Speaker:

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

Speaker:

great marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.

Speaker:

I'm Erica Seidel, your host.

Speaker:

On The Get, I talk to a lot of awesome marketing leaders.

Speaker:

But my guest today is actually not a CMO.

Speaker:

Instead, he plays the role of a 'talent whisperer' for CEOs who are hiring CMOs.

Speaker:

Bryan West is the head of talent at Resurgens Technology

Speaker:

Partners, a private-equity firm investing in enterprise software

Speaker:

companies in scaling mode.

Speaker:

If you're a CMO looking to work in a private-equity-backed business,

Speaker:

or a hiring leader in a PE-backed company, you could come across

Speaker:

someone in a role like Bryan's.

Speaker:

You'll learn about the role of the PE talent partner in recruiting CMOs.

Speaker:

You'll hear about the soft skills framework Bryan uses to vet candidates.

Speaker:

In particular, listen for his definition of agility, not just being adaptable,

Speaker:

but being proactively adaptable.

Speaker:

We unpack the difference between a candidate who can go into a new

Speaker:

situation and figure it out versus a candidate who has a plan of attack.

Speaker:

We discuss whether prior experience with scaling is or is not the best

Speaker:

predictor of future scaling success.

Speaker:

And we talk about failure.

Speaker:

We all know it's important to have a failure story, but what

Speaker:

if you have more than one?

Speaker:

Is there a sweet spot of failure?

Speaker:

Bryan has had quite a career.

Speaker:

He was a fly fishing guide, he spent several years in the U.S.

Speaker:

Marine Corps, and later McKinsey.

Speaker:

Then, he was with the leadership advisory firm ghSMART before joining Resurgens.

Speaker:

He also has a great radio voice.

Speaker:

Let's get started.

Speaker:

So welcome, Bryan, to the show.

Speaker:

Thanks for being here.

Speaker:

That's a really high bar.

Speaker:

I thought about making a joke voice there just to crush your hopes

Speaker:

and dreams on the radio voice.

Speaker:

I've been looking forward to this.

Speaker:

I look forward to every conversation I have with you, Erica.

Speaker:

So looking forward to diving in here.

Speaker:

Great.

Speaker:

Super, can you talk first about the role of the talent partner in PE and how

Speaker:

you interact with CEOs and candidates?

Speaker:

Because what I'm seeing is more and more PE companies are cropping up and investing

Speaker:

in software companies, and then as those software companies look to bring on a

Speaker:

new marketing leader, you have that CMO candidate who's not just interviewing

Speaker:

with the head of sales and the CEO and the team that they'll manage, but they're

Speaker:

interviewing with somebody like you.

Speaker:

And then other people that work with you more on the investment side as well.

Speaker:

But can you talk about that and the value you provide at the

Speaker:

end of the day to that process?

Speaker:

I'll do my best on the latter, but I'll talk a lot about things I do,

Speaker:

and maybe then we'll figure out if there's an ROI to it on the back end.

Speaker:

So first actually I'll - not to provide too deep of a history lesson, but the

Speaker:

talent partner role with any investor group, to include venture firms or things

Speaker:

of the like, it's a relatively new thing.

Speaker:

The history of investor groups and private equity firms is, originally

Speaker:

it was, let's flash back twenty, twenty-five years ago, and the history

Speaker:

of private equity predates that.

Speaker:

But the operating models started evolving about twenty, twenty-five years ago, where

Speaker:

originally it was, hey, let's go buy a business - I'm going to oversimplify - do

Speaker:

a lot of financial engineering and then hold it for a few years, and sell it for

Speaker:

a 'profit.' Then return that money back to the investors that had given them money.

Speaker:

The next horizon was is there something we can do to help these

Speaker:

companies we invest in along the way to increase, or juice our returns, so

Speaker:

to speak, improve their performance along the way so that then bore out

Speaker:

portfolio operations, support teams.

Speaker:

And frankly, there's a whole lot of different versions of

Speaker:

that out there still today.

Speaker:

And then the final or currently the next frontier that's really been

Speaker:

tapped into pretty materially over the last three to five years is

Speaker:

having someone dedicated or some group dedicated to maximizing the 'value

Speaker:

creation' through the talent lens, i.e.

Speaker:

have somebody that's actually thinking about talent and ROI all the time

Speaker:

as owned by the investor group.

