My Journey with Tracy Sestili: Going from CMO to CRO

Intro VO  00:05

Welcome to revenue rehab, your one stop destination for collective solutions to the biggest challenges faced by marketing leaders today. Now head on over to the couch, make yourself comfortable and get ready to change the way you approach revenue. Leading your recovery is modern marketer, author, speaker and Chief Operating Officer at Tegrita Brandi Starr

Brandi Starr  00:33

Hello Hello Hello and welcome to another episode of revenue rehab. I am your host Brandi Starr. And we have another amazing episode for you today. I am joined by Tracy Cecily Tracy is the former chief marketing officer turns Chief Revenue Officer at Intel amaz where she brings a holistic perspective and approach to the organization to drive end to end revenue generating strategies. Prior to and televise she has led teams at fountain SparkPost. CA Technologies Cisco and TiVo. Tracy has 20 plus years experience helping go to market teams drive brand awareness along sustainable and scalable revenue streams. She has served on the board of women for wind cents is an active member of chief and co founded a nonprofit for lung cancer for which she received a Bay Area Jefferson Award. She has also been an adjunct professor in digital marketing at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University and has authored a book on digital marketing. Welcome to revenue rehab, Tracy, your session begins now.

Tracy Sestili  01:46

Thanks for having me, Brandon. Great to be here.

Brandi Starr  01:48

I'm excited to have you and it's funny just reading your bio. Mentally anytime I hear the term TiVo in my head, I hear the book sound. And it's like I still use that as like an audible sounds reference. And like my kids don't remember TiVo. So like if I ever did they're like, What noise is that? And I'm like, Oh, y'all are too young. Now understand, like, that was such a great era in television.

Tracy Sestili  02:18

It really was. It's so funny. I talked to some people and they still have to goes and I'm amazed by it. But it's I think they're still they think they still do over the air antenna for a no longer they do they do cable and satellite. But my understanding is that they still work if you still have one.

Brandi Starr  02:39

Interesting. Yeah, I know. A few years back, I worked with a telecom company. And I was really surprised that we were doing campaigns for TiVo. I was like, I didn't even realize TiVo was still around. Yeah, so anywho before we jump into our topic, I like to break the ice with a little Bullseye moment that I call buzzword. banishment. So tell me what overused buzzword would you like to get rid of Forever?

Tracy Sestili  03:12

Forever. There's, there's a long list I think, but I had to pick one, I would say it's attribution. Probably something that I am an expert in. Because I used to be a visible something or another expert when they were around and but it's just a word that drives me crazy. And I think now that I've gone from cmo to CRO it drives me even more crazy so we don't we don't talk about it and tell them why it's just because it's one team one dream. But I think that it just really trips up marketers as a whole to try to figure out who gets credit for what it's exhausting you know, if it's working, it's working and there's no need to you know, fight over credit in my opinion.

Brandi Starr  04:00

But yeah, I think attribution has been banished on revenue rehab quite a few times because it is one of those words that everybody has a lot of frustration in some cases a bit of anxiety around. And I love the thought of one team one dream like that. That is a perfect phrase. And yeah, attribution does tend to get into or feel like a battle for credit and less about the what's working what's not. So I can say we will avoid the a word at least for this discussion. And so I'm excited to have you here you are a part of our my journey series where I have found it very, very interesting to learn about how people have progressed through their careers, the twists, the turns, the unexpected changes, you know, the intentional growth Um, and you know, given that we wrote the book cmo to CRO the revenue takeover by the next generation executive, the fact that you are one of those people that we consider the future of revenue moving from cmo to CRO, I am super, super excited to talk to you not just about that step, but about your career journey, as well in some of the lessons that you have learned. And as we go into our discussion, I believe in setting intentions, it gives us focus, it gives us purpose and most important, it gives our audience and understanding of what they will take away from our discussions. So for those that are listening, what is your best hope? What would you like people to take away from learning about your journey?

