A SaaS CMO’s Formula for Successful Scaling

Erica Seidel: 00:00:03

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

Erica Seidel: 00:00:07

great marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.

Erica Seidel: 00:00:11

I'm Erica Seidel, your host.

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About eighteen months ago, I got a call from a SaaS fintech company

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in Nashville called Ncontracts.

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They wanted a new marketing leader.

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I was a bit nervous about doing the search because my network in Nashville

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is not huge, but I'm so glad I did.

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I ended up placing Guy Weismantel into that role; he

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transplanted himself from Seattle.

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The company has doubled since then.

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Guy joins us today.

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You'll hear some great lessons about scaling, like when to

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fight the urge to move too fast.

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You'll also learn two questions that you can ask as a CMO candidate to diagnose

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how the board views marketing and how not to get offended when board members

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don't understand what marketing can do.

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We talk about the Moneyball hiring approach for a scale-up

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and Guy shares what I think is my favorite quote so far: "Pipeline

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doesn't pay the bills; ARR does."

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Let's get to it.

Erica Seidel: 00:01:10

Guy, it's great to have you on the show.

Erica Seidel: 00:01:12

Welcome!

Guy Weismantel: 00:01:13

Thanks, Erica.

Guy Weismantel: 00:01:14

Thanks for having me.

Guy Weismantel: 00:01:14

I'm really excited to talk to you today.

Guy Weismantel: 00:01:16

This is fun.

Erica Seidel: 00:01:17

I'd love to get right into it and ask you maybe to talk about

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a few mistakes to avoid when scaling a marketing function for a B2B SaaS company.

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So if somebody is a little bit earlier in their CMO journey than you have been

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in your career, what kind of mistakes or hard-won learnings can you share that

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stick out to you from your experiences?

Guy Weismantel: 00:01:38

Yeah, I've certainly made a few along the journey and

Guy Weismantel: 00:01:40

anything I could pass along to someone that can avoid I'm really happy to do.

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One of the things that I think is just an impulse for all of us that take on

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marketing roles and, you know, see a big opportunity in front of us is a little

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bit to try to do too much too soon.

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And that sounds a little bit counterproductive because when

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you're trying to scale, you are trying to get a lot done.

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There's always an interesting analogy like a caterpillar can only move

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as fast as its back legs, right?

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Like the front legs make one move really, really fast, but it can only

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go as fast as the back legs are going.

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And I think there's a tendency, I know I've certainly had it, to think,

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oh, I'm here, we need to invest in a ton of tech and invest in a ton

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of people and really start to scale.

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And, in a lot of cases, the org is not quite ready or can't

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handle that much change that fast.

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And so you have this idea of scaling means more or bigger or faster

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and could actually mean doing more things under the waterline

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to allow you to move faster later.

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And so, the bright, shiny object to get the new toys and get the things

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that help you get better attribution - you just want to start doing all

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these things so you can go faster.

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But in my experience sometimes, you know, they can fall over, like you

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don't have someone to implement those tools or who's going to administer those

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tools, or is the data even actionable out of these things that you buy?

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Or, you want to invest in a person, but do you have enough for them to

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do or the right thing for them to do?

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And so I think that's a mistake I've made where you just go, okay, I get

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it, let's go, but sometimes taking a breath and kind of assessing, you

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know, what is going to work in this org, in the structure that I'm in and

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what can I be effective implementing?

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That's kind of one.

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A bigger one, and it'll sound cliched, but making sure you're aligned on

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scale, what scale means to your CEO, to your CRO and even to the

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board, I think is super important.

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Because again, we can attach ourselves to, I need to double growth or triple

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this, and I go, okay, great, let me go put a plan together to do that.

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But I think when I hear that, like I've learned to just take a beat and go,

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okay, well, what does that really mean?

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Like how do we think about doing that and how are we beyond

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marketing resources to get there?

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Because it's client services, do we have people to implement the product?

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Do we have people to support the product?

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And so I, you know, sales and marketing can maybe grow, but if the rest of

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the org isn't aligned with that, I mean, you can get yourself in trouble.

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And I've seen that where you oversell, you over promise, and then you can't deliver.

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And so scale is not just about how many new marketing campaigns or ads we get

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into the market to try to generate leads.

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It's about can the organization keep up and are you all

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aligned on what that means?

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You know, what I've also found is that as marketers, we tend to want to move

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fast, but the rest of the org maybe has a little bit different expectation.

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And so doubling the growth, it might not mean in the next year, maybe

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it's over the next eighteen months.

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So really understanding what that looks like.

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And then, I think that the last is, really, what you're capable of achieving.

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Again, we feel like we're super men, super women, that we can kind of do it all, but

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there are just some things that a scale involves that we're not resourced for.

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We don't have the things in place that are gonna allow us to achieve those things.

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I know I've gotten in over my head by over promising, thinking I can do it

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all, when actually there are just other pieces that I don't have access to or I

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can't get in place that inhibit scale.

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So I think those are some learnings that I've picked up along the way.

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But I think that tendency to want to, almost like tortoise and hare,

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like just run, you know, you start going after the scale, right away.

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Slowing down a little bit and understanding, okay, what do

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we need to put in place now?

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What can we live with?

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A lot of times it's almost smarter to survey the scene and kind of

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go, okay, what people do I have?

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Maybe there's people not in my org, but they're in the

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organization that can help me.

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What tools are maybe we not utilizing that are sitting on the shelf that I

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can repurpose and use rather than just buying another license for something?

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And I think that's where I probably got smarter in my job is, you know,

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allow myself to, even with aggressive goals and aggressive targets, to kind

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of take a step back, take a breath, almost let the game come to you.

