How I’d Learn Marketing FAST in 2026 — Transcript

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1. 0:00If I was learning marketing for the
2. 0:01first time, this is the exact [music]
3. 0:03step-by-step plan I would follow to
4. 0:05build a seven-figure career all over
5. 0:07again. I used to be a shy kid from
6. 0:09Canada who could barely speak up at the
7. 0:11dinner table. Now, today I've made
8. 0:13millions from my writing and ideas and
9. 0:15I've coached marketers [music] at brands
10. 0:16like Shopify and AWS, but none of that
11. 0:20came from just pure talent or even from
12. 0:22working harder than everyone else. What
13. 0:24I did was [music] think like a CMO from
14. 0:27day one by doing these six things. First
15. 0:30up is to narrow down the big abstract
16. 0:32world of marketing. You have to pick
17. 0:34your game, performance marketing or
18. 0:36growth marketing. This is how Adobe
19. 0:38became a multi-billion dollar empire.
20. 0:40So, Adobe had a problem. They were
21. 0:42selling Creative Suite, great, [music]
22. 0:44the industry standard for designers,
23. 0:46photographers, video editors, like the
24. 0:48whole creative world, but they were
25. 0:50selling it the way software had always
26. 0:52been sold, one big upfront purchase
27. 0:55every year every few years hoping
28. 0:56customers would just come back and
29. 0:58renew. Product was dominant here. The
30. 1:01revenue was a little unpredictable and a
31. 1:03whole generation of smaller creators
32. 1:05couldn't afford the entry price, so they
33. 1:08never became Adobe customers at all. So,
34. 1:10Adobe made a decision that terrified a
35. 1:12lot of people internally. They killed
36. 1:15the one-time purchase model and moved
37. 1:16everything to a monthly subscription,
38. 1:18always updated and accessible to anyone
39. 1:21who could afford basically a coffee a
40. 1:22day. Now, existing customers did not
41. 1:24like this. There was a public backlash.
42. 1:27For a short period, the stock even
43. 1:28dropped. I mean, it looked like
44. 1:30disaster. Then something happened.
45. 1:32Recurring revenue stabilized the
46. 1:34business in a way that it had never been
47. 1:37before. Suddenly, smaller studios and
48. 1:39freelancers who couldn't afford the old
49. 1:41model were able to start subscribing and
50. 1:43the customer base exploded. [music]
51. 1:45Adobe went from a company that made most
52. 1:47of its money from infrequent big [music]
53. 1:49purchases to one of the most financially
54. 1:52stable software businesses on the
55. 1:54planet. That's the difference [music]
56. 1:56between performance marketing and growth
57. 1:58marketing. Performance marketing is
58. 2:00about making what you already have work
59. 2:02better, which is great. Conversion
60. 2:03rates, the cost of acquiring a new
61. 2:05customer, the ads, the copy running
62. 2:07across your funnel. Growth marketing is
63. 2:08about expanding what's possible. So, new
64. 2:11channels, new audiences, new revenue
65. 2:13models. Both performance and growth
66. 2:15marketing are necessary and they work
67. 2:17together, but the game that worked for
68. 2:18Adobe was growth marketing here. A
69. 2:20fundamental change to how the business
70. 2:22[music] generated demand and revenue.
71. 2:24Most beginner marketers end up in
72. 2:26performance roles because basically
73. 2:27that's where entry-level jobs commonly
74. 2:29are, and that's [music] fine. But, if
75. 2:30you only ever think in performance
76. 2:32terms, you'll always be optimizing
77. 2:34someone else's vision instead of shaping
78. 2:36one of your own. Think like a CMO and
79. 2:38distinguish growth from performance.
80. 2:40Before you start any marketing task,
81. 2:42[music] ask yourself one question. Am I
82. 2:44here to make something existing work
83. 2:45better, or am I here to build something
84. 2:48that doesn't exist yet? Performance or
85. 2:51growth? Know which one you're doing
86. 2:52[music] and you'll know exactly how to
87. 2:54think about it. The second thing I'd
88. 2:55learn is how to use AI like a
89. 2:57strategist. [music]
90. 2:58Using AI to write faster is the lowest
91. 3:01value thing you can do with AI, and it
92. 3:04will frustrate you. Here is what [music]
93. 3:06to do instead. When AI first exploded,
94. 3:09the advice was pretty simple. Use
95. 3:10[music] it to write faster, produce more
96. 3:12content, generate a lot of options. And
97. 3:14a lot of marketers did exactly that.