Tracy Sestili  05:49

Um, I think if you're in marketing, and you're looking for your career path, no matter the path, I think something that has served me very well in my career is understanding data, and how to tell a story around it. And I think it's invaluable for a marketer, and we hear about data driven marketing, but it's not quite the same. Knowing you know, the questions to ask what you are looking for, how are you going to show your impact, understanding what your impact is, and how to dive into sort of those things. That really, I think sets the the tone of the stage and it gives you credibility as a marketer as you're going up the ranks. So I talked to marketers all the time, you know, whether you do content marketing, or demand gen, or graphic design, or whatever it is, how do you understand the impact of what you're doing. And I think it's important for everybody to understand that period, but it definitely helps you sort of see a little bit of the bigger picture as well on how you impact other people. And everybody's jobs. And it's all it all sort of is this thing, giant cycle. And we all have to work together to make it work like the entire go to market function. So to me, that is the takeaway, I think that people should hopefully learn.

Brandi Starr  07:10

Awesome. Yeah, I wouldn't say I agree completely, because marketing is one of those functions that has its hand in so many other areas of the business. And quite often that impact, it's hard to tell that story. And tapping into data and knowing what to do with that is like so key. And being able to tell the story of your successes, is also what helps you in your career. So I want to start by just starting at the beginning, in how did you get into marketing? You know, was it an intentional? This is what I want to do? Did you kind of stumble and fall into it? Like a lot of people? Where did your career begin?

Tracy Sestili  07:55

So I in college, I did major in, we didn't have I majored in communications and government because I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. I got out of college, and I wound up doing work for a software company. And then for a few years, and then there was an ERP, which I did learn a lot about the whole how you operate a business. And that was part of a better job that I had in my career. And then I moved to California from the East Coast to go work for TiVo. And I did a lot of things there. I started out in the Customer Success organization briefly, and then moved to operations and and then I wound up basically doing operations there for 10 years. And through that time period. I helped out the marketing team on spare projects, if they had them. And I launched the TiVo rewards program, I launched the gift giving program, I remember when I first started working there, you couldn't give the gift of TiVo. I learned a lot about achievement laws and gifting. And so that sort of gave me like a taste. And I went to lunch with the CMO there and she said, What do you want to do with your career? This is probably some of the best career advice I ever got in my career. Susan Cashin, she's amazing. She said, Hey, Tracy, you know, you, your your resume is very deep. And you know, you can go wide and be very varied. Or you can go deep in one area and sort of make that your career path. Have you thought about what you want to do? And at that point, I may have been a TiVo maybe five years. And if I was interested in marketing, she was going to recruit me because I'd already done some work for them. And at the time, I really wanted this director title. So I decided to go deep in operations and I stayed another five years doing ops there. And I got my title I moved on when I left here. though after 10 years, I took some time off. I really didn't know what I wanted to do, I decided that I like writing, I missed writing, why wasn't I doing any writing. And I thought I wanted to be a writer. So I looked at colleges to get my MFA. You know, I started writing blogs, social media was just coming on the scene. This is a 2009 2010. And I started writing. I started ghostwriting for people taking odd jobs here and there, I was writing, ironically, a digital marketing blog for a CMO. And I thought, Oh, I could do this myself. So then I wound up creating my own blog and created my own consulting company. And then I started getting some clients. And I just started doing social media and digital, and I kind of just fell into it because it was a thing. At the same time, a few years prior to that, I had some experience with marketing already, because I had launched a nonprofit for lung cancer. And I had to find ways to promote it. So that's how I sort of fell into the social media realm in the first place. So by the time a few years later came around, I already knew more than the average person because I was already playing with it very, very early on. And so that made me it gave me some sort of credibility, I guess, when I was writing or when I spoke to people. And then I got, you know, I sort of fell into it from there. The big transition, when I went to go work for a company doing marketing was with CA Technologies. And Cisco I did as part of, they were two of my clients when I was doing consulting work and have my own company. And then from there, I went to Spark Post and then I went to fountain anon and until my so that's how I sort of fell into the marketing I haven't I basically switched to marketing, from operations, probably, to almost 15 years ago, I tell people, that if you're an ops, you actually don't like marketers, or customer success people because they want everything yesterday, and then I just became that person that I don't like, and I was like, Oh, my God, I can't believe I became that person. But it actually helped me through my career, because I actually understood what the caveats were when you're talking to product and engineering and developers, and you're trying to get things done. And, you know, I could speak the speak in and get the task done, even though I knew that my request would probably put on the bottom of the barrel. But at least, you know, it was a better camaraderie to get things done. So I think that helped me also throughout my career, and I tie that in the marketing, so long winded answer, but

