The CMO and Board Relationship in B2B SaaS: From Fraught to Functional to Fantastic (Highlights from Season 5 of The Get)

Erica Seidel: 00:00:03

Hello, and welcome to The Get.

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I'm your host, Erica Seidel.

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This season, the fifth season of The Get, has been focused on the relationship

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between CMOs and Board members.

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For many CMOs, interacting with the Board is about as much

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fun as getting a root canal.

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But what if you could make your CMO and Board relationship go from fraught

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to functional, and even to fantastic?

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If we haven't met yet, a brief intro.

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I spend my days recruiting CMOs and VPs of Marketing in B2B SaaS.

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So I have this unique perch to explore the trends, tribulations,

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and triumphs of the best marketing leaders and their organizations.

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I've had a range of guests on my podcast this season - marketing leaders who are

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veterans at interacting with Boards, marketing leaders who are Board members

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themselves, and a couple of Board members without deep marketing expertise

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who have hired marketing leaders and have learned firsthand how valuable

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the right CMO can be for the Board.

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And speaking as a podcast host for just a moment, it's been great to hear from

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so many loyal listeners along the way who have found this podcast useful.

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One person actually told me that I was the Terry Gross of the CMO podcast space.

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I'm honored.

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In this executive summary episode, I'm going to recap some of the most

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compelling takeaways from this season.

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One.

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What do Board members want in a SaaS CMO and how can you ace your

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interview with a Board member?

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Two.

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Board meetings.

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How can you land on your feet once you are inside the Boardroom?

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Three.

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How do you build a strong dialogue with the Board outside of Board meetings?

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Finally, four.

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Serving on Boards.

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How can you become the CMO who gets tapped for Board seats?

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Ready?

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Here goes.

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First, what do Board members want from a CMO and how can you ace the Board

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interview when you are up for a CMO role?

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Some inside perspective from me before you hear from my guests.

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I do a lot of searches for private equity backed companies where

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investors are active on the Board.

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My searches that go the most smoothly have something in common.

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The right Board members are involved in the search process early on.

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By contrast, I've seen searches go not so smoothly when Board members only

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show up at the end and nix a candidate.

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I'd rather have a Board member or investor be like a cook in the kitchen as opposed

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to the restaurant critic who only judges what's on their plate without being

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involved with how the meal was made.

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So I personally have become a fan of Board members engaging throughout

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the search, both with the search process and with the candidates.

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After all, the way you start a relationship is often indicative

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of the way you continue it.

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My guests this season all agree that early engagement between the

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Board and the CMO makes sense.

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So what are Board members looking for?

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Chris Fountain, a veteran Board member and operating partner

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at private equity firm Frontier Growth, shares what's on his mind.

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I like to understand their operating cadence.

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The operating cadence just tells you how you run the business of

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marketing, and what metrics do you use to run the business of marketing.

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I find that to be super insightful.

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A marketing leader, I can't recall where she was from, but

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she said something very profound.

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She said she realized the best use of her marketing dollars were to give part of

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her budget to the product team so they could build a key product feature that

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she thought was going to drive demand better than any marketing program that

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she could invest in, in the timeframe that, in which they were evaluating

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that resource allocation question.

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And it was a brilliant perspective to me.

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So if that marketing leader or any executive is sitting around that

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table, if they zoom out far enough to be able to understand the business

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holistically, all researchers are scarce.

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Whether you're IBM or Wealthbox, you've gotta make trade-offs and trying to get a

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feel for that in the interviewing process.

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You know, there's not one question that gets to that, but it's

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something I'd try to get through the course of the conversations.

Erica Seidel: 00:03:49

Yeah.

Chris Fountain: 00:03:50

As a CEO, my dream was to have every executive

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first be a general manager and then be a functional executive.

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To the extent they could understand how to build enterprise value, how to think

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about the business from a financial perspective, how to think about the

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business from a go-to-market perspective.

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Cause business is a big balancing act at every level.

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And there's big questions about resource allocation that had to

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be made at the highest level.

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And ideally you have an executive team around the table that appreciates the

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fact that there are trade-offs across the entire company that need to be made.

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So in a nutshell, Chris's advice is business

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first, marketing second.

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How can you best prepare for a Board member interview when

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you are up for a CMO role?

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Have your numbers at the ready.

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It's great that you've contributed to increased revenue, market share,

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profitability, but by how much?

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Quantifying your business impact is where it's at.

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But focus on the metrics that mean the most to the overall business.

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Don't make the mistake of getting too far into the weeds and avoid marketing jargon.

