Andrew Bolis brings 15 years of experience in advising Series A to E companies on how to get to growth. He has built and led global teams of up to 20 people across North America and Europe, and managed global expansions. Along the way, Andrew has gathered a wealth of knowledge and actionable insights on all things B2B marketing. He joins Markigy to unpack this all. Let’s get into it.
Being a stellar marketing leader is not just about external success, it’s about becoming a change agent within your organization.
Nobody knows this better than the guest of this episode, fractional CMO and seasoned marketing leader Andrew Bolis.
Andrew brings 15 years of experience in advising Series A to E companies on how to get to growth. He has built and led global teams of up to 20 people across North America and Europe, and managed global expansions.
Along the way, Andrew has gathered a wealth of knowledge and actionable insights on all things B2B marketing.
He joins Markigy to unpack this all. Let’s get into it.
So, you landed that new role. You’re joining the company, it’s day one. What do you do?
According to Andrew, two things: Ask the questions nobody else is and build rapport with people who matter.
Why? After the first 30 days, you’re expected to start delivering results, so use the first month to build relationships with the C-level and other key stakeholders across the organization.
Understanding the business, competitors, the organization, and the challenges is paramount. That allows you to see what others don’t, start suggesting changes that will lean on insights, and deliver results.
Andrew knows a thing or two about this and how it helps marketers jump off the hamster wheel of completing tasks to shift towards a more strategic way of working.
But that’s not all, Andrew also has a lot to say on the subject of soft skills in marketing. And what a fascinating take that is.
In this episode of Markigy, Andrew and Leanne dive deep into the following topics:
The actionable takeaways mentioned in this episode are:
To learn more subscribe to Markigy with Leanne Dow-Weimer.
This episode was produced and brought to you by Reignite Media.
Hello, good morning. This is Leanne with Markigy, the Science of Strategic Marketing Podcast, and today I'm joined by Andrew Bolis. He is a fractional CMO. He has experience in so many different, uh, types of tech industry, but I'll let you introduce yourself, Andrew, tell us more about you. Well, thank you for having me on the show.
Uh, I've been doing marketing for about 15 years. Most recently I was a CMO at a Series B tech startup. Uh, and in the last few months I've been doing consulting and I'm also a growth advisor where I work with different startups to help 'em through their growth, uh, challenges. Awesome. So, One of the things that, that you have a lot of, is a lot of experience as a marketing leader.
So it was something like 15 years. Yeah. So 15 years mostly at early stage and growth stage startups. Generally speaking, I was one of the first marketing hires at those companies, and then the company I've worked at the longest, I was there for four years and saw the marketing team.
I go from two people or so, up to about 45 people by the time I left. Okay. So that's, that's a lot of different varying, uh, experiences. Uh, before we, we started recording today, we talked a little bit about how to be a change agent in your marketing career and, and how that translates between different types of environments and people you're interacting with.
Um, you know, in what sense would you consider, um, How to be a change agent or what that even means?
I think that's a great question. So the change agent is something I initially came across cuz I saw it used as a way to describe great CMOs or marketing leaders. And then when I thought about like great managers I've had who were. Marketing leaders or even CEOs, I've noticed they were change agents. I describe it as being a force for good and oftentimes it means being an internal influencer within the company or Or the business that you're working in.
Yeah, absolutely. My experience is that marketing has different audiences and they are always external, and you know, our primary job is to communicate what's going on, but we also have to get that. Internal buy-in within our own organization. So what is some way that, you know, you can help to, I guess, be that person that influences internally to your company?
Sure. So there's different ways I can answer that. Let's start with you being, you know, hired as a new. A marketing person at that company, or even a marketing leader at that company. I think the first 30 days are essential cuz it's time where you can create close relationships, uh, with your peers and with whoever you're reporting into.
Let's say it's the ceo. Um, so that's the time where you're trying to get to know them, trying to get to know them as people understand, you know, what their personality's like. How long they've been there and just create a bit of a personal relationship because after 30 days, you're gonna be expected to, to deliver results.
