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

Winning the Bigger CMO Mandate: Insights From Hundreds of B2B SaaS Marketing Leaders

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 00:00:00 -0500

When you look at the CMO role across hundreds of B2B tech companies, what themes emerge these days? In this episode of The Get podcast, host Erica Seidel talks with Matt Selheimer, VP and Research Director for B2B Marketing Executives at Forrester.

You'll hear about the top themes that have emerged in The Get this season. And you'll get a sneak peek at new Forrester research dedicated to CMOs.

Learn about:

How to classify marketing leadership roles: is the CEO looking for a supporter, a promoter, a partner, or a driver?
How changes in tech and buying behavior can be a catalyst for marketing leaders to claim a broader role and bigger budget
Advice to CEOs who have failed at hiring CMOs
How CMOs who create a continuous learning organization are the ones who will be the most successful
Why marketing leaders need to get beyond "polishing the pebbles on in-market intent signals" and instead invest to be the preferred vendor earlier on, to avoid being used as negotiating leverage against the preferred vendor
How increasingly, "your understanding of your buyers, your customers, and the markets you're operating in is your competitive differentiator"
Why so few CMOs are at the point of firing whole teams in favor of AI
How to avoid 're-org fatigue' while still responding to changing buyer behaviors

Memorable Quote:

"What I tell our clients, and CMOs in transition, is: make sure there's a really good fit here for the purpose of marketing. That what you see as the purpose of marketing and what your CEO and the board see as the purpose of marketing is aligned. If you need to do education, that's the time to do the education… and expand the aperture of how they think about marketing. If you don't get the CEO resonating with that, then that may not be the place that you want to go join, as an example. But if you are already in a function, already in a company as a CMO, what we're telling all of our clients is, now's a great time to recalibrate the purpose of marketing."

00:00 Introduction to The Get Podcast

00:17 Guest Introduction: Matt Selheimer from Forrester

01:32 High-Level Themes in SaaS Marketing

01:46 AI's Role in B2B Buying

02:16 Disciplined Experimentation in Marketing

03:03 Resurgence of Brand and PR Roles

03:32 Matt Selheimer's Background and Fun Fact

06:33 In-Depth Discussion on AI and Generational Shifts

10:05 The Importance of Testing and Experimentation

13:25 The Role of Brand in Modern Marketing

17:22 Advice for CEOs on Hiring CMOs

27:29 Marketing Organizational Design

36:09 Favorite Interview Question

37:25 Conclusion and Closing Remarks

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 how SaaS marketing organizations are changing — in both seismic and subtle ways.

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

The AI-Native CMO: Rewiring Marketing For Warp Speed

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0500

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel explores how AI-native marketing orgs are shaping up with guest Kady Srinivasan. Kady is CMO of You.com, the enterprise AI productivity platform that powers agentic workflows that deliver measurable business results. She previously held top marketing leadership roles at Lightspeed Commerce, Klaviyo, and Dropbox. She has been part of three IPOs. From her vantage point, running marketing in an AI-native environment, Kady shares her experiences, observations, and hypotheses for how the marketing org is changing – and will change – to enable using AI at warp speed.

You'll hear about:

How GTM leadership in an AI-native company is different from GTM leadership in a typical SaaS company
The org structures that enable using AI at warp speed
How the new marketing org has both humans and agents on the marketing team
The rise of new roles on the marketing team, like prompt marketers and influence engineers, and AI agent builders
Navigating the delicate CMO balance of "feeling you need to know it all" versus respecting your CEO's intuition
Sussing out, when talking to candidates, whether a company was successful BECAUSE of a candidate's contributions versus DESPITE the candidate's contributions
How to hire for "common sense"

Memorable Quotes:

"In an AI-native company, at least the one that I'm at, we have a lot to do to educate the market about the potential solutions that they can unlock with a technology or a platform like ours. So I came up with this idea… of a forward-deployed marketer, which is similar to a forward-deployed engineer, where you're basically coming up with use cases, coming up with solutions, coming up with things that you can tell people, look, this is the art of the possible…I think that's very different from SaaS, in that SaaS is a defined set of features and platform things that you can take to market."

"It used to be that we used to have these silos - product, marketing, demand, gen, and brand. Those were the big pillars in marketing. What I've found is that with AI, you don't actually need those silos anymore. What you need instead is people who are very outcome-focused. So I have a team that's only focused on inbound. I have a team that's focused on outbound. I have a team that's focused on storytelling, brand comms, that kind of stuff. The reason I've turned it that way is in this new world, every marketer needs to become like a T-shaped marketer, which is they have a spike, but they scaffold themselves with all the other functions, and that's easy to do because of agents, because you have AI."

00:00 Introduction to The Get Podcast

00:20 Meet Kady Srinivasan: CMO of You.com

00:43 The Unique Role of a CMO in an AI Native Company

02:36 Kady's Career Insights and Advice

04:22 Organizational Structure and AI Impact

12:03 Hiring the Right Marketers for the Future

25:57 Challenges and Strategies in Modern Marketing

34:56 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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 how SaaS marketing organizations are changing — in both seismic and subtle ways.

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.

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

How to Buck the Trend of Short-Lived CMOs

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0500

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel talks with Monica Ho, CMO of SOCi, the leading AI-powered marketing platform for multi-location businesses. Monica reflects on her CMO journey as revenue has grown from ~$10MM to ~$100MM. She gets real about how she has built her adaptation muscles and her boardroom voice, and she shares how AI and efficiency have reshaped her org chart and choices.

Monica and Erica discuss:

How "earning and re-earning" your seat at the table is imperative as the business evolves
Rethinking the organization at every stage of growth, and pivoting towards "more strategists than doers"
"Forcing" AI adoption by taking away tools that the team previously relied on
The importance of reverse mentoring – interns and junior employees can bring in creativity and have better results, "because they are having more fun."
Fueling experimentation, not just with tests and tech, but by collaborating in different ways
Bringing specificity to the hiring process by asking a candidate for their current boss's name and that boss's perception of the candidate
Making yourself uncomfortable in Board meetings by sharing "the bad stuff -- that way, you're not in defensive mode but rather in collaborative problem-solving mode

Notable quotes:

"If I'm not in a changing environment, I produce that myself."
"A successful life has to be earned and re-earned over and over again. Just because you're successful at something doesn't mean you're going to keep being successful…. I liken that to the CMO role. 'I had a great year. We crushed our goals.' Guess what? No one cares anymore. What am I doing next year? What am I doing this next quarter? And that earned and re-earned concept is just really instilled in me."
"I have learned that you earn your seat at the table, yes, but then you have to make sure you have a voice, and you've got to keep earning that seat at the table. If I'm not coming with really good insight or an opinion or what we need next, I'm going to lose that seat."
"So if I went back to my pre-CMO self, it would be to get out of my head, find my voice. One of the things I remember so clearly was it was a room full of very big personalities, and I'm also a big personality, but I'm a little bit more thoughtful. I like to listen before I speak. There was no time for me to speak. There wasn't a pause, and what I learned is that I had to interrupt people. That's not natural for me, but in order to get my thoughts out, that was just an uncomfortable place I had to put myself in, and I got a lot more comfortable with it as I held that board or held that seat."

00:00 Introduction to The Get

00:32 Meet Monica Ho, CMO of SOCI

01:13 Monica's Journey and Leadership Insights

14:49 The Impact of AI on Marketing

23:41 Hiring and Career Advice

30:05 Concluding Thoughts and Industry Changes

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 how SaaS marketing organizations are changing — in both seismic and subtle ways.

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.

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

Delivering on the Supply Chain of Revenue As a SaaS CMO Today

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0500

How do you not only keep up with seismic changes as a SaaS marketing leader but also proactively confront them?

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel of The Connective Good talks with Wanda Cadigan, SVP of Marketing for Cloudinary.

Wanda shares how she delivers on the 'supply chain of revenue' in an environment where AI has joined the buying committee. From growing organic traffic when buyers arrive far more informed, to orchestrating smartly across PLG and enterprise motions, to building trust not just with humans but with AI-driven gatekeepers, Wanda offers valuable insights for leading SaaS marketing teams.

You will learn about:

Treating the entire go-to-market as a revenue supply chain, not siloed teams
Why experimentation can go off the rails if it’s “a mile wide and an inch deep,” and how to drive disciplined experimentation with rapid prototyping by micro experts
Treating AI chat agents as a persona to market to, since AI is now part of the buying committee
How PR teams will experience an opportunity to really prove their worth and connect to more commercial intent by leaning into citations, structured data, and micro-influencers, and optimizing for discoverability in both human- and machine-driven ecosystems.
Designing an org with both Swiss army knives and scalpels: a mix of broad generalists and more narrow specialists to tackle specific experiments and channels
Orchestrating across PLG and enterprise motions without siloed thinking
Smarter interviewing: Defining not just questions, but also what good, average, and great answers look like to align interviewers across the org
Protecting your time: Staying fiercely focused and resisting the “people pleaser” trap

Notable quotes:

"Nobody just wakes up one morning and says, I'm going to submit a Contact Us form. Of course not. It's been pre-planted in your head. You've learned about a company or been educated about a problem that you may have been grappling with, and you could be exposed to press relations, analyst reports, events. You might have seen a vendor at an event. All of these great marketing programs do influence the final point of conversion of, Hey, I'm going to reach out and talk to these people. I think they can help me with my problem… so it's a supply chain."
"Your time is your most valuable asset. Be ferociously protective of it and resist the common marketing challenge of being a people pleaser."

