Bob Sherwin has devoted his career to optimizing the marketing operations of retailers all over the world. Now, with years of consulting under his belt, he’s changing the game as Wayfair’s CMO. Today, my co-host Veronika Sonsev and I talk with Bob about how he applies his data-driven marketing toolbox to an expansive and category-creating Fortune 500 retailer such as Wayfair. Bob also calls on his experience to offer key career advice to marketers at all levels of experience and to share his insights on the future of marketing leadership.
Welcome to the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with CommerceNext and presented by Bloomreach.
Bob Sherwin has devoted his career to optimizing the marketing operations of retailers all over the world. Now, with years of consulting under his belt, he’s changing the game as Wayfair’s CMO.
Today, my co-host Veronika Sonsev and I talk with Bob about how he applies his data-driven marketing toolbox to an expansive and category-creating Fortune 500 retailer such as Wayfair.
Bob also calls on his experience to offer key career advice to marketers at all levels of experience and to share his insights on the future of marketing leadership.
Thanks for tuning into this episode of Conversations with CommerceNext. Please follow us on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music or your favorite podcast platform where we’ll be sharing career advice and marketing strategies from eCommerce and digital marketing leaders at retailers and direct-to-consumer brands each and every episode. CommerceNext is a community, event series and conference for marketers at retail and direct-to-consumer brands. Through our online forums, interviews, webinars, summits and other in-person events, we harness the collective wisdom of our community to help marketers grow their businesses and advance their careers. Join CommerceNext events to meet other industry leaders and learn the latest ecommerce and marketing strategies. You can find upcoming events at CommerceNext.com
About
Bob Sherwin
Chief Marketing Officer of Wayfair. In this role I oversee Wayfair’s Global Marketing strategy, organization, and ~$1.5B in advertising spend; since joining in 2013, I helped grow our direct revenue from $500M in 2013 to $15B in 2020. I am responsible for driving awareness, activations, revenue, and loyalty for all of our commercial offerings, as well as driving the tech, data science, and analytics platforms that support these efforts. I also am responsible for the team of General Managers for Physical Retail, Consumer Sales, Home Services, Registry, and Consumer Financing businesses, with full P&L responsibility. Prior to Wayfair, I was a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Co, advising Fortune 100 companies across all functional domains. I began my career at IBM's Business Consultant Services, serving federal agencies to improve data infrastructure and operational efficiency by leveraging big data analytics.
ABOUT US:
Scott Silverman
An ecommerce veteran, Scott Silverman has been active in the industry since 1999 and is passionate about digital retail and the innovation driving the industry. Scott Silverman is the Co-Founder of CommerceNext. Previously, he spent 10 years as Executive Director of Shop.org where he launched the Shop.org Annual Summit. Scott co-invented “Cyber Monday” in 2005 and was the founder of Cybermonday.com in 2006, a shopping site that has generated more than $2.5 million for Shop.org’s scholarship fund.
Veronika Sonsev
Veronika Sonsev is the Co-Founder of CommerceNext. She also leads the retail practice for Chameleon Collective and is a contributor for Forbes on how to grow retail and ecommerce in the age of Amazon. Having spent the last 10+ years working with some of the largest retailers and direct-to-consumer brands, Veronika has intimate knowledge of the challenges facing retail and ecommerce today. She is also an advocate for women in business and founded the global non-profit mBolden, which is now part of SheRunsit.
Michael LeBlanc is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. You can learn more about Michael here or on LinkedIn.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with CommerceNext and presented by Bloomreach.
Michael LeBlanc 00:12
Bob Sherwin has devoted his career to optimizing the marketing operations of retailers all over the world. Now, with years of consulting under his belt, he's changing the game as Wayfair's CMO.
Michael LeBlanc 00:23
Today, my co-host, Veronika Sonsev and I talk with Bob about how he applies his data-driven marketing toolbox to an expansive and category-creating Fortune 500 retailer, such as Wayfair.
Michael LeBlanc 00:33
Bob also calls on his experience to offer key career advice to marketers at all levels of experience and share his insights on the future of marketing leadership.
Bob Sherwin 00:42
Spot on that we are, you know, opening through we have shared that we are opening three stores, two for AllModern, one for Joss & Main in the greater Boston region to get started, and we're very excited about this. And I'd say like, this has been, always been an eventuality for us. It's more of when we're going to do it. And we feel like the timing is right, now for where our brands are. And so, we've been building up a team to go after this opportunity. And the reason why we see it as an opportunity, you might say it's an, it was always an eventuality.