Uh, and you're gonna be going to them often with more requests, asks, um, and expectations. Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think that this was something that when you work in different environments, you experience differently like that. That first 30 days can be wildly different on different sides of the spectrum.
As like a freelancer consultant, you're expected to have something accomplished by the end of the 30 days. But sometimes if you're in a larger corporate situation, the first 30 days, there's a lot of like twiddling your thumbs and fluff and it can take you almost like an entire year just to learn what your role actually is.
so in that sense, what are some ways that. Even across situations that you can be, that, that force for good in that initial period. And, and what are some things that you have done in your life or maybe you have a story that that kind of shows where that you've been able to do this. So in the first 30 days, I think the advantage is that you're the new person.
So you're coming in with a fresh set of eyes. So sometimes you can see biases and things that the people that have been there for a while just aren't noticing. Uh, and then two, you can ask what I would refer to as questions that might sound dumb. And because you're new, you get away with it, right? So you can start questioning things a lot more.
Um, and to be fair, I've mostly worked at growth stage and then a few late stage startups. So generally speaking, in the first 30 days, Maybe there is some training, but you just are supposed to hit the ground running for the most part. But I think, um, I think that's the advantage. So you can, even when you're asking questions, you could say, Hey, like, you know, I'm new here, so you know, this is just based on my observation or based on what I'm seeing so far.
And you just have a lot more, um, I would say like runway, um, to, to, to kind of question things early on. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, there's also the, the flip side to the coin is that you want to ask questions that help to establish like rapport and trust, but also you're new people don't know your resume.
They just know you're the new kid. In marketing, we're grown up by now, right? We're grownups. Um, but you're the new person in the department and they've never met you. They don't know your story. They don't know what you know. And they might be a little skeptical about you as a new hire, even if they are excited to meet you.
Um, and you know, could have you found that the types of questions that you ask or the way that you ask them, uh, maybe the way that you approach it has helped to build affinity internally.
Yeah, I think, and I think that's a great point you brought up the, your story, like people don't know your story, so I think that's actually. One place to start is you should be coming in with like a story that tells 'em who you are. Um, ideally it follows something like The Hero's Journey or just a mini version where it's a transformation.
Um, and, and I actually have a version of that. Like I have one generally for the marketing team where I'm gonna have like more time to introduce myself, but then I have one that I can just share over a call or an intro meeting or whatever it is. That's just very quick and short. But that's actually a great place to start.
Uh, and there, um, talking about my career, but I like to also include like fun facts, cuz often people will hold on to those and it comes back to building more of a, like a more of a personal relationship versus just a professional one. Yeah, absolutely. One way that I think about it is that like we have as marketers and salespeople, we have pitches for our organizations, right?
We all know what an elevator pitch is that like 62nd you've got from the first floor to the 10th floor to say what you've gotta say. And so. When we go through the interview process or when we're at networking events, like we already have kind of like our little spiel that we have about ourselves. Like I'm Leanne, I believe in customer centric marketing where we provide value instead of manipulating people, and we help in a consultative way to help people accomplish their goals for a mutual way.
Ta-da. You know a ton about how I approach things. And when I say to that, to new people, to people when I'm new in an organization, they, they, they begin to set a level expectation of what their future interactions are gonna be with me. Um, And so I, I would say that if you're fresh off interviewing you, you already have that, like you just went through this whole lengthy, exhausting process.
Do you repeat your, like, star like, situation, task aware, like analyze result? Do you share like that kind of spiel like when you're elevator pitch, when you're, when you're meeting the people or, or how, how do you kind of frame up like that hero's journey to be succinct?
I think that's a great question. So I like to mix both like personal aspects and professional aspects. Cuz I think if you just stick to the professional side, it's almost boring. It sounds like you're reading off your resume, which I'm trying to avoid. So I might even say things like, which, which is true in my case is that, hey, I was born in Egypt.
