Preparing Your Team for Growth

B2B SAAS, SOFTWARE, TECH:
PREPARING YOUR TEAM FOR
GROWTHSamuel J. Woods

Your existing team
and structure.
Your existing systems and  
processes for attraction, acquisition,
retention, and growth.
Your marketing and sales vision,
and how your team is formed to
execute on that vision.
B2B SAAS, SOFTWARE, TECH: PREPARING YOUR TEAM FOR GROWTH
2
If you’re a B2B software/tech company, how do you go from traction to scale?
That’s a big question, but the start of a solution comes down to:

Now, whether your team consists of 1 or 10, and anything  
in-between, before you start publishing lead magnets
(whitepapers), populate your site with landing pages, and push
PPC in classic omni-channel flair…
…You will waste a lot of resources, time, and team member talent
if you haven’t structured your team for scale.
Models, frameworks, strategies, processes, and tactics are
crucial – but they serve your vision for growth and team model.

THE RIGHT TEAM MODEL COMES
FROM MINING YOUR EXISTING
PLATFORM FOR INSIGHTS

5
You start noticing trends when you’re immersed within
a specific market and solving a specific problem.
If a B2B software/tech company is in that growth phase
stage, and they’re looking for scale, there are a few
core concepts (the 80/20, if you will) that will make the
biggest, exponential difference in terms of scale
velocity and volume.
I’ve been helping companies with demand generation
for the past couple of years now, by blending what’s
working with inbound, outbound, and implementing
marketing automation.

6
Often, the first constraint to growth we need to deal with has to do
with their existing team model as well as systems and processes for
marketing and sales.
You don’t need a full, complete overhaul, but some tweaks are
required and you often need to formalize processes at that point.
If your team and systems aren’t setup for scale, you won’t
achieve scale, no matter how many “hacks” you try.
The first place to start is re-modeling your team – again, you only
need to make tweaks when you’re in the traction stage and looking
for growth. Your business should be flexible enough to withstand
eliminating bad practices and implementing what will work.

THE TYPICAL MARKETING TEAM  
STRUCTURES YOU’LL COME
ACROSS

MARKETING  
STRATEGY
Account Services
Research
Account Planning
ADVERTISING
Account Services
Creative
Media
Production
PUBLIC  
RELATIONS
Account Services
Media Relations
Production
DIRECT
Account Services
Design
Programming
Creative
DIGITAL
Account Services
Design
Programming
Creative
SUPPORT
Financial
Office
IT
Human Resources
THE TRADITIONAL TEAM MODEL
8
PRESIDENT & CEO

FACTORS FOR IT  
TO BE SUCCESSFUL
• Drop the politics.
• Business and financial objectives  
need to be complimentary.
• Disciplined approach to process.
WHEN TO
USE IT
• When you have large and separate divisions.
• Little need for cross-client sharing.
ISSUES THIS  
STRUCTURE
ADDRESSES• Clear line of authority.
• Defined career path and opportunities.
• Focused on the best capabilities.
POTENTIAL PROBLEMS  
CREATED BY THIS STRUCTURE
• Agency and structure comes first,  
and clients tend to end up second.
• The division can create redundant
functions; drop in effectiveness.
• An “impersonal” structure can stifle
innovation and ideas.
THE TRADITIONAL TEAM MODEL
9

THE INTEGRATED TEAM MODEL
10
PRESIDENT & CEO
ACCOUNT
SERVICES
Ad, Direct, PR,
Digital
CREATIVE
DIRECTOR
Ad, Direct, Collateral,
Digital
MEDIA
DIRECTOR
Research, Plan,
Buying, Digital
RESEARCH
DIRECTOR
Database, Research,
Trend, Planners
COO
Operations, Studio,  
IT, Office,  
Human Resources
BRAND 
TEAM #1
BRAND LEADER
DISTRIBUTOR REP
DIRECT EXPERT
CLIENT REP
CONSUMER REP
MEDIA EXPERT
BRAND 
TEAM #2
BRAND LEADER
DISTRIBUTOR REP
DIRECT EXPERT
CLIENT REP
CONSUMER REP
MEDIA EXPERT

