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From Noise to Growth: How CMOs Turn Marketing Into a True Growth Engine
Join Lee Roth, Co-Founder of The Actionists, and Steve Olenski, “The CMO Whisperer” and host of the CMO Whisperer podcast, as they unpack the biggest challenges facing marketing leaders today. Drawing from hundreds of conversations with top CMOs, Steve shares what separates high-performing organizations and why marketing must evolve from campaigns to systems that drive real business growth.
CMOs, marketing leaders, agency executives, and anyone looking to better connect marketing to business growth in a rapidly evolving landscape.
00:00 – Meet Steve Olenski & the origin of “CMO Whisperer”
04:12 – What’s really keeping CMOs up at night (signal vs. noise)
06:16 – Marketing as a growth engine & aligning with CFO/CEO
09:47 – The shift from campaigns to systems
13:27 – The future of marketing orgs (outcomes vs. channels, killing silos)
22:18 – Advice for CMOs: better questions, alignment, and focus
26:47 – What’s exciting: tying marketing directly to revenue
30:37 – Using marketing to drive economic opportunity
Lee Roth (00:00)
Welcome to another episode of Breaking the Mold. My name is Lee Roth, co-founder of The Actionists, and today we're gonna do something a little bit different. We're interviewing the man who's famous for interviewing the biggest names in marketing. Of course, who else am I talking about but the CMO Whisperer, Steve Olenski. Mr. Whisperer, my friend, welcome to our humble little show.
Steve Olenski (00:22)
Lee, my brother, it is beyond a treat to be here with you. I cannot wait to get started.
Lee Roth (00:28)
Well, let's do that. But first, tell everybody how you got the name CMO Whisperer?
Steve Olenski (00:35)
Great question, and as you can imagine, I get asked that a lot. It was during my days at Forbes. I spent 10 years at Forbes. And this happened very early in my career there, and I was interviewing the then CMO of Walmart. Her name's Julie Lyle, and she's a dear friend to this day. And it was our first conversation, and we were approximately 15, 20 minutes in, and this is before the days of video, dating myself, no Zoom. And she just stopped in the middle of it and said, “You know what, Steve? You're like the CMO whisperer. I stopped, and I went, do you know, Lord knows I've been calling a lot of things. Exactly. And it's a family show, but we won't go there. And I said, “Why'd you call me that?” She said, “I don't know. We just met.”
Lee Roth (01:11)
Yeah. Mostly by me, by the way. Yeah.
Steve Olenski (01:31)
And I'm telling you things I've never told anyone and I just feel like I can trust you. And you're not a journalist by trade, she knew my background. And I just, I feel very comfortable. And I went, okay. And I hung up the phone and we got done. I went, wow, that's a cool name. I'm gonna run with that. Literally, the rest is history.
Lee Roth (01:55)
It's a hell of a compliment. And now, and now you built one of my favorite podcasts, actually my favorite podcast, which is the CMO Whisperer. Tell everyone what that podcast is all about.
Steve Olenski (01:57)
Yeah. So it's a very natural, I call it the natural evolution from my days at Forbes. And the way I like to initially describe is I'm still talking to people, but instead of now writing about those interviews, I just record them. So I'm still having these conversations, which I love and you know me, that's my fuel. I get a rush just by talking to anybody, man on the street, doesn't matter.
Lee Roth (02:27)
sense.
Steve Olenski (02:36)
So the show, first off, is a very natural extension for me, from my writing to recording, right? But really what it is is, and this is the same true at my days at Forbes, it's not just about marketing, right? My show is meant for, it's to elevate how leaders think and lead and perform. Again, it's not just for CMOs. My nickname is a bit of a misnomer in that I've interviewed athletes, celebrities, CEOs, CIOs, you name it, founders, people that have a passion for what they do, they're in a leadership role, we wanna pull back the curtain, you and Pio, and I will give you both plugs, you are both on my show, you fit the mold to a T, and what you guys have accomplished, right, on your own careers, and you came in, and you came on and let me ask you, and you whispered all that stuff to me. So.
Lee Roth (03:27)
Thank you.