Speaker:

Now, these roles, though - it's funny, I'm really well-connected

Speaker:

with people in similar roles, boy, they all take form in different ways.

Speaker:

There's former recruiters who step in where the primary function that

Speaker:

role plays is to help turn on the talent acquisition machine, if you

Speaker:

will, across the respective portfolio.

Speaker:

There's forerunner CHROs that take the role and just basically make the function

Speaker:

become a shared service for anything and everything when it comes to HR.

Speaker:

And then there's folks like me who are former talent advisors and CEO

Speaker:

coaches and/or leadership coaches.

Speaker:

So that archetype of which there's a number of us out in market, and the

Speaker:

good news is we get to share our misery in good cocktail hours here and there.

Speaker:

Our role, really, is to help translate with a CEO and, of course, our

Speaker:

colleagues, which is in effect the board for an investment, our role is to

Speaker:

help translate whatever that strategy is for a business into a clear set

Speaker:

of priorities for the business to go execute and help that inform what the

Speaker:

org structure and key roles should be.

Speaker:

Like, what are the capabilities that we need to deliver on

Speaker:

our growth plans confidently?

Speaker:

And by the way, fortunately, I work at a private equity group that all

Speaker:

we do is buy small companies and try to grow them and make it bigger.

Speaker:

I don't play the other game.

Speaker:

With that lens, though, it becomes a non-stop - of course, it's early

Speaker:

on it's pretty heavy, but it becomes a nonstop problem-solving game and

Speaker:

strategic game of, hey, what are the capabilities you need for tomorrow?

Speaker:

What are the capabilities you need for several years from now?

Speaker:

And what are we willing to invest in?

Speaker:

What do we need to invest in now?

Speaker:

That conversation with the board or with the CEOs directly becomes a

Speaker:

pretty dynamic one because you could keep it very academic and talk about

Speaker:

capabilities and whatnot, but at the end of the day, these are human beings

Speaker:

and we're all a little imperfect in how you engage one another and how you

Speaker:

actually help elevate the performance of an individual early and ongoing in their

Speaker:

time, in that seat, and in their career.

Speaker:

It's a pretty dynamic, ongoing conversation.

Speaker:

I play, I'm the grease in that conversation often between the CEO and

Speaker:

the board and the CEO and their team because I just want to make sure that

Speaker:

anything and everything we can do to elevate the performance of people in

Speaker:

the seats to whatever degree their capability ceiling is, we're getting

Speaker:

the most out of them that we possibly can both for our benefit, candidly,

Speaker:

yes, we are selfish, big, bad private equity people, but also for theirs.

Speaker:

Look, growth is fun.

Speaker:

Good performing is fun.

Speaker:

Let's all go have a little bit of fun while we do really hard things.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker:

In my experience recruiting, there is often a CEO and maybe that CEO has

Speaker:

not hired a ton of marketing leaders before, or maybe ever, depending

Speaker:

on if maybe they're the founder.

Speaker:

It can be very helpful to have somebody who has this muscle developed every

Speaker:

day, like you, who can say, okay, here's how you prioritize this.

Speaker:

Here's how to pay attention to the signal and not the noise and

Speaker:

not get emotionally wrapped up in it because that can happen a lot.

Speaker:

It can happen a lot.

Speaker:

And to your point, founders in particular, understandably so, by

Speaker:

the way, my goodness, the empathy you develop for founders at a

Speaker:

firm like ours is pretty real.

Speaker:

Number one, we are often convincing them to sell us a

Speaker:

majority stake of their business.

Speaker:

It is often their baby, their third, if they've got two

Speaker:

kids, this is their third kid.

Speaker:

And sometimes the company is actually at the top of the list.

Speaker:

So that attachment they have to what they know and what they know to be

Speaker:

true based on their own personal experience is often really high.

Speaker:

When it comes to marketing leaders, though, and the marketing

Speaker:

capability overall, you're dead on.

Speaker:

Pretty material challenges to navigate and helping either a founder or a CEO.

Speaker:

The difference, obviously, often those are the same human beings and often

Speaker:

though founders do transition out of the CEO seat on this next wave of

Speaker:

growth that our businesses go through.

Speaker:

But one is just simply understanding what role marketing can play and

Speaker:

should play in value creation.

