The Get: Finding And Keeping The Best Marketing Leaders in B2B SaaS

Erica Sheehan is a cybersecurity marketing whiz and the VP of Marketing at Guardsquare, a Belgian mobile application security company that she is helping to expand to the US market. Aside from stints at Novell and Oracle, Erica was most recently VP of marketing at ObserveIT. During her tenure, the company quickly grew 4X and was recently acquired.Erica is a great example of a marketing leader who has successfully gone from larger to smaller companies. Hear what it means to make that switch, why being analytical is crucial to the marketing leadership role, how high-performing marketing leaders should evaluate a potential employer; and what it’s like to build a marketing team in a rapidly-growing company.Here are some of the themes from the conversation:1. The difference between average and great in a B2B marketing leadership role2. Why analytical skills and field marketing experience are both important in shaping a marketing leader3. How CEOs can assess if a marketing leader coming from a large enterprise to a high-growth smaller company can ‘scrap’4. The trend of the CMO or VP of Marketing reporting into the CRO (as opposed to the CEO)5. How to know whether you need a marketing leader who is more demand-oriented, more brand-oriented, or more product marketing-oriented 6. And finally, some unmissable insights into hiring and building a marketing team in a high-growth environmentThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

In this episode, Erica calls on Drew’s experience as a marketing leader to talk about shepherding a marketing organization through hyper-growth, how to get beyond interviews, and how to get insights into candidates’ behavioral profiles to build high-performance marketing teams.As the first marketing lead in a legacy business that did not have a history of organized marketing, Drew has not just transitioned The Predictive Index brand into the digital world but has also built marketing into a lead and revenue generation function that numbers around 60 members today. What sets Drew’s perspective apart is his focus on culture, values, and healthy conflict as cornerstones of building great marketing teams that can sustain and grow along with the business.He shares his advice for new CMOs that are reporting into the CEO for the first time (instead of reporting to a CMO), insights on what makes CMOs and their teams fail, and his own THREADS value system at The Predictive Index.Here are some of the highlights from the conversation:Marketing leaders need to be able to give away their Legos: marketing typically overlaps with product, sales, and operations; and based on the business context, marketers need to demonstrate that they can keep the things they are amazing at and give away the things other experts/functions are good at.CMOs – and entire teams - don’t fail because of lack of effort or ability, but due to a lack of alignment and clear role design. They fail because of misalignments between the CEO and CMO around expectations, responsibilities, authority, resources, and incentives.Even in hypergrowth situations, results are not everything: CMOs should hold people accountable for quantitative business results and also for behaving in ways that match the stated culture of the organization. It is the job of the head of Marketing to manufacture and create the right environment and culture for great chemistry to happen. Drew discusses how he spends more time on the people components of his job, making sure his team members are upholding their core values framework, and celebrating wins around these core values. Net: performance is important but not above values.An unhealthy lack of conflict is as problematic as unhealthy conflict. Drew adapts Patrick Lencioni’s concept of 5 dysfunctions of the team to share his idea of a layered pyramid: trust is at the bottom, which leads to healthy conflict; the conflict leads to commitment, which leads to accountability. Only when you have this in place can the team start driving towards sustained results. Sometimes, marketers have to pull conflict and differences of opinion out of people to avoid a culture of appeasement.Are you looking for culture fit, culture add, or culture stretch? When it comes to choosing and integrating new members into a high-growth marketing team, it is important to know when you need what.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

