Robert Rose [00:00:00]:
What you’re getting at is, is that for years we have over indexed on performance marketing and that has transformed most marketing teams into sort of video game hackers. Right? You know, where we are pushing buttons and configuring software, configuring technology, and basically day trading to the extent that we can make numbers go up and up and up and up, right? So when I was the CMO of a startup about this guy named Dan, who was one of our biggest fans of our enterprise software, never became a customer, but attended all of our webinars, came to our events, talked to us, and when I finally asked him like years into this relationship, like, why don’t you ever buy something? And he said, well, because I can never afford you. I don’t work for a company that can afford your software. He said, but I love what you guys do so much. I’ve referred you. And he’d referred us like, you know, a million dollars worth of business, but never once entered the funnel and was never once valued as a marketing asset. There is so much value that we create as marketers that will never end up on the bottom of the spreadsheet.

A. Lee Judge [00:01:07]:
Welcome again to the business of marketing. I’m a Lee Judge.

Rocio Osuna [00:01:11]:
And I’m Rocio Osuna.

A. Lee Judge [00:01:13]:
And today we have a content marketing legend as a guest. You’ve either heard his, read his content or seen him on stage or, or listen to his podcast and we’ll talk with him coming up later on the show. Also, we’re going to get into the sticky subject of how difficult it is to measure marketing today and we’ll provide some solutions along with that. But first we’re going to tackle the issue of marketers struggling with quality versus quantity. So Rocio, what do you think is more important in content marketing, quality or quantity?

Rocio Osuna [00:01:45]:
Quality.

A. Lee Judge [00:01:47]:
I think that’s going to be the most popular answer. And we often see headlines that say things like, you don’t need more content, you need better content. But what you’ll notice is that most of the time those comments come from the artisans of the content who are more focused on being creative than being effective because they can’t create quantity. They suggest that companies over index on quality. But in a world where you have SEO and AIO and word of mouth marketing, I don’t think low volume simply just doesn’t work. You have to have both because the problem is quality is absolutely what you need. However, most companies don’t create enough quantity to move the needle in the first place, no matter how quality their content is. And so there’s a phrase that I always that I’ve adopted from our guest today, actually that he often says the phrase those two things can be true at once.

A. Lee Judge [00:02:39]:
And in this context, I think quality and quantity can both be accomplished, especially with the AI tools we have today. What do I mean by that? I mean that from a business standpoint, you have to take two steps. The first step is to recognize the quantity of content you’ll need to make to move the needle. Then that needle could be like visibility to your audience, sufficient content for your content calendar, showing up enough and in enough places to get the attention for AI search results to actually show you. That’s the quantity part. And the second thing is you must address at the same time is creating quality content to match that quantity. And the note is increasing your quantity does not mean decreasing your quality. That’s the myth that we’ve been sold.

A. Lee Judge [00:03:28]:
So when we start with human input and then use AI as a productivity tool and then end with human review, we’re able to achieve quality and quantity at the same time. So I know Rocio, I’ve been going on and on about this, but I’ll end by saying this. So one, before you listen to someone that says you don’t need more content, first think about if you have enough content in the first place, have you reached the bar at which you can afford to not create more content, otherwise you still need more content. And secondly, don’t believe that more quantity means less quality. You can actually have both. What do you think about all that? Rocio?

Rocio Osuna [00:04:09]:
So that was a lot. But I love that perspective. Lee, you know, the idea that quality and quantity aren’t at odds is so important right now, especially because the stakes for showing up have changed recently. Data actually shows that LinkedIn is now the number one most cited domain for professional queries in AI search. So to your point, if you aren’t producing the volume, you simply won’t exist in the LLM answers your buyers are getting. But to ensure that visibility actually matters. It reminds me of a philosophy from Heike Young, who is a former head of Microsoft. When she started that position, she told the team, my goal is not to create high performing content, social or campaigns, but to change minds and for our revenue to grow when we do.

Rocio Osuna [00:04:55]:
Essentially, she was arguing we shouldn’t just chase viral one off metrics, we need to aim for the right buyer and aim to change what they think of the brand. So she cited things like Dreamforce as a major revenue driver where that high quality long term storytelling finally pays off. It’s the perfect middle ground. Lee, you’re talking about the engine, the quantity needed for AI visibility. And Heike is talking about the fuel, the narrative quality that actually changes a buyer’s mind.

A. Lee Judge [00:05:26]:
Well, you know, I want to add one more thing to what you said about Heike, because Heike does have the quantity. I mean, we’re going to have her on the show coming up soon, I think, and we know her because of her quantity and she has the quality, but we only know about her because her quality was enough of quality quantity that we know about her. So, you know, don’t underestimate those people who, you know, if you know them for their quality, you know them because they did it enough for you to know them for their quality. So on that note, our guest today has both of those things. A lot of quality and a lot of quantity. He serves as a chief strategy advisor for the Content Marketing Institute. He established the consultancy 7th Bear to guide global enterprises. He’s the author of five books that’s a quantity right there.

A. Lee Judge [00:06:15]:
That are also quality. And. And he has over two decades of expertise collaborating with marketing pioneers at brands like Salesforce, Roche and Adidas. So welcome to the show, Robert Rose. Robert, good to see you again. So I want to get straight into some questions here. And, you know, the marketing world has been kind of crazy, upside down, as is the rest of the world, and. Wait, what?

Robert Rose [00:06:38]:
I haven’t. I have not. I have not. I.

A. Lee Judge [00:06:41]:
You haven’t perceived it.

Robert Rose [00:06:42]:
This is breaking news to me. What do you think? Everything’s going so slowly and so. So, you know. Yeah, we’re moving at really a slow pace right now.

