← The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)
The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)
How B2B Marketers Are Actually Using AI at Work with Jess Lytle
00:54:59
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- [00:04]
Sponsor Host
Okay, everyone look, we're all using AI right now. Point blank, that's. That part's done. ChatGPT, like my dad's talking to me about ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, it's all gone mainstream and everyone's using it for copy help, idea generation, the baseline stuff. As Jess on our team head of marketing likes to remind me, I'm. I'm only scratching the surface and there's clearly a gap. Most marketing teams are using AI tools to think, but not actually do. And that's where things are heading next. Our sponsor, optimizely built this platform called Opal that lets you use autonomous AI agents to go and do the stuff you shouldn't be doing manually versus just being another chatbot. This is stuff like creating and optimizing on brand web pages, emails, SEO content and campaigns by audience segment. It catches brand, legal and accessibility issues before anything else goes live. It pulls data from your other systems like Google Analytics or your CRM and sales tools to auto build reports, summaries and recommendations. And guess what? It's completely no code. So marketers like you and me can build and leverage agents for any use case that we dream up without needing to rely on developers. Heck yeah.
- [01:12]
Dave Gerhardt
So get this.
- [01:12]
Sponsor Host
Optimizely has this awesome offer for Exit 5 listeners. They're offering a free personalized 45 minute AI workshop to help you identify the best AI use cases for your marketing team and map out which agents can save you time with a practical plan you can actually go and use right away. So if you need help demystifying all of this AI agent stuff and you want to to figure out where you can put AI agents to work inside of your marketing team, go and check this out. Go to optimizely.com exit5 and check it out. That's optimizely.com exit5.
- [01:44]
Dave Gerhardt
You're listening to B2B Marketing with me, Dave Gerhardt. Exit. 1, 2, 3, 4. Exit. Are you a goal setter, like end of the year personal goal setter work goal setter?
- [02:07]
Jess Lytle
Definitely.
- [02:07]
Dave Gerhardt
You are?
- [02:08]
Jess Lytle
Yeah, of course.
- [02:09]
Dave Gerhardt
What do you do?
- [02:11]
Jess Lytle
So I work in like long term goals, like five year goals, you know, like five years from now, three years from now. And I write them all down. I've really believed in like that coming to fruition because it's happened for me and I'm a big journal writer so I believe in that like kind of manifestation. It helps me kind of get really clear about where I'm focusing and then I like to very similar to how we do in our Funnel math. I reverse engineer the steps from the outcome. So this is all very kind of flowing together because that's what I like about AI too. I always like to think about, like, the outcome and then work my reverse engineer my way back. So I do that in all aspects of my life.
- [02:51]
Dave Gerhardt
I'll get into the AI stuff, but I just meant like, like, personally, I found. I asked you because I have like a crinkled piece of paper on my desk that I was moving yesterday where, like, I don't have like a formal activity, but like around this year, I found myself always trying to like. I've kind of always write down like two or three things for the next year.
- [03:10]
Jess Lytle
Yeah.
- [03:11]
Dave Gerhardt
And they become like a thing on my desk. Apple Note. And then I print one out and I put it in my closet. And I don't really do anything other than like, I don't do like, journaling on it. I don't often revisit back to it, but pretty much since I've been doing it the last five years, like, basically everything that I've set a goal to do, I've done.
- [03:28]
Jess Lytle
Yeah.
- [03:29]
Dave Gerhardt
I'm not saying like, wow, Dave, you're such a hero. Thank you for that story. I just totally believe. And I'm trying to like, show this to my kids now too, as they're like 8 and 6 and like becoming real human to understand things. I'm like, we totally can just like speak things into existence and.
- [03:43]
Jess Lytle
Yeah. There's a science behind it.
- [03:44]
Dave Gerhardt
Is there?
- [03:45]
Jess Lytle
Yeah.
- [03:46]
Dave Gerhardt
In what? In like, just the verbalization of what you want to try to do. I wonder why would we be wired to have that?
- [03:52]
Jess Lytle
I think it's like a subconscious effort where it's like, if you know what the outcome is that you're trying to drive for in so many micro decisions of your life, you will start to navigate towards that direction. And in the same way, if you actually want something too much, you can push it away.
- [04:13]
Dave Gerhardt
Yeah.
- [04:13]
Jess Lytle
With the universe.
- [04:14]
Dave Gerhardt
So it's crazy. That's like golf. You're not a golfer, but in golf, it's like you have to find this balance of like, not caring, but caring. And that's when you play really well. Like, if you care too much, you can't keep playing. If you don't care enough, there's like this weird balance.
- [04:29]
Jess Lytle
That's exactly it.
- [04:30]
Dave Gerhardt
Anyway, okay, this is my guest. This is Jess Lytle. She. Hi, Jess. Jess's first time appear. Well, first official appearance on the podcast was on a webinar you can find back. And I want to retell that. That story for. For you. But Jess is head of Marketing at Exit 5. She joined in some September and she's been kicking ass. And. And she also is really smart about AI and marketing. She writes a great newsletter that if you're not subscribed to that already, that we started this year. It's called the Prompt. And like, you know, it's a time of year. I don't have any guests like, Jess, why don't you come on the podcast and let. Let's hang out and. So.
- [05:04]
Jess Lytle
Got no one else? Come on.
- [05:06]
Dave Gerhardt
You got no one else? No, I. I think it's fun. I think these are. These are really fun to do. I think we'll have a fun. I think this will be the first of many future appearances.
- [05:13]
Jess Lytle
So I love it. I. You know what? I've been liking so much about, like, this process, even just thinking about knowing that we were going to talk. It's very reflective, I've found. It's like starting the newsletter and being able to, like, actually sit and have that time to, like, reflect back on something is like really connecting the dots for me. So it's been a. It's been a cool experience. I enjoy it. But yeah, first, this might be the first podcast I've ever been on, ever.
- [05:38]
Dave Gerhardt
Okay, well, then hopefully by the end of this, we can get people to message us and like, we'll get you up.
- [05:42]
Sponsor Host
Cause we need to do.
- [05:42]
Dave Gerhardt
Part of our strategy next year is like, we need more pr, right? And so, like, yeah, you doing podcast appearances, that leads to links. We'll do it. So let's have. Let's have Jess on your pod. So I got a bunch of things I, I actually prepared for this because I know how you are and I know that either you would have called me at 8:45 this morning and be like, hey, so we're doing the podcast today. Like, what are we talking about? And did you like how I preempted it? I loved it. I wrote an outline.
- [06:05]
Jess Lytle
Yeah, I loved it, like, because this could go so many different directions. So that helped.
- [06:10]
Dave Gerhardt
All right, so I got a little agenda I want to talk about. What is the job of head of marketing at exit 5? That's a bunch of people. A lot of people have had. It's a bunch of questions people ask. Like, we're kind of this unique company. You come from a background in marketing. Let's talk about that. Yeah, I see you put a bunch of good notes in here about what areas you want to invest in as a marketer. So let's talk about that.
- [06:28]
Jess Lytle
Yeah.
- [06:28]
Dave Gerhardt
And then I got a bunch of questions from listeners, and I want us to go through and answer a bunch of them, and that'll be our show today.
