← Uncensored CMO
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- [00:00]
Sherilyn Shackle
Foreign.
- [00:07]
John Evans
Welcome back to Uncensored cmo. Now, in this episode, we're taking a different tack. We're going to be talking about your career. Yes, that's right, your career. We spend so much time as marketers thinking about what marketing we're doing, how can we be more effective, how can we deliver for our businesses? But do we spend time thinking about us, where are we going, why are we here? And what are we going to do with our lives? And that's why I've invited Sherilyn Shackle, who's the founder of the Marketing Academy, who spends all her time with the top 1% of marketers globally figuring that out. This is a great conversation. You'll love it. And it's going to be relevant to everybody. So listen in, take lots of notes, and I hope you enjoy it. Thank you. So, Sherryn and Shackle, welcome to Uncensored cmo. It's lovely to have you.
- [00:46]
Sherilyn Shackle
It's wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me.
- [00:49]
John Evans
Well, dying to get into talk about the Marketing Academy and what you do and what you're up to and how it's all been. But tell us a bit about your journey to this point. How did you end up here?
- [00:57]
Sherilyn Shackle
Oh, my God. Because I'm the age I am, that could be a really long story. So I'm gonna. I will cut it short. But what people don't know or it's not commonly known is that I'm not a marketer. Right. Never have been. I think I might have made a good one. I think it was a path not chosen. But I spent most of my career, the majority of my career as a headhunter, and I did it for 25 years. And I believed that that was gonna be my path. But if I'm honest, it was a career in which I was very successful. I owned my own executive search firm, which I think I bought in my early 30s. So it probably looked quite successful from outside looking in. But I never actually really liked the industry. And as well as an owner of a business, I was working really hard. I've always been quite driven, and I was doing a job that I was good at making money at, but that I didn't love. And something was going on at a kind of a soul level that I wasn't 100% aware of. And I suffered from absolute burnout. I suffered a complete and total physical crash. And I got an illness that could have killed me overnight. And I was 42. And so I realized at that time was a really big wake up call, really really big wake up call now. I had always been interested in marketing, actually fascinated by it and I had always really understood the power of it, especially as the growth driver in business. So as a headhunter, I'm taught my clients are CEOs and I'm looking at finding their boards, right, so their direct reports. Some occasionally would be a CMO. And I used to get really frustrated with CEOs who would be, you know, we're not growing quick enough, our revenues are down, our customers aren't talking to us or they're not liking us. And I'd be saying, well, where's the CMO in the boardroom then? You know, where's the person that's got all the answers to this? And they go, what, the CMO? No, my CMO's not on the board and IP will look, well, you're an idiot then basically because that's the person that's going to fix this for you. So I'd always been passionate about it and I was also at that time in my life a non exec director on a leadership development program which I'd gone on and it changed my life and it had inspired the real passion around developing leadership talent. So when I had this kind of like midlife crisis thing go on, I literally had the opportunity through a little bit of trauma to look at what I was doing with my life. And I didn't like it. And I, and I felt that if I continue to do that, continue to be on this treadmill of commercial acquisition and, you know, material wealth and success in inverted commas, that I was going to kill myself. And I had three young daughters at the time and it was not my path. So I decided that I was going to my life quite drastically and the recovery of what I'd gone through was the kind of instigator for what the marketing academy became. I wanted to be developing talent, I wanted it to be philanthropic. So I really felt the need to do something that was for good in the world. And I wanted, if I was going to create something that was for good around leadership, I wanted to make sure that it would have the biggest ripple effect. And the biggest ripple effect in the world is caused by marketing, media and advertising, you know, that can change the world. And so it became about two years, I think we launched about two years after my illness. I was about 44, 45 when we launched and I changed my life completely. And I've been doing that ever since, 15 years now.
- [04:38]
John Evans
Wow, what a story. That's amazing. It's incredible. Isn't it? How these traumatic events, as terrible as they are at the time, become catalysts, don't they, to make the change? And we make you reflect on what do you want in life and from your career. And it's odd, isn't it? I've been in similar positions where I've been fired or had houses burning down. All sorts of weird things have happened. It's incredible to look back and go, as difficult as it was at the time, it forced me to think, what do I want? And what do I want to. Who do I want to be as well?
- [05:06]
Sherilyn Shackle
And here's what I remember. There were two things that I remember being. When. When I was ill, I was in intensive care and I was conscious through most of it, although on morphine, which is fantastic.
- [05:16]
John Evans
I love more. I had morphine once, actually.
- [05:19]
Sherilyn Shackle
They had to wean.
- [05:20]
John Evans
It's like floating, isn't it?
- [05:22]
Sherilyn Shackle
I became hooked on fentanyl patches. It's not a good thing, actually. Not a good look, just say no. But I remember hearing my doctor say to my husband, you know, we look at their symptoms with this on a. On a scale of 1 to 10, and if there were a 1, give them a paracetamol, send them home. If there are 10, it's very quick and a very painful death. And your wife is presenting at nine. And I literally thought, holy shit, that means I could die, like today. And if I die today, how shit will that be? Because I'm not living my best life. I'm not being my best. The best parent. I'm not. I'm hardly ever there. I'm drinking too much, I'm working too hard. I'm not being the best wife. And I'm in an industry that, to be quite honest, is not going to make a big dent in the world. It's not leaving a legacy and changing people's lives. There's no impact. And I think I've probably got more. More to give. And I remember thinking, if I get through this, if I get through this, one, I'm going to change my life completely. And then two, I'm never going to let anybody that's in my sphere of influence have to experience something this traumatic before they take a look at some of the choices that have led to where they are in their lives and be really crystal clear about whether they're in a place that's filling them with joy and purpose and. And purpose and why we're on the planet and what we're going to do with our time on the planet is A cornerstone of our programmes. So whilst we're in marketing, media and advertising, actually, the programs are all about, at your core, at a heart and soul level, what is it that you're here for and what are you going to do with this spectacular time you've got left? And what are you going to do with the power that you've now got at your fingertips? Because you're in, because marketing, media and advertising, and you can change people's lives, you can change the decisions they make, you can change the behaviors, you can, you know, you can put somebody in government who's a complete dictator, or you can do something that's really going to influence some societal change in the world. What are you going to do? And our programs bed that deeply. And it's because I've often spoken to people that have really done some exceptional things as a result of trauma. A lot of the inspirational speakers, we get to come and talk to, our cohorts, that's what's happened. And I just thought, God, so many people in my life have done something exceptional, but if they could do something exceptional, then that means everybody can do something exceptional. Let's just take away the need for this sort of horrible catalyst, a bit of grief or a bit of trauma or, you know, nightmarish situation. Let's, let's, let's enable people to understand that they can sit on a mountaintop and breathe and ask themselves some really probing questions and give themselves the space to step back and just think, what is in my life that gives me joy? How do I give joy to other people? What can I do to make a difference in the world? And that's what the programs then became about. So it is interesting. A lot of entrepreneurs have come from trauma.
