March 17, 2022 • 31 mins
Sydney Sloan is a scale savant! I talked with Sydney as she wrapped up her CMO role at Salesloft, contributing to a huge scale-up. She has since joined Zoom as Head of Product & Industry Marketing.
Sydney had so much insight to share. It was hard to pick out just a few highlights. I asked her how a CMO can balance "getting oars in the water quickly" while managing expectations that "Rome wasn't built in a day." You'll hear about achievable goals versus aspirational goals and when to use each. You'll also learn about how to build organizational excitement around your vision.
Highlights:
- "Be a true market leader, not just a marketing leader."
- Look at your budget as "buying outcomes."
- Balance achievable goals and aspirational goals when you are scaling. The purpose of an aspirational goal is to remove barriers from what you're doing now and think differently about how you might achieve results. "Transformational growth is different from incremental growth."
- Design your org charts 18 months out: The org chart for the 100MM business is different from the org chart for the 250MM business.
- Resist the default of having only your direct reports be on your marketing leadership team. Rather, look for emerging talent or people taking on special projects to join the team and get exposure.
- Surface red flags when hiring and talk to the candidates about them; you can then have a development plan for them in place on day 1.
- "Everyone says marketing and sales should be aligned, but no CMO wants to report to sales."
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Key Links
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Hiring great marketing leaders is not easy. The Get is a podcast designed to inspire smart decisions around recruiting and leadership in B2B SaaS marketing.
We explore the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of today’s top marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.
This season’s theme is Solving for the Scale Journey.
The Get’s host is Erica Seidel, who runs The Connective Good, an executive search practice with a hyper-focus on recruiting CMOs and VPs of Marketing, especially in B2B SaaS.
If you are looking to hire a CMO or VP of Marketing of the ‘make money’ variety - rather than the ‘make it pretty’ variety, contact Erica at erica@theconnectivegood.com. You can also follow Erica on LinkedIn or sign up for her newsletter at TheConnectiveGood.com.
The Get is produced by Evo Terra and Simpler Media Productions.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erica Seidel (00:03):
Hi, you're listening to The Get, the podcast about
finding -- and keeping -- greatmarketing leaders in B2B SaaS.
I'm Erica Seidel, your host.
Sydney Sloan is a scale savant.
I talked with Sydney as she wrappedup her CMO role at Salesloft.
There, she played a keyrole in their huge scale-up.
(00:23):
She has since joined Zoom as Headof Product & Industry Marketing.
Sidney had so much insight toshare that it was hard to pick
out just a few highlights.
I asked her how a CMO can balancegetting oars in the water quickly
while managing expectations thatin marketing things can take time?
You'll hear about when toset achievable goals versus
(00:44):
aspirational goals for your team.
You'll also learn abouthow to build organizational
excitement around your vision.
And you'll hear about organizing yourmarketing team and hiring with an eye to
where you want to be in eighteen months.
If you want to upgrade from incrementalgrowth to transformational growth,
you've come to the right place.
Let's go.
(01:08):
Sydney Sloan, it's so greatto have you on the show.
Thank you for joining!
Sydney Sloan (01:12):
Thank you, Erica.
I'm so excited to be here.
Erica Seidel (01:15):
Well, I'm glad that we have all this fun stuff to talk about and
you have such great experience to share.
So let's get right into it.
I want to talk about CEO advisingas pertains to CMOs first.
You have led marketingin multiple situations.
You've been an advisorto multiple companies.
What is one piece of advice thatCEOs need to hear most to have their
(01:38):
CMO be successful in a scaleup?
Sydney Sloan (01:41):
Well, we're just going to get right into it.
So, Hey, I love how you do this.
We're going to get to thegood stuff right away.
How do you work with your CEO as a CMO?
I think that's a great question because Ithink there's certain expectation setting
and I've been in all sizes of companies.
I've advised like two guys in a garageto, you know, billion dollar companies.
And there's certain things that I findare consistent regardless of company size.
(02:05):
And that is that marketing is, as we know,right brain, left brain, science and art.
And so there's two facets.
It's like either they're looking for theunicorn, the person that has absolutely
everything in their resume has doneabsolutely everything, or they're
just looking for a demand gen personor just looking for a brand person.
(02:25):
And both of those are probably thespectrums from which to work within.
And so in my experience, on thescaleup side, I believe that marketing
is part strategy, part execution.
And so when I say that, then I'mthinking of how does this person set
the go-to-market strategy alongsidethe other leaders in the company?
(02:47):
That's the most important thing firstbecause if you can decide what you're
going to go after and what you'renot going to go after, then you can
organize the company against that.
And that doesn't matter what thecompany size is and I've never seen a
company be more successful than three.
I remember when Adobe had like fivebusiness units, they went down to two and
(03:08):
that's when they hyperscaled like in 2015.
And so that power of focus is real.
So I would say, you know, reallyhelping to understand what the
strategy of the go-to-market is.
And then the execution.
You actually have to havedemand gen chops as a marketer.
If you can't create demand and createinbound activity or connect with
an account-based strategy, that's askill then you would need to learn.
Erica Seidel (03:31):
Right, because often there are people who come up only through one
angle of marketing, whether it's demandgen, product marketing, or branding.
And then sometimes they'll saylike, oh, but I can lead the rest.
But what I'm seeing now is morecompanies saying, well, in order to
lead something, you'd have to be able tochallenge the people that work for you.
And so people who have kind ofmigrated around to multiple activities
(03:51):
within marketing will do best.
Sydney Sloan (03:54):
When I was younger, I always thought I had to do every
job before I could manage someone.
That was a fallacy because basicallythen you're asking to micromanage.
I think, as you continue up in yourcareer, then it's, what's the right
questions to ask versus how do I do?
And you can learn that bybeing part of projects.
I remember maybe it was eight years ago,I was leading customer marketing at Jive.
(04:17):
And I volunteered to be partof this awesome project that
our president was running, JayLarson, and they hired McKinsey.
I had no right to be there, but Iraised my hand and said, I would love
to project manage this so I can get thatexperience of the research they were
doing, how we were going after plays.
There was a customer marketing angleto it, but it wasn't the whole thing.
(04:38):
And so, you know, you cangain that experience, even
if it's not in your title.
Erica Seidel (04:42):
I like that, this difference between how do you do it versus what are
the right questions to ask and how you cankind of rise up from being a micromanager.
Sydney Sloan (04:51):
Yeah.
I don't think you have to have doneevery job in order to be able to
do it, but you have to understandhow all the pieces fit together.
And yes, what are the right metrics?
So if you don't know, then ask yournetwork, like what are the right
metrics to hold my demand gen teamaccountable to their return on investment?
What should I expectin terms of show rates?
And what are those things that,you know you want to be in the swim
lane, if you're working for a ventureVC-backed or even PE-backed, a lot
(05:14):
of them do have these indexes thatwithin ranges they're a guideline.
They're not exact.
I've had CEOs put thechart in front of me.
It was like a science - what didthey call the, where you have the
elements, the science elements?
Erica Seidel (05:27):
Oh yeah, the Periodic Table of Elements kinda thing?
Sydney Sloan (05:29):
Periodic Table chart.
And he put it in front of me and he'slike, this is what you should be doing.
And I'm like uhh, you know, and I lookedat some of their results and I'm like that
doesn't have anything to do with this.
We're an open source developer company.
Maybe if we weresomething else that would.
So, I think you still have to besmart enough to be able to challenge.