Speaker:

Fortunately, this is evolving and has evolved in software businesses because

Speaker:

the pattern recognition of seeing how value is created in software businesses

Speaker:

over time has become pretty clear in that, hey, marketing is going to help you

Speaker:

actually drive demand and drive revenue.

Speaker:

Again, at a high level.

Speaker:

The problem is a lot of CEOs don't fully understand tactically

Speaker:

how that comes to bear.

Speaker:

So they don't have the confidence to manage or lead it that well.

Speaker:

So they just put it over to the side, go lean in on the things they do know.

Speaker:

But even for CEOs that have worked alongside a great marketing leader,

Speaker:

it's not often that function that has needed strongly to express more than

Speaker:

one axis of marketing, if you will, and you're probably going to have better

Speaker:

terminology on this than I would.

Speaker:

You've also seen this in some of our partnerships already just to work with

Speaker:

each other, the scorecard, so to speak, for marketing leader A and company

Speaker:

number one that we partnered on, pretty doggone different than the scorecard.

Speaker:

Even though these are two software businesses, what skill set needed to

Speaker:

get expressed and leveraged the most was quite different across both of those.

Speaker:

And CEOs often don't have, and this is true of the leaders alongside

Speaker:

the marketing leaders as well, the peer level, they'd only seen one

Speaker:

skill set expressed materially.

Speaker:

They've never seen more than one.

Speaker:

So that becomes a challenge because the CEOs often don't know how actually

Speaker:

to think about it and manage it unless it's something they've seen before.

Speaker:

The most a non-commercial background CEO can really coach a marketing leader on is

Speaker:

the interpersonal leadership skills and how better to present a business case.

Speaker:

Those are absolutely essential and critical skills, but if the marketing

Speaker:

leader's broader toolkit is not refined and some of it needs to get tapped into

Speaker:

or elevated further, the CEO needs to figure out a way to solve that, help that.

Speaker:

That's some of the role where I come in, not to coach them on the skill

Speaker:

set, but to help solve for how do we find a way to elevate that skill

Speaker:

and/or develop that skill further?

Speaker:

So it can become an interesting dynamic, again, if the CEO just has

Speaker:

simply little exposure to it in the first place, or at least a full breadth

Speaker:

of what marketing can do for you.

Speaker:

I often feel in a search, what the CEO is really looking for, beyond the scorecard

Speaker:

that you're inevitably going to have, is just the marketing leader that they

Speaker:

can feel comfortable admitting that they don't know it all and the marketing

Speaker:

leader that they want to learn from.

Speaker:

And that's it.

Speaker:

So the CMO that gets the job is the one that is the best at being that

Speaker:

Sherpa or that coach for the CEO.

Speaker:

I'm curious, you're seeing people grapple with questions behind the

Speaker:

scenes when they're hiring the marketing leaders and other roles, of course.

Speaker:

Is there a particular question or questions that come up, those behind

Speaker:

the scenes questions when there's a tough hiring situation going on?

Speaker:

Yeah, that's a good lens to reflect on because yes, there are some common themes.

Speaker:

It's funny, some of them are just bespoke to personalities.

Speaker:

That's shame on us, in a way, cause I always say, hey, at the end of the

Speaker:

day, we can find a way to make it work.

Speaker:

Let's just latch onto what are the capabilities we need and can we get

Speaker:

aligned with this individual and build an effective working relationship with them?

Speaker:

I don't need everybody to be exactly the same type of human being.

Speaker:

The main questions I see folks wrestle with - and maybe a touch more

Speaker:

context on the types of businesses that we invest will be helpful here.

Speaker:

We're investing in $10 million businesses and trying to get them to fifty at

Speaker:

a high level, both through organic growth and inorganic growth, i.e.

Speaker:

M&A.

Speaker:

The best set of data, in crude terms, that we at the investor side, and, of

Speaker:

course, we typically are working alongside a founder and/or a CEO to help make

Speaker:

these decisions on who to hire, as well.

Speaker:

But the best set of data that you can get to help drive conviction is past

Speaker:

performance data that is exactly, extremely analogous or a dead-on match

Speaker:

to what this needs to happen in this next chapter of growth in the business today.

Speaker:

Of course, it is exceedingly rare, not impossible, but it is

Speaker:

exceedingly rare that you find that exact perfect set of data.