- [08:30]
John Evans
I, I can really believe that. I love radio biographies of, you know, successful entrepreneurs. And, and it's Almost always, it's 90% of the trauma, failure, you know, things that went wrong.
- [08:43]
Sherilyn Shackle
Yeah.
- [08:43]
John Evans
And, and, you know, you forget because you only hear about the success. You tend to just hear about the polished, you know, result that happens afterwards. But it's incredible how many, how many successful people have actually had incredibly difficult times.
- [08:54]
Sherilyn Shackle
I know a lot of it will be based in childhood, then I've had really bad experiences through childhood. A lot of parental death. You know, there's. I saw a stat once about really successful entrepreneurs and how many of them had, like, lost a significant one parent or the other before they were 18 or before they were 15 or something? And, and that is the thing. Yeah. And that happened to me, although I would never describe myself as an entrepreneur. Other people do, I don't know why I don't, but I just don't see myself as an entrepreneur. But I lost my father at 19 of a heart, like out of nowhere of a heart attack. And at the same time, probably because we lost my dad, my mum descended into the living hell. That's mental illness. So I kind of lost them both at 19. And I know that that's been a massive driver. And one of the drivers for me to become a successful headhunter with my own search firm was some. My mum drummed into me from a very young age this, she had this beautiful phrase and she'd go, you'll get to the top. You will, you will get to the top. So I didn't have a clue what she meant, but I believed her. So I had this massive self belief and this subconscious driver to make her proud, to make her right, to make her proud. And it wasn't until I'm 42 and nearly dead that I realized that she knew I could get there, but it was her want, not mine. But she told me that so often. The one thing that gave me was I got innate self confidence and self belief, but I never needed to get to the top. She needed me to get to the top. I didn't, I needed to do something good, good with my life. So I was able to let it go, you know, once I realized where it came from, I was able to change it and let it go. Up until that point, I, I'd never considered that I was doing it for any other reason other than that I wanted to get to the top. And it just wasn't a truth. It was. I had to look back, I had to analyze, I had to face into where those beliefs had come from. And we do, we do that with our scholars and our fellows. We take them back there and we go, what? Part of who you are today is stuff that you've been holding onto since you were seven years old and you now have a choice. You can still keep hold of it if it's useful for you or you can just choose to let it go because you're not that seven year old anymore. So we, that's where we take the programs. Not, not all of the programs go that deep. But yeah.
- [11:28]
John Evans
And for anyone listening that doesn't know much about it as well, describe what the market Academy programs are. Yeah, because also they're not about marketing per se, although the context is this is much more leadership. And as you describe finding your purpose.
- [11:42]
Sherilyn Shackle
It is so there's two levels and the programmes are different, although the structure of how we deliver the learning is, is the same. So we have the scholarship program. The Marketing Academy scholarship program is for the emerging leaders in the breadth of the industry. So marketing media, media owners agencies right across the board, very small programs. So a class size of 30. We run the scholarship in UK, Australia and the States. So we only take 90 scholars a year through our learning, highly competitive to get in. I mean we get thousands of nominations and applications, thousands and thousands.
- [12:18]
John Evans
Any tips on how to get in?
- [12:21]
Sherilyn Shackle
There's lots of podcasts out there with our, with our alumni talking about how to get in and there's also a whole load of example showcases. So one of the things they have to do is they have to do a two minute showcase and some of them are phenomenal and a lot of them are on YouTube. So if you really want to get in, there are ways to really get under the skim. There's a podcast I did years ago that get circulated every year which does give a few insider tips. So it's hard to get on. It's totally free and that's the case with all of our programs. So we're a not for profit and you know, the way in which we deliver our learning is that we've got these phenomenal people all over the world who are the top of their game in our industry and they all gift their time to help us to develop the talent and then 30 will go on the nine month part time learning development journey. It's not a training course. People say we do training. No we don't. It's real development stuff. The scholarship is actually probably 25% of the curriculum is around marketing skills. But we don't, we don't really over index on it because we take the top 1% of talent in our industry, right. So they've got to be pretty good at stuff. The rest of the curriculum is aimed at leadership development, personal development and the purpose piece. So we get them together for three boot camps a year there. It's residential, it's about nine days of learning at boot camp. In between the boot camps they get to meet mentors. So we've got 280 mentors around the world who are all either CMOs or CEOs or subject matter experts and then they're all matched with executive coaches. So they get there who are board level coaches who all give their time pro bono. So they, by the end of the nine months they've spent this very intensive time with a cohort of another 29 fabulous people. They become friends for life and then they enroll, they get immediately enrolled in our alumni program. So when you get into the academy you might do the program and you'll be in an in year program but our support is there for you for the rest of your career. And we invest a shed ton of time and effort resources into the alumni program. So that's the emerging leader level. There isn't an age range on it, but they do need to be in a leadership position because they've got to be able to practice what we're teaching them. So they have to be in a position of big influence or leadership. I guess if there were a sweet spot, it's probably mid-30s. It's probably the sweet spot. Any younger and you just, you'll forget most of it by the time you get into a role that you can really do something with it. So the, and then the other program that we do is at the most senior level within the industry. Industry. It is exclusively for brands only, not the agencies which I'm gutted about. But we haven't found a way to make it work for agencies yet. And it's called the Marketing Academy Fellowship program and it is exclusively for brand side cmos. Now that program has no marketing at all because they are the top CMOs. So they already know all that stuff. We're not going to teach them any of that. What that program is designed to do is to enable the CMO impact to be felt much, much more strongly in the center of the business board. So what we're really looking for is CMOs that really want to grow the breadth of their, of their board impact ultimately to become successes to the CEOs that the cornerstone of the program is aimed at that desire. Not all of our, not all of our fellows and CMOs end up wanting to be a CEO. Some actually find out what the CEO role is all about while they go on the program then go nah, nah, nah, not up for that. But they, what we're doing is we're raising their awareness of what is happening in the main boardrooms and we do that in partnership with McKinsey. So McKinsey provide all of like the head stuff and that is stuff like corporate finance M and a strategy, transformational change, organizational efficacy, organizational health, all the things that sit out of the CMO domain at board. But then in between and we get them together for these residentials. But between that learning which McKinsey provide, we do our sales. Thomas Barter, who you might, if you haven't had him on. You should. Thomas Barter, Sil Sala, Catherine Tolper runs our coaching. We're responsible for the leadership journey as we call it. And that's modeled very similar on, on the scholarship. So, you know, really understanding who they are, their purpose in life, what they really want, what their vision for the future is, how they're going to get there. Very deep dives on leadership impact and also mentoring and coaching. So they also get mentored, but they get mentored by chairman and you know, global CEOs or portfolio non execs and they also get an executive coach. So it's extremely holistic, which is why it's not training. It really is intensive development. And you know, the reputation that we have is that it's quite transformational. So we've now got almost 400 alumni of the fellowship program around the world. We run that in EMEA, APAC and the states and 900 alumni of the, the scholarship program this year. By the end of this year we'll have 50.
