Erica Seidel:

Hi, you're listening to The Get, the podcast about

Erica Seidel:

finding -- and keeping -- great marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.

Erica Seidel:

I'm Erica Seidel, your host.

Erica Seidel:

Sydney Sloan is a scale savant.

Erica Seidel:

I talked with Sydney as she wrapped up her CMO role at Salesloft.

Erica Seidel:

There, she played a key role in their huge scale-up.

Erica Seidel:

She has since joined Zoom as Head of Product & Industry Marketing.

Erica Seidel:

Sidney had so much insight to share that it was hard to pick

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out just a few highlights.

Erica Seidel:

I asked her how a CMO can balance getting oars in the water quickly

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while managing expectations that in marketing things can take time?

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You'll hear about when to set achievable goals versus

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aspirational goals for your team.

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You'll also learn about how to build organizational

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excitement around your vision.

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And you'll hear about organizing your marketing team and hiring with an eye to

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where you want to be in eighteen months.

Erica Seidel:

If you want to upgrade from incremental growth to transformational growth,

Erica Seidel:

you've come to the right place.

Erica Seidel:

Let's go.

Erica Seidel:

Sydney Sloan, it's so great to have you on the show.

Erica Seidel:

Thank you for joining!

Sydney Sloan:

Thank you, Erica.

Sydney Sloan:

I'm so excited to be here.

Erica Seidel:

Well, I'm glad that we have all this fun stuff to talk about and

Erica Seidel:

you have such great experience to share.

Erica Seidel:

So let's get right into it.

Erica Seidel:

I want to talk about CEO advising as pertains to CMOs first.

Erica Seidel:

You have led marketing in multiple situations.

Erica Seidel:

You've been an advisor to multiple companies.

Erica Seidel:

What is one piece of advice that CEOs need to hear most to have their

Erica Seidel:

CMO be successful in a scaleup?

Sydney Sloan:

Well, we're just going to get right into it.

Sydney Sloan:

So, Hey, I love how you do this.

Sydney Sloan:

We're going to get to the good stuff right away.

Sydney Sloan:

How do you work with your CEO as a CMO?

Sydney Sloan:

I think that's a great question because I think there's certain expectation setting

Sydney Sloan:

and I've been in all sizes of companies.

Sydney Sloan:

I've advised like two guys in a garage to, you know, billion dollar companies.

Sydney Sloan:

And there's certain things that I find are consistent regardless of company size.

Sydney Sloan:

And that is that marketing is, as we know, right brain, left brain, science and art.

Sydney Sloan:

And so there's two facets.

Sydney Sloan:

It's like either they're looking for the unicorn, the person that has absolutely

Sydney Sloan:

everything in their resume has done absolutely everything, or they're

Sydney Sloan:

just looking for a demand gen person or just looking for a brand person.

Sydney Sloan:

And both of those are probably the spectrums from which to work within.

Sydney Sloan:

And so in my experience, on the scaleup side, I believe that marketing

Sydney Sloan:

is part strategy, part execution.

Sydney Sloan:

And so when I say that, then I'm thinking of how does this person set

Sydney Sloan:

the go-to-market strategy alongside the other leaders in the company?

Sydney Sloan:

That's the most important thing first because if you can decide what you're

Sydney Sloan:

going to go after and what you're not going to go after, then you can

Sydney Sloan:

organize the company against that.

Sydney Sloan:

And that doesn't matter what the company size is and I've never seen a

Sydney Sloan:

company be more successful than three.

Sydney Sloan:

I remember when Adobe had like five business units, they went down to two and

Sydney Sloan:

that's when they hyperscaled like in 2015.

Sydney Sloan:

And so that power of focus is real.

Sydney Sloan:

So I would say, you know, really helping to understand what the

Sydney Sloan:

strategy of the go-to-market is.

Sydney Sloan:

And then the execution.

Sydney Sloan:

You actually have to have demand gen chops as a marketer.

Sydney Sloan:

If you can't create demand and create inbound activity or connect with

Sydney Sloan:

an account-based strategy, that's a skill then you would need to learn.

Erica Seidel:

Right, because often there are people who come up only through one

Erica Seidel:

angle of marketing, whether it's demand gen, product marketing, or branding.

Erica Seidel:

And then sometimes they'll say like, oh, but I can lead the rest.

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But what I'm seeing now is more companies saying, well, in order to

Erica Seidel:

lead something, you'd have to be able to challenge the people that work for you.

Erica Seidel:

And so people who have kind of migrated around to multiple activities

Erica Seidel:

within marketing will do best.

Sydney Sloan:

When I was younger, I always thought I had to do every

Sydney Sloan:

job before I could manage someone.

Sydney Sloan:

That was a fallacy because basically then you're asking to micromanage.

Sydney Sloan:

I think, as you continue up in your career, then it's, what's the right

Sydney Sloan:

questions to ask versus how do I do?

Sydney Sloan:

And you can learn that by being part of projects.

Sydney Sloan:

I remember maybe it was eight years ago, I was leading customer marketing at Jive.

