Leading with Empathy: A Comms Imperative w/ Robin Daniels

What is a Chief Business Officer, anyway?

This week on Under Embargo, Parry and I sat down with Robin Daniels—Chief Business & Product Officer at Zensai—for a conversation that honestly left me thinking about everything from go-to-market strategy to workplace happiness to ethical leadership. (No big deal, right?)

If you don’t know Robin, he’s held exec roles at LinkedIn, WeWork, Salesforce, Box, Matterport—the man’s got receipts. But what stood out most in this convo wasn’t the resume. It was how deeply he cares about people.

✨ On redefining the CBO role
Robin’s not just leading marketing—he’s running a whole ecosystem of product, growth, and post-sales. He’s building categories, not just campaigns. Think: less “traditional CMO,” more “growth-obsessed storyteller-meets-operator.”

✨ On Zensai and the whole “human success” thing
Zensai’s mission is all about helping people thrive at work. It’s not fluffy. It’s grounded in skills, growth, and motivation—and it speaks to that thing we all secretly want: to love how we spend our days. Robin’s all in on that mission, and it shows.

✨ On why culture is the strategy
From his LinkedIn days to now, Robin’s learned that empathy isn't soft—it’s essential. One of my favorite moments? Him sharing how his team opened up through storytelling exercises. Made me want to do the same with mine. (And I just might.)

✨ On ethical leadership (aka: not being a jerk)
We talked about that current in tech where leaders forget that actions = brand. Robin’s take? Lead with integrity, or don’t lead at all. Because the ripple effects—on people, on brand perception, on retention—are real.

✨ On marketing that actually matters
Robin doesn’t have time for soulless campaigns. He breaks down why brand should be rooted in human connection, not product specs. (Preach!) It’s the kind of take that makes you want to rework your entire messaging doc.

Bottom line? This episode is a love letter to building real businesses—with people at the center.

Transcript

[00:00:54] Parry: Hi and welcome to episode three of the under embargo podcast. I'm Perry Hedrick, [00:01:00] your cohost along with Becca Chambers. Today we have our second guest on the show who is Robin Daniels. He is the chief business officer of Zensai. He also has a pretty illustrious track record as CMO and very big marketing titles at companies.

[00:01:16] Parry: We all have heard of like LinkedIn, Matterport, WeWork, um, and it goes on from there. So I just want to say welcome to you, Robin, to the Under Embargo podcast. 

[00:01:26] Robin: Thanks, Perry and Becca. Hey, good to see you. Super excited to be here. Honestly. I love the, what you two are putting out there. I love the bodge. So excited to be here for you.

[00:01:36] Robin: Awesome. So I want to get right to you. 

[00:01:39] Parry: What is a chief business officer? So that's a new title that I haven't really heard. And as you explain what that is, I'd be curious to know how that sort of differentiates from your long pedigree of CMO type roles. 

[00:01:51] Robin: I'll tell you what I do. I do business very important.

[00:01:55] Robin: You know, when I, when I was a kid, I always wanted to do business. No, I'm kidding. Uh, [00:02:00] chief business officer. The idea behind it is I love the art of marketing. It's my passion. It's what I've been doing for a long time. But I also wanted to expand my own kind of growth and my own, you know, challenge myself into new areas.

[00:02:14] Robin: And I just thought I didn't want to do the same thing over and over and over again. And so I thought, well, how can I expand from there? Um, and I think I've thought a lot about, do I become a CEO? Do I become a COO, the chief growth officers, whatever. And I think they all kind of have their upsides and downsides, honestly, in terms of their titles.

[00:02:34] Robin: Um, and the COO to me is very kind of like, to me, it sounds very internally focused. That's focused on finance and legal and HR and stuff like that. And that's just not my superpower. My superpower is to go to market, storytelling, category creation, communications, all that kind of stuff, how to build an epic brand.

[00:02:49] Robin: Um, but I wanted to take on more of the marketing because I also get like one of the challenge myself. So I had a long discussion with the CEO of the company I'm at now, Sensai. And we would just had an open discussion about like, [00:03:00] what would be the right thing to call me, you know, and how should we kind of partner up together?

[00:03:04] Robin: And I said, I want to really kind of take on everything that's externally focused and it has to do with go to market. And I like to find it. Um, and the cool thing about this kind of nebulous title, chief business officer is that it means everything and nothing because everything you do in a company, it's about the business, which means that basically you can, you can shove anything under the chief business officer, which it's ended up, you know, right now.

[00:03:24] Robin: So the things I run directly today is that pre and post sales. Product and marketing. So we actually have a chief revenue officer, Kathy. She's amazing. She runs like the revenue part of it. But I run those kind of three teams, um, under me, but you can put anything under a chief business officer, but that was, that was the goal.

[00:03:39] Robin: I still love marketing. I'm still heavily involved in marketing, but it's not the only thing I want to be defined as, as a, as a human being or as a career professional. 

[00:03:49] Parry: That makes sense. And that's a good overview. So I guess, um, a quick question would be, can you give us like a minute on what Zensai does so folks understand what the company is?

[00:03:57] Parry: Can you talk a little bit about how, if at all, [00:04:00] um, you interface or interact with the communications piece or if that's under your purview? 

[00:04:04] Robin: Yeah, absolutely. So, so since I, we consider ourselves the human success company and what that means is that we are basically building a platform that's all about how do we make people the best they can be every single day through the learning skills, knowledge, and motivation that you can get.

[00:04:18] Robin: Like, and I think about this, that 70 percent of people in most jobs, they, they're unhappy. They want to quit their jobs and we want to be the antidote to that. We want to be the platform that. Pushes people every day, a little bit to get the right knowledge and skills to get the right motivation to feel like you're achieving something a little bit more every day.

[00:04:35] Robin: Kind of like the, uh, you know, atomic habits, like getting 1 percent better every day. So you feel like it's momentum in your life towards something that fulfills you, gives you joy and purpose, but not just for altruistic reasons, but because it also benefits the companies that you work for. So we want to be that platform.

