Episode #116: How to Align Yourself for Impact, With Ryan Bonnici

Organizational silos hurt your business, and disrupt your customer experience. Ryan Bonnici, CMO at Whereby, talks with me about how crystal clear alignment can prevent problems before they arise, ultimately driving growth and smoothing out those customer experience bumps. Ryan is a passionate senior executive leader with fortified marketing and management skills. He’s currently CMO at Whereby, and #26 on the Forbes 50 Most Influential CMO list. Follow him on Twitter, or LinkedIn.

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Grad
All right, welcome to the CXM Experience. And as always, I’m Grad Conn CXO at Sprinklr, and I’m here today with a very special guest, Ryan Bonnici, who is a CMO at Whereby and whom I have gotten to know pretty well over the last few years. Number 26 on the Forbes most influential CMO list, congratulations on that, Ryan. And we’re just going to have a little chat today about, you know, how do you get on that Forbes list? And how do you become an influential CMO? And what does that mean to you and a little bit about your career? So welcome to the show, Ryan.

Ryan Bonnici
Thanks for having me. Grad. It’s great to see you. I think the last time we were in person was in Cannes, In France. A few years ago for the Cannes Lions festival. Remember,

Grad
Remember that room was like a million degrees.

Ryan Bonnici
So hot! it was great food, it was good dinner, good conversation, but it was hot. For sure.

Grad
It was. Yeah, that was a hot room, we can cancel out have fun. I can’t wait to do that
again. When do you think it’s coming back? I mean, maybe next year?

Ryan Bonnici
I’m not sure. I mean, I was obviously expecting for them …. You know, this last year, obviously was canceled. I don’t know if they’ve set a date for this year. Or if they have, maybe they tried to be later in the year.

Grad
They tried. They tried. And they were trying to stick a landing on June, if you can imagine this year. Then they stopped.

Ryan Bonnici
Then definitely next year, then it has to happen. I feel like I’m missing my peers and missing the creativity of that, that week in France, I feel like it always brings me a lot more ideas to take back to work. So yeah.

Grad
All right, let’s talk a little bit about your career. You know, one of the things that, you know, as people listen to this, they’re always thinking, you know, how do I become a CMO? Or, you know, if you are a CMO, how do I stay a CMO? Which I would say, potentially, it’s more challenging on the staying side than it is on the becoming side. But do you have a philosophy, kind of overriding philosophy, about how you do your job? And what would you ascribe the success you’ve had today to?

Ryan Bonnici
A good question. I mean, I think, I think in terms of getting to being a CMO, and I would say, I would argue this applies for any role on any team, but I think it’s really about aligning yourself to where you can have the most impact for a company. So, you know, really early on in my career, I think I became really focused on how I, in my role, whatever that role was, whether that was partner marketing, which is where I started, whether or, you know, all the way up to kind of where I am now, I’ve always, I guess, ultimately focused on how can I drive revenue in my role? And how can I increase revenue in my role? So, I think, really focusing on revenue has served me really well. What else? But I think at the end of the day, you know, as you get more and more senior, I think the needs of the business are very different. And so, I would say probably for the last five years, where I get a lot of my focus from is really working closely with the boards of the companies that I work on. And, you know, whenever I take on a new role, I always spend a lot of time getting to know the board and getting to know what is it that they want me to achieve? Because I think at the end of the day, yes, the CMO reports, often to the CEO, but really, the whole executive team reports to the board, I think I report more to the board and often the CEO, ultimately, I think that’s, that’s true of any executive.