A. Lee Judge [00:06:51]:
Well, there’s something I want to ask you about because that I don’t think marketers are talking about. We don’t want to talk about it. And I’m forming a viewpoint that’s going to be pretty controversial and I want to get your take on it.

Robert Rose [00:07:04]:
Okay, I like it already.

A. Lee Judge [00:07:06]:
Yeah, Here we go. I think it’s time for us to pause measurement for marketers. And I know that’s a controversial and problematic statement because if you’re an employee marketer, you. You have to report on something, just justify your existence. And if you sell software, then of course you’re going to tell the world that you have a measurement solution and so you’re going to create tons of content about how well your solution measures marketing efforts. But I still stand by the idea that for a period, we need to do more work and less measurement. So what say you, Robert Rose?

Robert Rose [00:07:42]:
I. I like it. I think you’re likely to get a lot of pushback on that. So, I mean, and that’s probably your designed intention anyway. So, you know, look, I think what you’re getting at is that for years we have over indexed on performance marketing and that has transformed most marketing teams into sort of video game hackers, right? You know, where we are pushing buttons and configuring software, configuring technology and basically day trading to the extent that we can make numbers go up and up and up and up, right. So, and so we have really over indexed on this whole idea of performance marketing to the point where we don’t really focus things on the softer things, trust and engagement and those kinds of things that are historically much harder to sort of attribute to revenue. So I love the idea, if only as a emotional and psychological test to see can you even do it.

Rocio Osuna [00:08:44]:
I think another part that I always think of is the lurkers, right? You can’t really measure the lurker. So if you launch a campaign, when I’ve seen there’s people out there, you know, engaging with your content, but you can’t really see that on the likes, the, you know, the comments. And then, for example, my example, I recorded a video and I saw someone at a conference and they were talking about my video. Never did they see, did they like engage in the actual post itself. So it’s always those lurking, you know, engagement measures that we can’t really measure. It’s only when they actually come up and either DM you or meet you in real life that you actually know that they touched your content piece.

Robert Rose [00:09:22]:
It’s, it’s a great point. I mean, because, I mean, I talk a little bit about this when I talk a lot about audience development, right? Because when you talk to the CFO or some CMOs and you talk about, you know, the audience that you’re developing that is out there talking about your brand or referring your brand, you know, it’s very hard to quantify that into a dollar amount, right. You know, so it’s like even active pipeline, right? You know, so, so if you say, hey, what’s the progress of marketing over the last quarter? And you say, well, we have, you know, a lot higher active pipeline now or we have a lot more, you know, users coming with intent to buy until there is a transaction of some kind. The CFO only sees those as cost, right? They, they, they are only, you know, they are the cost of that engagement. They are the cost of the reach and frequency of the marketing itself. And so all of that is a cost. And on the, you know, on the spreadsheet until they actually transact as a customer. What it doesn’t capture is exactly that.

Robert Rose [00:10:19]:
You know, I used to talk about this story all the time at when I was the CMO of a startup about this guy named Dan who was one of our biggest fans of our enterprise software. Never became a customer, but attended all of our webinars, came to our events, talked to us. And when I finally asked him, like years into this relationship, like, why don’t you ever buy something? And he said, well, because I can never afford you. I don’t work for a company that can afford your software. He said, but I love what you guys do so much. I’ve referred you. And he’d referred us like you know, a million dollars worth of business, but never once entered the funnel and was never once valued as a marketing asset. Right.

Robert Rose [00:10:59]:
And so Rocio, just to your point, right, is there is so much value that we create as marketers that will never end up on the bottom of the spreadsheet.

Rocio Osuna [00:11:08]:
That’s true.

A. Lee Judge [00:11:08]:
And I think it’s the pain’s on both sides. I mean I had a career as the person counting clicks and views and stuff. I mean I was a Marketo admin, a pardot admin, a HubSpot admin. I’ve done it all. That was my job, was to do that. So now I look back on all that and I’d like to think nobody’s doing that stuff anymore. But of course there are people still doing that. The company still exists.

A. Lee Judge [00:11:33]:
There are people still doing that.

Robert Rose [00:11:34]:
Maybe all they’re doing.

A. Lee Judge [00:11:36]:
Yeah, yeah. And the funny thing is, on the one hand I’ve like the story you just told about dan. I consumed HubSpot content for probably a good six or seven years before my own company bought HubSpot. Because the companies I was working for, we either had Pardot or Marketo. It just wasn’t the time to buy HubSpot. And then for a while I couldn’t afford it and then I finally bought it myself. But you know, the thing is, for what they measured, they probably measured it alongside sales metrics, in other words, quarters and years. None of my information would have shown up in those quarters because it’s years, right? So they wouldn’t say, oh well, wow, we got a click and a view from a blog post six years ago and now they sold that wouldn’t have even counted.

A. Lee Judge [00:12:23]:
So for all the journey I gave them, for all the data I gave them, none of that actually mattered when I finally bought and I was at a different company, different place. It would not have tracked. On the other side of that is most of what people do buy, you can’t track. And if those two things are true, what the hell are we doing?

Robert Rose [00:12:45]:
Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, well, there are. Look, this is what I wrote in my book, you know, now five years ago, when it comes to creating a measurement framework, you know, a. Marketers have always sucked at measurement, right? We’ve always, We’ve always not been able to do it. You know, going back 100 years, we’ve. It’s. There was never an era of marketing where it was like, we have nailed this, right? We know exactly. Going all the way back to half my budget is wasted, that I don’t know which half to today, when you sort of can’t even pin down which attributes multi, touch, attribution, all the sort of mythology around that.