Michael LeBlanc 01:13
Let's listen in now.
Today we're talking with Bob Sherwin, CMO for Wayfair. Welcome, Bob.
Bob Sherwin 01:19
Thank you for having me, Michael and Veronika.
Michael LeBlanc 01:22
Where are we reaching you today? I think Wayfair is in the Boston area, is that where we're finding you today?
Bob Sherwin 01:28
Yeah, I am in the Boston area. I'm not in our office today as things are starting to wind down for the holiday break. So, I am coming to you live from Lexington, Massachusetts. So, not too far from downtown Boston.
Michael LeBlanc 01:42
All right, well, very nice. As always, I am joined here today with one of CommerceNext co-founders for this episode, the one and only Veronika Sonsev.
Veronika, how are you this afternoon?
Veronika Sonsev 01:52
I'm great, Michael and Bob, it's great to see you again. Thanks for being on the podcast.
Michael LeBlanc 01:57
Well, Bob, let's jump right in. Let's talk about your career journey. This podcast is as much about marketing and DTC and eCommerce as it is about careers and career journey. You certainly got an interesting career journey prior to Wayfair and, and at Wayfair. Now you've been there like eight years and you started at senior director of customer acquisition. And it's interesting like eight years at Wayfair is like a long time, because it's not a relatively, it's a relatively new company. So, let's talk about your transition and how you look back and reflect on your career journey.
Bob Sherwin 02:27
So, maybe I'll, I'll go through it linearly, you know, right after undergrad, so, I went to school down in Virginia, the College of William & Mary, studied finance and economics, those were my majors. And then I joined IBM, in Washington, DC, there, it was their consulting arm, helping support different federal agencies. And where I ended up finding my niche there was supporting agencies that had a lot of like network optimization challenges. And this is really from moving physical goods through networks. And why that was a great starting point for me in my career is that it was basically big data analytics, -
Michael LeBlanc 03:08
Right.
Bob Sherwin 03:08
before big data was even a term where there was a lot of these organizations did have very large datasets but did not know what to do with that data yet. And I got to, you know, as a young 20-year-old was able to help these agencies really make sense of the data, glean out insights, and ultimately find ways to reduce a lot of waste. And this was fun for me, you know, as a young kid, because I got to refine my analytical skills, kind of learn how to operate in big datasets and then ultimately save millions of dollars to different agencies by just removing waste, things that were not being utilized at all. Whether that was assets or inefficient routing mechanisms where they could move goods on different, on different lanes at a far less cost, but still get there with the same SLAs.
And in it, in like I said, it so, so it gave me some domain expertise, really sharpened my analytical skills. And then over the time there, I was able to start working more with data engineers and data scientists, where we took different insights and realized we could create an algorithm to do this in a much more optimal way, than even just, you know, somewhat basic math skills like myself could do.
And so that was a nice career progression for me, where I started becoming more of a, a program manager and working with engineers and data scientists and really, you know, put me on a journey of new skillsets and how to work with people with, with, with those backgrounds.
And then from there, I went to business school, Kellogg at Northwestern, and I did a dual degree getting my MBA and Masters of Engineering Management, really, because I realized that I loved, I loved my time at IBM and serving the public sector, but I wanted to see what else was out there and try my hand at, you know, at being a consultant at McKinsey. And so, that's where I went after getting my degree.
When I was there, I did some of the same work, but a lot more of it was helping organizations really lead transformations. How can they transform a big part of their business or a way of operating to be more nimble, and, and agile and help them instill more about continuous improvement mindset, your training.
What I was doing a lot of is training clients at ways to look at and identify sources of waste in their systems. Waste in the form of really inefficient workflows, or processes. Waste in the form of just, you know, inefficient logistics networks, and finding ways to trim and remove cost from those systems without hurting any of their SLAs or speed to delivery. And then in other cases, identifying opportunities where they could really increase the throughput through their networks.
To me, this has really resonated because I liked, I found it was really fun to find sources of waste where you weren't cutting out anything that was, it wasn't hurting anything, right? It was just sheer upside to remove costs. And then also, you know, on the flip side, finding opportunities where hey, where there were different bottlenecks in their system, how can you remove those, identify those bottlenecks and find creative ways to bypass them, and therefore increase the throughput?
Again, so this was a nice natural build on some of the analytical skill sets I was developing. When I was at IBM, but now doing it at a much bigger scale. And, and by empowering and helping train clients on how to do it themselves. By just operating differently and giving them some, some more basic analytical skill sets where they could do that on their own.
