Why This Former CCO Became Your Comms BFF Instead - with Gab Ferree

Dan Nestle [00:00:00]: Welcome or welcome back to the trending Communicator. I'm your host, Dan Nestle. You know, sometimes I think the most transformative career pivots happen when you're already at the top. I've been noticing this pattern lately. Like the most successful communications executives are increasingly walking away from corner offices to build something that actually matters to the profession. And today's guest is the perfect embodiment of that trend. I mean, what if the best thing you could do for your career wasn't to climb higher, but to build the ladder that others can use? Meet Gab Faree. She's led global communications at some of the most recognizable brands in tech Slack during its salesforce integration Bumble during major brand transformation, OneTrust as it scaled from startup to 5.1 billion with a B valuation. She's built a 20 person global communications team from scratch. She's navigated founder transitions, IPOs, high stakes crises that made industry headlines. Everything. Everything any senior comms professional either dreams of doing, dreads doing, or both. By every traditional measure, she's reached the summit. VP level roles, executive leadership teams. The kind of strategic influence most communications professionals spend their entire careers chasing. And then this year, she launched off the Record, a private membership community for communications professionals who are, in her words, tired of winging it alone. This isn't a story about leaving corporate life behind. It's about recognizing that reaching the top means nothing if the ladder gets pulled up behind you. And Gab decided to build a better ladder. What Gab's building isn't just another coaching program or networking group. It's a place where communications professionals can admit they don't have all the answers. Even the ones who are supposed to. Even Gab herself. She's your comms bff. My BFF is Claude. I'm very sorry, but she's your comms bff. She's the accomplished peer who's been in your shoes, navigated the same crises, and is willing to share the actual tactics that worked. Today, we're going to dig into all of this and explore what Gab represents for our industry. The possibility that expertise doesn't have to come wrapped in intimidation. That vulnerability and authority can coexist. And that sometimes the most powerful thing you can do with hard won wisdom is to turn around and help others climb faster than you did. Welcome to the trending Communicator. Gab Faree. Gab, it's good to see you.

Gab Ferree [00:02:35]: Oh my gosh, it is so good to see you. Can I wrap up that intro in a bow?

Dan Nestle [00:02:40]: For sure.

Gab Ferree [00:02:41]: Just send it to my parents or anyone who may want to hear what I do. That was wonderful.

Dan Nestle [00:02:46]: Thank you. Well, the good news is you, you will get the transcript and you'll have it to use as you wish and see fit once. Of course, I do the edits because of course our audience is never going to know this, but I had to do the intro like seven times. I kept flubbing a couple of words, you know, but it's the only thing I script in the whole show and it's noticeably so. But I am like, I really think it's important to get it right and to understand, you know, why you are a trending communicator, why you're on the show and why people. Why I think people should really hear what you have to say. And you've been doing amazing things, you know, and I'm surprised we didn't run into each other earlier in our careers. But I, you know, I think that you're on this incredible journey and I want to hear your story. So maybe that's where we start. Right? Let's talk about the Gabfari story. And you know, it's. I wouldn't call it altruism necessarily, but, you know, you are definitely giving back. You are helping, you know, you're building that ladder for others that you didn't have and I certainly didn't have. How'd you get there? What is the gab for e story?

Gab Ferree [00:03:49]: Well, it all started on a Monday in September. My mom was getting induced. I'm just kidding. That's true, actually. And here's a. I love fun. I love fun facts and patterns. And so me and my two children were all born on Mondays in September via induction. So that really is how the story starts. But truly what it is is I found myself in the world of communications and pr and I found myself continuously thinking, like, I don't know what I'm doing and what I'm supposed to do next. And there's so many other people that are looking to me and they're saying, like, hey, like you're supposed to, like in comms, like you're supposed to be the one. And I actually read this somewhere on LinkedIn this week where she was like the person in a 50 word document that can find the one word that will backfire on you or, you know, the type of person that can see like seven order effects away from now how this will impact the brand or the one. To know that, hey, actually content marketing is where we should go, or influencer is where we should go, or search engine optimization, or now AI engine optimization is where we should go. And so, like, by grit and hard work, I figured it out. But the part that I loved the most was just very openly sharing what I learned. So with my teams across, you know, from OneTrust to Salesforce to Bumble, and in between, a lot of the work we did together was like, okay, so here is how not only we can do our job, but here is how you can make yourself better at your job and so that you can come to me with better ideas from where you sit at the table, you know, oh, and by the way, we're going to do it with a business mindset. We're not going to do it with a communicator's mindset because we need to align to business goals. Because here's the rub. A lot of people think that the worst thing that can happen to a communications professional is that they report into a cmo. I disagree. I think the best thing that has happened to me has been the times in which I was in marketing. Because you know why? Marketing has metrics and marketing has budget. And when you can get a comms program to think like a marketer, to think in terms of metrics and budget. Now I'm not saying everything has to be like quantified to leads, but when you can just start having that mindset and you're thinking about, okay, well how do I build programs that I can stand up next to my CMO and I can deliver strong results in the similar vein that they can, then guess what? You get more budget, you get more headcount, you get more autonomy, you get more trust. And so really bringing that to scale and when I found myself and where I am today, having left bumble and an opportunity and time to be like, what do I really want to do? I was like, I want to bring the beauty of a one on one meeting and what I've been able to do in my teams to people at scale. Because I think that there's a lot of people in communications who like, could value from what I've learned. And I actually just before this, hung up the call with a friend that I had at a previous company and he's at one of the big AI companies right now. And he said to me, he goes, you know Gob, I see a lot of people that go out and they proclaim themselves as someone who can train others or like teach others or coach others. And I think, oh, I've worked with them before. Like, okay, like, sure, he's like, you're the first person I've seen to do it where I'm like, I actually want to learn from her. Like, I believe I've worked with this person. I have seen the work product she produces. I know how she handles herself in front of executives. I've watched her work through the crisis storms. Like, that's the person I want to work from. And that was just such a huge, like, it made me feel really great. But it also is like, I'm on the right track. Right. And so just bringing this to scale has been really what I've been focused on over the last several months in off the record.

Dan Nestle [00:07:29]: I love it. And full transparency. I joined off the record.

Gab Ferree [00:07:33]: Hey, member. Hey, bestie.

Dan Nestle [00:07:35]: Yeah, so I may change my bestie from Claude to God. But it's very interesting because there are a lot of choices for community. There are a lot of learning communities and a lot of professional business communities and networking communities. And I can't get enough. You know, it's like, it's just where I'm going to spread my time when it comes to contributing. And participating in those communities becomes difficult, of course. But I wanted to address something you said. It's really interesting and some people might even say provocative, which is this whole idea of comms reporting into the cmo. And I happen to agree with you on this one. I know loads of people who don't. And one of the arguments is, well, if there's no cco, then comms doesn't have a seat at the table and oftentimes does come down to, well, we need a seat at the table, we need to be taken seriously or we have a lot to contribute. Marketing is too focused on the spend. They're too focused on conversion, the nasty word. We don't care about conversion and comms. We care about persuasion and impact and these good things that are fluffy sometimes but really important. So we shouldn't be in marketing. We should be reporting to somebody who shares our values. And I, I started as a marketer. I've never taken the marketer out of myself when it comes to comms. I don't. I have trouble understanding or discerning why there's a problem here because ultimately it comes to, well, does the CMO value what comms does and understand how it fits into the marketing ecosystem? You know, some comms people say marketing fits into the comms ecosystem. Either way, it's the same conversation. It's supposed. It's like one should be one kind of integrated thing. So there's a question in There somewhere. And I got you. Yeah, Like, I just. I'm fine. Yeah, yeah. No, I just. I just want to know, like, what you have to say to those people. Yeah, yeah, go for it.

Gab Ferree [00:09:53]: So first, ideally, I report to the CEO, right? But that's not always reality. Right. There's a lot of competing pressure for this Chief Executive Officer. So if I have to report to someone who is not the CEO, I will take marketing over compliance all the time.

Dan Nestle [00:10:07]: Any day.

Gab Ferree [00:10:08]: Any day. And here's the thing is, I don't care what my title is and I don't care what my reporting line is. I am the Chief Communications Officer. When I am the head of comms and I do have a seat at the table, I don't have to be reporting into the CEO. Here's the thing, you have to earn your seat at the table, and you have to keep your seat at the table by providing value. That value is through opinions. It's through strong understanding of the public, and it's communicating the combination of what you believe to happen and your strong opinions and then standing on your ground. No matter the impact of those decisions. You can report into the CEO and still not have a seat at the leadership table, and vice versa. You can not report into the CEO and have a seat at the leadership table. I don't really care about reporting structures. So in a world where I don't report directly in the CEO, I'm fine with marketing because I provide so much value as a communicator and I see the right CMO as a partner. But also, here's how I always am with my bosses is like, you don't have to worry about what we're doing over here. Like, I got you. I'm going to give you the right level of reporting, you know, whatever they require. Right. I'm gonna give you the right level of visibility into what I'm doing. But the confidence to know that you don't have to worry about this, like, go focus on PPC or go focus on, you know, product marketing or go focus somewhere else. Like, you don't, you don't have to worry about this. In comms, you're the cmo. You don't need to worry about this. I got it. I'm your cco.

Dan Nestle [00:11:35]: That's what people need. I think that's what most executives want. They just want to not worry about something. You know, if you can do something and they don't want to, they don't worry about you. And you, you have your weekly or bi weekly one on ones and you say, look, here's the issue, here's what we're doing. You know, what do I need to do for you? Here's what I think you should do. Just have a good consultative session and everything's running smoothly. Great. Then they love it.

Gab Ferree [00:11:56]: That's actually even the advice I give to people in job interviews, which isn't just like, use the time to ask the questions, but use the time to allow the person who's interviewing you to imagine how much better their life is going to be when you're in that seat because of the knowledge, you bring in, the expertise, you bring in the insight, you bring in, the get shit done that you're going to bring into that table. And they're going to be like, going home to their partner that night and be like, oh, my gosh, I really hope this person gets the job, because my life is going to be so much easier when they're on board. Right. Versus someone that they have to train and develop and like, the reality is these people don't have time to do that. Which is why spaces, like off the record exist is because you can have an amazing boss, but to be able to have the time that they have to mentor you, that's not always guaranteed. So it's sort of like a catch 22 where you have to, like I said, have all the answers because you want your boss to think that you've got it under control. But at the same time, how are you gonna get the answers? You've never done this before. You've never been in this position before. Which is why it's so important, I think, in the comms industry that we share our expertise and best practices. So whether or not I've gone through a brand backlash, I know what to do because I've learned from someone who has for sure.

Dan Nestle [00:13:08]: It has me wondering about why this ended up being the case with PR and communications. Right. You're marketing people, or people who are more purely on the marketing side. Let's say they're going to jobs either out of business school or they've been trained in some way. There's no shortage of training. And these days, of course, there's a lot of training available for PR as well and for comms. But I feel like the career path, once you plug into communications or pr, GRI or any of the R's in an organization, there's no real playbook except the one that's created internally by that company. And maybe that explains why comms people can stay sort of in one place for Such a long time until you start to really move up the ladder and then there's no place to go. Because in a corporate environment it's typically a very siloed or narrow kind of career path. But I think a lot of hiring managers, a lot of companies think that the path to learning about priority and communications lies in agency. And so you always see this like mid level, senior level roles especially. It's like, oh, agency experience preferred agency experience. This, we want people from agency because companies don't have training for this. But do you think there's a better career? Like obviously off the record is aiming to do some of this, but why do you think that's the case? That this is the way things evolve, that there, you know, there hasn't been a real solid training methodology or kind of onboarding path for our profession. We, you know, we have professional organizations that are of varying levels of utility depending on where you are, you know, so it's just, it's just kind of makes me think like what, where did we go wrong? Or where do we go right? Maybe. I don't know.