[00:04:50] Robin: That's all about making you the best that you can be every single day. I love 

[00:04:55] Becca: that for real. Like that is, I mean, just from like a leadership [00:05:00] perspective, like when you invest in employees, they invest in the company, right? It is such like a, like benefit to all win, win, win. And people are like, well, if you train employees, then they're going to leave and take that knowledge elsewhere.

[00:05:15] Becca: And it's like. But while they're here, they're going to do better work. And if you treat them well, maybe they won't leave, right? Maybe they'll stay. And this is like another hill I will die on. The like, 

[00:05:26] Robin: if I invest 

[00:05:28] Becca: in people, then they're going to get better. And, or that's threatening to me as a manager, right?

[00:05:33] Becca: Like whatever. That's also, 

[00:05:35] Robin: it's, this is why it's, it's, it's fully aligned with what my North star in life is anyway, to becoming kind of like the best that you can be and have a life full of joy and purpose and fulfillment. Because. When I think about the 70 percent of people who are showing up every day, not feeling fulfilled or joyful or, or doing anything that's meaningful, I can guarantee you those people are not doing the best work of their life.

[00:05:57] Robin: They're just not. Um, and I just think it's such a sad [00:06:00] indictment. I don't want to live in that world. I want to live in a world where ideally people are motivated and fueled by the work that they do in a way that that's deeply inspiring. And again, it's both because I'm a dreamer in some ways, but it's also because I think.

[00:06:13] Robin: If we want to solve the challenges that we have in society on a macro economic level and a global level, we need everybody to show up every day expired and motivated that I mean, all the company really is, whether it's a small company or big companies, collection of people trying to solve challenges together, right?

[00:06:30] Robin: Sometimes those are like small, small, mundane challenges. Sometimes they're really big, epic challenges that we've probably all been through. But all of this is a collection of people trying to do. And if you don't have that, right. Trust and joy and camaraderie and kind of like purpose together. It's very hard to like do great work, I think.

[00:06:46] Robin: So I want to see if I can at least get people a little bit more on that path towards that. Um, just, just for their own kind of satisfaction and happiness. 

[00:06:55] Parry: Everybody that's seen you on LinkedIn and you and I have been sort of [00:07:00] friends in the same orbit for a long, long while, but anybody who's seen you and your posts, I think they all probably have a similar takeaway, which was that you're a guy who's generally pretty optimistic.

[00:07:09] Parry: Glasses half full. Um, which leads me into a question that we didn't discuss prior to this, which is to what extent is empathy sort of a piece of how you manage people and how you bake that into the ethos of the companies that you, you work with? Is that a, is that a trite sort of overused word? Or does that have meaning for you in a way?

[00:07:28] Parry: That's. Applicable. 

[00:07:30] Robin: I think it's everything. Honestly. I mean, I guess that's kind of how I think I try to lead from the front of my heart. Um, because I think if you want to get the best out of people, you have to understand their motivation and everybody's motivation is different at different points in their life.

[00:07:42] Robin: I'm sure probably has been for you. There was a point in my life when I chase titles and money and outcomes and now I'm chasing fulfillment and happiness and joy and so on. But unless you understand what motivates people and you have the empathy around why they're. Um, motivated by the things that they are, then I think it's very hard to get people [00:08:00] to do great work because if you just treat everybody with the same brush, I think you're going to miss out a lot on the deeper motivation.

[00:08:05] Robin: And I think people, you really unlock the full character of people and the full potential of them when you can dig deep into what motivates them. So when I was at LinkedIn for a few years ago, for example, we did this exercise. I had a team of roughly about 50 people, a lot of people coming together, new people.

[00:08:20] Robin: I was the new leader there and I brought them all together at offsite. And one of the questions that I said that I wanted to do as an icebreaker is have everybody show up with a picture that they could choose themselves. And on that picture, they should put their why, like, why are you doing what you're doing?

[00:08:36] Robin: And it was much more heartwarming and eye opening than I even kind of had anticipated kind of setting this up. And there were tears and there were laughter and stuff, but people were coming up and they were standing in front of the 50 people sharing, I'm in it because I want to make my My mom proud.

[00:08:50] Robin: I'm in it because I hate, hated being poor when I was growing up. It's like, like these deep motivations, but unless you understand that, I think it's very hard to like build the trust and camaraderie and also [00:09:00] get that person towards a path that's motivational for them. If you grew up in wealth and then trying to motivate somebody with money doesn't matter really.

[00:09:08] Robin: Right. Cause if that's not the thing, maybe that's more around feeling like you're part of something and you're achieving something versus if you've grown up with nothing, then yeah, the money is actually a big part of like what fuels your every day. So I think the empathy of that understanding, so one of the first things I do when I come into a new company is to try to spend a lot of time with each of the people on the team to get to know them beyond the surface level of just what they do at work to get that empathy.

[00:09:34] Becca: That is an amazing exercise, by the way, the, um, asking people what motivates them, because you're right. It is. For everybody. It's totally different. And I do think that there are, I think fulfillment right now for people goes a really long way. Like I think people would choose a pay cut in exchange for an awesome manager who let them [00:10:00] work in the way that they needed to work and really drive outcomes and feel like they knew what they were contributing.

[00:10:06] Becca: Every day, right? I think about the times when I grinded my team the hardest, which I really try not to do, but you know, in comms it ebbs and flows and you have, we're leading up to a brand launch and I feel like we were working around the clock day in and day out and nobody complained. We loved it because we knew that we were building something super important.

[00:10:26] Becca: We felt so much joy in it. We were building this baby that it felt like, you know what? I don't care if I'm grinding because we're in this together. We're in the trenches. And it was, I mean, I feel like when we launched it, I still feel like that was one of the proudest moments of my whole life. Because we had gone through war together to come out, you know, 

[00:10:46] Robin: well, that's fine.

[00:10:47] Robin: This one, this one's so interesting. There's so many books written about motivation and drive. And of course, there's a lot of complexity and factors that goes into that. But I think you've hit the nail on the head. I think there's really kind of three core things and without [00:11:00] them, you can have everything else, but won't get to that magic that you're just describing.