00:00 Introduction to The Get Podcast

00:29 Meet Wanda Cadigan: SVP of Marketing at Cloudinary

01:26 Wanda's Journey and Marketing Strategies

03:47 The Dual Funnel Approach at Cloudinary

08:31 Navigating the Tsunami of Change in SaaS Marketing

13:05 The Role of PR and Brand in the Age of AI

16:10 Experimentation and Micro Experts in Marketing

21:43 Hiring Strategies and AI in Recruitment

28:22 Final Thoughts and Advice for Marketing Leaders

31:59 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 how SaaS marketing organizations are changing — in both seismic and subtle ways.

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.

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

Why Some SaaS CMOs Flourish in PE-Backed Orgs, and Others Flame Out

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0500

How are PE-backed environments unique for SaaS CMOs? And what's the difference between the CMOs who flourish in PE-backed companies and those who flounder? This episode is required listening for any current or prospective CMO in a PE-backed company.

This week on The Get, Erica Seidel dives into the nuances of marketing leadership in PE-backed B2B SaaS orgs with guest Julie Zadow, Growth Marketing Leader at The Riverside Company. They explore Julie's role in private equity as a marketing operating partner, insights into aligning marketing strategies with investment firm goals, and the impact of AI on marketing roles and operations.

You will learn about:

What it's like to be a marketing operating partner in a PE shop: As Julie describes it, she offers "battle scars for hire" and brings a mix of empathy, speed, and practicality
How to speak marketing in a way that aligns with the investor's lens
How to talk about brand in a way that doesn't make your investors run screaming
How the different phases of the hold period matter for marketing – and how conversations with investors should evolve as the end of the hold period approaches
Coaching junior employees in an AI+ environment, and a shortcut for contextualizing things for your most junior employees so they don't just 'do' with AI but 'learn' as well: Julie asks her interns: "Where did you feel you were parroting AI without understanding what it was saying?" and "What do you recommend that AI didn't think of?"
The role that is hardest to disintermediate with AI
The line of questioning CEOs are likely to pose to CMO candidates about their AI fluency
Advice to CEOs who have failed at hiring marketing leaders

00:00 Welcome to The Get: Introduction and Overview

00:58 Introducing Julie Zadow: A Marketing Leader's Journey

02:10 The Role of a Marketing Operating Partner in Private Equity

03:58 Aligning Marketing Strategies with Investor Expectations

14:30 The Impact of AI on SaaS Marketing Organizations

26:18 Advice for CMOs in Private Equity-Backed Companies

34:21 Final Thoughts and Conclusion

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 how SaaS marketing organizations are changing — in both seismic and subtle ways.

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.

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

Inside the Great Reinvention of the SaaS Marketing Org

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0500

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel explores the changing landscape of SaaS marketing organizations with guest Jay Roxe, CMO at Inriver. You'll learn about:

"Firing your tech stack" in order to re-imagine the marketing org and how marketing gets done
Leveraging AI for everything from last-mile content customization to product marketing to building authority in situations where prospects say, 'ChatGPT told me I should talk to you"
The evolving structure of marketing ops
Why content is no longer king, but context is king: "Customers have done 80% of their research by the time they reach you. That number is actually going up. It's so easy for people to understand your organization."
What a full-stack customer marketing org looks like
Building a culture of gratitude on the marketing team
Advice for rising CMOs: You have to love the process, not just want to HAVE DONE the CMO role. Intellectual curiosity about the job is not enough.
Advice to CEOs on how to identify the CMOs who are the best problem solvers
Hiring, and how to find people who are "curious, smart, and unexpected"

Quotes:

"You're AI first or you're unemployed."
"Adoption is the new MQL… As you put more stuff into the product, are people actually adopting and using it?"
" From an org design point of view, you want to think of where you need person-to-person face-off. Your partners don't want to talk to your AI chatbot. They want to talk to a person who can help them, brainstorm with them, and give them context."
"One of the things I like talking about with candidates: what have they changed over the past year? How have they changed how they work based on everything that's going on?"

00:00 Welcome to The Get

00:16 Introducing Jay Roxe

00:40 Jay's Marketing Journey

02:32 Inriver's Global Marketing Org

06:24 Future of SaaS Marketing Orgs

11:15 The Role of AI in Marketing

14:54 Hiring for the Future

19:30 Human-Centric Leadership

21:53 Customer Marketing Insights

24:32 Final Thoughts and Advice

29:21 Closing Remarks

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 how SaaS marketing organizations are changing — in both seismic and subtle ways.

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.

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

What It Really Takes to Build a CEO-CMO Partnership That Works

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0500

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel and guest Ashley Deibert, CMO of Marigold, candidly discuss the realities of leading marketing in today's SaaS landscape.

Ashley shares how she's navigated seismic shifts in marketing org structures, budget realities, and the CMO role itself, all while keeping alignment at the center of her approach. You'll learn from her perspective on:

How to build alignment, not on Day 1 in the job, but during the interview process
Deciding what to stop, start, and continue when taking on a new role
Handling drastic budget reductions by providing scenario-based options
Hiring fast, hiring micro-experts, and spotting 'moldable' talent through situational questions
How to be open to others' feedback without getting mired in it
Advice to CEOs on avoiding CMO mis-hires
Why 'touch more, do more, be exposed to more' should be every rising CMO's mantra
Structuring product marketing and customer marketing together for impact
How AI is augmenting marketing without replacing talent
Why the best GTM teams blur the lines among sales, marketing, product, and customer success into one revenue team

If you're a marketing leader, a CEO hiring a CMO, or otherwise navigating the changing currents of SaaS go-to-market, you'll learn new insights and frameworks from this episode.

Some quotes of note:

"I don't believe in doing more with less. I believe in focus…. When you're a CMO, it's about alignment because you're servicing the organization's growth."
" Don't just be selfish in a hiring cycle. Also, think about, is this person going to get what they need from you? Because if they don't, guess what? They leave."
"The CEO needs to really think about the relationship that the organization and the culture around marketing that they desire…. I've seen and lived through many situations where it's, "we gotta have marketing", but "gotta have" versus "we need to embrace and make this core to our go-to-market" are different. Marketing is part of go-to-market. It's literally in the title."

00:00 Welcome to The Get: Meet Your Host Erica Seidel

00:16 Introducing Ashley Deibert: CMO at Marigold

01:19 Ashley Deibert's Career Journey and Insights

03:51 Mentorship Moments: Lessons Learned

07:43 Marketing Org Structure at Marigold

14:58 Advice for Aspiring CMOs

20:13 Navigating Budget Cuts in Marketing

21:08 Presenting Scenarios and Aligning with Leadership

23:13 The Importance of Networking in Hiring

25:24 Evaluating Candidates for Culture Fit

29:18 Hiring Freelancers vs. Full-Time Employees

31:40 Advice for CEOs on Hiring CMOs

36:38 The Role of AI in Marketing

38:21 The Future of SaaS Marketing Teams

39:27 Conclusion and Podcast Information

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 how SaaS marketing organizations are changing — in both seismic and subtle ways.

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.

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

Combining Strategic Intent With Hyper-Experimentation: The CMO's Guide

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 23:59:00 -0500

This episode kicks off the 7th season of The Get podcast. Host Erica Seidel introduces this season's theme, which is about how SaaS marketing orgs are changing, in both seismic and subtle ways.

We share a deep dive with guest Claudia Lee. Claudia is a CMO with a unique background in both partner marketing and product marketing. She spoke at a rare moment of reflection while transitioning from a CMO role at CertifID to a new CMO role at Celigo.

You'll hear perspectives and practical advice about:

How to use the theme of "enabling conversations" to frame marketing's contribution both internally and externally
How to combine strategic intent with hyper-experimentation for smart execution
Building a team from scratch, especially in a partner-led GTM model
The critical soft skills that are making the difference today for SaaS marketing teams
What a contextually aligned marketing team is, and how it provides the best results
Navigating the tension between short-term results and long-term impact
Approaching AI as a tool, not a threat
Questions to anticipate from the CEO when exploring a new CMO role

00:00 Welcome to The Get: Season 7 Kickoff

00:16 Understanding Our Audience

01:17 Introducing Claudia Lee

02:14 Claudia's Marketing Journey

04:52 The Role of Marketing in Business Growth

08:07 Enabling Conversations: A Marketing Philosophy

12:30 The Evolution of SaaS Marketing

15:28 Partner Marketing Insights

22:22 The Impact of AI on Marketing

25:04 Hiring and Developing Marketing Leaders

31:05 Final Thoughts and Farewell

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.

