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Frustrated that marketing feels busy but sales still miss the mark? We sit down with Victoria Hajar—CEO of Ugly Ventures and host of The Scalable Marketing Machine—to draw a bright line between marketing and sales, then rebuild the bridge that makes both perform. Victoria shares how CEOs can move from scattered tactics to a system that creates demand, feeds closers, and proves ROI without guesswork.

We start by reframing marketing as opportunity creation and brand clarity, not a support arm for random requests. From there, Victoria introduces four core playbooks that turn chaos into a repeatable engine: a brand communication playbook that codifies positioning and voice, a marketing growth strategy that operates as a 24/7 flywheel, a team playbook that aligns roles and KPIs to pipeline stages, and a leadership playbook that sets the scorecard, cadence, and budget discipline. We also talk about cultural fluency—why language and local context make campaigns click when you’re expanding into new markets.

AI gets a candid assessment: powerful when grounded in strategy, risky when deployed without guardrails. Treat agents like hires. Onboard them with messaging, ICPs, and journey maps or they’ll scale confusion across departments. Victoria brings the framework to life with a case study of a commercial roofing company that shifted from event-driven bursts to a measurable pipeline generating several million in opportunities, tying marketing efforts directly to closed revenue within months.

If you lead a privately held company in the $5M–$50M range (or nearby), this conversation offers a clear path to escape shiny-object syndrome and build a marketing function that compounds. You’ll walk away with a checklist to diagnose funnel bottlenecks, align with sales, and upskill teams so the system keeps working long after the campaign du jour fades. Enjoy the conversation, share it with a fellow CEO, and if it helps, leave a quick review and hit follow so you don’t miss what’s next.

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