Speaker:

So you have to find yourself making a few leaps of faith here or there.

Speaker:

And that's totally normal in any hiring practice, but particularly,

Speaker:

candidly in our end of the market.

Speaker:

Why?

Speaker:

Because when you're going from ten to fifty, often your best leaders

Speaker:

are, not always, again, those people who've gone from ten to fifty, if

Speaker:

they're ambitious and driven, often they want to go do the bigger thing.

Speaker:

And they go off to go do the next fifty to 100 march.

Speaker:

So that ten to fifty is often a first-time leader every time, either stepping

Speaker:

into the seat for the first time or stepping down from a bigger business

Speaker:

as a number two role, coming down to a $10 million business and running it.

Speaker:

The struggle with the decision is can this person balance the need of executing

Speaker:

and being really hands-on and building for scale and being strategic enough and

Speaker:

disciplined enough to build for scale as they add onto their team over time?

Speaker:

Finding that data, if it's not obviously right there, or finding analogous data

Speaker:

in crude terms throughout the interview process can be a struggle because it's

Speaker:

not, it becomes an imperfect science.

Speaker:

Hiring's a subjective exercise.

Speaker:

You've just got to apply a lot of lenses to it to make it as objective as possible.

Speaker:

Yeah, it seems a lot of my searches, that's what companies want.

Speaker:

It's somebody who has done that climb before, that ten to fifty,

Speaker:

or fifty to 200, or whatever it is.

Speaker:

So you're right, there's that interest in the been-there-done-that.

Speaker:

That prior scaling experience, is that really the best indication

Speaker:

of future successful clients?

Speaker:

Because it seems there's so many things that can come into play.

Speaker:

You were successful because the market was growing or because the culture was

Speaker:

a great fit or you had a great boss or a great team under you, or whatever.

Speaker:

And I can see how that increases hiring confidence to have somebody who

Speaker:

has been successful, in any context, growing and scaling a business.

Speaker:

But is it really?

Speaker:

Well, at the end of the day, this is actually true of any hiring exercise but

Speaker:

particularly investors, we're making bets.

Speaker:

And then we do everything we can to maximize the creation

Speaker:

of value, but also critically mitigate the risks on the downside.

Speaker:

And risk is everywhere now to be sure.

Speaker:

So, too, is opportunity.

Speaker:

As much as I love finding the best in people and candidates that I connect

Speaker:

with and find reasons to say yes to someone, the statistical best predictor

Speaker:

of future performance and behavior is still past performance and behavior.

Speaker:

It's not perfect, but it's still the best - doesn't mean the

Speaker:

only, but it's still the best.

Speaker:

It's just the one that folks can latch on to the easiest.

Speaker:

So the best case scenario is finding someone that's been there, done that.

Speaker:

But as I shared earlier, you can't always assume you're

Speaker:

going to be able to find that.

Speaker:

It's not just for the psychological comfort of it, by the way.

Speaker:

It is also a knowing that the individual would show up and be effective by tapping,

Speaker:

not just their intellect and base of skills, but the pattern recognition.

Speaker:

That equals speed.

Speaker:

And guess what, we're also in a game of moving pretty quick and there

Speaker:

is something very real to that.

Speaker:

Because scaling is hard.

Speaker:

At our end of the market,, some of this is a little bit bespoke

Speaker:

to us in our operating model, but going from ten to twenty to thirty,

Speaker:

it requires some athleticism.

Speaker:

It requires some dynamism in the role.

Speaker:

These leaders will have quite lean teams early on, so they'll need

Speaker:

to be doing some of that doing themselves in the early stages.

Speaker:

That can lend to some execution risks, no surprise.

Speaker:

If they've seen the movie before, it makes them all the more effective

Speaker:

in how they allocate their time and advocate for further resources.

Speaker:

Those are lenses that bosses, CEOs, and boards just love.

Speaker:

Why?

Speaker:

Because we're all about advocating and making further bets and

Speaker:

making further investments.

Speaker:

It sure is helpful when somebody can articulate exactly what they've

Speaker:

seen before, what they can do, and what the payoff would be.

Speaker:

That helps everybody see the movie and bring folks along in that vision.

Speaker:

And frankly, marketing leaders, can be really good at that, at least

Speaker:

the good ones are because they can help paint that picture of how

Speaker:

exactly this is going to play out.