Sydney Sloan:

And I volunteered to be part of this awesome project that

Sydney Sloan:

our president was running, Jay Larson, and they hired McKinsey.

Sydney Sloan:

I had no right to be there, but I raised my hand and said, I would love

Sydney Sloan:

to project manage this so I can get that experience of the research they were

Sydney Sloan:

doing, how we were going after plays.

Sydney Sloan:

There was a customer marketing angle to it, but it wasn't the whole thing.

Sydney Sloan:

And so, you know, you can gain that experience, even

Sydney Sloan:

if it's not in your title.

Erica Seidel:

I like that, this difference between how do you do it versus what are

Erica Seidel:

the right questions to ask and how you can kind of rise up from being a micromanager.

Sydney Sloan:

Yeah.

Sydney Sloan:

I don't think you have to have done every job in order to be able to

Sydney Sloan:

do it, but you have to understand how all the pieces fit together.

Sydney Sloan:

And yes, what are the right metrics?

Sydney Sloan:

So if you don't know, then ask your network, like what are the right

Sydney Sloan:

metrics to hold my demand gen team accountable to their return on investment?

Sydney Sloan:

What should I expect in terms of show rates?

Sydney Sloan:

And what are those things that, you know you want to be in the swim

Sydney Sloan:

lane, if you're working for a venture VC-backed or even PE-backed, a lot

Sydney Sloan:

of them do have these indexes that within ranges they're a guideline.

Sydney Sloan:

They're not exact.

Sydney Sloan:

I've had CEOs put the chart in front of me.

Sydney Sloan:

It was like a science - what did they call the, where you have the

Sydney Sloan:

elements, the science elements?

Erica Seidel:

Oh yeah, the Periodic Table of Elements kinda thing?

Sydney Sloan:

Periodic Table chart.

Sydney Sloan:

And he put it in front of me and he's like, this is what you should be doing.

Sydney Sloan:

And I'm like uhh, you know, and I looked at some of their results and I'm like that

Sydney Sloan:

doesn't have anything to do with this.

Sydney Sloan:

We're an open source developer company.

Sydney Sloan:

Maybe if we were something else that would.

Sydney Sloan:

So, I think you still have to be smart enough to be able to challenge.

Sydney Sloan:

But every, you know, those kinds of things are just guidelines and at least

Sydney Sloan:

that you know an equation that you could look to, then you can benchmark

Sydney Sloan:

yourself and say, am I improving?

Erica Seidel:

Mmm, that's great.

Erica Seidel:

So that gets into another question I have about setting expectations with CEOs.

Erica Seidel:

So, sometimes CEOs hire CMOs and expect them to build Rome in a day, and it's

Erica Seidel:

like, oh, I want somebody who can, as one of my clients says, get the oars

Erica Seidel:

in the water fast and start rowing.

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But then sometimes I've had marketers that are, that say well, but this

Erica Seidel:

is going to take a long time.

Erica Seidel:

And so both things are true.

Erica Seidel:

And I'm wondering, what's your advice on how to build confidence in

Erica Seidel:

marketing when the reality is that some things do take a long time?

Sydney Sloan:

I'm a planner.

Sydney Sloan:

So I always want to know where I'm going.

Sydney Sloan:

I remember when starting at SalesLoft, like we ran quarterly OKRs.

Sydney Sloan:

And so it was like one quarter, we're doing this.

Sydney Sloan:

And one quarter, we're doing that.

Sydney Sloan:

And when you're a hundred person company, maybe you could adapt that fast.

Sydney Sloan:

But when you grow to a thousand person company, your

Sydney Sloan:

company can't shift that fast.

Sydney Sloan:

And as a marketer, and I think this all marketers would resonate with this, you

Sydney Sloan:

can't execute on a quarterly rhythm.

Sydney Sloan:

It takes a quarter to figure out what you're doing and then a couple

Sydney Sloan:

of quarters to execute and test it.

Sydney Sloan:

And then, so I think in six month cycles.

Sydney Sloan:

But where I like to sit is where do I want to be eighteen months from now?

Sydney Sloan:

And create the plan for the future.

Sydney Sloan:

Not just even the twelve-month, your annual plan, but look a little bit

Sydney Sloan:

beyond that and say here's where I think we can be in eighteen months.

Sydney Sloan:

And then I look at phases.

Sydney Sloan:

And then it's going to take us, you know, crawl, walk, run, or

Sydney Sloan:

phase one, phase two, phase three.

Sydney Sloan:

And so here's where we're going to start, but this is where we're going.

Sydney Sloan:

And so if you can set a really good vision of where it is we want to go,

Sydney Sloan:

and then here's how you get started and identify those milestones along the way

Sydney Sloan:

to show progress on the ultimate goal.

Sydney Sloan:

That's how I think of it.

Sydney Sloan:

I remember one time that I was at Alfresco, I got there and I think

Sydney Sloan:

I was there for maybe three months and sales kickoff was coming.

Sydney Sloan:

And so, our team worked really hard on, here's what we're going to do.