[00:11:05] Robin: Number one is do you have a shared purpose that you're fighting for? Sometimes that's the big company mission. And sometimes it's just a small team mission. I want to show up for my team every day to make sure that they are proud of the work that we're doing collectively together. This is free decor. I think it's so important.

[00:11:19] Robin: The second thing is. Do you feel like you're making a difference towards that stated goal? It's really hard to feel motivated if you're just doing busy work. Like you get to that Friday night and you're like, shit, I was busy, but I actually don't know if I achieved anything or made a difference. Why are we doing this?

[00:11:35] Robin: Why are we doing this? We've all had those weeks like horrible. The hamster wheel, right? The worst is like that Friday night feeling. When you're with your family, you're talking to 'em about, Hey, I didn't really, I was busy, but I didn't know. And then the third thing is. Are you doing it with good people, like where you can laugh and have some smiles and, you know, fun and so on.

[00:11:55] Robin: It doesn't mean that every day is like that. There's lots of tense moments, I'm sure in building any [00:12:00] business, as I'm sure we all have tried, but do you trust each other? Can you laugh together? I remember again, there was a colleague I work with. Uh, and, um, it was right during a time of heightened, uh, political correctness.

[00:12:13] Robin: And he came to me kind of like, it was a little sad because like, he always used humor as a way to kind of like build trust and camaraderie. And he had a team of about, he worked for me and he had a team maybe of about 15 people under me. And he was like, he was finding it really difficult to like, how do you do that?

[00:12:27] Robin: Because. Part of that struggle is how do you connect to human beings? And if you take away a lot of this, it becomes really hard to do. But anyway, I think, I think it's, I think it's purpose. I think it's impact and I think it's people. Those are the three core things without them, you're screwed. 

[00:12:42] Becca: You started to touch on something actually, like as a manager, when you're managing through political turmoil, I worked at a company where we had Russian and Ukrainian employees at the same time when the war broke out, right?

[00:12:57] Becca: Like that is a very. [00:13:00] Sensitive thing that nobody has trained me how to do. I don't know how to deal with this. And yet I am one of the people who is tasked with helping navigate the business through this situation. Right. And I think the empathy piece is the, is the thing that ties everybody to. Gather in that, right?

[00:13:18] Becca: Like that's the one thing we know is that we have to be like people first focused in order to navigate through this on a business level. And you said something else that I was going to touch on, but I totally lost it with my ADD brain. Yeah. 

[00:13:34] Robin: Well, no, but it's those moments that really test. I mean, I'll be honest, uh, in the spirit of under embargo and invulnerability, like the time when, uh, the, the black lives matters moment was happening.

[00:13:45] Robin: That was, that was super tough. And then I was really trying to be empathetic and show up for my team. Cause everybody was really like hurting during that time, but I can't get around the fact that I'm a white male leader, you know, and like, I'm trying to show up in the best way that I can. I was [00:14:00] fully empathizing, I think, with the situation and how horrible it was and how unjust it was.

[00:14:05] Robin: But I can't get around the fact of the way that I look. And I was always kind of conscious of that, of course, right? In some way. And I'm like, I just kept reminding myself, just trying to do the best that I can every day. I like this. That's the only thing. I remember 

[00:14:17] Becca: what I was going to say. You reminded me.

[00:14:19] Becca: And that is that as a manager, nobody warns you the amount of emotional labor that you're putting into your job. I was during Like wrecked crying, right? Because you feel, especially if your team is tight, especially if you have really a lot of psychological safety within your team and you're the manager who is.

[00:14:39] Becca: Carrying the weight of whether it's team drama or world drama, or am I showing up right in this moment and blah, blah, blah. And I mean, I've had jobs where I felt like half of my time was spent just kind of acting almost as a therapist, but then I was, nobody's therapizing me. Like honestly, it's hard, right?

[00:14:59] Robin: [00:15:00] Yeah, no, it's exactly. It's really hard. It's emotionally hard. That's why I always think about marketing and comms, honestly, in general. It's the highest highs, but it's also the lowest lows. It's just the truth of it. It's a, in all my experience, yeah, when things are going well, it's the best place in the world to be.

[00:15:16] Robin: Cause you can have so much fun with it. It's the most creative outlet and you can impact so many people's lives when things are not going well, whether that's outside of your control or maybe the market's turning or whatever it is. It's really tough because then marketing or comps oftentimes gets blamed for the majority of things that are going wrong 

[00:15:34] Becca: or they're asked to solve things that they can't possibly solve themselves.

[00:15:41] Parry: So we've talked a lot about, you know, difficult situations, navigating difficult times and all of that. And you mentioned earlier, Robin, that. Different things motivate different people and you did that session where people were, you know, getting emotional and teary about, you know, why they do what they do.

[00:15:56] Parry: What, what, what motivated you to become kind of [00:16:00] the man you are now? What, you know, I know our backgrounds are a little similar. Um, what was the motivating, um. Factor for you to, to punch probably way above your, your weight class at the time. 

[00:16:12] Robin: I've always been an insecure overachiever in many ways. I think that for those of you who don't know Perry and I actually live parallel lives.

[00:16:18] Robin: There was three years ago. He was doing a tour across Europe and literally Two days later, I was in the exact same spot. We were sending each other pictures of us in the exact same spot. That's tour. It was really funny. I'm like, I, I'm basically just copying your lines. I, I wanna be, Perry, you're my vacation

[00:16:34] Robin: I know, I know. I wanna be Perry when I grow up. So, so I think, I think, uh, you and I share parallel lives in many ways, but, uh, no, it comes from, I grew up, uh, and I think it's well documented in, in Copenhagen, Denmark. I grew up some very hippie-ish parents. You know, my mom and dad. But very dysfunctional and very poor, and we always had to struggle.