Speaker:

You have, I remember, a framework for hiring for potential.

Speaker:

We were doing this search and you were evaluating candidates and you

Speaker:

ran through all these lovely, soft skills that you were looking at.

Speaker:

Can you review that?

Speaker:

Potential, to be sure, is one thing that we're looking for.

Speaker:

We do, of course, look for hard evidence of things they've done before

Speaker:

that are analogous to what we're asking them to do in the future.

Speaker:

Park that to the side, 'cause you've already heard me say we're going to have

Speaker:

to take leaps of faith here and there.

Speaker:

So the best way for us to fill in those leaps of faith are on what are the

Speaker:

markers for potential this person has?

Speaker:

I break potential down into four categories.

Speaker:

And this is not, nothing in my brain is fully organic to me, or originated by me.

Speaker:

I'm informed by my own background and experience set.

Speaker:

Some of this I pull from my ghSMART days, my days as an advisor.

Speaker:

There's four categories.

Speaker:

First and foremost, cognitive quotient or just smart.

Speaker:

I recognize that's an overly simplistic thing, but it's not

Speaker:

just, is this person booksmart?

Speaker:

Is this person really savvy or quick in a room?

Speaker:

It's things like, are they proactive in identifying opportunities and

Speaker:

risks that the regular person, a regular candidate just wouldn't?

Speaker:

Are they thinking of things their boss should be thinking about

Speaker:

one and two years down the line?

Speaker:

Are they thinking about the organizational impact of one of their initiatives

Speaker:

before they even bring it to the table?

Speaker:

That's one.

Speaker:

Two is drive.

Speaker:

Drive doesn't need all that much explanation.

Speaker:

And drive is not just somebody who has sharp elbows and is willing

Speaker:

to advocate for themselves just for their own career advancement.

Speaker:

It's drive so they can pull people along with them, and drive so they can

Speaker:

actually advocate for a course forward.

Speaker:

And you can absolutely look for these in the interview process, in crude

Speaker:

terms the "data collection" process.

Speaker:

Third, is relationship quotient.

Speaker:

Think of that as a more robust version of EQ and that is, can you relate to others?

Speaker:

Can you understand others' motivations?

Speaker:

Can you navigate team and organizational dynamics to

Speaker:

advance, ultimately, your agenda?

Speaker:

Can you compromise your agenda and still achieve the organizational goals,

Speaker:

and understand what those trade-offs are and help others achieve theirs?

Speaker:

That's that part.

Speaker:

Those are things you can really test for.

Speaker:

Then, that fourth category is agility.

Speaker:

And agility certainly has grown in popularity in recent years and,

Speaker:

as a result, it's been defined probably ten different ways

Speaker:

over the last five or ten years.

Speaker:

I've simplified it as being much more proactively adaptable.

Speaker:

Often you hear folks say, 'That person is really adaptable,' or, 'That

Speaker:

candidate is really adaptable.' ' Hey, over time, they're going to settle

Speaker:

in and adapt to the situation and eventually become successful.'

Speaker:

Agility is proactively identifying how do I need to evolve my formula

Speaker:

for success to be successful in this environment, in this context?

Speaker:

So that when they come in, they're not just figuring it out.

Speaker:

They've already started to think what are the things that I need to tweak in

Speaker:

my own approach before you even step into that situation to be successful?

Speaker:

The markers you look for in their interview process is whatever that person,

Speaker:

across their varied types of roles in their career, have they been successful in

Speaker:

different types of environments over time?

Speaker:

If the answer is yes, odds are, they're pretty doggone agile.

Speaker:

Odds are they didn't just figure it out over time.

Speaker:

They are actually figuring out they need to be proactively

Speaker:

adaptable right out of the gate.

Speaker:

I love that.

Speaker:

I love this idea of not just adaptable, but proactively adaptable,

Speaker:

not just, I'll figure it out, but I'll have a plan of attack.

Speaker:

I've seen some people come in and they're like, oh, I have

Speaker:

a playbook for all of this.

Speaker:

And I think that can go overboard too far in the oh, I'm going to just smoosh

Speaker:

this same playbook on this company.

Speaker:

So I think what a candidate needs to do is have the playbook, but

Speaker:

see where it needs to be adapted.

Speaker:

I had this other guests on the show.

Speaker:

It was very interesting, we talked about being like a Sherpa where, okay, you've

Speaker:

climbed a mountain before, but never with the same clients and never following

Speaker:

the exact path up the mountain and never in the same exact weather conditions.

Speaker:

So you have enough pattern recognition to put it all together.

Speaker:

I love that.

Speaker:

That's absolutely dead on.

Speaker:

And it applies to both the functional toolkit, playbook, if you will,

Speaker:

and truly how to engage others and influence and be effective in a

Speaker:

certain working group of human beings.

Speaker:

The best candidates that I've ever, that we interact with, and the ones that,

Speaker:

really, a magnetism starts are the ones asking us all kinds of questions around

Speaker:

what's the playbook, not just what's in place today from a functional lens

Speaker:

and a capability lens in the business, but how do things get done today?

Speaker:

Because we need that individual to come in and not just install a marketing playbook.

Speaker:

We need that person to come in, of course, tailor the playbook to what it needs to

Speaker:

get done in the future, but they also have to be effective within the working

Speaker:

norms of that business and help evolve them in a constructive way pretty quickly.

Speaker:

And to do that, that means you have to be proactively thinking about this right out

Speaker:

of the gate before you step into the role, not just 'I'll go in and figure it out.'

Speaker:

Let me pick up on that because I'm wondering what are the most impressive

Speaker:

things you've seen candidates do?

Speaker:

You've just mentioned one thing, but can you talk more about the candidates

Speaker:

that have really stuck out in your mind?

Speaker:

Because if you're like me, you interview thousands of people, and then there's

Speaker:

a few that, just, you remember.

Speaker:

There's a few that you remember.

Speaker:

And it's funny, I have a problem that I kinda like everybody I

Speaker:

deeply interview 'cause I just appreciate everybody's story.

Speaker:

But I always have to come back and think.

Speaker:

People ask me five minutes after an interview, 'What do you think?'

Speaker:

'What's your recommendation?'

Speaker:

I always punt and say I need at least several hours or even a day because

Speaker:

I need to step back and think about that person's capability set, that

Speaker:

person's way of getting things done.

Speaker:

And I get back to these potential markers I was talking about and

Speaker:

thinking about the scorecard.

Speaker:

Hey, at the end of the day, what needs to get done here?

Speaker:

What's that individual's odds for success?

Speaker:

So I say that because, this sounds corny as all get out, but I really

Speaker:

do think everybody I deeply spend time with is pretty doggone awesome.

Speaker:

Especially if somebody like you has teed them up.

Speaker:

But the candidates that really stick out are those that, when I ask them a

Speaker:

question like the softball, surface-level questions of, hey, what accomplishments

Speaker:

are you most proud of in your career?

Speaker:

My disposition is to be pretty intensely curious after they list out

Speaker:

accomplishment number one, and ask how?

Speaker:

Tell me more.

Speaker:

What would that other person in the story's version of the story be if

Speaker:

I were to talk to them tomorrow?

Speaker:

Those who take the time to reflect before they start answering the question and

Speaker:

actually provide a compelling response, and also sometimes acknowledge they

Speaker:

don't know, those tend to stick out.

Speaker:

Those who just repeat what their talking points are that they've had scripted from

Speaker:

prior interviews, those don't stick out.

Speaker:

I always stress test myself to death on if you know, you know.

Speaker:

But those candidates where I do have that feeling, I go back and look, and

Speaker:

it's when I drill down with them, they are very self-aware in understanding

Speaker:

what it is they did to affect the outcome of whatever their story was.

Speaker:

Those are your winners because that way, that gives me

Speaker:

confidence in that agility piece.

Speaker:

They understand what their formula for success is.

Speaker:

A lot of leaders, a lot of successful leaders, are just effective and they

Speaker:

don't read really fully appreciate what they're doing entirely and

Speaker:

what's leading them to be effective.

Speaker:

There's that small, select few that just really are incredibly self-aware

Speaker:

in understanding how they're applying themselves, their skill sets, and even

Speaker:

their personality to be effective in different scenarios and how to adjust it.

Speaker:

I have to ask you, since I ask everybody this, do you have favorite

Speaker:

interview questions that you ask?

Speaker:

Or is it just about the probing?

Speaker:

Cause I always collect interview questions.