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Elana Anderson, a multi-time CMO who has led marketing at Veracode and Demandware,

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among other places, shares what to expect.

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I don't expect to talk deep marketing, you know

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shop talk, with a Board member.

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I've yet to find many who are deeply interested, you know, in the details.

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So I tend to focus on talking about strategy, the company, the market,

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the market trends, the competitive trends, the competitive landscape.

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I talk about how I've moved the needle, you know, in, in other

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companies, how I've aligned teams.

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When you are interviewing with a Board,

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realize it's a two-way street.

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You'll be interviewing them, too.

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The best candidates see it as developing a relationship, not just in a kumbaya sense,

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but so you are aligned on expectations.

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Here's Elana again.

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I'm asking about their understanding of the market and

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the unique advantage of the company.

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Why is this company going to win?

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What makes them unique?

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What is the outlook for the company?

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Why is this company gonna win over competitor X, Y, Z?

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If competitor X, Y, Z might be a leader and the company is not a leader, you know,

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it gives me a sense of A, how much they believe, and also how strong the messaging

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for the company, for the business is.

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What if you are not asked to interview with a Board member?

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Ask for that meeting.

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Seriously.

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Don't be afraid to ask since there's so much you can learn.

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Like, what are the Board dynamics?

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What does the CEO struggle with?

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What prospects are ahead for the business?

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And when it comes to marketing, does the Board know what they know

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and know what they don't know?

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If you ask to meet a Board member and you are told no for some reason,

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think hard about what this says.

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Maybe it's not the right fit and you should look for a company that

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believes in open access to the Board.

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Let's move on to part two.

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We will assume that you've gotten the CMO job and now you are in the CMO seat.

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Huzzah!

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Now how can you rock it in the Boardroom?

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This is important because marketing leaders can succeed or fail based on

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their performance during Board meetings.

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Actually, a question I ask CEOs when I start a search for a CMO is,

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think of your last Board meeting, what marketing related challenges

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did you struggle to get answers to?

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Their answers tell me a lot about the CEO's view of marketing and also the

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core of the job for their next CMO.

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Going into this podcast series, one thing I wondered about was how

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marketers could spend less time and angst preparing for Board meetings?

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Many marketing leaders shudder at the time and second-guessing that goes

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into those Board meetings and it can seem like productivity really grinds

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to a halt in the run-up to the meeting.

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Evan DeCorte from Columbia Capital is a PE investor and Board member.

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He had a really useful perspective when I asked how Board

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meeting prep could be shorter.

Evan DeCorte: 00:07:39

I think Board meeting prep takes time because

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it is, I think, for the business, like a moment of self-reflection.

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What have we done?

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What were the outcomes?

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What are we gonna do differently?

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How does this impact our view on strategy or the market?

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Those are not always easy questions to answer, and if they are really easy,

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like I, I might think it's time for a little more self-reflection, right?

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Because very rarely are the things that we're doing, even in businesses

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that are just really doing well, easy.

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Then we face tough questions that take time to grapple with, right?

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We are conducting a lot of activities and hiring people and running new

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strategies and evaluating them and measuring them against the alternatives.

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Like, those are complex questions.

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I found Evan's observation really interesting and it underlined what

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I've learned from these conversations about how you can be more successful

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and less stressed during Board meetings.

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It starts with having a plan for how you are looking to interact

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with the Board in general.

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The Board meeting itself is a sort of capstone, of course, but your interactions

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overall should be less about a quarterly performance and more about nurturing

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an ongoing symbiotic relationship.

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A great example of this comes again from Evan when he joined the podcast alongside

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Jen Pockell Dimas, the Chief Marketing and Experience Officer for Telarus.

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I collaborated with Evan and the Telarus CEO when I recruited Jen into her role.

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It was awesome to have both Evan and Jen talk, not just about each other,

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but with each other on the podcast.

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Here's a perspective that came to light.

Evan DeCorte: 00:09:05

I think what we don't want is hand waiving, a lot of vagaries

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and big talk about what could be, or the things that are in motion and

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what things maybe should look like in the future but it's hard to know.

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Erica, you, you sort of pointed out, I say this all the time, but like

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we have very simple reptile brains.

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We are investors, right?

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And our, our goal is to invest money in the company and then to

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sell or to recapitalize a business some way and get money back out.

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A lot of what we are focused on is what is the result of the actions

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that you're taking as a CMO, how do they intersect with the strategy

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of the overall business, and how do they correlate with value creation?

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That pairs nicely with Jen Pockell Dimas's thoughts.