Sydney Sloan:

Here's two campaigns and here's our go-to-market and this is, we're

Sydney Sloan:

gonna run a competitive campaign.

Sydney Sloan:

And then these are the verticals we're going to go after, and we're gonna do

Sydney Sloan:

this one and we're gonna do this one next.

Sydney Sloan:

And I did not set proper expectations.

Sydney Sloan:

On Q1, we're going to do this.

Sydney Sloan:

Q3 is when you can expect that.

Sydney Sloan:

So as soon as sales kickoff was over, everybody was like, well, where is it?

Sydney Sloan:

You said it was going to happen.

Sydney Sloan:

Like, why aren't you executing on it?

Sydney Sloan:

And it took us longer to get the campaigns together and in market.

Sydney Sloan:

We'd just bought Marquetto.

Sydney Sloan:

We didn't have a database and we had a lot of work to do.

Sydney Sloan:

And so you make sure that when you're casting these great visions

Sydney Sloan:

of the future, that you are setting expectations on timing.

Sydney Sloan:

Because if you do a really good job at it, people are going to want it the next day.

Sydney Sloan:

So, just be careful.

Erica Seidel:

Right.

Erica Seidel:

And it sounds kind of obvious to set the future goal and then

Erica Seidel:

work backwards and communicate.

Erica Seidel:

Why do you think it is that some marketers get tripped up in that?

Sydney Sloan:

Well, you have to have the conviction.

Sydney Sloan:

I mean, sometimes it's hard, right?

Sydney Sloan:

Cause you want to test and test and test.

Sydney Sloan:

And so make sure that the vision that you're setting is high enough that

Sydney Sloan:

there's multiple tacks to get there.

Sydney Sloan:

And multiple plays that you could run to ultimately get there, but

Sydney Sloan:

that you have this big vision that you can rally people towards.

Sydney Sloan:

And fail fast, I would say, too.

Sydney Sloan:

Don't get hung up on it.

Sydney Sloan:

You know, these are all learnings.

Sydney Sloan:

Okay, we learned that's not the way.

Sydney Sloan:

Then we can try Option B, or we'll pivot here, we'll dial this.

Sydney Sloan:

So like I said, when I've seen companies set multiple strategies,

Sydney Sloan:

regardless of the size, it's like three, maybe even two that matter.

Sydney Sloan:

So if you have three strategies and one really hits it, then that's okay.

Sydney Sloan:

You can say, well, we learned on this side, this strategy one is growing 50%.

Sydney Sloan:

Strategy two is growing 5%.

Sydney Sloan:

We all agreed that those were the right strategies, but let's

Sydney Sloan:

drop the 5%, put more in the 50% and get it to grow at a hundred.

Sydney Sloan:

So placing a couple bets towards that vision it might be a way that

Sydney Sloan:

marketers and CMOs can manage with their counterparts is to how do we get there.

Erica Seidel:

Yeah, that makes sense.

Erica Seidel:

So let's talk about the CMO side now that we've talked about the CEO side.

Erica Seidel:

Can you share a few key mistakes for a SaaS marketing leader to

Erica Seidel:

avoid when they are scaling up?

Sydney Sloan:

Well, the first one, I think it just, it drifts off of what we

Sydney Sloan:

just said, which is pivoting too fast.

Sydney Sloan:

If you've done the research, if you've done the work - I remember

Sydney Sloan:

we did this course pragmatic marketing years and years ago.

Sydney Sloan:

And it was actually in product planning and engineering.

Sydney Sloan:

It wasn't a marketing one.

Sydney Sloan:

I went with our head of engineering to this course, and they were

Sydney Sloan:

like, the most important phase is the first phase of research.

Sydney Sloan:

So you really do understand what not to do versus trying five things.

Sydney Sloan:

So if you tried five things, you put 20% effort into it, three of

Sydney Sloan:

them fail, why not try and cut two or three out and put more effort

Sydney Sloan:

in the ones that statistically, if you've done your research properly

Sydney Sloan:

have had better chance of succeeding?

Sydney Sloan:

I think that's it.

Sydney Sloan:

If you really do assess your market opportunities properly, then make sure

Sydney Sloan:

that you take the time to work it through.

Sydney Sloan:

And maybe the first time out it doesn't work.

Sydney Sloan:

Maybe you're too early in market, maybe there's a little bit more

Sydney Sloan:

education that needs to be done.

Sydney Sloan:

Maybe there was a piece of the operational execution engine that

Sydney Sloan:

didn't get its piece in order and you need to go back and fix it.

Sydney Sloan:

So I just would say don't pivot too quickly when you've done

Sydney Sloan:

the research on a strategy.

Sydney Sloan:

The second one I think is super important, and it's to align with your CFO.

Sydney Sloan:

Pronto, right out of the gate, right?

Sydney Sloan:

You've got your leadership team and you want to have all those

Sydney Sloan:

relationships and you're head of sales, absolutely, is a strong relationship.

Sydney Sloan:

Head of product, as well.

Sydney Sloan:

But don't forget the CFO for many reasons.