Michael LeBlanc 06:41
Where did you get to from McKinsey in your supply chain and other client work?
Bob Sherwin 06:46
Yeah so, so when I was there, so I did a lot of that logistics in the first couple years. And then I started helping organizations apply the same continuous improvement mindsets. You know, root cause problem solving skills, but that was moving into different industries and functional areas, including marketing and sales, helping organizations that needed help there, kind of rethinking the way they operated. And then a lot of service organizations where I was helping call center teams really adjust that the ways that they operated, and just even their operating rhythms, in which they talked about performance and all that.
You know, there, I was based in Boston, when I was at McKinsey, and really started getting hungry to build something, have a little more skin in the game and build a team and build a function myself, taking a lot of those practices, skills and, and things I've been practicing and preaching with clients -
Michael LeBlanc 07:43
Yeah (crossover talk)
Bob Sherwin 07:43
and hand at it in, in a new environment. And -
Michael LeBlanc 07:43
Yeah. (crossover talk)
Bob Sherwin 07:47
I came across Wayfair, we were not public, but the brand had been launched in 2011. And there were a few former colleagues of mine that had joined. So, in talking to them, they introduced me to the, the Chief Marketing Officer at the time, and we hit it off I, I realized the way they were approaching marketing was very aligned with, you know, my skill set. It was early innings for the brand and so, there's a lot more to be done than they'd already figured out. And so, there's a lot of like white space for me to, to, to get to, you know, sort my way through. And so, I joined in 2013 and as you mentioned before, it was to lead what we're calling customer acquisition marketing.
Michael LeBlanc 08:30
Right, right.
Bob Sherwin 08:31
So, what that entailed at the time was, we were doing a lot of search marketing. So, that was one part that was probably the most mature out of all the programs. And then we started dabbling into social and display. So, my remit was to really figure out how to crack open social and display advertising as a means to drive growth to our new brand Wayfair. And then figure out any other you know, channels that, that may be a good fit for us at that stage of our brand journey.
And from there, I just took a similar approach that I had as a clie-, as a, a when I was a consultant, where I looked at each program under my portfolio, really tried to understand what you know, what, what made them work. Understood how we were measuring things and how we, what we defined a success, and then look for opportunities, again, where there was waste in the system, or opportunities where we could really unlock a lot more growth. If we, if we identified what the bottlenecks or things that were holding us back from growth work. I did that under the established channels and then just through a series of, you know, testing and iterating and testing and iterating figured out ways to unlock display, social both from a prospecting standpoint but also remarketing.
We did the same thing, we weren't doing any direct mail. That was a channel that we had a lot of conviction could really help our brand given the visual nature of it. Given the fact you can, you know, send it to people when they've moved to a new home a very logical life stage where Wayfair would be -
Michael LeBlanc – 10:01
Yeah
Bob Sherwin 10:01
relevant, kind of turn that into a very big and effective channel for us, both direct mail and catalogs. And then over time, we've been iterating on television, that's now a very large channel for us, as his online video. And in kind of took it from there. And over the course of the last eight years, different parts of marketing, in the global offerings, we have all moved under my umbrella. And so, that's a fun journey for me to grow my (crossover talk) organization, but also create –
Michael LeBlanc 10:11
Yes.
Bob Sherwin 10:15
kind of centers of excellence that support all of our brands and geographies.
Michael LeBlanc 10:34
I want to just connect on one thing you mentioned, television is something that that's working for you. Do you use that as performance marketing? In my past, we used television to drive different type of search on Google, right? So, they would search for your brand versus the categories is that the connection you make with television, which you know, ostensibly, is a mass media, not a performance media. But do you look at it that way? Or other ways?
Bob Sherwin 10:57
Yeah, well I guess we don't draw a hard line between what is brand and what is performance. Like the way we really do think about it and operate is, you know, any touch point is a brand touch point. Whether that's search marketing, or whether that is television, or a catalog, or the impression someone has when they're on our site. Those are all ways to build a brand.
And then similarly, on the flip side, like we don't say, hey, only this channel only, you know, search is performance marketing, right? The reality is we want to have everything we do be performance. Tthe way you measure that and what, what good looks like maybe different, right? It's -
Michael LeBlanc 11:32
Yeah, right.
Bob Sherwin 11:33
harder, it's innately harder to measure the effectiveness of television on a daily basis, right? But there's ways you can still get a feed, get feedback, right? So, -
Michael LeBlanc 11:43
Sure.