I moved to America when I was 12, I was a tech. Enthusiast. And then I came across marketing in my early twenties and I was fascinated, and that's how I ended up in marketing. So even something like that, I think it, um, lets 'em know a little bit more about me, um, makes me more memorable, and it also encourages them to open up and share those kinds of, um, kind of interesting tidbits with me that are not necessarily on their resume.
Yeah, absolutely. Um, so now, As far as how that impacts being a change agent or getting people's buy-in to support the decisions or your proposals or your projects that you're suggesting, how do you see that playing out? Sure. So initially it's being relatable and once you're relatable, people are more open, uh, to listening to you and I, and I think that's where you.
Should be asking a lot of questions. You start digging into conventional ways of doing things, which a lot of companies have these, just that they don't realize it cuz they've just done it that way for so long. Um, I like to bring in energy and ideas cuz that gets people excited when they're in a meeting with you or when they're working with you.
So those are kind of the, the types of things I, I like to kind of bring in and that's kind of what I, what I've seen work as, you know, if you're trying to sort of create change. Yeah, definitely. what's, what's one change that you've been able to, could you tell me a story about a change that you've been able to get done, like through using these methods?
So let me, um, there's kind of a couple different ways I can take this. So, so one of the things, uh, I, I've, I notice a lot this with clients right now. A lot of them, they come to me and they're like, our paid media strategy isn't working. When I look into it, I often find that they just don't really have the proper mar marketing fundamentals.
The way they talk about their product isn't good. Uh, and usually their content isn't that good and they've, they're thinking that ads or whatever paid media will make up for that. Unfortunately, it doesn't. Um, so one of the things I like to do is I, I start with like examples of like, here's company so-and-so, and they're generating a lot of their, let's say, leads from organic marketing.
Um, or, you know, I've done this in the past, here's the results I've seen. So I, I like to kind of bring in kind of proof points, case studies, that kind of stuff, just to get him thinking wider, uh, about things. Um, And, and if I'm being kind of honest with you, I think being a change agent is not often about like one thing.
It's just about you just influencing and, and, and sometimes even creating the narrative to start with. you know, there's, I guess, Creating the narrative to start with is, is, is definitely very important. so there's, there's, there's two ways, right? There's the top up and there's the bottom down.
And so usually as marketers where we're always gonna be somewhere in the middle, if we were the investors, we would be in the investor role, not the marketer role. Right. Usually your investors aren't, your VCs aren't the ones that are turning on LinkedIn ads, right? They're, they're separated into their, their position within the framework of the organization.
So with our role as marketers, Creating that narrative, do you feel like it's a higher priority to create that narrative and get the buy-in from the, you know, the upward or the downward or how, how do you approach this? Like, specifically like, like give, give me like a, an example of a time that you did this.
Sure. So, so let me just start by saying, like, as a marketer, and you're right, you're kind of in the middle of everything. So you're either gonna be reactive or proactive. Uh, initially, like you're probably gonna be reactive cuz you're just learning everything and figuring out what's going on in this company.
But at some point you're gonna have a sense of the business. You'll start understanding your industry and you'll know what's going on. Uh, that's the point where you can become more proactive. Uh, and that's where you start thinking kind of a couple steps ahead, right? So instead of thinking, Hey, how do I meet the goals for this quarter or this month, or whatever it is, it's almost like, how can I think a couple of quarters ahead?
Um, and, and when you have that, you can start like injecting ideas, both, you know, within the marketing team, but even upwards to the CEO or to other leadership. Um, and, and you can just do it like a lot more naturally? I would say so. So one of the things, one of the things, for example, I noticed, like in my last, when I was a, a cmo, I came in and they were doing all these industry specific campaigns, but the entire marketing team was small.
They were strapped for resources, and the kind of number of leads, demo requests was pretty low. So I shifted them from doing these industry specific campaigns to, um, I guess industry agnostic campaigns, but I did it in the way where we still hit all the different industries, but we just did it once per month.