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Like a lot of veterans sports people, they don't rush out.

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They go okay, what am I seeing here?

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And the ability to assess that I think is going to ultimately help

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you scale faster going forward.

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That's what I've learned.

Erica Seidel: 00:05:39

I love that.

Erica Seidel: 00:05:39

I love this kind of go slow to go fast, almost.

Erica Seidel: 00:05:42

And I like what you're talking about aligning on what scale means.

Erica Seidel: 00:05:45

Can you double click on that?

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Like how should a marketing leader tackle that conversation or set of

Erica Seidel: 00:05:51

conversations, most likely, within the company on what scale means?

Erica Seidel: 00:05:55

Because it's the marketing leader is often the chief diplomat of the

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organization, you know, aligning everybody like a shuttle diplomat.

Erica Seidel: 00:06:02

I always like to think of a CMO that way.

Erica Seidel: 00:06:04

What do those conversations need to look like for them to be successful?

Guy Weismantel: 00:06:09

I think it's a really interesting point because

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scale means different things to different people, right?

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And so, we may say, hey, we want to double our ARR in the next twelve months.

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Maybe there's new products that are going to come to market and help us grow faster.

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Is there a new part of the addressable market that we're not in right now

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that we've got to develop awareness and give it air cover to sales

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so they are able to sell easier?

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There's a lot of variables that go into scale and I reference in just

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what we were saying, you know, what's the rest of the organization, how

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are they going to support this scale?

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Our NPS starts tanking and we have to start having a lot more churn, that's

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as big an issue as growing the top line that our board's going to care about if

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stuff's falling out the bottom as well.

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So I think the key is you're going to be part of that executive team, like

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really all understand what it's going to take or what do we have at our

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disposal that can help us achieve the scale that maybe the board is saying,

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hey, here's what we want to have you guys go do in the next 12-24 months.

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As a newer person on the team, where I came into a team that was together for

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awhile, it was in my best interest to listen to their experience on what they'd

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been able to achieve before I got there and leverage that a little bit more.

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And I think the other, you know, it's not a mistake, but it is a learning

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that goes with this is, again, there's a tendency to if you're the

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new person you've got to prove that you can scale with everybody else.

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But I think kind of taking out that hat a little bit and going, okay, well,

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how can I leverage about of things that have already being done that I

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can either do better or more of, or just let someone else take the lead

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on some of these things and sit in the passenger chair and help them drive scale?

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And I mentioned product specifically because in many cases on marketing,

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it's our job to, you know, whether it's getting a product in market or to

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find a new market and push the pedal down on getting more opportunities

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in the hands of the sales people, but in many cases, the product team has

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done a lot of this thinking already.

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They already have the roadmap that you don't have to build

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something from scratch.

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They've already identified who the ICP is and the customer feedback as they're

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going through the development process.

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And instead of me creating that from scratch, we can scale faster if I

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leverage the work that this team has been working on for the last twelve

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months to get this product out.

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So there are lots of little examples and I think making sure everyone

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is aligned on how we go achieve it and not just the CEO going, hey,

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we're going to go make this number.

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That's the worst case, right?

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You've got to have everyone bought in and as a marketer, to

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your point, our work touches all these other different departments.

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And so if we can get everyone to understand the gives and takes and who's

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going to be lead, and who's going to be second chair of how we help scale because

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marketing will be the lead sometimes and helping other times, supporting.

Guy Weismantel: 00:08:37

That's super important to get everyone on the same page.

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Again, it is a little bit more like, hey, let's take a beat and make sure

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we all know what this looks like, and then we're off to the races.

Guy Weismantel: 00:08:45

I think sometimes there's a tendency to just be like, hey, I figured out the

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plan of how we're going to go do this.

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And it has nothing to do with, you know, what everyone else is thinking.

Guy Weismantel: 00:08:53

And that was something I certainly did early in my career as well.

Erica Seidel: 00:08:56

You also had this great analogy when we talked before about

Erica Seidel: 00:08:59

scaling being like Tarzan on a swing where you're going from one edge of the river

Erica Seidel: 00:09:03

to the, I don't know if it was a river, but like this idea of sticking with,

Erica Seidel: 00:09:08

you know, sometimes this is the theme of going slow to go fast, but sticking with

Erica Seidel: 00:09:12

the tools and processes of yesterday and stretching them as far as they can go.

Erica Seidel: 00:09:17

Then, you know, that might be some people, some tools and processes versus

Erica Seidel: 00:09:21

jump to the next iteration of them.

Erica Seidel: 00:09:23

And I think that's just an interesting way to think about it.

Erica Seidel: 00:09:26

Do you think that's common for people to think about it that way?

Guy Weismantel: 00:09:28

You know, I don't know.

Guy Weismantel: 00:09:29

I must have been watching the Jungle Cruise with my son or something and picked

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it up, but I'm like, it's an interesting cause I think it's our tendancy, with

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10,000 marketing tools out there and, you know, a lot of different best practices

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that we're, oh, we should do that.

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Oh, they ran this campaign.

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Let's run this campaign too and try it.

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The shiny object syndrome in marketing is as great as it has probably ever been in,

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in the history of the discipline, right?

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So there's always a new thing to go try or to go do.

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And I just learned, like Tarzan, you can't stay on the branch too long, right?

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Because your arm gets tired.

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The goal is to get to the other side of the river, but I think there's some

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wisdom and value in not just grabbing the next branch that comes along.