Ryan Bonnici
And so, when I joined G2, the last company I was at, you know, I was able to get real clarity from the board by kind of sitting down with them, and really kind of getting them to think hard about what they wanted me to focus on. Because I think something that a lot of CMOs, I think a mistake a lot of CMOs make is they take on too much. And I think you know, customer experience and marketing are so (I’d be curious what your thoughts are here), but I think there’s so much overlap, they’re so interconnected. And with the growth in all the different marketing technologies, all the different channels, marketers, I think can get stretched too thin. And so, I think by getting really crystal clear direction from your board, or just the ultimate person who is helping you make decisions around what is it that they want you to do and what should you prioritize, then you can work out what things you should sort of say no to and so anyways, at G2 when I joined, it was really clear for me there were three things; it was grow our traffic to the website. So, most people I’m sure who are listening to this. have heard about G2 and reviews that G2.com is the world’s largest software review site. So, you know millions of B2B buyers are going there every month and obviously, in a marketplace, both the buyer side and the seller side are incredibly important. And so, the first thing that they asked me to focus on was buyers, how do we get more and more buyers there? Because we know that if we get more buyers there that will help us attract and convert more sellers, software companies, right. So, you know, the first goal was traffic, which is buyers. The second goal was sellers, which is, you know, B2B sales revenue working with our sales team. And then the third thing they asked me to focus on was building a lovable brand that everyone knows and trusts.

Ryan Bonnici
And sorry, and I’m talking for a long time now. I’ll shut up in a half second. But at the end of my first year, I remember, you know, having our fourth board meeting, so when every quarter and the board was like, ‘Okay, you know, you’ve been every year Ryan, you’ve grown traffic exponentially, you’ve helped us grow our revenue exponentially, but you haven’t done anything on the brand’. And I remember standing up in front of everyone, I remember that so vividly and saying, ‘You’re absolutely right. And I decided I made an executive decision without telling any of you that I was going to absolutely focus on traffic and revenue. And I wasn’t going to do anything on brand. Because if I had just done brand, and not focus on the other two things, you could have easily fired me. And now I’ve done something that you cannot fire me over’. And they all laughed, ‘No, like, You’re totally right. Okay, now, please focus on the brand’. So, hopefully that kind of answers your question. I think in terms of how I think about this, it’s really about getting crystal clear alignment with your boss, and, you know, whoever is helping guide the company, and then over delivering on those things. And ultimately, it often rolls up to revenue ultimately.

Grad
Yeah, we totally agree on the revenue comment. It’s interesting to hear your perspectives. The thinking of yourself as reporting to the board? How do you navigate that with the CEO?

Ryan Bonnici
That’s a good question. I guess, I’ve always had relief. So, from the get-go, joining a company, I guess, I’ve always built close relationships to the board members on the boards that I guess I’m ultimately reporting to. And I try to keep them, I guess, in the loop ultimately, of what I am working on, and how that’s tracking towards what they want me to work on. But I mean, I think the reason why I think of it in that way, is that the CEO reports to the board. And so ultimately, if you spend a lot of time and attention with and on the board, you almost can prevent problems arising before, maybe, they could have cascaded down through the CEO, right, like there’s a lot of things on your CEO’s plate and they most likely won’t be able to think of and try and keep top of mind the things that the board has on them, because there’s so many different things, right, you know, decreasing churn and increasing NPS, you know, working on employee retention, like they are spread very thin. Hence, that’s why they have an executive team. And so, I think if you stay kind of really connected at the hip with your board, you can, I guess, just stay one step ahead and identify problems before they arise.

Grad
Very interesting. Very interesting.

Ryan Bonnici
I think maybe I’d also say is, I’ve just been lucky to work also with CEOs that aren’t, or don’t lack confidence. And so, they’re okay with me building that relationship with the board, because they think they understand that it’s for the best of the company. I’ve seen, you know, I’ve heard from other CMOs, that some of their bosses, CEOs might not like that, because they want to manage all cons with the board. So, again, I think it really depends on the company and the CEO. But to me, that would be a red flag if my CEO didn’t want me to build that relationship.

Grad
Interesting. Well, and I agree on your comment about stretched too thin, you know, CMOs, because we tend to, like, sit across a lot of functions. So, you know, they’re like, hey, digital transformation, CMO should do that. And, you know, you get tasked with a lot of stuff, because there’s a lot of the new things that are popping up, that don’t have a natural home in the traditional structure I’m in. So there’s a movement to CTOs and CXOs and some of these other roles that are starting to, kind of, come into existence. But classically, a lot of this new stuff just doesn’t have anywhere else to go. So CMO gets it and it’s hard for CMOs to turn that down.