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We have understandings about how we want this company

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to be understood and valued and what new markets we want to open.

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We'll be able to see that we're having success there because we will begin

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to create revenue in new directions.

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We will see consistency in bookings creation in directions we haven't

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seen historically, maybe into a new geo, maybe in a new product offering,

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maybe in a new revenue source that we hadn't considered historically.

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Those kinds of things would increase our value.

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The squishy ways that this would show up, and every marketer hates this,

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:10:16

is our own customers saying to us, "Oh, I didn't know you did that."

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Another way you can be more successful and less stressed during Board

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meetings is by getting alignment with the Board on what they're interested in

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seeing before you walk into the Boardroom.

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Befriend the Board member who has the deepest background in marketing.

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You can preview your Board meeting content in advance with that person to

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get help in anticipating the reactions.

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If it's your first meeting with the Board, make it count.

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Share why you have joined the company and your thesis for the impact you'll make.

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Kelly Ford Buckley has great advice here.

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She's a marketing leader who pivoted to the investment side and is now general

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partner and COO at Edison Partners.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:10:59

I think the Board will always wanna know what are you

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:11:03

doing for the next 30, 60, 90, right?

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:11:05

Or what do you think of the current plan?

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So I think it's a real opportunity for a dialogue.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:11:10

I've always walked into those first meetings with an existing

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Board with my rookie observations.

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And it's a great way to get a dialogue going.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:11:18

Here are the slides, and this is what went on last quarter and I was here for

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part of it, but maybe not even all of it.

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Those are in the appendix.

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I want my 20 minutes sharing my rookie observations, why I took the job, what

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I'm observing, here are the opportunities.

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What do you guys think?

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Am I missing?

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Am I off base?

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:11:36

What a great way to start a dialogue.

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And now you've set the tone for a dialogue that can continue to take

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place in every other Board interaction.

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As you settle in and as the business evolves with its

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investment partners, your Board meeting content will evolve, too.

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Chris Fountain, who's a veteran Board member and a former CEO, discusses this.

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It should be very clear what marketing's role

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is in driving bookings growth.

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Lead flow's great, but if you can't translate that into won deals, people

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are gonna be scratching their head.

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What are we getting for our marketing spend?

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So in my view, every Board meeting, once you've got the instrumentation of flying

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the plane and that's gaining altitude, is important, and the really critical

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instrumentation is demand, lead flow, and conversions to closed/won deals.

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Along with that, I think, is ROI.

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Good marketers, I think, understand how investments pay off from intangible waste.

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Early in investment, for us, we wanna know that we have a very clear

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picture of the voice of the customer.

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Be able to understand that we know who our ICP is, our Ideal Customer

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Profile, we know the buyer personas.

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We know how we position ourselves relative to our competitors.

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That has a time and a place, but you don't need to revisit

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that at every Board meeting.

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Also, get over the impulse to talk about all the work you did and

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how you've been spending your time.

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You're in the job as CMO because the Board thought you could do the job.

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They trust you on the details.

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The Board may only be interested in about one of the ten things that you're doing.

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As Elana Anderson says-

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Regardless of the scale of the company, the CMO

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needs to focus on objectives, on outcomes, on critical metrics.

Elana Anderson: 00:13:14

You know, sometimes marketers are over enamored, you know, about what they do

Elana Anderson: 00:13:20

rather than the outcomes that they drive, you know, and I think particularly with

Elana Anderson: 00:13:24

the Board, it's about the destination.

Elana Anderson: 00:13:27

It's not about the journey.

Elana Anderson: 00:13:29

The journey really only matters when there's something that, significantly new

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lessons that you learned along the way.

Elana Anderson: 00:13:36

Whether those lessons were good lessons, lessons that you wanna

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repeat, or lessons that, you know, you tried something and it didn't work.

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Next, realize that your Board meeting is a great

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vehicle for improving the sales and marketing interlock, and for

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communicating that interlock.

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Madeline O'Phelan is VP of Marketing for fintech company Verity.

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She discusses the importance of Board posture.

Madeline O'Phelan: 00:14:01

I think in a Board meeting, it's also

Madeline O'Phelan: 00:14:03

really important to convey your collaboration amongst the teams.

Madeline O'Phelan: 00:14:06

And there are a couple key ways I think you do that really well.

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One is reemphasizing points, right?

Madeline O'Phelan: 00:14:12

Each function has its fifteen minutes of fame in the Board meeting

Madeline O'Phelan: 00:14:16

and restating points over and over again across all teams I think

Madeline O'Phelan: 00:14:20

is a great way to do that, right?