Guy Weismantel: 00:10:08

Because I think, then, I won't torture the metaphor any further, but I think

Guy Weismantel: 00:10:12

sometimes doing that, you actually end up farther off the path than you would

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if you just waited a little bit longer.

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Because the way that, not only marketing, but business changes so quickly that

Guy Weismantel: 00:10:23

sometimes making too many short-term decisions just to show advancement or

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show progress or "see I'm doing my part to help scale" actually gets you in a

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corner where you've got to back out and now I've got to rehire, I've got to

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retool, or I've got to revert back to what we were doing, cause this didn't work.

Guy Weismantel: 00:10:37

And so, I've seen that, you know, certainly friends and

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peers that that's happened to.

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I've done it myself.

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And I think there is some benefit to hanging back a little bit.

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And not, again, you need to get to the next branch, but it's not just

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the next one you've got to go grab.

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And that's not, the next email you get from some tech vendor that

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says we can improve this by 25%.

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It's like, oh yeah, we want 25%.

Guy Weismantel: 00:10:58

Let's go do that.

Guy Weismantel: 00:10:58

And that's how I try to think about these things and evaluate them with

Guy Weismantel: 00:11:02

the eye on yeah, I've got to get across that river at some point here.

Erica Seidel: 00:11:05

Yeah.

Erica Seidel: 00:11:05

It's so funny.

Erica Seidel: 00:11:06

At the risk of killing this metaphor, it's like sometimes you swing up the riverbank

Erica Seidel: 00:11:11

as opposed to across to the otherside.

Guy Weismantel: 00:11:14

Yeah, or you just miss it altogether.

Guy Weismantel: 00:11:16

And that happens, but it's not in our nature to go slow as marketing

Guy Weismantel: 00:11:19

because marketing moves so fast.

Guy Weismantel: 00:11:21

There's so much data.

Guy Weismantel: 00:11:22

There's so much insight that we should be able to glean, but

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trends are different - think fads.

Guy Weismantel: 00:11:27

Like fads are like the supernova just happens and you're like,

Guy Weismantel: 00:11:30

oh my gosh, look at this thing that's happening, let's pivot.

Guy Weismantel: 00:11:32

A trend is something that just happens a little bit over a

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longer period of time, right?

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So if I can not just overreact to the thing that just happened, but okay, let's

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see if it happened again and then twice, maybe it isn't a fluke and then three

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times, okay, now we've got something here.

Guy Weismantel: 00:11:44

Now let's go do it.

Guy Weismantel: 00:11:44

And I can back that up with data.

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And if it's me going to my CEO saying, hey, I need another X number

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of dollars to go fund this, I'll have the data points cause I'll have

Guy Weismantel: 00:11:54

waited to see yep, this is something I think we can really go exploit and

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that's going to help us go faster.

Guy Weismantel: 00:11:59

That's a conversation that any CEO or board is going to want to have

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with you when you can show up having waited and seen it through, and

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maybe done some testing to get there.

Guy Weismantel: 00:12:07

But you are confident in and you're backed up by what you saw

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and then they're going to want to pour some gas on the fire for you.

Guy Weismantel: 00:12:12

And that's the best part.

Erica Seidel: 00:12:14

Can you talk about how the board questions marketing change

Erica Seidel: 00:12:18

as you go from, say, fifteen million all the way up to a hundred million?

Guy Weismantel: 00:12:23

They do change.

Guy Weismantel: 00:12:24

You know, you have a different, I want to use this word carefully,

Guy Weismantel: 00:12:26

but a different type of investor.

Guy Weismantel: 00:12:28

I was going to say quality, and it's not that people aren't smart at any level,

Guy Weismantel: 00:12:31

but why they're on the board, the return they're looking to get, the holding

Guy Weismantel: 00:12:36

period they're looking to get, the pace at which they want to scale, all those

Guy Weismantel: 00:12:39

things can be very different as you are at companies of different levels.

Guy Weismantel: 00:12:43

I've been lucky enough in the career that I've been able to build to have some

Guy Weismantel: 00:12:46

experiences at these different levels.

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Part of the change that you tend to see is in the depth in the strategic nature of

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what the board's actually looking to do.

Guy Weismantel: 00:12:56

Of course earlier stage, assuming you've proven out the product

Guy Weismantel: 00:12:58

market fit and you've got a market and you have some infrastructure.

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:01

I'm not talking about maybe you're the first marketer of a three-person

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:05

company, you know, but going concern.

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:07

We said fifteen million, that's a going concern company.

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:10

That's a product that's growing fast, but that's still a little bit

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:14

more tactical in terms of how we take advantage of a new market that

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we're in that we can get market share and get to the top of the mountain.

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:21

And as you get farther up, what I've noticed, is you have

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:24

a different type of investor.

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:25

You tend to get out of the VC world and into the private equity world.

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:29

Those folks are holding for a different reason than a VC that's trying to get

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:32

maybe a little bit shorter return.

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:34

And so they're going to care about shorter return metrics.

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:37

If a P firm is in the typical five, three to five-year holding period,

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:41

they're going to want to see what's the progression during the time that

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:45

we have ownership of this company?

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If it's longer, shorter, whatever, but just average.

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:49

How are you guys building to help us hit the ultimate goal?

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:52

We've got some time to get there.

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:53

We don't have to get it all in the first twenty-four months.

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:56

But that's also, as you get in the higher end, you know, for marketers

Guy Weismantel: 00:13:59

looking to take advantage of those opportunities or get into those

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:02

opportunities, the expectation of the CMO is also very different as well.

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:06

Again, at an earlier stage, they are looking for someone who tactically can

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:11

help get the programs in market that can help achieve that growth, partner with

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:14

sales, and really go grab marketshare cause that's really what you're all about.