Ryan Bonnici
Yeah, you know, you’re absolutely right. I guess the way I’ve always interpreted the CMO role is really encompassing on many of those other functional functions that you just mentioned. But I think breaking it out also can make a lot of sense and having more C Suite folks for those different things. I guess it ultimately depends on the business.

Grad
Yeah, we’re starting to see some CMOs bring in a chief growth officer that reports to them so that they can kind of task one person with a fairly significant amount of the demand Gen piece, and then gives them a little bit more time for some of the brand stuff. I mean, that’s because the demand Gen piece can just suck you in that combination of the tech issues that you got to deal with all the spend issues and then tracking that every day in the pipeline. That can just be the whole job. And then you can sort of lose the brand or you can lose other parts of it that are sometimes important

Ryan Bonnici
I’ve actually always had a head of growth that’s reported up to me. So I think that’s a hugely important part of it. And I think the other piece is just that I think, CMOs and CPOs. Chief Product officers are, I think, learning how they can best ,kind of, get aligned and work with each other. You know, if I think of where we’re at right now at Whereby, you know, we’re a product led growth company, which means that, you know, all of our revenue today comes from credit cards, it’s touchless, the sales team isn’t involved. So, you know, marketing is all about getting people into the funnel and moving them through the funnel. But obviously, we’re so dependent on the product itself. And so, I think the more touchless your sales cycle is, the more you need to get aligned as a marketing leader with the thing that is selling for the company. And, you know, in a B2B business where it’s the sales rep, obviously, that means, you know, the CRO, chief revenue officer, and the CMO need to be very closely aligned. And I would say, then, in a, in a more touchless, product led growth company, then it’s really you and the Chief Product Officer that need to get really closely aligned and work out ownership and where there are different overlays. And so that’s probably what I’ve been spending the majority of my time in the last three months since I started at Whereby by doing, actually, to make sure that we’re set up for success this year.

Grad
Yeah, that whole PLM motion, all product lead marketing motion, it really is revolutionizing approach. But it does require, again, marketing has to sit across a bunch of different functions to make all that work. It’s very interesting. Let me switch gears a bit to the personal, if you don’t mind. All right. So, when you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up?

Ryan Bonnici
So funny, you asked this. I was a very weird kid. Because I think at the earliest I can remember since the age of 10. I weirdly wanted to be a CMO.

Grad
Really? That’s awesome.

Ryan Bonnici
I know where that came from. That was the more practical, I think, route actually. Like if I think even maybe, before then I wanted to be a pop star or like a famous actor or singer or something that. I did like karaoke contests in Australia and stuff. But then that all kind of went down the drain when I hit puberty, unfortunately, and my vocal cords changed. But um, yeah, weirdly, CMO, I think I, I can’t pinpoint why because no one in my family or friends’ circles had a family member that was a marketer. But there was something about it that always kind of spoke to me. So yeah,

Grad
Yeah, well, I talk about this all the time on the podcast, because my dad was a Mad man. So, he worked at Y&R in the day, in New York on Madison Avenue. And like, from the time I was conscious, four or five years old, all I wanted to do is be in marketing and advertising. My mom always wanted me to be a doctor. And I think she still does, she still holds out some hope that I could probably pull that off at some point. But I went into business and have been here for a long time. Well, that’s really cool. I don’t meet many people that have always wanted to do this, you know, a lot of people in marketing kind of fall into it accidentally. And I always say that … I’ll see your perspective on this … I always say that, you know, a lot of people fall into marketing, and then, maybe they’re good at it, or maybe they like it, or whatever. And they kind of do it, but they never really treat it like a profession. So, if you think about lawyers, doctors, you name a field, they’re constantly going back to continuing education courses, constantly investing, constantly reading, constantly adding new thinking, and whereas a lot of marketers, it’s like, when the bell goes, you know, they’re like, I’m going to do something else. Their hobby is not their job. And I think one of the things that is an advantage for people like you and myself is that when you always want to do something, your hobby’s your job, you’ve probably got, I’m going to guess shelves of books on advertising and marketing and things you’ve been reading since you were 10 years old. And when you don’t have that, I think it’s a real disadvantage. But how do you coach people on that when someone’s, you know, relatively new in the career, they want to become a CMO, and they’re like, ‘Hey, Ryan, how do I become just like you one day? …  ‘Cause you’re so awesome … Can I have a job?’’

