The Playbook to 10 Things a CEO Should and Should Not Expect From the CMO with Battery Ventures EIR Anthony Kennada and Fmr. Anaplan CMO Maria Pergolino
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The document outlines 10 things a CEO should and should not expect from their CMO. The CEO should expect the CMO to execute the CEO's vision, choose a marketing channel to dominate, create alignment between sales and marketing, be an expert advisor in meetings, and contribute impactful ideas. However, the CEO should not expect the CMO to have a passive role in evolving strategy, do all work for free, be solely responsible for pipeline numbers, only speak on marketing topics, or provide ideas that do not drive business outcomes.
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The Playbook to 10 Things a CEO Should and Should Not Expect From the CMO with Battery Ventures EIR Anthony Kennada and Fmr. Anaplan CMO Maria Pergolino
- 1. 10 THINGS A CEO SHOULD (AND SHOULD NOT) EXPECT FROM THE CMO
- 9. 10 THINGS A CEO SHOULD (AND SHOULD NOT) EXPECT FROM THE CMO
- 10. CEO SHOULD EXPECT THE CMO TO Execute Her Vision
- 14. How CMOs Can Scale CEO Vision • Contributed Articles • Social Media • Speaking at Events • Brand Campaigns • Write a Book
- 15. CEO SHOULD NOT EXPECT THE CMO TO Have a Passive Voice in Evolving Vision
- 16. CEO SHOULD EXPECT THE CMO TO Choose a Marketing Channel and Dominate It
- 17. CEO SHOULD NOT EXPECT THE CMO TO Do Everything for Free
- 19. 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
- 20. // the market
- 21. CEO SHOULD EXPECT THE CMO TO Create a Single GTM Motion Between Sales & Marketing
- 22. CEO SHOULD NOT EXPECT THE CMO TO Be Comfortable Hitting the Pipeline Number Alone
- 24. If Q3 sales target is $10M, start day one of Q3 with $20M of late stage pipeline in the forecast.
- 25. CEO SHOULD EXPECT THE CMO TO Be the Marketing Expert in Exec & Board Meetings
- 28. CEO SHOULD NOT EXPECT THE CMO TO Only Speak Up on Marketing Topics in Exec & Board Meetings
- 29. CEO SHOULD EXPECT THE CMO TO Contribute Big Ideas
- 30. CEO SHOULD NOT EXPECT THE CMO TO Contribute Big Ideas that Don’t Drive Business Outcomes
- 31. 10 Things a CEO Should (and Should Not) Expect from the CMO Should Expect Execution of Her Vision Choosing a Marketing Channel to Dominate Single GTM Motion Between Sales & Marketing Marketing Expert in Exec & Board Meetings Big Ideas Should NOT Expect A Passive Voice in Evolving Vision Everything Done For Free Comfort Hitting the Pipeline Number Alone Speaking Up Only on Marketing Topics in Exec & Board Meetings Big Ideas that Don’t Drive Business Outcomes
- 32. Can’t Get Enough AK and Maria? www.b2bcreatives.com Pre-Order Today Available Everywhere October 15th
- 33. THANK YOU @InboundMarketer | @akennada
Editor's Notes
- [AK] Well Maria, the last time we were on stage together we were filming B2B Creatives – which was a blast. We talked about category creation, and the importance of brand in B2B marketing, and I learned so much from your background. At the time you had just taken Anaplan public as CMO, which today has a market cap of about $7.5B. Pretty amazing! [MP] Yeah that was so much fun! It was so cool to talk about my favorite topics in marketing. And I know that at the time you were well into your run at Gainsight as CMO, having created the Customer Success category and a pretty killer brand in Pulse. That’s pretty wild.
- [AK] It totally was. And what’s cool is now we both have this super rare opportunity in between tours of duty to take a break for a minute and figure out our next career chapter. We get to see the demand for great marketing talent unfold firsthand. I don’t know about you, but whether it’s checking my LinkedIn messages, personal email, or even the occasional random text message, it feels like it’s never been a better time to be a CMO.
- [MP] I totally agree with that. And a simple LinkedIn search for active CMO roles doesn’t tell the whole story, I’ve got a spreadsheet that I keep of all the active searches happening right now, and I know you’ve mentioned that you have something like this too. The reality is that there’s no shortage of amazing companies out there looking for CMOs – and if you ask any executive recruiter today they’ll tell you that it’s the CMO talent themselves who are in short supply.
