Marketo's CMO on the new future of digital marketing

That's marketing in a nutshell, right? A closed-door, one-size-fits-all operation that moves at the speed of molasses. Well, let's just say that picture is a little outdated. And not just because of the outfits. Today, technology plays a massive role in marketing strategy and execution: Automation has turned guesswork into a precise science and months of planning into nanoseconds. Companies like Marketo are leading the way in marketing automation technology, pushing boundaries and helping CMOs everywhere embrace the future. Of course, this is pretty complex stuff. So we had a chat with Marketo CMO, Sanjay Dholakia, to put the current state of marketing — and the future — into perspective. Q&A with Marketo CMO Sanjay Dholakia 1. If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self that pertains to your career in marketing, what would it be? The path to success is embracing your unique skill set. Don't get hung up on being something that you think others want you to be. In my early professional years in the strategy consulting world, I believed that I needed to prove how smart and analytical I was. I vividly remember standing around with some partners during my time at McKinsey and hearing one partner observe to another, "Sanjay should be in sales and marketing." There I was trying to be this strategy guy, so I took it as a grave insult! But the truth is that he was just recognizing my unique strengths. If I had it all to do over again, I would still love strategy, but I would also focus on my natural talents and passion. 2. What's the most unexpectedly important skill from your past that you've found plays into your success? (For example, maybe a high school job taught you about the importance of teamwork.) Humility. I learned early on what it means to be on a team. When I was very young, I fancied myself a fairly good baseball player. I was in a friend's neighborhood playing in the sandlot, and I was barking instructions and orders and coaching tips to my team. I will never forget this — the mom of one of the kids on the team was watching us and yelled from her front door, "Hey, why don't you let Mr. Know-It-All do it?" We lost the game, and I went home and talked to my mom about it. She said, "Live life by the real estate theory." She didn't mean location. What said was, "You should always buy the ugly house on block, because if you surround yourself with prettier houses, your stock will rise. If you buy the prettiest house, you've already set the market ceiling. Always try to surround yourself with better, smarter people than you, and you will do great." Ever since, I've sought out environments and places in which I would be the dumb guy in the room. In order to build teams, I actively seek out people who are better than me in every dimension I can find. Sanjay_baseball Throwback: Sanjay learned very young that surrounding himself with a great team leads to championships. IMAGE: SANJAY DHOLAKIA 3. You're the barber's barber. What's it like being the CMO of a company dedicated to helping CMOs and marketers? I've held a number of incredible positions in my lifetime — CEO, GM of a public company, strategy consultant. I've said it on stage in a room of thousands of people, and I've said it in an interview to an audience of one: I consider this role to be the great privilege of my career. I feel this way for two main reasons. First, I love that I get to interact and learn from smart marketers around the world every day. Having an ability to translate that back directly into my day job is a gift. The second piece is that we are at a fortuitous moment in the world of marketing — we refer to it as the era of engagement marketing. Marketing has changed more in the last five years than it has in the last 500, and will change more in the next five years than we have seen to-date. The opportunity to be here in this moment in time working with smart marketers around the world to shape that change is a gift. 4. Marketo has ties to Madison Avenue, but is very much a Silicon Valley company — what are the misconceptions around marketing automation, and what are the three biggest trends you're seeing in the space? One misconception is that marketing automation is a thing strictly for B2B marketers. Another is that marketing automation is an acquisition-focused tool, designed to acquire "leads." It's really much bigger than that. In terms of trends, I believe this is the year that marketing automation goes completely mainstream — it's something for every organization. Our clients include schools, like George Washington University, and nonprofits, like OxFam. We have financial services clients like Charles Schwab and manufacturing companies like GE. We have sports teams, like the Portland Trail Blazers, or health and lifestyle apps, like Under Armour's MyFitnessPal. Every type of organization, marketer and industry — regardless of profile — needs this capability.