Shownotes
The best CEO/CMO matches are ones where, BEFORE day 1, both sides collaboratively, intentionally, and explicitly surface the challenges they will face together and how they will overcome them together. That's not as easy as it sounds, though!
In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel dives into the complexities of hiring CMOs in B2B SaaS companies. Drawing from her 13 years of experience in recruiting marketing leaders, Erica discusses the high risks and challenges faced by CEOs and investors during this process.
She is joined by James Lamberti, head of go-to-market for Georgian, who shares his extensive experience in hiring and getting hired as a CMO.
You'll learn about:
- A method for collaborative de-risking between the CEO and CMO
- How one of the most important functions of the interview is to sketch out the company's GTM framework and identify any misalignment in GTM strategy.… because the more the company is clear on their GTM strategy, the more effective the CMO will be
- How to diagnose in the interview process when product-market fit is loosely held or when the market is defined too broadly
- The 'homework' that top CMO candidates will do ahead of their first meeting with a CEO, including defining their 'Ideal CEO Profile' and how to add value to that person
- How to identify and skirt typical threats to marketing being successful, including 'silver bullet expectations,' 'new day/new strategy' situations, under or over-hiring for the stage, and mis-selling the CMO opportunity
- What CEOs are likely to ask CMO candidates about AI
This episode is packed with valuable insights for both hiring leaders and candidates looking to navigate the high-stakes world of CMO recruitment.
00:00 Introduction: The Challenge of Hiring a CMO
01:20 Understanding the Risks in Hiring a CMO
03:25 Tips for CEOs and Investors on Hiring a CMO
04:50 Guest Introduction: James Lamberti
06:22 James Lamberti's Framework for Diagnosing a Role
17:25 Balancing Efficiency and Thoroughness in Interviews
22:57 The Importance of Customer Love and Rev Ops
25:53 Challenges and Red Flags in the Hiring Process
30:33 The Role of AI in Marketing Leadership
33:21 Favorite Interview Questions for Marketing Leaders
35:53 Conclusion and Next Episode Teaser
The Get is here to drive smart decisions around recruiting and leadership in B2B SaaS marketing. We explore the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of today’s top marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.
This season’s theme is The Race to Reduce Risk in CMO Recruiting.
The Get’s host is Erica Seidel, who runs The Connective Good, an executive search practice with a hyper-focus on recruiting CMOs and VPs of Marketing, especially in B2B SaaS.
If you are looking to hire a CMO or VP of Marketing of the ‘make money’ variety - rather than the ‘make it pretty’ variety, contact Erica at erica@theconnectivegood.com. You can also follow Erica on LinkedIn or sign up for her newsletter at TheConnectiveGood.com.
The Get is produced by the team at Simpler Media Productions.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcripts
I have been recruiting marketing leaders for thirteen years now.
Speaker:There's one thing I've heard over and over again from CEOs and investors.
Speaker:That's that of all the hiring they do across the C-suite, hiring the
Speaker:CMO is often the most challenging.
Speaker:They perceive so much risk in hiring, and they're often just scared of the process.
Speaker:Today, we look at why that is and how it can be easier.
Speaker:Hello, and welcome to The Get.
Speaker:I'm your host, Erica Seidel.
Speaker:I spend my days recruiting CMOs and VPs of Marketing in B2B SaaS.
Speaker:My tagline is I place the make-money marketing leaders
Speaker:and not the make-it-pretty ones.
Speaker:With my role, I have a front-row seat to the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of
Speaker:today's top marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.
Speaker:And now with The Get you do, too.
Speaker:The Get is designed to drive smart decisions around recruiting and
Speaker:leadership in B2B SaaS marketing.
Speaker:This season, we focus on the race to reduce risk when it comes to a
Speaker:match between a company and a CMO.
Speaker:How can you find out what you need to find out before saying yes so that you
Speaker:make a match that sticks and flourishes?
Speaker:Today, I'll talk about what it's like for people who are hiring a
Speaker:CMO, CEOs, or investors primarily.
Speaker:How is this process risky from their perspective?
Speaker:Then, I will bring on my guest, James Lamberti.
Speaker:He will share his take on hiring CMOs and getting hired as a CMO, having
Speaker:seen this across multiple companies.
Speaker:Why is it hard to recruit a CMO?
Speaker:First, there's just a lot at stake.
Speaker:Marketing is often central to the thesis that a company has for its growth journey.
Speaker:The faster the company can get the right leader in, the faster they
Speaker:can achieve their growth goals.
Speaker:So the pressure is on.
Speaker:But CEOs and investors tend to be more knowledgeable about the role
Speaker:of, say, a CFO or a product leader.
Speaker:Their knowledge of marketing can be comparatively lower.
Speaker:It doesn't help that the job of the marketing leader is so varied.
Speaker:CEOs and investors hiring for the CMO can struggle to figure out what
Speaker:flavor of marketing leader they need.
Speaker:And the pace of change is greater in marketing than in some other functions.
Speaker:The perception is that the role is changing with new technologies
Speaker:and ways to drive demand and communicate with a market.