98. 3:16But, then their companies looked around
99. 3:18and said, "Well, if the tool does 75% of
100. 3:21the [music] writing, why do we need as
101. 3:22many writers?" A lot of people lost
102. 3:24their jobs in that first wave. But,
103. 3:26here's what happened next. The
104. 3:28businesses that replaced everyone with
105. 3:30AI started getting really [music]
106. 3:31generic output. Slop. Forgettable
107. 3:34content. Copy that sounded like everyone
108. 3:36else's copy because it was trained on
109. 3:39everyone else's copy. And those
110. 3:41businesses started coming back, not for
111. 3:43people who could type [music] faster,
112. 3:45but for marketers who could think, who
113. 3:47could stress test a position, who could
114. 3:49model and predict what would happen two
115. 3:51steps after going to market. Now, that's
116. 3:53the shift. The marketers who survived
117. 3:55and thrived and are still doing so
118. 3:57weren't the ones who used AI the most.
119. 3:59They weren't are the ones who use it for
120. 4:00actual business problems, not
121. 4:03wordsmithing. CMOs know the greatest use
122. 4:06of AI isn't production, it's pressure
123. 4:08[music] testing. Most marketers fail not
124. 4:10because the execution was slow or even
125. 4:11bad, which AI is supposed to solve, but
126. 4:14because the thinking behind it was just
127. 4:16not challenged. AI gives you this
128. 4:18incredible thinking partner who will
129. 4:20challenge you every time if you ask it
130. 4:22the right questions. [music]
131. 4:24So, the question is not can AI write
132. 4:26this for me, but AI, where does this
133. 4:29fall apart? So, as [music] someone just
134. 4:31getting started in the marketing world,
135. 4:32upload your work to AI, describe who
136. 4:34you're selling to, and ask it to find
137. 4:36every place [music] a real customer
138. 4:38would tune out in your copy. That one
139. 4:40habit [music] will make your marketing
140. 4:42stronger than anything else on this
141. 4:44list. Now that you know how to think
142. 4:46with AI, there's one specific place that
143. 4:48thinking needs to [music] show up. How
144. 4:49people find you in the first place. The
145. 4:51third thing I'd learn is the new SEO.
146. 4:53[music]
147. 4:54SEO used to be the best way to make a
148. 4:56business famous, but now it's something
149. 4:58else entirely. Back in 2018, Google
150. 5:01released this update, the Medic update,
151. 5:03that nobody saw coming. Businesses that
152. 5:05had spent years and years doing exactly
153. 5:09what Google told them to do, woke up one
154. 5:11day just buried in search results,
155. 5:13[music] just overnight, no warning. And
156. 5:15as anyone who's worked in search knows,
157. 5:17if you want to hide a dead body, you put
158. 5:19it on page two of Google. No one will
159. 5:21find it. So, this update killed a lot of
160. 5:24businesses. It hurt ours, and it hurt
161. 5:26our friends. The lesson everyone took
162. 5:28away was don't build on rented land. But
163. 5:30then, they kept building on rented land,
164. 5:32just different land, Instagram, TikTok,
165. 5:34LinkedIn,
166. 5:35>> [music]
167. 5:35>> wherever the algorithm was paying out
168. 5:37that quarter. Now, we're in a new
169. 5:39version of that same moment. Buyers are
170. 5:41asking AI, like ChatGPT, questions that
171. 5:44Google was never really good at
172. 5:45answering, and AI is answering them
173. 5:47directly without sending anyone to your
174. 5:49website. Now, here's how you can take
175. 5:51advantage of that like a CMO. A whole
176. 5:54new discipline has emerged called answer
177. 5:55engine optimization. Where search engine
178. 5:58optimization or SEO was about getting
179. 6:00Google, the search engine, to rank
180. 6:02[music] your page, answer engine
181. 6:04optimization is about getting AI answer
182. 6:06tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity
183. 6:08[music] to cite you as the source of
184. 6:10truth in chats. So, the currency has
185. 6:13shifted from traffic [music] to
186. 6:14citation. Most marketers are still
187. 6:16optimizing only for the old one.
188. 6:18Wikipedia, Reddit, and [music] YouTube
189. 6:20are where most major AI tools are
190. 6:23pulling their answers from right now.
191. 6:24Those are platforms with structured,
192. 6:26referenceable content. Your job is to
193. 6:29create content that those systems want
194. 6:31to cite, not content that just gets
195. 6:33clicks, content that gets referenced and
196. 6:36cited. The same way you used to ask,
197. 6:38"Will Google rank this?" you now need to
198. 6:40ask, "Will AI cite this?" Basically, the
199. 6:42new SEO. The new question to ask about
200. 6:45every [music] piece of content you
201. 6:46create, is this referenceable? Not just
202. 6:49shareable, not just viral, not even just
203. 6:51engaging. Referenceable. Would an AI
204. 6:54chatbot pull this as a credible source
205. 6:57when my ICP asks it a question? If not,
206. 7:01don't make a rookie mistake and just
207. 7:03create it anyway. [music] Knowing where
208. 7:04visibility comes from is only useful if
209. 7:06you have something worth being visible
210. 7:08for.