- [17:26]
John Evans
That's quite a force. Yeah, that's amazing.
- [17:29]
Sherilyn Shackle
Yeah, it is. And all for free.
- [17:31]
John Evans
It does, it does make a lot of sense when you talk about not being about marketing. So I know when I had my first board position as a marketer, it was a real wake up call because I suddenly realized the conversation is not about marketing. I know, it sounds obvious, right?
- [17:45]
Sherilyn Shackle
No, I don't get it.
- [17:46]
John Evans
But I sat there talking about industrial disputes or the lease on the factory or you know, firing somebody or you know, how we're going to pay back the loan from the bank. I mean, I was in a private equity situation, so.
- [17:57]
Sherilyn Shackle
But they all have that.
- [17:58]
John Evans
But, but again, being an exec and a bigger company as went to after that, again it scales up and it's like as the most senior marketing organization, you really aren't doing much marketing. You know, it's people, it's politics, it's, you know, persuasion, it's planning, it's, it's, it's, it's a whole different skill set. I think it's something, this is why I think what you do is so impressive because people don't realize this, that when you get to the most senior marketing role or you join a board, you really aren't doing marketing in the traditional sense. That you might have grown up working out how to do a good poster or how to do a great social media campaign. And it's a completely different conversation. The language is different, the priorities are different and it's all the other thing as well, which I think connects to what you do. I found it incredibly lonely because what I realized is at the level below, you have a peer group who do what you do and you kind of bond together because you're all building a campaign or launching your products. Right. And you kind of like celebrate, Yay. We've got, you know, our product launch has gone well or whatever and then you're in the CMO position. Your peer group have come up through a completely different background, whether it's operations or finance or sales, whatever, completely different objectives. And they just don't understand some of the stuff you're talking about.
- [19:09]
Sherilyn Shackle
Yeah, they're also talking a different language.
- [19:10]
John Evans
Yeah, the language different. And then you sat there talking about balance sheet or the update to shareholders or you know, and, and, or the finance and debts and stuff like this. And it's weirdly, I did a finance and economics degree and it's been quite bizarre because I've then done a career in marketing. It's only now or only then when I got into those positions. Oh, I know this stuff now. Put my hand up. Oh, right, I can talk about it now. But.
- [19:32]
Sherilyn Shackle
And it's vital.
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John Evans
And that's where there's a real mismatch, I think between the skills that get you to there and the skills that then get you to the next bit is just this big switch.
- [19:42]
Sherilyn Shackle
It's huge. And also, you know, there's so many frustrations I hold about it because. So when we launched the fellowship would have been 10, 10 years ago. No, 11. We're in our 11th year of the fellowship program and at the time we had, we had so many big CMOs involved as mentors for the scholars and it was those CMOs that were saying, I wish this was, you know, there's nothing around for, there's nothing like this for me. And at the time, so we have to go back 10 years and is different now. At the time the FTSE 100 had three board level CMOs at real board levels at Gavin Patterson. It was a BT at the time and Amanda McKenzie and one other. It might have been Andy Fennel at Diageo. It might have been Diageo, can't remember. But there were 3 out of 100 that even had a really senior marketer on their board and no CEOs with marketing backgrounds. Now that fortunately has changed over the last decade and it's getting much, much better. But at the time I was thinking, why is that? Why aren't they making that move? Because you get a CEO with the breadth of skill set that a CMO has. And my God, you have gold dust as long as that CEO also understands all the financial levers, the operational stuff, how to create shareholder value, how to manage the stakeholders. And that's where the disconnect is. Right. So what tends to happen still happens, but happened a lot. Then the CFO would be the successor to the CEO. Nobody would take the CMO applicant seriously. My argument right from back then was you have no idea what you are missing. The CMOs are the best communicators in your business and being a CEO is about storytelling. Right. They are usually really good people. People and leadership is one of the main key cornerstones of being a CEO. They may not have been in the finance function, but a good CMO that's growth and revenue driven will understand those levers even if it hasn't been taught to them on paper. So they're bright, they understand data and they understand creativity, they understand impact of people on culture. They've got it all. And I could never. And as a headhunter, it's driving nuts because we do a CEO search and they go, you've got being gotta have finance experience. I go, really? Just let's just explore that a bit because you know their biggest problem is their customers.
- [22:18]
John Evans
Yeah.
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Sherilyn Shackle
And they want to see it. They want a finance guy. Well, finance guy's going to come in and yeah, they're going to save you money because they're going to cut a whole lot. They're going to make a whole load of cuts. They're certainly, I'm not convinced they're going to be on investing for long term brand growth. So it used to really, really wind me up and that's why we set up the fellowship, that's why we launched it.