A again, just without going into the details of that, I couldn't do that right away. But once I kind of saw what was going on, um, that was sort of an easy shift to make, and I explained both to the marketing team and to the CEO why we're making that change. Okay. So, so the narrative that you had created, Was that we were re wasting resources by being too granular.
And instead of being this granular, your narrative is that we need to focus on a different priority. And our priority, instead of being on the hamster wheel of creating things, we need to be on this other focus over here, which is getting to get those qualified leads. And right now it's not working to do both.
So the narrative was that we're all gonna be more efficient, we're gonna get more revenue, we're going to accomplish the tasks that we're setting out to accomplish, and this is how we're gonna do it. Yeah, exactly. And it's also this idea that, hey, we can do a lot of things, but we're gonna do them poorly, or we can do a few things very well.
Yeah, definitely. I, I think that we all have felt that way where we're just trying to do so many things that, you know, it, there's a, there's a big space between, you know, progress over perfection. But if you do a shitty job, You're just doing a shitty job, and it's really hard to turn that into something that a, a client, you know, whether they're B2B or b2c, or anybody feels like they have that buy-in to make a decision that is in your favor if you're doing, oh, diluted weekend, poor job.
Um, That being said, I'm always surprised by poor marketing that works. Uh, and, and I don't mean dollar signs poor, I just mean poor quality. Um, so sometimes, you know, there's, there's always the double-edged to everything, the two sides of the same coin. Uh, when you were getting that narrative of, you know, we need to do fewer things better.
Um, and we need to focus on getting the leads instead of doing all the activities. Um, did you feel like the executives were like, yeah, that's great, or do you feel like they were like stuck on the, well, we need, we need this industry and we need this industry. We need this industry. Do you what, how did that feel in that situation?
Sure. So initially there was pushback and the pushback was different. So the head of sales, for example, Didn't buy into that idea right away because his thinking was, Hey, my, you know, the sales team just needs a lot of content. They need industry specific content. But then when I started looking into what the sales team was doing, they were not even using the industry specific content.
In fact, there was just so many things they could use. They weren't really using any of it. Right. So when I, so, so with him, for example, that's the. What I brought up, uh, what I then mentioned to the CEO and other people was different, but I kind of approached them from their perspective to make it a win-win.
I really like that because that reminds me of like the way that, you know, we do prices pricing externally, right? We don't have like when, when there's so many options that it needs to be customized. You say, let's come up with a customized one. You don't list every single positive like possible. In our iteration, you come up with the basic view.
And you give them choices between those basic few. And then if they need something ad hoc or customized, then you give them something customized. And so that works, you know, on your pricing page, but also in the assets that you give the sales department, you give them. There are ones that they're gonna need that answer 90% of the things that they're gonna come across.
And then if there's a special situation, like maybe there's an extremely large enterprise, that your company would just be like made for like three years of cash runway. If they got this contract, then you can make something special for it. E, exactly. And, and sometimes too, like you can even use examples.
Kind of, uh, outside of the business altogether. So a good example is like how Apple only creates very few products and starting out they became really good at one or two products and then they expanded their product line. Um, and that's one of those examples that no one will argue with and, and they get it right.
So they could always sort of go even outside the business to, to convince people. Yeah, definitely. So, um, when. When you were having that pushback and you did the research, do you feel like being able to give objective facts one over wins people over more so than, um, you know, the, the soft skills or a blend of both?
Or how do you see that playing out? I feel like it's always a blend of both. So you can come in with objective facts, like you can say, Hey, I've looked at the revenue. Most of it comes from these two industries, so we're just gonna focus on these instead of the eight in total or whatever was focused on before.
The problem with being too factual is that you just start coming off as like the know-it-all and you annoy people, and then sometimes people's egos get in the way. So you always too wanna do it in a way where you're. Still helping them or appears like you're still gonna help them and kind of find that that place where it's like I mentioned, it's a win-win for them.