FACTORS FOR IT  
TO BE SUCCESSFUL
• Requires talent to take advantage of integration
• Deference to functions and departments;  
one person is not above the team.
• Generous compensation plans.
WHEN TO
USE IT
• Clients requires brand servicing.
• You have large and complex accounts.
• Unified voice is more important than execution.
ISSUES THIS  
STRUCTURE
ADDRESSES• Remove divisional barriers amongst functions
and teams.
• Enables more “intimate” client relationships.
• Conflicting priorities and leadership.
• You need to maintain high performance on output.
• Maintaining an effective balance between  
strategy and tactics.
THE INTEGRATED TEAM MODEL
11

THE SPECIALIZED TEAM MODEL
12
PRESIDENT & CEO
BUSINESS TO BUSINESS
ACCOUNT SERVICES
CREATIVE
MEDIA
RESOURCES
Production, Studio, Buying, Digital, Direct, Promotion, PR
Office Services
HEALTHCARE
ACCOUNT SERVICES
CREATIVE
MEDIA
RESOURCES
FRANCHISE
ACCOUNT SERVICES
CREATIVE
MEDIA
RESOURCES
MEDIA SERVICES
Research, Digital

FACTORS FOR IT  
TO BE SUCCESSFUL
• Maintaining focus on specialization.
• Balancing the centralizing an de-centralizing  
of functions.
• Recognize and placement of talent.
WHEN TO
USE IT
• You serve complex markets and industries.
• You actually have specialize talent readily available.
ISSUES THIS  
STRUCTURE
ADDRESSES• Using only the resources needed.
• Leadership priorities are clearly defined.
• Consistency in work produced and approach.
• Usually, you’ll need to develop proprietary
capabilities.
• Heavy investment in talent and leadership.
• Effectively utilizing shared resources and avoiding
monopolization.
THE SPECIALIZED TEAM MODEL
13

THE DELIVERY TEAM MODEL
14
PRESIDENT & CEO
MARKETING STRATEGYCOACHES/EXPERTS
MEDIA ECD
DIRECT DIGITAL
PR PROMOTIONS
CLIENT GROUP #1 CLIENT GROUP #1 CLIENT GROUP #1 TEAM SERVICES
AGENCY SERVICES
Account Services
Production
Creative
Medical
Financial
TB
Digital, Database, Studio,
Financial, HR, IT, Office

FACTORS FOR IT  
TO BE SUCCESSFUL
• Aligning and matching work with capabilities.
• Balancing your executional orientation with strategy.
WHEN TO
USE IT
• You have well-defined work and clients.
• The “numbers” make sense, i.e. tight economics.
• You need quick turnaround on high volume.
ISSUES THIS  
STRUCTURE
ADDRESSES• Your client is placed in the center.
• Allows for “Intrapreneurs” to flourish.
• Priorities are in focus, and politics reduced.
• Keeping specializations and career in focus.
• Utilization of resources and cross-fertilization.
THE DELIVERY TEAM MODEL
15

ACCOUNT
SERVICES
CREATIVE MEDIA DIRECT INTERACTIVE PUBLIC
RELATIONS
THE “VIRTUAL” TEAM MODEL
16
PROJECT TEAM PROJECT TEAM PROJECT TEAM PROJECT TEAM
PROJECT TEAM PROJECT TEAM PROJECT TEAM PROJECT TEAM PROJECT TEAM

FACTORS FOR IT  
TO BE SUCCESSFUL
• Tools and environments will matter and compensate for
lack of other elements.
• You need motivated, quality talent.
• Your delivery mechanisms need to allow for flexibility.
WHEN TO
USE IT
• You have access to exceptional sub-contractors.
• You’re using short sprints and high-effort, high-impact
workflows.
ISSUES THIS  
STRUCTURE
ADDRESSES• The need for a fluid, energetic environment.
• The need for spontaneity, autonomy, and flexibility.
• Leadership is base on performance and merit.
• Follow-through on execution can be a problem.
• Resource availability might be strained  
and cause conflict.
• Agency economics need to be tightly managed.
THE “VIRTUAL” TEAM MODEL
17

18
The objective is always to create a running operation
within and with a marketing team  
that allows for experimentation, growth  
strategies to be implemented.
Often, you’ll need a revision, or at least a translation,
of a company’s strategic vision into internal systems,
processes, practices, people,  
and structures to be able to achieve the vision.
See? It always comes back to vision when you’re
dealing with making adjustments and changes to
how your marketing team pursues growth.
TYPICAL MARKETING TEAM STRUCTURES