Speaker:

I always give my clients these big, long lists of questions that they could ask.

Speaker:

Then I think, it's really about, you were saying the second level question,

Speaker:

the double-clicking that you do.

Speaker:

But all of that said, do you have a favorite interview question

Speaker:

that you think is most revealing?

Speaker:

I've got two.

Speaker:

I do think the second, more thorough questions have a ton of value.

Speaker:

But two opening questions, if you will, not to a conversation necessarily,

Speaker:

but really do lend themselves to excellent follow-ups and insights.

Speaker:

I'm not going to claim original authorship on either one of these.

Speaker:

We live in a world of plagiarism left and right, and I love stealing ideas from you.

Speaker:

But one is who do you want to be five years from now?

Speaker:

Full stop.

Speaker:

Ohh, really, Bryan?

Speaker:

That's such a...ugh, god.

Speaker:

But I want to know where they take it!

Speaker:

Because sometimes people take it professional, people take it

Speaker:

personal, people take it skill set, people take it growth, people

Speaker:

take it I want to be resting.

Speaker:

It's really telling from an overall hunger perspective and fit perspective,

Speaker:

and then it just lends itself to probably ten follow-up questions from me.

Speaker:

Again, it's an opening question.

Speaker:

It's not that great of a probing question on its own.

Speaker:

It's a corny question, but it allows for amazing follow-ups.

Speaker:

The second one, and this applies a little bit less to broader hunger, this

Speaker:

is more capability testing, both from a functional lens and a business-savvy lens.

Speaker:

If you were on a deserted island and I offered you this job, what information

Speaker:

would you ask for me to learn to basically help yourself ramp up and

Speaker:

be effective as fast as possible?

Speaker:

For a marketer, boy, you can learn all kinds of great stuff about simply

Speaker:

business savvy because there's a whole range of things you get asked for, some

Speaker:

of them pretty doggone telling versus others, as far as how much coaching will

Speaker:

this individual need on the business side should they step into the role?

Speaker:

And the answer can be they need coaching on the business side.

Speaker:

That's fine.

Speaker:

But it's good to calibrate, especially if you're the CEO.

Speaker:

That's an interesting one.

Speaker:

I like that.

Speaker:

I have to say, I like that better than the first one.

Speaker:

You're right, it's not so much the question you ask, but the kind

Speaker:

of active listening that you're doing and the probing afterwards.

Speaker:

I think that's also a piece of giving candidates a moment to take

Speaker:

a beat and formulate an answer.

Speaker:

Big time.

Speaker:

I was actually just with a founder, a similar lens to this, and to

Speaker:

better defend my first answer.

Speaker:

I was with one of our founders yesterday, actually, talking about interviewing

Speaker:

and talking about scorecards and why scorecard's important and we believe

Speaker:

strongly in outcome-oriented scorecards.

Speaker:

When I say outcome-oriented scorecards, we say, hey, in two years from now, this role

Speaker:

or this function will have delivered what?

Speaker:

And then just go ask questions about that.

Speaker:

So the founder asked me, 'Hey, wouldn't it make sense to share the scorecard with

Speaker:

the candidates early on in the process?' Of course, there's a case for that.

Speaker:

I actually say no.

Speaker:

Reason being is I don't want candidates acting too much in our conversation.

Speaker:

I don't want them performing too much and filling in blanks

Speaker:

that they know I'm looking for.

Speaker:

I want their organic selves as much as possible.

Speaker:

Then it's on me to be really intentional about the follow-up questions I'm

Speaker:

asking to find data in, crude terms, that satisfies some of that analogous

Speaker:

data that would give me confidence that they would deliver on outcomes one,

Speaker:

two, three, and four on the scorecard.

Speaker:

If I spend too much time being too specific with a candidate on

Speaker:

certain types of questions that are very job-specific, all I'm doing is

Speaker:

constantly leading the witness and I don't want to lead the witness.

Speaker:

I want their natural energy and their natural skill set and their natural

Speaker:

way of being to line up organically with what we need to get done, full

Speaker:

stop, as opposed to them thinking they need to fit themselves into it.

Speaker:

And if I ask too specific questions, it's just leading them into that.

Speaker:

That's interesting because sometimes I wonder if that style

Speaker:

means that the candidates that are fastest on their feet get the job.