Sydney Sloan:

Matt Heinz dropped the greatest knowledge bomb a couple of weeks

Sydney Sloan:

ago in the CMO group I'm in.

Sydney Sloan:

And he said the marketing budget is not an expense budget.

Sydney Sloan:

You're buying outcomes.

Sydney Sloan:

He probably said it more eloquently than that.

Sydney Sloan:

But you, the purpose of the marketing budget is to buy outcomes.

Sydney Sloan:

And if you were in partnership with your CFO over what outcomes you want to

Sydney Sloan:

achieve, and what's the right investment strategy to get those outcomes and you

Sydney Sloan:

partner with your CFO, that is going to build that trust layer that's going to

Sydney Sloan:

help you make those bigger bets later on.

Sydney Sloan:

And I remember coming into to Salesloft, and this was an important conversation.

Sydney Sloan:

And as I was leaving Salesloft cause I've left now.

Sydney Sloan:

He reflected, my CFO reflected on the importance of that

Sydney Sloan:

conversation when we first started.

Sydney Sloan:

And I sat down and I told him like how much I care about fiscal responsibility.

Sydney Sloan:

I balance my checkbook every month.

Sydney Sloan:

I don't have credit card debt.

Sydney Sloan:

I pay, you know, and like I want him to trust me.

Sydney Sloan:

And my goal was to be with plus or minus 5% of my targets, just like

Sydney Sloan:

sales has to be with their targets.

Sydney Sloan:

My commitment to him was that I believe that I have the fiduciary responsibility

Sydney Sloan:

of how the marketing budget is spent and I'm going to do it wisely.

Sydney Sloan:

And there are many times we had extra money that I said, you know what?

Sydney Sloan:

I'm not, I don't want this money because I don't think we can

Sydney Sloan:

spend it in an effective way.

Sydney Sloan:

And that's important to build trust too.

Sydney Sloan:

And so, we would run, we had a monthly check-in with our controller and my

Sydney Sloan:

finance business partner, building models, looking at things, I would

Sydney Sloan:

explain why we're investing in certain things and what my expected outcomes

Sydney Sloan:

were, and we educated each other.

Sydney Sloan:

And it was the healthiest relationship I've ever had.

Sydney Sloan:

To the point where maybe six months ago we were going through a big brand project

Sydney Sloan:

and we did a Shark Tank investment.

Sydney Sloan:

We wanted to really build the brand, this beautiful brand that we had

Sydney Sloan:

just created and, you know, put extra emphasis at in the market.

Sydney Sloan:

And we wanted another million dollars to spend on advertising just for brand.

Sydney Sloan:

So it wasn't going to be a demand investment.

Sydney Sloan:

It was just a brand investment.

Sydney Sloan:

And so we created this whole Shark Tank pitch for the team and they

Sydney Sloan:

gave us the money and it worked.

Sydney Sloan:

Better than, it worked very well.

Sydney Sloan:

To the point where we've continued to get more.

Sydney Sloan:

That wouldn't have happened I don't think if we wouldn't have

Sydney Sloan:

consistently performed, had built that trusted, that was there.

Erica Seidel:

That's great.

Erica Seidel:

There was another person on this podcast, Justin Steinman, who talked

Erica Seidel:

about with a marketing budget you never say, it's my marketing budget.

Erica Seidel:

You say it's our marketing budget.

Erica Seidel:

And so he says he's the steward of the budget, that is, the company's

Erica Seidel:

budget, which I think this aligns great to what you were saying.

Erica Seidel:

I say the steward, too.

Erica Seidel:

I say the same thing.

Erica Seidel:

The steward, yeah, it's great.

Erica Seidel:

Yeah.

Erica Seidel:

So you said you had three, was there another one floating around?

Sydney Sloan:

Oh, the third one is partnerships.

Sydney Sloan:

And, you know, sometimes you come in and you go, oh, the

Sydney Sloan:

marketing team, my marketing team.

Sydney Sloan:

And I think as a CMO, your job is actually to be a leader of the company.

Sydney Sloan:

And the function you run as marketing and you hire great people to do, you

Sydney Sloan:

know, to lead the different teams.

Sydney Sloan:

But if you spend time with their sales leader, your product leader,

Sydney Sloan:

making sure that those groups are aligned, then that's going to

Sydney Sloan:

make it easier for all your teams.

Sydney Sloan:

And when that doesn't happen, you can feel it right away.

Sydney Sloan:

Like when there's tension that, uh-oh, that means the leaders aren't aligned.

Sydney Sloan:

If we're aligned, then everybody else should also be aligned.

Sydney Sloan:

So it really is what I call team one, and team one is your peers.

Sydney Sloan:

And so if you're a C-level executive, your first job as a leader of the

Sydney Sloan:

company, and not the leader of marketing.

Sydney Sloan:

And hopefully, if your peers feel the same way and you have that trust,

Sydney Sloan:

then you can have open dialogues about the right strategy and the different

Sydney Sloan:

pieces of the organization that, you know, may need focus or help.