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:19

But when you get into that 50 to 100, you know, they're looking for marketers

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:23

that are going to come with some sort of a playbook, some sort of a vision,

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:26

some sort of a way to know, hey, here's how you do scale this organization.

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:30

It's not just putting more campaigns and more ad dollars in marketing.

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:33

It's the integrated process of how you use all the marketing engines at your

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:36

disposal because by 50 million you should have most of them at your disposal.

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:40

You may not be running Dreamforce type of events, but you're going to

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:43

have opportunities to engage with your prospects and your customers,

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:46

and in many, many different ways versus when you're really small,

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:49

you've just got a few channels.

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:50

Then, you know that you're probably going to be able to

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:51

afford to get in front of them on.

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:54

So having this ability to get in sync, in alignment with your CEO,

Guy Weismantel: 00:14:58

with the board, of what this growth looks like and how you can lead the

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:01

marketing organization to help achieve it becomes increasingly important.

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:05

At a smaller level, they're not going to ask you to detail the

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:08

playbook and present out the plan.

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:10

At a larger level, like where I've been placed and, you know, other

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:13

companies, they want you to arrive and they want to see your thinking.

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:16

They don't necessarily care about the answer.

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:17

It's like the teacher who wants to see your work and they don't care as much

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:20

if the answer was a little bit wrong.

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:22

But they want to see how do you plan to help them get there?

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:25

And again, it doesn't have to all be in the first six weeks of you

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:27

arriving, but they want to see how you're going to be able to do it.

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:30

And that's the big difference as you get a little bit bigger, you've

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:33

got to, you know the cliche, you've got to have seen the play before.

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:37

You don't have to know everything about everything.

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:39

It's impossible in marketing.

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:40

But you do have to know where you've got blind spots or weak spots.

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:44

And if they happen to be areas that you think are going to be important to the

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:47

growth of the company and to the scale of the company, how you hire people

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:51

around you, how you fill those gaps, how you think about addressing them.

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:54

Because we all come to these roles if we're interviewing

Guy Weismantel: 00:15:57

as imperfect candidates, very, you know, none of us have every

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:00

single thing and check in the box.

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:01

There's always something that they're going to want to do that we haven't

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:04

done before, we haven't done for awhile.

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:06

So part of this scaling exercise is showing them how you fill those

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:10

gaps and how you can take advantage of them as well going forward.

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:13

They'll want to see that.

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:15

Once they see that, then you've got that adherent alignment once

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:18

you're on the other side of the fence in the role to have them help

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:21

you implement it because this is the plan that you kind of laid out.

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:24

This is the approach that you think you want to take.

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:26

Now, when they see the tactics behind that, it's going to make a lot more sense

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:29

and you'll have that buy in right away.

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:30

And that expectation is there when you get it to a higher level, it's

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:33

something you can kind of work concurrently with the board, you

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:36

know, in smaller type of companies.

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:38

You're not making it up as you go along, but you are developing

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:41

it as the company grows.

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:42

Versus as you got to scale from like 50 to a hundred that's way

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:45

different than scaling from 10 to 15.

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:48

And so that playbook and that background in that the understanding

Guy Weismantel: 00:16:51

of how you help the company get there is super, super important.

Erica Seidel: 00:16:55

That's so interesting because I've been thinking a lot about

Erica Seidel: 00:16:57

the playbook versus adaptability and how I think there's this sweet spot.

Erica Seidel: 00:17:02

And you're right at different points and from different investors, you know,

Erica Seidel: 00:17:05

you have a different expectation for that playbook, but you also want to

Erica Seidel: 00:17:08

show that adaptability to the situation because every situation is different.

Erica Seidel: 00:17:13

And one question that I heard from somebody which I've started asking

Erica Seidel: 00:17:17

myself before I take on a search and also I suggest candidates ask this

Erica Seidel: 00:17:22

is what are the questions that came up at the last board meeting about

Erica Seidel: 00:17:26

marketing that you struggled to answer?

Erica Seidel: 00:17:29

Because that way, if you're a CMO candidate interviewing with a CEO,

Erica Seidel: 00:17:33

you get a sense of what the level of discussion is and what the big

Erica Seidel: 00:17:37

question marks are and you can kind of fill in the blanks and go from there.

Guy Weismantel: 00:17:42

I love that.

Guy Weismantel: 00:17:42

I think that's so true.

Guy Weismantel: 00:17:43

I think at a level where you're coming into these roles, you're going to be

Guy Weismantel: 00:17:47

interviewing with the board anyway, right?

Guy Weismantel: 00:17:48

You're going to be in front of the board and the CEO.

Guy Weismantel: 00:17:51

So I think getting in that head of the CEO of what role marketing needs to play

Guy Weismantel: 00:17:55

in the growth of the company is super important as you think about joining.

Guy Weismantel: 00:17:58

I'm very lucky that I work for a CEO, hasn't always been the case, but it

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:02

certainly is here, someone who really views marketing as a part of our

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:06

growth story and the growth engine.

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:07

It's not in support of, you know, does it roll up to sales or roll up to the CEO?

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:11

It's got a seat at the table.

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:13

It's a full partner in how we scale our organization.

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:16

I think that's super important to look for.

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:17

But the corollary to that is as you talk to the board, or the CEO, same

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:21

thing, what are you looking for?

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:23

Like, what questions do you look for the CMO to be able to answer?

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:26

Or what do you expect from marketing in this role?

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:28

And those could be scary cause, you know, I've been in some areas where I'm not

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:33

sure I know how to answer that question.