But every, you know, those kinds ofthings are just guidelines and at least
that you know an equation that youcould look to, then you can benchmark
(05:51):
yourself and say, am I improving?
Erica Seidel (05:52):
Mmm, that's great.
So that gets into another question I haveabout setting expectations with CEOs.
So, sometimes CEOs hire CMOs and expectthem to build Rome in a day, and it's
like, oh, I want somebody who can, asone of my clients says, get the oars
in the water fast and start rowing.
But then sometimes I've had marketersthat are, that say well, but this
is going to take a long time.
(06:14):
And so both things are true.
And I'm wondering, what's youradvice on how to build confidence in
marketing when the reality is thatsome things do take a long time?
Sydney Sloan (06:26):
I'm a planner.
So I always want to know where I'm going.
I remember when starting atSalesLoft, like we ran quarterly OKRs.
And so it was like onequarter, we're doing this.
And one quarter, we're doing that.
And when you're a hundred personcompany, maybe you could adapt that fast.
But when you grow to athousand person company, your
company can't shift that fast.
And as a marketer, and I think this allmarketers would resonate with this, you
can't execute on a quarterly rhythm.
(06:47):
It takes a quarter to figure outwhat you're doing and then a couple
of quarters to execute and test it.
And then, so I think in six month cycles.
But where I like to sit is where do Iwant to be eighteen months from now?
And create the plan for the future.
Not just even the twelve-month, yourannual plan, but look a little bit
beyond that and say here's where Ithink we can be in eighteen months.
(07:09):
And then I look at phases.
And then it's going to take us,you know, crawl, walk, run, or
phase one, phase two, phase three.
And so here's where we're going tostart, but this is where we're going.
And so if you can set a really goodvision of where it is we want to go,
and then here's how you get started andidentify those milestones along the way
to show progress on the ultimate goal.
That's how I think of it.
I remember one time that I was atAlfresco, I got there and I think
(07:31):
I was there for maybe three monthsand sales kickoff was coming.
And so, our team worked really hardon, here's what we're going to do.
Here's two campaigns and here'sour go-to-market and this is, we're
gonna run a competitive campaign.
And then these are the verticals we'regoing to go after, and we're gonna do
this one and we're gonna do this one next.
And I did not set proper expectations.
On Q1, we're going to do this.
(07:54):
Q3 is when you can expect that.
So as soon as sales kickoff was over,everybody was like, well, where is it?
You said it was going to happen.
Like, why aren't you executing on it?
And it took us longer to get thecampaigns together and in market.
We'd just bought Marquetto.
We didn't have a database andwe had a lot of work to do.
And so you make sure that whenyou're casting these great visions
(08:14):
of the future, that you aresetting expectations on timing.
Because if you do a really good job at it,people are going to want it the next day.
So, just be careful.
Erica Seidel (08:22):
Right.
And it sounds kind of obviousto set the future goal and then
work backwards and communicate.
Why do you think it is that somemarketers get tripped up in that?
Sydney Sloan (08:30):
Well, you have to have the conviction.
I mean, sometimes it's hard, right?
Cause you want to test and test and test.
And so make sure that the vision thatyou're setting is high enough that
there's multiple tacks to get there.
And multiple plays that you couldrun to ultimately get there, but
that you have this big visionthat you can rally people towards.
And fail fast, I would say, too.
Don't get hung up on it.
(08:51):
You know, these are all learnings.
Okay, we learned that's not the way.
Then we can try Option B, orwe'll pivot here, we'll dial this.
So like I said, when I've seencompanies set multiple strategies,
regardless of the size, it's likethree, maybe even two that matter.
So if you have three strategies andone really hits it, then that's okay.
You can say, well, we learned on thisside, this strategy one is growing 50%.
(09:14):
Strategy two is growing 5%.
We all agreed that those werethe right strategies, but let's
drop the 5%, put more in the 50%and get it to grow at a hundred.
So placing a couple bets towardsthat vision it might be a way that
marketers and CMOs can manage with theircounterparts is to how do we get there.
Erica Seidel (09:32):
Yeah, that makes sense.
So let's talk about the CMO side nowthat we've talked about the CEO side.
Can you share a few key mistakesfor a SaaS marketing leader to
avoid when they are scaling up?
Sydney Sloan (09:44):
Well, the first one, I think it just, it drifts off of what we
just said, which is pivoting too fast.
If you've done the research, ifyou've done the work - I remember
we did this course pragmaticmarketing years and years ago.
And it was actually in productplanning and engineering.
It wasn't a marketing one.
I went with our head of engineeringto this course, and they were
like, the most important phaseis the first phase of research.
(10:05):
So you really do understand whatnot to do versus trying five things.
So if you tried five things, youput 20% effort into it, three of
them fail, why not try and cut twoor three out and put more effort
in the ones that statistically, ifyou've done your research properly
have had better chance of succeeding?
I think that's it.
If you really do assess your marketopportunities properly, then make sure
(10:30):
that you take the time to work it through.
And maybe the first timeout it doesn't work.
Maybe you're too early in market,maybe there's a little bit more
education that needs to be done.
Maybe there was a piece of theoperational execution engine that
didn't get its piece in order andyou need to go back and fix it.
So I just would say don't pivottoo quickly when you've done
the research on a strategy.
(10:51):
The second one I think is super important,and it's to align with your CFO.
Pronto, right out of the gate, right?
You've got your leadership teamand you want to have all those
relationships and you're head of sales,absolutely, is a strong relationship.
Head of product, as well.
But don't forget the CFO for many reasons.
Matt Heinz dropped the greatestknowledge bomb a couple of weeks
(11:12):
ago in the CMO group I'm in.
And he said the marketingbudget is not an expense budget.
You're buying outcomes.
He probably said it moreeloquently than that.
But you, the purpose of themarketing budget is to buy outcomes.
And if you were in partnership withyour CFO over what outcomes you want to
achieve, and what's the right investmentstrategy to get those outcomes and you
(11:34):
partner with your CFO, that is going tobuild that trust layer that's going to
help you make those bigger bets later on.
And I remember coming into to Salesloft,and this was an important conversation.
And as I was leavingSalesloft cause I've left now.
He reflected, my CFO reflectedon the importance of that
(11:54):
conversation when we first started.
And I sat down and I told him like howmuch I care about fiscal responsibility.
I balance my checkbook every month.
I don't have credit card debt.
I pay, you know, and likeI want him to trust me.
And my goal was to be with plus orminus 5% of my targets, just like
sales has to be with their targets.
(12:15):
My commitment to him was that I believethat I have the fiduciary responsibility
of how the marketing budget isspent and I'm going to do it wisely.
And there are many times we had extramoney that I said, you know what?
I'm not, I don't want this moneybecause I don't think we can
spend it in an effective way.
And that's important to build trust too.
And so, we would run, we had a monthlycheck-in with our controller and my
(12:36):
finance business partner, buildingmodels, looking at things, I would
explain why we're investing in certainthings and what my expected outcomes
were, and we educated each other.
And it was the healthiestrelationship I've ever had.
To the point where maybe six months agowe were going through a big brand project
and we did a Shark Tank investment.
We wanted to really build the brand,this beautiful brand that we had
(12:58):
just created and, you know, putextra emphasis at in the market.
And we wanted another million dollarsto spend on advertising just for brand.
So it wasn't going tobe a demand investment.
It was just a brand investment.