David Badler is a Partner at Susquehanna Growth Equity, leading the value creation practice. He partners with CEOs and their teams to accelerate growth by collaborating on key strategic, go-to-market, talent-related, and operational areas. The fund has invested in 55 companies and has over 30 active portfolio companies, of which about 20 are B2B SaaS companies. In David’s words, “My job is to help CEOs grow their companies from $20 million to $100 million plus,” In this episode, see why he refers to CMO searches as ‘revenue searches’- and how CEOs can ensure they find marketers who can lead growth. When it comes to marketers worrying about the title they will hold in a high growth company (VP Marketing or CMO) -- or whom they will report to (the CRO or the CEO) David quotes Sheryl Sandberg: “If you are going to get on a rocket ship, try not to worry what seat you are on”. He also shares how CEOs can avoid their preferred CMO candidate getting vetoed by investors, and the pitfalls to avoid while searching for the ideal CMO. Hint: it’s all about getting your scorecard right, and aligning with the board and investors well in advance.Want a peek into the scorecard that a CEO of a B2B SaaS company could be using to evaluate CMO candidates? Here are some key elements from one CMO search:- Lead and demand generation experience, with a focus on the functional expertise that matters to the company - inbound versus outbound - Numerical fluency- Demonstrated ability to work with sales to drive revenue- Strong marketing operations ability - putting fundamental processes and systems in place- Scale, speed and impact in past roles. For example, someone who made a great CMO at a $5 million company may not make a great CMO at a $50 million company. Someone who has never owned a function but excelled at parts of it may do really well stretching into a larger role.Join Erica and David as they walk through exactly what investors are thinking when they are helping their CEOs and Founders find the right marketing talent to help grow into their next set of millions!This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Mike and Erica discuss the challenges and opportunities of building marketing teams at a hyper-growth company. Expanding from 65 to 500 people. Onboarding 50 new hires per quarter. Growing 50% YoY, A marketing team that’s getting bigger and stronger each quarter – if that’s not hypergrowth, then we don’t know what is!We talk about how the role of a marketing leader grows and changes as the company grows, and some of the challenges with hiring ahead of plan, based on Mike’s experiences at Coveo.We also talk about the need to balance ‘scrappy’ and ‘scale’ in a hyper-growth environment. For example, would you as a CEO hire a CMO who needed to ‘stoop’ into the role (someone coming from a much larger firm that has already done a big revenue climb) or ‘stretch’ into the role (someone who has not yet been the top marketer, or who comes from a smaller firm)?Mike offers 3 tips for anyone taking on a marketing leadership role in a hyper growth company:- Bring data to every marketing conversation, including data from existing marketing programs and data from across the company - to make themselves more credible to the leadership team.- Build a culture where people expect change. Embrace change, but also build a strong vision for what you are trying to achieve as a marketing team, along with a strong set of shared values.- "Hire people that scare you a little.”In our organizational design segment, Erica and Mike speak about specific org structure changes that Mike helped make to marketing at Coveo. He shares two - about centralizing shared services between customer acquisition and product marketing; as well as building collaborative crews who don’t have a hierarchical responsibility to each other but work together on various time-bound or ongoing business initiatives.Finally, our last segment takes on trends that will impact marketing leadership in B2B SaaS companies for 2020. Here are some that stood out:1. CRO titles and how that’s going to impact the marketing org structure in high growth enterprises2. Marketers mastering data for real revenue outcomes3. More intentional role design for marketing leaders4. Putting content marketing on a diet5. The need for B2B SaaS marketing leaders to talk PEWhat do you think? What trends will impact the role of the B2B SaaS CMO in 2020 and beyond? This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Julia Stead is unique as a B2B SaaS CMO because she defies the stats about the average tenure of B2B SaaS marketing leaders -- Julia spent over 7 years climbing the marketing ranks at Invoca before Erica placed her as CMO at Allocadia. (In case you were wondering, the average tenure of a CMO for a technology company is under 2.5 years - in SaaS companies, it's usually lower. In Silicon Valley, the average tenure of a marketing leader is 6 to 18 months!). In Episode 2 of The Get, Erica and Julia talk about the anatomy of a CMO search: from the perspective of both the company and the winning candidate. Highlights:- Julia shares how she rose fast in her career , and why she believes it’s important to go the distance with your employer (with secrets from her self-improvement plan!)- What should you look for in prospective companies to see if they have the right culture of growth/ support?- How is the CMO job different from the VP Marketing role?- Balancing brand and demand as a CMO - Structuring a B2B SaaS marketing team as the CMO- Vital tips for marketers aspiring to be CMOs in B2B SaaS companiesJulia is a founding member of Women in Revenue – and tells us why it matters to women professionals in revenue marketingThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Erica Seidel, founder of The Connective Good, SaaS Marketing Talent Whisperer and your Host on The Get, helps navigate one of the most important – and challenging - decisions you will make as a B2B SaaS business leader - finding and keeping the best senior marketing talent. If you are a B2B SaaS business leader, then you probably know that The average tenure of a CMO for a technology company is under 2.5 yearsIn SaaS companies, it’s usually lower In Silicon Valley, the average tenure of a marketing leader is 6 to 18 monthsThe costs of a mis-hire are significant, and can lead to churn of both customers and other employeesWhy ‘The Get’?There are lots of podcasts on recruiting, but they are usually meant for recruiters and HR folks. The Get is for B2B SaaS Business Leaders who want to address one of the most overwhelming challenges they face - finding and keeping the best senior marketing talentAs someone who specializes in leading B2B SaaS marketing leadership searches, Erica brings unique insight and perspective as the host of The GetHere are some of the nuggets in this 25-minute introductory episode: The hardest and most enjoyable aspects of B2B SaaS marketing leadership searchesHow CEOs can tease out what they are looking for in their CMOsGreat questions to ask candidates to really vet their marketing chopsErica’s 6 pro tips for high growth B2B SaaS CEOs looking for marketing leadershipWhat – and who - is coming up on future episodes of The Get through 2020Are you intrigued? Then FOLLOW US on Soundcloud, iTunes, Google Podcasts , Spotify and Sticher or your preferred podcast platform so we can alert you when a new episode drops!Don’t forget to leave us a review on iTunes and SoundcloudShare with your network on LinkedIn and Twitter.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy