What happens when growth stalls and alignment breaks down between marketing and sales? John Eitel, Chief Growth Officer at Orum, has made a career out of solving just that. In this episode of Pipeline Brew, John joins host Matt Hummel, CMO at Pipeline360, to share how CGOs think differently about scale, structure, and strategic focus.

From his early days scaling Rackspace to leadership roles at Canva, Demandbase, and now Orum, John opens up about the biggest changes he’s seen when it comes to building high-performing GTM teams. He dives into the pressures revenue leaders face today, the value of brand in a demand-heavy world, and why sales-marketing tension is still so common.

You’ll also hear why John believes onboarding is more listening than doing, the steps modern distributed teams can take to build trust, and why alignment starts with shared KPIs and honest communication. If you’re responsible for growth, or accountable to it, this episode is a blueprint for leading with clarity, empathy, and measurable impact.

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Guest Bio

John Eitel is a seasoned revenue and go-to-market leader with over 20 years of experience accelerating growth in B2B SaaS, cloud, and digital businesses. He’s built and scaled high-performance teams across sales, marketing, operations, and customer success in both emerging startups and large enterprises exceeding $1 billion in revenue.

Known for transforming underperforming organizations and launching successful market expansions, John combines strategic vision with operational discipline and a people-first leadership philosophy. He’s passionate about coaching leaders, aligning cross-functional teams around outcomes, and driving measurable business impact.

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Guest Quotes

“Not to say we abandon all other numbers and metrics, but at the end of the day, that shared understanding that pipeline is everyone's problem is so important. I think if you can get that common agreement . . . that really does force a good, healthy dialogue.”

“In that first month of onboarding, remember you have two ears and one mouth. Listen more than you talk. Resist the urge to just take action right out of the gates and start kind of showing up with your point of view. Ask a ton of questions, take a lot of notes, listen, absorb; people will notice.”

“I learned early in my career the power of when [marketing and sales] are aligned. It's a magical thing. But many folks never ever get to see that, right? I now have responsibility for sales and marketing, and so this has been fun for me to lean out of my comfort zone and bridge that gap even more so and really put my money where my mouth is.”

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Time Stamps

00:00 Episode start

01:25 Icebreaker

03:00 John’s background

06:15 Finding alignment across distributed teams

09:45 Marketing misunderstandings on revenue

13:00 Closing the sales/marketing gap

16:20 Finding the balance between brand and demand

20:05 Aligning sales and marketing around pipeline

28:10 The one metric that ties everything together

34:40 Advice for new GTM leaders

39:00 How customer trust shapes sustainable growth

42:15 What’s on Tap for John Eitel

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Links

• Connect with John Eitel on LinkedIn
• Check out Orum
• Connect with Matt Hummel on LinkedIn
• Check out Pipeline360

With content teams being asked to do more with less, how can marketers build a strategy aligning brand and revenue which actually leads to business outcomes? Today on Pipeline Brew, Matt is joined by Chloe Thompson, Director of Content Marketing at Visier, to discuss what it takes to build high-impact B2B content.

Chloe shares her journey from journalism to content marketing, her role in scaling Reward Gateway’s blog into a content engine that supported two private equity events, and how she leverages subject matter experts across the business. She breaks down what content should own, how to partner with demand gen, and why storytelling must align with business outcomes to be respected internally.

Chloe also discusses how content teams can move beyond vanity metrics, build influence with data, and embed themselves in go-to-market strategy. Whether you’re a solo content marketer, scaling a team, or trying to prove your impact in a revenue-driven world, this episode delivers practical frameworks and hard-won lessons for content that actually moves the needle.

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Guest Bio

Chloe Thompson is the Director of Content Marketing at Visier, a workforce intelligence platform. With over 15 years of experience turning editorial storytelling into a growth engine for brands, Chloe has a long background in HR tech with prior roles at Reward Gateway and Compt. A J-school grad turned marketer, she’s built and led global teams, launched research programs that generated millions in pipeline, and helped fuel a $1.4B acquisition.

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Guest Quotes

"When people first start out in their career, you should say yes to every opportunity that you get. I think being the first one to raise your hand in the room gives you a lot of visibility and a lot of opportunity, and I think that's also a lesson that you have to kind of turn on its head as you get more senior in your career and be the one to be able to say no to things strategically."

