. Uh that's a that's a dig at us, buddy. But uh but nonetheless, like they're like an important part of someone that is like doing doing the things, right? The other thing I want to touch on here being like you're a you're a working dad too, a husband and provider, you have you have a family to think care of. Like the thing about like uprooting a job. I got I got a I got an email the other day from someone that's wanted me to to to relocate down to Miami, right? And so like nothing against this person, they're just doing their job, right? Trying to recruit. But it's like, well, uh my fur my family's pretty firmly rooted in in New York, right? Um they're they're very transparent about being a startup in there. It's like that's a big financial gamble to like uproot your entire family to somewhere that may or may not like pan out with the 90-day probation, especially given what you and I know to be true about like the um unfairly expeditious timeline that marketing is evaluated in terms of like success against, right? Like your option is to go in there, pump out as much stuff as possible, which takes away from the time that you could actually be like setting a strategy, right, and following through on that. And so I think that part really stood out to me as as well. And also just this like return to office mandate that's going on right now. Like, boy, a lot of the even like some of the hybrid roles that I'm seeing posted are like hybrid is in four days in, and then one maybe like it's Friday that's out and what have you. And like I just have to think that as like marketers that have been in the trenches, right, doing the things for a while, um, that's just gonna like turn some folks off, right? And and you're gonna like sell your company short. The sadness about people leaving the workforce, like that that resonates with me, right? Like there's been a ton of people I know that are doing like a serious evaluation of do they want to stick in this game that is so volatile right now? It just it doesn't always make sense. And so I thought this one thought this one hit home. Less of like a psychoanalysis, more of like some validation for some of like the struggles that I know that we've been going through. Other folks that are listening to this may be experiencing in like the marketing world as well. So uh well-captured as per usual, uh, Evan, and uh yeah, hang in there, everybody else. It sucks right now. It sucks.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And uh uh, I'll just finish uh your thought by saying fuck your 90-day probation period. Like no jobs no full-time jobs should have a full uh 90-day probation period. Like if anything, like you're gonna do a contract to hire role. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Like Yes. Absolutely. Um I couldn't agree more with that. Yeah, contract to hire makes a hell of a lot more sense, right? Than does the the probation. Like that doesn't, I that doesn't drive me at all. Doesn't drive me. Uh okay.
AI Hype And Impossible Job Requirements
SPEAKER_02So he you talk about the the future of marketing. Here's another thing I wanted your reaction to, right? And that is, you know, we talk about like the uh increasing seemingly like omnipotence, right? Like of AI and how everyone needs to be like AI first in the marketing world and what have you. Like I don't know, man. I have my suspicions that a lot of that is just like more specific to like tech, and it's coming more from like investors uh like sh licking their chops about like you know, bottom line efficacy than it is like the consumers of these products actually like asking for AI. Like, how many people do you know like actively asking for this kind of thing? Anyway, that aside, uh, here's a take from one uh Emily Emily Kramer, right? And it talks about like a gen marketer or like a marketing engineer. Okay, I think we talked about this in the past, like Clay was doing something similar with like a go-to-market engineer or something like that. Anyway, here's the post from Emily. Every marketing leader I advise, right?
SPEAKER_00Uh but before you start this, uh can we quickly go back to the last post of how impossible marketing is getting now? So I've been keeping an eye on like very various marketing roles, and one of the roles I saw recently required 10 plus years of AI experience.
SPEAKER_02Are you serious? Yeah. Are you serious?
SPEAKER_00Um because obviously, like uh, you know, AEO or GEO or whatever you want to call it, call it like answer engine optimization, generative engine optimization, like basically the new like SEO. Um yeah, they want people doing you know 10 plus years of something that's only existed for four. So talk about impossible standards to meet. Like, no wonder no marketers are getting hired.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. That's ridiculous. And by the way, when you join, they expect 10 years worth of output in the first fucking month. So good luck. Jesus, man. Yeah, that that's ridiculous. That's like the entry-level job requiring five years' experience, classic kind of situation, right? Yeah, fuck that stuff. Uh okay.