[00:16:55] Robin: And, and I always saw that the struggle, just how much it limits your ability to [00:17:00] choose the life that you want to live. Even though they had, my parents had great idealistic dreams of what they wanted their lives to be, it never kind of materialized because I think they were always too dysfunctional or too disorganized or not, not good enough in whatever skillset they needed at the moment to kind of like navigate themselves out of it.

[00:17:16] Robin: And so I've always kind of been, um, my way of getting out of that and kind of rising. It's just by pure determination, I think, and persistence. I'm not somebody who gives up easily. I try to set myself really big goals. Like I said, by the time I'm 35, I wanted to be a CMO, for example, and I just made it, you know.

[00:17:36] Robin: Um, and uh, but it's like always setting myself, like, check, I think, always just kind of trying to set myself goals, because I don't have a, I don't, I didn't go to Stanford or Harvard. I don't have, I didn't come up from, uh, Background of wealth and privilege. So my superpower was always just kind of the way I work really hard, but it came from a way in, in, in essence, I want, I've always wanted the freedom to [00:18:00] live my life the way I want it to.

[00:18:02] Robin: And that's why I, uh, choose the jobs that I have. Sometimes they have not worked out. Obviously it's, I think it's also been documented, like we work as a great example, I, at some point in time, I was worth a lot of money when I was there and then it turned into be out to be nothing. Um, but I've always chosen things where I can both have fun in the job, but also, of course, have a great outcome at some point, not, I don't think one of the, one is exclusive of the other, but it comes, honestly, the, the, the reason I've always been working so hard, it comes, it comes from, I think in some way, this feeling that I still have today, you know, as I'm in my, my forties that it could all just go away.

[00:18:42] Robin: Uh, I mean, I know it sounds a little weird. I have had a good career. I think that's a lot of people 

[00:18:49] Becca: who grow up poor is the feeling of it could all go away in a second. Like I did not. I will say I grew up privileged as hell, but I have a lot of people in my life who did grow up [00:19:00] poor. And that is like the common thread.

[00:19:01] Becca: Is this like it could be got the anxiety of it could be gone in an instant, right? And I don't have that. I don't have that anxiety. And I think that's really interesting. 

[00:19:09] Parry: Oh, I have that. And that's 100 percent sort of a motivating. Actor against everything that I do at all times. And it's also why I try to impress upon my kids over and over again, um, where I came from to let them know they could also slide back if they're not careful and don't pick the right choices and try to be good humans out in the world.

[00:19:28] Parry: Um, but I want to, I want to pivot a little bit from this, which is trying to do the best work we can. Um, you know, driven by whatever the motivating factors are, and I kind of want to parlay that into into the idea of brand at some of these companies that that we've worked at. You've worked at, um, there's a, there's an argument going on.

[00:19:46] Parry: I asked a recent guest about this, which is that in the CMO seat, there seems to be this discussion about revenue generation versus brand and which has priority. And I'm just curious across your, um, travels, what have you seen [00:20:00] shift and where do you think we have landed on that one? 

[00:20:04] Robin: I mean, I love it.

[00:20:05] Robin: Becca's reaction to this says it all. No, I mean, basically, if you think about you, you have three ways. of getting customers. You can either pay for their attention, you can get people to be so interested in what you're saying that they come to you organically, or you can get people to find out about you through word of mouth, friendships, networks, and so on, right?

[00:20:30] Robin: And the reason why you have to do all three in marketing is because they work in different timelines. But the quality is completely inverse. So, uh, and versus the quantity. So in digital market, you want to pay for people's attention. You get the most volume. It's the most data driven. So everybody loves it, but the quality is always the most shit and you're going to sift through a lot of crap.

[00:20:52] Robin: And those deals, a lot of times transactional people do not fall in love by clicking on a 10 word Google app. It just doesn't happen, [00:21:00] right? They have to fall in love with your story over and over again. Organic storytelling. The quality is way higher when you put out stuff that is so interesting, whether that's on TikTok or media or press releases or blog posts or podcasts, where you put out stuff that's so interesting, people say, I want to go learn more.

[00:21:16] Robin: Of course, the quality is going to be much higher. It's just much more unpredictable, which is why it's not companies like Ledger. Much harder to measure. Right. Um, but the quality is obviously way high and work. You crack that code. You're golden. But that requires one key skill, which I think is lacking a lot in marketing today.

[00:21:34] Robin: And I'll get to that in just a moment. And then the third area is what I would call community marketing or word of mouth based marketing. And in my company, the companies I've been at, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Box, we were the best deals, the most loyal customers, the biggest customers were always the ones that came through our community based efforts, meaning when we would show up, right?

[00:21:50] Robin: Somehow, whether that's a small two person dinner or 50 person event and be able to evangelize and get people to deeply understand what it is that we do, the quality is much [00:22:00] higher, they fall in love with who you are and what you do, the story of what you can do for them, they become part of your family, but it's not scalable.

[00:22:06] Robin: And that's why, and it takes longer. So that's why it's a harder one to crack. It takes longer, doesn't scale because you have basically, you can't just get in front of a million people that way. So a good marketing plan has to do all three, but if you want to create a super brand, which is the ultimate competitive mode, right, then you have to really invest in the second and third one around storytelling and around community based marketing.

[00:22:27] Robin: I've not, I don't know of anybody who's really created a super brand by just investing in paying for people's attention because that attention can go away the moment something better comes along and there's always going to be something better comes along. But if you have a brand that people love and feel like they're part of something, whether that's a Patagonia, Nike, Apple, all these brands that we all know.

[00:22:45] Robin: then that becomes the ultimate competitive mode. But for the second one around storytelling, which I think, I think we're in this golden age of storytelling. I love the format of podcast, because it's such a great conversation. I love being able to see your face as well. We have a fun [00:23:00] chat. Um, the great thing about this, this age is that there are more opportunities than ever to get the story out about who you are and what you do.

[00:23:09] Robin: Well, you want to be on Tik TOK and do something viral as a podcast and videos or ads or cat videos or whatever it is, all this stuff you can do. However, the downside of being a gold major storytelling is that there's so much noise out there. I mean, it's just like, if you're not, if you don't have the courage to stand out to be different, you're dead in the water.