- [06:35]
Jess Lytle
Okay, cool.
- [06:36]
Dave Gerhardt
Okay. All right, first, real quick, give me the two minute. People listening who haven't heard it before or maybe, you know, first time saying this on the podcast. Talk about how you got your job at Exit five. Yeah.
- [06:48]
Jess Lytle
So you kind of alluded to it earlier. It wasn't the traditional way, but I was really kind of just out there doing the work and was asked to be a speaker on a webinar about how marketers are using AI and B2B content. So I showed, like, a real tactical AI use case of how I prompt, like, Vibe coded a ROI calculator for a client and how the sales team was using it and how they're using it events, and really showed, like, the behind the scenes. And that's kind of how we were, like, formally introduced, though. I'd been following Exit 5 for a long time, so I was super excited when you guys reached out and. And then on that call, I said. Because we each kind of shared our use case, the speakers on there. I said, hey, I'm, you know, if anybody wants this prompt, happy to send it to you. Just DM me on LinkedIn. So I remember someone's like, oh, gosh, you're gonna be getting a lot of those messages. And I did. It took me weeks and weeks to respond because I wanted to make sure I responded to everything.
- [07:47]
Dave Gerhardt
Hold on. How many do you think you got? Like, did you get more than three? More than three?
- [07:52]
Jess Lytle
Started with, like, 30 immediately. Then, like, they just kept coming. So I think folks were still, like, watching the webinar, so they still periodically come in. But, yeah, it was, like, the most DMS I've ever gotten on LinkedIn. And so I really wanted to, like, make sure that what I sent was helpful. And it was really cool. That was a really actually, like, full circle moment for me because I sent prompts to folks and then we started, like, conversations, and then they would actually send me back what they built with it, which was really cool to see that, like, that actually helped. So that got me really excited about that whole experience, and the rest is history. Exit 5. I mean, you guys weren't even traditionally like, look, I don't even think you had a job opening for an internal head of marketing, but you're like, hey, you know, AI, you know, marketing really well, right? And here we are.
- [08:40]
Dave Gerhardt
Well, I think what's cool about your story is you were working in Demand gen. So a lot of our listeners can relate to your career working at a SaaS company, doing demand gen, whatever helped the company grow. Things were awesome. Then you went out and you had a baby.
- [08:57]
Jess Lytle
Yes.
- [08:58]
Dave Gerhardt
Right. And then you jumped out, had the baby, worked for yourself for a little bit.
- [09:02]
Jess Lytle
Yes.
- [09:03]
Dave Gerhardt
But in that year, and I actually don't know the answer to this, I was thinking about it when I put down my prep. When did you open Lovable for the like. Cuz lovable is kind of like, has kind of become your thing.
- [09:12]
Jess Lytle
Yeah. And it's only a year old.
- [09:14]
Dave Gerhardt
What got you from like, so obviously have your son. You decide you're gonna like, open the laptop back up, like, you know, get back into work a little bit.
- [09:22]
Jess Lytle
Yeah.
- [09:23]
Dave Gerhardt
Was AI like, were you like, catching up on like news and you saw people talking about AI and you decided, like, I'm gonna make this my thing. Like, do you remember what that moment was?
- [09:31]
Jess Lytle
Yeah. Well, I was always like an early adopter to the tools that came out. So I had been using them for years and figuring out better ways to use them. So like, I, you know, one thing I've learned about myself is I actually like to learn by teaching. So I started including modules on prompt engineering and the marketing analytics class that I was teaching at FIU that summer and the summer prior to that. So I like that whole experience because it really forces me to get really deep into the subject matter. And then it kind of comes full circle with sharing that with students and then they provide that. They turn in their assignment and I grade it and it's like kind of that full circle experience. So I was always kind of an early adopter. But when I started working with this client, when I went fractional for that time, so I wanted to have that time home with my son and not be full time. I needed to be able to do a lot more than just what one person could do for an organization. And AI really solves that. And I'm, you know, I'm still living that today, but I needed to be able to produce content and not just strategy and do other things that they needed to do. So I had come across Lovable, I can't remember, might have been through a newsletter and they had had like a spreadsheet where they were using like, that's. Most folks are like having this in a spreadsheet, like how they're calculating ROI for their business and show that to prospects. That was my first actual time I got into Lovable was using it for that specific use case.
- [11:01]
Dave Gerhardt
I forgot that you were a teacher too. That was, that's a key part of your story, of your marketing nerdiness, is that you, you enjoy teaching it to others, which I do. I totally see that and I understand that now.
- [11:12]
Jess Lytle
Yeah, I love it.
- [11:14]
Dave Gerhardt
That's why, like, our communication styles are different and like, you're very, like, thoughtful and like, here's part one, here's part two, part three, I'm like, now, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, you know, you're good at organizing your thoughts when you, when you have time to do that. I think the teaching is interesting.
- [11:32]
Jess Lytle
Yeah.
- [11:32]
Dave Gerhardt
On the AI piece, you said I've always been an early adopter. Was that true even before AI, like 10 years, you know, ago in your career in marketing, just using tech tools in general, or was it something about AI that made you decide to be an early adopter?
- [11:44]
Jess Lytle
It was something about AI, I think, because, I mean, I've been in software. I've been working in the software space in tech for the last 14 years. So I've always been interested in tech. But truly as a marketer, I became more skeptical with tech over the years with software. Because when you.
- [12:01]
Dave Gerhardt
Why say that? A lot of people, a lot of people use a lot of martech out there that listen to our podcast. Why?
- [12:06]
Jess Lytle
Yeah, yeah. Because as a marketer in the day to day, using these tools when like, software is really, like when they started, like exploding in the marketplace, like every software said that they could like, basically solve all the pains that you had. And sometimes they did and sometimes they didn't. So it kind of left marketers skeptical, I think, for, for tools for a while. And I think maybe, maybe I haven't actually talked to anybody about this, but maybe that's why some marketers are still skeptical with AI, because it just feels like another. Is this going to solve, you know, my whole situation?
- [12:39]
Dave Gerhardt
Maybe, I don't know, maybe it's like back pain, you know, like everybody's been trying to solve back pain forever. No one's going to, like, I'm going to stop trying to solve it. Like, we'll still buy, we'll still buy new. Yeah.
- [12:48]
Jess Lytle
And, well, what I found was different about AI is it's just, I'm sure there's some tools that maybe aren't, you know, as revolutionary, but then there's some that really are like you. I don't even need to say it. You already know which ones I really like.
- [13:04]
Dave Gerhardt
I think the difference in that software and this, though, is maybe, like, we all get to use these tools now. Like, yeah, everybody gets to use them. And I think in like, your marketing technology example, like, I don't know, I'll pick. I'll pick like, one of the companies, a sponsor, like a Webflow or an Optimizely. Right. Unless you've used one of those products at your last companies, like, it's going to be hard for you to, like, take a jump and really go invest in a new piece of software. Unless, you know. But, like, when I can just fire up ChatGPT, and that's my first experience, and I'm, like, analyzing this and I'm making these charts or like, I hooked up Claude to HubSpot. This is before you started, but I hooked UP Cloud to HubSpot and Mike when they launched that integration, I said, tell me everything about our list growth over the last 90 days. And it was like, legitimate, you know, better than. Better than an intern that. Without no knowledge of the business. And so I think maybe some of this because it was interesting to hear you say, like, you're skeptical of MarTech, but not skeptical of AI because I think a lot of people are skeptical with AI, but maybe the difference is like, yeah, you got to go in.