The Get’s host is Erica Seidel, who runs The Connective Good, the executive search practice with a hyper-focus on recruiting CMOs and VPs of Marketing, especially in B2B SaaS.

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

The Race to Reduce Risk in CMO Recruiting: Highlights from Season 6 of The Get

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 00:00:00 -0500

In this episode of The Get, we highlight key insights from this season of The Get, which is all about the race to reduce risk in CMO recruiting. Host Erica Seidel and her guests delve into the intricacies of how CEOs and CMOs at B2B SaaS companies can make more-informed decisions before saying yes to each other.

Whether you’re hiring a CMO or looking to step into a new CMO role, you will learn a lot from these takeaways, which range from the practical to the provocative.

We discuss the challenges, fears, and risks that CEOs and investors faces when recruiting a CMO. For instance, they often worry about hiring CMOs who either misalign with the company’s growth stage or struggle to get to the right blend of short-term wins and longer-term impact. We discuss how to mitigate those risks, such as by co-creating the roles and managing expectations about timelines for marketing results.

Then we turn to the candidate side: What risks and red flags do CMO candidates perceive when evaluating CMO roles, and how can candidates reduce these risks? We discuss red flags such as unclear product-market fit, inadequate resources, and misaligned leadership dynamics. We cover several practical strategies for ensuring a good match and getting off to a successful start in a new CMO role.

A huge thank you to the guests this season:

Andrea Kayal, CRO at Help Scout
Tracy Eiler, CMO of OpenSesame
James Lamberti, Head of Go-to-Market for Georgian
Melissa Sargeant, CMO at Lumaverse
Norman Guadagno, former CMO at Mimecast
Peter Mahoney, Chief Commercial Officer at GoTo
Gary Survis, Operating Partner with Insight Partners

00:00 Introduction to The Get

00:52 Understanding the High Stakes of the CMO Role

03:37 De-risking CMO Recruiting

07:53 Red Flags for CMO Candidates

10:16 Mitigating Risks as a CMO Candidate

18:53 Maximizing Success in a New CMO Role

23:26 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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

Building Your Flywheel of Credibility: A Playbook for New CMOs in PE-Backed Companies

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

On today’s episode, Erica talks with Gary Survis, an Operating Partner with Insight Partners. Erica and Gary discuss how the strongest CMOs limit risk when transitioning into new marketing leadership roles:

They stand out by demonstrating credibility, collaboration, and curiosity. They're aware that what you don't say in an interview is just as important as what you do say.
When interviewing, they communicate their experience with this structure: strategy + example + numbers.
Once in the new CMO role, they realize that no matter what their background is, they have to deliver on their demand gen goals or risk losing their job.
They have a perspective on AI and know how they will organize their teams and define roles differently for AI-supported marketing.
They create a "flywheel of credibility."
They take the time they need to form an assessment – "it'll be the only time in your tenure when you are afforded the luxury of time."
They follow the "Diagnose, Don't Delude" approach – identifying and surfacing problems rather than sweeping problems under the rug.
They swiftly make the org changes they need to make: "If you are not successful because the people below you are not strong, you have no one to blame but yourself for not making the changes you know you need to make."

00:00 Welcome to The Get: Season Overview

00:47 Introducing Gary Survis: Insights from an Operating Partner

01:37 De-risking the CMO Hiring Process

02:10 Common Pitfalls in Recruiting Marketing Leaders

05:01 Balancing Strategy and Execution in Marketing

11:00 Key Traits of Successful Marketing Leaders

13:19 The Importance of Curiosity in Leadership

17:15 AI in Marketing: What to Look for in a CMO

19:36 Early Steps for a New CMO

21:41 The Role of AI in Organizational Structure

22:34 Setting and Achieving Goals

24:25 Challenges in Coaching CMOs

26:53 Reflections on Past Marketing Roles

28:56 Marketing Under the CRO: A Controversial Trend

31:13 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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.

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

What CEOs Fear Most When Hiring CMOs

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0500

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel discusses the intricacies and challenges of hiring CMOs in B2B SaaS companies. She highlights why the CMO role is particularly tough to fill, the high stakes involved, and the common concerns among CEOs and investors.

Erica is joined by Peter Mahoney, Chief Commercial Officer at GoTo and author of The Next CMO. Peter has been a GM, CMO, CEO, and now at GoTo has recently transitioned from CMO to Chief Commercial Officer. He offers practical advice on organizational structure, fostering CEO-CMO trust, and managing expectations.

You’ll learn about:

The complexities and fears that CEOs face when hiring CMOs
Distinctions between roles such as Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Revenue Officer
How "everyone at the C-level thinks they understand marketing but at the same time fears that they don't understand it"
The skills required to succeed in a small versus a big company as a CMO
The wisdom of spending some of your career outside of marketing…. even if it is a sideways move
Strategies for candidates to effectively communicate their impact during the hiring process
Advice for rising CMOs

00:00 Introduction: The Hardest C-Level Role to Hire

00:41 Welcome to The Get: Reducing Risk in CMO Recruitment

01:14 Meet Peter Mahoney: A Journey from CMO to CCO

01:59 Understanding the Chief Commercial Officer Role

06:20 The Fears and Risks in Hiring a CMO

10:01 The Perfect Fit: Balancing Experience and Potential

13:19 Stage Experience: Scaling Up and Complexity

16:33 Embracing Flexibility and Depth in Marketing Roles

17:10 Navigating Revenue and Complexity in Marketing

17:57 Understanding Marketing Maturity and Budget Constraints

19:15 The Evolving Technical Landscape of Marketing

20:03 Effective Leadership and Strategy Alignment

23:17 Addressing CMO Candidate Concerns

24:41 Key Interview Insights for CMO Candidates

27:34 Advice for Aspiring CMOs

30:01 Career Growth and Risk Management

32:24 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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.

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

Is the Candidate with the Perfect Scale-up Experience Actually a Risk?

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0500

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel explores the theme of managing risk in CMO recruitment, specifically cautioning against over-relying on a candidate's experience with a particular scale journey. Erica discusses the potential misconceptions and pitfalls when hiring marketing leaders based on their previous successes in scaling companies.

While such experience can be beneficial, she warns that it doesn't necessarily guarantee the same outcome in different contexts. Listeners are encouraged to delve deeper into how these candidates contributed to their past successes. The episode underscores the importance of aligning expectations and understanding the nuances of each candidate's experience for a better hiring decision.

00:00 Welcome to The Get

00:16 Listener Feedback and Mid-Season Break

00:34 The Risk of Trusting Scale Journeys

01:25 Benefits of Scale Experience

02:26 Potential Pitfalls of Scale Experience

03:40 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

04:02 About The Get and Erica Seidel

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.

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

What Veteran CMOs Know That First-Timers Don't

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0500

A good leader evolves over time. A CMO’s perspective will shift as they go from first-time CMO to repeat CMO, or to CRO or CEO. As they build experience, they are able to sidestep common pitfalls and react more efficiently to new challenges. At the same time, their perception of risk in a role evolves as they get more exposure. There's an 'arc of caution' that CMOs often go through, from being open-minded early on in their careers, to being able to recognize risky situations once they have more marketing leadership experience, to being more risk-averse and attuned to the 'warts' of a role once they have significantly more experience than other marketing leaders.

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel discusses the complexities of hiring CMOs in B2B SaaS companies. The conversation explores the importance of the right type of marketing leader for different phases of a company's evolution, the vital role of clear communication between CEOs and CMOs, and how CMOs can balance producing value in year 1 with delivering longer-term value beyond year one.

She is joined by Norman Guadagno, a seasoned CMO who has led marketing at Mimecast, Acoustic, and Carbonite, and who shares his experience as a CMO and CEO. Norman illustrates how experience as a marketing leader shapes a CMO's risk awareness and decision-making process.

You'll learn about:

The 'arc of caution' in career progression
Interaction between CMOs and CEOs - the role of a CMO can significantly vary depending on the company's stage of growth and the right marketing leader at one stage may not be the right one at a different stage
How to embrace the duality of delivering on short-term demand capture with longer-term brand building, and how to set expectations for longer-term impacts with the CEO and other C-suite leaders
How 50% of the CMO role has nothing to do with marketing
Managing timeframes - first-time CMOs may be overly optimistic about how long it takes to implement change, while seasoned CMOs understand realistic timeframes for results
Evolving dynamics in the C-Suite - "not every company needs a CMO"
How sometimes less is more with interview questions - start simple and give the candidate room to expand on what’s important to them

This episode provides valuable insights for both CMOs and CEOs seeking to make informed hiring decisions.

