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
Erica Seidel:out just a few highlights.
Erica Seidel:I asked her how a CMO can balance getting oars in the water quickly
Erica Seidel:while managing expectations that in marketing things can take time?
Erica Seidel:You'll hear about when to set achievable goals versus
Erica Seidel:aspirational goals for your team.
Erica Seidel:You'll also learn about how to build organizational
Erica Seidel:excitement around your vision.
Erica Seidel:And you'll hear about organizing your marketing team and hiring with an eye to
Erica Seidel: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.
Erica Seidel: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.
Erica Seidel: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.
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Erica Seidel:The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.