Madeline O'Phelan: 00:14:22

Or kudos between the teams and Board meetings, I think

Madeline O'Phelan: 00:14:25

is also really important.

Madeline O'Phelan: 00:14:27

Being able to show that you have a good relationship with sales.

Madeline O'Phelan: 00:14:30

It might be a nuance, but it's an important nuance to be able to

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show in front of the Board that you work well together, that you give

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each other praise when it's due.

Madeline O'Phelan: 00:14:38

Reiterating key points that your peers are making, kudos when they're

Madeline O'Phelan: 00:14:42

deserved, I think is super important.

Erica Seidel: 00:14:45

And Kelly Ford Buckley discusses the benefits of marketing and

Erica Seidel: 00:14:48

sales co-presenting at a Board meeting and having a combined growth readout.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:14:54

I don't want the marketing department

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:14:55

readout and the sales readout.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:14:57

I want the growth plan readout, the growth initiatives.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:15:01

Listen, the Board deck goes out two, three days before the Board meeting.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:15:05

The slides don't need to be read to us.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:15:07

Like, we're reading, we're preparing, we're coming with questions.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:15:11

We want data and we want insights.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:15:14

We wanna know what you think is working based on the data and what's not working.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:15:19

What are you doing differently next quarter to improve upon what

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:15:23

the data's telling you right now?

Erica Seidel: 00:15:25

And there's one more common thread when it comes to

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avoiding anxiety and nailing your presence in Board meetings as CMO.

Erica Seidel: 00:15:33

Contrary to what you may think, there is a place for qualitative

Erica Seidel: 00:15:36

data, competitive insights, customer insights, and brand stuff.

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Yes, even brand stuff.

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Consider making it impactful by being interactive.

Erica Seidel: 00:15:45

Elana Anderson discussed this.

Elana Anderson: 00:15:48

You know that numbers are gonna engage the Board, but if you

Elana Anderson: 00:15:51

have a topic that's short on numbers, like a, a rebrand topic, how do you

Elana Anderson: 00:15:55

make that interesting and impactful?

Elana Anderson: 00:15:58

I chose to make it interactive and use brands that I knew they had opinions

Elana Anderson: 00:16:03

on or would be aware of to make a case for why we had to do something,

Elana Anderson: 00:16:07

you know, about our own brand.

Elana Anderson: 00:16:09

I mean, and recognize this isn't like an hour session.

Elana Anderson: 00:16:11

This is probably

Elana Anderson: 00:16:12

- Erica Seidel: Right.

Elana Anderson: 00:16:13

-twenty minutes, you know, twenty-five minutes

Elana Anderson: 00:16:15

at, at most that you have.

Elana Anderson: 00:16:16

So it has to be im- impactful and quick.

Elana Anderson: 00:16:19

And so I put up little brand elements, so a color or part of a tagline,

Elana Anderson: 00:16:26

about a particular brand and had them, well, who is this brand?

Elana Anderson: 00:16:31

And when you can immediately identify who that brand is, that tells you something.

Elana Anderson: 00:16:36

And, and then, and if I show you, well, who's this brand?

Elana Anderson: 00:16:39

And you have no idea who that is and it's us [laughs], um, you know, that,

Elana Anderson: 00:16:45

that starts to unveil, well, we have some opportunity or some work to do.

Erica Seidel: 00:16:49

I see.

Elana Anderson: 00:16:49

And then if you can compare and contrast, well,

Elana Anderson: 00:16:51

here's how we're doing it today, whether it's a color change.

Elana Anderson: 00:16:54

I mean, what is less interesting to a Board member than, hey, we're changing

Elana Anderson: 00:16:59

our colors from teal to purple?

Elana Anderson: 00:17:02

But sometimes that does make a difference, and so to make it impactful, you get to

Elana Anderson: 00:17:07

the opportunity and the whys behind that.

Erica Seidel: 00:17:13

Okay.

Erica Seidel: 00:17:14

Here's part three of our four-part recap of insights

Erica Seidel: 00:17:16

learned this season on The Get.

Erica Seidel: 00:17:18

How do you make sure you have a great ongoing dialogue with your Board, not just

Erica Seidel: 00:17:22

inside the Boardroom, but outside of it so that both you and the business succeed?

Erica Seidel: 00:17:28

When companies engage me for new CMO searches, one thing is so clear, their

Erica Seidel: 00:17:32

previous CMOs have not failed for lack of effort or even lack of talent.

Erica Seidel: 00:17:36

They have failed for lack of alignment and lack of shared expectations around

Erica Seidel: 00:17:40

responsibilities, timing, and resources.