Ryan Bonnici
You know, I mean, there’s a lot there. Let me unpack it. So, I guess I would say, for me earlier on in my career, I guess, I think what helped me get to where I am today was that I really leaned into technology and being a first mover of technology. And so, I guess I would say that I think what helped me get to where I am was that because I love technology. Like if I love SAS, I love cool new products. I’m the first person often of anyone I know to be using a new piece of technology. And so that, I think, was a was a huge part of helping me get to where I am today. And I think that was because of you know, so much of marketing today is dependent on technology. And if you don’t understand tech, and you don’t understand how you can leverage tech to connect with people in different ways, you are kind of limited, I guess, in scope in how you can apply and solve problems, you know, as a marketer. So that helped me, for the majority of my career.

Ryan Bonnici
Now, I actually would almost say, once you become a CMO, you are  kind of one step removed from technology, and in a lot of ways, in terms of like, you’re not using it daily. And so, I found myself be more and more disconnected from technology. I would also I would almost say that in the last five years, I’ve been, I’ve been thinking more about, like, what are those tried-and-true principles of marketing, of copywriting, of capturing someone’s attention, that are ultimately human psychology that never change? Because I think we’re kind of at a point now where the technology has become so saturated and I think having the technology used to be for me, back in the day, kind of a way for me to be faster and better and more efficient than everyone else. And I think now we’re at a point where we’re so saturated in technology, that that is no longer a differentiator. And so, kind of going back to the basics, and the principles is something that I think I’ve probably learned more so now than actually ever before in terms of studying it and reading it. And, you know, really going deep into that. But yeah, I would have always said early on in my career to new marketers, the best way to learn is to try it and to do it and to get as much experience as you can.

Ryan Bonnici
And I think that’s still another challenge with marketing today is that so much of what you learn changes every year because of technology, that it’s hard to really lean into a course or a university degree or a book, if you’re interested, at least in technology, because it’s going to be out of date within months of being published, because all the platforms are changing, right? Like TikTok isn’t in any of the books from a few years ago. Not to say that you should lean your whole marketing show into TikTok by any means. But I think it’s a hard one. I think for me, though, if for someone, if they were asking me how to get here, I think what I would always say is obsess over the problems that the company that you are working for is facing and think creatively of new ways to solve those problems. So, you know, in many of the companies prior that I’ve been at, before I became a CMO, I would spend a lot of time trying to get getting to know my CMO, trying to get to know my COO and my CEO and understanding the problems that they are facing. And so, then I would go back to the drawing board and think how can I use the skill sets that I have to help them solve that problem. And I would listen to them talking at town halls, and all of those things and try and just be as useful to help them solve problems that they may have. And that’s helped me, I guess, move up through the ranks quickly because I would hear a problem and then I would work out a way to solve it. And then I would kind of try and solve it and then share that data and that learnings with those people. And so that helped me kind of move up the ranks.

Grad
That’s great advice, be a problem solver. Okay, so let me ask you one more question. And then I’ll end with one little quick question. So, what would you say is the most surprising thing about your career? If you were to try to think about the things that have happened to you in your career and, and lots of the things that happen are planned, lots of the things we do we have time to make choices about, lots of things we do we’re getting ready for, and CMOS are planners, like we’re constantly planning, we’re always living a year in the future. And sometimes I try to remember what year am I in right now? It’s always tricky. What’s the thing, though, that’s surprising? What were you shocked by?

Ryan Bonnici
What was I shocked by? Gosh, I don’t think I’ve really been shocked by anything, to be honest.

Grad
Wow, that’s impressive. Okay, you got something coming then.