Brandi Starr  12:49

it's true. No, it's, it's very interesting. Because I do agree that like kind of having that well rounded background of understanding, you know, operations and all the things that go into getting it done. It feel like it allows you to be better in driving, you know, prioritizing what should be done, how you're communicating the importance and value like you know, what's happening, you know, when you hand something off, and I think that that helps a lot. And so thinking about your roles in marketing, at what point did you move into marketing, leadership, and really starting to drive things from organizations, because I can see from your background, you've had a number of cmo roles. What was that transition from, you know, being an individual contributor to being a leader?

Tracy Sestili  13:46

At SparkPost, I moved in, I actually came over to part because of like a lower level management, middle management, and then I moved into leading there. It's funny, because at the time, I remember applying at SparkPost, it was a mile from my house, I could walk to work. And at the time, I had been commuting. So I was consulting, and I was going all over the place in the Bay Area. And I really just wanted to walk to work. How cool would that be to just be able to walk out your house, right? You know, this is pre pandemic, right? So at the time, it seemed lovely. And so I applied and I remember saying to the recruiter, I'm overqualified for this job, this is why you should hire me. And she called me and she said, you know, she does that line made me call you and I and I thought interesting. I'm like, Well, it's true, you should hire me because I am overqualified for this job. It was a digital marketing role. And wish I could do pretty much in my sleep, but at the time, that was the right thing that I needed in my life at the time, and so I needed something that I could do. I could make an impact, and I didn't It's funny. I knew a lot about marketing, but I didn't know about email deliverability, I knew a lot about email. And so I learned a lot there. Not only about another facet of marketing is one of the reasons why I took the job just so I could learn more about email. But also, it also gave me an opportunity, I tried to keep my head down, I wasn't really looking for leadership when I went for that job. But the CMO at the time, Steve, kind of recognized that I had some hidden talent that I was hiding. And he, he, he promoted me. So

Brandi Starr  15:30

um, two things that you've or one thing that you've talked about kind of twice in telling your story is that you have taken those moments to self reflect on, you know, what's actually right for you in the next step, like you talked about leaving TiVo and taking that time to consult and figure it out of, you know, the, I always call it though, what do I want to be when I grow up moments, and then even, you know, recognizing that being close to home, and you know, almost taking what some would consider a step back was the right thing for you. And I think that's a really valuable lesson that people don't always lean into, you know, sometimes we get caught up in, like, always moving forward, like, I gotta go to the next title, I gotta make more money. I gotta, you know, it's this like, constant grind of like, what's next? So I'd love to hear if you have any advice or thoughts around how you recognize those moments for yourself, where you were like, let me reevaluate, or pause to actually say, like, what is the right next thing for me, instead of just the, you know, constant grind forward?