Robert Rose [00:13:26]:
And the key is the numbers are much less important than the direction. Right? In other words, if we get it directionally right, if we start to understand the atmosphere that we’re creating, that’s as pretty much as good as it’s ever going to get. And that’s sort of just acknowledging that it’s as half art and half science here in terms of the actual numbers. You know, television ratings are the perfect examples. The example I use in my book, which is television ratings have always been an awful, awful, awful, inaccurate way of looking at the measurement of television, right? And the measurement of how many people are actually watching, literally it is based on you voluntarily writing into a diary that you watch something. And all that meant was that the television was on. It didn’t count for the fact that you got up and made a cheeseburger during the show or whatever. It was all that count.

Robert Rose [00:14:18]:
So it wasn’t that you actually saw the show and were impressed by the ads, et cetera, et cetera. It was just that the television was on in your house at that particular time. And yet we’ve put billions of dollars of an industry on the back of those numbers. And that’s the key with any marketing measurement, is that it’s as much qualitative as it is quantitative. So if we’re creating an atmosphere where we’re generally creating trust, generally creating reach, generally creating value in a marketplace, we’re doing pretty good. Whether that number is 6 or 8 or 12.2 doesn’t really matter that much.

Rocio Osuna [00:14:53]:
And this brings me up to, you know, when I started in marketing, measurement was a huge thing to learn. Right. In your first position Brings me to my first question, which is I had a conversation with someone at an AMA event about how recent grads are going to see the worst of the job market right now because entry level jobs are being taken over by AI, right? You talked about this recently. For graduate trying to break in. Is the traditional resume officially dead? What does proof of work portfolio or potential solutions look like in 2020, 2026 for someone who hasn’t had their first corporate job yet?

Robert Rose [00:15:29]:
We just, we just talked about this and in fact I ran a whole series on this because we just fit at Content Marketing Institute. We just finished our research on the 2026 career pathing and what’s going on in the world of marketing and content and the recommendation there in terms of that lower. First of all, the finding found that AI isn’t the lower rung, just to your point, is getting cut off. But those tasks are not going to AI right now. Those tasks are getting subsumed upwards, right? You know, as, as I said, you know, when I was a kid, you know, shit ran downhill, right? You know, all of the lower rung positions got all the shit that ran downhill. That’s where the phrase actually comes from. Well, congratulations, in 2026 with AI, we’ve actually made shit run uphill, right? We basically made it. We made all those tasks go up to the bosses and the directors and the marketing managers who now have to do all those things that the junior level folks are doing.

Robert Rose [00:16:27]:
To answer your question though, is the real key is. You said it, proof of work, right? The idea is go out and do something. In other words, as a young person, go out and build your portfolio, build a website, build a blog, build a newsletter, build an audience, build something and have demonstrable work in the practice that you can continue to point to and become active in those communities because that just builds you experience that no one else will have. And so the way to differentiate yourself is to literally do that proof of work. Whether you do it in a volunteer fashion for the local church or a local small business, or even yourself building your own sort of, you know, entrepreneurial thing. The key is go do the work. Because your resume is, is just to your point, the resume is not the, the instrument anymore of hiring. It is your network that you’re building, the audience that you’re building and the proof of work that you’re showing.

A. Lee Judge [00:17:24]:
How much of that proof of work is going to need to be proof of AI work?

Robert Rose [00:17:30]:
I don’t think any of it, to be honest, I don’t. I think you Know, my take on this is, you know, and I get into debates online with, you know, certain people that will go nameless on this podcast with who will ask and they’ll say, what should we be telling young people? And I don’t think it’s go get good at AI. I think it’s go get good at the thing you want to be good at. Right? And I wrote this last week in terms of the resume question, which is proficient in AI is the similar thing to computer proficiency was in the 1990s, right? Nobody hired you because you were good at Netscape Navigator. Nobody hired you because you could actually work up and turn on the Gateway PC, right? They hired you because you could do something. You can actually do something with it. The same goes for the asking of the AI proficiency. It’s like asking for AI proficiency in your job wreck is a silly thing because what do you want them to do with AI? It’s like saying being good at electricity, right? So saying, what is it that you want in AI is what do I want you to be able to do? Do I want you to have a good strategy? Do I want you to be able to write great emails? Do I want you to be able to write great copy? Do I want you to design beautiful imagery? Do I want you to be able to shoot gorgeous video, record amazing audio? What is the skill? The output that I’m looking for from you as a skill position? And then, of course, yeah, and then go figure out how AI makes you better at that, you know, or how we can, you know, how proficient you are at letting AI let you be better than that.

Robert Rose [00:19:05]:
But I want the task, right? So AI isn’t the AI isn’t the skill. The skill is the skill. AI just helps. Perhaps you augmented better.

A. Lee Judge [00:19:15]:
I think the, the table stakes part about that, though, that AI is just electricity. It’s just using a computer. It’s table stakes. You need to. Need to know those things.

Robert Rose [00:19:25]:
That’s right.

A. Lee Judge [00:19:25]:
I think that’s important that we have to still say it because some students are so anti AI, they’re anti table stakes. They’re like, I’m going to focus on the craft I came to school for. And that’s like saying, I’m going to focus on, you know, being an architect. I don’t care about computers and CAD software. I’m just going to focus on drawing buildings without having the table stakes, which I may be the table stakes they actually need for that job.

Robert Rose [00:19:56]:
Yeah, but it’s table stakes, right? I mean, it’s the. It’s it’s the great democratizer, right? I mean, anybody and everybody has access to it in some form or fashion. And so there is no differentiation in the way that you use it. There is. You know what I mean? The differentiation in the way that you use AI will come from knowing what good looks like on the other side. In other words, your ability as an architect or your ability as a strategist. This is why people who have mileage on their wheels, right? You know, so, you know, folks like us who’ve got experience in this season, right now, we actually have an advantage with AI that young people don’t have. And that’s just the reality.