00:00 Introduction to The Get

00:16 The Journey from CMO to CEO

01:14 Introducing Norman Guadagno

02:13 Advice for Aspiring CMOs

04:43 Navigating Company Culture and Change

05:21 The Dynamics of Executive Change

13:51 Balancing Short-Term and Long-Term Goals

22:07 The Role of the CMO in Business Strategy

25:33 Embracing Unique Skills and Roles

26:19 Ego and Humility in Career Progression

27:25 The CEO's Perspective on Hiring a CMO

31:00 Demonstrating Commitment to Marketing

35:25 Navigating Career Trauma and Transparency

40:49 Insights on Interviewing and Hiring

45:51 Final Thoughts and Reflections

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.

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

Avoiding Red Flags & Decision-Making Flaws in CMO Recruiting

Thu, 29 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0500

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel explores the crucial role of decision-making in CMO recruiting. Erica shares common traps in decision-making, such as over-trusting someone else's due diligence, over-estimating an appetite for transformation, falling in love with someone's former company without looking at their specific contribution to it, and falling prey to confirmation bias, to name a few. She shares tips for making strong, informed hiring and career decisions.

The episode includes a deep dive with guest Melissa Sargeant, a seasoned CMO, on her experiences and strategies for doing due diligence and reducing risk when hiring and getting hired. This episode is loaded with practical advice for both hiring managers and candidates looking to make better career decisions.

00:00 The Three Pillars of a Successful Career

00:20 Welcome to The Get!

00:44 Understanding Decision-Making in Recruiting

01:48 Common Flaws in Decision-Making

04:44 Introducing Melissa Sargeant: Insights from a Seasoned CMO

05:20 Melissa Sargeant on Reducing Risk in the Recruiting Process

07:11 Maybe the company used to have product market fit, but now it doesn't

9:16 Doing mutual due diligence

12:14 The 2 key questions to ask in an interview to suss out organizational dynamics

19:15 'Your gut is your truth' and other ways to suss out red flags

25:06 Building Trust and Transparency as a New CMO… and avoiding making decisions for 30 days

25:30 'CMO roles are really revenue rescue missions'

33:29 Final Thoughts and Key Takeaways

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.

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

Top Threats To CMO Success…And How CEOs and CMOs Can Tackle Them Together

Thu, 15 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0500

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.

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

CMO Secrets to Maximize Recruiter & Network Relationships

Thu, 01 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0500

In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel delves into what it takes to excel at networking and effectively work with recruiters, exploring programmatic ways to engage with professional networks. Erica discusses the best questions candidates ask recruiters and the importance of developing a personal Board of Advisors. She also explains the role of executive search professionals, differentiating them from career coaches and therapists.

Special guest Tracy Eiler, CMO of OpenSesame, discusses her recent experience evaluating marketing leadership opportunities, how today's recruiting climate is unique, the fast-paced pressure-testing playbook she uses to assess roles, and red flags to watch out for. Tracy shares how CEOs can demonstrate their support for marketing, tips for collaborating with recruiters, and how CMO candidates can make a strong impression. The discussion extends to the complexities of career trauma, confidence, and the right level of transparency when delivering your 'career story.' Tracy also emphasizes continuous relationship building within one's network and the importance of having a well-prepared personal narrative.

00:00 Introduction to Networking and Recruiters

00:35 Welcome to The Get with Erica Seidel

01:06 Tips for Working with Executive Recruiters

04:09 Introducing Tracy Eiler

05:02 Tracy Eiler's Journey and Insights

08:57 Pressure Testing a Role

12:47 Evaluating CEOs and Red Flags

17:53 Tracy's First CMO Job and Lessons Learned

20:54 Collaborating with Recruiters

22:24 Navigating Recruiter Relationships

22:50 The Role of Feedback in Shaping Searches

26:24 The Importance of Networking

30:10 Building and Maintaining Meaningful Connections

33:25 Career Trauma and Vulnerability

38:01 Final Thoughts and Key Takeaways

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.

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

Everything a Good SaaS CMO Should Find Out Before Saying Yes to a Job… and How and When To Find it Out

Thu, 18 Jul 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Welcome back to The Get! It's Season 6 and the theme this season is 'The Race to Reduce Risk in CMO Recruiting.' We look at risk from the perspective of hiring and the perspective of getting hired.

In this first episode, host Erica Seidel shares:

How CMO candidates can find out what they need to find out BEFORE saying yes so they can move forward wholeheartedly
How to make efficient use of interviews despite time and access being limited
The top questions CMO candidates ask, from culture and cap tables to
What the best CMO candidates do during the recruiting process (not just during interviews, but more broadly) to show up as peers, demonstrate their 'altitude,' surface important insights, and mitigate risk

The episode includes a deep dive with guest Andrea Kayal, CRO at Help Scout and former CMO.

Andrea and Erica discuss:

When it makes sense for a marketing leader to report to a CRO rather than the CEO… and why CMOs can make great CROs
The key questions Andrea asks when evaluating a role
Key metrics that Andrea recommends looking at to evaluate the health of the business
How to balance efficiency and thoroughness when vetting a role
The all-important piece of vetting cultural fit

You can read Andrea’s article on interviewing companies here.

00:00 Introduction: The CMO Dilemma

00:42 The Importance of Mitigating Risk

01:23 What Top CMOs Look for Before Saying Yes

02:54 Key Questions CMO Candidates Should Ask

04:02 Beyond Questions: Actions of Top CMO Candidates

06:14 Introducing Andrea Kayal: Insights from a CMO and CRO

08:10 Evaluating the Role of CROs and CMOs

13:27 Top Criteria for CMOs Before Accepting a Role

23:58 Final Thoughts and Conclusion

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.

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

The CMO and Board Relationship in B2B SaaS: From Fraught to Functional to Fantastic (Highlights from Season 5 of The Get)

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Erica Seidel, the host of The Get, provides an overview of the key themes from this season. Erica runs The Connective Good, the executive search practice that specializes in placing CMOs and VPs of Marketing for B2B SaaS companies. She is known for recruiting the ‘make money’ type of marketing leaders, not the ‘make it pretty’ ones.

This episode serves as an executive summary of the learnings from our fifth season, which has focused on the CMO and Board relationship.

We cover:

What do Board members want in a SaaS CMO? And how can you ace your interview with a Board member?
Board meetings: How can you land on your feet once you are inside the Boardroom?
How do you build a strong dialogue with the Board OUTSIDE of Board meetings?
Serving on Boards: How can you become the CMO who gets tapped for Board seats?

I designed this season to be a guide for how to upgrade from one-way reporting to the Board to a two-way dialogue. With that ongoing dialogue and collaboration, both in and out of the Boardroom, both sides will learn more, and the business is more likely to be successful.

A huge thank you to the guests this season, who ranged from B2B SaaS marketing leaders, CMOs who have become Board members, and Board members/investors who are involved in hiring CMOs:

Elana Anderson
Kelly Ford Buckley
Allison Dancy
Evan DeCorte
Jennifer Pockell Dimas
Chris Fountain
Sandra Lopez
Madeline O’Phelan

Please tune in to each of their episodes. And, check out the episodes from the previous four seasons. Last season, for instance, we covered ‘Solving for the Scale Journey in B2B SaaS.’

To stay in the know for our next season, please keep following the show in your preferred podcast listening app.

Key Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericaseidel/

https://theconnectivegood.com/

https://thegetpodcast.com/

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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 CMO and Board Relationship in B2B SaaS: How can that relationship go from fraught to functional and even to fantastic?

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.

The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

How To Be The CMO Who Gets Tapped For Board Seats

Thu, 15 Jun 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Sandra Lopez is a marketing dynamo who has been in marketing leadership and general management roles in many of the world's biggest and most influential tech companies, like Adobe, Intel, and Microsoft. She recently served as co-chair for the World Economic Forum for Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Junior Achievement USA and PureRED, she's an advisor for Cabra Sports, and she is the co-chair for Sports Integrity Global Alliance.

We discuss:

How to translate marketing-speak into language that CFOs and Board members can understand
How to work with Board members who think they know more about marketing than they actually do
How to manage expectations with Boards about how long things take in marketing and educate along the way, understanding that "it's hard to educate someone in 30 minutes"
How to prepare for Board service – and knowing when to say no to a Board opportunity
How interviewing for a Board seat is different from interviewing for a CMO spot

Key Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lopezsandra/

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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 CMO and Board Relationship in B2B SaaS.

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.

The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Building a Win-Win Relationship With Your Board

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 00:00:00 -0500

A good CMO/Board relationship entails both giving and getting. Elana Anderson talks about putting Board members at the center of marketing initiatives by making bold asks of the Board to add value to customers and prospects. She also talks about the anatomy of a successful CMO/Board interview.

Elana Anderson has been the CMO for Veracode, Vidyo, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud. She reflects on her experiences interacting with Boards at public versus private companies.