- [22:38]
John Evans
You're so right. My argument in that situation is I totally agree with you is because no role on the C suite has a bigger impact on the bottom line than the cmos and it's underrepresented also in the long term. And this is where I think we go wrong. I saw this data the other day, I think Ian Whitaker shared it on LinkedIn and it was looking at from an investor level what they value. Number one, brand. But then Chris Bergrave had on last year was looking at what Skill set do CEOs are looked for in CEOs. Financial acumen. Number one, bottom marketing.
- [23:14]
Sherilyn Shackle
Yeah.
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John Evans
So we've got this really weird disconnect where actually people that are taking a long term view of investing in your business really, really care about your brand.
- [23:22]
Sherilyn Shackle
Yeah.
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John Evans
The people making the day to day decisions or running the business safety want finance, right? And, but as you say, no one shapes the financial outcome, particularly in the long term, more than the marketer. So we've got to try and get over this kind of, this disconnect between what the business needs, the long term and what marketers are doing.
- [23:39]
Sherilyn Shackle
So here was, here was my, my, here was the principle of how we even developed the curriculum. Where my frustration was sitting was you can't, if a CMO is not allowed into the board, it's not even invited in or if they are, it's to present the deck on brand or their, or the most recent stats on performance, marketing, whatever bloody hell they do. But if they're not in the boardroom, how can they learn that stuff? Whereas the CFO will always be in the boardroom. So the CFO by the very nature is going to have a little bit of exposure to marketing, right? Because they're sitting in the room when the marketer comes in and presents marketer stuff. So why do you not have the CMO sitting in your boardroom so that the CMO can get exposure to all of the other functions. That's how you develop your bench of succession for the CEO. Right? And so we were thinking, well, they've got hope in hell. If a CMO hasn't already got board experience, then how on earth is that CMO supposed to understand the kind of language that they're going to speak? And they literally don't know what is keeping their CEO awake at night. And neither kind of should they because their job is to be the cmo. So I remember when we had one of our fellows was promoted to a CEO role and his whole background, absolute blue chip marketer. And I got him to come back and talk to a new class of fellows about making that move, the CMO to CEO move. And he said, when I was a CMO, I believed that the CEO was thinking about my part of the business. Like 60% of the time. When I became a CEO, I realized that I think about marketing maybe 2% of my time. And until he got that job, he didn't know that, didn't understand that. So the whole of the curriculum that we wrap around the fellows is aimed at bridging that gap, right? It's aimed at just shortening the journey of knowledge and awareness from, you know, the domain that they've currently got to what all of these different levers are to ready them. At the very least they are a little more ready and then we are exposing them to Mentors who aren't marketers, they're chairmen. So those chairs are in decision making, responsibility. So we like also to think that we're also influencing the CEO decision making community, that there's a lot more capability and credibility and skill and capacity within a CMO to become your CEO. And we're starting to see those shifts happening.
- [26:20]
John Evans
That's exciting.
- [26:21]
Sherilyn Shackle
Yeah. And I mean, the whole industry, I think, has shifted as the CMOS functional role. I mean, it's so different now to what it was 10 years ago.
- [26:30]
John Evans
Totally.
- [26:31]
Sherilyn Shackle
You know, and we know because, you know, we're getting 500 to 1,000 applications from CMOs every year, year in, year out. We can see the difference in their roles over the last decade, that the CEOs are bloody having to take them seriously now because now they're owning. All right, so they've got R and D and they've got product and they've got the really good ones and they've got data and. Oh, and they also got technology now. And so they've got such a wide remit now that the CEOs are going crazy. That's a massive piece under that, under that person. We need to get them on the board.
- [27:06]
John Evans
The interesting dynamic I spot over the last few years, actually partly because I do this podcast and talk to so many CMOs is in a crisis. Interestingly, the CMOS opportunity increases. So I noticed this in Covid because when everything's going well, it's a bit like the old saying, success has many fathers and failures and orphan when things are going well, sales team, you know, patted on the back and the CEO is great and everything else. But what I noticed is there's a bit of research done on this just after Covid is, is that when the crisis happens, suddenly everyone looks to the CMO going, how do we get out of this? Where's the growth coming from? What supports innovation? Tell us about the customer, you know, you know, what are our competitors doing? And weirdly, although it's uncomfortable going back to the beginning of our conversation, actually, oddly, the challenges that we see globally, where's growth going to come from next? Or how do we deal with the crisis, like, you know, financial crisis, those kind of things, that is an opportunity for the real CMOs to step up and actually show their mettle. And if you think, I mean, you put it perfectly earlier about, you know, you own the customer relationship, you own the long term strategy, you own the implementation through the business, you own the hearts and minds, you own the communication of it externally. Right. All Those skill sets that CMO has to, sorry, CEO needs can be proven in a, you know, in a big crisis moment or not. You have to have a crisis, but a crisis kind of accelerates the visibility of that and pushes you to do that.
- [28:29]
Sherilyn Shackle
Yeah. And those crisis points, those fires, they are happening all of the time. But here's the challenge still though, is that you're absolutely right and the CMO is the one that's going to get them out of it. But if the relationship with the CEO isn't strong enough, if the CEO doesn't have a perception of real credibility from that cmo, and then if that CMO doesn't back themselves, put their head above the parapet and start taking control and start speaking a language that the rest of the board are going to understand, then they're still not going to get there.
- [29:05]
John Evans
And I, yeah, I've struggled with it a little bit with this personally because I think with if you're like the CFO or you're the chief operations officer or sometimes the chief customer officer, you've got data, you've got real time data, you've got facts, you've got figure, you know what I mean? And the CMO is talking about brand equity, which seems like this slightly loose idea. And I think that's where marketers have to bridge the gap between the art and science and become a little bit more hard nosed about. This is the bottom line impact of what I'm doing and what we're doing together.