Sydney Sloan:

And I mean, there's so many examples I can think of where it's like, oh, I

Sydney Sloan:

remember just recently, the SDR team.

Sydney Sloan:

I have like five of them was not performing as well.

Sydney Sloan:

And I'm like, how about if we get some training?

Sydney Sloan:

Like I'll pay for it.

Sydney Sloan:

I shouldn't have to, the sales enablement team, but if that's going

Sydney Sloan:

to help, like fine, I'll do it.

Sydney Sloan:

I'll take money and I'll pay for it because that's important for that

Sydney Sloan:

part of our equation to function.

Sydney Sloan:

And so I did.

Sydney Sloan:

I took 20K and one of our product marketers, and they ran the project

Sydney Sloan:

with John Barrows and it was awesome.

Sydney Sloan:

They were so appreciative and, you know, invited us to attend.

Sydney Sloan:

And that's part of building partnerships is giving support when needed.

Erica Seidel:

That's really cool.

Erica Seidel:

I like that.

Erica Seidel:

And it makes me think about the trend that I'm seeing of people

Erica Seidel:

thinking about sales and marketing as one go-to-market function.

Erica Seidel:

And so, is that a trend that you're seeing?

Erica Seidel:

And if so, is that different than marketing being in alignment

Erica Seidel:

with sales and, you know, obviously other functions as well?

Sydney Sloan:

Well, it's a great question because I think there's

Sydney Sloan:

a lot of talk about revenue teams.

Sydney Sloan:

And the revenue organization and where do the operations people sit?

Sydney Sloan:

And so everybody nods their head, yes, absolutely, revenue alignment.

Sydney Sloan:

Would you have the CMO report to sales?

Sydney Sloan:

Absolutely not, no, no way.

Sydney Sloan:

I'm not gonna report to sales.

Sydney Sloan:

Then I'll just be a demand gen engine.

Sydney Sloan:

And so, I think there's a, you have to keep that healthy tension

Sydney Sloan:

between investing in the brand and demand and aligning on the strategy

Sydney Sloan:

of your true market leader, not marketing, but market leader.

Sydney Sloan:

And so I do think that looking at holistically the customer experience

Sydney Sloan:

through the lens of the operational side of a revenue makes a lot of sense.

Sydney Sloan:

Shared dashboards, common nomenclature, one pipeline meeting

Sydney Sloan:

where everybody is at the table.

Sydney Sloan:

It's not marketing saying this and SDR saying this and sales saying this.

Sydney Sloan:

Like we're all together looking at the pipeline creation and upsell, cross-sell,

Sydney Sloan:

and so bringing those folks together.

Sydney Sloan:

So, I think it's a revenue process, revenue engines, but I don't see

Sydney Sloan:

very often the CMO or the head of marketing reporting to head of sales.

Sydney Sloan:

Sometimes the president might have it, but then they're almost

Sydney Sloan:

like a quasi- CEO at that point.

Erica Seidel:

Yeah, I'm seeing some CMOs report to CROs, but hopefully

Erica Seidel:

those are people that are not, you know, they're kind of like a GM

Erica Seidel:

as opposed to just a salesperson that's called a revenue officer.

Erica Seidel:

Can we talk about goals?

Erica Seidel:

You had this framework around the achievable goal

Erica Seidel:

versus the aspirational goal.

Erica Seidel:

Because I imagine when you're a CMO in scale-up mode, you want to be

Erica Seidel:

able to set achievable goals so you don't over promise and under deliver,

Erica Seidel:

but at the same time, you might want to be aspirational for your team.

Erica Seidel:

So that like setting these aggressive goals that they can reach for even if

Erica Seidel:

you know you're not going to get to them.

Erica Seidel:

How do you think about that?

Sydney Sloan:

You know, I think there's a time and place for each, or even a mix.

Sydney Sloan:

I subscribe to the OKR system, so I think that's a really strong

Sydney Sloan:

framework to allow for top level goals, but still organic goals to

Sydney Sloan:

come from within the organization.

Sydney Sloan:

And they do use this framework of aspirational versus achievable.

Sydney Sloan:

And I think there's another one that starts with a C.

Sydney Sloan:

What I see on, if you go too aspirational, if it doesn't feel achievable,

Sydney Sloan:

then it's not worth writing down.

Sydney Sloan:

It's just not, right?

Sydney Sloan:

And so I've, there's so many times where I'm like, well, my BHAG is this.

Sydney Sloan:

And I think you can have that from time to time, but it can't be every quarter.

Sydney Sloan:

It can't be every goal.

Sydney Sloan:

If you want to pick one to like, say, Hey, this, cause if we do this really

Sydney Sloan:

well, like this is what we expect.

Sydney Sloan:

So you might have a couple there that are truly aspirational.

Sydney Sloan:

I think the purpose of aspirational goals is to really remove the barriers of what

Sydney Sloan:

you're doing now to think differently about how you might achieve it.

Sydney Sloan:

Versus incremental growth where you want to do transformational growth,

Sydney Sloan:

that might be the time that you throw down an aspirational goal.