Robert Rose [00:20:38]:
It’s a terribly unfair reality, but it is the reality that AI in our hands is one thing. AI in the hands of someone who’s never done a marketing campaign before is kind of useless. And so that’s the real key here, is that when we see people getting booed off of stages that commencement addresses because they bring up the fact that AI is the Industrial Revolution, those kids are not scared of AI. Those kids are mad because it’s an unfair situation for them right now that the narrative is that they don’t matter. Right? And that reaction is one that we as business owners and business leaders need to acknowledge that it is an unfair advantage that is facing them right now. And it’s not fear of being able to get into it. They know they can get into it. It’s anger that the narrative is that they don’t matter.

Rocio Osuna [00:21:30]:
The contrast to that, Robert, is the other video that went viral with the young man that graduated. And he pulled up his laptop and started to scroll through his prompts of chatgpt. His was. I don’t know if it was a mixture of cheers or boos, but, you know, it was total opposite of what that graduation speaker in the other graduation had. Right?

Robert Rose [00:21:52]:
Yeah, he’s, you know, and what. And what he’s showing is, look how I game the system. Right? You know, I mean, look at. Look, I. I can hack through. I can hack the system right now, you know, and that’s. And that, you know, that tension, we see that tension every day with, you know, and certainly in higher education right now with how they’re dealing with AI and how they’re testing and how they’re, you know, how they’re forming, learning. And ultimately it gets to the, you know, I mean, this is a debate we’ve been having for a decade now, which is, what is the real purpose of university now? Right.

Robert Rose [00:22:20]:
You know, what is, you know, for. For years and years when I went to university, it was the classic, you know, you don’t go to university for what to think, you go for how to think. Right? And now it, you know, but over what’s happened over the last decade, universities have really become trade schools, you know, especially in sort of the more knowledge information world sort of, you know, practices, right. You know, less maybe law, less on medical and you know, where there actually is sort of a profession to. To to learn. But, you know, marketing for marketers, right? Going to university marketing, you know, university is a trade school. It’s where you go to get salesforce, you know, certified, HubSpot certified, Google certified, you know, get all certified in the technology and the pushing of buttons, which is exactly the thing that AI is going to replace. Right.

Robert Rose [00:23:07]:
And so what it’s not now is sort of the place where I go to learn critical thinking and where I learn how to do creativity and I learned how to collaborate and look people in the eye and actually work with humans side by side and strategy and learning, you know, classics and all those kinds of things where the narrative of, well, we should become storytellers or we should become strategists so that we’re augmented by AI and all the other stuff. Those two tensions right now at university are really fighting each other. And it’s a really interesting season that we’re in right now when it comes to young workers.

A. Lee Judge [00:23:40]:
Well, let’s segue that a bit into content and content marketing because the words we mentioned so far were words like trust and uniqueness. And I think that kind of blends into personal brand and who say in the content like where is information coming from? Who knows this as opposed to the knowledge being democratized now. Now it’s about who has the knowledge, who’s conveying the knowledge. So I think the who matters more.

Robert Rose [00:24:08]:
So 100%, yes. Yeah.

A. Lee Judge [00:24:09]:
So what’s your take now on, you know, is amplifying your own personal brand and the whole. The content comes from. The only thing left that separates us from AI Content, kind of, yeah.

Robert Rose [00:24:21]:
I mean, you know, we’re all becoming Rick Rubin, right? You know, where, you know, for when we can recognize what really great or excellence looks like is when we can actually make the who matter. Right. In other words, when we are masters of our craft in so many different ways is when, you know, whether or not we can paint or not, we can recognize what great painting looks like, whether or not we can actually hold a camera and shoot it and or use AI to create pictures. We know what great composition looks like we know what great art looks like. We can actually differentiate out there and the who and which that which we curate or that which we put out into the world for consumption is matters because it that trust that. So in many regards, what I talk about a lot is this idea of. It used to be about the asymmetry of information, right? In other words, back in the day, it was if you were a leader, you knew something that somebody else didn’t, right? That was the sort of ways that we do it. But what happens in a world where everybody knows everything, right? There is no more asymmetry of information anymore.

Robert Rose [00:25:29]:
It’s asymmetry of relationships. In other words, the relationships that you build with an audience or with a community or, or within your own family or within your own network, whoever that is. Those relationships, the who you are, the being, you know, when I say being known, it is not being known like being famous. It’s being like people know you, they know who you are and trust you. That becomes the most important thing because that you will become their trusted source of interesting things. And that’s all we can, as brands, as people, as thought leaders, as creators, that’s all we can ask for.

A. Lee Judge [00:26:05]:
So where does that play into the university? Like, we go there for the knowledge.

Robert Rose [00:26:10]:
Yeah, but it really changes it up, doesn’t it?

A. Lee Judge [00:26:13]:
Yeah, it does. I mean, there should be a. I

Robert Rose [00:26:16]:
was watching, I was having a conversation with this one university professional. I spoke at the south by Southwest Edu, and I was talking to one head of a university there, and he said to me, you know, he said, look, we’re really looking at this now. He said, it may be that the nature of universities become the idea of how to interact with each other, right? And basically it’s less about testing on knowledge and learning knowledge, but the point of the university becomes how do I interact with my. With people, right? How do I actually create relationships and create the ability to have relationships and to mature in those relationships, which is, you know, I mean, we can get on a whole other topic about how social media and loneliness and, you know, where that leaves, you know, young people these days, there’s a whole pandemic going on around that. But the key is, is that it’s is changes in some way. It will fundamentally change the way we look at universities. There’s no doubt about it.