- [29:35]
Sherilyn Shackle
Absolutely. We're driving that message all of the time. Because in reality that's probably the only. Well, it's the biggest disconnect. Right. And if you can bridge that gap, and that's not hard, you know, just getting curious about understanding what it is about that data that those particular decision makers need to know. You are a consummate storyteller as a cmo, you, you should be able to translate all of that stuff into that stuff. Job done. Yeah, job done. So I do hold. So this is partly to do with the perceptions of the CEOs. And of course if a CEO has not come up the marketing route, or maybe not even in a very brand driven, you know, it's even harder in B. It's hard in B2B. Right. It's really hard because that's even more ruthlessly just about numbers and performance and quarter by quarter. So less on the long term brand vision which the B2C guys have. So you get this negative perception of the CEO. So I hold the CEOs responsible for that. But I'm saying to our CMOs all the time, the way out of this sits with you. You do not wait to get invited into the boardroom. You demonstrate every step of the way that you deserve to be in the boardroom because you know just as much about the levers across the business and you are speaking in their language all of the time. And if you don't do that, that's on. You do not expect to be promoted to the board.
- [31:09]
John Evans
You've reminded me of something. There's a. There's a slight irony with this, is that as marketers, we are very good at understanding our audience, designing communication to meet them where they're at, providing answers, their solutions, speaking in their language. Right. So hello. You just flipped that internally. I discovered this weirdly on Lucas 8. We went through this incredible moment of crisis. It was awful. I mean, it was like scary. It was difficult. We lost lots of revenue overnight. There was a big consumer backlash. It was awful. And as the marketing director, I was on the hook for it. And I remember I got a team together to agency group together and internal people together and we just almost locked ourselves down for eight weeks. It's like a lockdown situation. And it was actually advice from my pr, my corporate PR agency that just made me. The framing was interesting. They said to me, john, how would you approach this if you were running for president inside this organization? And you thought about it like, who do I need to talk to? What's the message? When do I need to do it by what's my hundred days? What are they going to feel when it happens? And I was so fixated with the external result, like, can I win my consumers back? You know, how do we change perception? And I'm good at that. I knew I was good at that. That was my skill, skill set.
- [32:25]
Sherilyn Shackle
Right.
- [32:25]
John Evans
I hadn't thought about the internal equivalence. And it's a bit like the gladiator thing where you win the crowd, you buy your freedom sort of thing. To be a success, you have to win the internal crowd as well as the external one. And thinking about it's just weird. Somehow things get framed in a way that works with you. The fact that he said to me, you have to think about, even down to the fact he said, what's your three word slogan? Right. What's the slogan that appears everywhere in the organization that tells everybody in three words what you are going to do? Nice, man, that's good. You know what I mean? But it's. But it's a bit like a doctor not taking their Own advice, isn't it, with marketers and you want to rattle their heads together.
- [33:05]
Sherilyn Shackle
I kind of do. But then there's a big part of me that thinks, well, you know, it is on you and that is your job. And. And you are. They are. The good CEOs will be externally focused for all of the right reasons. But I mean, it's interesting. This might lead to something I think we've got discussed in the past is that very often time in that situation, you would find that a CMO will almost subvert their own internal credibility to make sure that they're delivering in their business for their people. And yet, if you want to make an impact, you know, real impact at board, you've got to be doing that whole internal thing as well. And I think that humans tend to be uncomfortable with that. Brits really uncomfortable with that. Oh, my God, no. Is that just not. But that's about me. Well, yeah, it is about you, because it's you that can make the difference here.
- [34:01]
John Evans
I think this is a really, really important point, particularly for British listeners. I have to say, I agree with you. Years and years ago, I working at Britvic and I was shortlisted for the. It was called the Hypo program. I mean, every big company has the high potential thing and, you know, in three years gets director level or whatever. And I failed the assessment center and I was really gutted. I mean, it was that formative year where you're sort of starting to take leadership roles and I put my heart and soul into it and I thought I'd done well. I really thought I'd nailed it. And I was so disappointed with the feedback and it was this horrible reader. I remember getting this particular bit of feedback. It slightly annoyed me, actually, was like I hadn't managed my stakeholders well enough. And it's almost like. It's like being told there are rules of a game that you never realized there were before. Because I thought it was about performance. I was going in, going, I've done this, I've done that, I'm great in this situation, great in that situation. And then the mentor I was given or the coach I was given at the time said, okay, you need to be thinking about who is influential in this decision. You know, have you, have you built up a relationship with them? Have you had a chance to show them what you're good at? Have you made sure that, you know that you've merchandise the project that you did? Because actually, what you said is true, but it's not very visible to people and all those Kind of things. I thought, oh, yes, I, in that sense, I'd failed to manage my personal brand. I might have aced the test. I might have done a brilliant job on the field in terms of the team building thing and thought, great. I hadn't thought about how I'd manage my personal brand in that process. And it's a weird thing, isn't it, because a bit like you, particularly British people, you think my job is to serve, you know, and actually, selfishly, you've.
- [35:38]
Sherilyn Shackle
Got to like, they are, they are the absolute worst. I find it really fascinating because to really be able to make an impact at board level, you have to be able to influence. You can't influence without credibility, gravitas and the skill required to it. You can't get gravitas without your profile creating a perception that you're worthy to be there. Right? So. And I'm working with CMOs all over the world and there are some cultural things around this, right. It's hard to do in Asia. It's really. The Brits find it really hard. Not so hard in the States. Not so hard in the States. They have the converse challenge in that they're all superb at the, at the gravitas building. They're all superb at the communication and pretty good at the credibility. It's them working out who can actually deliver. So it's a different challenge, but with that, but, but with Brits and, and Europeans, I'm like, you need to be. This is about you. And they say, no, it's not about me. It's about my job and my people. And I go, no, it is about you. You need to be out on the public circuit. You need to be at conferences, you need to be saying yes to all of these panels that you always ask for and you always ignore. You've got to be doing articles, you've got to be being a voice piece. And they go, I just, like, I just can't do it. We've even got in our application form for the fellowship, we ask them to list what we call external endorsements, and we say, articles, podcasts, interviews, conferences, blah, blah, blah. And I swear to God, the Brits, they'll write like three things and then they'll go, I do realize that this is an area that I have to work on in the U.S. pages, pages and pages. And so what I will always say to any of our fellows who go, oh, I just can't bear the thought of it, is I go, but you owe this to your company. And they go, what you mean you Know you're saying that I've got to promote brand me. And I go, yeah, but brand you directly translates to that brand. Your brand, your teams. Who do your teams want to work for? Somebody that nobody in the world has ever heard of, or somebody that's being lauded all over the place. When a CMO takes the stage, you are the brand champion for your company and your people. Who's going to want to come and work for you? You need to be the employer of choice for marketers everywhere. How are they going to know what you like if you're not out there on the stage? So reframe it. It just needs a reframe. It isn't actually about you. It's about your brand and your people. That's what you're doing it for. So no matter how uncomfortable it is, get over yourself. And then you will, by the very nature of that, be able to increase your credibility, your gravitas, and therefore your influence and impact.