Erica Seidel: 00:17:44

A good example of this alignment and action comes from Jen Pockell Dimas

Erica Seidel: 00:17:47

and Evan DeCorte, the CMO and Board member pair we heard from earlier.

Evan DeCorte: 00:17:52

Jen and I sat down and went through our deck, like,

Evan DeCorte: 00:17:55

how do we think value gets created?

Evan DeCorte: 00:17:57

How do we think that intersects with marketing?

Evan DeCorte: 00:17:59

And here's some example numbers.

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:02

I do think it is important for me to be able to

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:04

speak to the value that I'm driving in the business in a way that

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:07

our investors would care about.

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:08

One of the ways that Evan and I sometimes talk about this is

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:12

Big V Value and Little V Value.

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:14

And I think the Little V Value that helps to drive pipeline and like

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:18

the things that I'm measuring on the daily, weekly, monthly to say I am

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:22

doing these activities and they're creating value in the business.

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:25

What Evan cares about is Big V Value.

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:27

I put some money in and three to five years from now, I want it to

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:30

be more money that I'm getting out.

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:32

It has been hard in B2B marketing, historically, to draw a direct line

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:36

from the activities that you're making to the outcomes that they're driving.

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:40

But now we're actually talking about Big V Value, the value of

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:43

this company, not just the value of these marketing activities that I'm

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:47

driving, this, this, my contribution to pipeline, whatever those things are.

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:50

This is about how am I increasing the value of this company in market?

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:54

And that is not a conversation that is necessarily one that many

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:18:59

are comfortable or fluent in.

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:19:00

That's the code switching that needs to happen between the operational

Jen Pockell Dimas: 00:19:03

plan and how I'm executing today.

Erica Seidel: 00:19:06

Chris Fountain offers a useful analogy for what

Erica Seidel: 00:19:09

he and other Board members are looking for once a CMO is in place.

Chris Fountain: 00:19:13

The marketing domain should be able to give a heads up to

Chris Fountain: 00:19:16

the business around future growth.

Chris Fountain: 00:19:18

So the finance team does a rearview mirror view of the business, right?

Chris Fountain: 00:19:22

Marketing ideally can paint a picture of trial activity or demo activity

Chris Fountain: 00:19:26

or MQL activity - we can expect our bookings to trend as follows.

Chris Fountain: 00:19:31

If you can create a heads up display that allows you to predict

Chris Fountain: 00:19:34

with greater accuracy of the future, that's nirvana in my view.

Erica Seidel: 00:19:38

Another thing to navigate is how to respond when

Erica Seidel: 00:19:41

your Board member proposes something that you think is outlandish.

Erica Seidel: 00:19:44

I talked about this with Kelly Ford Buckley, whose advice is to

Erica Seidel: 00:19:47

try to understand the input and not just dismiss it out of hand.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:19:52

You really do need to think about the Board

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:19:54

like a member of your team.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:19:55

There's brilliance that lives inside the four walls of your business and certainly

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:00

brilliance that sits in your Board.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:02

And frankly, a lot of these investors are domain experts.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:05

They know your market really well.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:07

And even if they've invested in companies that don't compete with

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:10

yours, they're in adjacent spaces.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:13

So it's like getting a market perspective and a customer perspective.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:17

So why not take that in?

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:19

I think the Board needs to be viewed as just another audience, but an

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:22

audience that's actually on your team.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:25

And I think marketing leaders can often be stronger internally than externally,

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:30

and more exposure externally with customers, partners, investor helps

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:35

build the knowledge, the confidence, the credibility that they also

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:40

need to be building with the Board.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:41

So I think sometimes if you're too internally focused, relying on sales

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:46

for your outside perspective, or not getting enough direct customer or

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:50

outside perspective, you might not be as comfortable or as confident.

Kelly Ford Buckley: 00:20:54

I think it's some of those things that remove the intimidation.

Erica Seidel: 00:20:58

So, you'll wanna communicate well with your Board and

Erica Seidel: 00:21:01

provide that heads up display for the business and focus on Big V Value.

Erica Seidel: 00:21:05

To do all that, you will also have to master the subtle art of

Erica Seidel: 00:21:09

navigating a Board that may not know what good marketing looks like.

Erica Seidel: 00:21:13

After all, the number of Board members and investors with marketing

Erica Seidel: 00:21:16

backgrounds approaches zero, or their marketing experience may

Erica Seidel: 00:21:19

be from five or ten years ago.