And so we created this whole SharkTank pitch for the team and they
gave us the money and it worked.
Better than, it worked very well.
To the point where we'vecontinued to get more.
(13:21):
That wouldn't have happened Idon't think if we wouldn't have
consistently performed, had builtthat trusted, that was there.
Erica Seidel (13:27):
That's great.
There was another person on thispodcast, Justin Steinman, who talked
about with a marketing budget younever say, it's my marketing budget.
You say it's our marketing budget.
And so he says he's the steward ofthe budget, that is, the company's
budget, which I think this alignsgreat to what you were saying.
I say the steward, too.
I say the same thing.
The steward, yeah, it's great.
(13:47):
Yeah.
So you said you had three, wasthere another one floating around?
Sydney Sloan (13:49):
Oh, the third one is partnerships.
And, you know, sometimes youcome in and you go, oh, the
marketing team, my marketing team.
And I think as a CMO, your job isactually to be a leader of the company.
And the function you run as marketingand you hire great people to do, you
know, to lead the different teams.
But if you spend time with theirsales leader, your product leader,
(14:13):
making sure that those groupsare aligned, then that's going to
make it easier for all your teams.
And when that doesn't happen,you can feel it right away.
Like when there's tension that, uh-oh,that means the leaders aren't aligned.
If we're aligned, then everybodyelse should also be aligned.
So it really is what I call teamone, and team one is your peers.
And so if you're a C-level executive,your first job as a leader of the
(14:35):
company, and not the leader of marketing.
And hopefully, if your peers feelthe same way and you have that trust,
then you can have open dialogues aboutthe right strategy and the different
pieces of the organization that,you know, may need focus or help.
And I mean, there's so many examplesI can think of where it's like, oh, I
(14:56):
remember just recently, the SDR team.
I have like five of themwas not performing as well.
And I'm like, how aboutif we get some training?
Like I'll pay for it.
I shouldn't have to, the salesenablement team, but if that's going
to help, like fine, I'll do it.
I'll take money and I'll pay for itbecause that's important for that
part of our equation to function.
And so I did.
I took 20K and one of our productmarketers, and they ran the project
(15:18):
with John Barrows and it was awesome.
They were so appreciative and,you know, invited us to attend.
And that's part of building partnershipsis giving support when needed.
Erica Seidel (15:29):
That's really cool.
I like that.
And it makes me think about thetrend that I'm seeing of people
thinking about sales and marketingas one go-to-market function.
And so, is that a trendthat you're seeing?
And if so, is that differentthan marketing being in alignment
with sales and, you know,obviously other functions as well?
Sydney Sloan (15:49):
Well, it's a great question because I think there's
a lot of talk about revenue teams.
And the revenue organization andwhere do the operations people sit?
And so everybody nods their head,yes, absolutely, revenue alignment.
Would you have the CMO report to sales?
Absolutely not, no, no way.
I'm not gonna report to sales.
Then I'll just be a demand gen engine.
And so, I think there's a, youhave to keep that healthy tension
(16:11):
between investing in the brand anddemand and aligning on the strategy
of your true market leader, notmarketing, but market leader.
And so I do think that looking atholistically the customer experience
through the lens of the operationalside of a revenue makes a lot of sense.
(16:31):
Shared dashboards, commonnomenclature, one pipeline meeting
where everybody is at the table.
It's not marketing saying this andSDR saying this and sales saying this.
Like we're all together looking at thepipeline creation and upsell, cross-sell,
and so bringing those folks together.
So, I think it's a revenue process,revenue engines, but I don't see
(16:54):
very often the CMO or the head ofmarketing reporting to head of sales.
Sometimes the president mighthave it, but then they're almost
like a quasi- CEO at that point.
Erica Seidel (17:04):
Yeah, I'm seeing some CMOs report to CROs, but hopefully
those are people that are not, youknow, they're kind of like a GM
as opposed to just a salespersonthat's called a revenue officer.
Can we talk about goals?
You had this frameworkaround the achievable goal
versus the aspirational goal.
Because I imagine when you're a CMOin scale-up mode, you want to be
(17:27):
able to set achievable goals so youdon't over promise and under deliver,
but at the same time, you might wantto be aspirational for your team.
So that like setting these aggressivegoals that they can reach for even if
you know you're not going to get to them.
How do you think about that?
Sydney Sloan (17:44):
You know, I think there's a time and place for each, or even a mix.
I subscribe to the OKR system,so I think that's a really strong
framework to allow for top levelgoals, but still organic goals to
come from within the organization.
And they do use this framework ofaspirational versus achievable.
And I think there's anotherone that starts with a C.
(18:05):
What I see on, if you go too aspirational,if it doesn't feel achievable,
then it's not worth writing down.
It's just not, right?
And so I've, there's so many timeswhere I'm like, well, my BHAG is this.
And I think you can have that from timeto time, but it can't be every quarter.
It can't be every goal.
If you want to pick one to like, say,Hey, this, cause if we do this really
(18:26):
well, like this is what we expect.
So you might have a couple therethat are truly aspirational.
I think the purpose of aspirational goalsis to really remove the barriers of what
you're doing now to think differentlyabout how you might achieve it.
Versus incremental growth where youwant to do transformational growth,
that might be the time that youthrow down an aspirational goal.
(18:47):
But you allow your team thespace to realize, you know,
that it was an aspirational.
But I find with Type As, if youput an aspirational goal down,
they're still going to go for it,and if they don't crush it, then
they're going to feel defeated.
So you have to be really carefulthat it doesn't become a demotivating
factor when you set aspirationalgoals because they're unachievable.
Or that people are like,I can't even get that.
(19:07):
Like why bother?
If you've got people with quotasthat are so huge that they don't
see a path to it, they're notgoing to be motivated to meet it.
So I think that's a good example ofachievable goal where you allow them to
overachieve and maybe you change yourcomp plans allowing for overachievement
if that's what's necessary to get themomentum going in the organization.
Or if you're doing a new product groupor a new team, let them achieve the
(19:29):
goals and get that momentum of successversus some crazy BHAG that your
financial model tells you, but yourgut tells you - Your financial model
tells you that you need, but your guttells you it's not the right thing.
Erica Seidel (19:40):
And you talked about bonuses and motivating people financially.
Are you starting to see marketersgetting compensated more like salespeople
with higher variable compensations?
It's something I've been startingto see in pockets here and there.
Sydney Sloan (19:55):
I have not.
I mean, I see the CMOs you know,we're responsible for company
revenue, I see company metrics wherethe revenue achievement is part
of the overall bonus structure.
So it's like, did wemeet our revenue goals?
Did we meet our churn and retention goals?
If it's net or gross.
And then some operationalefficiency targets.
(20:16):
That's pretty common.
I actually was on athread today on LinkedIn.
Carilu Dietrich startedon compensating SDRs.
I think that's one that's a littlebit different where you have so
many different kinds of SDR teams,you can have an inbound team,
you can have an outbound team.
You could have a hybrid blended team, youknow, supporting SMB versus enterprise.
So there's no one-size-fits-all whenit comes to SDRs and BDRs, but there
(20:40):
is this idea of quality over quantity.
And I see that where, if they'recreating all these SQLs, but they're not
converting, should they still get paid?
I don't think so.
I think it does have tobe a quality and quantity.
The quantity is proof to the formula.
The quality is proof to the person'sability to properly qualify.
(21:02):
And the sales rep, right?
It's a responsibilitybetween both of them.
And so I do like giving that secondkind of mix on the variable to quality.
Now, does that mean theyget paid on closed one?
Well, it depends on thetiming of the sales cycle.
Maybe they get paid when it hitsanother sales stage where it's further
qualified, and that's good enough andit's a little bit quicker so they see
(21:22):
the compensation coming back to themand they stay motivated in their job.
Erica Seidel (21:26):
Makes sense.
Sydney Sloan (21:27):
I haven't seen that in though in other places
like advertising return oninvestment or anything like that.
So I haven't seen that yet.
Erica Seidel (21:32):
Okay.
Interesting.
So let's dive in deeper on org and hiring.
I'm wondering if in all your experienceyou have made an organizational
choice that most other marketershaven't done or wouldn't do?
Like a really uniqueorganizational choice.
Sydney Sloan (21:47):
So I like to design org charts, same thing, you'll
see the same eighteen months out.
So it's like, what am Idesigning for in the future?
And then what is my revenuetarget at that point?
So what is a $250 million marketingorganization look like versus
a $50 million organization?
If you're growing that fast.
I think it's like a hundred to 250.
But you know, they absolutely changeand adapt and like people's skills
(22:08):
and experience have to change.
That's the hardest part of the job, ismaking sure you've got the right people in
the right roles with the right experience.
Or that you can teach them to do that.
And when I first arrived andwe were 15 million, I was the
smallest company I'd worked forsince I was right out of college.
That's different because you'reworking with a lot of people
that are first time in job.
I looked at my management team, I'mlike everybody that is on my management
(22:29):
team this is the first time themever doing any of their jobs before.
Wow.
Ok, so how do I manage those folks andhow do I, how can I give direction,
give training and enablement, stillhire and balance where there's people
that are being promoted while you'rehiring in more experienced talent?
And that equation continues asthe company continues to grow.
During those periods, I have peoplereport to me for different reasons.
(22:52):
Sometimes I've had field marketingdirectly report to me, but the reason
is because I wanted to stay closeto what was happening in the field.
And if they had been reporting tothe head of demand gen, I wouldn't be
hearing kind of first party insights on,okay, what are the sales teams saying?
How are they executing?
How are they feelingabout the sales plays?
What else are they asking for?
And so that was the reason thatI, at that point, put field
(23:14):
marketing reporting to me.
Recently, I had customermarketing reporting to me and
she had analysts relations andcustomer marketing, same thing.
It was like, I wanted to have directinsight and I believed I could help
coach this really talented personto - Sunshine, I'm talking about you if
you're listening - this really talentedperson to stretch into a new role.
(23:35):
And I told her at some point you'll likelygo into the comms and that did happen.
But for this period of time,you know, let's do this.
And I think when you're looking atyour leadership team, it doesn't
always have to be your direct reports.
And so if you have emerging talentor people inside the team that are
taking on special projects, let thembe part of your leadership team.
Give them that exposure to howyou lead and manage and start
(23:59):
cultivating them as a future leaderif you see them in that hiring path.
So that might be other time too.
It's like, well, why is that persongoing to your leadership team?
It's like, oh, that person's afuture leader and I want them
to learn what's going on here.
So when it's time for them to bepromoted, or if I'm kind of getting a
backup person just in case, or if I havemy plan, like I'm going to expand this
team and this person's going to comeout into a new role, then I want them
(24:22):
to understand what it's like to be aleader, the kinds of challenges we're
faced with, how we run our business, youknow, give them opportunities to take on
new projects that are cross-functional.
That's not necessarily orgstructure difference, but it's
how you run the team different.
Erica Seidel (24:38):
Is there a particularly risky bet that you
have made on a hire in the past?
And maybe it's somebody without SaaSbackground coming into SaaS or hiring
a B2C marketer into B2B or hiring atotally different function to come in
and run product marketing or...you know.
Sydney Sloan (24:55):
You know, I've hired people outside of SaaS.
Our company SalesLoft was based inAtlanta, so we just didn't have the
same pool of talent to pull from.
And so, we were pulling people outof consumer, but for, they were smart
choices, you know, advertising, brand,demand gen, not the core strategy pieces.
But I hired an engineer out of GEwho had been a hardware product
marketer before and he's awesome.
He had really good super skillsand project management and he
(25:16):
understood product launches.
So I think you can absolutely do that.
I also think that finding talent withinyour organization and bringing them in.
So I've hired from recruiting.
I've hired every chief ofstaff that we ever had.
I love office managers.
They're great field marketersbecause they're organized and
they can work well with peopleand they know how to plan events.
(25:38):
And so I think there's somereally easy talent pools inside
the organization to pull from.
I think the one piece of advice Iwould give here that I learned was a
couple of times where I felt reallystrongly about a candidate that had
yellow flags in the interview process.
And so, you know, sometimes I've takenthe risk on that and learned my lesson,
(25:58):
and sometimes I've taken the riskand it ended up being perfectly fine.
And the advice that I got was if peopleraise a yellow flag and you still feel
strongly, you have to go back to thatperson, acknowledge the yellow flag.
When you're doing your background checks,address that with as many people as
you can talk to and learn, and thenbe very clear with the candidate,
(26:20):
hey, this was a yellow flag, thisis something we're going to work on.
And before you hire them, getagreement that yes, that is
something they want to work on.
And you start, you know, it's almostlike you're working on your development
plan as they're coming in and helpingthem continue to work through that.
If you feel strongly, you cantake that risk, but just be,
make sure everybody is aware.
Erica Seidel (26:39):
My last question for you is one I ask I think almost
everybody and that is, do you havea favorite interview question?
So something that you like to askthat is really surprisingly revealing?
Sydney Sloan (26:50):
Kyle Porter asked me this question one time, and so it's become
my favorite question, which is "Whatis the one thing that you hold true
that others would challenge you on?"
And, you know, it's a deep thinker.
You have to like, that's alevel three, we call it, like
that's a level three question.
And so I ask that one from time to time.
But what I would highlight is this notionof topgrading as an interview style.
(27:15):
And so rather than a question,I think it's more of a method.
And what I love about the topgradeprocess is you really learn about
the person in their journey.
Not the jobs and the accomplishments,but how they work, how they
work with people, how they makedecisions, looking for patterns,
who influenced them in their life.
And so if you're not familiar withTopgrading, look it up, read it.
(27:36):
Send me a message on LinkedInif you'd like a little coaching.
It's an amazing way todo a really deep-dive.
And it takes a while.
So it's an hour, hour and a half-longinterview, depending on how long
the person's career path is.
But it's super insightful.
And you learn a lot about the person.
Erica Seidel (27:51):
Yeah, I once did a topgrading interview for a company.
I did not get the job, but it entailedflying from Boston to Philly, going
to the airport, like, Hilton andsitting in a room with somebody.
And it was like maybea six-hour interview.
Sydney Sloan (28:05):
I think mine was three.
I think we had to takea break and come back.
But I'm a talker, you know?
It's like, oh, you wantto know about that?
Well, yeah, I know.
I mean, if you've been to it, Imean, I would say it's an hour per
ten years of experience, right?
At least, depending onhow deep they want to go.
I think if you're a goodinterviewer, once you see a pattern,
you can kindly move them on.
So I learned, you know, youdon't have to make it that long.
Erica Seidel (28:27):
Well, Sydney, thank you so much.
This has been fabulous.
I've learned so much.
And I think that the listeners will, too.
So thank you.
Sydney Sloan (28:32):
It's been my pleasure, Erica.
Thank you for having me.
Happy '22.
Erica Seidel (28:37):
That was Sydney Sloan, sharing lots of do's and don'ts about
how to scale in a transformationalway, not just an incremental way.
Now that you've listened, ask yourselfhow can you be not just a marketing
leader, but a true market leader?
Thanks for listening to The Get.
I'm your host Erica Seidel.
(28:57):
Hiring great marketingleaders is not easy.
The Get is designed to inspire smartdecisions around recruiting and
leadership in B2B SaaS marketing.
We explore the trends, tribulations,and triumphs of today's top
marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.
This season's theme isSolving for the Scale Journey.
If you liked thisepisode, please share it.
(29:19):
For other insights on recruitinggreat marketing leaders - what I
call the 'make money' marketingleaders rather than the 'make it
pretty' ones, follow me on LinkedIn.
You can also sign up for mynewsletter at TheConnectiveGood.com.
The Get is produced by Evo Terraand Simpler Media Productions.
Hi, you're listening to The Get, the podcast about
finding -- and keeping -- greatmarketing leaders in B2B SaaS.
I'm Erica Seidel, your host.
Sydney Sloan is a scale savant.
I talked with Sydney as she wrappedup her CMO role at Salesloft.
There, she played a keyrole in their huge scale-up.
(00:23):
She has since joined Zoom as Headof Product & Industry Marketing.
Sidney had so much insight toshare that it was hard to pick
out just a few highlights.
I asked her how a CMO can balancegetting oars in the water quickly
while managing expectations thatin marketing things can take time?
You'll hear about when toset achievable goals versus
(00:44):
aspirational goals for your team.
You'll also learn abouthow to build organizational
excitement around your vision.
And you'll hear about organizing yourmarketing team and hiring with an eye to
where you want to be in eighteen months.
If you want to upgrade from incrementalgrowth to transformational growth,
you've come to the right place.
Let's go.
(01:08):
Sydney Sloan, it's so greatto have you on the show.
Thank you for joining!
Sydney Sloan (01:12):
Thank you, Erica.
I'm so excited to be here.
Erica Seidel (01:15):
Well, I'm glad that we have all this fun stuff to talk about and
you have such great experience to share.
So let's get right into it.
I want to talk about CEO advisingas pertains to CMOs first.
You have led marketingin multiple situations.
You've been an advisorto multiple companies.
What is one piece of advice thatCEOs need to hear most to have their
(01:38):
CMO be successful in a scaleup?
Sydney Sloan (01:41):
Well, we're just going to get right into it.
So, Hey, I love how you do this.
We're going to get to thegood stuff right away.
How do you work with your CEO as a CMO?
I think that's a great question because Ithink there's certain expectation setting
and I've been in all sizes of companies.
I've advised like two guys in a garageto, you know, billion dollar companies.
And there's certain things that I findare consistent regardless of company size.
(02:05):
And that is that marketing is, as we know,right brain, left brain, science and art.
And so there's two facets.
It's like either they're looking for theunicorn, the person that has absolutely
everything in their resume has doneabsolutely everything, or they're
just looking for a demand gen personor just looking for a brand person.
(02:25):
And both of those are probably thespectrums from which to work within.
And so in my experience, on thescaleup side, I believe that marketing
is part strategy, part execution.
And so when I say that, then I'mthinking of how does this person set
the go-to-market strategy alongsidethe other leaders in the company?
(02:47):
That's the most important thing firstbecause if you can decide what you're
going to go after and what you'renot going to go after, then you can
organize the company against that.
And that doesn't matter what thecompany size is and I've never seen a
company be more successful than three.
I remember when Adobe had like fivebusiness units, they went down to two and
(03:08):
that's when they hyperscaled like in 2015.
And so that power of focus is real.
So I would say, you know, reallyhelping to understand what the
strategy of the go-to-market is.
And then the execution.
You actually have to havedemand gen chops as a marketer.
If you can't create demand and createinbound activity or connect with
an account-based strategy, that's askill then you would need to learn.
Erica Seidel (03:31):
Right, because often there are people who come up only through one
angle of marketing, whether it's demandgen, product marketing, or branding.
And then sometimes they'll saylike, oh, but I can lead the rest.
But what I'm seeing now is morecompanies saying, well, in order to
lead something, you'd have to be able tochallenge the people that work for you.
And so people who have kind ofmigrated around to multiple activities
(03:51):
within marketing will do best.
Sydney Sloan (03:54):
When I was younger, I always thought I had to do every
job before I could manage someone.
That was a fallacy because basicallythen you're asking to micromanage.
I think, as you continue up in yourcareer, then it's, what's the right
questions to ask versus how do I do?
And you can learn that bybeing part of projects.
I remember maybe it was eight years ago,I was leading customer marketing at Jive.
(04:17):
And I volunteered to be partof this awesome project that
our president was running, JayLarson, and they hired McKinsey.
I had no right to be there, but Iraised my hand and said, I would love
to project manage this so I can get thatexperience of the research they were
doing, how we were going after plays.
There was a customer marketing angleto it, but it wasn't the whole thing.
(04:38):
And so, you know, you cangain that experience, even
if it's not in your title.
Erica Seidel (04:42):
I like that, this difference between how do you do it versus what are
the right questions to ask and how you cankind of rise up from being a micromanager.
Sydney Sloan (04:51):
Yeah.
I don't think you have to have doneevery job in order to be able to
do it, but you have to understandhow all the pieces fit together.
And yes, what are the right metrics?
So if you don't know, then ask yournetwork, like what are the right
metrics to hold my demand gen teamaccountable to their return on investment?
What should I expectin terms of show rates?
And what are those things that,you know you want to be in the swim
lane, if you're working for a ventureVC-backed or even PE-backed, a lot
(05:14):
of them do have these indexes thatwithin ranges they're a guideline.
They're not exact.
I've had CEOs put thechart in front of me.
It was like a science - what didthey call the, where you have the
elements, the science elements?
Erica Seidel (05:27):
Oh yeah, the Periodic Table of Elements kinda thing?
Sydney Sloan (05:29):
Periodic Table chart.
And he put it in front of me and he'slike, this is what you should be doing.
And I'm like uhh, you know, and I lookedat some of their results and I'm like that
doesn't have anything to do with this.
We're an open source developer company.
Maybe if we weresomething else that would.
So, I think you still have to besmart enough to be able to challenge.
But every, you know, those kinds ofthings are just guidelines and at least
that you know an equation that youcould look to, then you can benchmark
(05:51):
yourself and say, am I improving?
Erica Seidel (05:52):
Mmm, that's great.
So that gets into another question I haveabout setting expectations with CEOs.
So, sometimes CEOs hire CMOs and expectthem to build Rome in a day, and it's
like, oh, I want somebody who can, asone of my clients says, get the oars
in the water fast and start rowing.
But then sometimes I've had marketersthat are, that say well, but this
is going to take a long time.
(06:14):
And so both things are true.
And I'm wondering, what's youradvice on how to build confidence in
marketing when the reality is thatsome things do take a long time?
Sydney Sloan (06:26):
I'm a planner.
So I always want to know where I'm going.
I remember when starting atSalesLoft, like we ran quarterly OKRs.
And so it was like onequarter, we're doing this.
And one quarter, we're doing that.
And when you're a hundred personcompany, maybe you could adapt that fast.
But when you grow to athousand person company, your
company can't shift that fast.
And as a marketer, and I think this allmarketers would resonate with this, you
can't execute on a quarterly rhythm.
(06:47):
It takes a quarter to figure outwhat you're doing and then a couple
of quarters to execute and test it.
And then, so I think in six month cycles.
But where I like to sit is where do Iwant to be eighteen months from now?
And create the plan for the future.
Not just even the twelve-month, yourannual plan, but look a little bit
beyond that and say here's where Ithink we can be in eighteen months.
(07:09):
And then I look at phases.
And then it's going to take us,you know, crawl, walk, run, or
phase one, phase two, phase three.
And so here's where we're going tostart, but this is where we're going.
And so if you can set a really goodvision of where it is we want to go,
and then here's how you get started andidentify those milestones along the way
to show progress on the ultimate goal.
That's how I think of it.
I remember one time that I was atAlfresco, I got there and I think
(07:31):
I was there for maybe three monthsand sales kickoff was coming.
And so, our team worked really hardon, here's what we're going to do.
Here's two campaigns and here'sour go-to-market and this is, we're
gonna run a competitive campaign.
And then these are the verticals we'regoing to go after, and we're gonna do
this one and we're gonna do this one next.
And I did not set proper expectations.
On Q1, we're going to do this.
(07:54):
Q3 is when you can expect that.
So as soon as sales kickoff was over,everybody was like, well, where is it?
You said it was going to happen.
Like, why aren't you executing on it?
And it took us longer to get thecampaigns together and in market.
We'd just bought Marquetto.
We didn't have a database andwe had a lot of work to do.
And so you make sure that whenyou're casting these great visions
(08:14):
of the future, that you aresetting expectations on timing.
Because if you do a really good job at it,people are going to want it the next day.
So, just be careful.
Erica Seidel (08:22):
Right.
And it sounds kind of obviousto set the future goal and then
work backwards and communicate.
Why do you think it is that somemarketers get tripped up in that?
Sydney Sloan (08:30):
Well, you have to have the conviction.
I mean, sometimes it's hard, right?
Cause you want to test and test and test.
And so make sure that the vision thatyou're setting is high enough that
there's multiple tacks to get there.
And multiple plays that you couldrun to ultimately get there, but
that you have this big visionthat you can rally people towards.
And fail fast, I would say, too.
Don't get hung up on it.
(08:51):
You know, these are all learnings.
Okay, we learned that's not the way.
Then we can try Option B, orwe'll pivot here, we'll dial this.
So like I said, when I've seencompanies set multiple strategies,
regardless of the size, it's likethree, maybe even two that matter.
So if you have three strategies andone really hits it, then that's okay.
You can say, well, we learned on thisside, this strategy one is growing 50%.
(09:14):
Strategy two is growing 5%.
We all agreed that those werethe right strategies, but let's
drop the 5%, put more in the 50%and get it to grow at a hundred.
So placing a couple bets towardsthat vision it might be a way that
marketers and CMOs can manage with theircounterparts is to how do we get there.
Erica Seidel (09:32):
Yeah, that makes sense.
So let's talk about the CMO side nowthat we've talked about the CEO side.
Can you share a few key mistakesfor a SaaS marketing leader to
avoid when they are scaling up?
Sydney Sloan (09:44):
Well, the first one, I think it just, it drifts off of what we
just said, which is pivoting too fast.
If you've done the research, ifyou've done the work - I remember
we did this course pragmaticmarketing years and years ago.
And it was actually in productplanning and engineering.
It wasn't a marketing one.
I went with our head of engineeringto this course, and they were
like, the most important phaseis the first phase of research.
(10:05):
So you really do understand whatnot to do versus trying five things.
So if you tried five things, youput 20% effort into it, three of
them fail, why not try and cut twoor three out and put more effort
in the ones that statistically, ifyou've done your research properly
have had better chance of succeeding?
I think that's it.
If you really do assess your marketopportunities properly, then make sure
(10:30):
that you take the time to work it through.
And maybe the first timeout it doesn't work.
Maybe you're too early in market,maybe there's a little bit more
education that needs to be done.
Maybe there was a piece of theoperational execution engine that
didn't get its piece in order andyou need to go back and fix it.
So I just would say don't pivottoo quickly when you've done
the research on a strategy.
(10:51):
The second one I think is super important,and it's to align with your CFO.
Pronto, right out of the gate, right?
You've got your leadership teamand you want to have all those
relationships and you're head of sales,absolutely, is a strong relationship.
Head of product, as well.
But don't forget the CFO for many reasons.
Matt Heinz dropped the greatestknowledge bomb a couple of weeks
(11:12):
ago in the CMO group I'm in.
And he said the marketingbudget is not an expense budget.
You're buying outcomes.
He probably said it moreeloquently than that.
But you, the purpose of themarketing budget is to buy outcomes.
And if you were in partnership withyour CFO over what outcomes you want to
achieve, and what's the right investmentstrategy to get those outcomes and you
(11:34):
partner with your CFO, that is going tobuild that trust layer that's going to
help you make those bigger bets later on.
And I remember coming into to Salesloft,and this was an important conversation.
And as I was leavingSalesloft cause I've left now.
He reflected, my CFO reflectedon the importance of that
(11:54):
conversation when we first started.
And I sat down and I told him like howmuch I care about fiscal responsibility.
I balance my checkbook every month.
I don't have credit card debt.
I pay, you know, and likeI want him to trust me.
And my goal was to be with plus orminus 5% of my targets, just like
sales has to be with their targets.
(12:15):
My commitment to him was that I believethat I have the fiduciary responsibility
of how the marketing budget isspent and I'm going to do it wisely.
And there are many times we had extramoney that I said, you know what?
I'm not, I don't want this moneybecause I don't think we can
spend it in an effective way.
And that's important to build trust too.
And so, we would run, we had a monthlycheck-in with our controller and my
(12:36):
finance business partner, buildingmodels, looking at things, I would
explain why we're investing in certainthings and what my expected outcomes
were, and we educated each other.
And it was the healthiestrelationship I've ever had.
To the point where maybe six months agowe were going through a big brand project
and we did a Shark Tank investment.
We wanted to really build the brand,this beautiful brand that we had
(12:58):
just created and, you know, putextra emphasis at in the market.
And we wanted another million dollarsto spend on advertising just for brand.
So it wasn't going tobe a demand investment.
It was just a brand investment.
And so we created this whole SharkTank pitch for the team and they
gave us the money and it worked.
Better than, it worked very well.
To the point where we'vecontinued to get more.
(13:21):
That wouldn't have happened Idon't think if we wouldn't have
consistently performed, had builtthat trusted, that was there.
Erica Seidel (13:27):
That's great.
There was another person on thispodcast, Justin Steinman, who talked
about with a marketing budget younever say, it's my marketing budget.
You say it's our marketing budget.
And so he says he's the steward ofthe budget, that is, the company's
budget, which I think this alignsgreat to what you were saying.
I say the steward, too.
I say the same thing.
The steward, yeah, it's great.
(13:47):
Yeah.
So you said you had three, wasthere another one floating around?
Sydney Sloan (13:49):
Oh, the third one is partnerships.
And, you know, sometimes youcome in and you go, oh, the
marketing team, my marketing team.
And I think as a CMO, your job isactually to be a leader of the company.
And the function you run as marketingand you hire great people to do, you
know, to lead the different teams.