Learn about:

How to move from broadcasting to your board to incorporating them into your marketing initiatives
How Board members can add value to you through special executive events and advisory sessions
How you can discuss brand initiatives with the Board in an interactive and impactful way… even if the topic is short on numbers
How to interview successfully with the Board for a CMO role
When and how to prepare for serving on a Board yourself… and how to find your 'hook'

Key Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/eranderson/

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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 CMO and Board Relationship in B2B SaaS.

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.

The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

How To Wow Your Board Members… Even The Ones That Don't Get Marketing

Thu, 11 May 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Hear two SaaS marketing leaders from PE-backed companies discuss their hard-won learnings on working with Boards.

You'll learn about:

The relative importance of the 3 C's – Context, Content, and Confidence – when interacting with the Board
How Boards tend to respond to certain marketing terms with open arms (ICP, personas, ABM) and other marketing terms with shaking heads (hint: brand!)
The importance of Board posture and how marketing and sales can support each other during Board interactions
How a marketing maturity matrix can be useful to show the Board

Allison Dancy is a veteran CMO who most recently was CMO for Kibo in the e-commerce space. Madeline O'Phelan is VP of Marketing at Verity, the SaaS fintech company.

Key Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisondancy/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/madeline-o-phelan-97290111/

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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 CMO and Board Relationship in B2B SaaS.

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.

The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

How The Best CMOs Connect With Investors: The Power of Partnership

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Listen to the honest dialogue between a CMO and her Board member, who have managed to forge a fruitful partnership together. Jen Pockell Dimas is Chief Marketing and Experience Officer for Telarus, the global technology solutions brokerage. Evan DeCorte from Columbia Capital is a Telarus Board member.

You'll hear about:

How investors can have reptilian brains – focusing uniquely on Big V value: getting more value for the business than they paid for it
How to translate marketing-speak into investor-speak
How to set yourself up for a successful standing with the Board from the interview process onward: "Invest in the relationship before you even accept the job so you are on the same page for expectations."
How to react when a Board member suggests a marketing direction that feels like a firedrill
Why asking how Board meeting prep could be shorter is 'the wrong question to ask'
A simple framing that will help as you prep your board meetings

Key Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenpd/

www.telarus.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-decorte-8086029

www.colcap.com

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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 CMO and Board Relationship in B2B SaaS.

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.

The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

How To Avoid Guesswork And Embarrassment When Interacting with Your Board

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Chris Fountain is an Operating Partner with Frontier Growth, the PE firm that invests in B2B SaaS companies in scale-up mode. He has been a GTM leader, a CEO, and a Board member. In his role, he collaborates with multiple CEOs and CMOs both inside and outside of the Boardroom.

You'll hear about:

What it takes to be a successful operating partner for a PE shop (Spoiler alert: Be able to be non-threatening to a CEO)
How to be successful in your first Board meeting as a CMO and how to avoid guesswork when aligning with the Board
How the best marketing leaders provide a 'heads up display' for the business
How psychological factors can get in the way when CMOs interact with their Boards
How you can evolve from seeing your Board members as gatekeepers to seeing them as resources
How you can stand out when you interview with a Board member for a CMO job
Why it's important to focus on key results… not the time that went into those key results

Key Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/fountainchristopher/

https://frontiergrowth.com/

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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 CMO and Board Relationship in B2B SaaS.

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.

The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

The Savvy CMO's Guide to Upgrading the Dialogue with the Board

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Kelly Ford Buckley has a career many CMOs dream of: She is a marketing leader who became an investment partner, developing a platform to accelerate and scale growth across Edison Partners' portfolio of companies. She then broadened her role into general partner and COO for the firm. Since she's been in the marketing leadership seat and she's been on several Boards, she is uniquely qualified to talk about the bridge between CMOs and their Boards.

You'll hear about:

How to remove the intimidation factor when working with boards
How to build an ongoing dialogue with your Board
Whether the Board is looking to the CMO for content or confidence
Why you should NOT be re-creating the wheel with every Board presentation
How Board interactions are different in a downturn
How to upgrade from a reporting conversation to a strategic conversation
What it's like to be an operating partner focused on marketing and how to prepare for such a role

Key Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyaford/

https://www.edisonpartners.com/

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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 CMO and Board Relationship in B2B SaaS.

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.

The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

The Get Season Five

Sun, 19 Mar 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Hello, and welcome back to The Get. 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. I'm your host, Erica Seidel.

This is our fifth season! And in this season, we dive into the relationship between CMOs and Boards. How can that relationship go from fraught to functional and maybe even fantastic?

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Produced by Simpler Media

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

How The Best CMOs Solve for the Scale Journey in B2B SaaS: Top 10 Lessons

Thu, 12 May 2022 00:00:00 -0500

This season on The Get podcast, we have stayed close to the theme 'Solving for the Scale Journey.' We have talked with marketing leaders who have scaled… and, in one case someone on the investor side who hires marketing leaders for scale-ups. We've looked at different dimensions around scaling: Hiring. Budgeting. Aligning with the Board. Getting the balance of brand and demand right. Balancing aspirational goals with achievable goals.

Obviously, every scale journey is different. Just because someone did a scale-up in one place doesn't mean they will be successful somewhere else. But there are some themes that emerged. This episode is a recap of 10 of those themes.

If you are a CEO or investor looking to know what good looks like when hiring the CMO for a scale-up, you've come to the right place. And if you're a CMO or VP of Marketing who is solving for a scale journey, you too have come to the right place.

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Hiring great marketing leaders is not easy. The Get is a podcast designed to inspire 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 Solving for the Scale Journey.

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 Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Upgrading From Incremental Growth to Transformational Growth

Thu, 17 Mar 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Sydney Sloan is a scale savant! I talked with Sydney as she wrapped up her CMO role at Salesloft, contributing to a huge scale-up. She has since joined Zoom as Head of Product & Industry Marketing.

Sydney had so much insight to share. It was hard to pick out just a few highlights. I asked her how a CMO can balance "getting oars in the water quickly" while managing expectations that "Rome wasn't built in a day." You'll hear about achievable goals versus aspirational goals and when to use each. You'll also learn about how to build organizational excitement around your vision.

Highlights:

"Be a true market leader, not just a marketing leader."
Look at your budget as "buying outcomes."
Balance achievable goals and aspirational goals when you are scaling. The purpose of an aspirational goal is to remove barriers from what you're doing now and think differently about how you might achieve results. "Transformational growth is different from incremental growth."
Design your org charts 18 months out: The org chart for the 100MM business is different from the org chart for the 250MM business.
Resist the default of having only your direct reports be on your marketing leadership team. Rather, look for emerging talent or people taking on special projects to join the team and get exposure.
Surface red flags when hiring and talk to the candidates about them; you can then have a development plan for them in place on day 1.
"Everyone says marketing and sales should be aligned, but no CMO wants to report to sales."

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Key Links

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Hiring great marketing leaders is not easy. The Get is a podcast designed to inspire 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 Solving for the Scale Journey.

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.

The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

How To Think Bigger Than A 'Dollar In, Dollar Out' Marketing Mentality

Thu, 10 Mar 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Khalid El Khatib is the Head of Marketing and Communications for Stack Overflow, which reaches 100MM people per month -- more traffic than the New York Times website! Khalid shares how his career path prepared him for this role, and how he has structured his organization to serve not just Stack Overflow's developer community, but also its paid SaaS products.

You'll hear about:

Avoiding the mistake of underinvesting in brand awareness, especially in PE-backed companies
The wisdom of mastering how to articulate the value of a brand investment to CEOs and CFOs
How to respond when CEOs say they need a CMO but you suspect they really need a demand gen director
Looking around the corners when hiring, and staffing up ahead of a growth curve
Experimenting with freelancers before hiring in-house
Reserving regular time on the calendar for marketing to meet with other business functions – creating a forcing function for "finding synergies wherever they exist"
The wisdom of hiring someone who fulfills the job 90% and is motivated to stay long enough to fulfill all of the job

Favorite quote: "If you don't make a brand investment, you can wonder why competitors are beating you and why demand generation isn't working….A rising tide lifts all boats and an investment in brand awareness is that rising tide."

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Key Links

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Hiring great marketing leaders is not easy. The Get is a podcast designed to inspire 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 Solving for the Scale Journey.

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 Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

How to Inject Discomfort Into Your Scale Journey

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Cynthia Gumbert is the CMO of SmartBear, the ~750-person PE-backed SaaS company that is on a growth tear, serving more and more software developers every day.

Cynthia reflects on her transition from VP of Marketing to CMO. We discuss the difference between a marketing-centric mindset and a 'business first, marketing second' mindset. It's this 'business first' mindset that is key for a CMO in scaling mode. That mindset entails putting yourself into the CEO's shoes and thinking about how to help the whole company grow, not just how to grow marketing's results. In other words, change your frame from 'what marketing is doing' to 'what the company is doing.'