Speaker:I say perception since, of course, the fundamentals of marketing don't
Speaker:change, but people who are less familiar with marketing can find
Speaker:it taxing to figure out what is fundamental and what is a shiny object.
Speaker:They want the person who can apply AI and build an efficient MarTech
Speaker:stack, but not the person who is going to be so focused on new toys that
Speaker:they get distracted or use up all their budget on experimental things.
Speaker:It's also hard because marketing has an impact across the company, so
Speaker:that means everyone has an opinion.
Speaker:And, of course, many companies have had marketing hires not work
Speaker:out, so they are wary, and they're looking to mitigate their risk.
Speaker:And, they do perceive risk with the CMO hire.
Speaker:They worry about a few things - that the person is going to
Speaker:be all sizzle and no steak.
Speaker:They worry that the CMO candidate will tell great stories but not
Speaker:be able to get their hands dirty.
Speaker:They worry that the marketing leader will come in and focus so much
Speaker:on brand and pictures and logos and not be able to drive demand.
Speaker:This, by the way, comes because often they can confuse strategic brands
Speaker:- messaging and positioning, things like that - versus creative brand.
Speaker:They wonder, also, about reporting structure.
Speaker:What's in scope for the marketing leadership role?
Speaker:Should BDRs report to marketing or to sales?
Speaker:Should product marketing report to marketing or to product?
Speaker:Et cetera.
Speaker:Here are some tips for those CEOs and investors who are
Speaker:nervous about hiring a CMO.
Speaker:First, admit it if you need to learn.
Speaker:One of my clients, who's an investor, said to me at one point, "Oh, Erica, I
Speaker:don't know anything about marketing."
Speaker:He was just very matter-of-fact, and he approached it with curiosity.
Speaker:Our whole search, he just approached the whole thing with a curiosity and learning
Speaker:as opposed to trying to pass himself off as knowing a ton about marketing.
Speaker:So there's really no shame in it.
Speaker:I've even had plenty of CMO clients who are hiring VPs of some functional
Speaker:area look to the search process to understand the role that they're hiring
Speaker:for and the different archetypes for it.
Speaker:The next idea is take the time to learn first and recruit second.
Speaker:Look to the candidates and your recruiting partner to teach
Speaker:you and to co-create the role.
Speaker:They will help you figure out what type of marketing leader would make sense.
Speaker:Don't expect to get it right in just a few candidates.
Speaker:Often in CMO searches, there's a bit more calibration than other roles, and
Speaker:sometimes companies have to see, say, six candidates rather than three since
Speaker:marketing is just so multifaceted.
Speaker:And, beware hiring the person from a super sexy company, but one that's
Speaker:at the wrong stage or was successful with a different go-to-market motion.
Speaker:Like we've talked about before in other podcasts here, some companies
Speaker:are successful because of their marketing leaders and others are
Speaker:successful despite marketing.
Speaker:With that, let's bring on my guest, James Lamberti.
Speaker:James is head of go-to-market for Georgian, the firm that invests in
Speaker:high-growth B2B software companies.
Speaker:Previously, James served as CMO at several companies like SalesIntel,
Speaker:Conviva, Applitools, and Quri.
Speaker:James, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the show.
Speaker:Great to be here, Erica.
Speaker:Happy to talk today about de-risking hiring for both CMOs and CEOs.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:And I love your take on this, you know, what's good for the goose
Speaker:is good for the gander is kind of what we've talked about before.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So before we get started, can you just explain a little bit about your role
Speaker:now and anything else that I missed in your background that you wanted to
Speaker:- Yeah.
Speaker:I think
Speaker:- bring to light?
Speaker:- you covered my background pretty well.
Speaker:I started here at Georgian in mid-March and my role is to market the firm to
Speaker:the larger investment community so that people are aware and understand what
Speaker:we do and who we are in that context.
Speaker:Prior to joining an investment firm, I was an operator, as you mentioned,
Speaker:in multiple growth stage companies, anywhere from five to a hundred million.
Speaker:Often joining as the first, maybe second, go-to market
Speaker:executive with a CEO and founder.
Speaker:So I have a pretty, pretty good perspective on this and I've
Speaker:done it now seven times in a row.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:And yeah, I should say I've tried to recruit you a few different times and
Speaker:I, and you also have a job that so many people would want, so it's very cool.
Speaker:So let's get right into it.
Speaker:I would love to talk about managing risk, like we said, like on both
Speaker:sides there's the hiring and there's the getting hired side.
Speaker:Let's just start with getting hired because as you said, you've
Speaker:led marketing or been head of go-to-market, many, many times now.
Speaker:And a lot of people, they do it a few times and they're like, no, never again.
Speaker:And for you, you do like it.
Speaker:So I imagine you have some kind of framework for diagnosing a role
Speaker:and figuring out the mutual fit.
Speaker:And would love for you to walk me through the process that you follow.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:I do have a framework that I started pretty early on, maybe
Speaker:going back almost fifteen years.
