On the Edge

Stephen Brown (00:01.165)
Hello, I'm Stephen Brown with the Elite Sales Edge and this is the podcast on the edge. And this is our series getting to know your CXOs. Today my guest is Martin Atherington. Let me tell you a little bit about Martin.

Stephen Brown (00:19.756)
Martin Atherington was named Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of BMC Software in August of 2022. Before joining BMC, Martin was the Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Teradata Inc. He was responsible for strategic marketing, brand and reputation management, digital and social media. All right, I'm gonna read that over again. I'm gonna fix that.

Today our guest is Martin Etherington. Martin was named Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of BMC Software, Inc. in August 2022. Before joining BMC, Martin was the Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Teradata, Inc. He was responsible for strategic marketing, brand and reputation management, digital and social media, customer demand generation, influencer marketing, public relations, communications, and customer experiences.

Martyn (00:50.632)
you

Martyn (01:08.506)
you

Stephen Brown (01:17.579)
During his time at Teradata, he led the company through a brand, marketing, and cloud transformation. In prior roles, Martin was also the chief marketing officer for Cisco Jaber, where he is responsible for driving global marketing. He has also served in marketing leadership at Donaher and IBM. Martin is an industry recognized marketing executive with an outstanding record of driving revenue, market share, and brand growth.

Martyn (01:30.856)
you

Martyn (01:37.832)
you

Stephen Brown (01:44.874)
He's a marketing transformer who builds world -class global brands and teams. With a focus on sales alignment, he has consistently delivered tangible and measurable results that contribute to overall company growth. The Economist has recognized him as one of the top 25 social business leaders. Forbes has named him as one of the top 50 marketers, and the Internationalist has called him one of the top international marketers.

Martyn (01:45.576)
.

Stephen Brown (02:11.538)
Martin is an advisory board member of Said Business School, University of Oxford, Warden Customer Analytics, and the Chief Marketing Officer Council. Martin, welcome to the show.

Martyn (02:25.064)
Stephen, good to be here. And I said, there's some intro for sure. I guess you get to my age and the intro's get longer and longer.

Stephen Brown (02:32.013)
That is an impressive CV for sure. We really appreciate your time. And this series is about educating folks out there of all of the different C levels out there and giving them a sense into how modern CXOs think. So with that, let's jump right into it. So a person is starting their first

Martyn (02:56.986)
you

Stephen Brown (03:01.137)
posting as a CMO. What do you think are the most important things a CMO needs to do in their first month to start off on the right foot?

Martyn (03:09.47)
Yeah, I think even before the first month, it's actually the pre -boarding or actually during the interview stage will set you up for or not for success. And the questions I ask for a hiring CEO and then also the CROs and the executive team that you're hiring with is what would it take to get an A on the CMO report card? And the reason I do that is you'll get a number of wants, but very few needs. And you really got sift.

through that to understand, do they understand what success looks like? So before you even get your first 30, 60, 90 days, really on the onboarding, the intake process, really ascertain what good looks like. That will then give you the framework for when you get into the new company to start assessing where you have to spend your time. And of course you go through the normal things, which is meeting with the ERT, the constituencies.

the customers, the partners, the analysts to form your view. But without that framework of what it will take to get an A on your report card, that's the toughest conversation to have. And you'd be surprised how many people cannot articulate that during the interview process.

Stephen Brown (04:24.518)
Yeah, that's very insightful. I mean, today with the information is really democratized on the Internet. There's the ability to do your homework or research and ask, you know, penetrating questions and understand that that's that's extremely insightful. So having the right leadership team and people in place are critical to any company's success. Can you talk about what makes a good leader in your opinion and how you go about building a team?

Martyn (04:52.144)
Yeah, I go about building this team with one goal in mind and that is to make me irrelevant. And what I mean by that is you're going to get a team, it almost sounds trite, better, smarter than you are, but you've got to build a team. And I go back to my days of coaching and playing soccer. You really put in place a backbone, a great goalkeeper, a great central defender, central midfielder.

and an attacker and then you build around that. You also do that as a leader. You come in, you assess the leadership and you make sure you find your core team, your spine, your backbone of your team and then you build around that and the job is to really set forth a very clear direction and vision, give them the support, enablement, empowerment and really be a servant leader and backing off and providing them.

