October 31, 2024 • 34 mins
In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel discusses the intricacies and challenges of hiring CMOs in B2B SaaS companies. She highlights why the CMO role is particularly tough to fill, the high stakes involved, and the common concerns among CEOs and investors.
Erica is joined by Peter Mahoney, Chief Commercial Officer at GoTo and author of The Next CMO. Peter has been a GM, CMO, CEO, and now at GoTo has recently transitioned from CMO to Chief Commercial Officer. He offers practical advice on organizational structure, fostering CEO-CMO trust, and managing expectations.
You’ll learn about:
- The complexities and fears that CEOs face when hiring CMOs
- Distinctions between roles such as Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Revenue Officer
- How "everyone at the C-level thinks they understand marketing but at the same time fears that they don't understand it"
- The skills required to succeed in a small versus a big company as a CMO
- The wisdom of spending some of your career outside of marketing…. even if it is a sideways move
- Strategies for candidates to effectively communicate their impact during the hiring process
- Advice for rising CMOs
00:00 Introduction: The Hardest C-Level Role to Hire
00:41 Welcome to The Get: Reducing Risk in CMO Recruitment
01:14 Meet Peter Mahoney: A Journey from CMO to CCO
01:59 Understanding the Chief Commercial Officer Role
06:20 The Fears and Risks in Hiring a CMO
10:01 The Perfect Fit: Balancing Experience and Potential
13:19 Stage Experience: Scaling Up and Complexity
16:33 Embracing Flexibility and Depth in Marketing Roles
17:10 Navigating Revenue and Complexity in Marketing
17:57 Understanding Marketing Maturity and Budget Constraints
19:15 The Evolving Technical Landscape of Marketing
20:03 Effective Leadership and Strategy Alignment
23:17 Addressing CMO Candidate Concerns
24:41 Key Interview Insights for CMO Candidates
27:34 Advice for Aspiring CMOs
30:01 Career Growth and Risk Management
32:24 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
The Get is here to drive 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 The Race to Reduce Risk in CMO Recruiting.
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 the team at Simpler Media Productions.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What is the hardest roleto hire for at the C-level?
(00:03):
Many CEOs will say the hardest roleby far to fill is the CMO role.
You probably have seen thisthrough experience yourself.
Knowledge of marketing can bequite scant at the C-level.
And, of course, everyone has anopinion on marketing, which means
that there are often a lot of cooksin the kitchen for a CMO search.
The CMO role is also very highstakes because companies are
(00:24):
often looking to marketing as thefoundation for their growth story.
So it's hard for non-marketersto know what good looks
like in a marketing leader.
And all of this can create this stewof uncertainty, which can make searches
for CMOs much more fraught than others.
Hello, and welcome to The Get.
I'm your host, Erica Seidel.
(00:44):
This season, we focus on the raceto reduce risk when it comes to a
match between a company and a CMO.
How can you find out what you needto find out before saying yes, so
that you make a match that sticks?
Today, we'll look at the risks thatCEOs and investors feel they are
taking when they recruit a CMO.
What are they afraid of?
Are those fears warranted?
(01:05):
And on the flip side, how can CMOcandidates anticipate those fears
and maybe even quiet them to helpboth sides get to a good match?
Today, we'll talk about allof this with Peter Mahoney.
Peter is currently the Chief CommercialOfficer for GoTo, the Unified
Business Communications Company.
Previously, Peter rose up to the ranks ofCMO and GM at Nuance Communications, and
(01:29):
then became a startup CEO for a marketingoptimization platform called Plannuh.
I love that name.
He sold that business, then wanted anotherCMO gig, which is very interesting, so
got back into the CMO fray with GoTo.
He then got promoted recentlyto Chief Commercial Officer.
So he has this great range ofperspectives to bring to bear and
(01:50):
you're going to learn a ton from him.
Let's go.
Peter, welcome to the show.
Hey, thanks very muchfor having me, Erica.
It's a thrill to be here.
Great.
So now you are Chief Commercial Officer.
Two sub questions for that.
Wondering what the distinctionis between Chief Commercial
Officer and Chief Revenue Officer?
Maybe it's the same thing.