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:34

That's not a question I've actually had before.

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:36

So how would I answer that?

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:37

And that can be like, yeah, maybe I just want to stay away from that question.

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:40

And I would say no.

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:41

The opposite.

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:42

You've got to lean into finding out what is on the minds of the key board people.

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:46

If they have those board people interviewing you, that's who's going to

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:49

be questioning you in the board meeting.

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:50

Because that's the person who's going to be closest to marketing,

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:52

they may be a marketing expert.

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:54

They may have past experience being a marketer.

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:57

So they're interviewing you for a reason.

Guy Weismantel: 00:18:59

So really getting into their heads and understanding how do you know

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:02

that marketing is performing?

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:04

What does good look like?

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:05

What about your other portfolio companies?

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:07

What does a great marketing presentation look like?

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:09

Kind of get into their heads.

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:11

And then, to your point, what has been missing?

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:13

You're obviously hiring for this role for a reason.

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:16

What are you not getting from marketing that you are looking for this role to

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:19

help fulfill and actually exceed on?

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:22

If you can get that, that's going to be part of, you know, hopefully

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:25

if you get to present to the board, or present to the management team,

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:29

incorporate that into your presentation.

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:30

But even more importantly, if you're going to put together a 30-60-90 plan as you

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:34

get onboard, making sure that you know how to go answer those questions, or you

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:38

have the prioritization to go get those questions or those metrics answered.

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:42

So you can at least establish a baseline and then go, okay, we're here, I know

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:45

we've got to get here, now let's put the plan together cause we know that this

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:48

is actually what we need to go measure.

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:50

And sometimes scale is about just understanding the starting

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:53

point or what hasn't happened.

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:54

And again, going back to what I started with, sometimes we've got these grand

Guy Weismantel: 00:19:57

visions of what we've actually got to achieve and once you do the math, it's

Guy Weismantel: 00:20:02

like, oh, actually we're not that bad.

Guy Weismantel: 00:20:03

We just aren't showing it the right way.

Guy Weismantel: 00:20:05

Or we just haven't thought about this in the right way.

Guy Weismantel: 00:20:06

We don't have to increase by a hundred percent, we have to increase by thirty,

Guy Weismantel: 00:20:09

and that's still a lot, but it's not as impossible as you might think.

Guy Weismantel: 00:20:12

So I think that alignment with the board is hyper-critical.

Guy Weismantel: 00:20:15

We all know that, we read the stats that CMOs tend to have a shorter

Guy Weismantel: 00:20:18

tenure in the executive suite than some of our counterparts.

Guy Weismantel: 00:20:21

But I think one of the ways we can overcome that is by getting on the

Guy Weismantel: 00:20:24

same page before we come in the door with the CEO, to your point, and

Guy Weismantel: 00:20:28

the board to understand what those expectations are, and then make

Guy Weismantel: 00:20:31

sure we're going to be resourced to actually achieve those expectations.

Guy Weismantel: 00:20:35

And then that allows us to scale.

Erica Seidel: 00:20:37

So a question, say you have that conversation with the board

Erica Seidel: 00:20:41

members and you say, what's your expectation of marketing and what

Erica Seidel: 00:20:43

you get back as something absurdly, tactical or absurdly, you know, 'make

Erica Seidel: 00:20:48

it pretty' department, or what have you.

Erica Seidel: 00:20:50

Do you recommend that a CMO candidate should say, pardon my French, "Screw

Erica Seidel: 00:20:55

that, I don't want to do this job because their vision is not mine?"

Erica Seidel: 00:20:57

Or, do you recommend they try to evolve that perception in the interview process?

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:03

That's a really interesting way to think about that

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:06

because there is a strain of thought, which is if you're just wanting a

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:10

good-looking website and you think our brand colors should be, you know, red

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:13

and green instead of blue and gold, then that may not be the job for you.

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:17

Right?

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:17

And so there are jobs like that.

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:19

But again, that goes back to what role does marketing

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:21

actually play in the growth?

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:22

And if it's those types of questions, then the board maybe isn't thinking

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:25

of marketing as this growth engine.

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:27

But I do think there is also this other side, which, you know, I

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:31

will speak in generalities here.

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:33

We shouldn't expect, sometimes I think we do expect, as marketers, the board to know

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:36

everything about marketing, like they're in-depth on what all these metrics are.

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:40

And they're not, and they shouldn't be.

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:42

They're in charge of the whole company, not just marketing, even though there

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:45

may be someone on the board who has the background, they're thinking of the

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:49

company as a whole entity, not the parts.

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:51

So it is our job to say, hey, you're looking at this metric and I want to talk

Guy Weismantel: 00:21:56

about that metric, but also here's why we actually are not emphasizing that.

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:00

We're actually emphasizing this.

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:01

And this is why we think this is more meaningful to us.

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:04

I think it's a both-and type of answer.

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:07

Yeah, if they just care about how many NQLs are you generating for sales.

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:10

Like, okay, it's up by 10%, check the box, Mark Green's doing his job.

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:13

That's not marketing these days.

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:15

We all know that.

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:16

But I do think there is an opportunity to increase our own stature, increase our

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:20

credibility with this audience, extend our tenure by leading the board on a journey

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:25

of where we're scaling, where we're taking them, and what metrics we are able to

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:29

demonstrate are actually contributing to the growth of this business.

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:33

And we shouldn't be upset or offended that they may not know those

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:37

metrics to the depth of the level or be thinking of them like we are.

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:41

That is our job to educate them and not be like, "Well, of course you would

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:44

look at this metric or this metric."

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:46

Or, "Why are you looking at that metric?