Bob Sherwin 11:44
it's, it's we aspire to have some feedback loop on everything we do. Right? Again, just so it can help steer our strategy and direction and make us feel good, that you know, that channel or program or campaign is moving the needle in some dimension, whether that is brand perceptions, or whether that is like, you know, specific traffic to the site. And then what does that traffic do once they're on the site? So, I would say like, they all the reality is TV is less targeted than search marketing. And you can tell a really rich brand story and that's great. But we still want to have some confidence that it's, you know, we're getting (crossover talk).
Michael LeBlanc 12:22
recognition -
Bob Sherwin 12:23
or ROI on that.
Michael LeBlanc 12:25
Some measurement of regard, regard and recognition of the brand that you can actually measure from a number of different ways.
Let's get back to the career journey. So, not specifically your career journey. I mean, a lot of our listeners would aspire to be Fortune 500 eCommerce CMOs. You've taken, you know, you popped in the industry, then you spent a lot of time and consulting that's not an uncommon path into, into leadership. Would you recommend that as, as one of the several paths? And is there any advice that you received early in your career that sent you down that path, or that you would share with the listeners today?
Bob Sherwin 13:00
Yeah, that's a great question. On the first part, I would say there's a lot of different paths people could take. I think what's important, particularly as people are getting started in their career, is to focus on and I share this with folks internally to really focus on skill building, early in your career. And don't be worried about the function you're doing that in. Don't be so worried about the brand you're doing that for, or the industry. Think about where are you going to develop skills, right, hard skills, like technical skills, communication skills, analytical skills, right? Any, like things that you think will be valuable, for you know a long time. And there's a lot of those skills that you go after.
For me, you know, it was very helpful to I was pretty analytical, I was like math and sciences were always my thing growing up. And then in school, I was in finance and economics. So, like going into a consulting role where it was really about like, doing a lot of analysis and analytics was great, because it allowed me to, like, lean in on something that I intrinsically enjoyed, but then get -
Michael LeBlanc 14:05
Yeah.
Bob Sherwin 14:05
better at it and more credible and be able to think about it in a different way. And then to be able to work with engineers and data scientists. That was like a great set of ski-, harder, hard skills to develop and get confidence in, right? And then there was also the nature of consulting, you do have a lot of communication skills that you develop, whether that is working with -
Michael LeBlanc 14:06
Yeah.
Bob Sherwin 14:08
and presenting to senior clients. And that's helpful to build up confidence and learn how to engage with them at a, at a more strategic level than versus just down in the weeds in your analysis.
And so, I, I think just to summarize, I think really what people should be focused on early on is, is where they're going to be learning a lot. You know, not just about specific content, or knowledge, but really learn a lot of skills and then be able to do that in different environments, because that's really what's going to help you further down the line. Be less worried about title, don't be super consumed with pay, don't jump around jobs just to get paid a little bit more unless you're also going to be learning a lot more would be advice that you know, I was definitely you know picked up over the years realizing how important that is. And then if you do that focus on skills, you will be getting paid more and have larger roles later on in life than if your focus obsessed with that right from day one.
Michael LeBlanc 15:21
If you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure and hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform so you don't miss another great episode. We'll be right back with our interview with Bob Sherwin from Wayfair, right after this important message.
Michael LeBlanc 15:34
Bloomreach is the world's number one eCommerce Experience Cloud, empowering brands to deliver customer journeys so personalized they feel like magic. It offers a suite of products that drive true personalization and digital commerce growth, including discovery, offering AI driven search merchandising, content offering a headless CMS and engagement offering a leading CDP and marketing automation solution. Together these solutions combine the power of unified customer and product data with the speed and scale of AI optimization, enabling digital commerce experiences that convert on any channel and every journey. Learn more at bloomreach.com. That's bloomreach.com.
Veronika Sonsev 16:17
And Bob, I too started my career as a consultant. And I always I love to hire consultants because I, I feel like by definition, they're taught to be analytical and professional. And I think that's such a good foundation for, for any job. And then I think from there, you have a lot of opportunity to kind of build and take your career in a lot of different directions.
Bob Sherwin 16:37
Yeah, that's right. (crossover talk) And then I think you get confidence too, that you can be dropped in into new situations and learn and learn the context, provide some structure to the problem, and then make progress against, you know, whatever the solution is you're going for.
Veronika Sonsev 16:53
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about Wayfair. So, the company started as, as CSN stores, as I recall. And you originally approached things by having hundreds of micro-sites like every cuckoo clock.com and cookware.com and strollers.com. And then in the early 2010s, you migrated everything to Wayfair, and the various brands AllModern, Joss & Main, you know, can you talk about why Wayfair made this change and how it changed the business?