A big part of scaling is creating discomfort with the status quo. You'll hear these learnings:

Expect to hit plateaus as you scale. When you do, ask, “How do we double doing well here?”
Hire for 'cultural add' as opposed to 'cultural fit' as you scale… even when that involves overcoming some discomfort.
Look for ways to organize to reflect the full arc of the customer experience. In Cynthia's case, she expanded the marketing org to include communities and the training academy, as part of one web and digital experience team. This led to a 400% increase in academy enrollments.

Cynthia also touched on an interesting trend for 2022: the need for micro market research. With product-led growth, customers will follow the journey of website --> trial → product. Marketers must be hyper-aware of micro customer segments and the messages that will help customers accomplish their specific goals.

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Key Links

-----

Hiring great marketing leaders is not easy. The Get is a podcast designed to inspire 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 Solving for the Scale Journey.

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 Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

How To Transform Marketing WITH Your Company, Not TO Your Company

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 00:00:00 -0500

It’s every CMO’s complaint: “Everyone thinks they’re a marketer.” With so many people outside of marketing weighing in, this can make the CMO job challenging. Our guest today shows how you can harness the emotional investment that others in the company have.

Our guest is Justin Steinman, CMO of Definitive Healthcare, the healthcare commercial intelligence company. Justin joined the company to help fuel a scale-up to the $500MM mark and went through an IPO already. He shares:

What it’s like to do a rebrand, a marketing transformation, and an IPO all at once
How to do a marketing transformation that actually leads to the rest of the org respecting marketing
How to acknowledge and embrace the emotional investment in the brand that people outside of marketing have
Why a CMO should never use the phrase ‘my marketing budget’
How to tell whether a company that has not traditionally invested in marketing is ready for it
How to bring in practices from big companies to companies that are scaling up… without overpowering the business
How one particular interview question will reveal a lot about someone’s view of marketing and their ability to structure their thoughts

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Key Links

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Hiring great marketing leaders is not easy. The Get is a podcast designed to inspire 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 Solving for the Scale Journey.

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 Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

A SaaS CMO’s Formula for Successful Scaling

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 00:00:00 -0500

It's not in our nature to move slowly as marketers. We like to act, move, go, and grow, especially when there’s a scale mandate. But there’s wisdom and value in assessing first, like just pro athletes surveying the field of play to let the game come to them. We discuss the formula for successful scaling:

Aligning on what scale means to your CEO and Board
Avoiding overselling what marketing can do/determining what you are capable of achieving
Assessing the resources you have at your disposal, both within and outside marketing

We also discuss:

How the 10MM-15MM scale-up is different from the 50MM-100MM scaleup
Key questions to ask the Board before saying yes to the marketing leadership job
How to lead your board on a journey of where marketing is taking them
How to not get offended by Board members who don’t understand marketing
“Moneyball” hiring
Embracing the fact that your team members may only expect to be with you for a defined amount of time

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Key Links

-----

Hiring great marketing leaders is not easy. The Get is a podcast designed to inspire 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 Solving for the Scale Journey.

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.

The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Budget like a Boss: A Smart CMO’s Guide to Budgeting for a Scale Journey

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Kristin Hambelton, CMO scaleup queen now running marketing for MineralTree, takes us on a deep dive of budgeting for marketing during a scale journey. You’ll learn:

How do you communicate to a CEO and CFO that you are investing efficiently… without overspending
When do you give budget back versus ask for more
How to remind your peers of what marketing will and won’t do: “You won't get to scale saying yes to everything!”
How your budget should change through expansions and acquisitions

From a hiring standpoint, we discuss:

The wisdom of Swiss Army knife hiring - when 1 marketer manages multiple functions
How to do ‘lookalike’ training with your recruiter
The one person on a marketing team who should NOT be remote
The best question a CMO candidate could ask the recruiter: How do I rank on the scorecard for the job?
How to experiment with hiring, not just with programs, and the wisdom of having some experimental people on the team whose backgrounds may initially make you squint

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Key Links

-----

Hiring great marketing leaders is not easy. The Get is a podcast designed to inspire 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 Solving for the Scale Journey.

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 Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

How The Best CMOs Seize Control of Strategic Planning

Thu, 27 Jan 2022 00:00:00 -0500

The CMO’s most important job when scaling? To create focus, protect focus, and seize control of the strategic planning process - not just for marketing but for the company as a whole. Here’s how to do that.

Join Erica and her guest Jay Gaines, who runs marketing at insurance tech scale-up AgentSync, as they discuss:

How to avoid ‘random acts of marketing,’ reinforce the role of marketing as the business scales, and drive a shared common understanding of what marketing is there to do for the business.
How marketing can -- and should -- seize control of the strategic planning process for the company as a whole
How to respond to a CEO who over-rotates on a demand-first view of marketing
The one question the best CMO candidates ask the CEO before they say yes to a scale job: “How exactly do you plan to expand?”
How to avoid a surprisingly tantalizing organization misstep when scaling
How employees’ values are changing away from ‘growth at all costs’ - which means companies need to be pitching themselves differently
How a tangible commitment to work/life balance and DEI, embodied from the top-down, can accelerate hiring in the long run

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Key Links

-----

Hiring great marketing leaders is not easy. The Get is a podcast designed to inspire 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 Solving for the Scale Journey.

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.

The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Behind the Scenes: When CEOs and PE Talent Partners Recruit CMOs

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 00:00:00 -0500

What’s it like behind the scenes when CEOs hire CMOs in PE-backed companies? Hear from a ‘talent whisperer’ from a PE firm.

If you’re a CMO looking to work in a private-equity-backed business, or a hiring leader in a PE-backed company, you will come across the PE talent partner. Learn about the role of the PE talent partner in recruiting CMOs.

You’ll hear about the soft skills framework Bryan uses to vet CMO candidates. In particular, listen for his definition of agility: not just being adaptable, but being PROACTIVELY adaptable.

We unpack the difference between a candidate who can go into a new situation and figure it out versus a candidate who has a plan of attack.

We discuss whether prior experience with scaling is or is not the best predictor of future scaling success.

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Key Links

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Hiring great marketing leaders is not easy. The Get is a podcast designed to inspire 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 Solving for the Scale Journey.

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.

The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Season 4 of The Get!

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 13:56:00 -0500

Hiring great marketing leaders is not easy. Especially these days! The Get is designed to inspire smart decisions around recruiting and leadership in B2B SaaS marketing.

I'm Erica Seidel, host of The Get. I run an executive search practice focused entirely on placing what I call the ‘make money’ marketing leaders -- not the ‘make it pretty’ ones.

I spend most of my time talking with today’s most talented marketing leaders, and with The Get, I bottle up some of those conversations for you.

This is the 4th season of The Get. The theme for this season is ‘Solving for the Scale Journey.’

The Get is still all about helping you explore the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of today’s top marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.

If you've listened to the first three seasons, welcome back. And if this is your first time tuning in to The Get, welcome! Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode.

Again, I'm Erica Seidel, and I'm glad you’re here.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Experience or Experiences? Debating Age-Related Diversity in B2B SaaS Marketing

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 09:10:00 -0500

This episode wraps up our ‘diversity-in-B2B SaaS marketing’ themed third season of The Get, with not one but two special guests on either end of the age/experience spectrum, discussing their take on age-related diversity in the business world in general and in B2B tech in particular. Our goal with this episode is to raise awareness of age biases and address them in our B2B marketing world. This episode is controversial but compelling. Don’t miss it!

Dwight Griesman is the CEO for Eye4Growth, as well as the former CMO of Forrester and of other companies, with decades of experience and experiences behind him. Sarah Assous is a first-time CMO at Zoovu, the conversational AI experiences company, and previously held marketing roles at B2B companies Selligent and SmartFocus.

They talk with Erica about what age means to them in the hiring and team-building context- and indeed, whether it matters at all. They share which workplace traits of people on either end of the age spectrum they find valuable, and which ones are less-than useful, as well as the crux of the debate: what is more valuable to the business- experience or experiences?

Highlights include

A 25-year old doesn't know what it's like to be 50+, but a 50+-year-old has been 25. How relevant is that knowledge in our dynamic business environment where reference points change and evolve so rapidly?
What does it mean to have more experience? Is it only the number of years or the quality and diversity of experience - the ‘experiences’ you have been exposed to?
Is age a factor in hiring and getting a job in B2B marketing today? Do we have an unconscious bias about applicants based on their age? Do young people want a high degree of convenience with a very high pay? Do older people want stability and compensation but not too much challenge?
What role does the hiring leader’s gut feel play in picking the right candidate, when they are at extreme ends of the age spectrum?
How a growth mindset trumps everything else, regardless of age. The ability to adapt, relate, and execute will always be in style.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

When Love is a (Real) Company Value

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 14:21:00 -0500

Jeff Winter is the Chief Marketing Officer of Rocket Software, a B2B tech company that helps companies innovate using the data and tech they already have. Rocket serves customers across the Fortune 50 and has a global presence. Jeff has had a prolific career including senior marketing roles at SAP and IBM before joining Rocket.