Rocio Osuna [00:27:17]:
I was reading a Reddit thread not too long ago and the discussion was, people going to universities, what do I even major in? Like, AI is taking everything over. Like, what do I major in for the next four Years, that’s going to actually get me a position if AI is taking everything over. So the hesitation of the new generation going into higher education, what did they do? Right. Like, what is the panic? Because when we went to school, that wasn’t a panic. Right. We weren’t, you know, we majored in English, we majored in journalism. Whatever it might have been, it was easy for us. There was never this thing in the back of our head of like, oh, AI is going to take over our job.

Rocio Osuna [00:27:50]:
But that general idea of AI taking over our entire job is something that sunk into this particular generation going into college now.

Robert Rose [00:27:57]:
Yeah. And whether that actually comes to pass or not, certainly the fear of it alone is enough to have us act. Right. And so just to your point, you know, when you start thinking about it like I was having that same person I was having the conversation with, it’s like, you know, you start to think about something like mathematics or, or journalism or medicine or law. And what he was saying to me is, he said, look, the important thing now is not for me sitting in front of my computer and having AI help me through a particularly complex math issue. I can do that on my own. He said, but the key is that if I’m pushing the practice forward, whether it’s mathematics or law, what you’re doing is you’re having peers, human peers, pressure you, press you on your thinking. And so that collaboration, like having somebody peer review my mathematics paper or having someone peer review my take on a particular set of laws, or having someone peer review my research paper is a really important aspect of the advanced nature of universities.

Robert Rose [00:28:59]:
And that interaction is just, AI will never be able to have that. Right. And the key there is. Because the magic of working with a peer on a particular problem is the magic of not knowing. You know what I mean? The magic of not. In other words, you wrestling with a problem together and not knowing. AI can’t not know. You know what I mean? In other words, that great, amazing brainstorm you have with sitting with someone, right? And you’re sitting there and you say something and what the person goes, is, you know what that makes me think of? It makes me think of Star wars, or it makes me think of some really interesting, just completely off the wall thing that goes, oh, right, because I can connect that with this theory, you know, and you sort of get to the answer of the problem without actually ever sort of working the problem.

Robert Rose [00:29:50]:
I can’t not know. It knows. It can’t not. It can’t. Like, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on. You know, it will always try and know. And that not knowing is a really important part of evolve of us becoming the thing that we want to become.

A. Lee Judge [00:30:06]:
Let’s look at the other end of the spectrum. We talked about going into school and how that’s being disrupted. So what about those of us who are deeper in our careers? And you know, there’s a lot of marketers and it’s almost stereotypical and where marketers who are losing their positions are becoming consultants, they’re getting in our lane. Like you and I have been consultants for years and we’re seeing more and more folks becoming consultants because they had to, because they were maybe pushed out of a corporate job and they have all this knowledge. So what do you think about that? About is it a good time to become a consultant just because you’re out of a position? Does that knowledge that you have, is it commoditized? What would you say to someone who’s like, you know what, I’ve been looking for a job for months now. I’m a senior in my career, maybe I’ll be a consultant.

Robert Rose [00:30:53]:
The calculus of why you become a consultant or a freelancer, I don’t think has changed. Right. And you know, and for me, I mean, I’ve been doing this now 20 years. And so for me it was always, you know, it’s the control over consistency. In other words, if you have a job, you’re probably making less money than you can make as a consultant. But the thing is you’re, you have, you have visibility and consistency. Now I know there’s varying degrees of that in the world of marketing, you know, in tenure and all that sort of thing, thing. But you have a pretty good line of sight of hor, you know, a time horizon line of sight into next month I’ll have a job, the month after that I’ll have a job, you know, all that kind of thing, right.

Robert Rose [00:31:36]:
That’s why you get a full time job is because you’ve got, you know, you know that you’ve got to have your insurance covered, you know, your salary’s coming. You know, it’s, it’s a very like, I don’t identify with my work or I do identify with my work, but I’m looking for that consistency. Whereas in a controlled situation where I want to control my life, I want to control how if I work harder, I make a ton of money, if I don’t work hard, I’m not going to make that much money, you get the control as being A consultant. But of course you lose the visibility. As you well know in consulting, you’re never more than about 60 days out from complete bankruptcy. You know what I mean? It’s like it’s not for the faint of heart who like consistency and sort of predictability. And so the key here is that that calculus hasn’t changed. What’s changed is the nature of the way that hiring is getting done now.

Robert Rose [00:32:29]:
And you know, we call it consulting. I don’t love the term fractional, but it’s definitely a thing now. And it’s, you know, it used where it used to be, freelancers were very junior level freelance tasks. Well, that idea of freelancing has now moved all the way up to the CMO’s office where you can actually have freelance CMOs who only give you part of their time for leadership. I think that’s only growing and growing and growing and sort of with the gig economy and all of those kinds of things. So I think it’s a huge opportunity for, if you look at it through the right lens and you have the appetite for risk that you need. And I think in many ways it just continues to expand with the way that, you know, businesses operating these days and with AI, to be honest, and how it’s actually, you know, helping scale some of those people who are really good at their jobs. The, the chat, the biggest challenge I see is you’ve got somebody with a college graduate with, with two years of junior level marketing at some big company under their belt and then they quit and then all of a sudden now they’re fractional.

Robert Rose [00:33:35]:
CMO, right? It’s like, you know, it’s like seeing the 25 year old life coaches out there, it’s like, okay, no, right. So it’s just like settle down a little bit.