Erica Seidel: 00:21:21

So you will do best if you understand, educate, and translate.

Erica Seidel: 00:21:25

You can offer an offline session to educate Board members on

Erica Seidel: 00:21:28

a particular marketing topic.

Erica Seidel: 00:21:30

It won't just benefit their understanding of what you're doing,

Erica Seidel: 00:21:33

but it will also help them in their Board service for other companies.

Erica Seidel: 00:21:36

There was general agreement amongst my guests that it is the job of the

Erica Seidel: 00:21:40

CMO to translate the language of marketing into vocabulary that the

Erica Seidel: 00:21:44

CEO and CFO and Board can get behind.

Erica Seidel: 00:21:47

As you translate and educate, beware that some marketing terms

Erica Seidel: 00:21:50

will fly and some terms will flop.

Erica Seidel: 00:21:53

Allison Dancy, a veteran CMO, who was most recently CMO at Kibo Commerce,

Erica Seidel: 00:21:58

talks about the marketing trigger words that are likely to fly with Boards.

Allison Dancy: 00:22:03

Sometimes it's around ICPs or sometimes it's calibrating

Allison Dancy: 00:22:06

around personas or sometimes it's, we need to go to ABM, cuz that's

Allison Dancy: 00:22:10

what everybody's talking about.

Allison Dancy: 00:22:11

And if you start to talk about brand, it really is the four letter word

Allison Dancy: 00:22:14

sometimes to Boards because to them it means spend that they can't track

Allison Dancy: 00:22:18

and therefore they don't wanna do it.

Allison Dancy: 00:22:20

But you know, your brand is what ultimately gets people to make

Allison Dancy: 00:22:24

the decision to buy from you, to stay with you, to buy more from

Allison Dancy: 00:22:27

you, to have confidence in you to be able to build a business case

Allison Dancy: 00:22:30

that they're gonna buy from you.

Allison Dancy: 00:22:31

So brand is, it is actually the secret weapon behind the scenes, but to a

Allison Dancy: 00:22:36

Board member, it just means cost.

Allison Dancy: 00:22:38

And so you have to be really careful.

Allison Dancy: 00:22:41

Often they'll even see the website as a brand thing and

Allison Dancy: 00:22:44

they don't wanna invest in that.

Allison Dancy: 00:22:45

I've had some Boards where I can call that awareness.

Allison Dancy: 00:22:48

It won't raise as many red flags.

Allison Dancy: 00:22:50

I can talk about awareness or I can talk about website technology, but sometimes

Allison Dancy: 00:22:54

you have to be a little bit careful about just using even the word brand I've found.

Erica Seidel: 00:23:00

While we're talking about marketing terms that fly and

Erica Seidel: 00:23:03

marketing terms that flop, I wanna underscore the elephant in the room

that Allison mentioned before: 00:23:06

Brand.

that Allison mentioned before: 00:23:09

As she said, brand can be a four letter word.

that Allison mentioned before: 00:23:12

Boards wonder why a marketing leader is investing in brand since it feels

that Allison mentioned before: 00:23:15

like something that is untrackable?

that Allison mentioned before: 00:23:17

Sandra Lopez had a great perspective here.

that Allison mentioned before: 00:23:20

She has been in marketing leadership and general manager roles in many

that Allison mentioned before: 00:23:23

of the world's biggest and most influential tech companies like

that Allison mentioned before: 00:23:26

Adobe and Intel and Microsoft.

that Allison mentioned before: 00:23:28

And she's a Board member herself for Junior Achievement USA and PureRed.

that Allison mentioned before: 00:23:33

She shared how she models out brand initiatives in financial terms to

that Allison mentioned before: 00:23:36

get buy-in from her Board members.

Sandra Lopez: 00:23:39

Oftentimes when you are looking at brand architecture

Sandra Lopez: 00:23:42

strategies, what will that impact look like in terms of lesser choice?

Sandra Lopez: 00:23:46

Is it gonna cannibalize one or the other products?

Sandra Lopez: 00:23:49

That's yet another opportunity to bring the CFO into the journey and talk

Sandra Lopez: 00:23:53

about, let's do some modeling together.

Sandra Lopez: 00:23:56

Oftentimes what I had seen is brand architecture strategies that

Sandra Lopez: 00:24:01

talk about the business rationale.

Sandra Lopez: 00:24:03

But there's no financial numbers.

Sandra Lopez: 00:24:05

They'll talk to you about what it's gonna cost, what it's gonna cost to

Sandra Lopez: 00:24:07

overhaul the entire thing, and all the collateral that needs to get

Sandra Lopez: 00:24:11

updated, both analog and digital.