- [14:04]
Jess Lytle
There and the user. Yeah, exactly.
- [14:07]
Dave Gerhardt
I got an agenda here. This is going to be quickly. You and me can hang out for three hours.
- [14:10]
Jess Lytle
I know.
- [14:11]
Dave Gerhardt
I do have some specific things that the producers are telling me that we. We want to get. Okay, so backstory on getting your job at exit 5. It's pretty cool. And like, that's the stuff that fills me, fills my bucket in some way. It's like you had no connection before you earned the right to speak on this webinar because you did awesome work. You got a million things. For me, it was like the best recruiting tool ever because it's like, obviously a bunch of people want to reach out from this engaged community.
- [14:34]
Jess Lytle
Yes.
- [14:35]
Dave Gerhardt
And then after that webinar, literally, I think I called Dan right after, and I was like, this Jessica Lytle, like, she's something. Like, should we. Should we, like, should we make a move? Should we look into, like. Like having a conversation with her people? Like, you know, should we have our people reach out and our agent reach.
- [14:50]
Jess Lytle
Out to her agent? Yeah, somebody said that to me. It's like, you know, in the talent world, in acting, you know, you're talking about CAA the other day.
- [14:57]
Dave Gerhardt
Yeah.
- [14:58]
Jess Lytle
And casting. Somebody told me, like, casting directors, like, they like to find talent by going to a play or show.
- [15:06]
Dave Gerhardt
Sure.
- [15:06]
Jess Lytle
Right. They want to see them out in the wild. Of course they have auditions. But it's kind of like, you know, with. With marketing leaders who are looking to bring on teams, like, who's out there in the wild, you know, talking and sharing and. And it is a really interesting.
- [15:20]
Dave Gerhardt
I know. That's what's crazy. It's like, how do you. How do you identify talent? Part of it is, like, you have to just be, like, doing stuff, I guess, if you're the hiring manager, because you can't just, like, get a database of people that could be a good fit. Like, there's some elemental out there.
- [15:34]
Jess Lytle
Yeah.
- [15:34]
Dave Gerhardt
I heard you talk. I heard you speak. I saw the stuff you show. It was almost like. Yep. Usually in the interview process, someone doesn't, like, show their work until later.
- [15:42]
Jess Lytle
You're right. You're right.
- [15:45]
Dave Gerhardt
And you kind of go through. You kind of do this whole dance of like, is this person legit? You know, you can get references or whatever. And then also, I don't know, basically everybody ever in my life has told me forever, like, oftentimes the best people that you find. There was not, like, a job posting for that. Now some great people have come in from a job posting.
- [16:02]
Jess Lytle
Yeah.
- [16:03]
Dave Gerhardt
But I think back to a bunch of hires in my career, and it's like, oh, yeah, kind of you, you. Because that's when you have an idea. You have an idea, and it fits the strategy of the business. You're not just like, we need to hire an inbound marketing manager to help us grow our list.
- [16:15]
Jess Lytle
Yep. And that's where it is like. And I was able to do that. Right. Because I had the time for it. And I think prior to that, it's hard for marketers to get out there, build a brand, but you never know who's watching. And it is important, you know, to get out. But, you know, I was always heads down in the work, as you know. I'm holding that up now.
- [16:33]
Dave Gerhardt
Let's do a little. Let's do a little inside baseball. It's my podcast. We can talk about whatever I want, and I don't care. We're gonna. We're gonna open the kimono a little bit. Let's talk about marketing at exit 5. I put this question in, like, where do you want to invest more? I'm fine with sharing. What do you want to do? And you put in. You put in a bunch of things in here about, like, where you want to shift our marketing strategy. And so I think of. I think instead of me interviewing philosophy about Marketing. Let's actually just talk about the marketing of our business and we can kind of talk through some of that and I think it'll be useful.
- [17:05]
Jess Lytle
Yeah. And you've got my notes. I don't have them pulled up in front of me, but I got you.
- [17:09]
Dave Gerhardt
So. So the first one is what to focus on for content in 2026. AI doesn't care how much content you publish. It cares whether you're saying something new. Original data, real experience and expert insight are the moat. AI just helps you distribute it faster. So you want us to create like original research, original content.
- [17:27]
Jess Lytle
I think that, that marketing, yeah, potentially. I, I think that'll be a lever of it. And it. And it's more for like, I'm thinking of listeners on this call that are, you know, wanting to take something away. But yeah, I think the stat came out that the majority, 75% of content out on the Internet right now is not written by humans. So I think having something that's new.
- [17:48]
Dave Gerhardt
Crazy, that feels, I. Feels true for the Comments on my LinkedIn can confirm. Feels true. Yes.
- [17:54]
Jess Lytle
Yeah, the bot comments, the one place you can actually be a human on LinkedIn, like, come on, guys. That's what's going to be though, important and relevant. So, yeah, I think having your own bringing some original content is what's going to, you know, perform better and. Yeah, and, and putting your own spin on that.
- [18:12]
Dave Gerhardt
Okay, can you say more about this? Why does it matter for a Company from an AI standpoint, like, if 75% of this content is generated by AI, is there something that makes it better because it was generated by humans? Why do you want to create this as part of your strategy? Because I read this as like, ultimately the AI search platforms are going to suck all this stuff up anyway. So what is it about, like original data and real experience that matters?
- [18:38]
Jess Lytle
Well, and look, this was so. I was recently listening to. I forgot his name, Ethan, the CEO of Graphite, which is the big SEO agency. And this is something that, you know, he just released a report on a lot of this stuff that we could get into, like SEO and AEO and who should be doing what and where. But what he's seeing is like content that really stands out is like something that's like net new originality, but also like your own doing your own research and bringing your own. Bringing your own expertise to the table.
- [19:08]
Dave Gerhardt
I feel like everybody fucks this up though, because they, they go and do very. And I'm coming at this like, I spent a bunch of my career in working in PR and clients would be like, and they were B2B SAS clients. Like we kind of our audience.
- [19:23]
Jess Lytle
Yeah.
- [19:24]
Dave Gerhardt
The company would do some like, you know, shitty kind of internal research, publish a bunch of very like self serving type of data and then like try to package it. It's like, yeah, if a company was really from like a product strategy standpoint, like willing to like open up a little bit and share data, then the marketing team actually has something to, to work with, you know, for a lot of these companies.
- [19:47]
Jess Lytle
Yeah. And it's, it's more about like the balance of content as well. Like obviously, you know, this is just something to make sure that you've got something carved out for strategy carved out for as a piece of the content pie. But yeah, I mean, I totally get what you're saying where that could, that could go wrong. But it's really about having like the originality, the real experience and the expertise, those insights, but then bringing something new to the table and then using AI to just help you, you know, to distribute that faster. But that's what they're, they're finding, you know, so it, it is interesting. But the scaled AI content's only sustainable when it's paired with net new information. So you've got like the expert quotes in there that has to be good. Quality of it is the most important piece.