Gab Ferree [00:15:14]: I have never put together the point that you just made, which was super interesting of like the agency model being the actual education in PR and communications. Because that's exactly true. But the problem is is there's almost this perfect point that you have to leave or else you're stuck. Right? So there's a point where they like to go in house. They want agency experience, but not too much agency experience because then you're an agency person and they're not going to be able to deal with like our in house sort of like run around red tape bureaucracy that everyone has to deal with once they're in house. But also the agencies are the only one that are going to be hiring junior talent because this is, you know, this is where the jobs are and this is where the jobs are at scale. So I totally agree with that. Like, I think, you know, I have a lot of love and respect for my university, but as far as practical applicable learning that I could do to get my client press coverage, that wasn't necessarily the focus of my courses. I could teach you about persuasion theory and like general digital media trends and you know, other like, you know, I had a favorite class called Communication of Sports and it talked about how sports people like went through, you know, dramas. We talked a lot about like the LeBron James leaving Miami, you know, excuse me, leaving Cleveland for Miami. Like that was, that was pretty fun, right? But like it's not going to help Me get press coverage, right. So really everything I needed to know I learned in agency. And so I think that agency is the way in to this industry. Because to your point, I just maybe don't necessarily think that the training is that good. But here's the problem. Once you make that leap into house, training's over. Like, good luck. Most companies just in general, I think, realize this is a problem regardless of industry or vertical. And so they provide things like learning, development, budget, and they sort of just like expect you as a subject matter expert to get whatever training you need.

Dan Nestle [00:17:08]: But.

Gab Ferree [00:17:08]: But there's this interesting thing that I've realized as I've gone through this journey of basically starting a learning and development program for comms people myself, is that some comms people are afraid to tell their boss that they need L and D, that they want to join an organization like off the Record, because the culture there is so like you should be expected to be excellent and perfect all the time and you should already be at the peak of your game and there's no other learning that you need. Otherwise why am I investing in you? And that I think is more of the problem versus as I've been the head of communications, I have openly shared like, I want coaching, I want training, I want community, I want to get better. Because ever since you and I have started in communications, it's been evolving. I think there hasn't been a year I've been in this profession where someone hasn't been like, this is the biggest changing year, right? We watched the decline of print, the rise of online, the rise of the blog, then social media. Now we have new media and individual content creators. Now we're tackling AI engine optimization, right? Like that's just within this last 20 year span. So like, there's no way that anyone can know it all. So like, let's be open and be like, I need to learn, like I need someone to learn from. I deserve development and I deserve to grow.

Dan Nestle [00:18:29]: Oh yeah, there's a whole like systemic unfairness happening here against PR people. And I like, I'm not channeling systemic anything here, but I think these new channels that have started with social, probably maybe a little before that, but the idea that audiences started to gain control of where they are consuming media and where they're consuming information and where they started to be able to choose beyond three major networks and five prints, periodicals or whatever, you know, there's still people in the industry who haven't, I don't think who've really taken that in yet, which is Crazy.

Gab Ferree [00:19:14]: I mean, I just read yesterday that 46% of PR professionals are not pitching podcasts. 46%. Like, we have to be better. Like, podcasts have been around forever. We've already had our podcast election. Right. Like, so that resistance to change is, is going to land you maybe not to be replaced by AI, but certainly to be replaced.

Dan Nestle [00:19:39]: 100% agree. And that change like PR itself and comms. In fact, in my last episode I was talking with. Or last, last episode I was talking with my friend Crystal Valadin and she's. We were talking about how like in the UK they call it PR and here we call it comms, but some people call it pr, but PR is just part of comms. It's very confusing because the comms umbrella is getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. You talked about it a little bit. Just by referring to the different channels we have, the different disruptions in technology, you know, and we are expected to immediately understand what the implications of these are, how to leverage these technologies and channels to, you know, to navigate a crisis or to, or to just simply, you know, promote our narrative and to support our executives. And then you add layer onto that events. Well, we're going to throw that in the PR world as well because, you know, it's basically you're getting up on, you're being, it's earned, you know, you're invited to speak and it's owned content in a lot of ways. And. Okay, that's fine. We're going to put that with the PR comms team. Oh, wait a second. We have. Our employee base is growing. We need to communicate to them. So. Oh yeah, let's just do an internal communications. I guess we need somebody to oversee internal communications. Right. And that becomes a whole big new specialty. And then now it's just employee engagements. So it goes on and on. Oh, by the way, government relations and ir and if you're, if you're in a listed company, you have these responsibilities. If it's a private company, it's this. Oh my God.

Gab Ferree [00:21:16]: It's just.

Dan Nestle [00:21:16]: It makes your head explode. And there's no one track to kind of prepare people for this. You're just expected to know it. And to our credit, a lot of us done a good job of just. Okay, fine, I'm going to know it. I got it, I got it. Because we're naturally, I think, innately curious people. And at least until very recently, our only core skill was writing and critical thinking. So we had to kind of extrapolate that across different different situations. But the, you know, the idea that we have so many expectations in any company and, you know, dropping the ball in any one of them is unforgivable. People wonder why we have the highest burnout rate in, like, across most professions, like, I'm not including police and garbage and, you know, like, sanitation workers, but we do have a very, very high burnout rate and certainly high turnover. And I think that's one of the things you're trying to fix with, with off the record, you know, with these conversations with people who, who are just like you or just like me or, you know, can. Can admit to their. We don't. What we don't know.

Gab Ferree [00:22:32]: Yeah. Because I think the issue too long with comms have been like, in order to prove my value to this company, I just have to do more and more and more and more and more and become completely and always available. But I want to encourage communicators to instead really think about how their programs align to business goals and be really deliberate about how they communicate, how they deliver on those business goals. And then that earns you, like, trust and autonomy and time and space. So if your only way to prove value to the company is your availability, like you are selling your soul. Right. We want to sell our minds, and we just have to continuously think like, again, like our marketing counterparts and align ourselves to business value rather than just like communications metrics. And I think that there are a lot of even, like, creative ways. Like, I don't think that people have to always change what they're doing. I just think they have to change how they communicate about it. Like, I think they need to give their program like a good little PR scrub. Is my. My audience, is my leadership team. How am I communicating to this audience in a way in space that they're going to find valuable? Right?

Dan Nestle [00:23:36]: Yeah.

Gab Ferree [00:23:36]: And so I think that that's like a really important, like, just mental pivot. I had a coaching session with someone last week and I said something just like, pretty simple. She's like, I don't understand how. I don't think I can really align my communications goals to your business, to my company's business values. Excuse me. Business goals. I asked her what her company's business goals were. Then I told her exactly how what she was doing laddered up. I was like, all you need to do, literally, is just make it visual. Put your company business goals, line your communication goals underneath, and then tactics and strategies come underneath that. And it was like a light bulb moment. But it was just this simple pivot on Just how she presented and communicated herself that could very well align her and make her compete and stand out like against her marketing counterparts.