Speaker:But going back to my first, really my first CMO title where I started
Speaker:doing what I'm about to describe.
Speaker:And really it's, I think it's more common now, but at the time it was
Speaker:pretty novel and I really took on the interview process as a consultant gig.
Speaker:I really embraced the idea that I'm going to play the role of a
Speaker:consultant and put in a substantial amount of work to showcase my skills,
Speaker:and also try to provide authentic value to the CEO and the executive
Speaker:team during the interview process.
Speaker:It was a lot of work and I would caveat the entire approach by
Speaker:establishing upfront with the CEO, I really look for a partner that's
Speaker:growth minded, that's super open.
Speaker:I look at this as an opportunity for me to learn about how I'm gonna work
Speaker:with you, how I'm gonna understand your business and your challenges,
Speaker:and how I can bring my background and skills to bear on those challenges.
Speaker:Throughout this process, as I learn, as I listen, I'm gonna play back
Speaker:to you routinely what I'm hearing.
Speaker:How it is that my skills and background can be brought to bear to help solve those
Speaker:problems or exploit those opportunities.
Speaker:And it was a very, in some ways seen as a very risky approach.
Speaker:But it worked for me because it fundamentally de-risks the role
Speaker:and the hire for both parties.
Speaker:And it often had the advantage, when it succeeded, when it
Speaker:worked, you had incredible fit.
Speaker:You already had a rapport with the CEO and the founding team.
Speaker:They already knew how you thought, even how you were thinking about
Speaker:their business with some depth, right?
Speaker:And then when you come in, into the building, so to
Speaker:speak, got a running start.
Speaker:You've got equity and they've seen you already do the work alongside
Speaker:them through the interview process.
Speaker:I think that's more common today than it was.
Speaker:But that approach and that framework really helped assess mutual fit.
Speaker:Even though it introduced the risk to me getting hired, it greatly improved
Speaker:the likelihood of it being a good fit for both parties, and, therefore, having
Speaker:legs and longevity as I entered the role.
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:So it's like you're coming in and saying, okay, I'm not just
Speaker:gonna submit to questions.
Speaker:I'm gonna have this kind of peer-to-peer dialogue here.
Speaker:We're both in it and let's figure out if this is a mutually good fit.
Speaker:And I think you need a lot of confidence to do that because some
Speaker:people, there's a difference between a marketing leader who does that, and
Speaker:somebody who's just like, oh, tell me what you need and tell me how you're
Speaker:going to, you know, define the role.
Speaker:And it's so true because so many CEOs actually don't know...
Speaker:They just don't know right?
Speaker:And so yeah, they can be asked, what, how exactly are you going
Speaker:to judge this role's success, but it's much better for that marketing
Speaker:expert to bring that to the table.
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And a lot of what I framed up in my own mind as I entered these conversations,
Speaker:and it involved researching the CEO ahead of time, of course, and who
Speaker:they are and what their background is.
Speaker:But I always have an ICP CEO in mind for myself.
Speaker:It's gonna be different for every professional, but I would think about
Speaker:that as you go into an interview cycle.
Speaker:Even before you meet companies or meet the CEO and do your - be a marketer,
Speaker:be a strategic marketer, and think about what is the ideal CEO for me
Speaker:- Yeah.
Speaker:as a marketing leader?
Speaker:And in my case, it was a highly technical founder where I felt
Speaker:like strength of product and engineering skill would essentially
Speaker:provide that strength of product.
Speaker:And that's the thing I wanted most.
Speaker:So I felt like even though there can be a lot of challenges with a highly technical
Speaker:founder who may or may not be growth minded enough to defer the expertise that
Speaker:you've got, that's always a trap we'll talk about later, but I found that over
Speaker:the years that really I wanted to be with that technical founder that really
Speaker:needed fundamental help in go-to-market.
Speaker:That was my ICP.
Speaker:And there were other aspects to it, and it's gonna be different for everybody.
Speaker:And because that was my ICP, a lot of the framework I used was effective
Speaker:for me and for that individual CEO, for the reasons you stated.
Speaker:I would probe, I would ask questions.
Speaker:I would say, well, let's talk about your business before I answer that question.
Speaker:And when I went through those questions and that framework, it gave me a chance
Speaker:to play back how I was gonna add value, to play back ideas or strategies or
Speaker:tactics that I would probably bring to bear given that founder, technical
Speaker:founder CEO's unique situation.
Speaker:And the right CEO for me, I could see them spark to that.
Speaker:I could see them be growth minded and be like, this is the partner I need.
Speaker:I don't want someone who's just looking to say, hey, how can I help you?
Speaker:That's a different type of CEO.
Speaker:That's a CEO that's probably done it a few times, that has probably got
Speaker:very clear ideas of what they want.
Speaker:So, diagnosing that and addressing that, I know you know the CEO who
Speaker:knows what they want and saying, yeah, here's how I can help, is very
Speaker:different as an ICP for you as a professional than what I described for me.
Speaker:So that whole, to wrap this up, I would say have a clear idea of your
Speaker:ideal CEO and how you are gonna add value, and then know how you need to
Speaker:adapt your interview style to that CEO.