Steve Olenski (03:35)
My show was just like, let's just kick back. Let's just, you know, grab your favorite drink. Lee knows I'm the most informal person you'll ever meet. And you're probably second, which is why we get along. And just, let's have a conversation. And I don't, we just talk. And I wish there were more like a more of a magic elixir, but I think that's the secret to my success.
Lee Roth (03:48)
100%. Yeah.
Well, something's working over there, because the guests that you get in your show just keeps growing and growing. So if you haven't heard the CMO Whisperer podcast, go download it now, because it's pretty awesome. Yeah, so because you talked to hundreds and hundreds of CMOs, I guess my first question for you is, what do you think is really keeping them up at night the most these days?
Steve Olenski (04:12)
Thank you.
Yeah, it looked the knee jerk. I don't want to say lazy answer. It is that is that two letter elephant AI which.
Lee Roth (04:28)
Yeah. I hate those. I hate those letters.
Steve Olenski (04:34)
I'm not going there because like, no kidding AI, I get it, right? You want everybody to listen. And if you don't get that, then pick another career. No offense. Right? The top thing or one of the top things that are keeping them up at night, signal versus noise. And this has never been more true before, you know there's more tools, there's more platforms, there are more dashboards.
Lee Roth (04:44)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steve Olenski (05:01)
Solutions. I mean, it is literally everywhere you go. Someone's hanging a shingle about the latest and greatest tool platform solution. That's clarity is like the scarce asset. It really is. And what CMOs need perhaps more than anything is that, is that sounding board, is that person, is that place where they can go or person they can talk to and go, would you just please.
Here are my issues. What should I know, right? So that would be probably, if not one, it's one A and one B, right? And the one B to the one A would be proving marketing is a growth engine. Now this is nothing new, but it's becoming more exacerbated. It's not a cost center anymore. Marketing is a growth engine. And if you don't fully get that by now, as a marketer you should. Now there are boards who don't fully get that.
Lee Roth (05:39)
Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Olenski (05:57)
And the reason I can say that so infallibly is because the amount of money that is allocated to marketing, right? No, no, no, we need you to grow, get more growth, but we're not giving you a dime more. Okay. That doesn't add up literally. So that's why I say boards don't get it. Marketing is a growth engine. Yeah, good.
Lee Roth (06:16)
Let me go there because most quality marketers probably have always thought of marketing as a growth engine. And what you're describing is kind of an age-old question. Out of the CMOs you're talking to, do they have any tips or thoughts or suggestions on getting the CFO, the board over the hump so they do start looking at marketing as a growth engine?
Steve Olenski (06:24)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it's a great question. At the root of this, again, for those who've known me more than 30 seconds will not be surprised what I'm about to say. It is relationships. So to have that relationship as a CMO with your CFO and your CIO, and of course the CEO, but that's a given, but the CFO and CIO and CMO, to have that very open relationship that they understand to the point where they need to understand and like, and you need to understand what they do.
Lee Roth (07:08)
Yeah.
Steve Olenski (07:08)
That's probably 90 % of the issue. If they understand just a tad more about marketing versus what they think they know about marketing, which you know is like a Grand Canyon-esque between the difference, right?
Lee Roth (07:13)
Yeah. Yeah. My kids saw this commercial and they didn't like it. I don't know why. Why are we running it? You're like, great. Now the 14-year-old daughter of the CFO is my biggest person I need to sell to.
Steve Olenski (07:35)
Because you know the following is gospel and should be in granite somewhere. Everybody thinks they can do marketing. Everybody, everybody in advertising, like you're saying the commercial, right? Everybody has an opinion. Ask them about, you know, technology. I don't know anything about that. Ask them about financial. I don't think about that. Right, because we're all consumers, right? So that relationship is huge. The second thing, CMO, the best CMOs are doing
Lee Roth (07:42)
Yep, 100%.
Steve Olenski (08:05)
It’s a little cliche, it doesn't matter, is get some of those small wins, right? And even if you've been in the CMO in the same company for three, four, five years, get some small wins that you can then put in front of that CFO and go, look at this, and do it where it's like less money and you over-deliver.
Lee Roth (08:10)
Yeah. Yep. It's great advice. Pio and I actually talked about that point a lot because very often when you go into a CMO role or senior marketing role, and I've made this mistake myself, is you go in and your CEO or whoever's telling you, look, we need to completely change the way we're doing things and we need to grow quickly. And you're like, okay, I'm going to go in there and break things up and like, and that ends up being a disaster. Get the small wins. Go for singles, not home runs.