Stephen Brown (05:43.017)
Well, having worked for you,

Martyn (05:45.736)
the air cover to go do their jobs and they say you build out a good team, your job becomes irrelevant over time. And that's really how I look at building a leadership team and stood me in good stead for the many roles that I've played as CMO.

Stephen Brown (06:02.564)
can second that and validate your methodology, sir. And definitely learn from you. But it's so true, though. Getting a good mix of people out there that compliment you, add some contrast to the team, and opens up mindsets, you know, and challenges people to think differently. It's very powerful.

Martyn (06:10.262)
you

Stephen Brown (06:24.752)
So what advice would you give new CMOs when approaching decision making during challenging times? You know, leaders today that have been in leadership for say the last four or five years have, we had to go through a period in time that there was no playbook for. So there was some added difficulty with making decisions in general, but then you add a global pandemic on that.

On top of that, it was super challenging. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on making challenging decisions to begin with and then just maybe some of your learnings through the pandemic.

Martyn (06:57.096)
Yeah, I think, irregardless of the pandemic and before and post pandemic, it's pretty simple. This is a simple one for me to answer and that is all my decisions are based in and around the customer or market data. That should lead and ought to lead every decision you make. And...

Stephen Brown (07:10.563)
Hmm.

Martyn (07:23.144)
For me, fact and data and the voice of the customer trumps POV and quite frankly BS every single time. When you hear from people, and particularly on the sales channel and other channels, my point of view is, your point of view is interesting, but not relevant. And the relevance comes from your customers. The customers pay our wages, pay our mortgages, and the ones keep ultimately paying...

Stephen Brown (07:23.971)
Right. Mm

Martyn (07:52.964)
voting for confidence in our offerings. And it's really their voice that really should drive all decisions. So that sounds quite trite and sort of like a business one on one, but it's so easy to forget that. And the other thing I say to my teams, but for every sales and marketing problem, test it with a customer, messaging, propositions, points of view, insights. And when you've got your customers telling you what to do,

Decisions become very easy. It's when you start to try to look good versus do good. Start getting in trouble. So take away the vanity side, take away the fear, be led by the customers and you'll always make the best decision.

Stephen Brown (08:29.153)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

Stephen Brown (08:38.241)
Yeah, that's super insightful. And today, even if you look at what happens today in most markets, in most companies today, they don't spend the time to make those investments and voice to the customers, voice to the partner, sharing that message across the organization. So everybody understands and gets that message saturated from end to end. I can appreciate that for sure.

Martyn (09:06.12)
But Steve, I'd also add to that, particularly in marketing, when how often have you heard back in your marketing days before you moved into being a great sales leader and consultant, how many times have you heard to marketing, oh, we need to do an event, we need to do this activity? My philosophy has always been the event, the tactic is secondary, even tertiary. I always go back to what outcome we're trying to drive.

Stephen Brown (09:08.48)
Right.

Stephen Brown (09:34.788)
Mm.

Martyn (09:35.942)
What business -bounded outcome are you trying to drive? Does it align to a strategic objective of the company? And only then do we talk about the tactic. So many people jump into and see marketing as the event planners, the people that gets to go do stuff, that all you can eat buffet.

Stephen Brown (09:51.355)
Yeah. Right.

Martyn (09:56.264)
But really, if you marketing well, it's really driven by the outcome. Everything else is secondary. They're tough conversations to have, and you really need to be quite fearless in having those conversations from the get go and then laying out your agenda for the way you're going to implement marketing within the firm.

Stephen Brown (10:13.776)
Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. You hear it a lot of times even coming up from folks that are in my sales organization. Like, well, we just need the three silver bullets. I'm like, okay, I really wish it was that easy, you know. But doing the right work upfront, understanding your customer, how you're going to help them reach outcomes that are relevant to them and value that's measured in terms that are relevant to them, not you, is how I see us making.

ourselves successful. So this is a topic that we could probably spend an entire podcast on, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on AI. It's coming into businesses rapidly. Can you give me your thoughts on how you think it's going to impact businesses?