211. 7:09>> [music]
212. 7:09>> Now, that's where specialization comes
213. 7:10in. The fourth thing I would do is pick
214. 7:13one part of marketing and go all in on
215. 7:15that. Everyone says new marketers should
216. 7:17be generalists, but this [music] is fast
217. 7:19becoming the way to become replaceable.
218. 7:22Take HubSpot. They did not try to win at
219. 7:25marketing, they invented a whole
220. 7:26category. Along with Moz, they defined
221. 7:29what inbound marketing meant. They wrote
222. 7:31the book on it, built tools and
223. 7:32certifications around it, and became the
224. 7:34first [music] name anyone thought of
225. 7:35when they heard that phrase. Now, they
226. 7:37did not do that by being good at
227. 7:39everything. They did it by owning one
228. 7:41thing [music] so completely that the
229. 7:43category and the company became
230. 7:45synonymous. Now, think about what that
231. 7:48looks like at the individual marketer
232. 7:50level.
233. 7:50>> [music]
234. 7:51>> April Dunford is the most respected
235. 7:53positioning authority on the planet
236. 7:55serving enterprise B2B tech. Very
237. 7:57narrow, very specialized, and very
238. 8:00[music] successful. Dave Gerhardt has
239. 8:02gone narrow on founder-led marketing.
240. 8:05Basically, the marketers you know are
241. 8:06all specialists, including me. Now, most
242. 8:09new marketers spread themselves across
243. 8:11every channel because someone told them
244. 8:12to be adaptable. Learn social, learn
245. 8:14email, learn paid ads, learn search. And
246. 8:16they end up being, you know, slightly
247. 8:18okay at all of it, which means [music]
248. 8:20they're interchangeable. If everyone
249. 8:22knows the same things, you're basically
250. 8:24a walking AI tool. You can be prompted
251. 8:27and replaced. The marketers who build
252. 8:29real leverage pick one thing and go so
253. 8:31deep on that one thing that people start
254. 8:34citing their frameworks, not their
255. 8:35companies' frameworks, theirs. [music]
256. 8:38It can be as specific as scripting
257. 8:40videos or capturing attention on social
258. 8:42media or owning outreach on LinkedIn so
259. 8:44completely that your approach gets
260. 8:47shared in group chats you've never even
261. 8:49[music] been in. That is a career moat.
262. 8:51And here's what most people miss about
263. 8:53specialization. You don't have to like
264. 8:55wait to be an absolute expert to start
265. 8:57building that moat. You can start a
266. 9:00newsletter today sharing what you're
267. 9:01[music] learning as you learn it, not
268. 9:03pretending to be the authority, being
269. 9:05the person who is figuring [music] it
270. 9:07out in public. Do that every week for 3
271. 9:10years and you will be the recognized
272. 9:13voice in your specific corner of
273. 9:15marketing. The broader you are,
274. 9:17typically the more forgettable. The more
275. 9:19[music] specific you are, the more
276. 9:21promotable. The narrower your specialty,
277. 9:24the louder your signal. [music] Pick the
278. 9:26one thing you want to be known for, not
279. 9:27just the one thing you can do, and start
280. 9:30creating a public record of how you
281. 9:31think about it. That record compounds in
282. 9:34a way that job titles just never [music]
283. 9:35do and won't anymore. But narrow
284. 9:37expertise only compounds if people can
285. 9:40actually find it. Now, that's not about
286. 9:41content, it's about distribution. The
287. 9:44fifth thing I learned is what I call
288. 9:45owning [music] the ecosystem. The brands
289. 9:48that win aren't the ones with the best
290. 9:49content, they're the ones whose message
291. 9:51ends up everywhere their customer
292. 9:53already is. Tim Hortons is the coffee
293. 9:56chain here in Canada and it's not the
294. 9:58best coffee, not the fanciest brand, but
295. 10:00try sitting in a cold arena at 5:00 in
296. 10:03the morning watching your kids hockey
297. 10:05practice without a Tim Hortons cup in
298. 10:07your hand. It like feels wrong, like
299. 10:10something's missing and that feeling is
300. 10:12not accidental. Tim Hortons sponsors
301. 10:14hockey leagues across the country. Their
302. 10:16logo is on jerseys, their name [music]
303. 10:18is inside the rink. They didn't get into
304. 10:20your morning ritual by having like
305. 10:22better captions, they got there by
306. 10:24embedding themselves into the [music]
307. 10:25ecosystem where their customer, you,
308. 10:28already was. Now, Nike does the same
309. 10:31thing on a bigger scale. They don't win
310. 10:32because they write better copy
311. 10:34ultimately. They win because they're
312. 10:36inside the conversation before the
313. 10:38conversation starts.
