Episode 3
Budget like a Boss: A Smart CMO’s Guide to Budgeting for a Scale Journey
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
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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
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Transcript
Hi, you're listening to the, get the podcast about finding
Speaker:and keeping great marketing
Speaker:leaders in B2B SaaS.
Speaker:I'm Erica Seidel, your host.
Speaker:You know those people who so clearly revel in what they do and are so
Speaker:knowledgeable on both the big things and
Speaker:the little things?
Speaker:Today I
Speaker:talk with a CMO like that.
Speaker:Her name is
Speaker:Kristin Hambelton.
Speaker:She's the CMO of MineralTree, which is a SaaS company in the Accounts
Speaker:Payable & Payments automation space.
Speaker:Kristin spent the
Speaker:last several months steering marketing through an acquisition.
Speaker:She was previously CMO of Marketing Evolution and CMO of
Speaker:eVariant, which ended up selling to
Speaker:Healthgrades, and before that
Speaker:she
Speaker:was VP of Marketing for Neolane, which sold to Adobe.
Speaker:You'll hear hard-won advice
Speaker:for embarking on a scale journey.
Speaker:In particular, you'll hear about
Speaker:budgeting for marketing
Speaker:during growth.
Speaker:How do you communicate to a CEO and CFO that you were investing smartly,
Speaker:without overspending?
Speaker:How well
Speaker:are you connecting the marketing budget to the growth strategy?
Speaker:You'll hear about sharing with the rest of the company leaders what
Speaker:marketing is saying yes to and what marketing is saying no to.
Speaker:And when does it make sense to give budget back to the CFO
Speaker:versus advocate for more budget?
Speaker:You'll also learn about hiring for hypergrowth and what to do when you
Speaker:have multiple marketing functions but can't yet justify hiring one
Speaker:person for each function.
Speaker:Let's get
Speaker:right into this.
Speaker:Kristin, I am so glad to have you here.
Speaker:Would love to have you just share some advice for a CMO embarking on a scale
Speaker:journey.
Speaker:I know in
Speaker:this question we're tapping into
Speaker:some hard-won lessons
Speaker:from your own experience scaling marketing at many companies.
Speaker:Can you talk through that?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:So I think in terms of scaling, there's what you do at a private company
Speaker:versus what you do at a public company.
Speaker:But I think some of the same
Speaker:rules apply.
Speaker:I've spent,
Speaker:I would say, the better part of my career more on the private side, although,
Speaker:obviously, within large companies trying to scale divisions or verticals,
Speaker:et cetera.
Speaker:On the private side, one of the things in terms of embarking on the
Speaker:journey, I first would recommend to
Speaker:marketers to figure out
Speaker:the scale of the scale, if you will.
Speaker:Not all scale is created equal.
Speaker:As an example,
Speaker:going from zero to $10 million is very different from going to 10 million to,
Speaker:say, 30 million, and then even 30 to 50 million, and then 50 to a hundred million.
Speaker:And the reason that they're
Speaker:different is you're trying to
Speaker:figure things out.
Speaker:If we all had the answers the minute that we launched a company, or that
Speaker:founders started companies, there would be no process of scaling.
Speaker:So in the beginning,
Speaker:if you're really starting in your scale process, and usually that's when you're
Speaker:at an earlier part of growth, you're doing
Speaker:the basics.
Speaker:One of the
Speaker:most
Speaker:important things is just figuring
Speaker:out who you're targeting, what works.
Speaker:And you could get away with trying a lot of different things at this
Speaker:part in scale because you just don't
Speaker:know much yet.
Speaker:Sure, you're
Speaker:going to come with whatever experience you have or what people have tried
Speaker:already, but it's usually not that much.
Speaker:Compared to, say, 10 to 30 or 10 to 50 million, that scale
Speaker:is very different because
Speaker:you will have, at this
Speaker:point, figured out what your ideal audience is.
Speaker:You will have figured out what works and
Speaker:doesn't work.
Speaker:Now it's really
Speaker:about focus and refining all of those things.
Speaker:I would also say that you're adding other elements into the marketing mix.
Speaker:You might've been very demand focused early on or sales enablement
Speaker:focused, but now in this range, you have to be all things across
Speaker:marketing.
Speaker:Content plays
Speaker:a huge role at this point because your sales team is probably
Speaker:scaled at the same level.
Speaker:So content and thought leadership to give some of that air cover
Speaker:to the very focused demand
Speaker:generation that you're doing.
Speaker:Of course,
Speaker:it also means at this point that you are religious because
Speaker:you know what the message is.
Speaker:You know what your brand promises.
Speaker:You're being consistent and focused and you're getting
Speaker:into a groove and you feel it.
Speaker:You really, I feel it anyway.
Speaker:I know when we're firing on all cylinders.
Speaker:Then, at the next stage, 50 million and
Speaker:above, you're taking all
Speaker:of the things that you just did in the last phase
Speaker:and multiplying them.
Speaker:What's really
Speaker:important at this point, probably more so than even earlier on,
Speaker:is what you're not going to do.
Speaker:Because at this point, people expect you to do everything and try
Speaker:everything.
Speaker:I actually
Speaker:think that's a recipe for disaster.
Speaker:Even though people would think, okay, you have more budget, you probably
Speaker:have more people at this point.
Speaker:Right, but you can't split the baby more ways than you need to.