Rocio Osuna [00:33:44]:
So to these points, I’m one of those perfect examples. You know, I was in a position where my position, the layoff happened last year and as I kept looking for something, consulting became an actual choice. I kept being pushed to it. So it wasn’t something I wanted to choose, right. If people kept seeing my content saying, rosio, why aren’t you consulting? Why aren’t you doing this? You’ve been doing this for 15 years. Like you’ve done your corporate career for so long. You know what it’s like, yeah, go do it. And as I keep building this momentum with consulting, one of the biggest things for me, as I’ve seen, is the time, right? The time you commit to it.

Rocio Osuna [00:34:20]:
It’s no longer 9 to 5, you know, you’re 9 to 5, 5 to 10. So time is perceived very differently when you own your own business. And it’s interesting that you both have been doing this for so long and you’ve done your corporate careers and seeing the dichotomy between those two and someone that just started, it’s very, it’s very admirable, you know, for me to, to learn from other people, to see the mistakes, to, to talk to other people that have been consulted for such a long time and just gain their experience as someone that just stepped into this role.

Robert Rose [00:34:50]:
Yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s, it can be very rewarding. Like you said, it, it’s you, you, you have to stop compartmentalizing work and life, right? I mean it just be as a business owner, it becomes your life. And so, you know, the beauty of that is if Monday you feel like going to the movies, you go to the movies on Monday, right? The bad side of that is you’re probably working Saturday and Sunday, you know what I mean? It’s like, so those are the trade offs that you start to make. One interesting fact that is fascinating is that that freelance world, that world of fractional is actually bleeding into the employment with the numbers. When we did, I mentioned that CMI research study that we did, we found that one in five full time marketers at manager and above are also working as a consultant. In other words, they have a full time job, but they also have a. Now they’re not doing it for the money. What most of them are doing.

Robert Rose [00:35:47]:
When you ask them why they’re doing it, they’re not doing it for a supplemental income and in fact most of them are making somewhere less than five grand a year doing it. What they’re doing is all the way back to what we started with where we talked about the, you know, the proof of work, which is they’re keeping their network warm, they’re keeping their skills sharp, they’re actually doing the work that they don’t get to do in their day job. And they’re basically doing it because they’re trying to keep as a marketable asset out there. So it’s a fascinating thing where, you know, one in every five people on a large team, you know, 20% of your team is, got more clients than you.

A. Lee Judge [00:36:25]:
You know. I want to make a comment to the employers who here who just heard that. And my story was that I always had a side business while I was in corporate and through three, maybe four jobs, the first three were totally cool with it. They Knew it. And I thrived. They kept giving me raises and new positions, and they hated to see me go. It always worked until the last employer who had a problem with it, and that was an employer that I finally quit.

Robert Rose [00:36:57]:
Yeah.

A. Lee Judge [00:36:58]:
And, yeah, all the others, I resigned each one of them. And they got me back by, like, increasing my salary or something. They got me back somehow. Another. Every one of them also became a client after I left them.

Robert Rose [00:37:12]:
Right.

A. Lee Judge [00:37:13]:
And because they were always supportive of whatever I was doing on the side.

Robert Rose [00:37:17]:
Always.

A. Lee Judge [00:37:18]:
And the one that wasn’t was the one that ended up paying me twice as much to do training after I left for another six months because they weren’t cool with it.

Robert Rose [00:37:27]:
And that’s a huge piece of it, is that we have seen development skills, development training, development training, soft skills training. Those budgets within corporate environments have just evaporated. And what it has done is it has really bred a. Not disloyalty, but basically that, you know, that there’s a term that was going around for the last six months called job hugging. Right. Which is this thing where, you know, because of all the layoffs in marketing, you see a lot of young marketers, especially sort of, you know, doing what’s called job hugging, where they’re like, you know, they’re staying in their job, they’re keeping their head down, they’re just working on it because, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you pair that up with quiet quitting, which is sort of the idea that I’m not really gonna be loyal to you. I’m gonna.

Robert Rose [00:38:13]:
You know, I’m just gonna sort of do. I’m gonna check the boxes. I’m gonna do what I need to do, and I’m not investing my own personal time into getting better for you. And a lot of that sort of cultural change that has happened over the last. Really, since COVID let’s call it the last six years, what we have seen is that the lack of developmental investment into marketing teams and the view that marketing people are literally just cogs in a wheel that we can replace at any time, because all they do is push buttons and get HubSpot certified and, you know, become, you know, marketing automatons is really devaluing the marketing team over time because it never gets any wiser. Right. The people who are there a long time are simply there because they’re there and they’ve got a little side hustle and they’re not getting invested in, and nobody cares about me. And so they’re ready for the pink slip on Monday morning.

Robert Rose [00:39:04]:
Like you were right. They’re ready for that disloyalty to happen, no matter when it happens. Those that are actually interested in building a career there see a dead end. And so when we see the number. And then here’s the punchline, the number that we see is 75% of marketers right now are happy in their job, and 80% of them are ready to go to the next job whenever it comes. Right. So we’re building people who are just like, hey, I’m here while I’m here, but I’m not invested in why I’m here.

A. Lee Judge [00:39:36]:
Got it?

Robert Rose [00:39:36]:
Yeah.

A. Lee Judge [00:39:37]:
So, Rosa, you have anything else?

Rocio Osuna [00:39:39]:
I do, yes. I really.

A. Lee Judge [00:39:40]:
Oh, you do.

Rocio Osuna [00:39:41]:
Enjoyed. In your winning B2B Trust Series, you mentioned how any perfect, polished content is sometimes deemed as AI created. You advocate for us marketers to give up our obsession with whether it’s AI or human written. Instead, your solution is to leave in what you call the brand’s pointy bits a scientific term. I love the idea. I love the idea of leaning into those pointy bits to prove a human is behind the curtain. But from a strategic lens, is the threshold where pointy becomes unprofessional. How do you coach brands to find the line between authentic, quirky and losing that of a conservative C suite?