Martyn (10:52.52)
you

Martyn (10:57.416)
you

Martyn (11:03.336)
Yeah, I tell you what I think is probably the most exciting time to be in and around marketing or even sales and marketing or in business. And people are worried about AI replacing jobs. It's not going to do it's going to augment jobs. I think what people should be worried about is people with AI skills replacing people without AI skills. That is where people should be concerned about really embracing it, learning about it, adapting to it.

Stephen Brown (11:13.31)
you

Martyn (11:30.76)
I give you some examples. We have implemented AI machine learning and marketing to help us do better lead scoring. We're using AI and also GenAI to help get customers to the content they need very sooner, quicker on our website. We're using AI within our own business. We use our own products to help us run our business.

Stephen Brown (11:33.637)
Mm

Stephen Brown (11:49.627)
Hmm?

Martyn (11:59.144)
So it's really embracing AI, try it, do try storming, experimenting. It's got to be business driven. So I say it's going to be customer led, AI enabled, not AI first. And you can draw a line to any technology. How often we heard cloud first and people forgot to do what? Which is really to drive profitable growth for companies either through great customer experience, business optimization, continuous innovation.

Stephen Brown (12:09.152)
Yeah.

Stephen Brown (12:17.242)
Mm -hmm.

Stephen Brown (12:23.65)
Mm hmm.

Martyn (12:28.922)
So people lose sight of the fact that all these technologies are to drive one thing, that's profitable growth, if you are for a for -profit company.

Stephen Brown (12:38.865)
Yeah, absolutely. I've had a lot of fun with it. My roots are technical and it's to me AI is that kind of the great equalizer out there because it puts the power of a lot of things in the hands of everyone. Where, you know, Google.

Martyn (12:57.544)
Yeah, I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example, Stephen. So for me, I know I'm a better editor than I am writer. So if I'm looking to write some content, a presentation, I will start off with with the chat GBT and come back with really the outline. And then I'll just do is really make it more relevant, make it more authentic, add my tone of voice to it. And it helps speed up my productivity.

Stephen Brown (13:11.557)
Mm -hmm.

Martyn (13:26.862)
If you think across the whole marketing function, the areas of improvement and functionality and efficiency and productivity are endless. And we're just scratching the surface right now. So it's going to be absolutely a fun time to be in and around AI for both sales and marketing.

Stephen Brown (13:47.376)
Absolutely. So you've served at several companies as CMO and you've held senior marketing roles and probably lots of other roles. Can you share with us one or two maybe memorable experiences and what they taught you?

Martyn (14:04.744)
Oh boy, I'd actually thought about this. I thought about, let me think of a couple memorable experiences. I think probably one of the biggest thing, a couple of things actually, we were together at Mitel. I think how we transformed that aging brand into being contemporary relevant.

We went from when we when we both joined is right about $300 million in revenue. The share price was run about three. I think it was around about three, four, four dollars. And when we both left, it was about one point three billion in revenue. And I think it was about thirty dollars in stock price. And a big part of that was how we transformed our business from legacy to cloud and how we transformed a legacy brand to a more contemporary.

Stephen Brown (14:42.607)
Mm -hmm.

Martyn (15:00.456)
relevant brand. And guess what? Everything we did around brand was based upon the voice of the customer, what our customers talked. Even down to our logo, we actually had the customers vote on our logo as opposed to the hippo, the highest paid person in the office. And that really actually drove everything we did. And we transformed that brand and that company really in the two, three year period that we were both there.

Stephen Brown (15:05.871)
Mm.

Martyn (15:29.832)
not saying it's both you and Einstein, it's many, many other factors, but we certainly had a hand to play in that growth trajectory. So I think that was probably looking back and probably I've done that now a couple of times, but then we were against a very, very ingrained culture in a very legacy mindset. And we really had to shift not only the technology and innovation and marketing, but really the culture. And I think that was probably looking back on it.

Stephen Brown (15:29.87)
Yeah. Well, of course.

Stephen Brown (15:47.275)
Hmm.

Martyn (15:58.962)
one of the highlights.