- [20:31]
Dave Gerhardt
I was talking to Emily Kramer yesterday. She runs this company called MKT1. They put out, she writes a great, a Great newsletter for SaaS, for B2B SaaS marketers. And it's become really popular. Like people often in our community mention like, oh, I read her newsletter and so I just, I knew her from a while back and caught up yesterday and her newsletter is crushing it. And it was interesting. She does two articles a month.
- [20:51]
Jess Lytle
Okay.
- [20:51]
Dave Gerhardt
But she's like obsessive about like I write every word, you know, I gotta do it this, I do the design for it. Like this is the thing, it's like two handmade pies every month and that's it. And then like that's what you're gonna get. And she wins on depth and quality, which I, I think is awesome.
- [21:06]
Jess Lytle
And it kind of feeds into that other conversation we were having earlier about creator led content, founder led content. And it's, it's the same kind of signal, right? Not exactly the same in that, but it's about, it's the same signal with the expertise and because I think that since the majority of content on the web is not written by humans, folks like don't really know where to trust. And that's where I think, you know, yeah, what if I'm reading something that was just written by ChatGPT? So that's where the people and their expertise will really matter.
- [21:37]
Dave Gerhardt
It's insane. This is so random. So I. I was listening to music in my car earlier, and I took a screenshot of an album cover. It was like, old Kanye album. And I. I said, who is this on the COVID And it said, oh, this is a photo of the Kardashians on their wedding day. And then I just looked at it and I wrote back to judge, who said, no, it's not. And it said, oh, you're right, that's someone else. And so I'm like. And that was just a dumb example of my personal life.
- [22:01]
Jess Lytle
Yeah. Yes.
- [22:02]
Dave Gerhardt
I'm like, how many times is that happening to me, like, with work, where I'm just like. But that one was so obvious. Or like, I don't know if you saw. A couple weeks ago, Kieran posted like, can I eat these blueberries? Chatgpt. Yes. Totally fine. And then like, you go to the hospital and I'm like, cheers.
- [22:15]
Jess Lytle
We talk about this all the time, right? This is also why I like Notebook lm. Because it's less likely to do that in certain cases. But, yeah, exactly. It's the trust. And it's like, how do I not know? That's where, like, the people, the expertise communities learn, you know, peer to peer sharing, human to human sharing is going to be really important.
- [22:35]
Dave Gerhardt
Yeah, I think that's great. I think in the founder piece, I think the reason that I even, like, wrote the book, founder, brand, and that whole concept was just because I saw and I felt that, like, the best. The life of a marketer inside of a company. It's really just about, like, resource gathering. Like, what do I got? What? This is what I love about marketing. It's like, all right, I'm at this company now. What do I got to work with? Okay, well, they got this thing, and they got this thing. It's like ingredients, right? Okay. They have a famous founder or, like, they have no money. Or this woman, like, dropped out of Harvard and like, coded this app herself. You're always looking for these little bits of nuggets, right? And a lot of times the founders of these companies, they didn't just start the company. They didn't start some, like, obscure B2B legal tech software product because they wanted to get rich. It was like, oh, no. That person was actually a lawyer for 30 years before this and decided that they could go and build in this vertical and it's like, shit, that's the stuff that makes for the best marketing content. And so that's why like I push hard on like having that founder brand and being the voice. And so I think it's great with what's happening with AI. Those voices, the ones who can do that truly authentically and are interesting, those are the ones that are going to stand out.
- [23:40]
Jess Lytle
Yes, exactly. And that's where it's fun for me in this role because this is where AI is kind of allowing us to blur the lines between traditional roles and marketing. Where now I'm, I'm able to also because I'm marketing with marketers to marketers. I am the SME in this case. So I, I can blend the lines even further across roles where there's, you know, I talked in my newsletter about hybrid operators as marketers, where we now can be doing like literally within a day. I'm doing some engineering work, I'm doing some designer work through utilizing my AI tools. So it's kind of blending the roles that used to be just more of like marketers in their lane. That's all changing.
- [24:21]
Dave Gerhardt
I love that blend. Yeah. And just remove. Making everybody more of a critter. All right. AI generated slop.
- [24:30]
Sponsor Host
I think it's the best thing to ever happen in marketing, actually, because it raises the bar, right? AI slop is going to kill deals, kill brand and kill trust. Today, marketers, like, we're also customers too, right. And so we have to actually put ourselves in the position of our customers and think about all the AI slopes they're seeing. And it's on us to create things that actually matter, things that have meaning and impact, things that are educational, entertaining, funny, useful, specific and relevant. And that's everything that our sponsor Air Ops stands for. They're helping reshape how people discover and connect with brands. Because AI slop is not going to win. Air Ops is built for marketers who want to create content that sounds like their best subject matter expert, not another chatbot. This is content grounded. Real sources, real insights and real information gain. Their content engineering platform helps you surface your highest value opportunities in AI search, then shows you how to actually take action on them. Not just see dashboards, not just get another recommendation or SEO report, but actually go out and execute. And this is the topic that everyone is being asked to get smarter about right now, AI search and SEO. If you care about this topic, then you want to go and check out Air Ops. They're built for you. It's airops.com exit5. You can learn more about Airops and what they're doing in the AI and SEO space. That's airops.com exit 5.
- [25:50]
Dave Gerhardt
Let's rewind. That's the rewind. Let's go back. You mentioned NotebookLM. You've become like, listen to me, if anybody from Google's. Is NotebookLM from Google?
- [26:00]
Jess Lytle
Yeah.
- [26:00]
Dave Gerhardt
Are they from Google? Okay, listen, Sergey, if you're listening to this podcast, Jess should be on the payroll over there at Google because she's the biggest advocate of NotebookLM. You've talked about it a bunch. I think you talked about it in the prompt, but maybe just the couple minute blurb on, like why the marketing use case. For people out there listening that are not using NotebookLM, give me a couple of examples of how you use it and why they should be.
- [26:24]
Jess Lytle
Yeah, it's, it's changing the work, you know, our workflows internally and the more I spend time in it. And what's great with these AI tools is they're constantly updating themselves. So, you know, revisit it if you didn't love it the first time around because they just had some big updates in November that are really game changing. Every once in a while you'll come across like just an insane tool that you know you'll never work without. Like, ChatGPT will probably always be up there for us from a strategy, you know, brainstorming perspective. But Notebook lm, it's great. It's actually, you know, who was using this early was students. So it's great for that because it takes like your sources and then you can kind of do a lot with it. You can chat it like you would chatgpt, but it's only from your sources.
- [27:09]
Sponsor Host
Got it.
- [27:09]
Jess Lytle
So that's also where it helps with some of the hallucinations that you were talking about with ChatGPT.
- [27:13]
Dave Gerhardt
So what's like, what's the academic example of that? Like, how are kids using it?