Speaker:Mm mm.
Speaker:Yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker:It's funny, it's sorts like the ideal customer profile, the ideal CEO
Speaker:profile, the ideal candidate profile, and it all kind of comes together.
Speaker:So can you walk through the process, like double click on this, what is your process
Speaker:of mutual discovery, mutual de-risking?
Speaker:What does that look like?
Speaker:Because it's like you're bringing in, you're doing your own de-risking,
Speaker:but you're also helping that CEO founder person to de-risk as well.
Speaker:Can you just walk through that?
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:Yeah, we can walk through it.
Speaker:I have a go-to-market framework that everyone in marketing's gonna
Speaker:be familiar with at a high level.
Speaker:We've all got our own version of what I described, but I always try to,
Speaker:in the early stages of the interview process, start to probe the CEO and be
Speaker:like, for example, starting with the ICP definition, who are you selling to?
Speaker:Please tell me all you can about the specifics of who you're selling to,
Speaker:and what I'm trying to understand is how well defined is the ICP?
Speaker:And does this CEO founder truly understand how important it is to have a specific,
Speaker:quantifiable description of the ICP, and how focused and quantifiable is it?
Speaker:The more clear that is as a marketer, of course, frankly, the
Speaker:easier it is for you to add value.
Speaker:'Cause if you're coming into a company that's like I know my sales
Speaker:addressable market in the next twelve to twenty-four months, it's $350 million.
Speaker:It's in these geographies.
Speaker:It's this type of persona.
Speaker:It's this pain point that I'm solving for.
Speaker:These technologies are present as a clue or signal from an intent perspective.
Speaker:All those details are so valuable for you because you can now be laser
Speaker:focused on doing what you do as a marketer, which is drawing a circle
Speaker:around that in market from how you do your targeting, your demand gen,
Speaker:your brand building, your messaging, your event selection, all of that.
Speaker:So I always start there, and what I've almost always found in an
Speaker:early-stage company is as, they were very confident about, I know
Speaker:my ICP, I've got product market fit.
Speaker:But what ended up happening was it was very loosely defined and it was, there
Speaker:was a lot of risk inherent in that.
Speaker:So that began the first step of de-risking it for both of us, where I
Speaker:would start to explain, you're so broad.
Speaker:It's great that your product has a horizontal footprint, that your total
Speaker:addressable market is massive over time.
Speaker:I love that, CEO founder.
Speaker:But we need to get more specific about your first fifty million in
Speaker:revenue, your first a hundred million in revenue, and my job with you is to
Speaker:make sure that we're really specific and really targeted about that.
Speaker:All that other real estate you're attacking is opportunistic, but let's
Speaker:go arm your sales team and arm our marketing strategy with a focused first
Speaker:fifty million sales addressable market.
Speaker:So that conversation is super important right up front.
Speaker:And I would say 90% of the interviews, they think they've got it, they're
Speaker:super confident, they're proud of the horizontal market they can attack, so big,
Speaker:but they've not really thought through the perils of that from a go-to-market
Speaker:perspective and the lack of focus.
Speaker:So that's the first thing.
Speaker:And then as a result of that conversation, move to the go-to-market motion, and
Speaker:this is probably these first two steps.
Speaker:I'll pause and maybe you'll ask some probing questions.
Speaker:But these are the first two parts of the conversation that for me,
Speaker:ultimately de-risk or understand the challenges we're gonna face together
Speaker:and can we overcome 'em together.
Speaker:So the second step in this is what I call the go-to-market motion.
Speaker:There are six or seven different go-to-market motions.
Speaker:You have product-led growth on one end of the spectrum, and you've got
Speaker:pure outbound, hire fifteen enterprise sellers and have 'em go into the c-suite
Speaker:and take down seven figure deals, on the other end of the spectrum.
Speaker:And between those two, ABM, community, partnership or marketplace type plays.
Speaker:So there's a variety of different go-to-market motions.
Speaker:And you need to understand where they're at today.
Speaker:Which motion are they using today?
Speaker:And does that motion that they're taking fit or not with the ICP that you just
Speaker:diagnosed together or figured out?
Speaker:And this is the second area where a lot of risk enters because if you've
Speaker:got, for example, a technical founder that is fundamentally needing a
Speaker:super low cost of sale, competition's going in product led, and yet they've
Speaker:instinctively just hired a CRO that put fifteen or twenty enterprise sellers and
Speaker:filled capacity and hired twenty BDRs.
Speaker:You've got a ton of risk as a marketing leader because the ICP
Speaker:and the go-to-market approach that is needed is not what is present.
Speaker:And so you need to have that discussion.
Speaker:Ideally, there's a fit, there's already a fit there, and you are the right person to
Speaker:exploit the existing go-to-market motion.
Speaker:So I'll pause there 'cause there's a lot to that, but does that make sense, Erica?
Speaker:Yes, it does.
Speaker:I love this.
Speaker:Do you, how do you balance efficiency and thoroughness, and also like
Speaker:educating but not being too didactic?
