#182: Growth | Building a Strong Brand, Embracing AI, and Leading a Marketing Team with Mychelle Mollot, CMO at Knak

B2B Marketing with Dave Gerhardt

In this episode, Dave sits down with Mychelle Mollot, CMO at Knak, a platform for creating, designing, and optimizing email and landing page content. Mychelle shares her wealth of experience, having led marketing efforts at IBM and various startups. She discusses her approach to leading marketing teams, scaling brands, and embracing AI in B2B marketing.

Dave and Mychelle cover:

• How Knak built a brand and captured demand in a space without a known category
• The balance between meeting short-term goals and dedicating some marketing budget to high-risk, high-reward experiments
• How AI is evolving from a standalone tool to being embedded in the core functionalities of marketing platforms

Timestamps

• (00:00) - - Intro to Mychelle
• (05:55) - - Embracing Diverse Career Paths to Become a CMO
• (10:39) - - Leveraging Big Company Skills in Startups
• (11:30) - - Influencing Resources Without Ownership in Large Organizations
• (15:52) - - Weekly Team Meeting Tips
• (18:53) - - Mychelle’s OKR Framework
• (23:39) - - How Knak Creates and Captures Demand
• (25:11) - - How To Understand and Target Buyers
• (31:28) - - Having AI Discussions With Your Team
• (35:02) - - AI is Shifting from Core Component to Creative Assistant
• (36:24) - - Integrating AI into Core Tools
• (42:06) - - Sales and Marketing Alignment
• (45:28) - - Navigating Relationships as a CMO

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