PRIMING THE PUMPS FOR  
RE-MODELING YOUR MARKETING
TEAM

20
The core takeaway: your growth marketing strategy, systems, and
processes determine the team structure and function.
When you build a growth team, or re-work your current marketing,
you’re changing the way you work.
Because of that, you’re in need of re-organizing.
Improving profitability, developing a new systems plan, streamlining
productivity, moving into a team-based environment, and so on, will
all be addressed.
You need to translate your strategic growth vision into a
organizational structure, systems, processes, skills, and
technology needed to actually move from vision to reality.
THE CORE TAKEAWAY

So, what should a growth team look like? You only form one
when you’re at product/market fit and are ready to scale your
growth.
If you’re a startup, you do not need a “growth team”. Maybe
a “growth hacker”, but the focus there is marketing for
traction, which is different than growth.

22
You’re not going to win the “marketing lottery”
with a campaign that generates hockey-stick growth.
You will probably never go “viral” or be a YouTube sensation.
The days of global vitality is largely over, as channels are
becoming more fragmented and niche, while simultaneously
disappearing.
For a B2C company, you don’t want to go viral anyway – you
want bursts of growth that gives you momentum and vitality
does not.
For a B2B company, your target market is not big enough – and
that’s a good thing.

23
But you can, actually, achieve “hockey-stick” growth.
However, that’s only possible if you lay the groundwork with
specific strategies, models, and team structure.
If your models, strategies, processes, campaigns, and team aren’t
built for growth, you won’t see it.
Marketing, an online marketing in particular, has changed
dramatically in just the past 3 years, and it continues to morph and
adjust.
You can actually apply a modified version of Moore’s Law to
marketing.

24
Requirements have shifted, from the focus of big national
campaigns with award-winning creative (there’s still a time and
place for that) towards blending creative, data and analytics
focused, experimentation, and models and team structures that
are agile, “lean”, but still impactful.
Your marketing should still deal with owned, earned, and paid
media; sales and marketing alignment against pipeline and
revenue; go-to marketing programs and partnerships, and so
on.
But you absolutely need to make some adjustments  
to how you’ve used to do things.
24

YOUR CONSTRAINT TO GROWTH  
BY MARKETING IS PROCESS,  
NOT RESOURCES

26
Every business faces constraints of different kinds, and
most marketing teams and leaders tend to assume their
major constraint is resources.
But actually, your constraint is process.
Let me explain.
You’ve likely seen and read all about “the lean startup”
and being “agile”. It’s a great model for startups to find
Product/Market Fit, which in itself is obviously crucial
(without it, you have no business).
But can you copy the “lean” model into a process of
agility for marketing teams?

27
Smart people think you can, and have done so: enter the term
“growth hacker”.
The process of “hacking” growth can also, in turn, be
translated into a process for developing, deploying,
and optimizing your marketing campaigns.
This process-focused way of working means you have to
adjust your team structure.
And here is the biggest shift marketing leaders have to make in
order for their marketing efforts to yield exponential ROI:
GROWTH HACKER
You have to fundamentally shift your focus, from
resource-oriented to process-oriented. And in
turn,
you’ll build a stronger, agile, and effective team.
When you’re a team of one or a few, needing to go from 0
to Traction, your processes look one way.
When you’re a team of a few, wanting to go from Traction
to Scale, your processes look different.

TRADITIONAL MARKETING TEAM RESOURCE
TABLE
28
DEMAND
GENERATIONS
Pipeline Contribution Target
Revenue Contribution Target
Field Events
Demand Gen Activities & Budget
Demand Gen
Event Specialist
Regional Events
Regional Nuture
Program
Regional SEM
Management
PRODUCT
MARKETING
Bill of Materials
Sales Enablement
Product Descriptions
Pricing
Sales Training
Product Marketer
Project Manager
Business Manager
P&L Management
Product Launches
Customer Polls
Localization
CONTENT &
COMMUNICATIONS
Public Relations
Editorial
Content Calendar
Editor
PR Manager
Corporate Journalist
Buying Journey Stages
Development
Content Development
Oversight (regardless  
where it is produced)
PR Outreach
MARKETING
OPERATIONS
Reporting
Analytics/Data
Testing
Website
M.A.P./SFDC
Administrator
Web Developers
Project Management
Data Scientist
Sales & Marketing
Funnel Management
Weekly Reporting
Ad Hoc Analysis
Website Development
CREATIVE
Brand
Design
Brand Writing
Brand
Design
Brand Writing
Website Design/Copy
Email Design/Copy
Physical Collateral
OWNERSHIP
FUNCTIONS & ROLES
EXAMPLE TASKS