So that's why like, I like facts, but I've found too that just being too factual just makes, makes you annoying. Yeah. And I mean, it's that internal sales process where if you just came at, like, let's say you were doing a demo and you were trying to be like an SDR or you know, like you're in a AA and you're in a sales role and you were, and they were doing a demo and all they did was list like fact, fact, fact, fact.
How effective would that be? We're marketers. We know it doesn't work like that. We know that buying committees sometimes make irrational choices. I. We know that they care about how they feel about their choice more than they care about whether or not it was the actual right choice, um, with, you know, a leash, right?
Like, I'm not saying that people just make dumb choices, but there's plenty of dumb choices that people make every day and they rationalize it after the fact. So I agree that your as assertion that they care about how they feel about it is, is important too. Um, so when you're, when you're presenting these ideas, you're saying that you, you should be like kind and you should be respectful.
What are some, do you have any like techniques or things that you like, keep in mind when you're doing that? So, um, this comes back to that first 30 days, if you've used that to build, or, you know, first 30 days, first 60 days, if you've used that to build a good relationship with the people who are key people. So if you're head of marketing, that's gonna be the head of sales, the ceo, and maybe the chief product officer.
Then it makes it so that even when you're coming to them with new ideas, they're, they're gonna be more open, uh, to those ideas. Um, and then the other part of that is, I would say, Like, the more relatable you are, the more open people are to, to your ideas. So I, I like to myself, like I'm comfortable admitting what I'm wrong.
I'm comfortable, like if someone disagrees and has a good reason, even in that meeting, I'll start questioning my own idea. And I think all of that makes it that they feel like you're a real. Person, not just some kind of machine or not some, someone who's kind of there to threaten their own position, um, or whatever they're, they're working on.
Yeah, definitely having that humility to take aggressive ownership of your mistakes builds trust so that people know that what you're saying to them, that you believe. And that is probably right because you're willing to admit when you're wrong. And that makes them feel that that enables them to have that psychological safety of saying, of disagreeing respectfully.
And then you can have a dialogue about things. But I think that, you know, taking ownership of when you're wrong or when you're at fault or when you have a shortcoming are not signs of weakness, but signs of strength and credibility. E. Exactly. It's also a sign that you're just more experienced and more of like what I call a complete human being.
As in you've been right, you've been wrong in the past, and you understand that also things change. So how you view things now might change in a year or two. Yeah, you've gotta drop the ego for sure. Um, I think that that coming at being a change agent, you know, trying to be like the superhero of the situation, imagine yourself as like, I'm here to save you from all of your bad choices.
That's gonna piss off a lot of people and make you almost no friends. Um, maybe one, but they're gonna have to like defend you behind your back a lot. And that's not cool to do to that. now we've talked a lot about how taking. External marketing type and sales types of things, and turning it internally to be a, a change agent might work in different situations.
How does that help your career, would you say? How has that helped your, specifically your Andrew's career? Sure. So it creates a lot of career progression opportunities because I. If you're making an impact, you're making things happen. Um, so whether it's at that company or later on, you just start finding it easier to get promoted.
Um, take on more senior roles. Uh, and then I think the other part of it too is you start making an actual positive impact in other people's careers. Cuz if you're changing things for good, the company does better. People are more successful in their career and they remember you and how you help them, or how you influence even some of these decisions, even if you're doing it behind the scenes.
So as you, your career progresses, you know, have a lot of people you've worked with in the past who might wanna work with you again or just sort of like you and are, uh, rooting for you. Yeah, I would say that, the being kind and friendly. Is the most underrated career skill to have. Um, I think that should be everyone's goal because people will remember.
I love, you know, totally cliche girl like glitter saying is people remember how you make them feel, but they do, you know, they, they, they, they remember if you make them feel important or heard. Yeah. And, and some of actually the best change agents, I. They help others kind of come across as. The whatever, like leader or is the person who had that idea.
