April 17, 2025

How to Stop The Busywork in B2B Marketing (with Dmitry Shamis)

46 minutes

#238: Brand | In this episode, Dave sits down with Dmitry Shamis, former Head of Brand at HubSpot and now founder of Oh Snap, to talk about what brand really means in B2B and why so many teams are stuck doing busy work instead of meaningful marketing. After leading a team of 150+ creatives and scaling HubSpot’s brand across multiple products, Dmitry shares lessons on building brands that actually stand out.

Dave and Dmitry cover:

How to stand out in a crowded market
How to develop and refine your point of view
Why marketers get lost in busy work and how to stop it
What to look for when hiring great designers
The role of AI in B2B marketing today (and what it won’t replace)

Timestamps

(00:00) - – Intro to Dmitry

(05:33) - – What brand actually means in B2B

(07:53) - – Why your POV is the foundation of your brand

(10:03) - – How to uncover a real, differentiated POV

(14:02) - – How to stand out in a crowded, same-sounding market

(16:37) - – Why differentiation requires alignment between product and marketing

(19:27) - – Building trust with product teams

(20:16) - – Busy work in marketing: how to spot it and stop it

(22:58) - – Why marketers burn out and how poor prioritization is killing teams

(27:02) - – Making the case for brand work when it’s hard to measure

(28:37) - – The “fishing” analogy: performance vs brand marketing

(33:08) - – The real opportunity with AI in B2B marketing

(37:07) - – How AI can eliminate bottlenecks and speed up creative execution

(38:37) - – Why Dmitry’s starting a creative agency (Oh Snap) and how it’s different

(41:45) - – How to hire great designers: what to look for beyond the portfolio

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***

Today’s episode is brought to you by Grammarly.

Ever have one of those weeks where you spent more time replying to Slack and email than doing actual marketing work?

You’re not alone. The average marketing team spends 28+ hours a week just keeping up with comms.

That leads to burnout, frustration, and a whole lot of performative productivity that doesn’t actually move the needle.

AI-fluent marketing teams are changing that. Grammarly’s 2025 Productivity Shift Report shows how they’re using AI to:

– Cut down on back-and-forth

– Automate content, research, and reporting

– Eliminate busywork

– Make space for strategy

We’re marketers because we love crafting campaigns, driving revenue, and proving impact – not spending all day buried in messages.

Get the report and see how top teams are making AI actually useful.

Visit go.grammarly.com/exitfive to grab it.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

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By Dave Gerhardt

4.7

3838 ratings