Bob Sherwin 17:25
Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah so, that each these businesses and brands are going really well and we're quite profitable. So, but, but then there's the realization that, hey, you're getting people doing a great job capturing demand for people that are in market for that very specific need. And that was great, they would have a great experience.
But then, you know they wouldn't be in the market for another cuckoo clock to use that brand as the example for many, many, maybe ever, right? You know, and then and then you are then in market for a TV stand, right? And then you've come across our site, and you find that and ideally, have a great experience, right? Great, awesome, and then you're in market for something else. And you're starting over and you're starting every time on Google, and you're never tying that great experience back to the CSN stores umbrella.
You know, Niraj and Steve to their credit, they took a really, they had this very healthy business model. And they said hey, to get to where we really want to go, to really realize the true potential of what we're creating, and that in the team we have, we need to consolidate these all under a single brand. So, that when they do have that great experience behind a cuckoo clock, they know that they, they associate that with Wayfair. And so, the next time they're in market for something we carry, they are more inclined to start their search directly with us. You know, or if they do, you know see an ad from us, they're more inclined to like, engage with that ad and come to the site for that other purchase journey.
So, the play was really all about building a deeper connection with the customer, and then building a brand right around, you know, with that customer, that they would associate us with more things than just that singular class that we happen to carry.
Veronika Sonsev 19:10
That makes a lot of sense. And instead of having to constantly like reacquire customers for every specific kind of product that they need, you have more of that umbrella relationship with them that, that helps you build the customer lifetime value.
Bob Sherwin 19:24
Exactly, right,
Veronika Sonsev 19:25
we've had a lot of -
Bob Sherwin 19:26
(crossover talk) And then they engage with our emails, right? And they just they're engaging with us, you know, directly much more often now that we've done that versus, you know, starting every time, every time they're in market for something we carry starting at Google.
Veronika Sonsev 19:40
Yeah, and you do something very smart, because I'm a Wayfair customer. It's even if sometimes I'm starting the search in Google, if I find that result in Wayfair, and I'm on my phone, it prompts me to open the app. So, it's always kind of pushing me back into the app whenever I, you even kind of find me again, which is which is really smart because it has all my other preferences in there and I just wasn't thinking of Wayfair for that specific product, but the journey always leads to the same place.
Bob Sherwin 20:05
Yeah, hopefully it always leads to Wayfair, right? That's our goal.
Veronika Sonsev 20:08
Yeah, for sure and it's a great experience.
And, and your experience is changing because you recently announced or I don't want to say changing but expanding with the recent announcement of opening stores. And what I'm curious about is what does it say about how Wayfair views retail and the limits of being online only, now that you're also opening up storefronts, I guess, originally in Massachusetts, but I'm assuming you have broader ambitions on that.
Bob Sherwin 20:36
So, I'm not going to speak too much about the, the forward looking plans yet. But you're spot on that we are you know, opening through we have shared that we are opening three stores, two for AllModern, one for Joss & Main in the greater Boston region to get started, and we're very excited about this.
And I'd say like, this has been always been an eventuality for us, it's more of when we're going to do it. And we feel like the timing is right now for where our brands are. And so, we've been building out the team to go after this opportunity.
And the reason why we see it as an opportunity, why say it's an event-, was always an eventuality is that the reality is even in like really online mature categories, let's say like electronics, where it is ea-, much easier for customers to, to shop online, because you're buying across technical specifications. And you may require less touch and feel or less even engagement from sales associates in person. Even those like aren't haven't crossed, like the 50% online threshold.
So, we think like for, for most categories, and certainly in ours, that there will always be a very large, you know, brick and mortar need like that will always be a very large touch point for customers and their decision journeys. So, we view it as being highly accretive to our online offering. And you know, we think that there will still be a lot of customers that start their shopping online, kind of narrow it down and then go to the store to touch and feel or maybe ask final questions. As well as many customers who may start in the store, kind of narrow it down, the store didn't have the exact thing they wanted. But now they know the rough quality of that thing, they, they end up purchasing it within our app. We think it'll just be a very accretive new touch point.
We also believe that like, you know I, I kind of alluded to this, there are a number of products that customers do want to touch and feel. And we can't fully offer that to them today, without them purchasing it. So, this will help scratch that itch.