- [38:29]
John Evans
That's such good advice. And the other thing I learned through my career, I mean, you'll know this particularly well as a former headhunter, is how few roles at senior levels ever get advertised.
- [38:40]
Sherilyn Shackle
Oh, absolutely right.
- [38:41]
John Evans
So if you're not building your profile, you're literally missing out on probably 9 out of 10 opportunities, something like that. It's about that, isn't it?
- [38:48]
Sherilyn Shackle
It is.
- [38:49]
John Evans
Apart from the odd ones in the Sunday Times or whatever.
- [38:51]
Sherilyn Shackle
But because every CEO that's worth their salt and we, when we talk the fellows through this, any CEO who's a really good CEO and really understands the power of the people in the team will have a successor in mind for every direct report. And if they haven't, they bloody well should have, because that's their job. They need to know that if anybody that dropped dead or walked out the building or whatever or just left, that they would not leave this huge hole. So they should have a pipeline. Well, where do they find that pipeline? What the CMOs need? Actually, we say this with our scholars as well. You need to be having, investing in relationships with what we call the champions, the people who will talk about you without you being in the room in a really championing and advocating way. Because they're the ones that can get you the jobs. They're the ones that are going to have the words in the ears of the. The chairs. The words in the ears that private equity boys, ah, we know exactly who you should talk to, these people. And you're absolutely right. I was always fully aware as a headhunter, and to be quite honest, A CEO will often put somebody that they know in play with a headhunter to ensure due process, to ensure that that person is the best of the best. But you've got to know them and you've got to work it and you've got to invest in those relationships. And so few people do. They don't, because they don't think of that context of, of how relationships really work because they think it's networking and, and we hate net, who loves networking? It's horrible.
- [40:25]
John Evans
We need to rebrand network.
- [40:26]
Sherilyn Shackle
I've never managed to find the right word. No, we need connectivity. It's still a bit.
- [40:30]
John Evans
Sounds like a mobile phone network, but you're so right. And I think particularly the more senior you get as well, the more trust becomes incredibly important. So if you're, if you're like a CEO and you're making a big appointment with your CMO or you're applying for the CEO role, like there's a lot at stake. And so the trust you need, the reputation you need to be able to, as you say, demonstrate we've done all this and that sort of thing. And that's why I think that people have to be thinking about their external profile as well and building their network. Because, you know, if you think about, you know, anyone phones you up and said, you know, Sherilyn, who would you recommend for this role? I'm going to listen to you because I know you, right. And therefore that trust that I have in you is kind of transferred to this person. And that's why that building that network is incredibly important.
- [41:15]
Sherilyn Shackle
And I think that there is an upswing in. Do you remember when all the, when the kind of the dot com boom thing happened? I'm old enough to have gone through many booms and busts, but I remember that there was a thing about hiring the. It was about the caliber of the board that you hired would be the mark of success for that new investment thing that was just about to float. Right. I've actually been watching, especially in the States, this trend that the brands are hiring higher profile, external profile CMOs, let alone high profile CEOs. And I've seen that trend happening quite a bit. And if you get the right cmo, with the right kind of following and with the right kind of community of, and the right social media profile, you. You'll shift the brand value. If that person goes and joins that company, you can see the shift. Jonathan Mildenhall and Rocket.
- [42:14]
John Evans
Yeah, yeah.
- [42:15]
Sherilyn Shackle
I mean, well, when he went to Airbnb, like his legacy, the, the external Perception of him, that legacy just. Just enabled him to, like, crest on it. I mean, he's phenomenal, which is why it happened. But I see that happening a lot. And I remember talking to McKinsey years ago when we were really planning this, and they said that when a board has a shortlist of three or four CEOs, they will subconsciously favour the CEO that they've heard the most about. Right.
- [42:48]
John Evans
Risk aversion, isn't it? It's familiarity. If you're familiar, you feel.
- [42:51]
Sherilyn Shackle
So it's the same thing with the cmo. Yeah, same thing with the cmo. So we are kind of a little bit banging on that drum all the time. You know, you owe it to yourself, to your brand, to your teams, to your future employees to get out there and start shouting about it and there's nothing but good that will come of it. Nothing. And they go, oh, no. People will think it's all about me and let's just get over it. Just because you.
- [43:12]
John Evans
That is the thing. That's why I struggle with two things. The guilt, as in I'm spend. I mean, for me, I spend an hour of every day on LinkedIn, consciously, right? Planned in the diary. And in my head I go, is that work? That's the problem. So psychologically, I'm going, is it work? Am I guilty because I'm not doing work? But it's worth.
- [43:33]
Sherilyn Shackle
Whether you're posting or just reading everybody else's.
- [43:35]
John Evans
I know, I know, exactly. But you're right, because the compound benefit of that hour every day is I can point to the huge amount of awareness that it's created for System One, in my case, for System One, and the interest it's creating, so on. But it's that guilt of going, is this work? I think. And then the second thing is, which. Which I struggle with a little bit, is everyone's going to think I've got a massive ego. And that's what they say, right? And that's really hard because. And it took me a little while to get used to it, that it's not humble bragging or whatever everyone kind of says on LinkedIn. It's sharing successes, it's sharing insights, sharing people want to hear. That's the thing that the appetite to hear from people in the role, doing the job, in the toughest positions. There's a huge audience out there. And the other thing, of course, actually, which, as you touched on this earlier, which I think is super important, is it's a talent magnet, so you get to hire people way above your competitors and there is no bigger competitive advantage than the quality of people in your team. So just that alone, just that alone is worth it.
- [44:38]
Sherilyn Shackle
You save all the recruitment fees because.
- [44:40]
John Evans
They'Ll be, well, we just make your old person, your old self redundant anyway.
