Dave Gerhardt is an expert's expert.He's the author of Conversational Marketing: How the World's Fastest Growing Companies Use Chatbots to Generate Leads 24/7/365. He's the CMO at Privy, a leader in eCommerce marketing for small businesses and entrepreneurs. He's the former VP of Marketing at Drift, a Conversational Marketing platform that combines chat, email, video, and automation to make it easier for customers to buy by helping them start the conversations they want to start on their terms.Dave even has his own marketing community, DGMG, a place where you can "get the marketing education you never got in school," a podcast, and a community where B2B marketers join forces to learn from one another.He's the guy who genuinely loves everything marketing, and so has found multiple ways to have fun doing it.He's also focused on the metrics that matter most to CEOs, namely, the amount of revenue that a marketer can generate for a company. If you're ready for some down-to-earth, no-nonsense insights on how you can improve your performance, you won't want to miss this one. The highlights:[2:07] Dealing with imposter syndrome.[5:46] Getting it all done.[7:52] Evolutions in Dave's marketing philosophy.[13:08] Why you don't have to prove the ROI of every last marketing activity.[19:41] Branding strategies.[21:17] Branding an individual vs. branding the agency.[26:44] Dave's cause.The insights:Dealing with imposter syndromeIf there's one thing you learn while interviewing some of the smartest marketers in the world – very few of them are immune to imposter syndrome. Some only face it at the beginning of their journeys. Some continue to grapple with it even while they're standing in front of live audiences at some of the biggest events in the world. Dave's no exception. "It's exhausting, at times, worrying about or thinking about whether someone's going to react the wrong way or be mad about what you've posted. I don't like that headspace sometimes."Dave admits that imposter syndrome has plagued him from the beginning."I remember being at Constant Contact. I was 24 years old. It was when I really got into startups and being part of the startup community. I graduated college with no clue about real marketing, or what to do. I just got a degree because I needed to graduate. I got into internet marketing and social media. I saw a lot of people in that industry had blogs about: hey, here's what I'm doing. I wanted that. I wanted a public forum to share what I was doing."He scratched his initial itch with a podcast called Tech in Boston in 2014."I wasn't even working in marketing. I was an account manager at the time. I started this podcast where I interviewed local CEOs in Boston. That's where I started to build my brand." Dave stresses that he doesn't feel like he did anything special."I was literally the only person who had a podcast about startups in Boston. That got me meetings with top CEOs and top VCs, and you know, once you get in that loop a little bit you can say: wow, that was a great interview, who else do you know that I should talk to, and all the sudden you're connected to someone else." From there, he went on to Hubspot, where he created The Growth Show. He wasn't even a full-time marketing person until he went to Drift."When I got to Drift they said: we're going to see how this goes, Unknown Guy, go ahead and do your thing."No pressure, Dave."So I got to get our website out for the first time. Launch the blog. Launch the podcast, do paid advertising, do SEO, do AdWords, do events. I literally got to do all those things for the first time, myself. I think that was a great benefit to the company to have an earlier person, early in their career to grow, and that kind of built from there. At Drift, I got to do marketing to marketing people, as a result of that I didn't have a personal thing because I was sharing to the world through Drift."Bottom line? If you're grappling with imposter syndrome? Keep putting yourself out there. It will pay off. It's just a feeling! If Dave, of all people, still feels it, it's not going away, so you might as well get out there and rock the world. Getting it all doneLet's take a moment to marvel at Dave's prolific productivity. How does he get it all done?Dave successfully adjusted to the Covid-19 crisis."Right now I can use my time how I need. I can run down to my office on Saturday at 1:00 AM because I had an idea. I do not think this would have been at all possible before being unchained from the whole cubical life."He contrasts it by noting that he used to spend up to 10 hours a day at the office."You're just there. You gotta do whatever's there. You're asking me how I'm able to do DGMG now? Well, I'm also able to pick up and drop off my kids now. Not that I do that every day. Go for a walk every day outside. Work out every day. This is one of many benefits I'm seeing from being fortunate enough to be able to work from home." Evolutions in Dave's marketing ...