We also have always had gotten a lot of great credit for having really strong service and sales team. When people do have to engage with someone over the phone or over chat, the like NPS scores and the customer satisfaction scores are extremely high. And so, we're really excited about bringing that touch point with our sales and service associates to the store as well. So, that people can engage with the people behind our brand, in addition to just like the, the onsite experience.
So, we're excited to have that physical touch point, when we've done pop up stores, or when we had a pilot store that we had in 2019, it was extremely well received by our customer base. They were thrilled to be part of it and experience the brand in a different way. So, that's kind of why we're going after it and, and we're really bullish on the opportunity for what. what it will mean for our brand and what it will mean to our customers.
Veronika Sonsev 23:31
I've always had a positive experience with, with, with Wayfair customer service and even like proactive. I was doing some renovations or buying a bunch of things and they reached out and asked if they could help me, like find what I needed. I was just like blown away by the whole experience. So, I can see -
Bob Sherwin 23:46
Wonderful.
Veronika Sonsev 23:47
how that would translate even better in a store environment where people can walk it in person, and you have a better sense of, of what they're looking for. That's great.
So, shifting gears one more time, I want to talk about how you approach marketing at Wayfair, which I know is different than a lot of traditional companies, you know, where they might be talking, focused on telling a brand story or creating TV ads or managing how, how a company is viewed by its customers. You know, as an eCommerce company that is so rooted in data the way Wayfair is, I'm guessing that you view the CMO role as very different?
Bob Sherwin 24:23
Yeah, I, I'd say we view it as a, a, an and type role. Like it's, it's many things, it's you know, I view my role as very much at the a blend of art and science. You know, know where, know where your strengths are and where you spike. And make sure you're augmenting yourself with areas that you know that you don't spike but ultimately you have to be a great general athlete and be very comfortable on the analytical side of things. Be very comfortable with strategy, you know, so that you can place wise bets, right? You have to be comfortable getting alignment and then you have to be comfortable on like the, the creative side as you mentioned.
So, I think, you know, what really, uh, you know, the way we think about it is we need to make sure we have great alignment on what the brand is and what the brand stands for, across all parts of the customer experience, right? That, that you know, on the onsite experience, as well as all of the marketing channels that we engage with customers. And then once we know what those value props are, and we have alignment. How do we use those touch points to both show that and tell it right, and, and know that some touch points lend themselves better to showing and others more than anything you have to be a little more explicit and tell.
And then ultimately, like when you think about dissemination, you know, there's a lot of things that, that there's a lot of things that require kind of a science mind, right? Like, you have to think about how much you're bidding, how are you targeting people? You know, how are you measuring it, right? And we talked earlier about having a great feedback loop. What is that, what is the best feedback, you can create, pragmatically for that given channel?
You know, and then from there, it's about optimization, optimizing your creative, optimizing your bids, optimizing your targeting, optimizing the landing page experience, and to optimize all these things that rarely is just an algorithm. It's often a combination of like, some math and science and an algorithm, as well as good intuition and understanding what the customer may want. How you know, what, what copy might resonate with a customer, then where you can have data to back up that intuition.
Veronika Sonsev 26:29
That's very cool. It's, it's, it's, and it's, I think, quite different than a lot of other companies, because your focus so much on really kind of leaning into the science, but with a very, very clear picture of what the value proposition is, and what the message has to be for the, for the customer.
Michael LeBlanc 26:45
Bob let's talk about talent acquisition. So, you know, it's a particular challenge in the retail sector, not really anything new about that. It's particularly acute in eCommerce. Again, nothing new about that but, it really seems to accelerate like other things. How do you approach finding what you described as these, these science minds? What's your approach in finding and hiring people and adding members to the marketing team?
Bob Sherwin 27:08
Yeah, so as I mentioned, it's not just science minds, you need, you need a combination. So, the way actually I think about that would be, we need people that are hardcore data scientists on one end of the spectrum. We need people that are hardcore specialists and creative like legitimately solid, creative folks. And then there's a lot of people in the other parts of the spectrum in between, right, and, and even the data scientists, wants to be able to be creative at times and, and have a voice at the table for that.
And likewise, with the creative teams, there's no, we try not to have hard boundaries between teams. We want everyone to be able to flex their muscles in every, in every aspect. And then I'd say in the middle, we do have a lot of technical, what we call technical analysts, or just generally our, our marketing analysts are quite technical in nature. And we develop a lot of skills internally, but a lot of them have, you know, typically have been we're a math or science undergrad major.