Steve Olenski (08:50)
Exactly. Look, a 300 hitter is still a 300 hitter.
Lee Roth (08:58)
That's right.
Steve Olenski (09:00)
Right? And look, the best CMOs I know are not, they're not afraid of change. They're afraid of wasting time on the wrong change. That's where, that's where people like you guys and what we're doing, people who are trusted confidants, there, it's like a parking lot. There are lots on full, man. But I got more, I got more cars to park.
Lee Roth (09:08)
Yeah. 100%. I love that. Let's talk about the industry a little bit. Let's talk about, I mean, everyone keeps saying all the marketing industry is shifting and shifting and changing and so forth. And it is, and it is rapidly. What's your viewpoint now that you've talked to so many people? What's your viewpoint of how the industry as a discipline is evolving
Steve Olenski (09:47)
Marketing is really becoming less about campaigns and more about systems. Now, hearing that on the surface, someone could go, but Steve, you're the biggest proponent of the human side. Absolutely I am, and I always will be, right? But the systems are still gonna,
Obviously you need the human side right side left side brain side, right? so before marketing to me was back in my day as it makes it sound like I'm a hundred is Develop a campaign launch the campaign measure the campaign learn and AB test blah blah blah blah blah Okay, there's still a place for that but it's the systems and that's where there's two letters come in which I won't say but that's where the the the technology comes into play in terms of the creative and development, the research, everything is exacerbated and on a scale and pace you and I could never dream of five, 10 years, right? So that's what I mean by system.
Lee Roth (10:44)
Yeah. Tell me more about systems.
Like, yeah, define that better for me.
Steve Olenski (10:51)
You mean systems?
Lee Roth (10:53)
Yeah, go deeper into that. Like, what does that look like? What does it feel like? How is it different from campaigns?
Steve Olenski (10:55)
Yeah. So what it looks like and feels like to me is kind of one and the same. It is that you have, everybody's got their favorite blank, blank tools. I'll just say them AI tools, right? We all got them, right? And there's more and more every single day and that's great, right? But you still have to rely on that human, you know, the prompting, right? But the systems, again, all those things that it makes faster, better, quicker.
Lee Roth (11:08)
Yes.
Steve Olenski (11:26)
But it still always comes down to the human type. You know, I'm on my keyboard data entry, right? As we called it a thousand years ago, it's the same principle. An AI prompt is data entry. If I had bad data entry 30 years ago, the output sucked, right?
Lee Roth (11:33)
Yeah. I believe they used to say, shit in, shit out.
Steve Olenski (11:49)
Remember when, you know, big data came into vogue years ago and that freaked everybody out. And everybody's like, well, it's not the big data, it's the right data. Well, it's the same thing now, but the systems are so equipped and they're so amazingly fast. And if you do put the right things into them, you can see incredible results, but the challenge and the pitfall is to be solely reliant on them. And you can never do that. Does that make sense?
Lee Roth (12:18)
Yep. Yeah, it does. I mean, I think one of the things that we are seeing more and more is that people are good at doing but not good at thinking. And I think this is just going to make the problem worse.
Steve Olenski (12:29)
Look, the future belongs to marketers, I think, who can connect creativity to revenue, in short. And that's where those systems come into play. Like, you get a campaign, I'll use that word, to market 100 times faster than the normal, 1,000 times faster.
Lee Roth (12:34)
Yeah. Let's talk about the marketing organization itself. Again, this is another thing that keeps changing rapidly because if you think about a marketing organization and what marketing is responsible for, it is pretty wide. It could be everything from culture to technology to actually marketing to the dot com to packaging.
It's a pretty wide range, like, and the CMO has to kind of be the expert in a million different things, but in truth, they're not, and they need an organization that is. How do you see the marketing organization evolving to kind of keep up with the pace of change?
Steve Olenski (13:27)
Well, look, the first thing I say to that is there's a reason there's a certain four-letter word and it's a four-letter word and that's silo. I literally, no lie, within the past two weeks dealt with a major brand and I wrote about it on LinkedIn if anybody wants to look, I won't name the brand here but you can read about it. And I had an issue with their service and I reached out to them through three separate channels and got three separate answers.