- [AK] That’s right, and I think there are a lot of reasons why that might be the case. The first is this bull market that we’ve been in – or as Jason has put it, the best of times in SaaS and Cloud. Now sure there may be some geo-political volatility as of late that has caused some instability, but the truth is that companies are going long and are still investing in growth at historic rates.
- [MP] For sure, and the other trend that’s contributing to this dynamic is that the average tenure of a Fortune 100 CMO is down to just over 3.5 years and the lowest of the C-Suite, with some reports saying the average of a private company CMOs is 18 months or less. Since that average is below the benchmark for other seasoned executives in the C-Suite, CEOs find themselves looking to hire great marketing executives to lead the company into the next chapter of growth. And the CMOs, well they are leveraging the success they’ve created in prior roles to transition to exciting new opportunities where they can make an impact.
- [AK] Interesting – and I think there’s one more thing, albeit more intangible. With no shortage of great opportunities out there, CMOs are interested in finding GREAT CEOs that they can partner with in order to build a generational company. On the other hand, CEOs are interested in a relationship with a CMO they can trust to be stewards of the brand, internal leaders, as well as drivers of business outcomes into the next chapter.
- [MP] In fact, the CEO and CMO relationship is one of the most important dynamics in building the brand, and shaping how customers, prospects, the media, in fact the rest of the world should perceived your company and mission. Beyond that, it’s managing the diverse marketing functions to success, and understanding which tactics and strategies need to be prioritized in order to get there. Jason wrote a great article about this very dynamic that’s well worth a read.
- [MP] But in lieu of that, Anthony and I wanted to share our take on the CEO/CMO relationship from the marketing perspective, and walk you through 10 Things a CEO Should (and Should Not) Expect from the CMO. By setting these expectations up front, you and your executive counterpart will be in a much better position to understand each other, set the business up for success, and maybe even stretch that average tenure in the position out by a few years. Should we dive in, AK?
- [AK] Let’s do it. So we’ll start with a controversial pov right out of the gates, a CEO should expect the CMO to execute his or her vision. Now the inspiration for this one came from a tweet…
- [AK] … that Jason posted earlier this year on the subject – probably one of the more debated ones that I’ve seen in SaaStr circles. To me it resonates deeply, and I don’t interpret what Jason is saying as the CMO ought to be a ‘yes-man or woman’, or as we’ll talk about in a bit, not have their influence into shaping vision, but as marketers we need to appreciate two things: the founder or CEO sets the course for where the business is headed – not without input -- and our job as ambassadors of the brand is to bring it to life in the marketplace. It’s not about humbling ourselves, it’s about winning together. Here’s what I mean.
- [AK] One of the best gifts we can have as CMOs is a visionary CEO who is willing to share her vision with the world. I’m super lucky to have had the opportunity to work with a few of them in my career. I’ve often thought that the more often I could get a camera, or a journalist, or a customer, or a prospect, or whatever audience in front of my CEO, the better – because I know that he or she will have the conviction, the anecdotes, and in many cases the authenticity to communicate the vision the way it was intended. They are building trust with our audience in a way that only the CEO could.
- [AK] In most cases CEOs are comfortable in the role of visionary, and prefer to spend their time with customers and teammates and so on. But they can’t be everywhere at once – there’s a heavy tax on their time and each “yes” has its opportunity cost. That’s where the CMO comes in. We have the unique opportunity as storytellers ourselves to hone that message, and leverage the channels in which we live in to communicate that story out to the market at large. Keith Krach, the former CEO of DocuSign, called a CMO’s ability to do this a “superpower” – because at the end of the day, we are scaling our CEO’s ability to build trust with the market at large, all while keeping their time focused on what the business needs most.
- [AK] Here are a few examples of how marketing can capture and scale a CEO’s vision. Contributed articles are great channels for establishing trust by allowing your CEO to write opinion pieces in their own voice, leveraging the viewership and promotional throughput that many of those publications have amassed to drive engagement. As vain as it may sound, an CEO with a massive following on different social media platforms is a competitive advantage and a great opportunity to drive awareness and influence the market. Sourcing speaking opportunities for your CEO at industry events. Brand campaigns like video content, podcasts, and so on can live on long after that session recording is over.