Speaker:You got to keep doing
Speaker:what you know works, and as I
Speaker:like to say, you have to adopt the superpower of saying no.
Speaker:And really socializing, I've really learned that lesson early on to socialize
Speaker:with my peers on the leadership team and usually a layer down of here are the
Speaker:things we're going to do, but by the way, here are the things we're not going to do.
Speaker:And I make sure it's in
Speaker:writing, in a deck, and I remind
Speaker:people of it.
Speaker:Sure, we need to be flexible and stuff changes, whether it's within the
Speaker:business or even macroeconomically, or a pandemic happens, or a
Speaker:tragedy like 9/11, so you
Speaker:have to
Speaker:flex.
Speaker:But all things
Speaker:being
Speaker:equal, you really have to remind people
Speaker:of what you're not going to do.
Speaker:That is the way you scale because you have to be not only effective, you
Speaker:have to be really efficient in what
Speaker:you're doing.
Speaker:Marketers
Speaker:know this better than anybody, right?
Speaker:We're asked to do a lot with not a lot often.
Speaker:So you're not going to get to scale if you are saying yes to everything and
Speaker:splitting your team and your resources and your time and your budget across too
Speaker:many things.
Speaker:You've already
Speaker:proven the things that work and don't work.
Speaker:One caveat, make sure you always keep some
Speaker:percentage of "we've got to try
Speaker:new things"
Speaker:in there.
Speaker:I know that
Speaker:sounds
Speaker:a little contradictory
Speaker:to focus, focus, focus.
Speaker:I'm more saying there's gotta be 10% or 15% or some amount of
Speaker:your team and your resources and something where, hey, there's this
Speaker:cool new thing called podcasts we
Speaker:need to try.
Speaker:A few years
Speaker:ago, right?
Speaker:You can't not because sometimes trying those things ahead of others will give
Speaker:you a unique and distinct advantage.
Speaker:Just be prepared to fail because you just don't know, which is why
Speaker:I recommend it can't really be more than about 10 or 15% on this
Speaker:experimentation.
Speaker:I love your
Speaker:point about educating about what you're not
Speaker:doing because somewhat of
Speaker:a marketing leader's role is about constantly, I call it
Speaker:the marketing of marketing, but
Speaker:constantly
Speaker:sharing with the
Speaker:organization what's going
Speaker:on, what you're doing, why you're doing it, what results you're
Speaker:having from those activities, but also, to your point, what you
Speaker:don't do.
Speaker:I'm curious your take on when you do,
Speaker:as you
Speaker:do scale, I imagine
Speaker:your budget
Speaker:gets bigger.
Speaker:And say you're actually choosing to planfully
Speaker:grow your budget.
Speaker:So how do you communicate out to a CEO and a CFO
Speaker:that you are investing
Speaker:without
Speaker:overspending?
Speaker:How do you think of the opposite side of it when your budget does grow and
Speaker:you want to be planful about that?
Speaker:The way I like to do it is I always like to start with total
Speaker:addressable market and look at where we are penetrated and what's still
Speaker:left to go.
Speaker:Then I tend
Speaker:to do a real swag on, a real estimate on, depending if it's a demand funnel
Speaker:versus account-based marketing.
Speaker:You know, how much we actually need to generate and look at what we
Speaker:think from a programs perspective is
Speaker:realistic.
Speaker:If you have
Speaker:a baseline or even an estimate and some industry benchmarks to
Speaker:start with, say you start with fifty or a hundred
Speaker:dollars at a cost per lead, I'm just totally swagging it.
Speaker:If you knew nothing else you could start to back into about from a program
Speaker:perspective you need.
Speaker:I do that
Speaker:also combined with my total addressable market in terms of the number of accounts.
Speaker:As an example, if you have a million accounts you can go after, you know
Speaker:only 10% of the market is penetrated, that means 90% you can go after
Speaker:from a demand funnel perspective.
Speaker:How many people do you need to touch to get to the number of deals
Speaker:you need to based on the revenue number that you're given to produce?
Speaker:Now, from an
Speaker:account-based perspective, those
Speaker:which you have maybe small total addressable market.
Speaker:I was in one market where we only had 300 total accounts that
Speaker:existed.
Speaker:One third were in the buying
Speaker:process at a time, and the sales
Speaker:cycle was eighteen months.
Speaker:So
Speaker:you only have
Speaker:a hundred accounts, really, you could go after.
Speaker:You need
Speaker:to look at touches across the buying group, how much you need to engage with
Speaker:them, how much the touches would cost you you think to engage with those people, to
Speaker:do the same exercise of how many times, realistically, do I need to touch that
Speaker:buying center across all of the contacts.
Speaker:And that comes up with the programs.
Speaker:Now, let's not forget about
Speaker:the people.
Speaker:This is really
Speaker:a little bit of the art
Speaker:of budgeting.
Speaker:In B2B marketing
Speaker:right now, benchmarks are about 50% program, 50% people.
Speaker:It actually airs a little more towards program, like 55, 45.
Speaker:And to be honest with you in
Speaker:the last twenty years, that
Speaker:really hasn't moved much.
Speaker:What I have found is in some years, even in the same role, you will find
Speaker:you don't even have enough people to spend the money you have, which seems
Speaker:really odd as a marketer, given we always complain about the budgets.