Lee Roth (13:54)
Ha!
That sounds about right.
Steve Olenski (13:58)
And I went, there's my case study. Right? And the guy sitting here is talking to the guy sitting there. It was literally silos in motion, right? If you're gonna have any success, and this is a very successful company, probably in spite of itself, but you have to destroy every single silo, right? And I think that's number one.
Lee Roth (14:01)
Yep. Yep. Yeah.
Steve Olenski (14:27)
The next thing is org charts, I think will shift from channel-based to outcome-based. That's a big shift, right? Where when we came up, it was very channel, right? Like I just said, you have social, you have email, right? You have direct mail, whatever the case may be. It's out, they need to be outcome-based. Charts need to be outcome-based. That's a very radical shift, which I can see and hear literally CFOs rolling their eyes till their eyes pop out of their head.
Lee Roth (14:29)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. I love that.
Steve Olenski (14:57)
We can never do that. Sure you can, right?
Lee Roth (14:59)
It definitely can. One of the things, you know, it's funny, we work with a few clients on their org structure and the challenge that I constantly hear is that the rest of the organization can't structure itself in a way where they can then structure themselves to be outcome-based because their orders are coming from so many different places, it's very hard for them to shift their structure in a way that it should be for today's day and age.
Steve Olenski (15:07)
Hmm? Think about it, if you go to outcome-based, right? It eliminates all those fights, figuratively, but remember the attribution word. Well, no, email delivered that sale. No, social delivered that sale. No, no, no, we want credit. And at the end, if you go, who gives a, it's an outcome.
Lee Roth (15:46)
Yeah. Correct.
Steve Olenski (15:55)
If we look at it that way, you know, I also think titles are going to matter less. I really do. And maybe it's wishful thinking, right? I've long and I think you agree and I think you and I might've even talked about this over coffee at one point. Titles are just BS and I'm talking to the chief, muckity muck, okay. Versus I had a title of assistant, you're only the assistant? Where I could be doing the exact same job.
Lee Roth (16:02)
I hope so. Totally.
Steve Olenski (16:24)
So I hope titles, really do, I think they will. I think the best organizations will finally realize going, it doesn't matter what we call ourselves. It matters what we deliver and the outcome. And that decision velocity, if you will, will matter. Decision velocity, right? I just came up with that when I was thinking about this and talk to you about some of this stuff. I'm, ooh, I like that phrase, decision velocity. It just popped into my head.
Lee Roth (16:40)
Yeah, absolutely. I love that. I do love that.
Steve Olenski (16:54)
Right? And it's that the opposite of again, I know people listening are going, Steve who cares about what happened back in the day, but it's important to remember the past. What's that expression go? Or you're doomed to repeat it in the future or something like that. Right? Back in the day, you and I would sit through meeting after meeting after meeting before this decision was made.
Lee Roth (17:06)
100%. Yep. Yeah. Man, you gave me three awesome headlines on that one. Outcome-based, eliminating titles, and decision velocity. That's awesome. Thank you, Steve.
Steve Olenski (17:26)
For that, do I get to show my mug again for that?
Lee Roth (17:29)
No, no, I get ill every time. I can't throw up on camera.
Steve Olenski (17:33)
All right, well I tried. Maybe by the end of it I'll be able to.
Lee Roth (17:39)
Now, if the marketing organizations are having such hard time changing to match the pace of change, what is the marketing services world looking like right now? I'm laughing at this point, the holding companies aren't going to have anything else, anything to hold because they're merging it all together. It's kind of crazy. But what are you seeing from marketing services model perspective?
Steve Olenski (17:50)
Yeah. Exactly. So I don't think, Robert DeVat, the reports of the agency demise is greatly exaggerated. I don't think agencies are dying, per se. I think what's dying and has gone astray is bad positioning. And that two-word term can be construed different ways, bad positioning of how the agency positions itself, bad positioning of how the agency positions its client and its products. There's multiple connotations of that two-word phrase, right? But that's what's dying and really should be dead and buried and hopefully will be. The old model sold hours. The new model of an agency to me has to sell impact and outcomes. And again, that may not sound novel, but it's just something, okay, then it should be easy. Well, it's not per se, but if we all have that clear delineation of.
Lee Roth (18:45)
Yeah, I agree with that.
Steve Olenski (19:02)
If I'm an agency, I'm a service provider, this is my main KPI. You're not going to judge me on, I only got five likes on that LinkedIn post, but you drove up revenue 50%. Right? So those fluffy KPIs are, they should, they need to be gone. If they're not by now. I think in five years, agencies are going to fall into three buckets. Strategic operators, specialized experts, and commoditized vendors.
Lee Roth (19:06)
Yeah. Hmm, interesting.
Steve Olenski (19:32)
Let me repeat that. Strategic operators, specialized experts, and commoditized vendors. Three very distinct groups. Now that doesn't mean some agencies, some companies cannot do all. Of course, they can and have those groups that do all three. Absolutely. But strategic operators, man, I need that SEAL team, Specialized experts. The specialized expert is, I have a problem with SEO. I'm making something up.
Lee Roth (19:44)
Yeah. I love that. It's funny though. Yeah, yeah, go to that expert.
Steve Olenski (20:02)
Right? And then the commoditized vendors is just as the name implies. Whatever I need, you got to whatever you can give me, need or you're going to deliver. Look, you show me what you can do. It's commoditized. Come deliver it. But all three of those, the underlying, you know, common denominator has got to be outcome revenue. Pick a term.
Lee Roth (20:22)
Yep. I totally agree. I agree with also what you were saying about agencies are really bad at positioning, which is pretty sad, considering that's what they're selling half the time. But I'll tell you where I don't agree, agree, actually, is I do think these agencies are starting to die. Like I look at Ogilvy when I was at Ogilvy from 2000-2005, I think there are 15 huge floors, right? Massive. Plus, we have people in the basement.
Steve Olenski (20:40)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Lee Roth (20:52)
I went to an Ogilvy party back in November, December. There was a floor and a half people left and it was a smaller, a much smaller footprint than the previous floors that I was talking about. Now, if the latest news is correct, they're just being merged altogether into WPP Creative. So that actually hits two things. One, I do think the agencies are slowly dying and it makes me sad because Ogilvy is such a great agency at one point. And two, you talk about bad positioning. WPP is going from this famous agency brand network that has a lot of credibility to something called wire, paper, and plastic creative. I mean, what does that tell you about bad positioning right there alone?
Steve Olenski (21:24)
Mm-hmm. I think my silence will speak volumes. And it's borderline embarrassing. It just is.
Lee Roth (21:49)
Yeah. Yep. So advice would you give to the CMOs? Put on your CMO whisper hat. And what advice do you give the CMOs who are trying to grow their business, trying to stay ahead of how marketing is evolving, know, just staying above water, but trying to be impactful.
Steve Olenski (22:18)
I wanna start this by, and I just heard this quote the other day that's more tied to like someone's life in general, but it's very apropos for this conversation. And it goes something like this, “When something's not working in your life, stop chasing answers and start chasing better questions.”
Lee Roth (22:37)
Hmm.
Steve Olenski (22:38)
Right? And that was my reaction. I right? Like I got to write that one down. And yes, it's applicable to everything in life, but in CMOs especially, like don't chase trends, chase outcomes, right? Don't chase answers, but chase better questions. Whereas you got this thing, I got to hit this KPI. Okay. But what's, what's the best questions to ask to hit that KPI?
Lee Roth (22:39)
I love that. Yeah.
Steve Olenski (23:09)
Instead of going for just the answers to everything they hit that KPI if that makes sense. That's number one. Number two is..
Lee Roth (23:13)
Yeah, it does make a lot of sense. We're already, we're always chasing what the end in the ending is looking at without ever asking what are the right questions we need to solve for.
Steve Olenski (23:26)
Exactly and that little shift which by the way, I've applied to my own life, is really remarkable when you stop and think about it now, I'm not saying it applies to well, what am I gonna have for dinner? no think about I'll keep the dinner analogy going…
Lee Roth (23:37)
Yeah.
Steve Olenski (23:43)
I'm really hungry. Well, the best question to ask is what am I in the mood for?