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:47

That doesn't matter."

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:48

They're bringing their own biases, their own experiences, what happens

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:51

at their other companies, you know, to this discussion and part of our

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:54

job is to help bring them along on our journey and show them what this number

Guy Weismantel: 00:22:57

means and the impact of this number on the pipeline or on the ARR or whatever

Guy Weismantel: 00:23:01

the metric is that we're going after.

Guy Weismantel: 00:23:03

I think it's both.

Guy Weismantel: 00:23:04

Sometimes we don't do a good job of that as marketers because we get offended that

Guy Weismantel: 00:23:08

they don't understand our discipline.

Guy Weismantel: 00:23:10

And then you kind of have this chasm that develops between the board doesn't

Guy Weismantel: 00:23:13

think marketing is doing a good job, marketing is working their butts

Guy Weismantel: 00:23:15

off to go ahead and be successful.

Guy Weismantel: 00:23:17

But I think there's a middle ground that we can both achieve.

Erica Seidel: 00:23:20

Can you talk about budgets and, you know, has it ever been hard to

Erica Seidel: 00:23:24

get more budget to support the marketing to itself support greater scale?

Erica Seidel: 00:23:30

And any hard-won learnings about that?

Guy Weismantel: 00:23:33

Probably more just battle scars on budgeting.

Guy Weismantel: 00:23:36

I think we all are, you know, there's just an inherent marketing

Guy Weismantel: 00:23:40

as cost center type of mentality that exists in a lot of places.

Guy Weismantel: 00:23:43

There's marketing should only get this percent of revenue because

Guy Weismantel: 00:23:46

that's what, you know, some analyst firm says it should be this percent.

Guy Weismantel: 00:23:50

I think that is part of our job as leaders to educate CEOs, executive

Guy Weismantel: 00:23:55

teams, boards on what it's going to take to actually help marketing achieve

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:00

the growth goals of the organization.

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:02

There's not a hard and fast rule if you are a $10 million company

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:06

versus the $100 million company, like you're going to spend differently.

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:09

Are you in a growth mode?

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:10

Are you in the last year of the private equity company owning you

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:14

and they want to show more profit?

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:15

Like guess what?

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:16

You're getting a budget cut guys.

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:17

We're going to be on maximum efficiency in that last year of ownership.

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:21

That's just how the cycles go.

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:23

So I think that that's where data plays a huge, huge part.

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:27

And again, if the cliche understanding is well, marketing I know I throw money

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:31

in, but I don't know how it comes out.

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:32

I don't know what we're getting for this.

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:34

Our ability to associate and get down into the channel and understand, not

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:38

just vanity metrics like impressions, even leads, like even pipeline.

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:43

Pipeline's great, but actually what turned into ARR?

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:46

Like what actually was a booking?

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:48

Because even I see people now where it's like, you know, I get we don't

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:51

want to just do leads and it's not, you know, how many clicks, it's pipeline.

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:54

I'm like, yeah, it is, but actually pipeline doesn't pay the bills.

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:57

It's only ARR that pays the bills.

Guy Weismantel: 00:24:59

And ultimately, if I can show by investing here, this is what does actually come

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:04

out the other side, not just in pipeline, which is also around sales efficiency and

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:07

effectiveness, it's not, you know, far less on marketing, but part of a revenue

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:11

team, if we want another 100K to invest, I can put it in another sales rep or I

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:16

can put it in these marketing programs.

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:19

What's the best ROI that actually results in a closed one opportunity?

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:22

An ARR, like our ability to trace that through and be able to say, I'm going

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:27

to put 50K of it in this, I'm gonna put 25 here and 25 here, and here's what

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:30

I know is going to come up the other side with reasonable certainty, that's

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:33

going to help you in budget season.

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:34

It's going to help you if you want to go after more and not just be stuck

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:38

with, oh, you only get X percent cause that's what we always do, and it's

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:41

also going to protect you from other people poaching your budget from other

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:44

departments because it guess what?

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:46

They need more developers.

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:47

They need more, you know, success people.

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:49

They need more, they're always going to need other people.

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:51

And marketing, because we tend to have big numbers in big buckets

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:55

like events and advertising.

Guy Weismantel: 00:25:57

And it's like, we'll just cut 10% from advertising and we can - No,

Guy Weismantel: 00:26:00

if you do that, this is what's going to happen to the lead flow.

Guy Weismantel: 00:26:04

This is what, the more you can understand the data and the impact of the levers you

Guy Weismantel: 00:26:09

can pull, that's going to make you - You know, we're in budget season right now.

Guy Weismantel: 00:26:12

So it's the time where I come armed now with information.

Guy Weismantel: 00:26:16

And yes, I want to be a team player.

Guy Weismantel: 00:26:18

Yes, we have trade-offs.

Guy Weismantel: 00:26:19

Yes, I can't get everything that I put in my first draft, which is just the

Guy Weismantel: 00:26:23

kitchen sink, but I know how to defend and what, you know, what is very meaningful.

Guy Weismantel: 00:26:27

If we're going to make a trade off, this is the impact of that trade off.

Guy Weismantel: 00:26:30

And I think as CMOs, heads of marketing, we've got to know the data because

Guy Weismantel: 00:26:34

otherwise marketing is just this glob of money that people go, well, let's just cut

Guy Weismantel: 00:26:38

marketing because we don't, you know, we don't know what we're getting out of it.

Erica Seidel: 00:26:42

Let's pivot now into org and hiring.

Erica Seidel: 00:26:44

Now, you are in a situation where you guys have acquired multiple companies,

Erica Seidel: 00:26:49

as I recall, since I placed you there.