[00:23:31] Robin: People are just so inundated with information and that's it. Of course. Yes. That's 

[00:23:35] Becca: it. I mean, I, and I was at my, my follow up question to you was going to be in the brand, in the two second buckets, how important do you think that the human? Part of the brand matters and the people behind the brands, because I think that's becoming more important now than it's ever been, and it's going to continue to be to your point, like building, putting content out online, putting content out from your corporate brand [00:24:00] isn't fine.

[00:24:01] Becca: Putting content out from the people behind your brand is really taking, I mean, that matters. Like you said, TikTok now people are shopping from people. 

[00:24:12] Robin: Like they say, maybe you live in interesting. I think you bring up the perfect point. It's all about the people. And maybe it always was, but we kind of lost sight of that.

[00:24:21] Robin: And the slew of just trying to get, show the message. In front of as many people's faces, people fall in love with people, uh, at the end of the day. And so it's funny when you look at my career, I've only ever worked for a B2B companies, right? And some of them honestly kind of boring in some ways. But what I learned early in my career is that, uh, we should always market ourselves like a consumer company.

[00:24:42] Robin: Because consumer companies have, are just much better at creating an emotional connection to people and getting people to feel something. And so, so I learned that early on and that it's always been my playbook and all the companies have gone since like, yes, I know we're selling to businesses and they're spending millions of dollars, but let's market ourselves at consumer company.

[00:24:59] Robin: Cause that's the [00:25:00] difference, 

[00:25:01] right? And that's, you 

[00:25:01] Robin: see, and that usually puts people first, right? And consumer companies do that better versus there's a screenshot of a. CRM database and like, oh, so boring, right? This 

[00:25:10] Becca: is my argument with B2B stuff. Cause I come from B2B also is like everyone's saying the same thing and is boring as hell.

[00:25:17] Becca: So if somebody just likes your colors better, that might, you know what I mean? Like it really, really does matter. Or your CEO is like, has better opinions. Like there is. So much psychological stuff that goes into brand that people are just like, Oh, it's just about shapes and colors. And it's like, it's really not, it's about the thing that makes people remember you and think, Oh, I'll buy this one over that one.

[00:25:43] Becca: You might just have nicer packaging. That could, that could be the difference. I buy stuff at Target that has nicer packaging because I like school branding. 

[00:25:55] Parry: This reminds me a little bit of IBM, right? So for many, many years, everybody's heard, you know, no [00:26:00] one gets fired for buying IBM. It was reliable. It was trustworthy.

[00:26:03] Parry: You know, your dad bought IBM, like everybody could trust it. And then that worked until it didn't. You know, so, so there was a whole campaign, I don't know, 10 years ago, um, where they tried to humanize the brand a little bit because they were taking cues from what was working on the consumer side. So you started to see, I'm an IBMer, I'm an IBMer, showing the actual people behind this big stodgy, you know, monolith of a company.

[00:26:26] Parry: And that had a lot of mileage. And it actually kind of gave permission for a lot of other B2B companies to start getting a little more experimental and to try to. Humanize their brands. Um, and I think precious few BDB companies have have caught that message and are still doing that today. Most I use this expression that it's like they're standing atop Mount Olympus and flowing robes pontificating about the wondrous awesomeness of their deep technology and no one gives a shit about that.

[00:26:54] Parry: They want to feel something. 

[00:26:55] Becca: No B2B brands do have, no B2B, B2B [00:27:00] brands have like a Wendy's social media, you know, like a, the, the funny followable, whatever that I, I just follow Wendy's for their snarky takes on, uh, 

[00:27:12] whatever, there 

[00:27:13] Becca: are no B2B companies that do that. Cause it's just. Thought of as ridiculous.

[00:27:16] Becca: And I'm like, I would totally buy from a B2B company that was grilling people online and roasting their competition. 

[00:27:24] Parry: These are enterprise size deals. We don't make jokes. 

[00:27:27] Becca: Yeah. 

[00:27:30] Robin: This is also why I think I agree with most of it. I think, I think still the, um, this is why it starts really at the, at the leadership level, because you have to push the leadership to do this because it gives everybody else permission to show up as themselves.

[00:27:44] Robin: Right. Because you can, yes, you can go and do the IBM thing and sponsor and you can start putting your people in front and ads and so on. But it's still a little bit not fully authentic. We have this golden age where it's like, you can show up and people don't. Remember exactly. I like, like, [00:28:00] you've been, you and I have known each other for a long time.

[00:28:02] Robin: And I follow you religiously because you post great content. I have no idea what you posted last week. It's just the consistency of you showing up as yourself, your dorkiness, your hot takes, your sometimes stupid takes. It's all good. I enjoy it all because you know, just like it's so uniquely you and that's made me fall in love with who you are and what you stand for, right?

[00:28:21] Robin: It's just that consistency. And I think you can, you can try to put it in a corporate app, but it's not the same as you just showing up as yourself every day. But once leadership does it. That, that gives people permission to do the same. 

[00:28:33] Parry: I think this is a logical transition into one of the topics I wanted to cover anyway about you and likewise, Robin, like you are out there on LinkedIn all of the time and in various jumping poses and fire behind you, like all these bizarre things, you're all over the place.

[00:28:51] Parry: It's your point. I don't necessarily know. Last week or whatever, but I know that you're always there. And I'm like, this is a guy who's putting himself out there. [00:29:00] And by the way, he's going to be top of mind in any kind of economic condition. Right? Like good, bad, everybody's going to know who Robin Daniels is.

[00:29:08] Parry: And I think that same ethos should be applying to the brand proper, but please respond to what I just said. 

[00:29:15] Robin: No. And so, so I learned this fairly early on, I mean, I started taking my personal brand fairly seriously. I would say probably about 10 years ago and not seriously as an, okay, I'm going to manufacture this.

[00:29:25] Robin: I'm just like starting to put myself more out there. I felt like I'd gotten to the point in my life where I didn't feel like a hundred percent of an imposter anymore. I had finished the share from my experience with Salesforce and Box and I was like, let me start sharing. So I started sharing a little bit.