Boom, cut right to the chase. Right? The next thing I think for CMOs is build a small circle. Right? Have that group that, and whether it's internal or more likely is external, with your partners, with groups that they will, you trust will tell you the truth. They will tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. Massive difference, right?
And I know sometimes that's a little easier said than done to find that true confidant that will look you in the eye and go, this is not the right idea. But here's what is.
Lee Roth (24:29)
Yeah, I mean, give people, the CMOs who are open-minded enough to be like that are the most successful, but it's so difficult to keep that open mind and be willing to hear this from the people around you.
Steve Olenski (24:42)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. The next thing I want, I'm going to repeat myself, but that is aligned with the CFO, right? Yes, the CIO, CTO is important, but the CFO, if they don't, if they're not aligned and fully understand, again, not, you don't want the CFO or need the CFO to become a marketing expert. Like give them more than they think they know, which I guarantee you is not much. And I'm not knocking a CFO because they have their own world.
Lee Roth (24:49)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's not their job.
Steve Olenski (25:13)
Not their job. But tie it all back to everybody knows things they know marketing. Okay, so align, educate, get to know your CFO, right? And just a little bit can go a really long way. Look, the last advice I give people is, know, the CMOs is your job isn't to keep up with marketing. Your job is to make marketing keep up with your business. Right?
Lee Roth (25:18)
Yeah. Hmm, that's a great, great pearl of wisdom.
Steve Olenski (25:42)
Your job, I'll repeat it, your job isn't to keep up with marketing. Your job is to keep marketing, have marketing keep up with your business.
Lee Roth (25:50)
Love that.
Steve Olenski (25:51)
Massive difference, right? Just a little play on words again. I must have had a lot of caffeine when I wrote these. Because maybe I'm putting on my own writing hat. I'm coming up with these gems. All humiliation.
Lee Roth (26:03)
We're going to create a pearls of wisdom list coming off this interview and we're going to get it out there because there's too many good pieces that you've said that have to be shared.
Steve Olenski (26:08)
I love that. I love that. But it yeah. And you know what's great about things like this, Lee, and you know this because you're a busy executive too is you ain't reading a 500 word thing. You ain't reading the 50 slide deck. If you, if I give you something and people like at our level, short snackable to go, Hmm, you got them.
Lee Roth (26:30)
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Steve Olenski (26:33)
You got him.
Lee Roth (26:34)
Okay, let's get positive for a moment. We're gonna talk about positive things here because we've been a little doom and gloom. So let's talk about what gets you excited about marketing right now. Like we talked about all the scary things, but what are you pumped about?
Steve Olenski (26:47)
Yeah. Yeah. I think the very first thing for that is many CMOS have told me this is they finally have, real data that connects marketing to revenue. And a big part, a big part of that is AI. I said I wouldn't use that term, but it is, but to tie that to marketing, I'll say campaign about a marketing endeavor or whatever to, to write to revenue or a lot closer than we ever could before.
Lee Roth (26:54)
Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Olenski (27:11)
Where you go, I put $5,000 in, I got $50,000 out. That's very exciting to a lot of CMOs that they can finally, finally, now again, they gotta have the right data, got the right CRM and all the backend stuff that is not, it's very important, it's extremely important. But all that being equal, CMOs have the wherewithal, put it that way, to finally go, I can tie, what I'm doing right to revenue.
Lee Roth (27:43)
It's amazing. Agree.
Steve Olenski (27:43)
Right. I think the second thing, CMOs that I've talked to are excited about is they are the best ones are literally breaking out of those channel silos. They're getting rid of the email team. getting rid of the social team. They're realizing that wait a minute, you know, just because we've always done it this way doesn't mean it's, you know, like, oh, yeah, right. And I think it was a classic case, Lee, of well, it wasn't really broken. So why did we need to fix it?
Lee Roth (27:53)
Yeah.
Steve Olenski (28:13)
We're hitting our numbers. Yeah, you're hitting numbers, but you realize you could be crushing your numbers.
Lee Roth (28:19)
It's true.
Steve Olenski (28:20)
Right? And I think another thing CMOs are excited about, to interrupt you, is I think the best ones are excited about their owning growth and not just messaging. Yes, they have to do messaging. Yes, they have to do advertising. Yes, they do the glamorous stuff as you and I know. So many people think, oh, you just go to events and you get your picture taken with celebrities and you're on set shooting commercials and it's all glamor. Okay, if you want to believe that.