Erica Seidel: 00:26:51

Yeah.

Erica Seidel: 00:26:51

Can you talk about maybe an org decision that you made that worked

Erica Seidel: 00:26:55

out well as you went through the scaling and acquiring climb?

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:00

You know, when you're a fast-growing company

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:02

but still pretty small, we just crossed 300 people at our company.

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:05

So we're not huge, but we're growing really, really fast, partly by

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:08

acquisition, as you mentioned, and just organically as well,

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:10

just our business is growing.

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:12

One of the things that I think I've gotten better at is not just

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:15

having an eye for talent, but setting up a talent or an org model.

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:18

I think that there's, you know, again, a tendency early in the career, it's

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:21

like, I want an all-star team, right?

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:24

I want five Michael Jordans.

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:25

I want people that are just the best at what they do.

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:27

And when you're a smaller company, I mean, heck when I was

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:30

at Microsoft, you don't have the budget to hire five Michael Jordans.

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:34

But especially, you know, in this fast-growing B2B SaaS world, I think one

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:39

of the biggest things I've learned is to really place some chips on some people

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:43

that can be with you over the longterm and understand that that's going to eat

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:46

up a good part of your people budget, your personnel budget, and be willing to live

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:51

with some role-players or people earlier in their career who are going to be

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:54

more tactical and just more functionally focused and kind of fill them in.

Guy Weismantel: 00:27:59

You know, the analogy, I think we've talked about this in the past that I

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:01

love the book and the movie Moneyball, and I think as CMOs for this size of

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:05

company that's growing really fast, but is still not huge, the analogy really

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:10

applies because I don't have the budget to hire five rockstars who have fifteen

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:15

years of experience and, you know, want a ton of money and all the things.

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:18

I can hire a couple of those people.

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:20

And so I need those people that can help you scale faster and who know how

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:25

to hire and have a good eye for talent as well as super, super critical.

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:28

Because I think we've done a pretty good job, pat myself on the back, I'll

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:32

hurt my arm by trying to reach over.

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:35

But, you know, finding really great people who are more tenured and then

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:37

finding hungry people who want to make a mark and want to learn something.

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:42

Like one of the realities of our labor market these days, and the tech market

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:46

in general, is just very few people last at a company their whole careers.

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:50

That's not a reality anymore.

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:51

So, you know, we really focus a lot more, especially when we're finding

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:55

people early in their career, what is the experience you're looking to get?

Guy Weismantel: 00:28:59

What are you looking to get out of this experience?

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:01

What does this experience help you do better?

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:03

And if you can find someone who's hungry to learn, who knows something about a

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:07

particular area, they might be really good at digital marketing and they really

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:10

want to get into the demand gen side, but they want to leverage those skills.

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:13

I love those people.

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:15

I can coach them, I can teach them.

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:17

We can have the director-level people kind of mentor them and scale them up.

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:21

I'm lucky enough to have a bunch of those people on the team.

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:24

But I also know, and we're very upfront with each other, like, hey, we're going to

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:27

be together for a portion of your career.

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:29

You've got a long career ahead of you.

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:31

My goal is to make this experience a really memorable one for you.

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:34

One that you look back and go, that was a fun team.

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:37

I learned a lot.

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:38

I really had a chance to try a bunch of things and it helped shape me to

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:41

be a marketing leader of the future.

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:42

I try not to be too sappy about it, but I do think there is merit when you

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:46

get to be a marketing leader, like one of the things I do is coach and give

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:50

references for people who work for me, who are getting to that level now.

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:53

And so I try to put the team together in such a way where I can invest in some

Guy Weismantel: 00:29:57

really higher talents, more experienced people who can help me with that

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:00

coaching and then fill in with people who have that ambition but are team

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:04

players that want to help the team win.

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:06

And as they spin out, and sometimes I'm having that conversation with them,

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:10

like, hey, you're going to get out of the nest here in the next six months,

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:13

so let's work on what that looks like.

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:14

Or they come to me and go, hey, I found this great opportunity.

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:17

I gotta go do it.

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:18

And I'd be like, yeah, you've got to go do that.

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:20

I would do that too.

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:20

That's great.

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:21

But we know that we're going to have this time together, so

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:23

how do we make the most of it?

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:24

I think getting those questions up ahead of time will help you

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:27

put the right pieces in place.

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:29

And it doesn't always work.

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:30

You know, especially with acquired companies, like you're inheriting

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:32

talent you didn't really have a say in it, and if that's the case,

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:36

your job is to do a few things.

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:38

Like, first of all, have empathy for them coming into a brand new situation.

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:42

They didn't ask for this.

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:43

They didn't have a say in it.

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:44

So now they've got to adjust to a whole new process and

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:46

team and boss and expectations.

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:49

But I think in those cases, just being transparent, being consistent

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:53

between the acquired people and the team that you have so they see this

Guy Weismantel: 00:30:56

as there's no special treatment or there's not anything different about it.

Guy Weismantel: 00:31:00

And then, you know, as fast as you can, get them up to speed on what

Guy Weismantel: 00:31:03

the team's expectations are, is a great way to evaluate if that talent

Guy Weismantel: 00:31:06

can come along for the ride or, you know, in some cases they're just

Guy Weismantel: 00:31:09

not culturally or just not hardwired how you are going to run your team.

Erica Seidel: 00:31:13

I love a lot of these points.

Erica Seidel: 00:31:15

You know, it makes me think of that book, The Start-up of You by Reid

Erica Seidel: 00:31:18

Hoffman, who talks about the tour of duty and how it's okay to not be at

Erica Seidel: 00:31:22

a company for ten or thirty years.