So I've seen even, you know, some of the best marketing leaders just one-on-one influence the sales process with sales leadership where it looks like sales leadership are making that change In reality, it was an idea from the marketing leader, but they did it in a way where the head of sales still came out as the person who.
Came up with this idea, leading that change and you know, when it works out, everybody wins. They love you for influencing that change. They, uh, remember that and then, um, you kind of have a lot more favor with 'em going forward. Absolutely. So, you know, I don't really see that much risk with being kind because I like to think that.
We're all resilient, but, you know, what is the biggest risk with, you know, being a change agent or, or trying to have that internal influence? What are some things that, that might go wrong and, and maybe what's like one or two ways to kind of like prevent or avoid that? So I, I think where it goes wrong and, and it does come back to being kind, it's, it's always a balancing act.
So for example, like, You have to balance being kind with being with, with candor or being transparent and also calling things out when they're going wrong. Or let's say someone isn't doing their job. Cuz otherwise, like if you're just kind all the time and the business isn't performing well, you know, every, you're putting everybody at risk of losing their job as well.
So, so I think that's a, a lot of it is a, is a balancing act. So, You know, the other side of it too is you wanna have a lot of ideas. You want to be thinking about the business, but you also want to partner with people versus coming across like you're a difficult person to work with, where they're dreading ever being in a meeting or a call with you, cuz they know it's just gonna be an unpleasant experience.
So, so I think that's the part of it. And a lot of that just comes from experience. Uh, but, but it's always, you're always balancing, um, the two sides of it. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think it, it, it all depends on your personal, just like a brand's positioning depend, like impacts how, who and what and where that their, you know, their.
Receptionist and their affinity, your, your personal stuff, you know, also impacts where you should be kind and where you should be assertive and where you should, you know, maybe not be as kind, but be cordial and, and the different levels of, of it, right? Because, you know, uh, I could see how like, for example, your physical presence in an in-person setting can greatly impact this if you are.
Like six, seven, and you're built like a linebacker. Even if you're being kind, if your volume is too high, you can scare people and they will be fit, like they'll be scared of you. There's just certain things that you should do with your. Position in your body and who you are that maybe you shouldn't do.
Um, whereas maybe someone like me who's like five foot two and I'm a woman, if I, if my volume is a little bit higher, maybe it's just. Because it's hard to hear me down here and, and, and so different things like that where you can still be kind, but you want to take into consideration your own personal strengths and weaknesses and privileges or lack thereof, um, and be.
Assertive but not aggressive. E Exactly. Um, and that, that's a great way to put it. Cause sometimes it's, it's a fine line. And also I would say, be willing to admit when you were wrong. So if you were sort of too aggressive or a conversation went wrong, just kind of don't be scared to then send a note apologizing or set up a follow-up call.
I, I think that's a lot of it too, is just like, you wanna be like a, like a human. Just because you're in a leadership position, it doesn't mean that you're always right or you can't admit mistakes. In fact, the more you admit mistakes, the more people trust you, the more they relate to you, and the more they're the listen to your future suggestions, right?
And, and sometimes it's just not about you. That's another place where this could go wrong is that you could do everything right. So, Someone who's not receptive to it, could just not be receptive. They, they could just be a jerk. Jerks happen. Sometimes it does, sometimes it's someone else. And, and we have to try to filter out when and where it's, it's our responsibility to act differently or apologize or, um, you know, influence things differently.
Um, So in that sense, you know, as, as marketers, marketing internally and externally to the business, um, does, does personal branding have an impact, would you say, on how your perceived externally and internally? Internally? I think it does, because I think if you have. An external personal brand, even your coworkers start seeing that and then they look at you as credible to start with because other people outside of that company look at you as credible.
Yeah. And And we're seeing a rise of people being hired because of their personal branding. E Exactly. And it's also a great way to future proof your career because. When there's a down economy or something goes wrong, there's always gonna be a lot of other people who could do your job or, you know, other options.