And then other folks in marketing that are more specialists in, let's say, different areas like social marketing, right, organic, social or paid social. And they really enjoy that, and they let enjoy staying on top of how the landscape is shifting and changing. So, this is important to know that there's different there's not a one size fits all marketer that we're hiring, it's typically role dependent.
And then, once we get them in here, you know, I think most when, to answer your talent acquisition question, I think it starts with how do you develop your internal talent? How do you keep them super engaged and excited, and make it clear that they have a great path for career progression, and they can get anywhere they want to be at Wayfair.
You know, if they're, if they know what they want to be doing, you know, we try to help create a tailored, you know, path for them to continue to develop the skill sets that they want to develop, that will get them to the next level, either in their current role, or help them transition to a different role. I think we really try to emphasize internal mobility, right? So, that people can know that they don't have to leave Wayfair, if they want to work in a different functional -
Michael LeBlanc 29:12
Right.
Bob Sherwin 29:12
area, they can work in a different functional area within Wayfair. And we would always prefer have an internal candidate get a role than external, because they're already tried and true. You know, they have a network, you know, make them more well-rounded by shifting functions, if that's what they want to do, or shifting disciplines, which some people often want to do as well.
Michael LeBlanc 29:31
Yeah, yeah.
Bob Sherwin 29:32
And then in terms of like, recruiting, you know, it's, you know, the way we think about that is really focusing on selling Wayfair, right? Like, that's who where you're joining, you may be coming in for a specific role, on a specific team with a specific manager. And we want you to be excited about that. And we want to make sure you're like, you know, being set up for success to be, to do a great job there. But ultimately, we want to hire you for a lot longer than just that specific role, right? We want you to nail that role and then stay here and move around internally, as well.
Michael LeBlanc 30:02
Have you, have you added any pages to the hiring playbook since COVID started? So, for example, some retailers say we, we always wanted people to be in our head office. But now, you know, our, our aperture is much wider. We'll hire across the country for pretty senior roles or, you know, anything from educational supplements. Is there anything new that you've done, since -
Bob Sherwin 30:25
Yeah, I think were at -
Michael LeBlanc 30:25
As a result -
Bob Sherwin 30:26
still quite early innings on what the full arsenal looks like. We're still very much a prioritized in office interactions. I think what we're being more flexible on now is the days you're in office, right, It's not necessarily five days a week, you know, 52 days a year, 52 weeks a year, it's, it's going to be more like three days a week, once we get back to more of a, you know, a normal status. Right now, it's optional to be in the office. But I think -
Michael LeBlanc 30:53
Right, right.
Bob Sherwin 30:53
we'll land at three days a week, which makes it easier for people to commute from further away. If they're only coming in -
Michael LeBlanc 31:00
Sure.
Bob Sherwin 31:00
a few days a week, right.
Michael LeBlanc 31:01
Sure, sure.
Bob Sherwin 31:01
I think then and then we are opening -
Michael LeBlanc 31:03
Is that a cultural change for you guys? Is that a, is that a big cultural change for you? Do you think that -
Bob Sherwin 31:08
I think -
Michael LeBlanc 31:08
you know.
Bob Sherwin 31:08
the cultural change has already happened, because we've been remote, fully remote for coming up on two years, more or less.
Michael LeBlanc 31:15
Right.
Bob Sherwin 31:15
So, I think like, we figured out how to operate well in a distributed environment. But we also believe strongly, because we have gotten together for a number of occasions and things, that there's still -
Michael LeBlanc 31:25
Yeah.
Bob Sherwin 31:25
a lot of power to maintain like culture. There's a lot of power for brainstorming and going through different phases of processes, you know, -
Michael LeBlanc 31:34
Sure, sure.
Bob Sherwin 31:34
just do it in person, right? You just develop a deeper personal connection and bond. You know I think you establish trust much faster. You know, you get to know people on a personal level, it's a little easier and more enjoyable to do that. So, -
Michael LeBlanc 31:47
and adhesion to the brand, right?
Bob Sherwin 31:48
And we don't have the answer yet. But ultimately, -
Michael LeBlanc 31:50
Yeah.
Bob Sherwin 31:50
I think the future looks like more of a hybrid world where you're doing things in person, but in a very well defined, very deliberate manner.
Michael LeBlanc 32:00
Right.
Bob Sherwin 32:01
And that, that allows you to give people more flexibility during the rest of the week, where they don't, they can work where it's comfortable for them, some people that's in the office, and other people -
Michael LeBlanc 32:09
Yeah.
Bob Sherwin 32:09
that may be in a, you know, at home in a remote environment.