Erica Seidel: 00:31:24

And I like this idea of creating a nice nest because I think what

Erica Seidel: 00:31:28

candidates are looking for these days, it's really different.

Erica Seidel: 00:31:31

It's like you hire the whole person.

Erica Seidel: 00:31:32

In a sense they want a family, you know, everybody's looking more at culture.

Erica Seidel: 00:31:36

And I've been thinking about, maybe I should start writing job specs where it

Erica Seidel: 00:31:39

starts about the culture and the kind of values of the company, and then gets

Erica Seidel: 00:31:43

into what the company actually does.

Erica Seidel: 00:31:45

Because I think that's what people care about more.

Erica Seidel: 00:31:48

And I think I could just picture you with all of your personality and

Erica Seidel: 00:31:52

oomph, you know, just saying hey, like really earnestly, I want to be the

Erica Seidel: 00:31:55

place that gives you what you want for the next phase of your career.

Erica Seidel: 00:31:59

That alone is huge as opposed to "Tell me why we should hire you," you know?

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:03

Yeah, exactly.

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:04

Like my dad used to hire, right?

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:06

We're redesigning our career site, our current web page, so we're meeting

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:09

with the HR team yesterday, and I would say 75% of that hour was on how do we

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:15

communicate how important culture is and the great culture we have here?

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:20

Everyone is just genuinely excited to be working with each other

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:23

and it really is a place where no one's going to stab me in the back.

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:26

Everyone really is out for the right reasons.

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:27

Like, it's great.

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:28

It hasn't always been, you know, I've worked at places where it hasn't

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:30

always been that way, so I'm very appreciative, but I think you're right.

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:33

Especially today, where there's another job, there's eight jobs you could take.

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:38

Like it's not, there's a - it's a very candidate friendly right now.

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:42

And a lot of CMOs in my role, I'm not going to be able to compete with Amazons

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:47

and the, you know, the Oracles and the Microsofts, like that's a different job.

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:49

If you want to get that experience, I'd say go get it.

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:51

I got it.

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:52

And I'm glad I have it in my background.

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:54

So you should go do that.

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:55

Cause that's not who I'm going to, I'm not going to worry about it.

Guy Weismantel: 00:32:57

If that's really where you want to go, then you go try that.

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:00

But I do think more and more it is about what does this experience look like for

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:04

you and how does this help you achieve what you want to go do in your career?

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:07

Because that is really what we're about here, and we're

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:09

going to have fun doing it.

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:10

We're going to make some mistakes.

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:11

We're going to learn a lot.

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:12

And again, the goal is, and this is self-serving, but I've probably been

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:17

on, I know I can count on three amazing teams in my career that I was a part of,

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:20

not necessarily leading, and it's people I still go on vacations with, you know,

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:25

I'm in text strings with, and we still share information with cause we had this

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:28

really great shared experience together.

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:30

And that's what I try to create for my teams as well.

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:32

And I think people today, especially, whether you're here in Nashville, where

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:36

I am, or, you know, I'm interviewing you in Seattle, and you know, and

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:39

you're still interviewing for the job, I want you to feel like you

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:41

are going to be a part of the scene.

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:42

You're a full member, no matter where you are, you don't have to be

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:45

in the office to feel like you're going to be a part of the experience

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:48

that we're going to create together.

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:49

And I think that's important for how you feel about filling your team as well.

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:53

Do people respond to that?

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:54

Are they in that for the right reasons?

Guy Weismantel: 00:33:55

And then you have to take all that in consideration before you hire as well.

Erica Seidel: 00:33:59

Awesome.

Erica Seidel: 00:34:00

This has been fabulous.

Erica Seidel: 00:34:01

I've learned so much, so thank you so much for being on the show, Guy.

Guy Weismantel: 00:34:04

I loved it, Erica.

Guy Weismantel: 00:34:05

Thanks for everything you do.

Guy Weismantel: 00:34:06

And I love this podcast and the community that you built, and I

Guy Weismantel: 00:34:09

really just feel thankful on this day to be talking to you today.

Guy Weismantel: 00:34:12

So thank you very much.

Erica Seidel: 00:34:15

That was Guy Weismantel, the chief marketer from Nashville's

Erica Seidel: 00:34:19

fintech SaaS darling Ncontracts, sharing some great tips on scaling.

Erica Seidel: 00:34:25

Next time on The Get, you'll hear from someone who did a marketing

Erica Seidel: 00:34:28

transformation, a rebranding, and an IPO process - all at the same time.

Erica Seidel: 00:34:33

Join us next time to hear from Justin Steinman, the

Erica Seidel: 00:34:36

CMO at Definitive Healthcare.

Erica Seidel: 00:34:39

Thanks for listening to The Get.

Erica Seidel: 00:34:41

I'm your host, Erica Seidel.

Erica Seidel: 00:34:43

Hiring great marketing leaders is not easy.

Erica Seidel: 00:34:46

The Get is designed to inspire smart decisions around recruiting and

Erica Seidel: 00:34:50

leadership in B2B SaaS marketing.

Erica Seidel: 00:34:52

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

Erica Seidel: 00:34:56

marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.

Erica Seidel: 00:34:58

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

Erica Seidel: 00:35:02

If you liked this episode, please share it.

Erica Seidel: 00:35:04

For other insights on recruiting great marketing leaders, what I

Erica Seidel: 00:35:07

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

Erica Seidel: 00:35:10

pretty' ones, follow me on LinkedIn.

Erica Seidel: 00:35:13

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Erica Seidel: 00:35:18

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