Secondly, I know you havemarketing reporting to you.
(02:12):
So obviously very hot topic these days.
Curious about pros and cons ofthat structure versus marketing
reporting to the CEO directly?
Let me try to take thefirst one first, Erica.
The title is one that I had about an hourto come up with a thing because we were
making some changes at the company and wedecided it was the right thing to combine
(02:34):
the sales and marketing organization.
And I thought, do I want tobe a Chief Revenue Officer?
I don't know.
I don't know what that means.
It felt like it was alittle bit of a loaded term.
I felt like it was a funny messageto give marketers because it's
not only about revenue, althoughrevenue is pretty important.
(02:54):
So I looked around, I did acouple of Google searches, and
I came up with something that Ithought was maybe a compromise.
I have no idea if it's a good idea ornot, but that's what I call it now.
It really is the combinationof sales and marketing.
In some cases, it's a good idea - to getinto the second part of your question.
I think in some cases, it's a good idea.
(03:14):
Some cases it's not a good idea, andit's driven by a couple of things.
Some is the background and thecomplexion of the overall management
team and of that leader in particular.
But I think even more importantly isthe kind of business that you're in.
The business that I'm supportingright now, GoTo, is a business
that is largely transactional.
(03:36):
We sell from everyone from prosumersall the way up to large businesses.
But the vast weight of our business isactually pretty transactional, which
means that it's this really tightcollaboration between sales and marketing.
And therefore it makes a lot ofsense to be able to optimize across
those functions pretty clearly.
Mm hmm.
(03:56):
Any concern with hiring people onthe marketing team, knowing that they
are reporting into a Chief CommercialOfficer, or is it too soon for data?
No, so in fact, I just hired a VP ofCorporate Marketing - who's amazing,
by the way - and in the middle of therecruiting process, I had to tell her
what was going on that, oh, by the way I'mgoing to be taking on this broader role.
(04:18):
She was totally fine with it.
And it probably was okay for herbecause we started the conversation
when I was the Chief Marketing Officer.
It felt like a naturalprogression along the way.
And yeah, I think we'll see.
There probably are some people whomight give it pause a little bit,
especially if they don't know me.
I think a lot of people who know me,know me as someone who I literally
(04:42):
call myself a marketing nerd.
I'm pretty into themarketing side of the world.
I wrote a book about it, as youmay know, called The Next CMO.
Hold on, I have props.
For those of you who are watching this on
Yay!
you see a handy picture of The Next CMO.
So for that, I think that might makepeople a little bit more comfortable,
but I think some people have theperspective of, hey, I'm working for a
(05:03):
sales guy, and they're not really goingto respect or understand marketing.
But I think people who know meunderstand that I certainly respect
and understand the marketing function.
Yeah.
That does seem to be a bit of atrend of marketing leaders becoming
Chief Commercial or Chief RevenueOfficers or Chief Growth Officers.
Those are the three ones that youmight find in a Google search.
(05:24):
I think you're right.
Other than maybe the salespeople canget concerned, not with somebody like
you, but with somebody who's onlybeen in a marketing function, that
could be their concern in a structurewhere a CMO becomes a CRO or a CCO.
You can almost say thatabout any function.
The reality is people want toknow that their boss appreciates
(05:45):
what they're doing at some level.
Although, it's interesting becauseI've heard two different points of view
about the CEO understanding marketingor not understanding marketing.
Sometimes it's a good thing if theyunderstand marketing, but sometimes I've
heard people say, eh, it can actuallybe a bad thing if they're too much
because they get too invested in it.
(06:05):
They don't just let me do my thing.
It can be a little bitof a double-edged sword.
But in general, you want people to havean appreciation, some level of respect,
some level of understanding for therole that you have in your organization.
Let's talk about the fears that CEOs andinvestors have, based on your experience,
(06:26):
like when they're hiring a CMO.
So what are those big fears, first of all?
Fundamentally, it's aboutrisk and the unknown.
It's funny, you and I were talkingabout this a little bit, Erica.
It's a funny thing where everyone thinksthey understand marketing, and everyone
fears that they don't understand it.
It's one of those things that iscomplicated, it's hard to really,
(06:47):
truly understand what's going on.