Episode synopsis

In this episode, Jeff and Erica talk about company values, how they can be lived by the marketing team and how there is still room to bring in function-specific values without colliding with corporate values. Jeff also shares the various initiatives at Rocket to improve diversity of all kinds, including the RIDE initiative and their journey to operationalize and measure the impact of diversity as a part of everyday culture.

Highlights include:

When Empathy, Humanity, Trust, and Love are your corporate values
How Marketing leaders can take the larger corporate values and create their own functional values to complement them
Working with all kinds of diversity – be it regional, gender, experience, or ethnic diversity – it’s always a work in progress but there are ways to structure it and measure its impact. Jeff shares details of how Rocket is working towards operationalizing diversity and measuring its impact – including the creation of a new initiative called RIDE (Rocket Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity)
Ageism in tech and why it needs more conversation
Experience diversity: when we should look outside the obvious areas to hire B2B marketing talent (and when we should not)
Jeff’s insights on the 3 things you can do to build a more high quality, diverse team

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Building Great SaaS Marketing Teams Without Compromising on Diversity

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 11:20:00 -0500

Pantheon is building the world’s best web ops (website operations) platform to empower marketing and development teams to take control of their websites. Christy Marble, the Chief Marketing Officer of Pantheon, is a global SaaS growth marketing expert with over 20 years of experience leading all facets of marketing. Prior to Pantheon, she served as CMO of SAP Concur, and CMO of Visier.

Episode synopsis

Christy and Erica discuss building a marketing leadership team that does not compromise on diversity. They also discuss whether prior SaaS experience is necessary in a marketing leadership role at a SaaS company. They ponder why female candidates can feel the need to explain themselves more, and what needs to happen to break through unconscious bias in the workplace.

Highlights include:

- Personal lessons on managing gender diversity from the home environment

- How diversity, equity, and inclusion are 3 different things

- How the hiring practice of doing a ‘listening interview’ and then a ‘questioning interview’ can be critical to hiring success

- How Christy builds and structures her organization and marketing leadership

- How to effectively transition from a bigger to a smaller company, by presenting yourself as a ‘sherpa’

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

B2B SaaS Marketing Trends 2021

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 12:59:00 -0500

Openpath offers cutting-edge workplace safety and security solutions though touchless access control. It is a hardware and SaaS company with about 80 people. Kieran leads marketing for Openpath and has previously led marketing at Belkin and Radioshack. He has been recognized by Forbes as one of “The World’s Most Influential CMOs 2020”.

Episode synopsis

In this episode, Kieran and Erica delve into the big trends in B2B that will impact B2B SaaS marketers and the work they do, in 2021 and beyond. Kieran shares valuable real-life experiences from his career, stressing that an agile mindset is the key competency of a CMO in today’s environment. We also delve into what a CEO needs to think about when hiring a CMO, considering there is no one fixed template of what a CMO should do.

Highlights include:

The key trends impacting B2B CMOs today
Why there is no one universal CMO role… and the core competency of a good CMO
The pros and cons of marketing leaders reporting to CROs
The most important emerging role in marketing
Whether diversity needs to be approached in a systemic way, or whether individual leaders should establish their own initiatives
Why empathy for customers will rule in 2021… and why building ongoing relations with the end-user is critical for B2B Marketing

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Building Strategy, Culture and Diversity with a Global SaaS Marketing Team

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 12:31:00 -0500

Concur is a global SaaS leader in travel and expense management. David Hsu is the Global VP of Marketing Data and Technology and has worked in senior marketing roles at IBM and CA in the past.

At Concur, he leads a global 30-member team with the mandate to support marketing with analytics, automation, martech, and project management solutions and services. His team balances both transactional, problem-solving work and more strategic innovation projects.

Episode synopsis

In this episode, David and Erica talk about different kinds of diversity that are critical in a global team - regional and location-specific diversity, role and skill diversity within the team, and the more human aspects of diversity such as gender, race, and personal preferences.

David shares his experiences on the process he follows to set a common vision and strategy for the global team, as well as his take on addressing the diversity of all types in his agenda.

Highlights include:

How to cross-pollinate ideas and best practices across global teams
The process of developing an annual strategy and how to get the team to own and lead it
The conscious shift of moving from being a transaction-driven team to a strategic advisory function
How to bring the diversity aspect into hiring without falling into the trap of familiarity bias
The role of the leader in owning diversity – should they avoid it, proactively lead the discussion, or wait til the company is forced to surface the issues?
How some companies are stretching the hiring brief to make room for diverse voices. For example, companies seeking out qualified candidates without college degrees, or not advertising the role on LinkedIn
The rise of future roles in marketing - for instance, David recently created a Data Strategy role on his team to bridge the data gap between tech and business
What leaders should do to ensure diversity on their global teams

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

How To Make Culture a First-Class Citizen as a B2B SaaS CMO

Wed, 20 Jan 2021 15:01:00 -0500

Eric brings nearly two decades of experience as a senior go-to-market leader in high-growth technology businesses, including as CMO for Sovos, and as CEO of mobile startup Zerista, which he successfully exited. Quick Base is an app development platform that helps problem solvers of any technical background to work together to create an ecosystem of applications safely, securely, and sustainably.

Episode synopsis

What does a diverse team really mean to the organization? How can you make ‘culture’ more data and process driven? Should employers prefer experience over diversity? Great insights for SaaS companies as Erik and Erica deep dive into the meaning of culture and how it can become a competitive differentiator when done right.

Highlights include:

Why diverse teams outperform homogeneous teams, even though the alignment is harder
Why diverse teams need to be like a soccer team and not a relay team
The 3 things you need for a diverse team to work:
Making a team goal that’s bigger than the individual goal
A transparent strategy that brings the team together, and a process that helps interlock the team
A common way of behaving and holding each other accountable
Why culture needs to be treated as a first-class citizen, right alongside goals related to financial performance
Making culture data-driven and process-driven for real outcomes
How to reconcile hiring for experience versus hiring for diversity
Roles that are changing the shape of B2B SaaS marketing teams

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

How ‘Culture Add, Rather Than Culture Fit’ Helps Drive Diversity in B2B SaaS

Wed, 20 Jan 2021 13:37:00 -0500

With 25 years in B2B Marketing, including start-ups and companies such as Akamai and Silicon Graphics, Jenny features on the Top 50 Women in Revenue That You Should Know and the Top 60 Most Influential Marketing Thought Leaders list. She’s been a part of not one or two but 11 successful exits! ActiveCampaign is a Customer Experience automation company which has grown from 60 to 600 people over the last two years.

Episode synopsis

In this episode, Jenny and Erica talk about bringing diversity into every facet of B2B tech, from the interview and hiring process to the way the team builds and retains its unique culture and vibe. Jenny tells us why a ‘culture add’ versus ‘culture fit’ approach helps bring net new perspective to the team and adds value and space for growth. They also talk about ageism, experience diversity, and gender in the B2B SaaS world.

Highlights include:

What a marketing leader can bring to diversity initiatives
Hiring in a way that’s inclusive, starting with ensuring equal access to the opportunity
How to organize your team to ensure it’s as diverse as possible
How a leader can be vulnerable and authentic and create a safe place for working together and building relationships respectfully
How roles and new titles are evolving in B2B companies to reflect growing industry hyperfocus on people and engagement
Whether age diversity in B2B tech is seen as a liability or a plus. Is the number of years worked really as important as mastery and innovation?

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

The Real Reasons Early-stage B2Bs Should Hire Fractional CMOs Fractional CMO Special: Part 3

Thu, 07 May 2020 08:57:00 -0500

Lori Cohen, a veteran CMO and a veteran fractional CMO, has worked with several different growth-stage B2B SaaS companies. In this episode, Lori and Erica talk about how to drive optimal value from a fractional CMO engagement.

Highlights:

-The differences among a full-time CMO, a fractional CMO, and a consultant

While alignment with the CEO and building trust with the team remain the same, the key differentiator is that fractional CMO roles have an exit plan baked in. This lets them avoid the political aspects and do the best job for the company knowing that there is an exit plan/date. This is also why they can challenge the CEO more than a full-time CMO – something especially critical for early stage companies.

-How fractional CMOs succeed as uber-consultants, even as they manage multiple engagements with CEO clients who expect access at all times

-The real reasons early-stage companies should hire fractional CMOs

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

The True Value of a Fractional CMO, with Todd Wilms 3-Part Fractional CMO Special: Part 2

Wed, 06 May 2020 11:54:00 -0500

Todd is a fractional CMO in the Bay Area and also the co-author of the book ‘Beyond Product.' He's on the board of directors of MOCCA (Marketing Operations Cross-company Alliance) and has previously served Verisign, Neustar, SAP, and IBM in a variety of senior marketing roles.