Speaker:But you can throw that money away if you want to, or what I've done in the past
Speaker:is I share that with my CFO and I said, sure, we have this money, I'm actually not
Speaker:going to spend it because I can't spend it on the things that we know work and
Speaker:experimentation.
Speaker:So I share that to say, I'm
Speaker:being mindful of what works and doesn't work.
Speaker:You need people to manage
Speaker:programs and to deliver content
Speaker:and if you don't have them.
Speaker:And the reason I actually share that with my CFO is so that I
Speaker:protect myself a little bit so I don't lose my budget the next year.
Speaker:This is actually great timing this year.
Speaker:Here we are 2021.
Speaker:I'm very fortunate, I had a fabulous year.
Speaker:My company just got acquired.
Speaker:All things are great.
Speaker:We're
Speaker:hiring.
Speaker:We have money.
Speaker:And we're
Speaker:in budgeting season and I'm very efficient and effective with my budget.
Speaker:I'm at a point where I know what works.
Speaker:My team is firing on all cylinders.
Speaker:What's really interesting is next year events are back, and we all
Speaker:know that events are the single most
Speaker:expensive cost-per-lead item.
Speaker:So I'm actually fighting for more budget than I
Speaker:normally would.
Speaker:In the past,
Speaker:I usually come to some happy medium, but I know everything is going to
Speaker:ramp significantly like we've never
Speaker:seen before with trade shows.
Speaker:So those are the combinations of things.
Speaker:Back to the people part, I'm also making the case of more shows,
Speaker:you need resources to manage
Speaker:those shows.
Speaker:Sometimes
Speaker:you have to make choices on people versus programs.
Speaker:Sometimes you have too many people and not enough
Speaker:dollars.
Speaker:That's where
Speaker:the art comes in.
Speaker:I usually find, pretty consistently, it is 55 program to 45
Speaker:people.
Speaker:It really doesn't vary much.
Speaker:I
Speaker:tend to be a little weird and I would trade dollars to get people
Speaker:versus programs because I know if you have really talented, committed
Speaker:people, you can do amazingly creative
Speaker:things without money.
Speaker:Not everybody
Speaker:feels that way.
Speaker:That's just what I have found consistently.
Speaker:But again, I'm sure people have different approaches.
Speaker:I just know that if you can get a fantastic marketer in who can do an
Speaker:amazing program, piece of content, whatever it is, it more than pays
Speaker:for itself in terms of some programs.
Speaker:Now, of course, there could be exceptions.
Speaker:You
Speaker:could be in a market where it's trade shows
Speaker:only, and that's just the way it is.
Speaker:And I get that.
Speaker:But to be honest with you, I've
Speaker:marketed to just about every
Speaker:industry and every functional group, and I've pretty much just
Speaker:found it that I err a little
Speaker:bit more on people, which, by
Speaker:the way, isn't always possible because there's often headcount restrictions.
Speaker:People think you're trying to build a kingdom, but as it is, marketers
Speaker:do usually three jobs a piece anyway.
Speaker:So again, that's just my personal choice.
Speaker:Sometimes, when it comes down to it, like in my budget for next year, I feel
Speaker:like I'm a little light on people and if I had to trade a little bit, I would
Speaker:trade a little more on the people's side
Speaker:right now.
Speaker:You remind
Speaker:me of this person I
Speaker:talked to who said, "Oh, I'm a CMO who thinks
Speaker:like a CFO."
Speaker:I forget if it was you, but
Speaker:if it was I like that.
Speaker:I'm just picturing you talking with
Speaker:your CFO.
Speaker:I guess people might wonder if you're going to give back budget or recommend
Speaker:that it go to sales or whatever.
Speaker:In one cycle, do you ever have a hard time asking for
Speaker:- what you're
Speaker:doing right now is asking for more budget for a valid reason for the next cycle.
Speaker:Does that ever shoot yourself in the foot to give money
Speaker:back?
Speaker:So, I've shot myself
Speaker:in the foot when I haven't been really crystal clear with my boss,
Speaker:which was usually
Speaker:the CEO
Speaker:and the CFO, why I'm doing
Speaker:what I'm doing.
Speaker:In the past,
Speaker:I've just been like, oh,
Speaker:I'm going to be a good doobie and I'm going to come in
Speaker:under budget.
Speaker:Then, everybody's
Speaker:happy you're under budget, and then you get
Speaker:less budget.
Speaker:It usually
Speaker:happens around Q3 where
Speaker:you figure this out.
Speaker:That's my experience.
Speaker:I usually don't find it before that.
Speaker:But usually around Q3,
Speaker:I'm like, ooh, I'm going to run under budget
Speaker:and if I don't end up hiring X, Y, and Z, I can't even spend the money.
Speaker:And I start giving hints that I'm going to come under budget.
Speaker:And it's not like they take some pot of money and they go give it
Speaker:to somebody else.
Speaker:What it does
Speaker:is it gives it the business breathing room and it allows the CFO to
Speaker:know that if they have to make a decision someplace else, they're
Speaker:going to have a little bit of room.
Speaker:So it's not like I'm like here's $200,000 or 300 - you have it.
Speaker:It's more, this is where I'm thinking I'm
Speaker:going to come in, and they're
Speaker:like, okay, that's helpful to know.