Sydney Sloan:

But you allow your team the space to realize, you know,

Sydney Sloan:

that it was an aspirational.

Sydney Sloan:

But I find with Type As, if you put an aspirational goal down,

Sydney Sloan:

they're still going to go for it, and if they don't crush it, then

Sydney Sloan:

they're going to feel defeated.

Sydney Sloan:

So you have to be really careful that it doesn't become a demotivating

Sydney Sloan:

factor when you set aspirational goals because they're unachievable.

Sydney Sloan:

Or that people are like, I can't even get that.

Sydney Sloan:

Like why bother?

Sydney Sloan:

If you've got people with quotas that are so huge that they don't

Sydney Sloan:

see a path to it, they're not going to be motivated to meet it.

Sydney Sloan:

So I think that's a good example of achievable goal where you allow them to

Sydney Sloan:

overachieve and maybe you change your comp plans allowing for overachievement

Sydney Sloan:

if that's what's necessary to get the momentum going in the organization.

Sydney Sloan:

Or if you're doing a new product group or a new team, let them achieve the

Sydney Sloan:

goals and get that momentum of success versus some crazy BHAG that your

Sydney Sloan:

financial model tells you, but your gut tells you - Your financial model

Sydney Sloan:

tells you that you need, but your gut tells you it's not the right thing.

Erica Seidel:

And you talked about bonuses and motivating people financially.

Erica Seidel:

Are you starting to see marketers getting compensated more like salespeople

Erica Seidel:

with higher variable compensations?

Erica Seidel:

It's something I've been starting to see in pockets here and there.

Sydney Sloan:

I have not.

Sydney Sloan:

I mean, I see the CMOs you know, we're responsible for company

Sydney Sloan:

revenue, I see company metrics where the revenue achievement is part

Sydney Sloan:

of the overall bonus structure.

Sydney Sloan:

So it's like, did we meet our revenue goals?

Sydney Sloan:

Did we meet our churn and retention goals?

Sydney Sloan:

If it's net or gross.

Sydney Sloan:

And then some operational efficiency targets.

Sydney Sloan:

That's pretty common.

Sydney Sloan:

I actually was on a thread today on LinkedIn.

Sydney Sloan:

Carilu Dietrich started on compensating SDRs.

Sydney Sloan:

I think that's one that's a little bit different where you have so

Sydney Sloan:

many different kinds of SDR teams, you can have an inbound team,

Sydney Sloan:

you can have an outbound team.

Sydney Sloan:

You could have a hybrid blended team, you know, supporting SMB versus enterprise.

Sydney Sloan:

So there's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to SDRs and BDRs, but there

Sydney Sloan:

is this idea of quality over quantity.

Sydney Sloan:

And I see that where, if they're creating all these SQLs, but they're not

Sydney Sloan:

converting, should they still get paid?

Sydney Sloan:

I don't think so.

Sydney Sloan:

I think it does have to be a quality and quantity.

Sydney Sloan:

The quantity is proof to the formula.

Sydney Sloan:

The quality is proof to the person's ability to properly qualify.

Sydney Sloan:

And the sales rep, right?

Sydney Sloan:

It's a responsibility between both of them.

Sydney Sloan:

And so I do like giving that second kind of mix on the variable to quality.

Sydney Sloan:

Now, does that mean they get paid on closed one?

Sydney Sloan:

Well, it depends on the timing of the sales cycle.

Sydney Sloan:

Maybe they get paid when it hits another sales stage where it's further

Sydney Sloan:

qualified, and that's good enough and it's a little bit quicker so they see

Sydney Sloan:

the compensation coming back to them and they stay motivated in their job.

Erica Seidel:

Makes sense.

Sydney Sloan:

I haven't seen that in though in other places

Sydney Sloan:

like advertising return on investment or anything like that.

Sydney Sloan:

So I haven't seen that yet.

Erica Seidel:

Okay.

Erica Seidel:

Interesting.

Erica Seidel:

So let's dive in deeper on org and hiring.

Erica Seidel:

I'm wondering if in all your experience you have made an organizational

Erica Seidel:

choice that most other marketers haven't done or wouldn't do?

Erica Seidel:

Like a really unique organizational choice.

Sydney Sloan:

So I like to design org charts, same thing, you'll

Sydney Sloan:

see the same eighteen months out.

Sydney Sloan:

So it's like, what am I designing for in the future?

Sydney Sloan:

And then what is my revenue target at that point?

Sydney Sloan:

So what is a $250 million marketing organization look like versus

Sydney Sloan:

a $50 million organization?

Sydney Sloan:

If you're growing that fast.

Sydney Sloan:

I think it's like a hundred to 250.

Sydney Sloan:

But you know, they absolutely change and adapt and like people's skills

Sydney Sloan:

and experience have to change.

Sydney Sloan:

That's the hardest part of the job, is making sure you've got the right people in

Sydney Sloan:

the right roles with the right experience.

Sydney Sloan:

Or that you can teach them to do that.