[00:29:37] Robin: But in the beginning of that journey, you know, you've got to find your voice, like what sounds authentic to you. So it doesn't sound even my, some of my first early posts in the first couple of years were probably like very starchy. Here's what I've observed. And here's where you, my thoughts are so boring.

[00:29:49] Robin: And you'd learn over time with practice. And it's a great, actually, I think, segue around really communication as well in general. Practice is everything. The more you do something, it's like working out or riding a bike, [00:30:00] you just get better and more comfortable with it. And so I learned early on, like I would say about 10 years ago, I just really started ramping this up.

[00:30:06] Robin: And there's a couple of reasons. Of course I could see my personal value instantly going up from doing this. Like the amount of inbound interest I would get for speaking at events or jobs, you know, that would try to hire me. Just went up exponentially with the amount of stuff I posted. If it was valuable, he will start contacting me for all kinds of things.

[00:30:25] Robin: Um, then I also started noticing a really interesting thing that's especially happened when I was at LinkedIn, uh, is that people inside the team had a team that was fairly distributed around the world, about 50 people or so really started, uh, paying attention to what I would post every day. And of course I'm like working at LinkedIn.

[00:30:45] Robin: So I thought maybe that that's kind of obvious. But then it really like escalated when I was at WeWork. So suddenly there, I had the biggest team I've ever managed, about 400 people all around the world. And it was so chaotic, that company. I was growing like crazy, but I started noticing that, you know, [00:31:00] I wouldn't see a lot of the people all the time, but they would always pay attention to what I would post.

[00:31:04] Robin: And so I just started like making this like. The ultimate internal communication tool is actually LinkedIn for me, uh, and cause everybody like in engineering and product and finance, I would get these notes all the time. Like, Hey, I just saw what you posted. It really made my day. Or, Oh, I didn't know that you're doing this right now.

[00:31:21] Robin: You're focusing on this. If you kind of came like a sneaky way of doing internal, because most companies, you probably do an all hands every month, right? Maybe sometimes we do a little bit more, but usually around once a month, but this year is actually a way of keeping your finger on the pulse for everyone around what's happening every day.

[00:31:37] Robin: So I think I've been, I would say the last four or five years. My internal model has been very much around, like, I'm very aware that everybody, even since I was a small company, just over 200 people, they all see what I post. I mean, literally, that gets them. 

[00:31:54] Becca: This is an absolute insightful take for comms people right here.

[00:31:58] Becca: What you're saying [00:32:00] is a leader at a company. Whatever they're thinking, whatever they've worked on, whatever's coming up on LinkedIn, knowing that that is going to get juice externally while informing the people internally and also giving them more of an insight into who you are as a person. So they're like, Oh my God, the bosses at my company are awesome.

[00:32:22] Becca: Have you guys seen Robin? Robin's cool. Robin skis. Robin likes this. Like Robin's dog is cute as hell. Like A thousand percent what you just said, and I, I wish that more leaders would take advantage of that. And instead of spending 12 hours with your team, building in all hands, spend 10 hours building in all hands and spend two hours working on content for LinkedIn, right?

[00:32:45] Becca: It's just exactly so obvious to me. But I think that you nailed it on the head when you said this is the best way for people internally to get to know you because that's right. And they don't have to feel like it's forced. They can [00:33:00] passively consume you and who you are, and you can do a one to many.

[00:33:05] Becca: Personal. Interaction with people. I love it. I love it. 

[00:33:10] Robin: And they feel like they know me at scale now. It's like, I mean, cause I post every day. Like, I can think, you know, you two do as well. And so it means that every day somebody's getting a little piece of my soul, a little insight into my mind and what I'm thinking about.

[00:33:23] Robin: What's top of mind. You can always tell, like, if I'm writing about team or leadership or culture or Marketing and that's on top of mind for me. Like it's only, it's a little glimpse into this. Not a day goes by back to where I don't have at least a few people, like a handful of people in the site to come and say, Hey, I saw your posts.

[00:33:39] Robin: It's amazing. I mean, 

[00:33:42] Becca: the messages I get from people that are like, I saw this post and it meant this and strangers and stuff. And I'm just like that. I mean, I 

[00:33:52] Parry: get that message a lot. Exactly. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I do think it 

[00:33:56] Robin: is. Exactly. 

[00:33:57] Parry: Exactly. 

[00:33:59] Robin: [00:34:00] It does get that permission, you know, that permission to put everybody else.

[00:34:03] Robin: We've seen a rise. In our employees posting because they feel comfortable because there's not like, well, my boss see it and be like, mad about it. They see it. I high five them now, you know, so it becomes a snowball effect. Of course. Right? 

[00:34:17] Parry: So we, we have a little bit of time left. I wanted to touch on 1 of the big topics of the day, which is the rippling slash espionage.

[00:34:28] Parry: It's got all the intrigue of, of, you know, of a major picture. Do you have any take on this based on what you've seen? Uh, is it one of those situations where it's like, Hey, if you're not cheating, you're not trying. Like, how do you view this whole, whole thing? And, you know, how do you see it shaking out? 

[00:34:46] Robin: I'm just going like, what the actual fuck?

[00:34:49] Robin: Honestly, I just, I just, I think it's kind of embarrassing. I mean, like. It doesn't put, I mean, like, like, like tech isn't enough in the process of being a weird place to [00:35:00] work and kind of material. And then you see this shit happening. I'm just like, this is, this is not very cool. Like there's so many ways you can win in the market.

[00:35:07] Robin: You can win by having a great product, a great culture, a great brand, all the stuff we talked about and you get to go do dumb shit like this. It just doesn't make any sense to me. It's not. It's, it's, it's not kosher. I think it's, it's very short sighted. And I think, um, it comes back to what I'm fighting against from the beginning of our conversation.