Speaker:And again, I
Speaker:explain it, essentially
Speaker:rationalizing and, I hate to say this, doing CYA so it doesn't
Speaker:come back to bite me next year.
Speaker:This also
Speaker:goes to a really
Speaker:good point about your CFO,
Speaker:which is, I just can't even imagine a better relationship that I need
Speaker:to have, in terms of trust, to be able to spend and manage the money
Speaker:and have their backs as much as
Speaker:they have mine.
Speaker:So, I
Speaker:have had the good fortune, but I've also made it a priority to
Speaker:engage as much as possible with the CFO and the finance team, to
Speaker:over-communicate, which takes time
Speaker:and effort
Speaker:in addition to all of the things you're trying to do.
Speaker:But it helps them do
Speaker:their job better.
Speaker:Then, god forbid,
Speaker:I ever make a mistake or get in a jam, I have found it usually pays for itself
Speaker:in terms of they get it, you're human.
Speaker:They know you're trying to do the right thing, every once in
Speaker:a while things get screwed up.
Speaker:But for the most part, they know that you're trying to manage the
Speaker:money effectively and efficiently.
Speaker:Can you talk about tying extra budget to growth strategy a little bit more?
Speaker:If a company
Speaker:is expanding,
Speaker:it might want
Speaker:to go into new markets or maybe you acquire a
Speaker:business and now you have
Speaker:five products and not one product.
Speaker:So how
Speaker:should a CMO think about
Speaker:expanding
Speaker:their budget
Speaker:in that kind of
Speaker:situation?
Speaker:Is it like, oh,
Speaker:we're buying a company that's going to double our size,
Speaker:so my budget should double?
Speaker:Or, I don't know if that's the right way to think about it.,
Speaker:Oh, I can dream, Erica, we can all dream.
Speaker:By the way,
Speaker:usually when you buy companies, even though there's different
Speaker:strategies for M&A, mergers and acquisitions, I don't think
Speaker:that they're mutually exclusive.
Speaker:Often you do an acquisition for
Speaker:growth, so it's what they
Speaker:call a growth acquisition.
Speaker:Or you do one for efficiencies.
Speaker:Now, what's interesting is I always find, even with the growth ones, they
Speaker:want efficiencies.
Speaker:You could say you're buying
Speaker:revenue, but they're always
Speaker:looking for
Speaker:efficiencies.
Speaker:In
Speaker:terms of what is critically important, and
Speaker:even at this point in my career I'm still learning.
Speaker:I am doing a
Speaker:better job now with
Speaker:what I would call the triumvirate of my partners, which is sales
Speaker:and product and marketing.
Speaker:I was always joined at the hip with my
Speaker:sales leader.
Speaker:With my product
Speaker:leader, I've always joked that I'm not smart enough to market
Speaker:a product I don't understand, so I've always been close to product.
Speaker:But I've done a much better job more
Speaker:recently with my triumvirate.
Speaker:The
Speaker:three of us would decide where we're going to tie budget because last year
Speaker:we actually acquired two companies
Speaker:and it was two new platforms
Speaker:we had to adopt.
Speaker:And unless I know in the product roadmap, as an example, where they are
Speaker:planning on parity or not,
Speaker:that's going to warrant a discussion on do I need another product marketing manager?
Speaker:Do I need new collateral?
Speaker:Are we going to put it under
Speaker:one brand?
Speaker:Ugh, naming!
Speaker:Don't forget
Speaker:naming.
Speaker:What's that going to?
Speaker:Also with sales then, does sales need
Speaker:to change how they're organized?
Speaker:Do they need to
Speaker:change their go-to-market?
Speaker:So it's very much not a conversation
Speaker:I can do in isolation.
Speaker:I don't think it's one I can even do
Speaker:with just sales.
Speaker:It's one where
Speaker:the three of you need to sit down and say, okay, this is what we have.
Speaker:I very
Speaker:much see it as this is what
Speaker:we have to work with in terms of assets.
Speaker:This is the products we have.
Speaker:This is what the roadmap
Speaker:looks like.
Speaker:This is what
Speaker:the selling team looks like.
Speaker:This is what the marketing team looks like and where we are in our
Speaker:maturity.
Speaker:Then, it's
Speaker:okay, here's the target - I'm making this up - for next year that we need to get to.
Speaker:How are we going to get there
Speaker:from a go-to-market?
Speaker:Are we going
Speaker:to expand our verticals?
Speaker:There's only a handful of ways you can grow, right?
Speaker:You grow through acquisition, as we mentioned.
Speaker:You go to new vertical
Speaker:markets.
Speaker:You go to new buyers within the same vertical.
Speaker:Somehow, if you have a different offering
Speaker:that you can, if you're
Speaker:selling to finance, then maybe you can sell to HR.
Speaker:I'm making that up, but that's possible
Speaker:in human capital
Speaker:management.
Speaker:Actually, when I was at Kronos, we were the time clock people.
Speaker:Then all of a sudden we expanded to do more HR.
Speaker:Or you can expand
Speaker:geographies.
Speaker:So you
Speaker:have to pick.
Speaker:You can't - by the way, a lot of times it
Speaker:starts off, we're going
Speaker:to do all of
Speaker:those things.
Speaker:I'm usually one that says, that's great,
Speaker:but let's talk about if you had to pick and choose, what would be the priority?
Speaker:Often those conversations are one of sizing
Speaker:and timing.