YOUR FOCUS ON GROWTH  
PROCESS NOW UNLOCKS POTENTIAL  
YOU DIDN’T KNOW EXISTED

30
A simple shift of focus can open up new resources or a new
way of using resources that were previously hidden from you.
If the priority and goal of your marketing is growth,
you need to align your resources with that.
To broad categories of Creative, Marketing Operations,
Content & Communication, Product Marketing, and Demand
Generation can remain as categories, but if you’re trying to
achieve Traction or go from Traction to Scale,
your campaigns only job is to make that happen.
So, for either a B2B or B2C company,  
you should prioritize Demand Generation.

31
Now, other types of companies can pick this up too, but
talking more specifically about B2B SaaS and software
companies, funneling sales opportunities
to your inside sales team is the prime concern.
If you’re a Startup looking for Traction, or a business
looking for Growth, this absolutely applies to you.
You blend inbound and outbound to develop campaigns
that attracts, captures, nurtures, and
feed MQLs to your inside sales team.

32
The model just about everyone has adopted so far is the
“Predictable Revenue” strategy, by Aaron Ross.
But that’s from 2004, and B2B lead generation has moved on
and changed.
Still, it’s a valuable and useful place to start, and I’d tell anyone
to start there.
However, if the focus is on growth and process, you still need
agility in execution and team.
Why?
Because if cold emailing prospects with an aggressive
cadence worked 6 months ago (and it did), it doesn’t work
quite the same now (it doesn’t).
The capabilities to change, modify, adjust, tweak,
and generate new campaigns and ideas is
imperative for your demand generation to ever
show results.
You need to develop a process that helps your team
develop and deploy growth campaigns, retain their
knowledge for future posterity, and the capabilities
to quickly make changes.
Now, let’s look at your marketing team.

WHEN & HOW TO START  
ADJUSTING YOUR TEAM FOR  
GROWTH MARKETING SUCCESS

34
One big question a lot of VP’s of Marketing, Sales,
Directors, CMO’s, and so on, asks me is this:
“Should I have a dedicated growth team or
make a change to my whole marketing team
structure?”
The only true answer is: it depends.
Also, if it makes sense to you, you can think of it this way,
too:
If you’re in the “Zero (or seed funding) but need
Traction” phase, you need a dedicated team.
If you’re in the “Traction but want to Scale” phase,
you usually need a dedicated team but depending on
revenue and/or funding, you could set aside a
dedicated “growth special team”.
If you’re in the “Relatively Established but want  
to 10x our Growth” phase, then you need a dedicated
growth team-within-your-team.
10X

35
One big question a lot of VP’s of Marketing, Sales,
Directors, CMO’s, and so on, asks me is this:
“Should I have a dedicated growth team or
make a change to my whole marketing team
structure?”
The only true answer is: it depends.
Also, if it makes sense to you, you can think of it this way,
too:
If your marketing team is less than 5 people, you
make a change to the whole team. You need to treat
your team as a dedicated growth team.
If your marketing team is more than 5 people, you
start with a small dedicated growth team. You’re then
free to keep it a special team, or roll out changes to
the rest of the team later.
Your mileage will vary, but this is a great place to start
– it’s always best to move ahead and modulate
direction as you go.
< 5
> 5

HOW YOU CAN MAKE  
ADJUSTMENTS WITH YOUR TEAM

37
My work as a Growth Marketing Coach or Consultant
involves looking at existing systems, teams, and structures
and finding potential for empowering executing on growth
campaigns.
The teams I’ve worked with so far are brilliant and experts
at what they do. It’s a privilege to meet and work alongside
such talented people and teams.
Next, you’ll find a brief discussion on a few, select
marketing team structures that lend themselves to adopting
a “growth mindset”.
Normally, I mostly work with clients who are looking for
Traction or Growth (tend to be startups and companies in
the 6-figure range who want to scale), and these examples
are of large marketing organizations –  
but it still applies to you and your company.
How?
You need to understand where Growth Marketing fits
in, and how to structure your systems, processes, and
team around a growth process  
and mindset.
You might be a team of 1 or a handful of people, but the
roles and capabilities for growth are largely the same.