Tracy Sestili  16:45

Yeah, I think it's hard for people to take a break, and sit back and consider that it does take, literally taking time off. I always recommend people when you kind of feel like you're burned out, maybe they'll take a staycation or something and try to decompress and really give it some thought about what you want to do. It doesn't always come to you in the moment. I remember, I think it took me four or five months to figure out, when I left TiVo, what I kind of really wanted to do before I started doing some, some real marketing work. I think it's, we were at different points in your career, there are different things that are important to you. And you've been through this too, right? As you're climbing the ladder. Title is important. When you're younger, making money is important. As you get older things happen in your life, whether you have family, sick parents, whatever other priorities take all of a sudden, different things become more important than, than just work, right? You're, you're I think when you're young, you're you're working to live or you're working to survive. As you get older, you you kind of want to sort of figure out when you want to enjoy your work, right. And, and, and you kind of have the opportunity to become more picky because you've been you're you have more experience. But it I remember when I was a TiVo, my mom was sick, and she lived on the other side of the country. And how was I going to be there for my mom, as well as you know, work because I really wanted to succeed, and I had rent to pay. And TiVo was really kind to me, they let me work one week remotely, when this is when remote work was not a thing at all. It was a giant deal to let me work one week, a month, across the country. And I really thought of that as a gift. But I couldn't really think about what my next career move was going to be. I was just so grateful for the time. After that happened, you sort of reevaluate like what's important in your life. And I sort of look at that time, and even when I went to go work for SparkPost, like I was at a time in my life where, you know, things were happening personally in my life, I kind of wanted to not be in the grind. I kind of wanted to do something where I could make a contribution, and sort of figure out what it was that I did want to do next. And that was one of the reasons why I took the job. Another reason why I took the job at Spark, but it's because I didn't know how to do that work. And it was something that I enjoyed. But I wasn't sure if that was the only like was I going to go do digital marketing for the rest of my career. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. And I was sort of like at a crossroads. I think we all hit those at some point in our career. And you know, if you're lucky enough to work at a company that you are good at what you do Like, it's not going to take you 40 hours a week to do that job. Right? Right. So you have some time to figure it out. But I think if you have time to reflect, it's always good. I tried to do it, you know, once a year to figure out like, hey, every every job, like, there's things that you like, there are things that you don't like, when I was moving from fountain to televise, I think I interviewed over 55 CEOs of who I wanted to work for. And I had a list of questions. And not every CEO made the cut. And there were there were a handful that did that I that I like that, for whatever reason, it didn't work out. And it's interesting, because I think, as you're going through your career, you, you feel like you're being interviewed, and you prepare for all of that. But also you need to interview the company and the person you're working for. And so what is that going to be like, because culture is very important, as we know, and nobody wants to be miserable. So I think, yeah, I also feel good, I could take this in a zillion directions, but like, as a female climbing the ladder as a female leader, it's really hard. I mean, you know, this, and it's even harder for people with color and being female as well. And so, you know, you really need to figure out what it is that you want to receive back from a company, as well as what you can give. And it's a two way relationship. For me, and I think it took me a long time to learn that. Yeah,

Brandi Starr  21:35

and that is so important, I have, you know, some of my older kids are in their early 20s. So, you know, just starting their careers, and that is one of the lessons I try to really instill in them, is, yeah, you're just starting out. So you may end up taking some roles that are less than ideal, because, you know, you got to get your feet wet and get experience, like, but when you're going into an interview, you are interviewing them just as much as they're interviewing yourself. And, you know, I had a mentor told me that very early on. And so I've been fortunate to, you know, being an African American woman, I have had less impact of being a minority than most of my counterparts. And I would largely attribute that to the fact that I would really look at companies and leaders and and, you know, and really like, discern, can I thrive here. And, you know, I turned down roles early on, where, you know, like, my mom used to laugh, because I would wear red stilettos to interviews, and I wouldn't take my tongue ring out. And you know, she would be like cringing, like, Oh, my God, you can't do that. But I love it. I'm like, This is who I am as a person. And I was like, if my shoe choice, and the fact that I have a tongue ring is going to be a problem. I don't want them to hire me, because I'm going to get in, and then it's going to create friction. And you know, and so I purposely did things like that to almost turn people off upfront, if I'm going to if who I am is going to be a problem for you. You know, I don't want to be here. And so I have tried to really instill that in my kids as well. Because you're right, it is, you know, it is a little bit of an uphill climb. And it's like if you can, you know, make that ladder have a little more comfortable climb it, you know, is a little bit easier.

Tracy Sestili  23:38

And it's not just physical appearance, either, right? I mean, I'm very direct with you, when you interview me. I'm a super direct person. And I think I'm down to earth, but I'm very direct in my response. And, you know, some, some CEOs don't want that they want Yes, people they want people that are I hate to say it but subservient. And that's not who I am. I remember when I got hired and and tell him I told my CEO, I said, if you were looking for somebody who's gonna, you know, give me the ESA answer. That's not who I am not that person. And he was like, Oh, my God, no, I don't want that. And, you know, I know a lot of people say that they want honesty and directness, and most of the time. It's not true, but it actually is true. And I'm grateful for it, because it allows me to be who I am some, some people can't handle it, their ego can't handle it. And it's, it's unfortunate because, you know, I think we all go to jobs with the best intention to try to make that company, the best company ever. Right? That's, that's what we're going there for. We're not going there. To you know, for some ego boost. We're trying to do the best job we can. We're marketers, we love what we do anyways. Right? And it's just so interesting that, you know, sometimes, you know, there's personality clashes right for whatever reason, maybe they don't like your time or maybe they don't like your personality, whatever it is. But then there's a better place for you somewhere else. So you should go.