Having a personal brand just makes you stand out and, um, you know, sort of gives you a leg up on the competition. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so in that sense, there's not really a wrong time. A wrong fit to having a personal brand or, or working on influencing things internally or externally. Uh, now as far as, you know, future proofing, what are some ways that, off the top of your head, that you can think of where being a change agent might help impact, like, future roles or, or different things going forward?
Sure. So, so let's start with the first part. So if you're branding yourself as a leader, I think ideally you're sharing, I would say new ideas, but sometimes there aren't new ideas. So it's always good to like disagree with common wisdom. Um, also share like when common wisdom goes wrong or when you wouldn't do certain things.
Um, and then actually lemme just stop there. So, so I think, I think that's something that I see a lot. I see often go wrong with marketers. Like marketers are just sometimes more agreeable in, in in nature. But also if you're very agreeable, like it's kind of hard to be in a leadership position cuz a lot of effective leadership, at least half of it is disagreeing.
Um, and to, you know, to make a change. So, so I, I think starting there, so I think like if you build your personal brand in a way where you're not afraid to disagree or you're not afraid to sort of push back or question things, I think then, um, that, that helps you get positions, um, more leadership positions.
Yeah, definitely. Thank you for try pulling strings out of what I was trying to say now. I think the leadership positions are gonna change a lot in the future of marketing. I think that there's gonna be a lot that, that having these soft skills that we're talking about now is going to be the differentiator, um, as per professionals is having that competency.
Um, because of like the future of where marketing is going now, where do you think that the future of marketing is headed? Uh, sure. So I'm seeing two things happening. I'm seeing, uh, A lot of AI and AI automating things. Um, and then I'm seeing a lot of focus on community right now, and I think both of them play to each other because AI automates a lot of things.
There's gonna be a lack of trust, which is, you know, sort of seeing that right now. So when there's a lack of trust, people then go to the people they know for recommendations for questions, and that's where communities kind of come in. So I think both of those are, are important, um, and I think they're gonna balance each other out.
Yeah, I mean, I would say that people have always just kind of asked their buddy what, what they think or, you know, like, Hey, have you done this? You know. But, um, you know, I think that AI is, is definitely going to be part of it. It, there's, it's inevitable. It's gotta be part of the future. There's just, at this point, there's so much out there that it's, you can't put, put it back in the box.
It's just gonna get better. It's gonna be more intrinsic to our lives. I don't think people realize how much of it is already, you know, out there. Like, like it, there's already a part of our daily life and we just don't realize it. Um, you know, for example, people don't realize, or maybe they do and they just don't care.
You know? I, I think that's the other part is people don't care cause it makes the way that it's being used makes them happy. Go to Netflix. There's an algorithm that's telling you what you might like, what you've watched, you know, like there's an algorithm there. That's, and that's part of it, is that, you know, Amazon, you know, you, you, your past purchases, like there's an algorithm there and that, you know, it's just going to, it's already so much of our daily lives.
It is just gonna be bigger and bigger and bigger and, um, and it's not going away. Yeah, and I think those cases are where companies using it for good in that, you know, Netflix is looking at what you've watched before, your preferences and recommending usually good recommendations. Um, I think there's gonna be obviously cases where companies somehow use it to game the system or, you know, do things that are not very reputable.
And, and I think that's where. You know, that community aspect is gonna even be more important. Like, what are, you know, your friends, colleagues, people you trust, uh, think versus what's, what's AI recommending? Yeah, definitely. And I think that like, face-to-face, like human part is, is gonna matter a lot because, you know, we're, we're already skeptical about online reviews.
We already know that. Like, that could be scammed. Um, so. And so having that, like, I know this is a person I've talked to, this person, this person is not a deep fake. You know, like that kind of, uh, relatability and, and experience is really gonna matter a lot. Um, now, As far as what we, we've talked about so far, is there questions that people should be asking that they're just not asking and you wish they would?