Ryan Bonnici
Maybe, actually what I would say the one shock I think that I’ve had, or the thing that’s been most surprising that I don’t think anyone tells you about, right, or at least for me. So, you know, wanting to be a CMO from a young age and working my butt off to get there, I would have loved more insight into just like, once you get there … I think this is just true of leadership really … it’s kind of lonely at the top, actually. And it changes, I think, the way you think of things and the way you view things because there’s just a lot more on your plate. And I think, I don’t know, there’s something, I think I’ve become more accustomed to that in the last few years, but early on, I think it was something that I struggled with was just like feeling disconnected from the team in some ways, right? Because I think when you’re a team member in the team, you have all of these peers around you, you can, I don’t know, I think maybe show things or I think you can be a little bit more vulnerable. I guess, initially going into a C level role, I think I, at least, had this assumption that I needed to always have the answers, which felt very scary and felt like a lot of pressure. And I worked through it. But it wasn’t really I think, until I really learned how to leverage the broader Exec team and leverage them as your peers. And I think also understanding that, you know, not everyone on the Exec team always knows what they’re doing  at every point in time. And so, not being maybe afraid to kind of share what you don’t know and own it, has helped. But I think that’s the only big kind of shock or surprise, that would surprise people about me, and maybe my career journey is just, you know, I think I, I took the job as CMO of G2 I think, when I was like 28, or 29. And obviously, just, you know, from like an average age perspective, that is a little bit surprising. And maybe the other random thing was I started my career as a flight attendant. Again, like international flying was kind of where I met my first, like, marketing director, who then told me that Microsoft was hiring marketers, and graduates. And so, I kind of took a little bit of time off from studying marketing to fly and travel. And so again, I think it’s always a bizarre and beautiful combo of luck, chance and kind of trying to be in the right place at the right time. So, I don’t know, there are a few nuggets for you to dig deeper, if any of them are relevant.

Grad
Well, if you if you were to change one thing about your career, is there anything you’d change? It’s okay to say no, right? Like, you know, not everybody has something they want to change. But sometimes it’s like, I wish I’d had more apples.

Ryan Bonnici
That’s a great question. Gosh, I think I would. I mean, I think so. I felt like one of the things that I really struggled with was so… and maybe this is not so much about my career, but maybe just like a broader lesson for others … is that I think so much for me of what drove me to get to where I got to was actually driven by low self-esteem. I think I realized this after I became a CMO, and I think a few months in, the excitement of it fell to the side. And I started to get that itch of like, Okay, what next? Like, how do I keep moving on up and I had to kind of stop and kind of ask myself, hey, like, this is literally the thing that you’ve been working towards for a really long time. But now you’re unhappy again, and you’re looking for the next thing like that. Like, there’s something wrong there, dude, like, wait, wake up a little bit. And I did a lot of therapy. And I still do a lot of therapy. I love therapy. And long story short, I was able to sort of realize that, you know, I was using money and career as a way to kind of like, fill a bit of a hole that I had felt from a young age as a kid from being bullied when I was younger, I was an only child, I wasn’t very social, I was super introverted, which is bizarre, because I’m paid to be an extrovert today, that I think that would probably be the one big thing that I would change, I would have gotten therapy sooner so that I may have disconnected, kind of like, career, possessions and money from my self-esteem. And the craziest part of it all is like knowing what I know today and logically saying this to you. Like, I still struggle day to day to like, pull apart my self-esteem from my career and from my bank balance, which is silly and embarrassing, but um, I guess, like, you know, this shit is pretty deep seated, you know, the stuff, the stuff that we take on as kids, we kind of carry with us through life if we don’t get enough therapy, and we resolve it. So, I don’t know. It’s kind of like a daily struggle for me and something that I’m always working on.

Grad
Oh, that’s very that is really, that’s really deep, man. I like that you call yourself dude.

Ryan Bonnici
Did I call myself ‘Dude’? But that’s probably me being nice. My internal voice is always more critical than that. It doesn’t call me ‘Dude’. Yeah. For sure. Yeah.