[00:35:27] Robin: I want to create a world where people are motivated to, to do great things and ideally together, but it's not where it's not growth at all costs or profit at all costs, but it's about impact at all costs. And this here story tells me it's all about profit and growth at all costs, because we will do whatever it takes to Uber model that whatever model right of old yesterday year to grow.

[00:35:50] Robin: Torpedoing 

[00:35:53] Becca: your brand in one fell swoop, right? Like who's ever going to be like, you know what? I'm going to go work with them [00:36:00] because they seem trustworthy. 

[00:36:02] Robin: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. 

[00:36:06] And 

[00:36:06] Robin: it's not like the first time these founders, you know, are, uh, like haven't done anything shady. So at least from what I can understand, right, I don't want to focus 

[00:36:18] Becca: on people.

[00:36:18] Becca: Like the point is to be people focused. I also think this goes back to the like leadership setting an example. If leadership is doing shady shit like this. Of course, accounting is going to cut corners. Of course, marketing is going to be buying leads or doing shady shit that they shouldn't be doing or whatever.

[00:36:37] Becca: I think that sets the tone for everybody else. Like 

[00:36:41] Robin: whatever. Totally. But I mean, also to be fair, I mean, I've been through some, some, some harrowing experiences when it comes to stuff like this, right? I bet that 99 percent of the people and at Ripley and deal a great people working hard every day. Right.

[00:36:55] Robin: And it's just like, it's such a shame for them that then suddenly they get painted with this nasty [00:37:00] brush when they haven't done anything. I'm sure they're showing up every day, working your ass off. And I was like, we work everybody. I was so proud of the way that people showed up, even during this firestorm where every news article was about how shitty we were.

[00:37:11] Robin: They still showed up and did the best work every day. It's really hard to do when, when there's just such a much going on around you. 

[00:37:18] Parry: I was going to ask you about crisis communications given the insane story that we just talked about, but honestly I feel so badly for if they do have a crisis comms team I feel badly for them because yeah, they're in a no win situation quite honestly All I can do is slightly lessen the impact but ever so slightly 

[00:37:35] Becca: Bet you a thousand dollars that if they had known about this Plan to send in espionage, they'd be like, let's not do that.

[00:37:43] Becca: Can we talk to legal first? No, let's not do 

[00:37:48] Robin: that. That's what I'm saying. I think probably 99 percent of people did not know this was happening or did not, would not never endorse it. Right. It's probably some shady manager somewhere who [00:38:00] had said this was a good idea to send in a spy. I just assume I, I have, again, I have no inside knowledge.

[00:38:05] Robin: And 

[00:38:07] Becca: One day, 

[00:38:08] I 

[00:38:11] Robin: saw, I saw, I saw a headline. I think it was in some San Francisco journal. I think maybe it was San Francisco. Joseph, like the most boring corporate drama ever to play. Like two HR companies duking it out. I'm like, not boring. 

[00:38:28] Becca: I see. And you know, we're going to find out way more shady stuff.

[00:38:32] Becca: Yeah, we are. How does this idea even come to fruition? To the point that it actually is executed on? Like I've been in a lot of rooms where bad ideas are tossed around and somebody always shuts it down. But clearly there were no, there were no, I know 

[00:38:48] Parry: is I never want to find myself with my laptop. Locked in a bathroom where people are banging on the door trying to get me out to see what I have on my laptop.

[00:38:58] Becca: He said I will go to [00:39:00] prison rather than give you my phone. So, okay, he 

[00:39:02] Robin: said 

[00:39:03] Becca: that Wow, okay, 

[00:39:04] Robin: that's wild arrest 

[00:39:06] Becca: me. You can't have my phone. Okay. 

[00:39:08] Robin: Yeah. 

[00:39:09] Parry: Wow. 

[00:39:09] Robin: Okay 

[00:39:10] Parry: So i'm gonna i'm gonna switch We have a rapid fire round of questions robin that we're gonna throw at you because we do that to all of our guests at Least in the early episodes here.

[00:39:19] Parry: We'll we'll see how you do you ready for these? I'm so ready. I'm so ready. Let's bring it on. All right. What's a myth or misconception about communications or marketing in your case, um, that drives you bananas? 

[00:39:33] Robin: Especially around communication is that it's easy. It's not easy. I mean, um, I'll say this. I've become a good communicator because I fucking practiced over and over and over and over again.

[00:39:48] Robin: I had so many failures early on where I bombed presentations, I bombed interviews. Those are great lessons. And it really tells you, you got to practice. This is not, yes, of course, some people have it more easy. I get that. But in general, [00:40:00] it's really hard. You got to practice. You got to learn how to, something sounds, how to communicate with emotion, with impact, all that stuff.

[00:40:08] Robin: It's not easy. I think a lot of people think, Oh, this person, this can do it. Oh, that CEO is great. I'm like, they're a natural practice. They practice. 

[00:40:16] Parry: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, all right. You get to wipe out one corporate buzzword from existence. You get to act it right now. What do you kill? Uh, 

[00:40:25] Robin: OKRs. I just think it's, uh, it's just one of the most uninspiring ways to kind of try to motivate people.

[00:40:34] Robin: Yes, I have all four like alignment and clarity and goals, but like this OKRs, it just drives like this very, I think, um, short sighted behavior in many ways. Cause it's always like, Hey, what's your quarterly OKR versus like taking a longer view that's aligned to something much more inspiring and motivational.

[00:40:52] Robin: And, and I, I totally get the value of an OTR. I'm not trying to be an idiot around that. It's just, I just think that here in [00:41:00] 2025, can't we do better? Can't we find something a little bit more inspiring for people? When was the last time you wrote an OTR and you were just like, fire. All 

[00:41:12] Parry: right, uh, you're about to give a huge presentation, packed stadium, 50, 000 people.

[00:41:19] Parry: What's the song you walk out to? What's, what's the song you're going to hype yourself up with? 

[00:41:24] Robin: My walk on song would be a high hopes for the living by panic at the disco. 

[00:41:29] Parry: Okay. 

[00:41:30] Robin: All right. 

[00:41:31] Parry: All right. Okay. 