And you're often hiring a marketingleader because you've got a problem.
So that's often the issue.
It's not always.
There are lots of cases where, hey,someone just moves on because they got
another role, and there's an opening.
But a lot of senior roleshappen because there's an issue.
Because you're not growing enough.
(07:07):
You don't have enough visibility.
Whatever the issue is that you have.
That issue tends to be one that's, forthis kind of a role, pretty profound.
Which means that it's a veryhigh stake kind of thing.
I think that's where the fear comes from.
People say that, wow, thisis a really big, important
decision for this kind of role.
I don't really understandwhat it's going to take.
(07:29):
So in the sales role, as an example, forsome reason, I think people assume, hey,
this person was a great sales executiveand they drove growth in the business.
They must be able to doit at this other place.
And the reality is that, as youknow, every company is different,
every situation is different,every industry is different.
(07:49):
Just because an executive was successfulin one area, it doesn't mean they're
going to be successful in another.
Just because an executive hadan unsuccessful outing, it
doesn't mean they're not goingto be successful somewhere else.
But people tend to ascribe a littlebit more predictability to the sales
function because they don't fullyunderstand marketing and the way that
it works and what goes behind it.
(08:10):
So I think that's fundamentallythe fear that's underneath it.
Yeah.
So they're kind of afraid, like theyhave opinions on it, but they know they
don't understand it so fully and theymight not trust the kind of applicability
of one experience to another.
Is there any, like, afraid that amarketing person is slick and snazzy and
is gonna, I don't know, pull the woolover the eyes of others on the team?
(08:35):
Yeah, maybe that's why I've doneso well in this environment.
No one has ever accused meof being slick and snazzy.
I think that is some of it.
I think there's a fear that,hey, this is a smooth talker.
They're going to be able to tell mewhat they think they want me to hear.
Do I really trust what's going on?
I think that may be some of it.
You could say the same for salesprofessionals, as an example.
(08:56):
That may be where some of it comes in.
I think the big fear thatpeople have, fundamentally,
is that it's a big investment.
They don't want to makethe wrong decision.
In a lot of cases, they're worriedthat, hey, this person is going to
need like massive sums of money todo things, especially if they're
talking about moving the needle.
They come in and say they can do it witha modest approach, but there's often this
(09:18):
fear that, hey, they're going to come in,they're going to peel back the onion a
little bit and realize that, oh my god,there's more work to be done here, and
it's going to cost me, eight, nine figuresto get out of this thing in one piece.
So that's probably the big issue youget when you're, if you're a board
member or a CEO interviewing a CMOsaying, is it really, am I really
going to be able to get the resultswithout spending ridiculous sums of
(09:40):
Got it.
Any other fears that you'veseen, just to lay them all out?
Those are, I think, key ones.
Yeah.
I think the biggest ones, as I said, it'swhether they understand what's going on.
Is this person really credible?
Can they understand whatit is that the issue is?
And is it going to costme more than I expect?
I think those are the primarythings that people worry about.
(10:01):
I'm wondering, as a company ishiring a CMO, to what extent does the
complexion of the rest of the executiveleadership team govern what type of
marketing leader the company needs?
You started alluding to thisearlier with the whole marketing
and sales under one function.
'Cause in my search work, it's oftenokay, do you want the person who's gonna
stretch into the role, or who mightbe stepping up into the role, or the
(10:22):
person who's gonna stoop into the role.
They could have a much biggerrole, but they're gonna start it
in an earlier phase in the journey.
Sometimes in a search, yougo back and forth, okay, what
type is the right profile?
And so thinking about the rest ofthe ELT and how the right CMO can
fit into that how to think about howto fit a CMO into that structure.
It's funny, it reminds me,Erica, that first of all,
(10:43):
everyone wants the perfect fit.
Everyone wants Goldilocks and you probablyhear all the time, people coming to
you and say, Erica just find me someonewho's got twenty years of experience in
generative AI, or something like that.
They ask for the impossible, andthen what happens is, if you come
in too experienced, they say,well, what's wrong with them?
Because why do they want this job?
(11:05):
Or if you're not experienced enough,they say, oh, this is a big stretch.