Speaker:Those are
Speaker:- just a couple things that come to mind.
Speaker:Any thoughts there?
Speaker:Yeah, I've talked a lot in this podcast, but in a conversation with, in an
Speaker:interview for an hour with the CEO, you just ask a couple key questions
Speaker:in this area, and you're pretty quick at diagnosing what's really going on.
Speaker:Uhhuh.
Speaker:And just having a quick response to it.
Speaker:And then what I will do if I'm really excited about the CEO or the
Speaker:company, or frankly, even if I'm not, I always take the long view that
Speaker:this is a relationship I wanna have forever, even if I don't get hired.
Speaker:So I still do the work, even if I know I'm probably not that interested
Speaker:in the company or I have concerns.
Speaker:But what I will do is be fairly succinct in the conversation, trying
Speaker:to go through these various steps.
Speaker:And then I will tell the CEO or the executive team member I'm interviewing,
Speaker:I'm gonna play back in a follow-up note some additional thoughts.
Speaker:Then that just makes them feel really good, and they're starting to see how
Speaker:you think, and this is how through the entire interview cycle as you go through
Speaker:it, by the time you spent six, seven, eight, nine, ten hours with the company,
Speaker:and you've routinely kept notes and played back what you've learned along the
Speaker:way, you're de-risking it for yourself.
Speaker:You're de-risking it for them.
Speaker:And they're probably pretty excited about you as a candidate because you've
Speaker:thoughtfully taken this journey with them and shown that you're listening, you're
Speaker:playing back what you heard, you're showcasing how you can help, and at the
Speaker:same time, everyone's being derisked.
Speaker:It's a lot of work.
Speaker:And I like this idea of playing it back over time.
Speaker:'Cause, as you say, these processes have gotten to be where there's often
Speaker:a kind of a capstone presentation or chalk talk kind of thing at the end.
Speaker:But you're kind of coalescing as you go.
Speaker:And so that's a different approach than what I see a
Speaker:lot of marketing leaders take.
Speaker:So that, that's interesting.
Speaker:That is, yeah, that's right.
Speaker:And the third piece, as you start to talk about or probe on, and you'll hear, is
Speaker:brand building versus harvesting demand.
Speaker:This is another really big trap I think in a risky area as
Speaker:most marketers and CMOs know.
Speaker:And it manifests in two ways.
Speaker:So I always probe in this area as well.
Speaker:Oftentimes, for a five, ten, twenty million dollar company, you've got a CEO
Speaker:founder who's like, I just need demand.
Speaker:I hired a director of demand gen and I'm not getting the quality leads I want.
Speaker:I'm not getting the volume I want.
Speaker:Often what happened with a highly technical founder is they
Speaker:skipped over the ICP definition.
Speaker:They skipped over the go-to-market profile they need and they just instinctively
Speaker:went, I'm ready to build demand gen.
Speaker:And So what you've got is this premature demand gen effort that's
Speaker:probably very inefficient, generating a lot of low quality leads.
Speaker:So that's another big area I listen for.
Speaker:And the risk is they expect a silver bullet.
Speaker:They expect by hiring the senior leader that they're going to make this demand
Speaker:gen director, who's probably quite competent, suddenly 5x their efficiency or
Speaker:output, when in fact, you've gotta bring that founder CEO back to the beginning
Speaker:of the conversation we already had.
Speaker:The reason your demand gen isn't well is 'cause you haven't tightly defined your
Speaker:ICP perhaps, or your go-to-market motion is not lined up with the realities of cost
Speaker:of sale and the realities of competition.
Speaker:So that's another area.
Speaker:The opposite, or the other end of the spectrum is you've got a founder CEO who's
Speaker:like I just wanna build the brand and they don't want you at all for demand gen.
Speaker:I hear that a lot too.
Speaker:Demand gen's fine.
Speaker:I need someone to actually build my brand and help me get into the enterprise.
Speaker:How are you going, you go back to the previous step.
Speaker:Okay, great.
Speaker:Well, your PLG today, you've got an open source platform driving developers in,
Speaker:and maybe they're getting to a freemium model like now you know you're gonna
Speaker:have to fundamentally help them think about adding on a new go-to-market
Speaker:motion, the enterprise sales motion, and it's way more, again, it's risk.
Speaker:It's way more than you as an individual can solve for.
Speaker:It's gonna take a collective effort from the executive team to get that
Speaker:new go-to-market motion in place.
Speaker:And so you set expectations along the way on those two issues.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I like it.
Speaker:And a lot of CEOs struggle to understand the difference between
Speaker:creative brand and strategic brand.
Speaker:And so I often tell people like, just don't use the word brand.
Speaker:Just talk about messaging and positioning and everything.
Speaker:But you're right, especially if it's a founder-led business sometimes the
Speaker:route forward is brand building and should be brand building and making
Speaker:a big splash, and that's a different
Speaker:both are great.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You expect to hear both those things to be present, especially if it's a
Speaker:CMO role, you're gonna manage both.
