How to Stop The Busywork in B2B Marketing (with Dmitry Shamis)

The Exit Five CMO Podcast (Hosted by Dave Gerhardt)

Content provided by Exit Five and Dave Gerhardt. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Exit Five and Dave Gerhardt or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

3M ago 48:00

MP3•Episode home

#238: Brand | In this episode, Dave sits down with Dmitry Shamis, former Head of Brand at HubSpot and now founder of Oh Snap, to talk about what brand really means in B2B and why so many teams are stuck doing busy work instead of meaningful marketing. After leading a team of 150+ creatives and scaling HubSpot’s brand across multiple products, Dmitry shares lessons on building brands that actually stand out.

Dave and Dmitry cover:

How to stand out in a crowded market
How to develop and refine your point of view
Why marketers get lost in busy work and how to stop it
What to look for when hiring great designers
The role of AI in B2B marketing today (and what it won’t replace)

Timestamps

(00:00) - – Intro to Dmitry
(05:34) - – What brand actually means in B2B
(07:54) - – Why your POV is the foundation of your brand
(10:04) - – How to uncover a real, differentiated POV
(14:03) - – How to stand out in a crowded, same-sounding market
(16:38) - – Why differentiation requires alignment between product and marketing
(19:28) - – Building trust with product teams
(20:17) - – Busy work in marketing: how to spot it and stop it
(22:59) - – Why marketers burn out and how poor prioritization is killing teams
(28:15) - – Making the case for brand work when it’s hard to measure
(29:50) - – The “fishing” analogy: performance vs brand marketing
(34:21) - – The real opportunity with AI in B2B marketing
(38:20) - – How AI can eliminate bottlenecks and speed up creative execution
(39:50) - – Why Dmitry’s starting a creative agency (Oh Snap) and how it’s different
(42:58) - – How to hire great designers: what to look for beyond the portfolio

Send guest pitches and ideas to [email protected]
Join the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Check out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/
Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership

***

Today’s episode is brought to you by Zuddl.

We’re halfway through 2025, and one thing’s clear: events continue to be one of the highest performing marketing channels. Niche meetups, conferences, curated dinners, networking - you name it. Everyone’s leaning in.

Events are a core part of our playbook this year at Exit Five. So far, we’ve hosted two virtual sessions each month, one large virtual event, one in-person meetup, and we’re deep in the weeds planning our Drive conference coming back to Vermont this September.

Zuddl helps us run a smarter event strategy - from driving registrations, managing invites, automating comms, reminders, analytics, tracking. Their Salesforce integration also makes it simple to report on pipeline and revenue from events without pulling in ops.

On top of that, the differentiator with Zuddl is how their team is insanely good at supporting us. They always go above and beyond for us - and that’s how we’ve been able to keep the momentum going with 12+ events already this year, with plenty more to come.

If events are part of your marketing strategy, you need to look at Zuddl to see how companies like Zillow, CrowdStrike, and Iterable are using the top event platform for Business events in 2025.

Head over to zuddl.com/exitfive to learn more.

276 episodes

#Entrepreneur #Business #Marketing #Exit #B2B Marketing #Startup GoToMarket #Marketing Strategies