Grad
Well, I agree with you. I think that not enough people, especially in our roles, take advantage of therapy. And I am a 100% believer in it as well. It makes a huge difference. And you know, just  kind of one comment you made earlier about lonely at the top. You know, one of the things I found that was super surprising to me, was the way that other people view you. And I think the one thing that’s kind of strange about this job is that I don’t actually feel that different than when I started as a brand assistant at Procter and Gamble. I’m still the same, you know, but people don’t view you that way. And so, I’ll say, ‘Hey, let’s just have a chat with this person. And why don’t we get together, we’ll meet and someone will say: ‘Whoa, you know, that’s going to be really intimidating for them’. I’m like, ‘intimidating, like why, I’m doing anything weird?’ but just the role itself creates a sense of fear and intimidation in other people that you have to keep in mind and consciously work around. And I think that’s a little bit tricky, because I always like to say, you know, they’re no old people, they’re just young people who have gotten old, and scratch an 80-year-old, they don’t feel eighty. They look at themselves, they still think they’re 22. Just what the hell happened to my face, right? But it’s like people mentally don’t age the same way that their bodies age. And I think that even as you mature in roles, you sometimes are still thinking like, you’re just sort of part of the gang, but the gang’s looking at you in a very different way. And that can be really challenging.

Ryan Bonnici
Yeah, that’s an interesting thought I, I have experienced that similarly, but a little bit differently. I think, for me, one of the things that I really struggled with was, when I took on that first CMO role, I think, I felt so much imposter syndrome, just because of my age, that I was so caught up in, in this idea of like, how I needed to seem and how I needed to come across to my team and to my company, because of that just internal fear of like, Oh my gosh, they’re going to find out I actually don’t know, or I am under qualified. And I really struggled there. And I think that made me a lot less authentic, especially than I am today as a leader. I’ve definitely grown a lot since then. But it really got me a little bit too much in my head, kind of trying to think about how I was coming across to others and getting in their head. And at the end of the day, you can’t really control how other people think. And so, yeah, that’s definitely a tough one.

Grad
So do you know who David Niven is?

Ryan Bonnici
Really familiar, but I can’t …

Grad
…Super famous actor, like in every single movie of the 1960s. And  he wrote a memoir in 1971, called The Moons of Balloon. It’s a great book, you’d love it because it’s in our industry It is actually a great book because he talks about the history of Hollywood through the 50s and 60s and it’s quite amazing. But he had massive imposter syndrome. And he describes the scene that every single day when he was on set, or when he was in a movie, he expected someone to come up from behind, tap him on the shoulder and say, ‘Okay, David, okay. Okay, gigs up. Yeah, off you go, off you go, you’re not really an actor’, because he never felt like he was really an actor. He just thought he was doing David Niven. But he was incredibly successful and really super famous. One of his most famous things that kind of survived is, there was a streaker at the 1972 Academy Awards. It was David Niven, who was presenting the academy award, that the streaker ran by and he had this amazing line, which is something like….  having a blank I have to look it up … But he had a very, sort of like, derogatory comment on the person’s assets, and something like not everybody should be out naked but it was much better than that, then it was on he was on the fly, right, so brilliantly done. I’ll have to find that and put that into another podcast. So, Ryan, you’ve been really generous with your time today. I only have one last really quick question, which we ask everybody. Hot dogs. Okay, are hot dogs a sandwich? Yes or no?

Ryan Bonnici
Yes, they are.

Grad
Okay. No, everyone takes some time with that one. You’re going to be a yes, hot dogs are a sandwich. Okay, I got it. Okay, yeah.

Ryan Bonnici
What do you think about this?

Grad
I have no opinion. I basically want to see what … I have noticed there’s a difference between vegetarians and meat eaters in terms of whether they think it’s a sandwich or not.

Ryan Bonnici
Tell me about that. Because I…

Grad
vegetarians don’t think it’s a sandwich.

Ryan Bonnici
That is bizarre because I’m a vegetarian. Well, I’m actually vegan.

Grad
So we’re breaking the mold here then, okay, yeah,

Ryan Bonnici
Maybe that means I didn’t think about it all that much, though, because I don’t really eat…

Grad
Or that’s why you thought about it so much. All right. Well, Ryan, thank you. Thank you so much.

Ryan Bonnici
Thanks for having me Grad. This is fun.

Grad
For the CXM Experience. I’m Grad Conn, CXO at Sprinklr. And my guest today was Ryan Bonnici, CMO at Whereby and we had a wonderful conversation about being a CMO. Ryan, thank you very much. And for all the rest of you. I’ll see you … next time.