Dave Gerhardt

Hey I'm Dave Gerhardt. I created Exit Five, which has turned into the top community for B2B marketing professionals. Before starting Exit Five I had a 10 year career in marketing and grew from PR intern to CMO. I even once had hair! My wife says I'm more handsome now though, and she's quite pretty so that means a lot -- but the internet just boxes me in as the typical bald guy tech bro. So oh look, another bald tech guy writing on LinkedIn! whoopty freaking do.

Anyway. Where was I... OH. Receipts! I wanted to talk about receipts, because in a world of fluff and online influencers, I actually have some receipts and I want to tell you about them here because it signals power, credibility, and makes it seem like I'm super rich, so: I used to be pretty good at marketing, and my work as a marketer played a key role (at least I think so) in helping two software companies to successful exits: Drift for $1B+ and Privy for $100M+. I certainly helped the founders make a bunch of money, and I was able to comfortably purchase a brand new Toyota Sienna minivan for my family in 2021.

Today I spend my time working on Exit Five, and it's actually been super fun and given me a bunch of purpose. We're a team of six full-time team members now, and we have a private online community and host in-person events around the world. Plus there's a popular podcast and newsletter for marketers. We reach something like 20 MILLION marketers with our content every year, and we've got a pretty special thing going on. I hope to keep it going. You can learn more about it all at exitfive.com.

I spent most of my life in the Boston area but now live in the woods in Vermont with my wife, two kids, two cats, and one dog.

You can reach me at dave@exitfive.com if you want, but TBD if I reply. Depends on the message. But please don't send me any more swag or books. But if for whatever reason you do want to send me something, I play the ProV1x golf ball and like the low numbers.

PS. Find my podcast “The Dave Gerhardt Show” on Spotify

Founder & CEO

Exit Five is a media company focused on B2B marketing. We help B2B marketers build successful careers through our content and community. Learn more at exitfive.com

Content marketers run modern marketing.

Because almost all marketing today is shaped online.

And online marketing shows up as:

- Ads
- Videos
- Articles
- Podcasts and clips like this with Jess Cook
- Social posts
- Newsletters
- Communities
- Influencers

Different formats. But none of it works without a clear content strategy and strong content marketing.

Jess is a great example of this: she started her career as a copywriter for big CPG brands. She cut her teeth writing 200+ variations of a recipe for Rice Krispie Treats.

Then built a career in content marketing: content market manager, director, VP brand and content.

Then turned that into a Head of Marketing role at a startup and was recently promoted to VP on the heels of her success using - wait for it - content to drive revenue.

Not because Vector's content gets a lot of impressions and their podcast is unique or because their little mascot is cute.

But because it's working! Those things are driving revenue. 

I had a conversation with Jess last week (now out on my podcast) and she shared three key marketing plays that she's run over the past year:

1. Influencer Marketing - how does it work in B2B, how did she find influencers, what did it cost, how much pipeline was generated, how did they measure it

2. Podcasting - why they started a podcast, how their podcast stands out, how they record, when/where, how they prep, how they know it's working

3. LinkedIn - we talk a bit about what content types (and strategy) is working well here today

4. Career Path - her path from content to VP Marketing

Erin on my team messaged me last night and said this was the best interview we've done recently - please go listen if you need some tactical inspiration.

Founder: Exit Five | Community Builder | Former CMO

What events are you going to in Q1? We're hosting the first annual Exit Five Marketing Leadership Retreat in Arizona March 18-20.

This event is exclusively for in-house B2B marketing leaders.

It's all about who's in the room and we've pulled together a great group for this event. 

Here are the sessions we have planned:

1. How to Become the CMO Everyone Wants to Work With (with Dave Kellogg, EIR at Balderton Capital)

2. Building and Leading a High-Performing Marketing Team (led by Hillary Carpio, VP Growth at Snowflake)

3. Managing Your CFO and Board Relationship (led by Pranav Piyush, Founder at Paramark)

4. Personal Branding for B2B Marketing Leaders (led by Jane Serra, Head of Marketing at MemoryBlue)

5. Ecosystem Marketing as the Next Big Growth Lever (led by Emily Kramer, Founder of MKT1)

6. How Are You Really Using AI? At Work and Personally (led by Katie Miserany, CCO and Head of Marketing at SurveyMonkey) 

And I'm interviewing Kim Storin (CMO at Zoom) about how she does things and what's changing this year.
 
PLUS since it's a "retreat" - we have time for activities like golf, a workout, pool hang, or in-room massage; get lunch, dinner, drinks.
 
Will you join us?

Pass this on to your VP / CMO friends in B2B.

Full details here:

bit.ly/3Lxj75e

Open article: Marketing Leadership Retreat | March 18-20, 2026 by exitfive.com

Marketing Leadership Retreat | March 18-20, 2026

John Short

CEO at Compound Growth Marketing

I spent the first decade of my career building demand generation teams at Monster, LogMeIn, Yesware and Workable. During my time in operating roles I saw the market of B2B tech grow faster than the supply of B2B marketing talent, which created an opportunity to build a demand generation focused firm. 