Speaker:We want to
Speaker:do all those things.
Speaker:Let's the three of us talk about it.
Speaker:Which one can we go
Speaker:the fastest at, which
Speaker:one do we think we have the most success, and which one helps us get us
Speaker:to our goals both fast, but also in a
Speaker:doable way?
Speaker:Not to be
Speaker:forgotten right now, as we run into other times, depending on
Speaker:what the economy is doing, if it's right now, a strategy that requires
Speaker:hiring fifty people really
Speaker:fast, good luck
Speaker:with that.
Speaker:You just can't
Speaker:hire people right now, just because of the unemployment rate and people's
Speaker:availability and the competition.
Speaker:So that's
Speaker:why it's important
Speaker:to have those three groups, the three leaders, together and say, what is
Speaker:the go-to-market strategy?
Speaker:Then, from
Speaker:there I
Speaker:can decide, given that,
Speaker:where do I put the
Speaker:budget?
Speaker:Now, that was a long-winded conversation,
Speaker:but
Speaker:I'm going through
Speaker:it right now.
Speaker:I'm living and breathing it, so, I thought it was
Speaker:- just to say it's still
Speaker:something I'm
Speaker:learning.
Speaker:You know, old dogs can
Speaker:still learn
Speaker:new tricks.
Speaker:You brought
Speaker:up hiring, Kristin.
Speaker:Would love to hear your take on hiring during hypergrowth.
Speaker:Like you said, everybody's struggling with it on the recruiting side.
Speaker:I'm
Speaker:struggling with it.
Speaker:It used
Speaker:to be that if I wrote to a
Speaker:hundred people, eighty would get back to me right away.
Speaker:I'm sure it's the same thing across the board.
Speaker:So how do you think of covering multiple functions with fewer people
Speaker:where one person might do double duty?
Speaker:Can you talk through that and your take on hiring during hypergrowth
Speaker:and how to make the best use out of a
Speaker:smaller team?
Speaker:I have found in B2B marketing
Speaker:in general, and I don't know if this is true in other functions because
Speaker:I've lived and breathed
Speaker:marketing my whole career, but it feels like we have a hundred different
Speaker:disparate jobs that we need to do that
Speaker:probably require fifty different skillsets.
Speaker:That's why I love what I do, by the way, because I
Speaker:don't like doing the same thing.
Speaker:I get bored.
Speaker:So it's a good thing.
Speaker:But
Speaker:it's also, if maybe
Speaker:you're a small startup
Speaker:and you're 5, 10 million
Speaker:in revenue, you're not going to
Speaker:have a team more than 10, 20 people, depending
Speaker:on your
Speaker:investment model.
Speaker:You're going
Speaker:to have a
Speaker:handful of people.
Speaker:You
Speaker:have to think,
Speaker:just off the
Speaker:top of my head, in no
Speaker:particular order.
Speaker:Somebody
Speaker:has got to build sales collateral.
Speaker:Somebody has got to do a website.
Speaker:Somebody has got to do email campaigns.
Speaker:Oh, somebody has got to do
Speaker:trade shows.
Speaker:Really quickly,
Speaker:all of a sudden,
Speaker:you're at twenty different
Speaker:tasks and those skillsets just naturally
Speaker:don't come in together
Speaker:because people usually specialize when they're starting off in
Speaker:their career.
Speaker:What I try
Speaker:to do when I
Speaker:go into an existing organization
Speaker:is I try to see what's there and try to blend roles that might fit together.
Speaker:Even if the person's not doing additional functions, try to add
Speaker:them, see if that's an area for growth that they're interested in.
Speaker:Because if you try to make them unnatural, then what will happen
Speaker:is when you try to hire for the other roles, it just won't work.
Speaker:So I really try to think about what's
Speaker:natural.
Speaker:I'll give
Speaker:you an example.
Speaker:I often have to have some flavor of partner marketing.
Speaker:Earlier on in
Speaker:maturity in companies,
Speaker:I don't always have the luxury of having a partner
Speaker:marketing person.
Speaker:And different
Speaker:than channel.
Speaker:So they may be referral
Speaker:partners, but they're not hardcore
Speaker:channel where it's, obviously then that's like the first
Speaker:person you hired if
Speaker:you're all through
Speaker:channel.
Speaker:I'm talking maybe they
Speaker:refer 15, 20% of your revenue, you need someone to support them.
Speaker:I
Speaker:have found, though, I can't give
Speaker:a whole head count to it because think about it, the other 80% of
Speaker:my business is direct, and I've got to support
Speaker:a team of salespeople.
Speaker:What I have found is that because product marketing knows
Speaker:the product really well, and I
Speaker:think happen to be Swiss
Speaker:Army Knives of the organization, I tend
Speaker:to marry that
Speaker:into a product marketing role in the short term until
Speaker:I can get coverage.
Speaker:They could
Speaker:talk the talk, they can walk the walk, they know what the partners need.
Speaker:If there's
Speaker:some kind of co-marketing execution things, it can be punted off to a demand
Speaker:person or someone else doing execution.
Speaker:But there's somebody at least there that's managing the partner if we need to.
Speaker:I also find that with
Speaker:content.
Speaker:If you can't
Speaker:dedicate a
Speaker:content person, which is criminal,
Speaker:but if you can't, sometimes you can marry it into a PR role.
Speaker:I have it now,
Speaker:actually.