Speaker:So I'm always trying to diagnose where are they really at on both
Speaker:those dimensions, and what's the root cause of them either being ready
Speaker:to scale what they're doing or not?
Speaker:And again, generally in a growth stage company, especially with the
Speaker:technical founder, all of these things are a little bit of a mess.
Speaker:So you've got to, I think in the interview process, you've gotta get to
Speaker:the heart of the core issue and create that relationship where you're like,
Speaker:I know you want a silver bullet here.
Speaker:I'll certainly come in and help you a ton on this issue, but to really
Speaker:open it up we've gotta go back and solve for these core issues.
Speaker:I'm gonna help you do that.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Are you aligned with that?
Speaker:Are you open enough to understand that I'm not just gonna 8x your
Speaker:demand gen overnight, or build a brand that takes two years to build in a
Speaker:highly competitive market overnight?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:Anything else with the framework for evaluating a role?
Speaker:The last two are often pretty big.
Speaker:The fifth of the six kind of things I often listen for and probe
Speaker:on is one I call customer love.
Speaker:I think especially in the compression we went through over the last few
Speaker:years, NRR and customer marketing are your best friend as a CMO.
Speaker:But here's where risk enters.
Speaker:You'll often hear a founder CEO say, no, no, I've got a
Speaker:great customer success person.
Speaker:I don't need you worried about the customers.
Speaker:They're handled.
Speaker:a red flag for me.
Speaker:There's risk as a CMO when you hear that because your best source of
Speaker:marketing is your own customers.
Speaker:So if you're sitting two miles away in the mind of the CEO from the
Speaker:customer team and can't create the right relationships directly, harvest
Speaker:case studies, create virality, that's gonna be a problem for you.
Speaker:So I probe on that as well.
Speaker:Are they focused on NRR?
Speaker:Do they, will they embrace the CMO having a tight relationship, a customer marketing
Speaker:initiative with the customer success team?
Speaker:Because, again, the power of that as a CMO is huge.
Speaker:And if it's difficult for you to get there, then you're gonna be challenged and
Speaker:there's gonna be risk for you as a CMO.
Speaker:It's also probably not great for the company, as you know.
Speaker:Then the last area is probably just the foundational pieces, which is what
Speaker:I call the Demand Center, Rev Ops.
Speaker:Everything I just described takes time and takes data and analytics,
Speaker:and data is your best friend as a CMO.
Speaker:Or your worst enemy, depending on how it's used.
Speaker:If you've got good data, objective data, and you've got an executive team that
Speaker:buys into the accuracy of that data, then you're in a really, really good spot
Speaker:'cause you can constantly leverage that in an open way with the executive team to
Speaker:make observations and make improvements.
Speaker:Good example is being able to empirically show, I know you wanna
Speaker:hire another ten AEs, but your AEs today are already horribly inefficient.
Speaker:I'm twice as efficient with the small inbound budget I've got, CRO, CEO.
Speaker:Let's actually double the inbound budget.
Speaker:I'll feed more quality leads to the existing reps.
Speaker:They'll all be at capacity.
Speaker:Now, I'm gonna help you create a virtuous cycle of hiring the next enterprise rep.
Speaker:'Cause they're gonna see lead flow.
Speaker:The other reps are gonna be strong, hitting quota.
Speaker:Now you've created this virtuous cycle of really good reps.
Speaker:The CRO loves that.
Speaker:As opposed to the opposite, what I see, which is, no, let's hire ten more reps.
Speaker:It's inefficient and you create not a virtuous cycle,
Speaker:you create a downward cycle.
Speaker:So Rev Ops.
Speaker:Rev ops, rev ops, rev ops.
Speaker:And it's often a mess, and it takes at least three quarters to fix.
Speaker:So you gotta have that conversation as well.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:So thanks for walking through that framework.
Speaker:Obviously when it works, it's great.
Speaker:Can you talk about a time when it hasn't worked?
Speaker:When it hasn't been successful in revealing a red flag?
Speaker:Or things to think about despite the framework working well?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'll say it this way, like a lot of founder CEOs, technical founder CEOs,
Speaker:they're so positive, they're so enthralled with their own business that they don't
Speaker:really give you the accurate information that you need to assess this well.
Speaker:They're selling to you.
Speaker:They end up liking you.
Speaker:They hear what they like, and they sell to you, sell to you, sell to you.
Speaker:And so when you get inside the four walls of the company, you realize that what
Speaker:you thought was present was not present at all, or things that you thought
Speaker:were okay, were actually really bad.
Speaker:Or the opposite.
Speaker:Things that you thought were not great were actually really good.
Speaker:So the entire conversation that you've had during the interview
Speaker:process is a little bit off kilter just 'cause you were being sold to.
Speaker:That's a really hard one to deal with, but I just constantly encourage
Speaker:the CEO and the founder to really create honest dialogue because I need
Speaker:that dialogue to know how to help.
Speaker:And for me to help de-risk for you.
Speaker:Can I help you?
Speaker:The other one is the silver bullet complex.