But if you spend time with theirsales leader, your product leader,
(14:13):
making sure that those groupsare aligned, then that's going to
make it easier for all your teams.
And when that doesn't happen,you can feel it right away.
Like when there's tension that, uh-oh,that means the leaders aren't aligned.
If we're aligned, then everybodyelse should also be aligned.
So it really is what I call teamone, and team one is your peers.
And so if you're a C-level executive,your first job as a leader of the
(14:35):
company, and not the leader of marketing.
And hopefully, if your peers feelthe same way and you have that trust,
then you can have open dialogues aboutthe right strategy and the different
pieces of the organization that,you know, may need focus or help.
And I mean, there's so many examplesI can think of where it's like, oh, I
(14:56):
remember just recently, the SDR team.
I have like five of themwas not performing as well.
And I'm like, how aboutif we get some training?
Like I'll pay for it.
I shouldn't have to, the salesenablement team, but if that's going
to help, like fine, I'll do it.
I'll take money and I'll pay for itbecause that's important for that
part of our equation to function.
And so I did.
I took 20K and one of our productmarketers, and they ran the project
(15:18):
with John Barrows and it was awesome.
They were so appreciative and,you know, invited us to attend.
And that's part of building partnershipsis giving support when needed.
Erica Seidel (15:29):
That's really cool.
I like that.
And it makes me think about thetrend that I'm seeing of people
thinking about sales and marketingas one go-to-market function.
And so, is that a trendthat you're seeing?
And if so, is that differentthan marketing being in alignment
with sales and, you know,obviously other functions as well?
Sydney Sloan (15:49):
Well, it's a great question because I think there's
a lot of talk about revenue teams.
And the revenue organization andwhere do the operations people sit?
And so everybody nods their head,yes, absolutely, revenue alignment.
Would you have the CMO report to sales?
Absolutely not, no, no way.
I'm not gonna report to sales.
Then I'll just be a demand gen engine.
And so, I think there's a, youhave to keep that healthy tension
(16:11):
between investing in the brand anddemand and aligning on the strategy
of your true market leader, notmarketing, but market leader.
And so I do think that looking atholistically the customer experience
through the lens of the operationalside of a revenue makes a lot of sense.
(16:31):
Shared dashboards, commonnomenclature, one pipeline meeting
where everybody is at the table.
It's not marketing saying this andSDR saying this and sales saying this.
Like we're all together looking at thepipeline creation and upsell, cross-sell,
and so bringing those folks together.
So, I think it's a revenue process,revenue engines, but I don't see
(16:54):
very often the CMO or the head ofmarketing reporting to head of sales.
Sometimes the president mighthave it, but then they're almost
like a quasi- CEO at that point.
Erica Seidel (17:04):
Yeah, I'm seeing some CMOs report to CROs, but hopefully
those are people that are not, youknow, they're kind of like a GM
as opposed to just a salespersonthat's called a revenue officer.
Can we talk about goals?
You had this frameworkaround the achievable goal
versus the aspirational goal.
Because I imagine when you're a CMOin scale-up mode, you want to be
(17:27):
able to set achievable goals so youdon't over promise and under deliver,
but at the same time, you might wantto be aspirational for your team.
So that like setting these aggressivegoals that they can reach for even if
you know you're not going to get to them.
How do you think about that?
Sydney Sloan (17:44):
You know, I think there's a time and place for each, or even a mix.
I subscribe to the OKR system,so I think that's a really strong
framework to allow for top levelgoals, but still organic goals to
come from within the organization.
And they do use this framework ofaspirational versus achievable.
And I think there's anotherone that starts with a C.
(18:05):
What I see on, if you go too aspirational,if it doesn't feel achievable,
then it's not worth writing down.
It's just not, right?
And so I've, there's so many timeswhere I'm like, well, my BHAG is this.
And I think you can have that from timeto time, but it can't be every quarter.
It can't be every goal.
If you want to pick one to like, say,Hey, this, cause if we do this really
(18:26):
well, like this is what we expect.
So you might have a couple therethat are truly aspirational.
I think the purpose of aspirational goalsis to really remove the barriers of what
you're doing now to think differentlyabout how you might achieve it.
Versus incremental growth where youwant to do transformational growth,
that might be the time that youthrow down an aspirational goal.
(18:47):
But you allow your team thespace to realize, you know,
that it was an aspirational.
But I find with Type As, if youput an aspirational goal down,
they're still going to go for it,and if they don't crush it, then
they're going to feel defeated.
So you have to be really carefulthat it doesn't become a demotivating
factor when you set aspirationalgoals because they're unachievable.
Or that people are like,I can't even get that.
(19:07):
Like why bother?
If you've got people with quotasthat are so huge that they don't
see a path to it, they're notgoing to be motivated to meet it.
So I think that's a good example ofachievable goal where you allow them to
overachieve and maybe you change yourcomp plans allowing for overachievement
if that's what's necessary to get themomentum going in the organization.
Or if you're doing a new product groupor a new team, let them achieve the
(19:29):
goals and get that momentum of successversus some crazy BHAG that your
financial model tells you, but yourgut tells you - Your financial model
tells you that you need, but your guttells you it's not the right thing.
Erica Seidel (19:40):
And you talked about bonuses and motivating people financially.
Are you starting to see marketersgetting compensated more like salespeople
with higher variable compensations?
It's something I've been startingto see in pockets here and there.
Sydney Sloan (19:55):
I have not.
I mean, I see the CMOs you know,we're responsible for company
revenue, I see company metrics wherethe revenue achievement is part
of the overall bonus structure.
So it's like, did wemeet our revenue goals?
Did we meet our churn and retention goals?
If it's net or gross.
And then some operationalefficiency targets.
(20:16):
That's pretty common.
I actually was on athread today on LinkedIn.
Carilu Dietrich startedon compensating SDRs.
I think that's one that's a littlebit different where you have so
many different kinds of SDR teams,you can have an inbound team,
you can have an outbound team.
You could have a hybrid blended team, youknow, supporting SMB versus enterprise.
So there's no one-size-fits-all whenit comes to SDRs and BDRs, but there
(20:40):
is this idea of quality over quantity.
And I see that where, if they'recreating all these SQLs, but they're not
converting, should they still get paid?
I don't think so.
I think it does have tobe a quality and quantity.
The quantity is proof to the formula.
The quality is proof to the person'sability to properly qualify.
(21:02):
And the sales rep, right?
It's a responsibilitybetween both of them.
And so I do like giving that secondkind of mix on the variable to quality.
Now, does that mean theyget paid on closed one?
Well, it depends on thetiming of the sales cycle.
Maybe they get paid when it hitsanother sales stage where it's further
qualified, and that's good enough andit's a little bit quicker so they see
(21:22):
the compensation coming back to themand they stay motivated in their job.
Erica Seidel (21:26):
Makes sense.
Sydney Sloan (21:27):
I haven't seen that in though in other places
like advertising return oninvestment or anything like that.
So I haven't seen that yet.
Erica Seidel (21:32):
Okay.
Interesting.
So let's dive in deeper on org and hiring.
I'm wondering if in all your experienceyou have made an organizational
choice that most other marketershaven't done or wouldn't do?
Like a really uniqueorganizational choice.
Sydney Sloan (21:47):
So I like to design org charts, same thing, you'll
see the same eighteen months out.
So it's like, what am Idesigning for in the future?
And then what is my revenuetarget at that point?
So what is a $250 million marketingorganization look like versus
a $50 million organization?