They're not really proven.
I know I've done a lot of hiringlike this too, and it's hard, right?
Because you alwaysstruggle with those things.
To the point you made before thatwe were talking about, in the setup
of the rest of the ELT, I think it'simportant to understand what the
strengths and weaknesses are of the ELT.
(11:25):
What's the culture of the ELT?
How do they work together?
Then, fundamentally, it can be okayto give someone a stretch opportunity,
but you don't want everyone in theELT to be stretching for their role.
Because in some cases it's great tohave people in your organization
at all levels who are in thebiggest job of their career.
(11:47):
But not everybody can be in the biggestjob of their career because then there's
just too much risk in doing that.
You have to find a blend of experienceand upward mobility and new ideas.
You need diversity in yourorganization in every way that
the word diversity can be applied.
And you really need a broad mixof experience and capabilities
(12:10):
to make sure that it works.
Then culturally, you have to getwhat is, for a CMO, as an example,
what do you expect marketingto be and do in your company?
What's the role of the marketing function?
In some organizations,it's less important.
You need to understand that andcommunicate that to the marketing
executive you're trying to hear,that you're trying to hire.
(12:30):
In other cases, it's the mostimportant thing in the world.
So you have to understand the relativerole of marketing, what the role of
that executive is, what the experiencebase of that executive is, et cetera,
to make sure you have the right fit.
Yeah, and it's funny youtalk about that unicorn.
Oh, the person has to be just,not too much experience, not
too little, not too much.
It's very Goldilocks-y, and I always tellpeople, go for the eighty percent fit
(12:53):
because if you're going for the hundredpercent fit, A, it's going to take a while
to get there, and B, once that personis in place, you're going to realize
that they're an eighty percent fit.
Because you're going to get toknow them and realize everybody has
their kind of soft spots and things.
It's very much likegetting married, right?
There are some things you're going tofight about over the course of your
marriage that can just make it likewhere an eighty percent fit is - I
(13:13):
don't want to say good enough, butlike as good as it gets in many cases.
And it's the same with jobs, I think.
Anyway, let's talk about stage experience.
So you've done different kindsof smaller companies, bigger
companies, this nice range.
One thing that I see, and I'm sure you'veseen this too, that stage experience
that's relevant to a company's journey,like, is a really important thing.
You know, oh, we're twenty million, wewant to scale-up to a hundred million.
(13:36):
We're five hundred million, we wantto get to a billion or what have you.
But of course, not every fivehundred million company is the same.
Just because somebody's done it in onecontext, like you said before, they might
not be able to do that in another context.
Are we thinking too literally?
About stage experience andspecific scale-up experience
when we hire, in your view?
(13:57):
I think there's a lot to besaid for different stages
because the job's fundamentallydifferent in different stages.
You made a really good point, Erica, thatsometimes it's not exactly the number,
but it's where the company is in itsdegree of complexity, as an example.
So I tend to like to work at companiesthat are of reasonable scale for
(14:20):
a bunch of different reasons.
The biggest one that I like about beingat the billion dollar plus scale, where
GoTo is, where I spent a long time asthe CMO of Nuance, as an example, is that
frankly, I don't have to be very smart.
The good news is that because literallyyou can hire really world leading experts
in their functional domain of marketing.
(14:42):
Because you can afford to bringthem in because you've got
a fairly large organization.
They have a meaty role that getsvery specific, and each functional
area within marketing can be reallydetailed and specific and you
can bring in all these experts.
So it's a very different kind ofrole in a lot of cases because
(15:02):
it makes sense when you reach acertain scale to be able to do that.
Now, in other cases, you maydecide that, hey, I don't want
to buy that kind of expertise.
I want to rent it.
So if you're an early stage, you bringin a consultant to do certain things.
In fact, I use consultants today,even at a billion dollar company.
Because there's some areas where Idon't want to own that particular
(15:23):
kind of expertise, but I needto rent it every once in a while
because it's important to have.
So at that scale, that's where alarge scale experience is useful.
One, I like it, but why is it different?
Why is it hard?
Actually, don't tell anyone, butI think anyone can do this job.