We have built CGM different than the agencies I worked with when I was in-house. We built the Predictable Demand System to integrate strategy, demand generation, demand capture and GTM engineering to support the businesses we work with on a deeper level.

Compound Growth Marketing delivers transformative go-to-market results for B2B tech businesses by blending strategic consulting with expert execution across the entire customer acquisition journey. Our Predictable Demand System operationalizes GTM strategy, GTM engineering, demand generation and demand capture as a unified system that drives sustainable business outcomes.

Core Member

The Underscore Core is a curated group of exceptional entrepreneurs, executives, and experts who work in partnership with Underscore VC, an earliest stage venture capital firm, to identify transformative entrepreneurs and support them as they build iconic companies. Core Members have collectively built hundreds of companies, created thousands of jobs, served millions of customers and created billions of dollars in value for their stakeholders.

A couple of years ago, I was working through some real challenges in the business.

I spent a round of golf with Phil Colacchio, John Humphrey, and Jim Schaefer.  We played, talked, and unpacked what was actually going on in our companies. No agenda. No posturing. Just experienced operators thinking through problems together.

It was refreshing, and though I’d taken the day off I t was productive.

That round stuck with me. It planted the idea that I needed more consistent access to peers they trust, and that golf creates a rare environment where real meaning gets done without forcing it.

But I couldn’t get into the idea of YPO, EO or Vostage. Those felt stale.

Since that experience ive thought about building a CEO group.

The group is intentionally small, six to eight CEOs. People actively making decisions around growth, leadership, capital, and focus. Two CEOs are already committed, and I’m being deliberate about who joins next.

The structure is simple and disciplined.

We meet monthly in mandatory sessions to go through current challenges, pressure-test decisions, and keep momentum between offsites. These are practical working conversations designed to help CEOs think clearly while issues are still manageable.

Twice a year, we will meet in person at great golf destinations. These offsites are a mix of golf and structured work sessions. Golf provides time and space to connect. The sessions are focused, grounded in real businesses, and shaped by what the group is dealing with at that moment.

This is for CEOs who value clear thinking, trusted peers, and time set aside to work on the business.

If that sounds useful, I’m happy to share more.

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Most brands are overlooking CTV in their media mix and opting to use Linkedin & Google Ads instead.

The perception is streaming TV is either too expensive, too hard to measure, or "just a brand play" that doesn't drive pipeline.

Meanwhile, the brands that figured out how to integrate CTV into their demand strategy are seeing 3x lift in lead generation and significantly lowerered cost for low funnel conversions.

The gap isn't in the channel, it's in how you measure and sequence it.
That's why we're bringing together Kira Federer, VP of SMB Marketing at Paramount, and Kym Parker, SVP of Demand Generation at Compound Growth Marketing, to break down what actually works.

Here's what they'll cover:
📺 Real campaign data showing how CTV audiences convert at 313% higher rates when properly warmed 
📺 How to structure media tests when you don't have unlimited budget 
📺 Why attention channels matter more as social feeds become increasingly saturated
📺 Practical tactics for sequencing brand and demand activities across B2B and B2C motions

Kym will share the campaign structure, budget allocation, and measurement setup that produced these results for projects she's worked on.

Whether you're in B2B or B2C, if you're trying to balance brand building with performance targets, and need to prove both are working, this session will give you a playbook.

Who are my Boston agency peeps in B2B marketing?

I'm looking at co-hosting a dinner in February for agency executives who do a lot of work with Linkedin and other B2B advertising. 

My goal is simple. Connect, share ideas, and talk about how we can help each other with things from hiring to agency operations to what you're seeing in the market place. 

Dinner will be covered and the restaurant will be great. 

If it works and everyone has fun, I'll do it again. 

Who is interested?

Positive relationships compound. Lifes to short to be transactional. 

The people who lift you up have far more impact than people who may seem to tear you down.

This is a shoutout to the people who take time to mentor, advise, support, cheer on, and more.

I've seen behavior I never imagined. Stealing, lying, cheating, and more. People don't always grow up...

But the negative forces are not nearly as powerful as the positive forces.

The Saturday morning calls with people who have nothing to gain from helping you. The advisors who genuinely care about your success. The clients who trust you with their most important problems. The team members who believe in what you're building.

Those people lift you higher than anyone else can bring you down.

To everyone who's supported us, offered advice, or just believed in what we're doing at CGM. Thank you. 

Find these people, nurture your relationships with them. Avoid being transactional, build relationships. 

I try to manage this through:
- Finding in-person time a couple of times a year
- Sending updates with what's going on with our business
- Proactively trying to provide value through intros, etc. 
- Giving advice when asked
- Making sure I follow up when people follow up

Relationships compound.

This is part of the reasons I'm building a small community of CEO's to support each other and connect through golf. DM if interested.

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Dave Gerhardt's LinkedIn Performance

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