Michael LeBlanc 32:14
Last question for me, and then I'm going to pass the mic back to Veronika to bring us home. We like to ask our guests to cast their minds five years into the future, not necessarily about you personally, but more about the role of a CMO. What do you think will be different, if anything? How do you imagine the CMA, CMOs role in five years? Will it, will it be algorithm based where you need to be master of that? Will you need to be master of all like, give me a sense of how you're thinking about your role, the CMOs role in five years?
Bob Sherwin 32:43
Yeah, I mean, I, I think it is, I kind of alluded to this earlier. And so, I'll try not to repeat myself completely. But I, I think the successful CMO of the future will be a very well-rounded athlete that operates you know, more like a CEO mindset, versus like a, you know, a CMO of 20 years ago, right? They're going to need to be again, well rounded multi disc, very comfortable operating across all functional areas. You know, working deeply with creative teams working with deeply in customer insights teams, working deeply with onsite experience, developers and, and product managers, you know, working closely with technologists and data scientists, and, and really understanding those this different disciplines and be able to, you know, be the brand evangelists, one, so everyone does understand it, but then also on those different, you know, different work streams, or, or, or where, where you need to rely on an algorithm. Be able to really guide those teams provide guidance and understand, again, their disciplined enough to know where there's limited to what is possible, where you can see an idea, and where their limit, the limitations may be.
And so, I think, yeah, the successful CMO will have to be able to do all those things, will have to be extremely mindful about how to measure, right? And so that they can confidently work with their CFO or CEO, and in terms of how much they're spending and where they're spending and why. And collectively make, you know, good investment decisions that will help, you know, grow the brand in the long term. And again, I just don't think those are things that you know, going back 10 or 20 years ago, were all as -
Michael LeBlanc 34:24
Right.
Bob Sherwin 34:24
relevant as they are today. It's (crossover talk) another thing I'll mention is like the landscape is going to continue to (inaudible) or evolve, you know, even faster than it has in the last 20 years, in terms of especially at up digital, right? And so, that's why the importance of being a bit of a technologist is you have to be interested in stay on top of it and you, you know a great CMO is not going to be able to rely on outsourcing all of that to third parties. They're going to have to under and they may outsource a lot of it.
Michael LeBlanc 34:37
Right.
Bob Sherwin 34:52
But they're still going to need to understand it enough of it so that they can stay ahead of again, the evolving privacy landscape or just the publisher landscape because that will continue to be quite dynamic.
Michael LeBlanc 35:04
So, so more a decathlete than a 100-yard sprint superstar (crossover talk) not someone who's trying -
Bob Sherwin 35:09
More of a decathlete than like a, you know, even an Ironman, you know, three event triathlon.
Veronika Sonsev 35:15
Like listening to you what I was thinking is, in some ways, the role of the CMO has gotten so much harder, right? Because now you have to have such a broader skill set. But at the same time, I think in some ways it's, it's also easier because the data that you have at your fingertips allows you to iterate so much faster than you, than you did in times past you had like, you know, it's, it's, it's very different than the Mad Men days, when you had the people with the good ideas. But you know, those, those ideas took a long time to test and prove out.
Bob Sherwin 35:44
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I think it's, I think it's hard now because you can disseminate ideas, or test things very quickly. I think then prioritization. And you know, it had me thinking about a portfolio of ideas, you're going after some, you know, we kind of sometimes use a baseball analogy, you want to have a few ideas that are the homerun ideas, but you may strike out. And then a few ideas that are going to get wins on the, you know, get runs on the board, your singles and doubles, get people on base. Again, to keep momentum going and make sure teams feel motivated, and that you're just not always swinging for the fences every time.
Veronika Sonsev 36:17
Yep, yep, absolutely. So, Bob you talked about Wayfair's culture, you talked about what you look for in a team member, if someone's interested in joining the Wayfair marketing team? Where should they go for more information?
Bob Sherwin 36:28
Yeah, they could go to our we have a careers homepage. So, if people do go to wayfair.com/careers, they can find listings of roles across the entire organization, you and you can filter down to marketing there. People can also email me directly and I can put, you know, forward your, your email onto the appropriate teams. My email is rsherwin@wayfair.com So, I'm always happy to receive emails from interested candidates.
Veronika Sonsev 36:59
Awesome. That's so great. Well Bob, thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing a bit about Wayfair. Your career journey. It was such a pleasure to have you on the show.
Bob Sherwin 37:07
Thank you for having me, Veronika and Michael.
Michael LeBlanc 37:09
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