Speaker:I just happened
Speaker:to have an
Speaker:outstanding person, he manages
Speaker:partner contents and product marketing.
Speaker:Obviously, he has people under him, but a lot of it is about the content.
Speaker:So he's managing overall content strategy for the different audiences
Speaker:that those serve with kind of one view.
Speaker:So that's how I try to get creative, but at some point, you get to a breaking
Speaker:point where this is not
Speaker:tenable anymore.
Speaker:But you can prove that through growth.
Speaker:If the partners are growing, obviously you need somebody who can manage that.
Speaker:The other way around things, of course, people can use contractors,
Speaker:agencies,
Speaker:vendors, whatever.
Speaker:You know which marketers use on a regular basis anyway.
Speaker:You could certainly do that, either as a stop gap or as your overall strategy.
Speaker:Some people just like to outsource certain things.
Speaker:I tend to outsource my PR, but I make sure that either myself or somebody
Speaker:else manages it.
Speaker:That's just
Speaker:a particular thing that I like to do that's a preference and it does save
Speaker:on head count, precious head count.
Speaker:And usually there's some flexibility based on the PR agency or person that you use
Speaker:where you can flex on budget, if needed.
Speaker:In terms of hiring, I'm in the boat with everybody else.
Speaker:In terms of secret sauce and attracting people, we try to go hard on our
Speaker:networks because we do know that people who are referred usually have a
Speaker:better track record.
Speaker:We also
Speaker:make it a priority meeting with our
Speaker:recruiter and/or HR person,
Speaker:depending on who's doing the
Speaker:recruiting.
Speaker:We're meeting
Speaker:2, 3, 4, 5 times a week
Speaker:with them.
Speaker:We're also giving them like profiles, which is incredibly valuable.
Speaker:In recruiting
Speaker:sometimes they call them
Speaker:calibration resumes, which
Speaker:are here are the exact three resumes of people that would be perfect for
Speaker:our job.
Speaker:Share it with
Speaker:your HR, your recruiter, and tell
Speaker:them why.
Speaker:By the way,
Speaker:those three people may not be available.
Speaker:Often I'll do it as LinkedIn
Speaker:profiles.
Speaker:I'll just
Speaker:go in and look people up and I'll say, oh, this person's
Speaker:perfect because they have this
Speaker:and this.
Speaker:What that does is it just allows
Speaker:us to go a little
Speaker:more focused on the search and
Speaker:hope that we find like people.
Speaker:But like everybody else we're
Speaker:struggling with the same
Speaker:thing.
Speaker:We do hope that we do it through our team and through our network
Speaker:and attracting people with
Speaker:our overall value proposition
Speaker:as a company, in terms of high growth and benefits and team and all that good stuff.
Speaker:But again, we're in it with everybody else.
Speaker:I love your idea of giving the recruiters the
Speaker:calibration profiles.
Speaker:It makes
Speaker:me remember this one conversation
Speaker:I had with, it shall
Speaker:remain nameless, but a large company that was hiring their first marketing
Speaker:technology VP.
Speaker:They tried
Speaker:on their own, and then they
Speaker:came to me.
Speaker:The HR person
Speaker:was like, yeah, I've been working on this for a while, but actually I have
Speaker:no clue what a MarTech person is.
Speaker:So she had been actually wasting time because
Speaker:she hadn't - I think she
Speaker:felt like, oh, I should know this,
Speaker:I didn't want to ask
Speaker:the stupid questions.
Speaker:I ended up saying no, I'm not
Speaker:going to
Speaker:do this, or I didn't
Speaker:have time or whatever.
Speaker:But I said, well, why don't you just
Speaker:sit down - it's the
Speaker:same thing that you do.
Speaker:Sit down, very granularly look at your calibration
Speaker:profiles so that you
Speaker:can
Speaker:do your lookalike modeling, from there.
Speaker:Well, it helps
Speaker:because
Speaker:we can't expect recruiters,
Speaker:as good as you are, Erica, to know everything that's in our head about what
Speaker:we want and need and, in this market, what we might be able to overlook.
Speaker:And I'm not saying
Speaker:compromise.
Speaker:I'll give you
Speaker:an example.
Speaker:We are hiring a marketing specialist right now.
Speaker:Every other role, I think, on our website right now is remote because
Speaker:you can work from anywhere, except our marketing specialist role.
Speaker:And it's very
Speaker:conscious.
Speaker:The reason
Speaker:that we can't overlook
Speaker:that is, that is the
Speaker:person that's going to be managing all our trade show assets and shipping that stuff
Speaker:out and doing logistics, and it matters
Speaker:because you can't have
Speaker:all your trade show assets all over the country.
Speaker:So it seems like such a simple little thing, but having managed
Speaker:that remotely on multiple occasions and knowing the challenge of that.
Speaker:Now, doesn't mean this person needs to be in
Speaker:the office.
Speaker:But,
Speaker:having it remote, even just knowing what you have in inventory.
Speaker:You know us marketers, we don't even
Speaker:know what we have in the
Speaker:marketing closet.
Speaker:That's the
Speaker:joke, the big joke, the marketing
Speaker:closet, right?
Speaker:I actually
Speaker:have a habit of taking
Speaker:pictures of everything so that if
Speaker:you are remote, you can at least make decisions.
