The Exit Five CMO Podcast (Hosted by Dave Gerhardt)

Dave is joined by Metadata founder and CEO Gil Allouche to discuss what the CEO really wants out of marketing, how to present to the board, what the revenue function looks like at Metadata, Gil's path from engineer to CMO to CEO, category creation, the muscle of being frugal, the future of martech, and why Metadata is focused on building the "operating system" for marketers today.Be a part of the Exit Five B2B marketing community at exitfive.comThis episode is brought to you by Metadata: https://metadata.io/Metadata helps demand gen. marketers automate paid campaigns and drive more revenue. Learn why more B2B SaaS companies are using Metadata to grow revenue at Metadata.io.Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing the podcast for me. They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest. Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Dave shares his perspective on internal marketing, how to drive alignment with marketing across the company, and what the CEO really cares about when it comes to what marketing is doing. Be a part of the Exit Five B2B marketing community at exitfive.comThis episode is brought to you by Metadata: https://metadata.io/Metadata helps demand gen. marketers automate paid campaigns and drive more revenue. Learn why more B2B SaaS companies are using Metadata to grow revenue at Metadata.io.Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing the podcast for me. They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest. Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Kaylee Edmondson is Director of Demand Generation at brightwheel and previously ran demand generation at Chili Piper. Dave and Kaylee talk through what demand gen looks like at a high performing B2B SaaS company today, lessons from scaling demand gen at Chili Piper, LinkedIn organic social strategy and more.Be a part of the Exit Five B2B marketing community at exitfive.comThis episode is brought to you by Metadata: https://metadata.io/Metadata helps demand gen. marketers automate paid campaigns and drive more revenue. Learn why more B2B SaaS companies are using Metadata to grow revenue at Metadata.io.Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing the podcast for me. They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest. Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Amanda Malko is Chief Marketing Officer at G2, the world's largest and most trusted software marketplace. More than 60 million people annually - including employees at all of the Fortune 500 - use G2 to make smarter software decisions based on authentic peer reviews. Prior to G2 Amanda was Head of Partner Programs & Marketing at Mailchimp, and she was also CMO at Tongal and 360i. Amanda and Dave discuss her role as G2 CMO, how she's structured her team, revenue marketing vs. demand generation, who should own reviews on the marketing team (product vs. customer marketing), lessons from her time at Mailchimp, and more.Be a part of the Exit Five B2B marketing community at exitfive.comThis episode is brought to you by Metadata: https://metadata.io/Metadata helps demand gen. marketers automate paid campaigns and drive more revenue. Learn why more B2B SaaS companies are using Metadata to grow revenue at Metadata.io.Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing the podcast for me. They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest. Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Kathleen Estreich and Emily Kramer are the co-founders of MKT1. They advise founders, recruit and advise marketers, and invest in SaaS startups, and join Dave on this episode of the Exit Five podcast to talk about early-stage marketing strategy and hiring (Kathleen and Emily have held roles at Facebook, Box, Intercom, Scalr, Asana, Carta). They also have strong opinions about marketing compensation and how to understand your comp and equity package if you're a Seed or Series A marketing leader. Here's the early-stage compensation explainer they reference:https://mkt1.substack.com/p/marketing-compensationConnect with Kathleen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kestreich/ Connect with Emily: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilykramer/Be a part of the Exit Five B2B marketing community at exitfive.comThis episode is brought to you by Metadata: https://metadata.io/Metadata helps demand gen. marketers automate paid campaigns and drive more revenue. Learn why more B2B SaaS companies are using Metadata to grow revenue at Metadata.io.Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing the podcast for me. They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest. Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Dave and guest Daniel Murray (The Marketing Millenials) share tips to help you grow your audience on LinkedIn. They talk about why LinkedIn is still underrated as a marketing channel for B2B companies, why types of content to create, how to get content out of the founder, how to figure out what's working / what's not, the biggest mistakes people make with LinkedIn, and more. It's an hour on organic LinkedIn strategy if you're into that kinda stuff.Follow Daniel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing/ Follow Dave: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davegerhardt/Be a part of the Exit Five B2B marketing community at exitfive.comThis episode is brought to you by Metadata: https://metadata.io/Metadata helps demand gen. marketers automate paid campaigns and drive more revenue. Learn why more B2B SaaS companies are using Metadata to grow revenue at Metadata.io.Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing the podcast for me. They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest. Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Kevin "KD" Dorsey (Practice Lead: Sales Leadership at Winning by Design) joins Dave to talk about his experience as a B2B SaaS VP of sales, the power of understanding how people buy, why he loves copywriting (and some of the exact email scripts he uses), the six questions he asks when calling new customers, his opinion on the sales deck, and why he'd work in marketing if he wasn't working in sales. Follow Kevin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kddorsey3/  Follow Dave: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davegerhardt/Be a part of the Exit Five B2B marketing community at exitfive.comThis episode is brought to you by Metadata: https://metadata.io/Metadata helps demand gen. marketers automate paid campaigns and drive more revenue. Learn why more B2B SaaS companies are using Metadata to grow revenue at Metadata.io.Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing the podcast for me. They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest. Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Deidre Hudson (CMO at Payability) joins Dave to talk about her experience as a B2B CMO, why you need to think like an operator, why demand gen is not a silver bullet, the four pillars of running marketing: people, performance, process, programs, why more B2B SaaS companies are building communities, the power of setting clear goals, getting inside your customers head, the cyclical nature of B2B marketing channels and more.Follow Deidre: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deidrehudson/ Follow Dave: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davegerhardt/Be a part of the Exit Five B2B marketing community at exitfive.comThis episode is brought to you by Metadata: https://metadata.io/Metadata helps demand gen. marketers automate paid campaigns and drive more revenue. Learn why more B2B SaaS companies are using Metadata to grow revenue at Metadata.io.Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing the podcast for me. They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest. Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Sydney Sloan (former Salesloft CMO, 2x CMO) joins Dave to talk about her time at Salesloft helping the company grow from $15-$100M+ ARR and ultimately a $2.3B valuation after Vista equity bought a majority stake in the company.  They talk about how to pick the right company as CMO, how Salesloft went about category creation, going from stunts to predictable revenue, marketing in a competitive marketing (Outreach vs. Salesloft vs. Clari), why you need to spend the budget, how to hire and navigate career progression, and her career as a marketing leader.Follow Sydney: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydsloan/Follow Dave: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davegerhardt/Be a part of the Exit Five B2B marketing community at exitfive.comThis episode is brought to you by Metadata: https://metadata.io/ Metadata helps demand gen. marketers automate paid campaigns and drive more revenue. Learn why more B2B SaaS companies are using Metadata to grow revenue at Metadata.io.Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing the podcast for me. They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest. Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!

Harsh but necessary reality check: You have to limit the number of people who have input on your positioning and messaging statements. That's not me trying to be rude to anyone on your team, it's just the fact of the matter. More people meddling in your company story muddies it up. And since your story is your strategy, a muddy story means a muddy strategy. Positioning tips, the key ingredients to your marketing strategy, and more. Send guest pitches and ideas to hi@exitfive.comJoin the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterCheck out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership***Today’s episode is brought to you by Walnut.Why are we pouring all this effort into marketing just to push buyers to a “request a demo” or “contact sales” button?Come on, today’s buyers don’t want to talk to sales right away. They want to explore your product themselves, see how it works, and understand its value before booking a meeting.That’s where Walnut comes in.Walnut empowers marketers and GTM teams to create interactive, self-guided product experiences in minutes. Embed these experiences on your site, in emails, or anywhere in your funnel to let buyers engage on their terms, from awareness to close and beyond. That's the beauty of Walnut - you're getting a platform that your sales and CS colleagues can use to showcase the product too.And the best part? You get real intent data—see which features prospects love, where they drop off, and what’s actually driving pipeline. Demo Qualified Leads are the new MQL.Over 500 companies, like Adobe and NetApp, use Walnut to drive 2-3x higher website conversion rates and 7 figures in pipeline on a yearly basis. So do you want to drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, and actually show your product instead of hiding it behind another typical B2B CTA? Go check out Walnut.io. And if you tell them Dave from Exit 5 sent you, they'll build out your first demo for free!