Brandi Starr  25:05

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. So I want to fast forward a bit to Intel Mize. And your transition from cmo to CRO? And is that something that you sought? Like was that your goal to move into that role? was, you know, how did that transition come about?

Tracy Sestili  25:28

It is not something that I thought out, I, it kind of fell in my lap. We had a sales leader who had been there for several years he had left the CEO was running sales for a little while. And I had had a pretty good relationship with sales, I always try to have a really good relationship with sales from a marketing perspective. Because to me, when you have that relationship, it just makes everything so much easier, you know? And he said, You know, I have some of the things that I could be doing, would you be interested in when you think about running sales? And I had to think about it for a while. I took a few weeks to reflect and think, do I really want this? Because I think as a CMO, if you're already crushing your number in marketing, and then you're good. Now you're saying okay, yes, I am doing this I'm comfortable. I'm it's working. I had this flywheel. We're going like a fine oiled machine. And now you want me to go take on the full number, like everything. And it's a lot of responsibility. And I wasn't sure that I wanted it. And then I thought, well, I love this company. I want to make them successful. Why not? I'll give it a shot. I think there are a couple of reasons why I said yes. is first of all the culture at untelevised is like none other than I've ever worked. It is such a kind, respectful environment to work in that if I was going to fail, which before I've been successful knock, if I were going to fail, it felt like a safe environment to do that in. And I also really love working for my CEO, he's just the kind of human and so I he's a very good thought partner. And I think that that's important if you're going to make that transition to have a good relationship with your CEO and have a good relationship with finance. Because that, that makes that's all that the zero does. Right? And those are the reasons why I said yes. And try it, it's been eight months, it's been going been going good so far.

Brandi Starr  28:01

Awesome. Um, so thinking about like, what the role looks like, you know, some of the things that I have observed in terms of why it is great to have, you know, that whole number be responsible for one person, or Byron person is your ability to really assess what the revenue team needs. So thinking about it as a single team, that one team one dream, and being able to make clear decisions about where you need to allot your resources, or you know which levers you need to pull to hit goals. And so I'd love to hear any of your experience around how that's been different. Now that you're CRO versus, you know, when you were just responsible for the marketing numbers.

Tracy Sestili  28:57

So weirdly enough, when I came to Intel, mis and I was running marketing. I also inherited and owned all of operations. So it was centralized. And so sales ops, as well as marketing ops and CSS ops fell under my purview, which was comfortable for me because I have an ops background, I can't imagine that it's comfortable for every CMO. But I was pretty comfortable with it. And I asked the sales leader if he would like to own Salesforce, and he said, not really. And I said, Okay, well, I'll take it. And we had one person running everything. I decided to bring in a few others to help out with getting things set up the way that I think that they should be set up and just cleaning up the data. So I say this for every every cmo that I talked to who's going into a new role, like the most important thing you can do, is it Get your data in order, you can't make data driven decisions if the data isn't good, or you don't trust it. And when I first came in, I didn't fully trust the data, cuz it, something didn't make sense to me. So I brought in somebody who I have worked with for nine years. And we sort of set things up. And I had another person that had worked for me for several years, and they had worked together previously. So it was, we sort of got the ops sort of cleaned up and in place. And by doing that, it gave me very clear insight into what what the issues were in the marketing side, what the issues were on the sales side, then I had a holistic picture, everybody had a holistic picture, because we shared the dashboards with the whole company. And to me, that is one of the key things that you have to do to, to understand that in terms of levers, one of the things I did when I became zero was changed the sales process, I didn't, I thought it was too lengthy for what we were trying to accomplish. So I, you know, lowered the number of stages and had everybody sort of trained up on the new new process and a much shorter, much easier. Lead time shrunk, for deal velocity increase, so it was better as a whole. And I think those are just some of the improvements that I've done. But to me, the data piece is the, it's the key kind of to the whole thing.