THE ELASTIC ORG
CMO
Product Marketing Managers  
(1 Per Product)
GROWTH MARKETING TEAM, EXAMPLE #1
First out is Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, from when he was CMO of Mindjet (but now with Mozilla):
VP, PRODUCT  
MARKETING
VP, MARKETING 
& OPS
CONTENT &
COMMUNICATIONS
MANAGER
CREATIVE SERVICES
DIRECTOR
VP, FIELD MKTG
Marketing Manager
Channel Marketing
Customer Marketing
Customer Retention 
& Nuture Flow
Central Marketing  
Delivery Manager
Channel Marketing
Marketing Manager, SE
UK & NEMEA Marketing Manager
Copywriter &
Editorial Director
Design & VideoWebsite Product Manager
Web Developer
Data Scientist
Manager, Marketing Intelligence
Analyst, Marketing Intelligence

THE ELASTIC ORG
CMO
Product Marketing Managers  
(1 Per Product)
First out is Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, from when he was CMO of Mindjet (but now with Mozilla):
VP, PRODUCT  
MARKETING
VP, MARKETING 
& OPS
CONTENT &
COMMUNICATIONS
MANAGER
CREATIVE SERVICES
DIRECTOR
VP, FIELD MKTG
Marketing Manager
Channel Marketing
Customer Marketing
Customer Retention 
& Nuture Flow
Central Marketing  
Delivery Manager
Channel Marketing
Marketing Manager, SE
UK & NEMEA Marketing Manager
Copywriter &
Editorial Director
Design & VideoWebsite Product Manager
Web Developer
Data Scientist
Manager, Marketing Intelligence
Analyst, Marketing Intelligence
A Growth Marketing approach will need to deploy processes between Product Mktg, Ops, Creative,  
and Field Mktg - Collaboration between members and deploying specific growth experiments is key

As marketing continues to evolve, this organizational
structure will adapt to whatever needs come about. Coupled
with the adoption of new business processes like Agile
Marketing, I believe functional depth expertise, coupled with
cross-functional management of the work your team is
focused on, will keep a steady stream of ideas flowing, more
analytical decisions about which of those ideas to implement,
and ultimately create predictability in the outcome of you and
your team’s efforts.
“
Jascha Kaykas-Wolff

41
WHERE DOES A “GROWTH TEAM”  
AND “GROWTH PROCESS” FIT IN?
The strength of this team is the ability to adapt, evolve, and stay agile. In
general, collaboration between the specific members I’ve noted above will
be instrumental in pursuing growth.
If one was to set aside a dedicated Growth Team with a structure like this, it
would involve the Product Marketing Managers (PMM) being team lead,
while a small core of 4 members (creative, channel, analytics/data, and
developer) could be given the challenge, resources, and budget to pursue
experiments.
Of course, it’s never about throwing stuff against a wall to see what sticks –
any experiments are rooted in a scientific approach and staying on brand.

THE INBOUND ORG
CMO
Inbound Marketing Manager
This org structure comes courtesy of HubSpot and Mike Volpe (CMO):
VP, DEMAND-GEN VP, PRODUCT MARKETING VP, BRAND & BUZZ VP, CONTENT
Blogging
Educational Resources & Offers
Creative Director PRProduct Marketing
Managers - Product
Launches
Web Development
Product Marketing
Managers - Sales
Enablement
Channel-Specific Marketing
(Persona-Specific)
International Marketing
Customer Marketing
Marketing Ops
Growth Hacker
Events
Design &
Multimedia
Influencer Relations
(Social, email, paid, etc.)