Dan Nestle [00:24:20]: To make matters even harder, because that's a great point. Right? Like, I don't remember what, when, when that happened for me, when I suddenly learned that what, what business goals actually mean, you know, what financial goals mean for, you know, for, for an opera, for a large operation and how I had a role in furthering those goals and how my team had a role in furthering those goals. I mean, by the time I was building teams, I kind of understood all that stuff. But it's. Nobody tells you, to your earlier point, nobody tells you what this means and you think that, okay, yeah, here's the business strategy. Let me build out my comms plan to support the strategy. But what happened with your coachee there? Seems like they built the comms plan and strategy without looking at the business strategy first. It sounds like they might have gotten a little bit lucky in connecting and mapping what they're doing to the business goals and the business strategy, which, which is kind of like, you know, it screams to the importance of comms leaders. And this is what you were saying before, to just be the advisor, to be strong with you, to understand what you are offering, to be solid in your knowledge and your wisdom about the organization, but also to be at the table in the first place so that you are privy to the business strategy. And privy is a bad word too, because you know, the business strategy should be shared with all leaders like it. Just like this is the business strategy and you should be having input into that as a comms leader anyway. But let's just assume for the sake of argument that, okay, you get the business strategy from the business and then you build out your comm strategy afterwards. Right? People run into problems when they build a strategy with like in a silo and then wonder why they're not being listened to and wonder why they don't have a seat at the table because they're disconnected, you know, so how does somebody, like, how does somebody who is, I guess, inexperienced in that way or maybe doesn't, doesn't come out of agency and experiences like multiple client stakeholder relationships or works for a startup, for example, and falls into comms and then just starts to kind of build their career that way, but has never had, has done everything by organic, by osmosis, how do they then kind of push their way in or earn their way? And without having an understanding of what.

Gab Ferree [00:27:05]: The expectation is, I think that everyone just has to pretend that they've had an MBA and just has to bring that business mind into what they're doing. Because at the end of the day, all of us are working for businesses. That primary response, some people work for government, so maybe it's not your primary responsibility to make money. But just generally speaking, people work for businesses for profit. Companies that are interested in making money, nonprofits interested in getting donations, AKA money. So we need to be a money making function. We need to think like a business leader would think. And then it's actually like honestly, just very small tweaks I think that people need to make. One piece of advice would be when you're presenting the outcomes of like a campaign or something you've worked on, position it in the sense of the business goals. Like our number one goal this year is to increase revenue by 30% in order to increase revenue. These are the communications campaigns that we have done. Now maybe I'm not going to be able to say and it increased revenue by X percent, but I can at least take some credit into that effort. And then all I'm doing is I'm just reminding the business when I'm speaking to them, like, I know what our business goals are. So I'm going to say them out loud again and I'm going to put them in the front of what I say after that. So just continuously thinking like a business person. And like the thing is, is like when you're talking to an executive and they may say things like they're like, oh, you're my PR person. PR comms. I kind of use them interchangeably. Comms is a broad dweller. PR is like external communications, media relations. So like, oh, you're my PR person. I want to get in the Times. The New York Times. You are a business person. You are not a New York Times reporter. Right? So like you actually want to work for their business and be like, okay, well, I understand our business goals are X and the communication program that we're building in order to support X is going to be these things. Whether or not the times like exist within that. That's, you know, to be seen by the program that you build. But we also can do PR for ourselves when we're talking to executives. To be like, I'm not your New York Times person, I'm your comms person. I'm the person who uses this entire influence that's not paid to get people to think about our brand and help us achieve our goals. And the New York Times are maybe like one part of that. But I'm not that person for you. I'm a bigger picture thinker and just the best way to do that is in any interaction you have with executives, including your own manager, continue to demonstrate that you understand the business goals. Yeah, Dan, to your point about like just receiving the strategy, that is always disheartening to me for communications professionals, especially if you oversee internal comms, because if you are responsible for the entire company to rally around and understand the business goals, you should very much be in those early conversations. You should be the voice of the employee. You should be thinking about how we can roll this out. I've worked at companies that change the business goals with every all hands. It was very, very thrashing. And not even in every all hands, like literally like minutes before the all hands is we're working on the slides. That's startup life. So like it's going to happen. But like I could never like adequately roll them out. And it was very hard to align what we're doing to business strategy because it changed all the time. Right. Had I had a better seat at the table then how do I know then what I know now and been able to get a better seat in that leadership table? I could have better advised at the same time, you know, if the business is going to change its mind all the time, then it's going to change its mind all the time and you just have to roll with that. But I think especially if you're overseeing internal comms, it more important that you're at the seat at the table and you understand that strategy and are really dedicated to making sure that you can think like an employee as well. And like, how do I roll it out? Because it's not just the comms person that should align everything to the business goals. It's every person, everybody.

Dan Nestle [00:30:52]: Yeah. And some companies do a great job of that. Right? They do a great job of, of the rollout and the, the alignment and, and the strategy team is the leadership team from all functions. Everybody's got their input. That's wonderful. And I've been in that situation too and it's great. You know, you don't.

Gab Ferree [00:31:10]: It's.

Dan Nestle [00:31:11]: At the very least it saves a lot of time wasting and like just where you're spinning wheels and figuring out what your comm strategy and tactics are. You know, you don't have to plan seven times to get it right. You got the business strategy in front of you. So, okay, this is what we're going to do. But I've been in the other situation and it's not, you Know, in the company I was at, it wasn't a reflection of whether or not comms has a seat at the table. It's more of a structural issue with the company. And I'll say it was Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, very, very large Japanese company. And there was no business strategy kind of creation or business strategy meetings sessions happening at the regional Americas level. And even my boss in Japan was effectively the cco. Even though they didn't have one, he wasn't in on the, on the strategy sessions. You just get this document every couple of years. This is a three year plan, this is a five year plan, go. So it's like, okay, I didn't have any part in banking the business strategy. Um, but then you know, there's, there's a reasonable amount of interpretation that has to happen, you know, at certain levels and you know, you kind of figure it out as you go. But it makes it very, very difficult to, to prove your value or to even demonstrate value if the business goals in the first place. If you know, looking at the, you look at the business plan and you know for an absolute 100% fact as a knowledgeable person that there is no way that this particular goal is going to happen from a PR or comms standpoint. PR and comms had nothing to do with the formulation of this particular goal. We know the market reality is that this is not going to happen here in America or wherever you are. But it's too late. But trains left stations, stamps are on it. You gotta kind of do what you need to do.

Gab Ferree [00:33:20]: Can I give you a flip side of that? So a company and this is well known that I think does very well at this sort of like getting everyone aligned with the business goals is Salesforce. They have this established model called the V2 Mom. Yeah, the V2 Mom. So vision, values, methods, obstacles and metrics for measurements is the last one. And it's like a waterfall. So Mark Benioff, the CEO of the company company writes his first and then every, all of his direct reports, right there's next lined up to marks and then it goes down and down and down. And even me on my team, like I would create my V2 mom and then my team would create theirs off of that. It was really great alignment. It helped you like stay on task. And we like reviewed them every quarter. We even had a system where you could look at any other person's V2 mom so you could know what they were doing and like in practice put it outside your.

Dan Nestle [00:34:10]: They put outside the windows, outside the offices, right? So people walking by could look at the V2 moms.

Gab Ferree [00:34:15]: We had a more digital version of that, but yeah, I've heard him pretty much. So granted, of course you worked on stuff and you did stuff outside of the V2 monks. That's the nature of a business. But at least at your core you knew that what you were doing was aligned to business goals and it was a really effective way to waterfall it down. And I would recommend that comms leaders, regardless if that's happening at a company wide level, that you implement it on your team level, you take the company goals, you translate into communication goals and you allow it to waterfall down across your team. So everyone feels like they're purposely working towards that business mindset.

Dan Nestle [00:34:48]: Yeah. And you know, making sure that everything is values based so that everybody has buy in and you know, you go through the whole process. Yeah, I've been in both of those situations and certainly when the goals are aligned, it's much smoother. It's a much, it's much smoother sailing. And I don't know, like it's, it's just interesting the way that all of that has evolved over the last few years and, and which sort of brings me to this whole idea about, you know, brings you back to this idea of comms having a seat at the table. Kind of a familiar, and I'm very sorry to my audience, but a sort of well worn soapbox that I've stood on a million times and so have my guests. But like, I'm tired of hearing this discussion like comms needs a seat at the table. There are of course, sometimes when it, when comms just for one reason or another is the structure. You have a CEO who had a, you know, his dog was shot by a PR guy at some point earlier in their life. I don't know, something they have some kind of issue with PR people. Who knows? It happens. Hopefully not often, but it happens. But the point is that we've been saying this for 25 years. I mean, as long as I've been in comms, I've seen every conference. How do you get a seat at the table? How do you do this? We should be doing this. Why don't we have a seat at the table? And I think we just have to look in a mirror and kind of look at our own profession and just kind of figure it out. And by the way, there's nothing wrong as a professional of any measure to look in that mirror one day and say, you know what, I'm not super comfortable putting myself forward and being very strong with my opinions about things and, you know, trying to get a seat at the table is a big effort. And I, you know, I don't think I can do it. There's no, nothing wrong with that. But you're in the wrong job. My kids, like, you need to then be a SME or a specialist or just do the things that you need to do. But if you are a corporate communicator and you want to move, you know, you want to move your company forward and actually do what's best for the company, you have to show value. And that's what it all comes down to is demonstrating value, which should be second nature now to us because we should be metrics. The metrics are there. People are using the wrong metrics half the time, but they're there. We're a digital world now. I've been at the forefront of comstech for ages and, you know, to see organizations say, how. Well, wait a second, how do we measure these things? Still saying that is frustrating a little bit. And now we have AI. Right now we have AI, which is a different thing than technology in my mind. It's a huge disruptor in a lot of different ways. And I think it has something to do with. Or it could have something to do with comms actually making an even stronger case for itself as a strategically critical part of an organization. Earlier today, I saw a post from Mark Shaffer, my friend guru. I don't know, some people might say, I worship him. I don't. Mark, I don't. I don't worship you. You're my friend. I worship you. So anyway, I love Mark, but. But Mark, you know, he's, He's. He is who he is because he's, he's a. He has. He says very wise things and he's coming from the marketing side. But today on LinkedIn, he said, this may be counterintuitive, but PR and communications is poised to really take off because of AI. And the main reason is because AI values owned and earned content more than paid content. Like, if I'm just going to boil it down to a very simple statement. And I love these discussions because most people kind of like, like, well, oh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's great. I've been saying that. I've been saying that almost that exact thing since November of 2022 when ChatGPT first came out. I didn't know how, like, was it a generative engine optimization was going to work or if that was even a thing back then. But you know, still, the idea that this is a super powerful opportunity or huge opportunity for the comms profession specifically, I can't get it out of my mind. So how have you seen this in your community and. Well, in our community, because I'm a member. But how have you seen this in off the record? Do you think it's affecting? Let me narrow that down. What role do you think AI and the communicator's interaction with AI plays in earning that seat at the table, that trust, becoming that advisor, doing our job better?

Gab Ferree [00:40:16]: The example you give of generative AI producing search results effectively through earned media is just one reason why I'm super bullish on the future of our industry with AI. And that feels a bit counterintuitive given that one of the core things that AI does is right and that for many, many years was our totem pole that we stood on. It's like, we are the writers, we are the owner of the narrative, we are the people with the words, essentially. But guess what? Everyone just got promoted. Everyone just got themselves a new specialist underneath them named Claude, who produces everything for you as a first draft. And it may be good, it may be great. Good job. You prompted the model, right? You've trained it right? Like, good. What higher level order thinking can and should you do because of that. And like, now imagine how much more you can accomplish in a day with that done for you, with that, because you have, like, when you're okay, like, I'm going to pause for a second and say, like, there is an art to writing. And for people who are writing fiction and writing novels and writing essays and writing thought leadership, like, I want you to struggle with those words and turn on them because, like, I know that you're gonna get to a better result. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about writing corporate communications materials, like for your campaigns, right? This type of stuff used to take us so long. Now it doesn't. Okay, take advantage of it and then allow yourself the time to do higher level order thinking. How can I make this better? How can I create communications that compete with TikTok, that compete with scrolling and algorithm that I can actually break through the noise that's relevant to my leadership team or my employees, right? You've just, congratulations, you just got a new specialist and you've unlocked yourself a ton of time. Like, use it wisely. So my, my mantra here is evolve or die, right? Like, you AI is not going to take your job. It is going to make you so much Better at your job if you do it right. So come with me, come along the journey, learn about it. Let me teach you. And this is actually Dan, something that you as a going to get very shortly. But I'm working on a whole training on this where one piece of it is exactly how do I go from AI is going to take my job to OMG Comms just got so much more important in a world of AI.

Dan Nestle [00:42:47]: Exactly. That's, that is, that sums it up. Like I, I, I always had trouble with people who said AI is not going to take your job, but somebody who knows how to use AI is going to take your job. I don't think that's true. I think it's a, it would be by that point it's a conscious decision to want to lose your job or a subconscious decision. The opportunity is right in front of us, you know, and if you see suddenly you have a, you have a profession with a couple hundred thousand people in it, you know, I don't know, I don't know what the number is of PR professionals in the world. I should probably know that the labor statistics never really gets it right. But when you have, you know, a couple hundred thousand people who are by and large writers and creative people who are kind of gone through liberal educations, not politically liberal, I mean liberal arts educations, where you're, you're taught to just think about different things in different ways and learn quickly about being able to jump from subject to subject and be able to learn quickly. You know, now you have a PhD in your pocket. I mean, what's stopping you from unleashing that curious creative beast that's kind of dying to get out? That's like inside.

Gab Ferree [00:44:07]: Can I tell you something inside your chest?

Dan Nestle [00:44:09]: Yeah, sure.

Gab Ferree [00:44:09]: What's stopping you? Nothing. Let me tell you something. This is going to, I don't know when this podcast is going to publish, but I have recently run a survey alongside Axios HQ all about AI usage for communication professionals. We had over one hundred and seventy respondents, all of them working in communications. The majority of them have 10 or more years of experience. So these aren't the kids, these aren't the gen zers. These are like the people within, like the core of their career. Do you want to know how many said that they don't use AI for work?

Dan Nestle [00:44:43]: I'm going to go with 65, 70%, 80%, 0%.

Gab Ferree [00:44:48]: They all use, a single person is using AI for work. They're just not talking about it. And then I asked the question about how are you Using your AI work to make yourself be perceived better in the company. And they're not, right, because they're afraid. Oh my God. Well, AI writes and that's what I do is it comes professional as I write y', all, we're all using it, let's make it make our profession better. And this is like type of stuff that we'll, we'll go into more, with more trainings. But I just found it so interesting that not a single respondent says they do not use AI for work.

Dan Nestle [00:45:23]: That's. And that's incredible to me. That surprised me and I'm glad you told me that because I've learned something really important today. I've seen a lot of studies about resistance to AI and how CEOs are now getting the picture and they're saying something like 90 something percent of CEOs are talking about how they are going to be an AI first company like within whatever number of months or years. And I think this is where I got the 60%, 60 something percent of employees are like, I don't want to be an AI first, I don't want to use it. I'm resisting. The bare minimum is enough for me. I don't want to do any more than what I already have. It can do my email, that's fine, but that's it. They're worried about it, they're scared of it. That's a broad based metric. It's not comms. Right.

Gab Ferree [00:46:19]: I have to check my bias here, which is that I have sent this survey to my community, to off the record, to other communities and to the people who follow me on LinkedIn. These are people who are on the bleeding edge of communications. These are people who want to be better at their jobs. These are people who are open to that. Right. So this is not like a, like a, you know, Harris full level style survey. But I, but none, like literally not one. So, so yes, we are still seeing this like resistance to it or we're at least hearing about it. But like I wonder if they're lying like I truly do or like it's.

Dan Nestle [00:46:52]: Probably not in comms, you know, like, you know, I mean I can like there, you can easily imagine that you don't. Why would certain functions believe that they should be using AI and the use case might not be as strong for somebody in sales. I believe it is as strong, but they might not think it is like somebody who's out there on the road all the time face to face sales. What do they care about AI or accounting folks even Though AI can seriously help them. Maybe they're just, it's fine, they do their thing.

Gab Ferree [00:47:28]: And that's where we have to shift our framework from being an output driven. And I think the agency model, if they haven't already rethought their hourly billing, they need to now.

Dan Nestle [00:47:37]: Oh, they need to.

Gab Ferree [00:47:38]: Because we need to be outcome driven, not output driven. Because the speed at which, I mean, I'm preaching to the choir. All of y' all use AI for work, according to my research. So, like, the speed at which this can produce outputs for us is unprecedented. So how do we translate that to outcomes versus just being like, I did things, now I do more things.

Dan Nestle [00:48:00]: It's funny, like, that's a very, that's such an important distinction. Because the core, like the argument for AI for a lot of folks has been, well, it lets me do more things. Or, you know, it gets. It lets me do my writing faster so I can do other things. But nobody defines the other things because maybe the other things are stuff that's already in your. On your, you know, on your plate. Get them done faster. Fine, but then you're just talking about a productivity tool. It's not anything qualitative like that's. It's just, yeah, maybe it's. There's a time measurement there. And I'm not, not saying that's a bad thing, but the, the power of having an innovation engine at your beck and call 247 is not to write your emails. It's not to just kind of give your first draft of section 4 of the Annual report. It has to go far beyond that. And this is coming back to like, hey, what's the job look like? Then like, what is your job? If your job is like task based and deliverables based, like most job descriptions are, here's your responsibilities, here's what you're expected to do, here's the experience you need to have. Well, suddenly you've got this capability to go, yeah, okay, I can knock off like 50% of these tasks in like 100% less of the time that it used to take me 98% less time. So what other responsibilities can I add in? Or are you just looking at it going, oh, I can do that much faster. So it'd make it easier for me to do the rest of this stuff. And the rest of the stuff is what matters.

Gab Ferree [00:49:56]: So this is back in 2022, and this was in the height of really, the pendulum is swung into the realm of the employee first mindset. And I was at slack at the Time and a part of my work was to support a consortium called the Future Forum, which was all about researching the future of work, especially in a world that had so much more work from home. And the data had found all of these benefits of work from home. You're more likely to retain working parents, people of color, all of these, to use your word again, systemic things that made it hard for people to commute into an office. Now those barriers were eliminated through work from home. And I remember I was speaking to one of the head researchers there, Christina Janser, and she said something to me that I've never forgotten, which was, what are we going to do with the time that we now have without commuting? And the answer just can't be more work. Like, how can I give back to my community? How can I be a better participant in my children's school? How can I get more involved in local elections and politics and shape my city to be a future that I want for my family? And I appreciate Christina's optimism, but I think the reality is, Dan, everyone is just doing more work. They're getting more on their to do list done. Maybe they're logging off an hour earlier and that's another hour to spend on whatever it is that makes that person a person outside of work. For me personally, I love work like I do. I love to do work. And so now that I can accomplish more makes me so excited. And every day I'm like, oh my God, I was able to accomplish so much of my to do list. I thought this was gonna take me so much longer. Look at me and Claude go. We're like the best of buds to your point. Right? But I do want to also start the conversation of thinking about what does our society look like with this just as a productivity tool, with this giving us more time back and what do we do with that time? And can we start talking about it? Like, can we be open about the fact that, hey, my work's not taking me 40 hours a week anymore? That's a really scary conversation to have. And I don't know where we're gonna go as a society. Looking at the trends. While I don't think that these are like happening broad strokes, but I know that Silicon Valley is going back into like hard, hard mode and founder mode, for lack of a better word. You're seeing job descriptions requiring 80 hour work weeks. They want you to have no semblance of work life balance because this should be your life according to literal job descriptions of companies that +AI has to be like massive amounts of productivity that these companies are getting out of these people. But I do wonder for like outside of that, are people are going to start talking about like our executives going to talk about like that they have more time, that they get to spend more time with their kids. Maybe they're not burning out. Maybe they don't need to step away to spend more time with their family. Maybe our careers can be more like a marathon and less like a sprint. I don't know. I'm really excited to find out. And I wonder who's going to lead this and who is going to be the first person to be like, I Now only work 20 hours a week and I get double done.

Dan Nestle [00:53:11]: That would be a brave soul in the corporate world.

Gab Ferree [00:53:14]: Someone's going to do it though. And I just wonder who it's going to be.

Dan Nestle [00:53:17]: Oh, someone will do it. And apologies to, to my former bosses at Lixel and Mitsubishi. But I work more now than I ever did before and I was a highly paid executive. You know, don't get me wrong, I worked a lot. But I will sit down at my desk and I'll just open up Claude and you know, I'll have some things that I need to get done. Now there's a little bit of rabbit holery happening here where I just go and kind of play around and get lost. Okay, it's fine, it's part of the magic for me. But 16 hours go by, you know, sometimes I mean you have paws to eat and walk the dogs but I don't feel any like amount of imbalance or stress because I am spending so much time like discovering new things, refining what I've done. Probably because it's mine, you know, like, it's like it's my stuff. Huge difference, huge difference, you know, and I, I love it. But I, you know, it's not about, and it's not about work ethic. I always say I'm a lazy person because lazy people are the people you need to look to to find the shortcuts and the quick things. You know, like you want to develop an app, get a lazy person for the ux. But the, the main thing is that this whole idea of what constitutes work in this new world of AI, a lot of people come on the show and talk about exactly this thing. I also have a professional connection who is one of the leaders in the world of, of organizational, like organizational development, you know, basically how we work, where we work, when we work, all that kind of stuff. And she advises companies about like how to get the most out of flexible work. And you know, her point of view is very strong on a lot of these things that all, everything you mentioned about those Silicon Valley companies is a massive error. Like it's such an, it's such a mistake and people will go for it, you know, they will because they want the money and they want the kind of notoriety, whatever, but it's going to destroy souls. And frankly, a lot of those companies could do better just by having a purely flexible approach. That doesn't mean an easy approach, you know, it doesn't mean you're working less. It just means the way that you fit your work and life together is just, it's different. Right, where, where, depending on what you need to get done and what the company needs to get done. But there's no one size fits all. It's just this whole like push to get back to an office and be like in the, you know, you got to be in a place, you know, we're spoiled a little bit now. But at the same time, totally depends on what your job is and it should totally depend on what your job is and whether or not it's required for you to be there or whether or not that's what makes the most sense from a productivity and from a product and outcome standpoint. Most of those decisions seem to be made basically by fiat. You know, oh, you want to work your ass off and be a hard ass company, you got to come here and be in your seat. And that's our culture and you're part of it and you're on the team and if you don't do that, you're just going to be your loser and you go work for someplace else. You know, it's like, it's a weird mentality. I don't get it. There's a lot of ulterior motives and reasons why companies want their people to come back full time. I mean, not the least of which is just cash. They've got the space, you know, they have these lease agreements get people in. But it is fascinating. There's a lot going on and AI isn't the only reason why these things are happening. But companies should be jumping for joy that they have. And it's, it's not going to be all employees, but there's going to be people on in their teams who are going to raise their hands and say, look, I know I'm a comms person, but I just figured out this incredible, you know, fill in the blank. I figured out this incredible savings that we can make by changing this product, you know, I haven't talked to the product management team, I haven't talked to the product developers, but can I please, can I show this to them? Both companies right now will say, well, you can go talk to them, knowing that's not going to go over well. Or they'll say, stay in your lane. Why are you wasting time on that? You know, and you say you're wasting time on. You're not wasting time. And I'm getting everything else I need to get done because I'm proficient in AI and I have like all this extra, like all this extra space that I want to devote for the company. And I am a thinker and an innovator and I want to innovate for the company. So give me the chance, please. And they're not getting the chance. Too disruptive or who knows? There's a lot of reasons, I'm sure why, but that's where I think a big reckoning has to certainly happen. We need more gabs in line. We need more of you and more people out there who are. Or just like, I know what I need to do. I'm gonna get it done. I'm gonna build the best team and do what's right for my people. I don't know. Soapbox. I told you, the soapbox is pretty worn. That's kind of the way it goes, you know, but. Oh, shit, we've been talking for, like, for an hour already. I wanted to ask you just, you know, before you. Before we kind of start to wrap up, what should people be looking out for in. Off the record, like, it is a community. It's a learning community and a supportive community. It's everything I said it was in the introduction. It's the ladder for people who haven't had the ladder opportunity to give back to a profession. Where are you going with it? Because it's new and it's doing well. Where are you going and what should people be on the lookout for?