Brandi Starr  31:37

Yeah, and it's interesting, when, when we wrote the book, one of the things that we thought about was, what is the path of least resistance, because when we started writing it, the, you know, thought of all the revenue teams rolling into one person. And that, you know, a former marketer could be that person, like, it was still a little taboo. And in some circles, people are still like, I don't get it. But you know, in thinking about getting there, leading with that operations function, and starting by centralizing ops, you know, so that Reb Ops is truly, you know, marketing sales, CS, like all under one umbrella, even if there were still multiple leaders, being like the big game changer in the process. So it's lovely to hear that, you know, that was a key win in like figuring out the data and making sure all these things were seamless in that process. So it's sort of like a validation of like, okay, this is what we're seeing in practice. So I want to shift a little bit and without going, you know, into anything proprietary, like I don't want to, you know, divulge, like real numbers or anything, but I want to hear just more at a high level, since you've because I know you're less than a year in but have already seen some major wins. What have been some of the outcomes that you've seen since you've moved into this role, and have been able to focus across revenue?

Tracy Sestili  33:17

Well, I, yeah. So I double the revenue from the quarter, quarter over quarter, the first full quarter that I've been, I took over, like the toward the end of the quarter. So my first full quarter in, I doubled the revenue there. And then my second full quarter, which I just finished, which was also the end of our fiscal year, I, we increase it, I want to say, I think it was 60%. And on the exact number 58, something like that. I was just trying to do the math. Before we got on to figure that out. I was like I don't have this off the top of my head. But it was a really good quarter really good fiscal urine for us. And q1 is looking great. The pipeline is where it needs to be. And I think that that, you know, it's funny, I'll tell you this. It's not super easy to make the transition, right? Because when you're a CMO, and you're a marketer, and you go to run a bunch of salespeople, if you don't have a sales background, well there's there's pushback, great, it's like, oh my God, here comes a marketing person trying to tell a salesperson what to do. And we have, we have one person who's been there for over three years. And he's amazing. And he said, You know, I got to tell you something. When you when you first came over, I was thinking, Man, I got to basically train up this new leader on sales. She doesn't know anything about sales. And while I had managed STRS in the past, under demand gen, I had not managed A's. And he's like, but now that we've been through the trenches a couple times, it's like, I feel like you get it now. He's like, I have no respect for you. And I thought, oh, amen. It's just so interesting because I think that that is a challenge that any cmo going to sales and running revenue is going to come across if you don't have a sales background. And I think the same is true when a CRO has marketing underneath them, and they've never run marketing. A cmo sometimes reports into a CRO and functions or a VP of Marketing reports into a CRO and they feel some challenges to on that side. So I do think that there's a little bit of proving yourself in any role. But it's a, it's definitely a hurdle that I had to get over. And, you know, I've been there in this role, almost eight months on going on nine, I guess. And I finally feel like it took me about six months to get over that hurdle, but I remember it. So.

Brandi Starr  35:59

You know, that's one of the things like because, you know, when you think about having a single revenue leader, that is the consistent concern, like I have heard an abundant number of see CMOS that say, if you're going to report into the CRO like, that's a red flag, you should run for the hills. And I understand where the sentiment comes from, because there are a lot of CROs that really are heads of sales that just have the CRO title. And so they have no interest in really understanding marketing, or, you know, making the best decisions, like they really are a salesperson, and then they got these other divisions, your you know, these other functions. And I don't believe in that. But what you're saying is the exact reason why I believe that, you know, a redefined version of CRO, which is truly a revenue leader is a marketer is, you know, best poised to do that, because of all the things that you've said, like, although you had never, you know, run or managed AES, you had at least manage STRS, which is some experience in you know, what sales is doing, even if it's just more on the front end. And you talked about, you know, being an operations and fully understanding the CES function. And so I agree completely that, you know, that diversified background is a place where, yes, there's going to be gaps that you got to learn, you got to overcome, but you're coming in with a foundation that I don't feel any other revenue leader has, like, you know, ces tends to be more isolated in what they're doing sales, you know, is generally very just sales focused. Do you feel like, I'm just curious if, you know, in thinking about the bigger picture and other organizations trying to go to this model, would you agree, or do you see it differently? Do you think everyone is kind of equally positioned to be able to do this as effectively as you have?