Speaker:It's easy to pick this up, but the silver bullet complex is no matter
Speaker:what's said in the conversation ,you walk in the door and they're like, I
Speaker:want a 4x increase in two quarters.
Speaker:Very, very difficult to achieve that.
Speaker:You just gotta really listen for that, the non-reality expectation.
Speaker:I think that is leading to the shortened cycles we're seeing more than anything.
Speaker:The eighteen-month cycle that we've all been feeling because it takes at least
Speaker:three quarters, or maybe four quarters, for impact in marketing to really be felt.
Speaker:So trying to uncover that, is there a silver bullet expectation here?
Speaker:And are you prepared for that is the big one.
Speaker:The third one I would say is the, this is a common issue for technical
Speaker:founders, first time technical founders, new day, new strategy.
Speaker:It's a reset button on marketing, and I will often try to break through with
Speaker:a technical founder by explaining when you reset your marketing strategy,
Speaker:it's the same thing as if you fully reset your product strategy.
Speaker:You would never just go into your product team from an R&D perspective
Speaker:and shred the two or three quarter product roadmap because you're putting
Speaker:your entire dev team back to zero.
Speaker:Marketing actually works more like product than it does like sales.
Speaker:The returns on it are two, three, four quarters out.
Speaker:And so that is a huge area where if you don't pull that out of the conversation
Speaker:effectively, that can come back to be really painful because every quarter
Speaker:we're gonna switch strategy and marketing, and then you can never get anywhere.
Speaker:And eventually you're out the door in four to six quarters.
Speaker:And the wrong hire, wrong time, over or under hiring.
Speaker:This became an issue for me more recently.
Speaker:I really love growth stage of five to fifty million.
Speaker:I realized I had to figure out something else in my career because
Speaker:it worked against me to be a fifth, sixth, seventh time CMO at that stage.
Speaker:I just appeared overqualified and I probably, frankly, often was.
Speaker:And you and I have talked about this at a professional level, like how
Speaker:to deal with that, and it just took finding the right company for me.
Speaker:But you really gotta watch out for that.
Speaker:Are you the under hire and you're gonna get leveled before you
Speaker:want to or unnecessarily leveled?
Speaker:Or are you being overhired and they're just not ready for
Speaker:everything you can do as a CMO?
Speaker:It's not the right stage of company.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I have a client who talks in a great way about this, and it's like, do
Speaker:you want the person who's gonna stretch into the role, or step into
Speaker:the role, or stoop into the role?
Speaker:And it's just a great framework for thinking about that.
Speaker:And just reacting what you said about it could take three quarters
Speaker:for things to even start to show results, and probably more if you're
Speaker:reversing your go-to market motion.
Speaker:That is, I think, such a key point.
Speaker:So I just wanna underscore that, because often in processes CEOs and CMOs will
Speaker:think about, well, okay, what needs to be done and who's the customer?
Speaker:Et cetera.
Speaker:But what they need to spend as much time on is what's the budget and in how long?
Speaker:Like how long will it take to get this to happen?
Speaker:And that's where CMOs, I think, can educate CEOs and say, okay, if this
Speaker:is what you want, then these are all the steps to get there, and this
Speaker:is when it's going to bear fruit.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:I think that's where, that's a huge contributor to this eighteen-month
Speaker:tenure problem that you brought up.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you're gonna have to have the things, tactical things that you could
Speaker:point to even in the interview process.
Speaker:I know I can work in this right away and there'll be value.
Speaker:Better training your sales team, clarifying, but the longer term stuff has
Speaker:to be understood in the way you described.
Speaker:I believe that is the single biggest thing that's in the way of our profession, so
Speaker:to speak, and the short tenures we're starting to see, which are not helpful.
Speaker:To anybody.
Speaker:No, exactly.
Speaker:Let's switch gears a little bit.
Speaker:I'd love to hear your take on AI.
Speaker:No conversation in marketing is complete without AI.
Speaker:Specifically, when you were doing your search recently, and you
Speaker:talked to different companies, I'm curious, were CEOs interested in
Speaker:your knowledge of AI, and if so, how did they try to get at that?
Speaker:And is it more about efficiency and productivity or is it more
Speaker:about the technical aspects of it?
Speaker:Yeah, it was interesting that, I was interviewing in Q1 of 2024.
Speaker:It was interesting to me that it wasn't coming up as directly
Speaker:and early and aggressively as I would've expected as a CMO.
Speaker:It came up in almost every conversation, but it was not necessarily a prevailing
Speaker:thought interestingly enough.
Speaker:I think that what I'm seeing is the CEOs and some of these founders are
Speaker:feeling a little, maybe, overwhelmed with the hype cycle on AI right now.
Speaker:What most of them ultimately wanted to understand is a practical
Speaker:way to apply AI for value.
Speaker:That's where they probed.
Speaker:And I would say even if they didn't probe, I would make sure that you
Speaker:as a professional in the interview cycle today have that conversation.
Speaker:And by the way, here, as you go through and have the conversation about your
Speaker:skills, be very clear about where AI is going to layer in and how it is you're
Speaker:gonna think about AI adding value.