Marketing Engineer Or Rebranded Marketing Ops
SPEAKER_02Here's Emily. Every marketing leader I advise right now is asking the same question. Do I need to hire a dedicated AI person? And what's that person's skill set? Profound take, profound company. You need a marketing engineer. They shared their take on this new role last week at ZeroClick SF. They define a marketing engineer as the person who builds the systems, agents, and automations that help marketing teams do better work faster, part builder, part marketer. Not a marketing ops role, sits within your marketing team and is measured on the same KPIs as every other marketer. The job isn't automating one workflow. It's looking across your team's work, finding what's repeatable and building systems for it. Then building things that weren't possible before agents. If you follow content on the future content, or excuse me, if you follow content on future marketing org charts, you may be wondering, is this the same as a gen marketer? Not exactly, but it addresses the same issue. How do we how we do marketing is changing? We'll have teams of humans working alongside agents, and the old org chart won't hold. A gen marketer is a marketing generalist who's an expert at using AI to execute across all of marketing. A marketing engineer owns the architecture. So you could have both. And then it talks about a marketing engineer skill set course launched by Profound. Uh, you guys, I guess we have linked to this elsewhere if you're interested in the in the post. But that's the general take, right? It's like so uh a marketing engineer, someone this just struck me as interesting because much like organizations are trying to figure out, I guess, like how exactly and like the level of ferocity at which to get their workforce to adopt AI specifically in marketing. This one feels like, oh, this kind of makes sense. Like maybe we need this whole new thing, but it is awful similar to a lot of other things. And like, I don't know. I'm sure you have something to say about this, so go ahead.
SPEAKER_00It just seems like it's putting another name on something that already exists. Like, I I I I don't know. Like it sounds like it could be a marketing optional, even though she said that it's not a marketing optional, like it could be like I know that they have like sales engineers, which I mean that's kind of similar to to this, like a marketing engineer. Like, what's the difference? Like, are they just not sitting on calls? Um I I think this kind of goes back to what we were just talking about. Like, everyone has a night a different idea of what marketing should be, and like to one company what a demand gen role is could be to a different company, could be like basically like a BDR or a BDR manager. It's like every every role within marketing could mean something different to a different company. Just like every life cycle stage, like an MQL in one company could be something totally different to another, and like marketing engineer might be like an ops person to one company. So like it's just like putting a title on something, and yeah. I don't necessarily think that you know, I I think that there's still a time and a place for marketing generalists, and there's also a time and a place for somebody who's more specialized, and like this isn't really any different than any of that stuff. Just because you slap AI on something doesn't make it like a brand new you know, earth-shattering thing, you know.
SPEAKER_02Well, well, you sound crazy because that's but no, you're you're you're exactly right. He's dressing up so the same thing. I I had a similar reaction, right? He's like, boy, this does kind of sound like an operations role, right? Because even if you look at a lot of like traditional operations role, it's like, yeah, crunch the back end stuff, build the infrastructure, help create all this stuff and what have you. Look for areas of like optimization uh that you can you can roll out, but also like you're a strategic partner as well. You need to be able to take the stuff to market, at least in a lot of the descriptions that I've seen traditionally, right? This is definitely like a repackaging of of things, and like obviously I I don't know anything about Profile and the one that contributed this insight. I'm guessing they have like a vested interest in making this a thing, much like Clay had a vested interest in making that.
SPEAKER_00This was totally a self-promotional post. Like it's you know, no doubt about that.
SPEAKER_02Our art market is the worst, man. Absolutely slap ourselves.
SPEAKER_00Um we suck. Um what what was I gonna say? Uh about um like it it mentions like this isn't about automating one workflow. Like, I'm sure you and I have both worked in companies where it's like inside of HubSpot, the workflows are a fucking mess. Like you have automations that you don't even know existing, sending emails to God knows who, and like you know, just trying to untangle that stuff and unwind it. And now you're trying to add autonomous AI agents into the mix while you still have like all these workflow issues. Like if you can't figure something out with like a workflow that has a clear input, output, that probably triggers other workflows and like a lot of other stuff that goes into it, but like it's very deterministic. If you're gonna take something that's non-deterministic, like an AI agent, and add that on top, it's just gonna be a fucking recipe for disaster. And like it just yeah, go ahead. No, I I was just gonna say that I don't think a lot of companies are really ready for this because they haven't mastered basic automation in general.
SPEAKER_02No, and AI is just another example. Like you and I have talked in the past about like if if someone has like a stalled or broken sales process or whatever, introducing new software, usually we're picking on Salesforce here, is not the solution. I'm not convinced that AI is automatically gonna be the solution if you're optimizing or automating shitty processes. That's a like you know what I mean? It's just like, I don't know, it's an amplification of something that uh that doesn't make sense. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I mean, uh, I'm just gonna be sitting uh here with popcorn watching uh watching things burn down like the Joker or whatever. It's like the combination of the Michael Jackson popcorn meme with like Joker, just like things blowing up in the background.
Final Thoughts And What Triggered You
SPEAKER_02Uh speaking of things blowing up in the background, you guys are about to hear our theme music come in the background. We are fresh out of time on this free Zoom. Uh, this is a good one, Chris. I appreciate you. Uh, two to three listeners, thanks for coming along. Let us know what you heard today that triggered you, and uh, we'll do it again real soon. Thanks all. Have a good weekend.