Sydney Sloan:

And when I first arrived and we were 15 million, I was the

Sydney Sloan:

smallest company I'd worked for since I was right out of college.

Sydney Sloan:

That's different because you're working with a lot of people

Sydney Sloan:

that are first time in job.

Sydney Sloan:

I looked at my management team, I'm like everybody that is on my management

Sydney Sloan:

team this is the first time them ever doing any of their jobs before.

Sydney Sloan:

Wow.

Sydney Sloan:

Ok, so how do I manage those folks and how do I, how can I give direction,

Sydney Sloan:

give training and enablement, still hire and balance where there's people

Sydney Sloan:

that are being promoted while you're hiring in more experienced talent?

Sydney Sloan:

And that equation continues as the company continues to grow.

Sydney Sloan:

During those periods, I have people report to me for different reasons.

Sydney Sloan:

Sometimes I've had field marketing directly report to me, but the reason

Sydney Sloan:

is because I wanted to stay close to what was happening in the field.

Sydney Sloan:

And if they had been reporting to the head of demand gen, I wouldn't be

Sydney Sloan:

hearing kind of first party insights on, okay, what are the sales teams saying?

Sydney Sloan:

How are they executing?

Sydney Sloan:

How are they feeling about the sales plays?

Sydney Sloan:

What else are they asking for?

Sydney Sloan:

And so that was the reason that I, at that point, put field

Sydney Sloan:

marketing reporting to me.

Sydney Sloan:

Recently, I had customer marketing reporting to me and

Sydney Sloan:

she had analysts relations and customer marketing, same thing.

Sydney Sloan:

It was like, I wanted to have direct insight and I believed I could help

Sydney Sloan:

coach this really talented person to - Sunshine, I'm talking about you if

Sydney Sloan:

you're listening - this really talented person to stretch into a new role.

Sydney Sloan:

And I told her at some point you'll likely go into the comms and that did happen.

Sydney Sloan:

But for this period of time, you know, let's do this.

Sydney Sloan:

And I think when you're looking at your leadership team, it doesn't

Sydney Sloan:

always have to be your direct reports.

Sydney Sloan:

And so if you have emerging talent or people inside the team that are

Sydney Sloan:

taking on special projects, let them be part of your leadership team.

Sydney Sloan:

Give them that exposure to how you lead and manage and start

Sydney Sloan:

cultivating them as a future leader if you see them in that hiring path.

Sydney Sloan:

So that might be other time too.

Sydney Sloan:

It's like, well, why is that person going to your leadership team?

Sydney Sloan:

It's like, oh, that person's a future leader and I want them

Sydney Sloan:

to learn what's going on here.

Sydney Sloan:

So when it's time for them to be promoted, or if I'm kind of getting a

Sydney Sloan:

backup person just in case, or if I have my plan, like I'm going to expand this

Sydney Sloan:

team and this person's going to come out into a new role, then I want them

Sydney Sloan:

to understand what it's like to be a leader, the kinds of challenges we're

Sydney Sloan:

faced with, how we run our business, you know, give them opportunities to take on

Sydney Sloan:

new projects that are cross-functional.

Sydney Sloan:

That's not necessarily org structure difference, but it's

Sydney Sloan:

how you run the team different.

Erica Seidel:

Is there a particularly risky bet that you

Erica Seidel:

have made on a hire in the past?

Erica Seidel:

And maybe it's somebody without SaaS background coming into SaaS or hiring

Erica Seidel:

a B2C marketer into B2B or hiring a totally different function to come in

Erica Seidel:

and run product marketing or...you know.

Sydney Sloan:

You know, I've hired people outside of SaaS.

Sydney Sloan:

Our company SalesLoft was based in Atlanta, so we just didn't have the

Sydney Sloan:

same pool of talent to pull from.

Sydney Sloan:

And so, we were pulling people out of consumer, but for, they were smart

Sydney Sloan:

choices, you know, advertising, brand, demand gen, not the core strategy pieces.

Sydney Sloan:

But I hired an engineer out of GE who had been a hardware product

Sydney Sloan:

marketer before and he's awesome.

Sydney Sloan:

He had really good super skills and project management and he

Sydney Sloan:

understood product launches.

Sydney Sloan:

So I think you can absolutely do that.

Sydney Sloan:

I also think that finding talent within your organization and bringing them in.

Sydney Sloan:

So I've hired from recruiting.

Sydney Sloan:

I've hired every chief of staff that we ever had.

Sydney Sloan:

I love office managers.

Sydney Sloan:

They're great field marketers because they're organized and

Sydney Sloan:

they can work well with people and they know how to plan events.

Sydney Sloan:

And so I think there's some really easy talent pools inside

Sydney Sloan:

the organization to pull from.

Sydney Sloan:

I think the one piece of advice I would give here that I learned was a

Sydney Sloan:

couple of times where I felt really strongly about a candidate that had

Sydney Sloan:

yellow flags in the interview process.

Sydney Sloan:

And so, you know, sometimes I've taken the risk on that and learned my lesson,

Sydney Sloan:

and sometimes I've taken the risk and it ended up being perfectly fine.