Speaker:

I know me, I like to think about things before I answer a question

Speaker:

and then I'm not going to be so articulate right off the bat.

Speaker:

So there is that piece as well.

Speaker:

There is that piece.

Speaker:

And that's also just my interview, by the way.

Speaker:

We could get into the interview process, but my interview is, I'm thinking in

Speaker:

that dimension we just talked about.

Speaker:

There are absolutely focused interviews and as you well know with us there's

Speaker:

case studies and those things.

Speaker:

And my vote is not the only vote either, but I want to understand how this

Speaker:

person gets stuff done, and, really, think about how best to set them up for

Speaker:

success should they step into that role, and how much of a lift would that be?

Speaker:

And that's where if it gets to be too big a lift, then it's time to start talking

Speaker:

about, eh, maybe not the right candidate.

Speaker:

I have one final question for you and that is we all say we love a failure story,

Speaker:

but how would you feel if somebody had multiple failure stories and they had a

Speaker:

lot of energy and they're really excited about what they potentially could do

Speaker:

and they have reasonably good reasons for why things have not worked out, why

Speaker:

they haven't been able to scale as fast as you would have liked in the past.

Speaker:

Can you talk about that?

Speaker:

How much failure is too much to be not palatable anymore?

Speaker:

Is there some sweet spot of failure?

Speaker:

That's a good question.

Speaker:

I think that the opposite version of that or another end of the spectrum

Speaker:

is somebody who has never failed or at least claims to have never failed.

Speaker:

And to be sure there are individuals out there who have never failed.

Speaker:

Those are actually, there's some risk with that because you gotta

Speaker:

be able to take a punch and get back up off the mat, so to speak.

Speaker:

Too much failure?

Speaker:

Sure, especially from the investor side of the house, or at least

Speaker:

amongst my colleagues, yeah, red flags, you gotta find the truth.

Speaker:

If somebody failed multiple times, let's just say to your point, simplify

Speaker:

it with that, it is not a showstopper at all, but I do want to dig in and

Speaker:

understand that context very well.

Speaker:

I do want to reference check that very well and I want to understand

Speaker:

what they learned from it.

Speaker:

What do they do differently today as a result of the

Speaker:

mistakes they made in the past?

Speaker:

Whether it be on a grand stage or a small stage.

Speaker:

Ultimately, that goes back to that self-awareness piece.

Speaker:

If the individual has, if the candidate is able to articulate very clearly,

Speaker:

and sometimes it takes some reflection on the spot, not a pre-canned

Speaker:

answer of I did this reflection last year, here's what I came out with.

Speaker:

But if they're able to articulate what it is they took from that situation and

Speaker:

how they applied it differently the next time because life is an iterative learning

Speaker:

process as it is, that gives me confidence that they could step into, like this

Speaker:

situation, assuming the scorecard, the decent fit, and probably be successful

Speaker:

and apply those lessons learned.

Speaker:

But, no surprise, as an investor, we're going to reference check it.

Speaker:

In full, not through back channels.

Speaker:

We prefer very much having the candidates connect us to the references

Speaker:

directly 'cause we're straight up.

Speaker:

Here's what we're going to talk to them about.

Speaker:

This is awesome, Bryan, thank you so much for sharing all of this great insight.

Speaker:

It's great to talk to somebody who geeks out about interviewing and talent

Speaker:

and in even more detail than I do.

Speaker:

That's awesome.

Speaker:

Thank you so much for being on the show today.

Speaker:

Thank you, Erica.

Speaker:

And it's debatable that I'm more detail oriented than you.

Speaker:

I've appreciated the partnership and the relationship so far.

Speaker:

I look forward to the next one.

Speaker:

That was Bryan West from Resurgens Technology Partners, sharing what

Speaker:

it's like behind the scenes when CEOs hire CMOs in PE-backed companies.

Speaker:

Next time on The Get, I'll speak with Jay Gaines about how a CMO

Speaker:

in a scale-up should take the reins for overall growth planning.

Speaker:

You won't want to miss it.

Speaker:

Thanks for listening to The Get.

Speaker:

I'm your host Erica Seidel.

Speaker:

Hiring great 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

Speaker:

marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.

Speaker:

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

Speaker:

If you liked this episode, please share it.

Speaker:

For other insights and 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 newsletter at TheConnectiveGood.com.

Speaker:

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