Stephen Brown (16:02.412)
Yeah, that was a tremendous, tremendous learning experience because once the branding and the messaging got established, which that took the share of the work, but then getting that messaging out, teaching everybody. I remember traveling around the world, doing our presentation training and making the messaging stick and getting message saturation. But.

bus tours and all kinds of stuff. It was a lot of fun.

Martyn (16:35.002)
Let's say there's no easy easy button is there for that. That just takes a lot of work, a lot of planning, a lot of discipline, a lot of rigor, a lot of cross collaboration too in the end. Yeah, that was, I think something that hopefully we're both proud of and I am and I think it gave us a good foundation for building our careers too.

Stephen Brown (16:44.202)
Yeah.

Stephen Brown (16:51.052)
Absolutely.

Stephen Brown (16:55.947)
Yeah, I always have a very special place in my heart for Mitel. I spent 18 years of my career there, off and on, and just great people, great company, and they'll always be there. So just one final question for you before we wrap up. What advice would you have for today's sales professionals when engaging with a C -level person?

Martyn (17:24.04)
Um, my gosh, just put themselves in the shoes of the seed person. What are you going to do to help them improve their businesses and their life and, and speak in their vocabulary and do it quickly, do it short, do it, do it concisely. Um, and I'll tell you what, the art of selling is dying, Steven. Um, I love, I love actually being sold to, but I hate being pitched to.

Stephen Brown (17:40.499)
Mm.

Stephen Brown (17:46.794)
Hehehehe

Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Martyn (17:53.704)
And how many times have we been talking about this prior to this call? You get on LinkedIn, you're linked in with someone and then bing, you get a pitch. Or can I carve out 15 minutes this Wednesday, knowing the C -levels diaries booked out months ahead? The naivety. So I just going back to learning the craft of selling, speaking the voice of your customer, be relevant to their problems, help them solve their problems.

Stephen Brown (17:58.194)
Hmm.

Right.

Stephen Brown (18:06.706)
Hmm.

Stephen Brown (18:10.226)
Mm -hmm.

Stephen Brown (18:15.978)
Mm -hmm.

Stephen Brown (18:21.736)
Hmm.

Martyn (18:22.92)
problems quicker. That's how you get into the next conversation. And also, remember, sometimes the C -suite, C -suite are the approvers. The users and users do not neglect those people, those buy teams, the users, the approvers, my job, people try and sell me marketing automation systems and things. If I was in the market for that, I would point the seller to my

Stephen Brown (18:35.112)
Mm -hmm.

Stephen Brown (18:39.369)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Martyn (18:52.72)
chooser, my head of operations. So don't always come through to that that C level person, do due diligence, work in the company, work with the choosers and users, then come to the the approver at the end. That's my pitch for better selling. And for the people out there to learn that craft of selling because it's dying right now.

Stephen Brown (18:53.801)
Mm -hmm.

Stephen Brown (19:14.44)
Yep, it is, it is. And it's to your point, I think a lot of people make the mistake of going directly to the C level person, you know, got to get to the decision maker. And that's certainly important, but when you get there, you better be ready because have you met with their team? That's generally the first question you're going to get is like, well, have you met with my team? What did they say? Oh no, I just thought.

Martyn (19:39.4)
Yeah, absolutely. And more often than not, if you go past the team, you're going to piss that team off. So when you come back to them, they're going to put the shutters up. So do your work, work with them. And then then before you get into the the C level, the executive ultimately do your homework, do your time. And don't cut corners. Just it's a discipline and rigor that you've got to you've got actually hone and learn. And again, I go back to

Stephen Brown (19:44.136)
for sure.

Stephen Brown (19:48.592)
Hmm?

Martyn (20:09.444)
Sunning is a craft and a learning craft.

Stephen Brown (20:13.127)
Absolutely. Well, Martin, thank you very much and thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you carving out time for us here at Elite Sales Edge. Hopefully the audience, I'm sure they're going to get valuable, viable nuggets. Hippo, I wrote down, that's going to be a good one. But seriously though, thank you again for your time.

Martyn (20:32.328)
Stephen, welcome and great sales and marketing professional wish you best of luck with consulting.

Stephen Brown (20:33.625)
you

Stephen Brown (20:39.654)
Thank you, sir. Take care.

All right, that'll give us a couple seconds.