- [MP]
- [MP]
- [AK] Alright, next, a CEO SHOULD NOT expect the CMO to dominate a marketing channel for free. Don’t get me wrong, there are some great ways to build long-term organic growth at little-to-no cost. In fact for Gainsight, a lot of our growth to this day still comes from some of the content we’ve produced that’s heavily indexed in long tail search. People are searching for resources on how to plan a QBR, they stumble onto a blog post or e-book hosted on our web properties, and by engaging on the site they’re entering our funnel.
- [AK] But the reality is that marketing ought to be thought of as an investment into vision execution – the quality of work for any idea will be constrained by budget, time, and scope. Therefore the notion of dominating a marketing channel for free isn’t a realistic expectation to set between a CEO and CMO.
- [AK] One of the primary channels that we sought to dominate at Gainsight was live events. We developed a micro-brand that we still operate today called Pulse, whose principle program is a marquee industry conference for the Customer Success community held at Moscone Center this past May. Pulse is so much more than just an event for us, it’s the biggest pipeline creator, deal accelerator, CSAT driver, you name it. It literally impacts every business outcome that we hope to influence, and has created a halo effect around both Gainsight and the Customer Success category. How can you put a price on that?
- [AK] Well you have to, and in our case, the answer was almost $1M of net budget. In my research with other companies who put on large scale events and conferences, that’s even on the more conservative side of the averages. In fact, companies are spending so much on these conference programs – so much money is exchanged hands – that companies who are going public are calling out their level of investment in their Sales and Marketing disclosures on their S1s. With non-trivial levels of investment, you better be able to prove value and impact on business outcomes, because the idea of revenue neutrality on programs like this is more folklore than it is a reality.
- [MP]
- [AK] Super important for Sales and Marketing to operate together as one unit. It’s also really important to make sure you have alignment at the accountability level too. That’s why a CEO SHOULD NOT expect the CMO to rest on their laurels when they hit the pipeline number alone. Most CMOs will be measured on company metrics such as cash, new bookings, GRR, but the prevailing wisdom has always been that Marketing is responsible for pipeline and Sales is responsible for deals. Frankly, it’s a dangerous idea to believe literally.
- [AK] Here’s what happens if you do – you start to create a world where Marketing can celebrate hitting the pipeline target even if Sales misses the quarter, or conversely, Sales won’t prospect and spend all their time focused on closing deals. The GTM house that Maria described becomes divided, and you invite in a ton of new issues that ultimately the CEO (or CRO) will have to arbitrate. Who should I believe? In the game of Marketing data vs. Sales opinion, I’ve found it to be true that Sales will win.
- [AK] So instead, we decided to measure marketing a different way at Gainsight. We care about all of the leading indicators, things like DB growth, MQL generation, SQLs and so on. That’s how we ran our business and what we were expected to deliver. But what we reported on more broadly was pipeline COVERAGE. We had just about a 50% close rate from our late stage pipeline to close, so we were on the hook for 2x of late stage pipeline coverage on next quarters number, starting each quarter. How we got there, that was on us to figure out. But at the end of the day that’s the language we used as an executive team to measure the impact of marketing on growth.
- [AK] With expectations around how to measure marketing impact set, the next step is how to represent that impact at senior leadership and board meetings. A CEO SHOULD expect the CMO to be the marketing expert at these meetings and to have full awareness of his/her business. The larger and more multi-disciplinary marketing becomes, the further away you get organizationally as CMO from things like the specific campaigns running this week or how the conversions target is trending relative to the bigger picture. The reality is while that may be the case, you need to install the processes to have awareness of the data, but better than that, to be ready to interpret the data and speak to strategy on behalf of the team.
- [AK] I’ve found that many people think they’re marketers – yes, even around the executive table. That may sound trite, probably because it is, but that’s all the more reason why your voice as CMO is critically important in those meetings to serve as the functional expert in the room. Making sure you have great VPs on your team, and the right systems and processes to review data together is the secret weapon here – but the other is just speaking up and leaning into the current state of GTM, whether the cells are red or green.
- [AK] For very senior meetings – be it board meetings, or exec-staff – it’s important to spend time prepping with other leaders ahead of the meeting. I go back to one of Maria’s points earlier about a single GTM motion between Marketing and Sales. This is about winning together. Ensuring that your sales leader is aware of the pov you plan to take in the meeting and that his/her questions are answered offline will lead to a better outcome in the room. Again, something that a CEO should expect is happening between her CMO and CSO without needing to bring it up.
- [AK] Let’s do it. So the first
- [AK] Let’s do it. So the first
- [AK] Let’s do it. So the first