"I think that content fueled a lot of the things that we did at the organization, but of course it was also our product, our sales, the incredible 750+ people that I worked with across the different markets that really just created a differentiated brand and a vision for the company. But I think content played a really big part in terms of trying to elevate our internal subject matter experts and really making the case for being an ally for our HR audience."

"The subject matter experts that I've worked with in the past, they're so passionate about what they do. Like you find someone who loves what they do, who loves their job, that's passionate about it, they want to share their knowledge. They want to help, but it needs to be in a way that feels natural instead of feeling prescriptive and like it's another thing on their to-do list."

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Time Stamps

00:00 Episode start

01:15 Icebreaker

03:00 Chloe’s career journey and early lessons

07:30 Building the content function at Reward Gateway

10:30 Clarifying the line between content and demand

12:45 Content’s impact on a $1.4B acquisition

15:30 Strategic advice for new content marketers

17:15 Working with SMEs across the business

21:20 Content metrics that prove value

24:00 Connecting content to revenue and brand

28:00 Making the case for content at growing companies

33:00 What’s on Tap

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Links

• Connect with Chloe Thompson on LinkedIn
• Check out Visier Inc.
• Connect with Matt Hummel on LinkedIn
• Check out Pipeline360

With today’s marketers bogged down by overflowing tech stacks, where can they cut complexity to focus on what drives measurable growth? In this episode of Pipeline Brew, Matt sits down with Reed Hansen, Owner & Chief Growth Office of the Illinois based agency, MarketSurge, to explore what it means to lead with strategy over software.

Reed shares his shift from SaaS sales to entrepreneurship, the decision to buy MarketSurge, and how he transformed it from a CRM implementation shop into a growth engine powered by strategy and human connection.

Reed also reveals how his podcast, Inside Marketing with MarketSurge, became an unexpected growth lever—fueling client acquisition, partnerships, and sharper thinking. He explains why showing up in public conversations builds more credibility than traditional sales outreach, and how authentic, human-first marketing can outperform any tech stack.

Whether you’re leading your own agency, navigating the chaos of MarTech overload, or looking for practical ways to drive results without losing authenticity, this episode delivers sharp perspective and actionable ideas for marketers who want to scale smarter.

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Guest Bio

Reed Hansen is a seasoned marketing leader and growth strategist recognized for his ability to scale businesses through visionary leadership and data-driven innovation. As Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge, Reed leads with a clear mission: to help businesses transform marketing chaos into streamlined systems that drive predictable growth.

With a career spanning startups to Fortune 500 companies, Reed has held leadership roles at Northwestern University, Punchkick Interactive, and Solstice, where he built and guided teams that delivered high-impact digital products and record-breaking revenue growth. Prior to MarketSurge, he founded Million Dollar Studio, where his leadership extended beyond strategy into operations, mentoring, and building resilient teams.

Known for his ability to blend creative problem-solving with operational discipline, Reed has become a trusted authority in digital marketing and organizational growth. His leadership style emphasizes clarity, collaboration, and empowerment — guiding teams and clients alike to see marketing not just as a cost center, but as a powerful growth engine.

Beyond his executive role, Reed is the host of Inside Marketing with MarketSurge, where his leadership voice extends to the broader business community through conversations that challenge assumptions, explore innovation, and inspire action.

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Guest Quotes

“There's a tremendous opportunity to approach marketing like a white-glove business: results-focused rather than tool-focused. Clients don’t care about a line item list of platforms. They care about growth, leads, and pipeline. And marketing leaders today need to adapt to that mindset shift.”

“Podcasting is like the new city square or barbershop. It’s where people go to be heard, to connect, and to spark ideas in a space that feels casual but still meaningful. It’s helped me synthesize ideas, build partnerships, and even get clients. I didn’t expect that, but it’s been a tremendous growth lever.”

“I would spend much more time on creating great content and making sure to get myself out there and doing more networking conversations. The content that I can generate is a bigger determination of our business success and growth than any of the traditional sales efforts.”

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Time Stamps

00:00 Episode start

01:25 Icebreaker

03:00 Reed’s journey from sales to entrepreneurship

07:05 Diving into MarketSurge

11:55 How podcasting became a top tier growth lever

14:25 Marketing with purpose

16:20 From tools to service

19:15 Elevating the human side of marketing

24:30 What’s on Tap

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Links

• Connect with Reed Hansen on LinkedIn
• Check out MarketSurge
• Connect with Matt Hummel on LinkedIn
• Check out Pipeline360