THE INBOUND ORG
CMO
This org structure comes courtesy of HubSpot and Mike Volpe (CMO):
VP, DEMAND-GEN VP, PRODUCT MARKETING VP, BRAND & BUZZ VP, CONTENT
Blogging
Educational Resources & Offers
Creative Director PRProduct Marketing
Managers - Product
Launches
Web Development
Product Marketing
Managers - Sales
Enablement
Channel-Specific Marketing
(Social, email, paid, etc.)
(Persona-Specific)
International Marketing
Customer Marketing
Marketing Ops
Growth Hacker
Events
Design &
Multimedia
Influencer Relations
A Growth Marketing Team for an inbound-focused org will require a “growth
hacker” or similar role to pursue outbound strategies. This will help with speed,
analytics, and iteration of campaigns. The VP of Demand Gen heads up a
dedicated growth team and integrates a strong outbound element.

“I threw my old org chart in the trash when I joined HubSpot
and started from the beginning. We built our entire company
for the inbound era, from marketing to sales to service,
because the buyer has all the power today and you need to
realign your company for that. I think our org chart is the
future of the marketing org because of that – we focus on an
inbound experience that the buyer drives, with us providing
value along each stage.
Mike Volpe

45
The challenge for an inbound-centric marketing team is figuring out where, and how,
to implement specific outbound growth strategies. Mike Volpe has formed a team
that focuses on the inbound experience and it’s working – they recently hit 15,000
HubSpot partners.
Because they’ve already built up such a momentum and existing deal-flow, pursuing
growth with a dedicated team would be to expand market share by seeking
dominance in various channels.
Also, if you have a dedicated Growth Team, HubSpot could utilize those capabilities
for growing new products, like Sidekick. Testing for go-to-market strategies could be
a good goal to pursue.
HubSpot also finds itself well beyond the intitial Startup and Traction phase, and is in
the Established phase. Where a Growth Team can fit in, more specifically, depends
on what their goals are for the next stage of their company.

THE FUNNEL FOCUSED ORG
CHIEF MARKETING & STRATEGY
OFFICER
This next example of from Forrester Research and their CMO, Jeff Ernst:
PR/CORP COMM VP, MARKETING PRODUCT MARKETING CREATIVE
NA Field Marketing
EMEA Field Marketing
APAC Field Marketing
Database Marketing
Account-based
(Customer) Marketing
Digital Marketing
TEAM 1 TEAM 2 TEAM 3
+

THE FUNNEL FOCUSED ORG
CHIEF MARKETING & STRATEGY
OFFICER
This next example of from Forrester Research and their CMO, Jeff Ernst:
PR/CORP COMM VP, MARKETING PRODUCT MARKETING CREATIVE
NA Field Marketing
EMEA Field Marketing
APAC Field Marketing
Database Marketing
Account-based
(Customer) Marketing
Digital Marketing
TEAM 1 TEAM 2 TEAM 3
+
A Growth Marketing Team can be quickly and easily configured
because the base funnel-focus lends itself to growth marketing.  
The whole team can participate and bring in other resources as
needed. Implementing a team-wide culture of growth could  
work well.

“I try to rationalize this structure by saying that team 1 is
above the funnel, team 2 is top and middle of the funnel, and
team 3 creates materials for the bottom of the funnel and acts
as a service bureau to the rest.
Jeff Ernst

49
Because of the funnel-focus already existing, you don’t necessarily need a
dedicated team. Making room for growth experiments, and having the teams
collaborate, could unlock potential in the organization that might otherwise be
under-utilized.
Team lead would be the VP of Marketing, and not every team member need to
be involved on all experiments, and because of that, it’s important to track,
measure, and collect knowledge that everyone has access to. It would probably
be a good idea to have review meetings where everyone discusses growth
campaigns and their results.
For an organization like this, infusing a “growth mindset” across all teams would
yield more than setting aside a dedicated team.

WHAT DOES YOUR MARKETING  
TEAM LOOK LIKE & WHAT’S NEXT

51
Of course, these structures are for companies that have mostly
gone past the Growth phase, and are fairly established.
But if you’re a Startup, or company in the Traction or
Growth phase, you have an advantage if you switch towards
a growth-centric model for your processes, campaigns, and
team now.
In fact, I would argue that you stand little-to-no chance of
sustainable growth unless you do.
Your team might consist of 1, or a handful of people.  
But models and frameworks like these can yield disproportionate
and exponential results for your growth.

Preparing Your Team for Growth

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