Sydney Sloan:

And the advice that I got was if people raise a yellow flag and you still feel

Sydney Sloan:

strongly, you have to go back to that person, acknowledge the yellow flag.

Sydney Sloan:

When you're doing your background checks, address that with as many people as

Sydney Sloan:

you can talk to and learn, and then be very clear with the candidate,

Sydney Sloan:

hey, this was a yellow flag, this is something we're going to work on.

Sydney Sloan:

And before you hire them, get agreement that yes, that is

Sydney Sloan:

something they want to work on.

Sydney Sloan:

And you start, you know, it's almost like you're working on your development

Sydney Sloan:

plan as they're coming in and helping them continue to work through that.

Sydney Sloan:

If you feel strongly, you can take that risk, but just be,

Sydney Sloan:

make sure everybody is aware.

Erica Seidel:

My last question for you is one I ask I think almost

Erica Seidel:

everybody and that is, do you have a favorite interview question?

Erica Seidel:

So something that you like to ask that is really surprisingly revealing?

Sydney Sloan:

Kyle Porter asked me this question one time, and so it's become

Sydney Sloan:

my favorite question, which is "What is the one thing that you hold true

Sydney Sloan:

that others would challenge you on?"

Sydney Sloan:

And, you know, it's a deep thinker.

Sydney Sloan:

You have to like, that's a level three, we call it, like

Sydney Sloan:

that's a level three question.

Sydney Sloan:

And so I ask that one from time to time.

Sydney Sloan:

But what I would highlight is this notion of topgrading as an interview style.

Sydney Sloan:

And so rather than a question, I think it's more of a method.

Sydney Sloan:

And what I love about the topgrade process is you really learn about

Sydney Sloan:

the person in their journey.

Sydney Sloan:

Not the jobs and the accomplishments, but how they work, how they

Sydney Sloan:

work with people, how they make decisions, looking for patterns,

Sydney Sloan:

who influenced them in their life.

Sydney Sloan:

And so if you're not familiar with Topgrading, look it up, read it.

Sydney Sloan:

Send me a message on LinkedIn if you'd like a little coaching.

Sydney Sloan:

It's an amazing way to do a really deep-dive.

Sydney Sloan:

And it takes a while.

Sydney Sloan:

So it's an hour, hour and a half-long interview, depending on how long

Sydney Sloan:

the person's career path is.

Sydney Sloan:

But it's super insightful.

Sydney Sloan:

And you learn a lot about the person.

Erica Seidel:

Yeah, I once did a topgrading interview for a company.

Erica Seidel:

I did not get the job, but it entailed flying from Boston to Philly, going

Erica Seidel:

to the airport, like, Hilton and sitting in a room with somebody.

Erica Seidel:

And it was like maybe a six-hour interview.

Sydney Sloan:

I think mine was three.

Sydney Sloan:

I think we had to take a break and come back.

Sydney Sloan:

But I'm a talker, you know?

Sydney Sloan:

It's like, oh, you want to know about that?

Sydney Sloan:

Well, yeah, I know.

Sydney Sloan:

I mean, if you've been to it, I mean, I would say it's an hour per

Sydney Sloan:

ten years of experience, right?

Sydney Sloan:

At least, depending on how deep they want to go.

Sydney Sloan:

I think if you're a good interviewer, once you see a pattern,

Sydney Sloan:

you can kindly move them on.

Sydney Sloan:

So I learned, you know, you don't have to make it that long.

Erica Seidel:

Well, Sydney, thank you so much.

Erica Seidel:

This has been fabulous.

Erica Seidel:

I've learned so much.

Erica Seidel:

And I think that the listeners will, too.

Erica Seidel:

So thank you.

Sydney Sloan:

It's been my pleasure, Erica.

Sydney Sloan:

Thank you for having me.

Sydney Sloan:

Happy '22.

Erica Seidel:

That was Sydney Sloan, sharing lots of do's and don'ts about

Erica Seidel:

how to scale in a transformational way, not just an incremental way.

Erica Seidel:

Now that you've listened, ask yourself how can you be not just a marketing

Erica Seidel:

leader, but a true market leader?

Erica Seidel:

Thanks for listening to The Get.

Erica Seidel:

I'm your host Erica Seidel.

Erica Seidel:

Hiring great marketing leaders is not easy.

Erica Seidel:

The Get is designed to inspire smart decisions around recruiting and

Erica Seidel:

leadership in B2B SaaS marketing.

Erica Seidel:

We explore the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of today's top

Erica Seidel:

marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.

Erica Seidel:

This season's theme is Solving for the Scale Journey.

Erica Seidel:

If you liked this episode, please share it.

Erica Seidel:

For other insights on recruiting great marketing leaders - what I

Erica Seidel:

call the 'make money' marketing leaders rather than the 'make it

Erica Seidel:

pretty' ones, follow me on LinkedIn.

Erica Seidel:

You can also sign up for my newsletter at TheConnectiveGood.com.

Erica Seidel:

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