- [44:45]
Sherilyn Shackle
You know, my fellows get. I get people in my community going, oh, I can see that you've got fellow ex CMO of Monzo bank or whatever. I've always wanted to work for that person. I'm like, drop them an email. Then they go, yeah, absolutely, do that, drop an email. Because that's how the world works. And you know, a CMO that's active on LinkedIn, they've got their own pipeline, they're saving fortune in recruitment fees and they are benefiting their brand. And so I will always say, just change the lens because it isn't actually about you. Whilst you're thinking, oh, everybody's going to think I've got a big ego. No, they won't. They'll believe that you're working for a fantastic business, that you are a great leader, that you are giver of information and knowledge, that you're a sharer, so you're generous. They'll get to know you so they'll understand your leadership style, so they're going to want to come and work for you. It's a win, win, win. But you've got to make the decision to do it and it doesn't need to be a lot of time or effort. And you can get an ea. If you're a big cmo, get your ea.
- [45:42]
John Evans
There are, there are people that do that. You can also, you can get ghost writers as well that can absorb all your content and write for you. There are comes also there are ways of doing it for sure. You get in your role, you get to listen in to many, many conversations of senior most, as you Described, the top 1%. What are the sort of things, fears or anxieties they have that they may not talk about publicly? Because you must get to have some pretty powerful conversations.
- [46:07]
Sherilyn Shackle
Look, there's lots, they're all human, right? And I think that the, you know, some of the fears and the worries that you would get in a very junior member of your team, it's just. And maybe even amplified higher up, right? Because they've got less people to talk to and probably a more leveraged life, therefore more responsibilities. And so, you know, CMOs are frightened of getting fired. They really, really. And there's so much pressure, especially, I mean, in the States. It is, it's brutal. It does shift geographically In Australia. In Australia, there's not quite as much fear. There's not actually. Yes there is. So in Australia it's a really bloody expensive place to live, right. Sydney, it's really expensive. So the salaries and the mortg have gone up like exponentially. And it's a small geography, so there's not the volume of roles. So there is a bit of fear down there actually, because if they do come out of role, there's very few opportunities. In the States, it's more fear of being fired because of the intensity of the pressure in the States. And in the States it's also very isolating. More so than here, even geographically isolating. Right. Because they're literally spread over this. This entire bloody huge 50 odd. It's like 50 odd countries. And we don't. We in Europe don't think about it like that. Just like they don't think about Europe like that. But you know that they won't see. They would. They're not very good at networking. They're not. They don't belong to very many really powerful groups. So they've not got counselors or advisors or peers to share it with. They're not hardwired to share either because it's intensely competitive. So they're fearful and isolated, which is a, you know, double negative. Right. And it is. The fear of being fired is the biggest concern. It does exist in, in Europe, but we're more protected. We've just got better rights. So a little bit more protected. They're fearful of what's happening with their CEO, so. So a lot of the frustration they'll voice is the relationship between them and the CEO, you know, which can move from being in love with each other to being toxic within two weeks of lack of performance. Right. So. So it's a very, very. That. That will probably take up a huge amount of their brain space when they're relaxing. It will be the thing that's waking them up at 3 o' clock in the morning and then dependent, you know, geographically, the kind of. The socioeconomic environment I think is so much more impactful than we actually even allow ourselves to believe it is. And so those are the kinds of things that get talked about. And then, you know, they're all of an age, right. If they're CMOs, you're kind of of an age and then you're into. And. And you're at the top of your. You are absolutely at the top of your functional silo. You start to feel. The existentialism starts to. It really does start to Come into it and they're like, well I've got here. Yeah, where do I go now? And what does that look like and how do I get there? And oh my God, you know, is my career about to be over and should I be looking at retiring or should I be looking at doing so? They really have some really quite deep come to Jesus moments of, of clarity or not.
- [49:17]
John Evans
Yeah.
- [49:18]
Sherilyn Shackle
And you know that's, those are the kinds of, fortunately we're so, we, you know, the, how we deliver the fellowship particularly and the fellowship alumni, which is fabulous for all of them. It really does allow it, it holds that for them, it allows them to first off know that they're not alone.
- [49:36]
John Evans
Right.
- [49:36]
Sherilyn Shackle
They come, they'll come off the first residential, which is four day residential when they first meet each other. So we had 25 Emir CMOs meet each other for the first time two weeks ago and they were from eight different countries and a couple knew of each other, but not, not, not. And they come out of it feeling like they've got lifelong friends. Because that trust to be able to discuss that stuff. We break that down by the afternoon of day one and create the environment that they know they are in. A place of complete psychological safety amongst peers that are going through the same stuff, that are experiencing the same things. And if they're not, they're able to coach and mentor each other to how they can make that different and you know, those, those things. Yeah, very rare at that level.
- [50:27]
John Evans
You're absolutely right. I mean people, people forget or maybe they don't forget, but it's a pyramid, right? So by definition, I mean one at the time and there's one.
- [50:34]
Sherilyn Shackle
Yeah.
- [50:34]
John Evans
And I remember, I remember probably maybe age about 42 suddenly going oh, what happens to marketers after 40? I mean quite literally because I think I had maybe 80% of my team were less than 30. And you just do the maths in your head going, where are all the 40 something, 50 something, forget even 50 somethings. But like where are the marketers? You know, and, and I suppose what I, I think I learned is you, you have to take ownership for that. You can blame the system all you want but you know you've got to take ownership for it and you've got to be planning your career and where it goes next.
- [51:07]
Sherilyn Shackle
And if you've got no personal profile, you are coming way behind. If you suddenly find yourself out of role, indeed, you know, you've got to be thinking those things and it can be, I mean that coming out of role can be really traumatic. We do a huge amount, we do as much support as we can and we've got fellow alumni that are investing time and energy in supporting their other fellow alumni through this because you can get somebody that's had a superb decade, decade run. They've now found themselves at the top. They've been at the top for two years. They've got a three year stint a, a cmo, they're now out of role and it might be the first time for 20 years that they've been out of role, not of their own choosing and back in the job market. And they may have never been in the job market. You know, they might have been headhunted since they were grads and suddenly they're in a job market not only that's changed beyond all recognition, but a job market where there's only one role per company that's going to have the right role for them and then it's got to be a role that they want and then it's got to be the right culture and then it's got to be the right package and then it's got to be in the right location. So they're, you know, their funnel, they're dancing on pinheads. Their funnel is, you know, lowered by, you know, thousands of percent and that's so frightening, so scary. No matter what kind of parachute they've got. It's really scary.