Tracy Sestili  38:16

Yeah, I agree, I don't think everybody is positioned to do it, it also doesn't necessarily make natural sense for everyone. I think, I know, there's only a handful that I know of the CMOS that made the move to CRO some of them have sales backgrounds already, or previously, and then they became cmo and they, you know, got their feet wet in the trenches in marketing and, and then they went back to, you know, the transition of CRO and now running it all. I think if you've operationalized sales or marketing you have a better understanding if you're a CMO, I feel like CMOS come up through the ranks and one of three ways where you come up either through demand gen brand or product marketing, right? Those are usually the three it's rare that you are come from a different sales or customer success or finance or come from some other part of it of your to become cmo usually come up through product marketing brand or demand gen. And so if you come up through demand, Gen. You it makes a bit more sense because you really understand the flow of, you know, the process of lead to an MQL. To to an opportunity. Brands folks, I think have would have a tougher time making the transition and I'm not sure that brand people would want that role. But maybe, so I don't want to deter anybody who's interested. Product Marketing, folks. I'm not sure if it would make sense. Again, I do think you have to have some semblance of understanding the process. I think product marketing people are really great storytellers. And I think, as part of any C suite, you have to be a good storyteller. So I think that that certainly would help but you really have to understand and want to understand the, the whole big picture, how everything works together, you know, just because marketing is crushing their number of sales isn't there's a reason for that. And understanding what that is, or if sales and marketing are crushing the numbers, but but we're but renewals or whatever not happening on the CSI. There's a reason for that. So what what exactly is happening? And just understanding that bigger picture, I think you make a really good point there that I do think it depends.

Brandi Starr  40:43

Awesome. Well, talking about our challenges is just the first step and nothing changes. And so in traditional therapy, the therapist gives the client some homework, but here at revenue rehab, we like to flip that on its head and ask you to give us some homework. And so I'd like to ask if anyone listening is in a CMO or VP of marketing role, and desire to follow the same path that you have in leading all of revenue? What's your one thing? Where would you suggest they start in either making that transition or evaluating that it's right for them, like what would be the next action for you know, anyone listening who your story has really resonated with them?

Tracy Sestili  41:31

I think you need to get in the trenches with sales, like on on a deal, like, as to shadow somebody, not just listen to a gong call, because everybody can listen to a gong call. But literally get in the trenches and see if you can shadow a salesperson from like, start to finish. To really determine first, if that's something that you want to do, right? And then from there, you know, really having, seeing if you really understand the bigger picture of what's happening across the org from a data perspective, like, do you have insight to understand that? To me, those are the two things that I think that that would really help you decide if you want to do it. And then if you're gonna do it, then you definitely need to understand the database.

Brandi Starr  42:17

Awesome. Well, Tracy, I have enjoyed our discussion. But that's our time for today. Before we go tell our audience how they can connect with you.

Tracy Sestili  42:29

On LinkedIn, you can find me there.

Brandi Starr  42:32

Awesome. Well, we will make sure to link to your LinkedIn. Thank you again, for joining me, I have learned lots about your transition and your career. And I think there's lots of key nuggets and takeaways from this discussion for anyone at any stage in trying to drive their career forward. And even, you know, figure out that what I want to be when I grow up as we all move through.

Tracy Sestili  42:59

I'm still growing up. I don't know about you.

Brandi Starr  43:01

Oh, yeah, I don't know that it ever really stops. Well, thanks, everyone for joining me today. I hope you have enjoyed my conversation with Tracy. Can't believe we're at the end. Until next time, see you later.

Intro VO  43:19

You've been listening to revenue rehab with your host Brandi Starr. Your session is now over but the learning has just begun. join our mailing list and catch up on all our shows at revenue rehab dot live. We're also on Twitter and Instagram at revenue rehab. This concludes this week's session. We'll see you next week.