Speaker:Because there is some concern from CEOs and founders that it's being overhyped.
Speaker:It's a silver bullet for everything, and there's a lot of cost to it done poorly.
Speaker:There's a lot of compute cost.
Speaker:There's a lot of distraction if it's just the shiny object that you put in
Speaker:every tool in your stack, for example.
Speaker:Let's not go back as CMOs and rev ops people to five or eight years ago when
Speaker:there were fifteen tools in our stack and we had to pull all that out in the last
Speaker:three years and get back to being simple.
Speaker:So the net net on this is they know it's valuable, they're concerned
Speaker:about it being overhyped and it being a silver bullet, and they wanna
Speaker:hear about your core skills as a marketer, as a leader, as an executive.
Speaker:Because AI is not fundamentally gonna take over all of that.
Speaker:Then you, being interviewed in the process, you can start to artfully
Speaker:weave in where you know AI productivity aims are absolutely present.
Speaker:The impact on SEO is massive.
Speaker:You gotta talk about that.
Speaker:And I think the productivity gains of content creation,
Speaker:messaging, advertising copy.
Speaker:There's so much value there that's already being unleashed.
Speaker:That account research, if you're doing ABM.
Speaker:Unbelievable unlocks there that don't require a huge investment,
Speaker:technology that exists today.
Speaker:That's what I would focus on when it comes to AI.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Thank you so much for sharing.
Speaker:In the interest of time, I'm going to bring us to our final question, which is
Speaker:something I ask everybody, and that is, what is your favorite interview question
Speaker:when you're interviewing a marketing leader for your team, for instance?
Speaker:My question that I always get to very early is what do you think
Speaker:are the three most important traits of being a great marketer?
Speaker:Very simple.
Speaker:Seems really easy.
Speaker:It's like a softball, but what I'm listening for is not a softball.
Speaker:What I'm personally listening for is that I feel like great marketers
Speaker:are fundamentally, they view the role as a listening function.
Speaker:What I mean by that is I listen to the market capital and I listen to customers.
Speaker:I listen to prospects.
Speaker:I listen to my closed lost deals.
Speaker:I listen to competition.
Speaker:I listen to my partners.
Speaker:I listen to my own sales team.
Speaker:That is often, I think, just not done well by the marketing discipline.
Speaker:Marketers somehow often feel compelled to come in and be ivory tower.
Speaker:I have the answer.
Speaker:Let me grant my wisdom of marketing upon you.
Speaker:That is, I think, really risky.
Speaker:And so I listen for that.
Speaker:Growth-minded.
Speaker:Again, they're related, but being growth-minded, meaning
Speaker:I don't know everything.
Speaker:I've got a pattern.
Speaker:My pattern may or may not apply to this situation.
Speaker:Some elements will, some will not, but I understand how to analyze a situation,
Speaker:get to the root cause, and then my skills and background to bear, but also
Speaker:know where I don't have those skills and go get them, either in my team
Speaker:as I hire or consultants or whatever.
Speaker:Then, finally, data-driven objectivity.
Speaker:Those are the three things I wanna hear about is committing to the rev ops layer
Speaker:and having data, objective data to try to guide the entire executive team.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:I like those.
Speaker:And if you only hear two out of the three do you probe for the third?
Speaker:I almost never hear all three.
Speaker:I mean, honestly, I almost never hear all those three from me personally.
Speaker:But I like to hear at least one of them.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The reason I ask that question is what I'm really listening for, again, getting
Speaker:to the root of the question and why I ask it is I think great marketers
Speaker:listen well and they're growth-minded.
Speaker:Not so great marketers, at least in my opinion, come in thinking they know
Speaker:everything, like they can just spread their wisdom across the organization.
Speaker:And that I think is a problem for the profession at times.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's what I'm trying to diagnose.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:Well, thank you so much for joining us on The Get.
Speaker:This has been awesome to have you, James.
Speaker:I love being here, Erica.
Speaker:Always good to talk to you.
Speaker:Thanks for having me.
Speaker:We'll talk again soon.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Take care.
Speaker:That was James Lamberti.
Speaker:Now, think of how you can get to greater CEO/CMO alignment through
Speaker:spirit of collaborative risk mitigation.
Speaker:Next time on The Get, you'll hear more from me and from another guest.
Speaker:Don't miss it.
Speaker:Thanks for listening to The Get I'm your host, Erica Seidel.
Speaker:The Get is here to drive smart decisions around recruiting and
Speaker:leadership in B2B SaaS marketing.
Speaker:We explore the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of today's top
Speaker:marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.
Speaker:If you liked this episode, please share it.
Speaker:For more about The Get, visit TheGetPodcast.com.
Speaker:To learn more about my executive search practice, which focuses on recruiting the
Speaker:make-money marketing leaders rather than the make-it-pretty ones, follow me on
Speaker:LinkedIn or visit TheConnectiveGood.com.
Speaker:The Get is produced by Evo Terra of Simpler Media Productions.