Sandra Lopez: 00:24:13

Yet I never see, if we were to simplify the brand, what could this

Sandra Lopez: 00:24:18

look like from a financial standpoint?

Sandra Lopez: 00:24:20

Or if we're gonna do a massive brand transition and reposition

Sandra Lopez: 00:24:23

the brand in its totality from one point to another point, will it

Sandra Lopez: 00:24:28

alienate your existing customer base?

Sandra Lopez: 00:24:30

And if so, how?

Sandra Lopez: 00:24:32

Well, what, what could that be from a sales perspective?

Sandra Lopez: 00:24:34

So you can model all this.

Erica Seidel: 00:24:37

If there's one thing to remember when it comes to the

Erica Seidel: 00:24:39

CMO and Board relationship, it is to move from broadcasting to the

Erica Seidel: 00:24:43

Board to collaborating with them.

Erica Seidel: 00:24:45

And with collaboration, there's both a give and a get.

Erica Seidel: 00:24:48

Marketing leaders can be so focused on what they are giving

Erica Seidel: 00:24:51

to the Board that they miss the opportunity to get stuff in return.

Erica Seidel: 00:24:55

Realize the Board is there to be helpful.

Erica Seidel: 00:24:57

Interacting with them, it's an opportunity for free advice.

Erica Seidel: 00:25:00

They will likely be flattered to be asked, so don't be

Erica Seidel: 00:25:03

reluctant to make an ask of them.

Erica Seidel: 00:25:05

Elana Anderson discussed in detail how she has incorporated the Board

Erica Seidel: 00:25:09

into her marketing initiatives.

Elana Anderson: 00:25:12

I found that Board members are happy to participate and they've

Elana Anderson: 00:25:16

been actually flattered to be asked.

Elana Anderson: 00:25:19

At Demandware, uh, we had a Board member by the name of Len Schlesinger.

Elana Anderson: 00:25:25

Len is a Harvard Business School professor.

Elana Anderson: 00:25:28

He was formerly the COO of Limited Brands, which in his day

Elana Anderson: 00:25:32

owned, um, Victoria's Secret.

Elana Anderson: 00:25:34

We had a customer conference that was a very successful event, but one

Elana Anderson: 00:25:38

of the things that we were trying to do was get more attendance from

Elana Anderson: 00:25:42

an exec level audience, the true business buyer, the business sponsor.

Elana Anderson: 00:25:48

So I asked Len if he would co-chair or be the guest chair of an invite

Elana Anderson: 00:25:53

only executive track, and then host a half day workshop for me.

Elana Anderson: 00:25:58

And maybe that was a little gutsy, but he was thrilled.

Elana Anderson: 00:26:01

So we were then marketing an executive track with a well-known business professor

Elana Anderson: 00:26:09

to retail, you know, commerce executives.

Elana Anderson: 00:26:11

It sold out easily.

Elana Anderson: 00:26:14

We had our ideal profile customer at this event, and the

Elana Anderson: 00:26:19

actual event was incredible.

Erica Seidel: 00:26:23

The fourth and final part of our recap of season five of

Erica Seidel: 00:26:26

The Get, how can you become the CMO who gets tapped for Board seats?

Erica Seidel: 00:26:30

Many of the CMOs I interview wanna be on a Board someday.

Erica Seidel: 00:26:34

And the ones that are on Boards tend to love the experience.

Erica Seidel: 00:26:37

Not surprisingly, the supply of CMOs eager to serve on Boards

Erica Seidel: 00:26:41

exceeds the current demand.

Erica Seidel: 00:26:43

That means the competition is tough.

Erica Seidel: 00:26:45

How can you be prepared to step up into Board service?

Erica Seidel: 00:26:48

There are a few ways you can prepare.

Erica Seidel: 00:26:50

First, get P&L experience and general management experience under

Erica Seidel: 00:26:54

your belt, even if this is outside your obvious marketing swim lane.

Erica Seidel: 00:26:58

And, in a marketing leadership role, approach your work and the

Erica Seidel: 00:27:02

way you communicate your work with a business first, marketing second

Erica Seidel: 00:27:05

mindset, like we talked about before.

Erica Seidel: 00:27:08

Also, plan ahead and try to find a boss who will embrace Board service as a

Erica Seidel: 00:27:12

part of your professional development and help you manifest a Board seat.

Erica Seidel: 00:27:16

Next, clarify what your unique value prop is to a Board.