Lee Roth (28:22)
Well. No, no.
Steve Olenski (28:50)
God bless you.
Lee Roth (28:50)
Sure. There's only so many peanut M&Ms we can eat, guys.
Steve Olenski (28:54)
Exactly, exactly. And I think the most exciting shift, these are not my words, someone said this to me, but that marketing is moving from storytelling to decision driving.
Lee Roth (29:07)
Hmm.
Steve Olenski (29:08)
Right now it doesn't, when the person said that to me, I went, that doesn't mean you're giving up storytelling. No, not necessarily because they shouldn't, but the decision driving. Right. And I said that again, those are not my words. I'm stealing that from someone else, but moving from, well, I don't care. The story, because we marketers kink, we should not give up storytelling. Storytelling should never, you know that, especially in AI.
Lee Roth (29:20)
That is awesome. I'm gonna steal from you, who you steal from somebody else. Yeah.
Steve Olenski (29:39)
But taking that storytelling to a decision-making or decision-driving mindset, right? Is a world of difference because to me storytelling alone still has that connotation of kind of up here in the clouds kind of, it's warm and fuzzy. Absolutely keep the warm and fuzzy, but how does that warm and fuzzy get to the register?
Lee Roth (29:55)
Yep. Yeah. 100%. Steve, I feel like you could write our pitch deck for us just based on your philosophy. Why didn't I think of this two and a half years ago?
Steve Olenski (30:14)
Right. Just give me some credit. That's all I want. Some, some residual. Give me residuals. It's fine.
Lee Roth (30:18)
There you go. We could work something out, it's no problem. All right, my last question for you, and this is something I ask every single person on Breaking the Mold is, if you could take on any issue in the world and use marketing to help solve it, what would be the issue and how would you use marketing to help solve it?
Steve Olenski (30:37)
I'd love, love, love this question. I wish I thought of it. I will not steal it for my show because this is yours. It's brilliant. It really is.
I didn't hesitate a second when I thought of this. And the issue I see that I want marketing to solve is the lack of economic mobility and opportunity access. So what I mean by that is marketing shapes perception, perception shapes opportunity, opportunity shapes outcomes. I would build a global campaign reframing skills as currency, not credentials. So what do I mean by that? Well, in one of my past lives, I did some work for a company called ETS, the Educational Testing Service. And one of the things I was working on there was something called durable skills. And these seven or eight, I forget the number, of these durable skills, creative problem solving, communications, things that are not being taught, quite honestly, in school right now, and use those as currency, right? And spotlight real stories of people who built their careers, myself included.
Lee Roth (31:21)
Okay. Yep. Mm-hmm. Not well.
Steve Olenski (31:47)
I'm a college dropout without traditional paths who use those skills that transcend any generation. But even more important now in the age of AI to have that ability to literally do what you and I are doing right now, which is having a human-to-human conversation, creative problem solving, all these durable, look it up, they're called durable skills. It's becoming, and rightfully so, more prevalent in our education system, and it needs to be.
Lee Roth (31:55)
Yeah.
Steve Olenski (32:15)
I would use marketing to help tell that story, right? That issue of we're so still engrossed in the, where did you go to school? What's your degree in? Not looking beneath the surface. Cause by the way, this is not just me saying this. There is research after research of Fortune 100 companies saying, Hey, Mr./ Mrs. College educator, you're graduates don't have the skills that we need. There is a dearth, there is a wide dearth of these skills that have to be taught. Yes, they still need to know X, Y, whatever industries are going into. But these durable skills are vastly, vastly needed. So I would use marketing to solve that issue, to help tell that story and raise the level of awareness of importance for those durable skills.
Lee Roth (32:43)
Yeah. You answer that question with another pearl of wisdom.
Mr. CMO Whisperer, this has been so much fun, such a pleasure. And I learned so much listening to you. So I appreciate you so much.
Steve Olenski (33:21)
My brother, right here, right here, I am in awe of you and what you and Pio have done. I'm so glad we met, and it was such an honor to be on your show.
Lee Roth (33:34)
Likewise. Thank you so much. Thanks again for being on.
Steve Olenski (33:39)
My pleasure.