Highlights from Todd and Erica’s conversation include:

- Who needs a fractional CMO and when (hint: It’s not just for early-stage companies)

- Advantages of fractional CMOs:

--Upscale your marketing strategy without the expenses of a full-time CMO

--Get rich perspectives and cross-pollinate ideas

-When not to hire a fractional CMO (hint: when what you actually need is a lead gen manager!)

-Measures of success with fractional CMOs: Is it the number of hours served or the nature of the value and seasoned expertise that they bring?

-The secret value of a Fractional CMO (It’s more than the marketing expertise but you won’t hear it in the pitch!)

-How to pick the right fractional CMO: Advice for CEOs

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

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Fractional CMOs: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly with 3-Part Fractional CMO Special: Part 1

Wed, 06 May 2020 06:13:00 -0500

In this three-part series of podcasts – our Fractional CMO special – we explore the ‘what, when, why (and why not)’ of fractional CMOs. You will get a great flavor of whether this is the right path for your B2B SaaS company. We answer the questions you are most likely to have, including:

How is hiring a fractional CMO different from hiring a consultant and different from hiring a full-time CMO?

What are the key skills to look for in a fractional CMO?

How to get the most long-term value from a fractional CMO engagement?

What types of people do NOT make good fractional CMOs?

And lots more!

Mike DiPietro works as a fractional CMO exclusively with one PE company and its portfolio companies. Mike started in sales and evolved into marketing and GM roles and spent over a decade at Kronos. He was also CMO at HealthcareSource and ExtensionEngine.

Mike and Erica help us understand:

- The good, the bad, and the ugly of being a fractional CMO

-The blend of strategizing, coaching, and doing that you can expect from a fractional CMO

-The value that PE firms see in fractional CMOs: PE firms want their portfolio companies getting help seeing what good looks like, so they can grow as fast as the PE firms think they can grow

- How a CEO should frame what they need from a fractional CMO

-The difference between someone who has successfully been a fractional CMO and someone who is a “CMO pretending to be a consultant”

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

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Building Marketing Teams in Troubled Times

Fri, 24 Apr 2020 11:33:00 -0500

Erica Seidel’s conversation with Jason Seeba, SVP of Marketing at Eightfold.ai, is interesting and unusual because not only does Jason lead marketing at a talent intelligence company (and The Get is all about marketing talent!), but also because of his diverse background spanning demand gen, marketing, technology and marketing operations. Jason was Chief Marketing Technology Officer at Bloomreach, and then extended his role to take over all of marketing. And finally, he was a client of Eightfold.ai before he joined them full time as they were moving into the hyper growth curve.

Aside from sharing his own experience, Jason also shares his best advice for marketing tech pros that want to ascend to the CMO role. And he discusses why his golden interview question is “How do you get to know customers and what they need?”

For CEOs and CMOs who are hiring marketing leaders, you will find tips for finding and keeping the best marketing and martech talent, especially in uncertain times.

Of course, because it’s Jason and he’s from Eightfold, which is an HRTech tool for talent intel, you will also hear some really practical tips on how and when you can use tech to help you find and keep your best talent.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

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The Art of Being a ‘Revenue-Oriented’ Chief Marketing Officer

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 10:23:00 -0500

What happens when Marketing leaders take on Sales?

Scott Horn is the CRO (Chief Revenue Officer) of PrismHR, a SaaS company in the HR space. He shares his story of life as a CRO after over 2 decades in Marketing. Prior to his role as CRO at PrismHR, Scott was Chief Marketing and Revenue Ops officer at [24]7.ai, and the chief marketer for Seagate. He also spent 17 years at Microsoft - a tenure almost unheard of in B2B marketing.

Scott is passionate about hiring great talent- and the key to that process is getting the interview right. Scott shares what he’s learned over the years when it comes to building great teams, and tells us how he is training his team to be great interviewers.

Along the way, he shares practical insights on:

- How to tell if someone “has self-awareness and wants to learn”

- The trick to hiring for that critical role of SDRs (Sales Development Representatives) and BDRs (Business Development Representatives)

- What CEOs get wrong when hiring CMOs

- Why your LinkedIn profile matters more than your resume to get the best job today

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Why I’m not a ‘Growth Marketer’

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 10:23:00 -0500

We all know that marketing needs to be authentic and tell believable stories. But aside from the marketing itself, the marketing leaders behind those strategies need to be authentic and believable too. Christina Mautz from Moz tells us why, and how she puts this principle into practice every day on the job.

This authenticity starts with the hiring process. When asked if she was a growth marketer, Christina replied. “No, I’m not.” A gutsy move in the current economic scenario, some may say. Listen to know what she did say, and how it landed her the job anyway.

Erica and Christina also explore why being a ‘consultant’ is not necessarily a bad thing when applying for a full-time marketing leadership role.

Christina shares her take on the ideal first 90 days as CMO, and the challenges and opportunities as she went about taking the reins as CRO (Chief Revenue Officer) as well as CMO at Moz.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

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How to Hire Your First Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 10:23:00 -0500

Three-time Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Tricia Gellman has been there and done that at Salesforce Canada, Checkr, and now, conversational marketing category leader Drift. Aside from sharing the story of how she came to be the CMO at Drift, the conversational marketing company well-known for its non-traditional brand building and marketing methods, she and Erica talk about:

● Hiring your first CMO: what to think about (and what’s the hardest thing about it)

● The CMO+ Role – how the role of the CMO is morphing

● How B2B CMOs can be more CX-focused

● How to achieve CEO and CMO alignment

● How CMOs can move from scrappy to scale

● Tricia’s personal examples of marketing org and culture design – mistakes and learnings

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

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What Private Equity (PE) Investors want from Marketing Leaders

Thu, 30 Jan 2020 11:34:00 -0500

Prital Kadakia leads the Growth team at Serent Capital, helping portfolio companies to scale up, drive results, and find the right leadership talent. As a sales and marketing expert at a PE firm, Prital’s work with portfolio companies spans sales force effectiveness, pricing, operational efficiencies, strategic partnerships, strategy development, procurement, and digital marketing.

In this episode, we talk about how PE investors work side by side with portfolio companies, including how they look for the ideal marketing talent, what they expect the CEO and CMO to know about growth marketing, and how to navigate the challenges of hypergrowth.

Here are our top themes and takeaways from the conversation:

1.Things for CEOs to think about when finding the right marketing leader

● Context in which the marketing leaders were successful in earlier roles

● Ability to own the bookings and results (something which is not core to every marketer’s DNA, but is a crucial flag for PE investors, who are focused on close alignment between marketing and sales), ability to forecast into the future - most B2B tech companies have long sales cycles, so focusing on the right metrics that will have a material impact in 6/12/18 months is crucial

2. Common pitfalls for CEOs to avoid as they search for their marketing leader

● Not having clarity about what you want

● Hiring a CMO when a VP of Marketing would be more aligned to the stage and pattern of growth

3. Tips for marketing leadership candidates: what to keep in mind if you are a potential CMO being interviewed with someone from the PE investor side for your dream B2B SaaS job! (Hint: know thy investor, and thy ROI!)

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

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How CMO Candidates Choose CEOs

Wed, 29 Jan 2020 11:33:00 -0500

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 role

2. Why analytical skills and field marketing experience are both important in shaping a marketing leader

3. 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 environment

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

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How B2B SaaS CMOs Should Build their Marketing Teams

Fri, 24 Jan 2020 09:22:00 -0500

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.

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How CEOs can find CMOs who can lead Growth

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 06:45:00 -0500

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!

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How to Find Marketing Talent for Hyper-Growth SaaS Companies

Wed, 15 Jan 2020 12:15:00 -0500

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 enterprises

2. Marketers mastering data for real revenue outcomes

3. More intentional role design for marketing leaders

4. Putting content marketing on a diet

5. The need for B2B SaaS marketing leaders to talk PE

What do you think? What trends will impact the role of the B2B SaaS CMO in 2020 and beyond?

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What are the Qualities of a Great Chief Marketing Officer

Wed, 15 Jan 2020 11:09:00 -0500

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 companies

Julia is a founding member of Women in Revenue – and tells us why it matters to women professionals in revenue marketing

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B2B SaaS Marketing Talent Podcast: Get to know ‘The Get’ with Erica Seidel

Tue, 14 Jan 2020 11:28:00 -0500

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 years
In SaaS companies, it’s usually lower
In Silicon Valley, the average tenure of a marketing leader is 6 to 18 months
The costs of a mis-hire are significant, and can lead to churn of both customers and other employees

Why ‘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 talent
As someone who specializes in leading B2B SaaS marketing leadership searches, Erica brings unique insight and perspective as the host of The Get

Here are some of the nuggets in this 25-minute introductory episode:

The hardest and most enjoyable aspects of B2B SaaS marketing leadership searches
How CEOs can tease out what they are looking for in their CMOs
Great questions to ask candidates to really vet their marketing chops
Erica’s 6 pro tips for high growth B2B SaaS CEOs looking for marketing leadership
What – and who - is coming up on future episodes of The Get through 2020

Are 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 Soundcloud
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