- [52:28]
John Evans
It is very scary. And also you probably built a life around you. You will have and leverage that, that is maintaining a certain level of existence as well. Rightly or wrongly.
- [52:36]
Sherilyn Shackle
Equal to in private school. Yeah, because you could. No, absolutely. And you know, that's why some real thought and planning as to what you, you know, what your long term career is. Making sure that the breadth of your role gives you the most opportunity to do that next thing at width, you know, across the breadth. That all helps.
- [52:56]
John Evans
Yeah.
- [52:57]
Sherilyn Shackle
To, to secure your future. Because the holding that fear when you're enrolled can change everything. It changes the relationships you have with your agencies. Like if you're holding that much fear and you think you're going to get fired and if you got fired, your life would turn to shit. How likely are you to do really risky, really cool risky stuff? How likely are you going to give your agency real attitude to go out there and like tear down mountains? How much are you going to empower and delegate to your teams? Right. So it's toxic. It becomes, it becomes toxic and then you've got a self fulfilling prophecy because you've been so worried and scared and risk averse that you've not created the right environment around you to support success and then you've got an ever decreasing circle that you've created yourself. So you know, every, we're working with this all of the time and half the time a CMO won't even be aware of that fear. And they haven't all got this either. I must say. This isn't, you know, this isn't. I'm not applying this to every CMO out there because it's just not true. Some of them are brave as and they figured all this out and they know exactly what they want to do or they've let go of the fear and then become really successful so they don't need to be fearful. But you know, I would talk to any CMO that's got even like they're holding on to anything that says, shit, I could be fired from this tomorrow if I make one screw up. If I miss the numbers. One quarter is if you start leaning into this fear, you are going to behave as if that's a reality. And if you behave like that, everyone around you is going to behave like that. And that's a race to the bottom, self fulfilling prophecy.
- [54:37]
John Evans
It totally is. I feel like we should end this on a high.
- [54:39]
Sherilyn Shackle
Yes, let's do that.
- [54:41]
John Evans
So why don't we try and go try and let's say give me three things maybe that anyone, any senior marketer can do to learn from the kind of the A stars that you work with. What are they doing that everyone listening could go, right, yeah, I'll do that.
- [54:58]
Sherilyn Shackle
Okay. All right. So the first thing that I'd say is take complete responsibility for your learning and development. Right. At any level. At any level. So if you're a CMO and you're thinking, oh, fellowship sounds great but I've got the time to do that. But you know, you can recognize that you're not doing the right stuff. Go and get yourself some mentors. Start generating and developing relationships with the non execs. Not just yours, but other companies. Non execs. Go seek someone who's going to mentor you or champion. Champion. You talk about you when you're not in the role but mentor you give you advice or coach you ask probing questions of you in order to that you can come up with the solutions. I think at any level that applies, right? What tends to happen is we always believe that our employers are the ones that are responsible for developing us. That's putting total responsibility for your future outside of your control. You're responsible for that Real development curve. Get curious. Start to go to conferences that are not in your. In, not in your domain. Go to a finance conference, right? Go to something on private equity. Go to an entrepreneurs founders forum. Broaden your, your lens and broaden your skill set and take ownership for developing that. So I'd say that at absolute, any level, really take ownership for, for learning and developing relationships. I cannot stress how important relationships are. And that's up, down, sideways, across. Building relationships internally and, and externally, it can change your life. And no matter what happens to in your life, if you've invested as much in relationships in every context as you can, because the choice to do that is at your fingertips, then even if you got fired or your house burnt down or you got ill, your tribe will just lift, lift you up. I, I will say this quote. Oh, this sounds. It's going to sound like a downer, but it's not really. We invest a disproportionate amount of our time in relationships with people who won't come to our funerals. Right?
- [57:09]
John Evans
Yes, right.
- [57:10]
Sherilyn Shackle
But so true. That's Kamal Sama, one of our bootcamp speakers down in Australia. And, and that is so true. But doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be the beauty, the real empowering bit worth. Figure out who you have in your life that are really significant to you. The champions, the mentors, the coaches, the supporters. We say the supporters are the people whose shoulders you cry on. Right. We all need. That might be your mum. Figure out who in your life those people are and commit to spend at least twice as much time with them as you currently do. Don't take the people that have the biggest influence in your life for granted, which is what we tend to do. Right? Or they know we love them. So I don't need to call them every day.
- [57:56]
John Evans
Yeah, you do.
- [57:57]
Sherilyn Shackle
Yeah, you do. Because one day they won't be here and neither will you. And you have that time available to you. So really thinking that through is a beautiful thing because you can change the way, you can change the way you're living. So relationships, so learning and development relationships, and then being really quite crystal clear on what you want in your life, what is it you really want your life to look like? Visualize. We do a lot of visualization, manifestation, all of that stuff. But seriously, figure out what the best six months of your life looks like in every context. How much money do you want to be earning? How much money do you want in the bank? How much pension do you think you're going to need? What role are you going to be doing? What culture, environment are you going to be in? What's the culture you're creating in your organization? What's your private life look like? What kind of house are you living in? Really visualize it and then do something about it. Think about the steps that you need to make that will just move you closer to that. Those are the three things.
- [58:54]
John Evans
Amazing. Well, it's been absolutely top advice. Sharon, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been. I feel like we could have gone for a lot more time, but it's nice to solve the world, isn't it? Isn't it?
- [59:05]
Sherilyn Shackle
And marketers can do that.
- [59:06]
John Evans
I know. Well, actually, circling back to the very thing you said, I think it's ironic that someone that's come from outside of marketing is telling marketers how valuable they are. I love that. And maybe that's what it takes.
- [59:16]
Sherilyn Shackle
Maybe that's what it needed.
- [59:17]
John Evans
Yeah. So thank you.
- [59:19]
Sherilyn Shackle
It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
- [59:21]
John Evans
Thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored cmo. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show. So please do leave a review wherever you get your podcast. If you want to contact me, you can do. I'm over on Xensored CMO or on LinkedIn where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.