[00:41:34] Robin: Is there a walk 

[00:41:34] Parry: off song you had in 

[00:41:36] Robin: mind? Yes, I would probably say, uh, Time of Your Life by Green Day.

[00:41:40] Robin: Ooh, I like that. Tell the whole 

[00:41:42] Parry: story. Inspirational. Feel good? Feel good? 

[00:41:45] Robin: Well, it's just like a, it's like an acoustic, like winding down, like ensuring that everyone had a good time. You know, that, uh, that it was memorable and valuable and worthwhile. I love, it's one of my favorite songs. You know, I'm of that generation.

[00:41:58] Robin: Green Day is probably one of my [00:42:00] top three favorite bands of all time. I just, I've seen them so many times. The best concert ever was in Oakland when I was living in California. It's just like seeing them in their home turf was amazing. So, but they're just great. They just, they speak to me. 

[00:42:12] Parry: Yeah, I would say they're a top 10 of mine.

[00:42:14] Parry: Um, very cool. All right. You have to give a Ted talk on something that isn't in your wheelhouse about, you know, marketing or comms or any of that Ted talk and, and, and you're going to captivate an audience. What are you, what's the topic? 

[00:42:29] Robin: It's fairly simple for me. It's kind of what I spend my life doing and focusing on is how to live an ethnic life, how to live a life of purpose, fulfillment, joy, that's full of courage, uh, and adventure.

[00:42:40] Robin: And so you don't have anything left at the end of your life. I don't want to waste a second. I don't want to miss opportunities. I think you should go out there. Life is short. It doesn't mean that everything will work out, but you gotta have, you have to be vulnerable, authentic, and just go for it. 

[00:42:55] Parry: I love that word courage.

[00:42:56] Parry: I, I always say you, if you're scared, cool, do [00:43:00] it scared. And I think that's the difference between those who do and those who do not, right? Um, awesome. All right. You get to use one emoji until the end of time. Only one. What do you, what do you choose? That's a surprise 

[00:43:14] Robin: one. 

[00:43:17] Becca: Is that just because you're like, yes, today is an awesome day.

[00:43:21] Robin: Yes, exactly. I'm always like, I'm pumped up. I like to, I like, I like to respond to that when people ask me things. I'm like pumped up. I get pumped about a lot of things, Becca, so I 

[00:43:30] Becca: like that. No, I think that's a great choice. I think it's just, it was unexpected. I think it's awesome. Excellent. And totally on brand for you.

[00:43:37] Becca: I think that's, 

[00:43:37] Robin: I wish you had a jumping with arms out emoji, but they don't have that yet.

[00:43:47] Parry: So 

[00:43:48] Becca: Becca, do you want to ask the last one? So, this is Perry's add on to our rapid fire question, so I would just like to caveat with blame Perry for this, but you can either [00:44:00] have hiccups Non stop for three months or six, three months, or you cut off your own pinky. 

[00:44:09] I 

[00:44:09] Robin: mean, what kind of, what kind of psycho question is this?

[00:44:13] Robin: How is this even a question? Who would, who wouldn't take the short term pain on some hiccup to keep your pinky? Our 

[00:44:21] Parry: last guest was ready to cut his pinky off on the show. Like he's like, get rid of the pinky. That's a permanent, that's permanent. I love my pinky. What the hell? He didn't like 

[00:44:31] Becca: his pinky.

[00:44:32] Becca: That's the thing. He didn't like his pinky. So he didn't care. 

[00:44:34] Parry: You're gonna get rid of your pinky too, Becca, right? Didn't you say that? What? Didn't you say you'd chop off your pinky? 

[00:44:39] Becca: Yes. Have you guys ever had hiccups for extended periods of time? I've had hiccups for days at a time. That shit hurts. And it makes life miserable.

[00:44:49] Robin: But for three months. 

[00:44:50] Becca: For three months. But here's the thing. I would rather just pick death. I'm like a total wimp. Like I am not a survivor in that way. I'm like, you know what? Cat [00:45:00] me out. Give me the cyanide pill. Or like, throw me in the garage with the engine running. And I pick death. Yeah. 

[00:45:07] Robin: This is one of the reasons, honestly, I Trying to put myself in extreme situations and do like endurance sports, because it's not because I'm very good at it.

[00:45:14] Robin: To be honest, it's because to remind myself I can endure anything. I'm like. Like, like three months of this sounds horrible, but I could probably endure it. 

[00:45:23] Parry: My whole family chose to get rid of their pinky instead of having. I'm like, who are you people? You're choosing mutilation. 

[00:45:32] Robin: Perry, what, what, what are we missing?

[00:45:33] Robin: You and I, I feel like we're not on the same page with everybody. I 

[00:45:36] Parry: don't know. 

[00:45:37] Robin: I value every one of my digits a lot. Maybe the truth is Becca. I've actually not had the hiccups in a long time. So I've maybe forgotten how painful they are. I don't know. 

[00:45:48] Becca: I mean they're not always painful, but I think if you had them for three months they would be.

[00:45:51] Becca: An angry diaphragm is nobody's friend. 

[00:45:55] Parry: Which by the way is a metal band. [00:46:00] 

[00:46:00] Becca: Angry diaphragm. Can 

[00:46:02] Robin: you sleep with hiccups? Is that, has that been proven? 

[00:46:07] Becca: I mean, probably poorly. 

[00:46:11] Robin: Probably poorly. Uh, I don't know if I can, sleep is very important to me. I mean, I have my sleep ring now and really my son is always making fun of me because of my, because of my mood ring, which is really embarrassing.

[00:46:22] Robin: But 

[00:46:23] Parry: I mean, come on, it's true. 

[00:46:29] Becca: You're not wearing it on your pinky, so you're good there. All right, well, 

[00:46:35] Parry: this has been a lot of fun, Robin. We appreciate you showing up very much. I'm glad your voice is back. It's great to connect with you and thanks for coming on the show. 

[00:46:45] Good to 

[00:46:45] Robin: see you both. 

[00:46:46] Thanks, Robin.

[00:46:47] Thank you.