Gab Ferree [00:59:41]: People should be on the lookout for the new AI training. So this will be a free and open intro kind of to various levels of complexity in, like, how you can implement AI. Very specific for comms, with very actionable takeaways that you can use today. From there, we're going to go deep. We're going to go deep on all of those things. But that's available for anyone, right? But off the record, members know that AI is one part of how they should improve, but not the only part of how they should improve. So we just have a lot earlier today we wrapped up a session on B2B influencers and new media. We had a speaker, one who was a B2B influencer and then the other who builds those campaigns. We're going to go deep on a lot of topics leading into the new year, like planning, getting promoted, getting a new job. Right. So AI is certainly a piece of it and it's an important piece and it's probably integrated into everything we do, but it's not the only piece. So we're going to do a whole separate thing just for AI, but also like keeping the comms leadership. And you know, you've mentioned the leadership table a couple of times. But you know, my mission for people in off the record and for communicators at large is to earn their seat at the leadership table and be home in time for the dinner table. And I think a lot of what we've talked about today, Dan, is how and what you can do both align to business goals. Use the productivity and time saving tools that are available through AI. Earn your seat, get your time back done and I will help you and people like Dan will help you. And that's the coolest thing, and I hoped this would be true, and it's starting to become true, is that I wanted off the record to be a place and space outside and separate from me. And it is. And it's a place where people are convening and supporting one another. I recently had, you know, someone, I sent them, hey, are you okay? You know, she gave me a testimonial about liking off the Record and I sent her a preview website. I was like, are you okay with how this testimonial shows up on this website? And she goes, yeah, I see. So and so also gave a testimonial. I'm in good company. Her and I have had a coffee chat and have helped each other out a couple of times. And like just that organic connection is so special to see and we've only just begun. And so if you are looking for a place in a space where you want to be real, where you want to go with your insecurities and your questions and you want a place in space of someone who's been there before and if I haven't been there before, I'm going to find the person who has and I'm going to bring them and we're going to talk about it and we continue to do that over and over inside off the Record. And it's just been a wonderful experience so far. I'm so happy you're A part of it.

Dan Nestle [01:02:27]: Dan, I was just thinking you haven't been there. I probably have.

Gab Ferree [01:02:31]: Exactly. And that's the cool thing. Like I'll give you another example. So there was a community conversation that happened this week and someone was like, how do I get more out of my agency? And most of our members, 75% of our members are in house corporate communications professionals. They're pr, they're internal, but they work in house. And then the remaining are consultants or agencies. Working agencies. But those agency people, they piled on and they gave very specific feedback. And so I grabbed two of them, one who works in house and one who works in agency and I'm like, hey, do you guys want to do something to like do a session for off the record on how agencies can best work with in house and vice versa. And so I'm calling it the agency handshake in house meetup. And so it just stuff happens organically like based on what you need and what the members need. And it's just been really fun to just provide it for them and test and iterate and take a very serious startup mindset to it of like, okay, we can, we'll try anything twice, right? I. One of my old adages from like my startup life was try fail retry scale. And we're taking that in off the record for the membership. But also like I don't want to gatekeep all of this. So like a lot of stuff is available for free. Like I said, this AI session is going to be free. I drop a lot of resources for free. You know, I hope that you join inside and I hope that you support the work that I'm doing. However, if it's not like the right time for you, then like I gotcha. Like there's still stuff for you. So, so come along the journey, get your free stuff, get better in comms.

Dan Nestle [01:04:01]: Oh man, I love it. I am, you know, I'm a big supporter and I mean I, I'm in the community and I am, I'm very excited about the kind of, the effect or the knock on effect of, of just knowledge sharing across our field that isn't tied into sign up for a conference or go to this, pay this much money to go to this conference and listen to the same kind of conversations again and again. Not say that all conferences are like that. There are some amazing ones. But I think everybody knows what I'm talking about. That the whole, you know, the way that you're treating AI with within the community is admirable and amazing and there's you know, there's no shortage of resources out there. So people have a choice and if you, you know, I would highly recommend looking at off the record for those resources that you need because you know you can trust Gab and I mean I hope you can trust me. And yeah, I so wanted to talk to you about generative engine optimization and how that is the new thing for comms to people to really win, you know, really show our value and just like knock it out of the park for once and for all. But you know, we'll get to that another time.

Gab Ferree [01:05:25]: Yeah. And Dan, you know our latest workshop was all about that. Not just geo but also just like generally tying comms to revenue driving activities. So there's templates in your box where you can access them on like how you can best position GEO to your leadership team and be the person who owns that seat at the table. So but more to come, more to come on that whole deep dive on it.

Dan Nestle [01:05:46]: Comms could seriously own that. And it's really, I mean never had this opportunity before.

Gab Ferree [01:05:51]: We are going to. We have to. It's our, it's our domain expertise we owned, earned.

Dan Nestle [01:05:56]: Yeah, that's right. Not that we're territorial, by the way. I don't want to be accused of that. It's just the skill set.

Gab Ferree [01:06:03]: I'm territorial. It's ours. Stay out of your marketing. You got your other stuff. Finally, it's our time to shine.

Dan Nestle [01:06:10]: Oh man. Well, Gab, this has been amazing. Everybody out there. If you want to find Gab, you can. You'll see her on LinkedIn. Her name will be spelled properly in the episode graphic, but it's Gab Foree. Like referee, but foree. And her website is join offtherecord.com like it's off the record, but it's joinofftherecord.com and she's there, she's everywhere. And please do connect with her. She's amazing as you've just seen or heard on this show. So Gab, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been amazing.

Gab Ferree [01:06:47]: Thank you for having me.

Dan Nestle [01:06:55]: Thanks for taking the time to listen in on today's conversation. If you enjoyed it, please be sure to subscribe through the podcast player of your choice. Share with your friends and colleagues and leave me a review. Five stars would be preferred, but it's up to you. Do you have ideas for future guests or you want to be on the show? Let me know@dantrendingcommunicator.com thanks again for listening to the trending Communicator SA.