I think a great question is how do you build a personal brand and, and kind of how to start. I, I, I think a lot of marketers don't really ask that until later on in their career, and obviously you can always build a personal brand then, but. What's really cool I, that I see now is there's people, like very early on in their careers, they start building a personal brand and that progresses their career versus doing it the other way where you wait until you're in a senior position and then start, you know, trying to get like more appearances, uh, do more media and appear in more places online.
Yeah. Um, when I was, when I was ghost writing for people for LinkedIn, I had a lot of CEOs be like, can you make me Twitter famous? Can you get me like a million followers? It's like, dude, you're a CEO already. Like you're, you got this far without doing it. Like, I can, I can for sure provide you services to write content for that, but like, you know this, what, what happened in the past 10, 15, 20, you know, et cetera, years.
We're not gonna make anyone seem. Too advanced. But, um, you know, I think that that's one of the skills that the upcoming generations are gonna have. The, the ones that grew up with, you know, Instagram and TikTok, they're gonna be like, they, they, their friends are influencers and making millions of dollars like they are already know that, what it's like to create that content, what it's like to brand themselves.
Like they're, they're just more savvy as far as online presence. Yeah, I, I agree. And, and in many ways I think I. It's gonna be, be easier for them to become like even mini creators and, you know, create content on their own. Definitely. So, um, so takeaways are that if someone is thinking about how they can become a better internal influencer and how they can use their, their.
Roles and, and be a change agent. And how that can impact their career is that they should come prepared with ways, you know, things to talk about that, you know, introduce themselves in an intentional way. They should remember to be assertive, but cordial and, and kind and, and build that, that friendship so that they can be, um, taken seriously when they do need to be.
Um, So if they need like coaching on that, there's plenty of books that could be read. Have you ever read any books about any of this, by the way? Do you read? Uh, I'm, I'm a fan of, uh, I think it's Robert, uh, Cialdini's, uh, influence where he, uh, breaks down like a few different, uh, ways to like build influence.
And then I think he's got another book called Persuasion. Mm-hmm. Uh, which is kind of a follow up to that book. So a lot of people have read Influence, they haven't read Persuasion and Persuasion is also a great one. Awesome. Yeah, I think that those are two really good ones. Um, there's, there's a couple that like, kind of, that I casually mentioned.
One was like about aggressive ownership, and that's by, that's stolen from the seals, that's stolen from the military. But it's so true because you know where you need the most trust is your team. In the military, it is life or death. Um, and then, um, There's another book that I read, um, was about how to have difficult conversations, and that's, that's the title of the book.
And I think that that's a skill that if you wanna be a change agent or you wanna have internal influence, having the the hard conversations the right way is super important. Um, is there any other resources, um, or, you know, what are some things that people, if they, if they wanted to learn more and they wanted to reach out to you, what, what kinds of things would you be able to, to provide them guidance or where would they get contact with you at that type of thing?
Uh, sure. So I regularly post on LinkedIn. I think that's a. Best place to connect with me, uh, in my posts. I cover both marketing. I talk sometimes about leadership, uh, and, and I also like from time to time to share different career stories cuz I think those, uh, get like usually a stronger reaction than even when I share like marketing advice and things like that.
Cuz I think there's a lot of people or marketing leaders out there who just don't like to talk about like, diff difficult moments of their careers or just difficult, difficult situations and, and, and lessons learned. Awesome. So if you're going through a time where you're like, Hey, I'm not exactly sure how to be a change agent, or I'm not exactly sure about this marketing question, you know, definitely hit up Andrew on LinkedIn.
Um, Andrew, could you spell your first and last name, just so people, when they're looking for you, if they're not watching this, if they're just listening to it on Apple or Spotify, how, where would they find you on LinkedIn? How would they type it out? Uh, sure. It's Andrew, uh, Bolis. Uh, so Andrew is a n d r e w.
Uh, Bolis is b o l i s. Uh, and you can find me on LinkedIn. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me, and thank you everyone for listening.