Speaker:But again, it's a tiny little thing, and if we run into a jam and need
Speaker:be, and we need to do a storage unit near them, and that's the
Speaker:approach that we take, that's what
Speaker:we'll do.
Speaker:To your point,
Speaker:it's just helping your recruiter, or whoever it is that's doing your
Speaker:hiring, so they're as smart as possible.
Speaker:Also, it's up to the team.
Speaker:We put a lot
Speaker:of pressure on ourselves, on our team because it's the person we're going
Speaker:to work with every day, and I would not trivialize or minimize that.
Speaker:Your team should be reaching out every single day to try to find somebody.
Speaker:That's an expectation of mine, but I haven't seen anybody on my teams not do
Speaker:it because it behooves them to do it.
Speaker:But you can't just mail it in and think it's all going to
Speaker:happen through the recruiter.
Speaker:Hey, you see a cool brand,
Speaker:or you see another company doing a really
Speaker:cool thing, you know what?
Speaker:Let us know, go check them out.
Speaker:Maybe they do have some marketing people that could be
Speaker:a fit for us.
Speaker:That makes
Speaker:me think of one company that gives people, like, Starbucks gift cards with the
Speaker:idea that, and this is pre-pandemic, but everybody
Speaker:gets a Starbucks gift card so they can take potential new employees out
Speaker:for coffee.
Speaker:And when you
Speaker:have depleted your card, you just go in and you say, oh, I need another card,
Speaker:and you get another
Speaker:one
Speaker:for $20, $50, whatever.
Speaker:This idea
Speaker:that everybody should
Speaker:always be
Speaker:in
Speaker:that mode.
Speaker:If talent is your most important thing, your calendar should reflect it, you know?
Speaker:That's just
Speaker:the thing.
Speaker:I very much
Speaker:believe in looking at things differently.
Speaker:I think that's also why I'm in marketing.
Speaker:There's not just one
Speaker:playbook.
Speaker:So if you
Speaker:can, let's say it
Speaker:again, my 10-15% rule.
Speaker:Let me try something different.
Speaker:Let's look at a completely different profile, and maybe that's what we need.
Speaker:I love that idea of taking that same idea of
Speaker:20% of your
Speaker:budget is spent on wild and crazy things that might or might not work,
Speaker:but think about that in terms of a team.
Speaker:If
Speaker:you hire ten people, one or two
Speaker:can be really like the squint profiles, I like to say, where you
Speaker:turn your
Speaker:head to the side.
Speaker:Maybe it works great.
Speaker:Maybe it doesn't,
Speaker:but you know it's somebody
Speaker:really
Speaker:different.
Speaker:One of the things too, I need to
Speaker:do the plug here for the interns.
Speaker:I tend to, and I've done this for
Speaker:the past fifteen years, I
Speaker:tend to hire interns that are sophomores or juniors in college, and then we
Speaker:ask them to stay through the summer.
Speaker:So they'll work full-time over
Speaker:the summer, then we ask for about fifteen hours a week
Speaker:during the school year.
Speaker:We're totally flexible on their hours and their days.
Speaker:I even move my staff meeting based on their schedule.
Speaker:Once they get their schedule each semester, we'll move
Speaker:it so we can accommodate it.
Speaker:We always tell them, you know you need to study for exams, take the week off.
Speaker:Spring break, whatever.
Speaker:But by keeping them, you get this continuity and then you have
Speaker:these rockstar people that are completely trained and ready to go
Speaker:right out of school.
Speaker:So that's
Speaker:another thing
Speaker:with hiring.
Speaker:There's hiring right out of school, and then there's hiring right out
Speaker:of school somebody who's just spent
Speaker:the last eighteen months with
Speaker:you.
Speaker:Very funny story.
Speaker:My head of demand generation right now who works for me, was
Speaker:my intern ten years ago.
Speaker:Oh yeah,
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:It's like, yeah,
Speaker:we have this talent pipeline problem, so
Speaker:fix it by training up
Speaker:people now, being the
Speaker:trainer, and
Speaker:then the person that catches them
Speaker:as they come out of
Speaker:school.
Speaker:They do
Speaker:also
Speaker:self-select.
Speaker:If they really
Speaker:love it, they stay.
Speaker:Some of them sometimes will say, no, I want to go try another company.
Speaker:But the idea of having an intern for one semester I
Speaker:think is personal.
Speaker:It's training somebody
Speaker:up for three months or even six months, and then they're gone
Speaker:versus if we can hang on to them and they want to stay with us.
Speaker:We tend to
Speaker:invest a lot in them and
Speaker:it usually pays
Speaker:off.
Speaker:Final question for you, Kristin, do you
Speaker:have a favorite interview question that you ask that you find really revealing?
Speaker:I don't know if it's revealing, and I feel bad when I ask it, by
Speaker:the way, but I ask it for
Speaker:clarity of
Speaker:thought.
Speaker:I ask them
Speaker:if you were me,
Speaker:why should I hire you?
Speaker:So
Speaker:at the end of the
Speaker:interview, they're through it, they're like,
Speaker:okay, we're just about done, and then you hit them with that one.
Speaker:But I think it, to me, it is not as much what they say, but can they
Speaker:articulate very succinctly
Speaker:in about what I'll call three bullet points what their
Speaker:differentiators are?
Speaker:The reason
Speaker:I ask it is also, it shows me if they've got the
Speaker:marketing gene.
Speaker:Because a marketing person
Speaker:will think about that question in terms of their value
Speaker:proposition and what makes them
Speaker:different.
Speaker:So if they
Speaker:can communicate it in that way, I know that they live and breathe marketing.
Speaker:It's not as much actually what they say, the three or four or five things.
Speaker:But if they're all over the map and
Speaker:they say twenty-seven things, or
Speaker:if they don't distinguish as differentiators or strengths, or
Speaker:if the things they say are things
Speaker:that are very copyable
Speaker:or
Speaker:not benefits-driven, it
Speaker:just helps me distinguish that in
Speaker:one answer.
Speaker:Again, I feel bad
Speaker:asking, but it's not a Pass/Fail question
Speaker:because I also know if I've just had a wonderful interview with them
Speaker:and for some reason that question, maybe they struggle a little bit.
Speaker:Also, you
Speaker:just don't know what kind of day somebody had.
Speaker:You don't know if they're distracted, you don't
Speaker:know.
Speaker:So it's not a Pass/Fail thing,
Speaker:but it is something as part of the interview that I think is
Speaker:an important question to ask and
Speaker:have them answer.
Speaker:That's
Speaker:a really interesting one because I feel like so many marketers are really
Speaker:crappy at marketing themselves, even
Speaker:plenty of CMOs, myself.
Speaker:I was gonna say, myself included!
Speaker:Hahaha, right?
Speaker:And maybe that's
Speaker:- talk about
Speaker:interview questions.
Speaker:I just think one of the hardest questions is "Tell me about
Speaker:yourself."
Speaker:Especially
Speaker:people earlier in their
Speaker:careers.
Speaker:I know I even
Speaker:struggle
Speaker:with it.
Speaker:One interview, actually
Speaker:in the last few years even, it wasn't that
Speaker:long ago.
Speaker:I started
Speaker:off with the professional summary.
Speaker:They're like, "No, tell me about where were you born!"
Speaker:I was like, okay...
Speaker:So I think that one's hard when you don't have a rapport, you don't know
Speaker:somebody.
Speaker:If I do ask
Speaker:that question, I'm more specific and I qualify with, "Tell me about yourself.
Speaker:Are you from the area?
Speaker:What do you want to do
Speaker:professionally?"
Speaker:I try to lead
Speaker:it a
Speaker:little bit.
Speaker:And I'm
Speaker:terrible at that question too, but I have learned that it is important to
Speaker:have your value proposition cold as a CMO and why you're better than others.
Speaker:That's really your
Speaker:goal.
Speaker:And if I'm not asked
Speaker:a
Speaker:question like that, I make sure
Speaker:that at the end of a meeting, an interview, that I take a moment
Speaker:and I summarize and I convey that proactively because that's the last thing
Speaker:they hear.
Speaker:One of the
Speaker:best
Speaker:questions CMOs have asked
Speaker:me in
Speaker:interviews is hey, looking at
Speaker:your scorecard, because there's always a scorecard, where do you see me
Speaker:being strong and what questions
Speaker:do you think would come up?
Speaker:Or where do you see me being on the
Speaker:weaker side?
Speaker:It's great
Speaker:because then I can play back to them what I've heard and then it's an opportunity
Speaker:for them to correct any misperceptions that have come up during the
Speaker:previous hour or whatever
Speaker:it is.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:it's very interesting.
Speaker:Well, thank
Speaker:you.
Speaker:This has been great to chat with you about all aspects of scale.
Speaker:And I love it, every
Speaker:time I talk with you
Speaker:there's always all
Speaker:these little tactical
Speaker:things as well that come up that are really so revealing of the
Speaker:fact that you've done this for a long time in all these different
Speaker:settings and you really love
Speaker:marketing.
Speaker:I always learned
Speaker:from talking
Speaker:with you, big things, small things, so it's great..
Speaker:So thank you very much, Kristin.
Speaker:Likewise, Erica.
Speaker:Thank you, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker:That was
Speaker:Kristin Hambelton, who
Speaker:has steered marketing
Speaker:at several SaaS companies
Speaker:through growth and acquisitions, sharing some
Speaker:of her hard-won learnings
Speaker:for how to solve for scale.
Speaker:Next time on The Get, I'll
Speaker:speak with SaaS marketing expert Guy Weismantel.
Speaker:We'll talk
Speaker:about how to get to alignment with the Board on the role of
Speaker:marketing and when to go fast versus when to go slow when scaling.
Speaker:Don't miss it.
Speaker:Thanks for listening to The Get.
Speaker:I'm your
Speaker:host, Erica Seidel.
Speaker:Hiring great
Speaker:marketing leaders is not easy.
Speaker:The Get is designed to inspire smart decisions around recruiting and
Speaker:leadership in B2B SaaS marketing.
Speaker:We explore the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of today's top marketing
Speaker:leaders in B2B SaaS.
Speaker:This season's
Speaker:theme is Solving for the Scale Journey.
Speaker:If you liked this episode, please share it.
Speaker:For other insights on recruiting great marketing leaders, what I
Speaker:call the 'make money' marketing leaders rather than the 'make it
Speaker:pretty' ones, follow me on LinkedIn.
Speaker:You can also sign up for my
Speaker:newsletter at TheConnectiveGood.com.
Speaker:The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.