Robert Rose [00:40:21]:
It’s a great question, and the answer is very carefully hot, you know, and it’s. And it’s a very human sort of exercise, right? It is that sitting in the not knowing. Right. It is really working that out with your team and figuring out how. How pointy do we want to be, Right. Do we want to come out like Lee does and say that, you know, we should take a pause on measurement? That’s a pointy bit, right? That’s a cool, interesting, provocative conversation to have. Because, of course, he doesn’t mean end measurement. Of course he doesn’t mean that.

Robert Rose [00:40:51]:
Right. He means something very different from that. But it’s a way to start that conversation with the idea, you know, like, let me be provocative and throw out a provocation to the marketplace and see, let’s have that conversation. And so the answer as to how is carefully. Right. Figuring, figuring it out. And to your. The first part of what you asked about, which is regarding the AI, it’s like what we have to continually remember, this is why ultimately we won’t care whether it’s AI generated or human generated, is that the value of content is created at the consumption, not the creation.

Robert Rose [00:41:29]:
Always forever. Right? Value is created at consumption. Whether I learned something, was engaged, cried, laughed, stayed in the movie theater, loved it, dog eared the page turned, kept the book. Whatever it is that impact, that value is created at consumption. So thus it matters not whether or not I love the song and it was completely AI generated or I love the song and only the lyrics were AI generated or I love the song and only the drum part was AI generated or I loved the article and only one paragraph was AI generated or if it was fully AI generated, if I loved it, value was created. And it’s good content. And so that’s why we ultimately won’t care. Finding out what makes people love what it is we do.

Robert Rose [00:42:17]:
That’s the job. That’s our job.

Rocio Osuna [00:42:19]:
I love that.

A. Lee Judge [00:42:20]:
Speaking of job, you got lots of them. So before we go, I do, I do tell us about some of them because I, we all know each other because of Content Marketing Institute. And so that’s how I met you and then Rocio met me there last year. And so tell us about your work with that Seventh Bear and everything else that we would need to know to contact and work with Robert Rose.

Robert Rose [00:42:47]:
Well, aren’t you sweet? Aren’t you sweet for like, like you’re like just, just not just like T ball, right? I’m just, you just put it right there on the T. And I’m like the little toddler who’s coming up with the big bat. Content Marketing Institute. I’m still serving as the chief strategy advisor there, which basically means I’m helping to host Content Marketing World. I’m helping to curate the educational platform which is Content Marketing University and all the things that we’re doing around content marketing. And then I have my weekly article, my column that I write every week, which is where, you know, we talked a little bit about that even on this show. Then Seventh Bear is my consulting firm. It is, you know, everything, you know, where I’m resisting the word fractional.

Robert Rose [00:43:25]:
And basically I’m working with, usually these days it seems I’m working with more startups, I’m working with more mid sized and smaller companies and then the occasional enterprise company on something regarding marketing, in many ways I’m working on content strategy. In some ways I’m working just on general marketing. Everything from, from media buying to help with the strategy to literally getting content up on the website, basically serving as a marketing leader as part of an ongoing team and very much enjoying all of the different aspects of that because as I like to say, six years ago my 90% of what I did was in PowerPoint and now it’s maybe 5% in PowerPoint I’m actually back to doing the work, which is I really, really, really missed. And so I’m loving my, you know, I’m loving the consulting work that I’m doing now.

A. Lee Judge [00:44:19]:
Awesome. Well, Robert Rose, it is a pleasure to have you. As we mentioned earlier, we have your. We have a almost said sweatshop. That’s not good. We have your coat being sewn in the back, making your third. Your three timers jacket for being on. I think it’s at least three, maybe four.

A. Lee Judge [00:44:37]:
But the business of marketing green jacket

Robert Rose [00:44:40]:
is going to be a green jacket for the.

A. Lee Judge [00:44:42]:
Yes. The hex color is 99cc 33. Content monster colors. Only a marketer knows the hex number for his brand.

Robert Rose [00:44:49]:
I’m a little worried about you that you actually know the hex.

Rocio Osuna [00:44:51]:
I thought you were making it up, but I think you actually do know.

A. Lee Judge [00:44:54]:
No, it is exactly 9.9cc 33. That is the green of content monster. But yes, it’ll be that color. Green with a big bom says Robert is the bomb business of marketing.

Robert Rose [00:45:06]:
The bomb. There we go.

Rocio Osuna [00:45:08]:
It’s on video. So it has to happen.

Robert Rose [00:45:11]:
Yeah, exactly.

A. Lee Judge [00:45:12]:
It might help you on the Internet.

Robert Rose [00:45:13]:
It must be true.

A. Lee Judge [00:45:14]:
Yeah, yeah, it’ll be great. I’ll bring it to your content marketing world.

Robert Rose [00:45:17]:
Nice.

A. Lee Judge [00:45:18]:
All right, well, thanks again, Robert, for joining.

Rocio Osuna [00:45:20]:
Thank you so much.

Robert Rose [00:45:21]:
Thank you.

Rocio Osuna [00:45:23]:
Any perfect, polished content is sometimes deemed as AI created. You advocate for us marketers to give up our obsession with whether it’s AI or human written. Instead, your solution is to leave in what you call the brand’s pointy bits a scientific term. Thank you, Robert Rose, for being on the show. Really appreciate all the great insights. Catch you next time.