If you're growing that fast.
I think it's like a hundred to 250.
But you know, they absolutely changeand adapt and like people's skills
(22:08):
and experience have to change.
That's the hardest part of the job, ismaking sure you've got the right people in
the right roles with the right experience.
Or that you can teach them to do that.
And when I first arrived andwe were 15 million, I was the
smallest company I'd worked forsince I was right out of college.
That's different because you'reworking with a lot of people
that are first time in job.
I looked at my management team, I'mlike everybody that is on my management
(22:29):
team this is the first time themever doing any of their jobs before.
Wow.
Ok, so how do I manage those folks andhow do I, how can I give direction,
give training and enablement, stillhire and balance where there's people
that are being promoted while you'rehiring in more experienced talent?
And that equation continues asthe company continues to grow.
During those periods, I have peoplereport to me for different reasons.
(22:52):
Sometimes I've had field marketingdirectly report to me, but the reason
is because I wanted to stay closeto what was happening in the field.
And if they had been reporting tothe head of demand gen, I wouldn't be
hearing kind of first party insights on,okay, what are the sales teams saying?
How are they executing?
How are they feelingabout the sales plays?
What else are they asking for?
And so that was the reason thatI, at that point, put field
(23:14):
marketing reporting to me.
Recently, I had customermarketing reporting to me and
she had analysts relations andcustomer marketing, same thing.
It was like, I wanted to have directinsight and I believed I could help
coach this really talented personto - Sunshine, I'm talking about you if
you're listening - this really talentedperson to stretch into a new role.
(23:35):
And I told her at some point you'll likelygo into the comms and that did happen.
But for this period of time,you know, let's do this.
And I think when you're looking atyour leadership team, it doesn't
always have to be your direct reports.
And so if you have emerging talentor people inside the team that are
taking on special projects, let thembe part of your leadership team.
Give them that exposure to howyou lead and manage and start
(23:59):
cultivating them as a future leaderif you see them in that hiring path.
So that might be other time too.
It's like, well, why is that persongoing to your leadership team?
It's like, oh, that person's afuture leader and I want them
to learn what's going on here.
So when it's time for them to bepromoted, or if I'm kind of getting a
backup person just in case, or if I havemy plan, like I'm going to expand this
team and this person's going to comeout into a new role, then I want them
(24:22):
to understand what it's like to be aleader, the kinds of challenges we're
faced with, how we run our business, youknow, give them opportunities to take on
new projects that are cross-functional.
That's not necessarily orgstructure difference, but it's
how you run the team different.
Erica Seidel (24:38):
Is there a particularly risky bet that you
have made on a hire in the past?
And maybe it's somebody without SaaSbackground coming into SaaS or hiring
a B2C marketer into B2B or hiring atotally different function to come in
and run product marketing or...you know.
Sydney Sloan (24:55):
You know, I've hired people outside of SaaS.
Our company SalesLoft was based inAtlanta, so we just didn't have the
same pool of talent to pull from.
And so, we were pulling people outof consumer, but for, they were smart
choices, you know, advertising, brand,demand gen, not the core strategy pieces.
But I hired an engineer out of GEwho had been a hardware product
marketer before and he's awesome.
He had really good super skillsand project management and he
(25:16):
understood product launches.
So I think you can absolutely do that.
I also think that finding talent withinyour organization and bringing them in.
So I've hired from recruiting.
I've hired every chief ofstaff that we ever had.
I love office managers.
They're great field marketersbecause they're organized and
they can work well with peopleand they know how to plan events.
(25:38):
And so I think there's somereally easy talent pools inside
the organization to pull from.
I think the one piece of advice Iwould give here that I learned was a
couple of times where I felt reallystrongly about a candidate that had
yellow flags in the interview process.
And so, you know, sometimes I've takenthe risk on that and learned my lesson,
(25:58):
and sometimes I've taken the riskand it ended up being perfectly fine.
And the advice that I got was if peopleraise a yellow flag and you still feel
strongly, you have to go back to thatperson, acknowledge the yellow flag.
When you're doing your background checks,address that with as many people as
you can talk to and learn, and thenbe very clear with the candidate,
(26:20):
hey, this was a yellow flag, thisis something we're going to work on.
And before you hire them, getagreement that yes, that is
something they want to work on.
And you start, you know, it's almostlike you're working on your development
plan as they're coming in and helpingthem continue to work through that.
If you feel strongly, you cantake that risk, but just be,
make sure everybody is aware.
Erica Seidel (26:39):
My last question for you is one I ask I think almost
everybody and that is, do you havea favorite interview question?
So something that you like to askthat is really surprisingly revealing?
Sydney Sloan (26:50):
Kyle Porter asked me this question one time, and so it's become
my favorite question, which is "Whatis the one thing that you hold true
that others would challenge you on?"
And, you know, it's a deep thinker.
You have to like, that's alevel three, we call it, like
that's a level three question.
And so I ask that one from time to time.
But what I would highlight is this notionof topgrading as an interview style.
(27:15):
And so rather than a question,I think it's more of a method.
And what I love about the topgradeprocess is you really learn about
the person in their journey.
Not the jobs and the accomplishments,but how they work, how they
work with people, how they makedecisions, looking for patterns,
who influenced them in their life.
And so if you're not familiar withTopgrading, look it up, read it.
(27:36):
Send me a message on LinkedInif you'd like a little coaching.
It's an amazing way todo a really deep-dive.
And it takes a while.
So it's an hour, hour and a half-longinterview, depending on how long
the person's career path is.
But it's super insightful.
And you learn a lot about the person.
Erica Seidel (27:51):
Yeah, I once did a topgrading interview for a company.
I did not get the job, but it entailedflying from Boston to Philly, going
to the airport, like, Hilton andsitting in a room with somebody.
And it was like maybea six-hour interview.
Sydney Sloan (28:05):
I think mine was three.
I think we had to takea break and come back.
But I'm a talker, you know?
It's like, oh, you wantto know about that?
Well, yeah, I know.
I mean, if you've been to it, Imean, I would say it's an hour per
ten years of experience, right?
At least, depending onhow deep they want to go.
I think if you're a goodinterviewer, once you see a pattern,
you can kindly move them on.
So I learned, you know, youdon't have to make it that long.
Erica Seidel (28:27):
Well, Sydney, thank you so much.
This has been fabulous.
I've learned so much.
And I think that the listeners will, too.
So thank you.
Sydney Sloan (28:32):
It's been my pleasure, Erica.
Thank you for having me.
Happy '22.
Erica Seidel (28:37):
That was Sydney Sloan, sharing lots of do's and don'ts about
how to scale in a transformationalway, not just an incremental way.
Now that you've listened, ask yourselfhow can you be not just a marketing
leader, but a true market leader?
Thanks for listening to The Get.
I'm your host Erica Seidel.
(28:57):
Hiring great marketingleaders is not easy.
The Get is designed to inspire smartdecisions around recruiting and
leadership in B2B SaaS marketing.
We explore the trends, tribulations,and triumphs of today's top
marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.
This season's theme isSolving for the Scale Journey.
If you liked thisepisode, please share it.
(29:19):
For other insights on recruitinggreat marketing leaders - what I
call the 'make money' marketingleaders rather than the 'make it
pretty' ones, follow me on LinkedIn.
You can also sign up for mynewsletter at TheConnectiveGood.com.
The Get is produced by Evo Terraand Simpler Media Productions.
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