- [27:17]
Jess Lytle
Studying? Like if they're studying for a quiz or a test or something, you could put up to 300 sources in one notebook. And it could be a YouTube video. It could be like your notes from class, your, your audio recording. And then it's got like features where with a click of a button, you could turn that into flashcards. And then I used it for onboarding and that's where I did that LinkedIn post about NotebookLM. And so many people were sharing all of the different ways that they're using it. So that was really interesting. Product marketers are using it. People are just using it as like a database because it can hold so many sources and it doesn't hallucinate in the same way that ChatGPT does.
- [27:52]
Dave Gerhardt
It. It's.
- [27:53]
Jess Lytle
It's different. So I used it also for my onboarding at first with Exit 5. Took a document that our LinkedIn agency had kept for us on all of our LinkedIn ads, put it in there. I chatted it as if I was chatting with literally Anthony and was able to extract information from that document like that. So. So that was a great use case. And then, by the way, we should.
- [28:14]
Dave Gerhardt
Shout him out since you said it.
- [28:15]
Jess Lytle
This will make him happy.
- [28:16]
Dave Gerhardt
So. So Anthony Blattner, he runs this company called Speedwork, and they've been doing our LinkedIn ads for the last year and we've. We keep spending more money and it keeps working more and more and more. So if you if go to their website, go to Speedwork Social, just find them Speedwork. Look for Anthony Blatter. What's their actual like URL? Speedworksocial.com Nice. Love that. I told them I'd give them a free ad because they've been doing an awesome job for us. So go. There's three leads for you.
- [28:43]
Jess Lytle
Yeah, we just launched CTV with them too. So if you see us, let us know.
- [28:48]
Dave Gerhardt
I love that because it's like, oh, yeah, how much of this is being hallucinated? The marketing use cases make so much sense because it's like, hey, I'm working on this product launch. I got all these docs, I got the deck from the product managers, I got some technical docs, I got some competitive stuff. Like, to be able to load all that up and basically have this little, like, research assistant while you're working on the product launch is amazing.
- [29:09]
Jess Lytle
Amazing. And it can be used, like, even in events, you know, with Allison and all of that coordination and being able to like, get information quickly at your fingertips. So great. From an organization standpoint, from just a content development standpoint, iteration and creativity standpoint, now we're starting to implement it where you can have like a multiplayer mode where you've got multiple members from your team, you know, using it as part of, like, our brain as a content.
- [29:38]
Dave Gerhardt
I mean, that's the stuff that makes so much sense is like, if you look at a company like ours and a lot of people listening work at companies where have a. Have a marketing machine that does similar things to. We do. But let's say we have 200 episodes of this podcast. That's 200 hours of transcripts, right? Imagine just having. I don't even know what we'll do with it, but just having access to that and be able to query it and to, like, take all of our newsletters and all the best ads. Like, I don't have a perfect use case in my head, but intuitively it makes so much sense that as a marketer, if I could just have access to all these things, it would be insane. Another one, I'm just thinking of, like, workflows that used to drive, like, take so much of my time as a marketer. Now I'm just a founder. Like, I do podcasts with sunglasses on. I don't really do much, but I was in Google Slides the other day, like, to have Nano Banana in the Nano Banana AI image generation, like, integrated into Google Slides. I cannot tell you how much of. I mean, now you just. I see you. You don't even make slides anymore. You just buy. You make a lovable, like, yeah, everything is a lovable thing.
- [30:34]
Jess Lytle
But you're right.
- [30:35]
Dave Gerhardt
So much of my time would be like making freaking decks and having the designer have you, like, oh, I need Michelle to go make this image for me. It's like for a board meeting, like, this much time. Now I can just chat and like, get AI generated image. Oh, my God.
- [30:50]
Jess Lytle
That's literally what I'm talking about, is just that aspect, because that's happening to me with so many different tools that I'm utilizing. I mean, it was the same way with the ROI calculator. Do you know how I've. I've built these in the past with developers and designers, and it took months and it was like $20,000 to build one of these things. The fact that I can do this.
- [31:09]
Dave Gerhardt
And they don't come into work until. They don't come into work until like 11 o'. Clock. And then they come and get lunch and then they got to sit over in that special part of the building where, like, all the lights are off. It's just.
- [31:18]
Jess Lytle
And they've got other priorities, right? They got to build the product, not work on marketing stuff. So that's what's nice is like, marketing gets to, you know, they don't have to wait for this stuff anymore. But yes, it's exactly what you said. And that's why it gets me super excited because, you know, you're. You're able to get the output you need immediately. And like, I use genspark and, you know, I've been experimenting with gamma with a slide structure too. But yeah, then I'll just build it in Lovable. I mean I built a tool shout out to Dasha for this idea. This is where there's so many different ways you can actually use Lovable, not just for dashboards or landing pages or interactive content tools which you should be doing, but also for like internal tools like building your own software just to help our internal operations with the newsletter and having that eliminate three hours a week of someone's time that we can now continue to do this way. So it's like the fact that you can even create your own tools for internal use.
- [32:12]
Dave Gerhardt
So what do you think some other internal use cases for marketing teams that make sense?
- [32:17]
Jess Lytle
Well I think I would think about the team structure. So like I think about like if you're a product marketer you're going to have a different workflow, maybe similar tools to some of these than like maybe a demand gen marketer or content marketer. So we probably all would use Lovable to like synthesize transcripts and sales team call notes. But then a product marketer might use three other AI tools to, you know, help her get what she needs for her role. So just it's different depending on the role. But I think that the important thing is to know what tools are good at doing certain things because it starts to feel like is this just another like chat? Like is it Claude chatgpt at this point? Where is it preference versus like where does the tool excel?
- [33:04]
Dave Gerhardt
I know I just my, my biggest issue and we were trading messages on this is like pride myself on being an early adopter and then I just can't use something other than chatgpt. Like I'm just, I don't know if it's like being lazy. I feel like I'm just locked in now because it knows so much and it's great.
- [33:23]
Jess Lytle
It's better than anything outside of other. Like it depends on what you're using.
- [33:28]
Dave Gerhardt
Somebody we're recording this the week of Christmas. Somebody told me like a month ago was like, oh, Gemini has been so much better than ChatGPT for me lately. And I, I started using Gemini and I even exported all my history from ChatGPT. I said tell me everything you know about me. Which is creepy as fuck. Like if you ever wanted to exploit me, like the of information that Chat GPT has was insane.
- [33:52]
Jess Lytle
So you extracted all of that and then you trained it use?
- [33:55]
Dave Gerhardt
Yeah, I gave it to Gemini. But there's something about the way Gemini wrote like really annoyed me. I'm sure I could edit it out and so I just this is so classic. Like, I just didn't want to deal with like setting up the new tool and so I just went back to ChatGPT and I like, ah, that's, that's where I'm going to be stuck for a little bit. But that's, that's my own fault until.
- [34:12]
Jess Lytle
You see like now, now don't you see like a different use case with Notebook LM though?
- [34:17]
Dave Gerhardt
Sure.
- [34:17]
Jess Lytle
You know, sure.