A. Lee Judge [00:45:44]:
Bye.

Rocio Osuna [00:45:45]:
Human is behind the curtain, but from a strategic lens is the threshold where pointy becomes unprofessional. How do you coach brands to find the line between authentic quirky and losing that of a conservative C suite?

Robert Rose [00:45:59]:
It’s a great question and the answer is very carefully hot. You know, and it’s. And it’s a very human sort of exercise. Right? It is that sitting in the not knowing. Right. It is really working that out with your team and figuring out how. How pointy do we want to be, Right. Do we want to come out like Lee does and say that, you know, we should take a pause on measurement? That’s a pointy bit.

Robert Rose [00:46:20]:
Right. That’s a cool, interesting, provocative conversation to have. Because of course, he doesn’t mean end measurement. Of course he doesn’t mean that. Right. He means something very different from that. But It’s a way to start that conversation with the idea, you know, like, let me be provocative and throw out a provocation to the marketplace and see, let’s have that conversation. And so the answer as to how is carefully.

Robert Rose [00:46:44]:
Right. Figuring, figuring it out. And to your, the first part of what you asked about, which is regarding the AI, it’s like, well, we have to continually remember, this is why ultimately we won’t care whether it’s AI generated or human generated, is that the value of content is created at the consumption, not the creation. Always, forever. Right? Value is created at consumption. Whether I learned something, was engaged, cried, laughed, stayed in the movie theater, loved it, you know, dog eared the page turned, you know, kept the book, whatever it is, that impact, that value is created at consumption. So thus it matters not whether or not I love the song and it was completely AI generated or I love the song and only the lyrics were AI generated or I love the song and only the drum part was AI generated or I loved the article and only one paragraph was AI generated or if it was fully AI generated, if I loved it, value was created and it’s good content. And so that’s why we ultimately won’t care.

Robert Rose [00:47:50]:
Finding out what makes people love what it is. We do. That’s the job. That’s our job.

Rocio Osuna [00:47:57]:
I love that.

A. Lee Judge [00:47:58]:
Speaking of job, you got lots of them. So before we go.

Robert Rose [00:48:03]:
I do, I do.

A. Lee Judge [00:48:05]:
Tell us about some of them because I. We all know each other because of Content Marketing Institute. And so that’s how I met you. And then Rosio met me there last year. And so tell us about your work with that Seventh Bear and everything else that we would need to know to contact and work with Robert Rose.

Robert Rose [00:48:24]:
Well, aren’t you sweet? Aren’t you sweet for like, like, you’re like just, just not just like T ball, right? I’m just. You just put it right there on the T. And I’m like the little toddler who’s coming up with the big bat. Content Marketing Institute. I’m still serving as the chief strategy advisor there, which basically means I’m helping to host Content Marketing World. I’m helping to curate the educational platform which is Content Marketing University and all the things that we’re doing around content marketing. And then I have my weekly article, my column that I write every week, which is where, you know, we talked a little bit about that even on this show. Then seventh Bear is my consulting firm.

Robert Rose [00:48:58]:
It is, you know, everything, you know, where I’m resisting the word fractional. And basically I’M working with us these days, it seems. I’m working with more startups, I’m working with more mid sized and smaller companies and then the occasional enterprise company on something Regarding marketing, in many ways I’m working on content strategy. In some ways I’m working just on general marketing. Everything from media buying to, you know, help with the strategy to literally getting content up on the website, basically serving as a marketing leader as part of it, as part of an ongoing team and very much enjoying all of the different aspects of that because my, you know, as I like to say, six years ago my 90% of what I did was in PowerPoint and now it’s maybe 5% in PowerPoint. I’m actually, I’m actually back to doing the work which I really, really, really missed. And so I’m loving my, you know, I’m loving the consulting work that I’m doing now.

A. Lee Judge [00:49:56]:
Awesome. Well, Robert Rose, it is a pleasure to have you. As we mentioned earlier, we have your, we have a almost said sweatshop. That’s not good. We have your coat being sewn in the back, making your third your three timers jacket for being on. I think it’s at least three, maybe four. But the business of marketing green jacket

Robert Rose [00:50:17]:
is going to be a green jacket for the.

A. Lee Judge [00:50:19]:
Yes, the hex color is 99cc 33 content monster colors. Only a marketer knows the hex number for his brand.

Robert Rose [00:50:27]:
I’m a little worried about you that you actually know the hex.

Rocio Osuna [00:50:29]:
I thought you were making it up, but I think you actually do know.

A. Lee Judge [00:50:32]:
No, it is exactly 99cc 33. That is the green of content Monster. But yes, it’ll be that color. Green with a big bom says Robert, is the bomb business of marketing.

Robert Rose [00:50:44]:
The bomb. There we go.

Rocio Osuna [00:50:45]:
It’s on video so it has to happen.

Robert Rose [00:50:48]:
Yeah, exactly.

A. Lee Judge [00:50:50]:
On the Internet.

Robert Rose [00:50:51]:
It must be true.

A. Lee Judge [00:50:51]:
Yeah, yeah, it’ll be great. I’ll bring it to your content marketing world.

Robert Rose [00:50:55]:
Nice.

A. Lee Judge [00:50:56]:
All right, well, thanks again, Robert, for joining.

Rocio Osuna [00:50:58]:
Thank you so much.

Robert Rose [00:50:59]:
Thank you.

Rocio Osuna [00:50:59]:
Thank you, Robert Rose, for being on the show. Really appreciate all the great insights. Catch you next time.

A. Lee Judge [00:51:05]:
Bye.

Robert Rose [00:51:10]:
Thank you for listening to the Business of Marketing podcast, a show brought to you by contentmonsta.com, the producer of B2B digital marketing. Content show notes can be found on contentmonsta.com as well as aleadjudge.com.