If you're a smart and organizedperson who's good at the numbers,
then anyone can do my job, frankly.
(15:45):
You're given a chance to do this jobif you've proven to be able to operate
in the level of complexity and dealwith a lot of big hairy issues that
are happening all at the same time.
Because that happens inany kind of environment.
You don't get flustered.
That's the most important thing, right?
You can keep your heading.
Keep on going.
Keep on delivering while you'redealing with any number of major
(16:09):
crises going on at any given time.
Because in a big enough company,you're constantly going to have issues.
Now, in a smaller company, if you'reon the complete other side, if you're
in a five, ten million dollar company,as an example, you need to be an
expert at rapidly testing and trying tounderstand and find that magic for the
(16:30):
way that growth happens in your company.
So it means you need to be really goodat spinning up and trying new things.
You can do it really light andsimply, and then you need to quickly
assess whether it's working or not,and then lock in on the particular
areas that make a lot of sense.
You also need to be deep enough ineach of the domains so you can kind
(16:50):
of roll up your sleeves and figure outeach individual domain to understand
whether it's hiring a specific personwho's a digital marketing expert or
a messaging expert, or diagnosing andhelping someone who's more junior, who's
going to need more hands on experience.
That's the way that I think about it.
They're both fun jobs.
(17:10):
I've operated at everywherefrom zero revenue up to
billions of dollars of revenue.
They're different jobs.
I think they're all fun, but theyare very different experiences you
go throughout those different stages.
The biggest factors are notspecifically the number of
revenue that you're dealing with.
It's often the kind of complexitythat you're dealing with, the kind
(17:34):
of expertise that you need to haveto engage with the people you're
working with on a day-to-day basis.
Do you have senior managers who canactually understand all the detail?
Or do you need to go into thatpractitioner level and be able to
really understand what each person isdoing on a detailed day-to-day basis?
That's most of the difference for me.
(17:55):
Yeah, that's well articulated.
Thank you.
It's funny because something I talk aboutin my searches is, okay, so you're five
hundred million, but maybe your marketingfunction is a little more similar
to a hundred-million-dollar company.
And maybe it's a little moresimilar to a billion-dollar company.
But you have to understand the relativematurity of marketing in comparison
to the rest of the organization.
(18:16):
And if it is a little lessmature, you're right, you have
to lean in and maybe coach more.
I'm curious to hear your take on this,but today I've been talking to more CMOs
who say, Oh, I have to get into the weedsa little bit more with my team because my
budget has to be stretched more thinly,and ergo, I'm hiring more junior people,
and so I have to teach them a littlebit more than I would have if I had the
(18:39):
budget to hire somebody a click or two up.
Have you seen that?
Well, I've seen elements of that.
First of all, I've been doing thisfor, I don't know, thirty-seven
years now or something like that.
So everyone always says it'slike an unprecedented time with
budget restrictions and - come on.
(19:00):
It's always going to be a challenge.
Budget is always going to be an issue.
So there's nothing that new about this.
There are, you've been around for amoment or two, Erica, you know that
there are cycles that we go through inevery environment, in every economy.
You just have to be flexible like that.
The thing that is different aboutmarketing that may be driving some of
this is that it's becoming very, verytechnical and very, very detailed in the
(19:26):
way things have to happen in marketing.
So if you think back fifty years ago,marketing was a lot of advertising
and it was PR, and maybe it wassome events and things like that.
But it's a very technical and analyticalrole in a lot of ways these days.
That may be what some of thepeople are talking about.
(19:47):
You definitely need to understand,and as I was saying before, with
somewhat tongue in cheek, the ideathat you don't really have to know
anything with a more senior team.
The reality is that you have to beable to dive down to the appropriate
level of detail for understanding.
When I just took over this go-to-marketorganization, there was a lot of questions
(20:08):
about, well, what's he going to be like?
How is he going to be as a leader?
And I spent a lot of time tellingpeople that I like as a leader myself,
I like to start by understanding.
I like to dive into a lot of detailto understand what's going on.
So I'm going to ask a lot of questions.
I'm going to really try to understand,maybe peel back the onion, push on you
(20:29):
a little bit to really understand what'sgoing on within your particular domain.