- [34:18]
Dave Gerhardt
No, this is a, this is a real thing. As recently, today's as recently as, like last Thursday, I was on this kick where I was like, man, I need to build. And like, I feel like I should do this. I was like, I want to build like this brain for our team, for our company. Because, like, I've been here the longest. I know the company, it's my thing. Like, you know what I mean? Like, that's an amazing resource. And so I know what our ICP is and I know what this is in the tone of voice and this. I'm like, there's gotta be something. Like, are we, we are not using AI, like strong enough as a company? Yes, there's gotta be something. And I was all set to, like, I had all the docs laid out and I was just gonna build a custom GPT and then I talked to you and you walked me through your whole thing and I'm like, oh, no, actually this needs to be done in Notebook lm. And I think, yes, that's one of my, my projects right now. And I think this is a perfect example of this isn't like a sexy use case or anything, but when you talk about like ideas that make a ton of sense for marketing, all of your notes, like voice of the customer, why you win customers, you know, churned customers, all that stuff. Imagine all of that in like a, a, a notebook.
- [35:22]
Jess Lytle
Yes.
- [35:22]
Dave Gerhardt
For you as a marketer, it's insane.
- [35:24]
Jess Lytle
Yeah, it's really cool. And, and it really depends on like what you're also trying to extract from that. Right. And that's where sometimes a custom GPT can make perfect sense and sometimes where Notebook LM makes perfect sense. You know, how do you do if.
- [35:37]
Dave Gerhardt
A new tool is worth your time?
- [35:39]
Jess Lytle
That's my job. Right. So that's what I'm hoping to do for, for others is like to do that research and figure out like, is this just like a Claude vs. GPT or where is that point where the tool is just another tool but just does the same thing, but just another brand doing it versus a tool that actually can do something better? Than the tool that you're just using on, on a day to day in different ways. And I think that is a hard part. And that's why I write about this in the prompt where I try to do that research because marketers don't have a ton of time to be doing this and learning all of these tools to figure out what they're really good at versus, you know, what they're already using. And I try to do that where I can kind of parse that out and say like, this is really good. If you're trying to do this, use these three tools together if you want to get the best output for like. One thing I've noticed is like using genspark to create a slide template has really helped with like gamma output because Gamma's like a rendering tool. It makes it really pretty. But genspark's really good at like, it's literally follows directions perfectly. It uses JSON. So if you give it. If you combine the two, you'll get. Actually get a better output. So that's also something that I've been experimenting with. But I think the key is to like always just work backwards from what, what it is that you're trying to solve and then figuring out what tools the best at doing that one thing.
- [36:58]
Dave Gerhardt
Yeah, I love what you said. I love that you think it's your job in this role to like find those tools and educate people on it. I think that's great. That would make for like the best newsletter. Like if the prompt is truly that and like all your stuff is, I think that that's great. And then like, yeah, I'm, I'm not. This is my job to figure these things out.
- [37:16]
Jess Lytle
Yeah. And to talk to others and, and learn about what it is that they're doing. I mean that's where like I think the community sharing point with like Dasha, you know, I've used Lovable on in so many different ways. But to use it in that way.
- [37:28]
Dave Gerhardt
You know, right now there's a lot of people that listen to this podcast. I would like you to email, email jessit5.com if you have no bullshit. If you have a practical and specific use of AI inside of your company, I would love to have like three to five people reach out more than more people reach out. But maybe get a message, suggest and then in some point in Q1, you all can link up and we can make some content around that. Because I think another thing is like that, that would be an amazing, I think for you, like doing more podcast stuff. As an example, it's like, how can we create more high leverage conversations for you? And so it's like, all right, you're going to spend an hour with someone like Adasha who's just done a bunch of AI stuff inside of her company. You two can riff on things, we record it, we get an hour worth of that conversation. There's clips, there's transcripts. Like, imagine the leverage from doing those.
- [38:20]
Jess Lytle
And I think that that's the really helpful stuff. Like, I know that when I was, you know, trying to learn, it's really hard to find actual helpful content. And that's why I always push so hard, Dave, on like just making sure that like what I'm writing is something that somebody like me could go and take and it's actionable and they can actually do something with it. I think that's, that's that use case that's really helpful to, to marketers.
- [38:43]
Dave Gerhardt
This is interesting. Clicks on the Google 10 Blue on. This is on AI and SEO.
- [38:47]
Jess Lytle
Oh, on AI and SEO. Yeah, this is a good one. We should touch on this.
- [38:50]
Dave Gerhardt
Clicks on the Google 10 Blue. This is on AI and SEO. Clicks on the Google 10 Blue links are not going down.
- [38:56]
Jess Lytle
Yeah.
- [38:57]
Dave Gerhardt
Knowing it's relatively flat, give or take 5%.
- [39:00]
Jess Lytle
Yeah. Back to your. Like, where do you want to invest more? Right. And so I'm thinking about it in terms for us at exit 5, which, you know, we've been talking a lot about SEO and AEO and what's our approach there?
- [39:11]
Dave Gerhardt
You plug your source for that.
- [39:13]
Jess Lytle
Yes. So this is through Graphite. The CEO of Graphite released a report on this and I was listening to him on a podcast, Marketing against the Grain, Kieran and Kip. And this was some really interesting insights on AEO and SEO and what the data is telling us. So essentially the summary is here is that where we've been hearing like SEO is dead. SEO is dead. It's just not the case. You know, we've been talking about a lot of this internally ourselves where like the same basic foundational SEO tactics are still really viable. They're still really important. Important. It still remains a critical channel despite AI. And that's where Graphite's seeing the data and talking about this. But doesn't mean that you should stop doing, you know, certain SEO efforts to focus on AEO efforts. And it also depends on the stage of your business, whether you're seed stage, early stage, late stage also, all of that matters. But it's more of that. AEO is a layered strategy. It is on Top of, of SEO.
- [40:23]
Dave Gerhardt
So you read that like, hey, people are still using Google.
- [40:27]
Jess Lytle
Yes. Yeah. And that's, I mean, look, clicks are down and it's hard because we'll always hear about that aspect of it. Clicks can be down for some businesses. For some businesses they're not. I mean, across the board though, what the data was showing was that generally those links are still being used. And then, you know, granted like LLMs are growing 100% year over year, so we should have this conversation again in six months and see if it's still the same. But right now, if you're a seed stage founder, probably don't spend a ton of time here because it's really hard to do it and it, and it can take time. But if you're in that A, you know, series A, series B stage, that's when you really need to start upping your investments in SEO and AEO and having a hybrid strategy across the two. However, what's really interesting though, and I've experienced this myself personally when I'm doing research on tools in LLMs, but with aeo, this is different. If you are an early founder, you actually, because of the way like there is more when someone is talking about your brand, not just you talking about your brand, you can end up in an answer in an LLM because of that. So if you're listed in a publication somewhere, somebody mentions your startup that you can be, you could show up under that query in an LLM pretty quickly. So it's different with AEO and early stage companies and you can see those results right away. So that's where like the PR aspect of things is also, you know, really important. That's what they were talking about and it was, it's really interesting to hear about that. And that's where I was introduced to tools I've never heard of through LLMs. And a lot of them are smaller companies or startups. So there's definitely a play there.
