Hey it’s me,

My first 10 years in marketing I spent 98% of my time trying to get permission to do my job, 2% on whatever goal I was hired to achieve and got 0% of the credit when I did.

I moved up in my career by switching jobs and negotiating higher titles and salary each time (I was also fired twice, tho in both cases I negotiated step-level increases in salary and title, so I can’t complain). You can see it in my LinkedIn profile - a string of 1-1.5 year stints at each company.

The one raise I got was more of a salary correction after I discovered one of my direct reports was making 2x my salary. The CEO and HR knew he made more than me when they hired me as his boss, the Director of Content, but they never mentioned it, even after I was hired. They knew I had access to my team's salaries, too.

My boss, the CMO, didn’t know about the salary discrepancy at first either. You see, the CEO decided to hire me and my CMO at the same time without telling either of us until we’d already accepted. Honestly, I lucked out - my CMO was awesome. He campaigned hard with the CEO to close the salary gap, but it turns out the CEO didn’t like me very much.

I’m not being modest. He made it clear on my first day, before lunch! He did one of those drive by swoop and poops where he spun around in his office chair (yes, he sat right behind me) and asked a seemingly innocent question, “Soooo…what’s your stance on webinars?” It was 2015, which has zero relevance to webinars, I just wanted you to know how old I am. Anyway, I gave an honest answer, “Well, it depends,” which the CEO must have heard as “I F*CKING LOVE WEBINARS, MAN” because he got real agitated.

I’m serious, the CEO was so passionate about webinars that he chose to invest almost 60 whole minutes arguing with the Director of Content about them. I remember wondering why we were arguing about it in the first place. I hadn’t pitched webinars - or anything for that matter - it being my first day and all.

He did eventually pay me one compliment that first year. It was at the end of the holiday party and he was hammered. You should have seen the giant smile on his face when he marched up to me to declare, “I didn’t use my veto card on you!”

I had no idea what that meant so I asked him.

“I was a ‘No’ on hiring you but the hiring committee were all ‘Yeses.’ They really liked you! I have a veto card I can use if I want to overrule the committee, but I didn’t use it on you!”

The CEO looked triumphant. I said thanks, gave him my best “you should smile more” face then walked away.

The one promotion (title + salary) I earned was life changing. After less than 2 years at Animalz, the founder promoted me from VP of Marketing to CEO. It wasn’t a surprise. A few months prior I pointed at him during the executive offsite and told him I wanted his job.

But, like, eventually, you know? Instead, I got the call like 2 months later and was announcing it to the team 5 months later. That was March 2020.

What I didn’t expect was what being a CEO would show me about how well I did when I was a marketer.

That came out wrong. What I’m trying to say is: imagine you wake up one day with the ability to look back and write a dissertation with tons of hard evidence (aka examples from my own work) showing how and why I’d failed to get the C-Suite on board with my strategy.

I’m talking strategy I once thought was so clever suddenly looked like a to-do list with a timeline. And reports that I thought was all deep and insightful…most of it was either wrong or irrelevant to anything the C-Suite would care about.

The only thing that made me feel better was discovering that CEOs have their own little embarrassing secret:

They have absolutely no idea what they’re doing, either.

It’s true, I asked a bunch of CEOs for advice when I first started hoping there was some secret “way” I could read-up on. There really isn’t. In fact, when I ran my ideas by them I got answers like, “sounds right” and “that’s a good idea, can I steal that?”

Yeah, for the most part CEOs are doing the same things marketers do when they need a plan asking for advice, guessing and deciding. In fact, guessing is actually a huge part of the job. In fact, the only meaningful difference between you and the CEO is that they have the final say (well, sort of. CEOs have bosses, too, so technically there’s still a chance, but I’ll get to that later).

But let me tell you, having the final say isn’t the freedom you think it is and anyway, everyone in the world can be influenced so like, you have options.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that you have more power than you think. The only thing you’re missing is some context and information that comes out in the rooms you’re not invited into as a marketer. I know, because I was the left out marketer and I was the one who left the marketers out.

Now I know why. I also know the why behind a bunch of other things executives do that get in the way of you doing the job the hired you to do. Don’t get too excited, you’re going to hate all the reasons, but knowing what’s going on in those cute little executive brains (I can say that, I was one) will help you navigate these situationships to your benefit more often.

That’s why I started this newsletter. I want to show you:

And look, there’s a method to the format: I’ve been helping marketers 1:1 solve the same problems for years and I can help way more people if I answer your questions in a place where other marketing leaders can see, too.

Then you’ll see you’re not alone and that you’re right, the CEO doesn’t trust you at all, it’s true. And the reasons they don’t are almost all based on one empirical fact: they don’t one single thing about marketing and believe they really do.

Bro.

So, what exactly does all this look like in a newsletter?

GOOD QUESTION. (Ugh, I can’t even apologize! I’m actually super proud of that pun.)

Here’s what you can expect (from my newsletter, that is. Just in case you got sidetracked by my awesome pun)":

Solutions: Send me your situationships, CEO swoop-and-poops, team drama — whatever's challenging you right now.* I'll give you a fix for the situation plus the behind-the-scenes context so you can spot it coming next time (and it will come again).

Answers: Got a question that isn't a fire drill? Curious how something works? Want to know what a CEO is actually thinking when they say [insert frustrating thing]? Ask. If I don't have a direct answer, I know someone who does.

Stories: Mostly to lighten the mood. I have a deep bench of embarrassing career anecdotes and work/life lessons that I'll trot out to refill your cup on the hard weeks.

Excellent, you can reply to this email or use this form (idk, just figured people like options). You can submit in whatever format suits you best - voice note, letter, video. I haven’t enabled attachments on the form yet so if you choose media, best to email it.

*I remove identifying information and in some cases may fabricate trivial details to ensure your anonymity before publishing.

A few tips for when you share:

Be detailed. Role titles, goals, constraints, deadlines, context — anything you think is shaping the situation. I won't share revealing details publicly, but having the BTS helps me actually answer the question.

Tell me if it's time-sensitive. If you can't wait for that week's edition, I'll shoot you a 1:1 answer.

Tell me what you want to happen. Some folks know the outcome they want. If that's you, say so — there are usually multiple paths to any given situation, and knowing your preferred ending helps me point you at the right one.

The newsletter comes out 1x/week on Thursdays starting this week, so you’ll get to see what I’m talking about in a few days.

❤️ Devin