Erica Seidel: 00:27:20

What skill sets will you offer, and which types of companies are most

Erica Seidel: 00:27:23

likely to benefit from your knowledge?

Erica Seidel: 00:27:25

That way, when you get a call to interview with a Board, you can

Erica Seidel: 00:27:27

vet the opportunity correctly.

Erica Seidel: 00:27:30

This is true also for CMO roles, by the way.

Erica Seidel: 00:27:32

One of the best questions I've seen CMOs ask in interviews is, what's

Erica Seidel: 00:27:36

the value you see in my skillset?

Erica Seidel: 00:27:39

Here's Sandra Lopez with some additional perspective.

Sandra Lopez: 00:27:42

People reached out to me for various Board positions, and I

Sandra Lopez: 00:27:45

remember one, it was all about supply chain and it was about transportation.

Sandra Lopez: 00:27:50

And I was so honored that they considered me and they were considering me from a

Sandra Lopez: 00:27:53

digital transformation, but I was looking at the Board requirements and the skill

Sandra Lopez: 00:27:57

sets that they were looking for, the top three, and I'm like, I have none of that.

Sandra Lopez: 00:28:01

And I said to the, uh, individual that was recruiting for him,

Sandra Lopez: 00:28:04

I'm like, you know what?

Sandra Lopez: 00:28:05

Super honored, yet it's not gonna be the right fit because I will not

Sandra Lopez: 00:28:08

add value for what they're looking for from a talent perspective.

Erica Seidel: 00:28:13

Consider serving on nonprofit Boards as a practice

Erica Seidel: 00:28:16

ground, but prioritize the ones that are run like for-profit Boards.

Erica Seidel: 00:28:19

Also, advisory Boards, which can be quirky, can also be decent

Erica Seidel: 00:28:24

stepping stones to Board service.

Erica Seidel: 00:28:26

As you feel reasonably ready, ask people who are Boarded up, meaning

Erica Seidel: 00:28:29

at capacity with their Board service, to refer Board opportunities to you.

Erica Seidel: 00:28:33

Here's Sandra Lopez's advice.

Sandra Lopez: 00:28:36

Listen, I've had amazing mentors helping me, guide me through

Sandra Lopez: 00:28:40

the path to Board of directors.

Sandra Lopez: 00:28:42

And I started, I would, three years before I landed my first Board.

Sandra Lopez: 00:28:47

You wanna land a Board seat so then you're recommended by somebody

Sandra Lopez: 00:28:51

else for yet another Board seat.

Sandra Lopez: 00:28:53

And that's how the flywheel of that.

Sandra Lopez: 00:28:54

And so when you're looking for Board seats, you also, like, try

Sandra Lopez: 00:28:59

to find somebody, it's called, you know, over Boarded where

Sandra Lopez: 00:29:01

somebody has way too many Boards.

Sandra Lopez: 00:29:04

Look for those individuals that are Boarded up, that are

Sandra Lopez: 00:29:07

passing on opportunities cuz they have too many Boards.

Sandra Lopez: 00:29:10

That's a great way just to start to open up the doors.

Erica Seidel: 00:29:17

That's it.

Erica Seidel: 00:29:17

Your guide for how CMOs and Boards can promote their relationship from

Erica Seidel: 00:29:21

fraught to functional to fantastic.

Erica Seidel: 00:29:25

A huge thanks to all the guests from this season.

Erica Seidel: 00:29:28

And, of course, if you wanna talk with me about hiring a CMO or VP

Erica Seidel: 00:29:31

of Marketing for your SaaS company or your open Board seat, ping me.

Erica Seidel: 00:29:37

Thanks for listening to The Get.

Erica Seidel: 00:29:38

I'm your host, Erica Seidel.

Erica Seidel: 00:29:40

The Get is here to drive smart decisions around recruiting and

Erica Seidel: 00:29:44

leadership in B2B SaaS marketing.

Erica Seidel: 00:29:46

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

Erica Seidel: 00:29:50

marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.

Erica Seidel: 00:29:52

To stay in the know for our next season, please keep following the show in

Erica Seidel: 00:29:55

your preferred podcast listening app.

Erica Seidel: 00:29:58

If you liked this episode, please share it.

Erica Seidel: 00:30:00

For more about The Get, visit thegetpodcast.com.

Erica Seidel: 00:30:04

And to learn more about my executive search practice, which focuses on

Erica Seidel: 00:30:08

recruiting the make-money marketing leaders rather than the make-it-pretty

Erica Seidel: 00:30:11

ones, follow me on LinkedIn or visit theconnectivegood.com.

Erica Seidel: 00:30:16

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