- [42:09]
Dave Gerhardt
I like that. And shout out to Kip and Kieran. That's a, that's a good resource. This is an area where I feel like we can't do enough content right now. If, if people have specific examples of like AEO and SEO and all that stuff, it's, it's a popular topic. I'm glad though to hear my takeaway is like the same principles are going to apply which is like, if you make content that is interesting, relevant, useful to someone, it's gonna, it's gonna show up. Okay. Anything that like you wanted to hit on here that I should have before I jump to do. We'll do questions, then we're gonna wrap up.
- [42:40]
Jess Lytle
Oh, there was one question that was pretty cool that I liked that was like, how's your adjustment been? You know, working with E5 and anything different or interesting in how we work? Yeah, so one, it's a role like I've never had before, which is really cool because it's not in. Working with the Exit 5 team has been great, but also like the entire Exit 5 ecosystem and network. And I'm fortunate that like literally what I work on every day are like things that I really enjoy doing. So I'm very lucky in that and that I get to have a platform to also then like share that publicly with people and help other people. So it's like it's checking all the boxes for me where I'm in an in house marketing role, but then I'm also getting to dive into AI, but then I can also publicly share about it and help other people do it. And you know, I just enjoy doing all of those things. But what's really cool and what's different is that when you have a founder who gets marketing and everybody know my founder gets marketing. But like, who was. When do you ever have like a CEO or founder that was a former cmo? You don't have that happen often. It's kind of fun. It's like when we were talking about doing those video ads and you were like, we don't.
- [43:44]
Dave Gerhardt
You.
- [43:44]
Jess Lytle
You said it before I even said it. You're like, we don't need, you know, to see the ROI I get. This is a brand play. It's like, oh, that's nice.
- [43:53]
Dave Gerhardt
I didn't even approach it from a marketing standpoint. This was like, hey, I have this idea, like we have a strong brand meaning, like, I think people, our space know who we are.
- [44:01]
Jess Lytle
Yeah.
- [44:01]
Dave Gerhardt
If we made a bunch of like fun and good and entertaining videos, like people would like that and it would work.
- [44:07]
Jess Lytle
And so like doesn't always have to be.
- [44:10]
Dave Gerhardt
Did. Did feel like roughly worth spending? I don't know, whatever we spent on it. Yeah, it did. So I think part of that also it's not just the founder thing. Like, I think part of it is just like confidence and it feels good to be in charge. And I think, I think that's what it is sometimes in past roles, I think like I, I got a lot of responsibility, like pretty young and I had no experience and had no wisdom. And like you just second guess yourself all the time then. And so like I don't have the confidence of that I do now and be like, yeah, I don't know, it just feels right. Like that caa, the Michael Ovitz thing I told you about, the link, it's great. But he was just talking about like, how so many times the big decisions and like ideas just, it was just a gut feeling and just felt like it. There's no mentor, there's no roadmap. And I think it's liberating to be like, it's hard to do good marketing also when like everything you do is going to be second guessed by someone else in management. Right?
- [45:04]
Jess Lytle
Yeah. I mean, a lot of the times where folks are handcuffed to not doing good marketing, that's what happens if, when you have to prove every dollar and everything, guess what you're not going to be doing. Really important brand. Usually things that are critical to, you know, being able to capture that demand later. So the brand aspect of it is so important, but notoriously hard to attribute. So. Yeah.
- [45:24]
Dave Gerhardt
So like, I think we're learning. I think we're getting into a working rhythm now. It's like just because, just because I feel that way, I'm also not always right. And I think there's a lot of nuance in marketing and it's just like maybe how I, I, I am learning. And this has been one of the hardest and most rewarding parts about like growing this company from one person to seven is like, there are many ways to achieve the goal. They don't always have to be my way, Dave's way. And so the way Jess might do it, Aaron might do it, or Dan might, might not have been how I would do it. And I'm having to be like, but we achieved the thing and that's okay.
- [45:57]
Jess Lytle
Yes. And that's where our like also, which is really nice. But you understand that because we're, we also have similar marketing backgrounds, we could both be experts in what we think. But you know that my strong skill sets were also on the demand gen side. So that's somewhere where you trust, you know, to bring my expertise to the table on those things. And that's also really helpful.
- [46:19]
Dave Gerhardt
Yeah, like, I get to just do that. I get to play with like words and arts and crafts. All right, that's good. Hey, great job. Great job. Go follow Jess. By the way, who's gaining followers every minute. Everybody listens. This could be this wrapping up to be a great, a great episode. If I do say something. I got a couple of questions. I got a bunch of questions. On LinkedIn from listeners. This is my favorite one. This wasn't even a question. This is just an AI statement from. Neat to hear. It's fascinating how personal experiences, comma, like your hip surgery, comma, can shape our perspectives. Dave Gerhardt, Awesome. Thank you for that. Thank you for that comment. I'm gonna highlight comment every time we do. We do one of these. This question is from Vikas. I'm saying that right? How do you keep creative energy high when you're the face of the brand? Burnout is founder led content. I'd love to hear how you protect your mental space while staying consistent. The way that I answered this one is.
- [47:13]
Jess Lytle
I'm curious. I'd like to know too.
- [47:16]
Dave Gerhardt
99.9% of the time my answer is like, just suck it up, buttercup. Like, suck it up like your life compared to like people who are like, serving in the military at war, doctors, teachers, like, I get to sit in my little office and write words on my back. How hard is my life? And so I keep, you know, I keep that. I honestly, I'm very like, that's it. The other thing that he said, Jess, how do you keep your creative energy high when you're the, when you're the whatever. I read that as like, how do you always keep creative energy high? And I think that one thing I've learned about myself and from studying others is like, you have to often do it when you don't have that spark, right? It's like you got to write the prompt. Like the prompt has to go out next Tuesday whether or not you're feeling really creatively inspired or not. And it's like, it's so true. Learn what it actually means to like be able to create. It's like, I gotta do this. It's like, I gotta write this paper. There's no other way.
- [48:09]
Jess Lytle
Yeah. And there are people on the other end of that listening and reading that. You know, you hit them at the right time too. And it can be really helpful.
- [48:17]
Dave Gerhardt
Dopamine of like, you sent that out and you got a bunch of responses. Yeah, but burnout is true in any role. I think like anytime I'm burnt out, I usually just gotta step away and just change my routine up a little bit. If I'm bored with working out, if bored with what I'm eating, if I'm bored with work, whatever. Gotta mix up the order of things sometimes.
- [48:33]
Jess Lytle
Yep.
- [48:33]
Dave Gerhardt
One's from Zach. You and I are roughly the same age, so I think this is gonna work. What was your first AIM username Oh, you're. It has nothing to do with marketing. Shocker. If it's incriminating you. Don't. Don't feel the.
- [48:46]
Jess Lytle
Mine. No, you're gonna die laughing.
- [48:48]
Dave Gerhardt
I feel like your scream is like the Police 92.
- [48:53]
Jess Lytle
How'd you know? No, it was literally Italian Job. You know the movie?
- [48:59]
Dave Gerhardt
Yeah, yeah, that was your. That's amazing. That's, like, a great domain. That's good. Real estate. Italian Job. That's great.