314. 10:39>> [music]
315. 10:40>> Athlete partnerships, league
316. 10:42sponsorships, designer collaborations,
317. 10:44community platforms. Every one of those
318. 10:47is a distribution [music] decision, it's
319. 10:48not a content decision. They're not
320. 10:50asking how to make a better post,
321. 10:52they're asking how we become part of the
322. 10:53identity of the person who buys or
323. 10:56should buy from us. Now, most junior
324. 10:58marketers never think this way because
325. 11:00they're basically handed a channel and
326. 11:01like told to make it perform. But the
327. 11:03head of marketing at a company is always
328. 11:05thinking at least one level above that.
329. 11:07Not what do we say necessarily, but
330. 11:09where does it need to live [music] for
331. 11:11the right person to feel it at the right
332. 11:14moment. Stop asking, "How do I improve
333. 11:16this post?" and start asking, "How do we
334. 11:18embed ourselves into [music] our
335. 11:20customers' lives?" Those are very
336. 11:22different questions at different levels
337. 11:23of thinking. Now, you don't have to
338. 11:25answer the second one out loud in every
339. 11:27meeting, but you have to be the person
340. 11:29in the room who's asking it. The sixth
341. 11:32thing I would learn and the one that
342. 11:34almost nobody teaches is how not to be
343. 11:36boring.
344. 11:37The greatest cheat code to be a great
345. 11:39marketer is
346. 11:40>> [music]
347. 11:41>> stop being boring. We were brought in to
348. 11:43write emails for the scheduling tool
349. 11:44called Doodle. Now their existing emails
350. 11:46were getting very few replies.
351. 11:48Technically they were correct and
352. 11:50professionally written, but they were
353. 11:51completely invisible. So, we wrote
354. 11:54something that was quite different.
355. 11:55[music]
356. 11:55Emails that were unusual enough that
357. 11:58people didn't know what to make of them.
358. 12:00They were completely un-boring. Now some
359. 12:02Doodle users read these emails and then
360. 12:05they reached out and said, "Oh, we love
361. 12:06these." Others reached out to support
362. 12:09for Doodle to say, "I hate these." Now
363. 12:11the support team was furious with us
364. 12:14about the volume of replies, but the
365. 12:15head of marketing was thrilled because
366. 12:17the conversion rates had skyrocketed.
367. 12:20The emails worked not because they were
368. 12:23just like [music] creative for
369. 12:24creativity's sake, but because they were
370. 12:25willing to take a position. They had a
371. 12:27point of view. They said something that
372. 12:29could be disagreed with, which meant
373. 12:30they said something real. And in a world
374. 12:32where most marketing sounds like it was
375. 12:34written by a committee trying not to
376. 12:36offend anyone, [music]
377. 12:37saying something real is remarkable. The
378. 12:40most common mistake in marketing isn't
379. 12:42saying the wrong thing. [music] It's
380. 12:44saying nothing. Nothing worth
381. 12:46remembering. If a line came easily,
382. 12:48well, it probably sounded like
383. 12:50everything else. If it's the kind of
384. 12:51thing a boardroom came up with by
385. 12:54consensus, it's boring. Cut it. [music]
386. 12:56Listen to how your actual customers
387. 12:58describe their actual problems and use
388. 13:00those words. Not because it's like
389. 13:02clever, but because nothing a committee
390. 13:05invents will ever be as interesting as
391. 13:07what a real customer says out loud when
392. 13:10they're frustrated. Now here's the
393. 13:12reframe that will change how you think
394. 13:13about this. Instead of asking, "How do I
395. 13:16make this more creative?" ask, "What
396. 13:18would make this completely forgettable?"
397. 13:20and then do the opposite. Generic
398. 13:22language would, no point of view,
399. 13:24avoiding all tension. Once you can see
400. 13:26what boring looks like, not being boring
401. 13:28gets a lot easier for any brand. You
402. 13:31just saw the road map I'd follow to
403. 13:33build a high-income marketing career
404. 13:34from zero. But, if you don't know what
405. 13:37to study, you'll move fast in the wrong
406. 13:38direction. So, watch this next where
407. 13:41I'll show you the 12 books that can make
408. 13:43you smarter than 98% of marketers.