CMO Spotlight | Brent Hieggelke - CrowdStreet

The CMO Spotlight is a chance to get an inside look into the minds and journeys of high performing marketing leaders. 

Setup CEO Joe Koufman virtually sat down with Brent Hieggelke, the Chief Marketing Officer of CrowdStreet, to talk about his career path, challenges and values as a leader, and more. 

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW AND READ THE RECAP BELOW. 

Q1 | Tell us about your career path.

Hieggelke joined CrowdStreet a few years ago after being an avid real estate fan. He calls himself a “serial entrepreneurial CMO,” as in, he enjoys helping companies who are figuring out their next steps. 

“I really enjoy coming in at the stage in a company where they're at a real intersection of where they want to go and they haven't quite figured out either the right marketing team structure, the right marketing model, could be the positioning of the company needs to change...so it's at a real juncture where success kind of lies in some of those key decisions.”

Q2 | What is your superpower? 

Simply put, Hieggelke has a lot of ideas, which is both a blessing and a curse. 

“I generate a lot of ideas, but I throw out a lot of ideas because a lot of them are stupid and a lot of them are off.” Because of this, his power is to be extra critical. “I've developed a self-reflective kind of personal devil's advocacy so that when I come up with an idea, I might spend years thinking about it, and why it wouldn't work, and really analyzing the market.” He combines the creative and strategic by harnessing an array of ideas and then looking at them strategically to see if they will resonate with the audience and match the company’s goals. 

Q3 | Is there a piece of advice that you would like to pass onto other marketers?

“If you want to be a great marketer, go spend some time as a sales person.”

“Either become a salesperson, or spend a lot of time with the sales team,” he advised. By doing this, team members are able to step into one another’s shoes to truly understand the challenges they all face and determine one another’s needs/where they can best support.  

Q4 | What is the biggest challenge you have faced? 

“Finding great people and what I mean by that is great people that really fit the job and can grow with the job,” is a challenge. Hieggelke noted that this is especially difficult in a digital world where interviews are on Zoom. This creates a barrier that makes it harder to truly know a person, determine if they fit in with the culture, and identify their “softer skills.”

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For more marketing leadership advice and a view into the mindset of marketing executives in various industries, be sure to watch the full interview with Brent Hieggelke, and keep an eye out for more thought leadership from our CMO Spotlights.