- [49:05]
Jess Lytle
Oh, man. Why didn't I do that? Could have bought that.
- [49:08]
Dave Gerhardt
That's really good. Freedom was Italian Job.
- [49:10]
Jess Lytle
Italian Job. I love. I wanted a mini Cooper so bad because of that movie. What was your.
- [49:15]
Dave Gerhardt
Mine was duh. Celtics 21. But, like, the DA. And Celtics was not for. Not for duh. Not for Dave. It was like, for duh.
- [49:24]
Jess Lytle
Duh. Yeah. Bring AIM Back.
- [49:30]
Dave Gerhardt
You know what's funny, though, actually, like, I could totally see something like AIM making a comeback because literally, the new social network suggested it. New social network that people are talking about needs to be built. Is one of, like, actually your friends. And imagine you just. I guess that's Instagram, but I don't want to be in my. On my phone.
- [49:46]
Jess Lytle
Yep. I would be on there.
- [49:48]
Dave Gerhardt
All right, this. I'll. I'll let. I'll let you answer this one first. Which marketing advice did you give yourself? Which marketing advice did you give five years ago that you'd now politely delete?
- [50:00]
Jess Lytle
I mean, everything's changing. Trying to think of specifics. I don't know.
- [50:04]
Dave Gerhardt
I have a different way that. Different way. This. Which is, like, I actually think the thing that I know now is that everything can work, and everything has worked. And so, like, there is not one. There is playbook. And so I think if I was. Whether I'm doing marketing for Exit 5, or I started a restaurant tomorrow, or I became the CMO of a sneaker brand, like, everything would be different based on the company, the product, the market, the channels that already exist. And so, like, I don't. I. What. What. What. What I said was not working five years ago probably was just because I said it because of my current situation in context where, like, I could switch reason. Like, that whole. That whole product is sold through, like, direct mail, and direct mail is all that matters. And so that would. I don't know.
- [50:48]
Exit 5 Event Announcer
I don't.
- [50:49]
Dave Gerhardt
I don't think there's one definitive take here.
- [50:52]
Jess Lytle
Yep. Yep. And I think that that, like, the message there, though, is that, like, everything is changing, but also be open to. I'd like, if the question was switched like, what were you suggesting then that is now still relevant today? Because I think that like, like everything is.
- [51:08]
Dave Gerhardt
I'll answer that one.
- [51:09]
Jess Lytle
Yeah.
- [51:10]
Dave Gerhardt
I think a lot of this, I'm now, this is the first wave in my career where, like, I feel now like I've had enough experience where, like, all the things that are. People are saying about AI and like, how all that matters is brand and the only thing that matters is community, and you need that to be remote. I'm like, yeah, no kidding.
- [51:26]
Jess Lytle
Good marking. Foundational.
- [51:28]
Dave Gerhardt
The last company that I was at 10 years ago. And it's like, yeah, that's the timeless thing. Thing now. Okay, we got. We got a wrap. I gotta. I gotta get out of here. You gotta go. I'm gonna end on one question. You have a. A just over one year old. What. What did you get him? What. What's his big. What's. What's his big gift for Christmas?
- [51:45]
Jess Lytle
Oh, you know what he loves? He's such a boy. Trucks. Trucks. The wheels, the better.
- [51:51]
Dave Gerhardt
It's the cutest thing ever, though. Just a big truck.
- [51:54]
Jess Lytle
It's just a big, like. Like a garbage truck or like a construction truck. Like a dump truck.
- [52:00]
Dave Gerhardt
Yeah. Love that. All right, we're out of here. Have a great, great Christmas. Great holidays, everybody.
- [52:04]
Jess Lytle
Thanks for having me, Dave.
- [52:05]
Dave Gerhardt
I'm Dave Gerhardt. This is Jess. Jess Lytle. She's head of Marketing at Exit 5. Send her a note. Jessexit5.com Find her on LinkedIn. Get all her stuff. If you want to get smarter about AI and learn every week about someone who's obsessing over these tools and studying them so you can get better at your job, go subscribe to the prompt. We'll have links to all that. Follow Jess on LinkedIn and we'll make you a recurring. Yes. All right, Jess, see you later.
- [52:27]
Jess Lytle
Love it. Bye.
- [52:32]
Sponsor Host
Hey, thanks for listening to this podcast. If you like this episode, you know what? I'm not even going to ask you.
- [52:37]
Dave Gerhardt
To subscribe and leave a review, because.
- [52:39]
Sponsor Host
I don't really care about that.
- [52:41]
Dave Gerhardt
I have something better for you.
- [52:42]
Sponsor Host
So we've built the number one private.
- [52:44]
Dave Gerhardt
Community for B2B marketers at exit 5.
- [52:46]
Sponsor Host
And you can go and check that out. Instead of leaving a rating or review, go check it out right now on our website, exit5.com. Our mission at Exit 5 is to help you grow your career in B2B marketing. And there's no better place to do that than with us at exit 5. There's nearly 5,000 members now in our community.
- [53:04]
Dave Gerhardt
People are in there posting every day, asking questions about things like marketing, planning.
- [53:08]
Sponsor Host
Ideas, inspiration, asking questions and getting feedback from your peers. Building your own network of marketers who.
- [53:14]
Dave Gerhardt
Are doing the same thing you are so you can have a peer group.
- [53:17]
Sponsor Host
Or maybe just venting about your boss.
- [53:19]
Dave Gerhardt
When you need to get in there.
- [53:20]
Sponsor Host
And get something off your chest. It's 100% free to join for seven.
- [53:24]
Dave Gerhardt
Days so you can go and check.
- [53:25]
Sponsor Host
It out risk free and then there's.
- [53:27]
Dave Gerhardt
A small annual fee to pay if.
- [53:29]
Sponsor Host
You want to become a member for the year.
- [53:31]
Dave Gerhardt
Go check it out.
- [53:31]
Sponsor Host
Learn more exit5.com and I will see.
- [53:34]
Dave Gerhardt
You over there in the community.
- [53:44]
Exit 5 Event Announcer
Hey by the way, we're doing a new event at Exit 5. On the heels of our very wildly successful and super fun drive, we're doing an event designed for marketing leaders. It's called the Exit 5 Marketing Leadership Retreat. It's a two day in person working session for CMOs and VPs in Arizona in March. Not a conference, not a marathon of content. It's a room of a hundred. Only 100 marketing execs from companies like Zoom, Snowflake, ManyChat, Bit, Ly, G2, HP and more. You'll spend two days pressure testing real decision with your peers who are doing the same job you are. What to hire next, what to cut, what's actually working, what's not. Small, intimate. Exactly what you have needed in a marketing event designed for leaders and CMOs and VPs like you and me. It's on March 18th through 20th, 2026 at Mountain Shadows Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. We have a hundred spots and they're filling up fast. I think as of as of recording this, we had 42 tickets sold. So if you're a CMO or VP of marketing and you want to think better, move faster and lead with more clarity this year, this event is made for you. We do awesome events. I'm super excited to have this one out there. You should go check it out. Exit5.com retreat that's exit5.com retreat.