And then I'm going to back off.
Ideally, I want to get to the pointwhere I give you a set of guardrails,
give you a goal, say this is what I wantyou to achieve for your particular area,
give you some guardrails, and thoseguardrails are things like these are the
(20:50):
behaviors that we accept, and this isthe way that we operate as a company,
this is how you need to communicate, etc.
But it's really important to be ableto have that beginning part, be able
to really dive down and understandthe specific domain, and that's one
of the things that I find some ofthe most effective executives can do.
Even if they're not an engineering leader,as an example, you should absolutely
(21:13):
be able to ask provocative questionsthat are at least logical questions.
It doesn't have to be abouta specific line of code.
You should be able to understandand question people to the level
that you understand what their levelof understanding is, how confident
they are, and whether they reallyhave a plan to achieve what they're
saying they're trying to achieve.
(21:34):
I don't think that's particularly neweither, but the complexity of marketing
these days, I think that is gettingmore and more complex over the years.
So I can see where people would feelthe difference over time as it's
getting a little bit more technical and
That's great.
I like that framing of how you'recoaching people, and it sounds like
(21:57):
almost half is more behavioral?
And you can get to the right result bysetting up the right cultural, behavioral
mores for the people on the team.
That's interesting.
Well, it's funny, the other way to thinkabout that - by the way, I tell people
all the time, it's the difference betweena goal and a strategy . A goal may be, I
want to get to the top of the mountain.
(22:19):
You can employ different strategiesto get to the top of the mountain.
A strategy, basically, it's yourgeneral approach on how you're
going to achieve the goal.
One strategy to get to thetop of the mountain may be
to climb up the steep face.
Another strategy might be goingaround the long path around the back.
And why is this strategy important?
(22:39):
Why is it important to getaligned around this strategy?
Because you need differenttools to get there.
If you're climbing up the steepface of the mountain, you need
those clippy things and you needropes and a good insurance policy.
If you're going around the long patharound the back, you need comfy shoes
and plenty of water, [Erica laughs]and maybe some sunscreen, right?
So understanding the strategy andgetting aligned around the strategy
(23:03):
and how you're going to achievethose goals is incredibly important.
That's one thing thata lot of leaders miss.
They say, those are the goals, go do it.
But you really need to align behindthose strategies at the same time.
Mm mm.
I would love to pivot.
We talked a little bit about the risksthat companies take when hiring CMOs.
Would love to pivot more specificallyto the CMO candidate side of things.
(23:26):
If you think about these risksthat we've talked about, oh, you're
going to spend a lot of money.
Oh, you're going tomaybe be the wrong fit.
Oh, all of these things.
How can CMO candidates quiet the concernsor address, that might be a better way
to put it, address and allay the concernsthat CEOs and investors have when CMO
candidate finds himself in the middleof a search where people are like, oh my
(23:46):
god, we're afraid you're going to be X.
One is you want to be as transparent andclear with the people you're communicating
to about, not only the results that youmight have achieved, but how specifically
you've achieved those results.
An important factor here, bythe way, is that it actually has
(24:06):
to be truthful and meaningful.
You'd be surprised how many people - youwouldn't be surprised, you've been
around this world a lot - how many peoplejust really exaggerate a lot of things.
The reality is people can tell whenyou exaggerate your impact because
you can't really describe what youpersonally did to drive that outcome.
(24:27):
So I think communicating at the rightlevel of specificity is incredibly
important to help people understand,walk them through the logic path that
you went through to achieve what you did.
I'll tell you one of my favorite interviewquestions that I ask almost everybody.
I hope nobody's listening who's goingto interview with me sometime because
(24:49):
it's supposed to be a surprise.
I always ask them, I say, tell meabout a time when you convinced
a company to make a major change.
I find that really helpful to havepeople walk through how they got a
company to do something differentthat they weren't doing before.
It does a couple of things.
(25:09):
One, it shows how people research andthink about a problem and identify
a problem in an organization.
Two, it helps you figure out howthey actually built up their case.
What was the logic chain that they usedto actually build that logical case, or
a financial case if that's necessary too?
(25:31):
How do they communicate that?
Then how do they actually deliverthe change across an organization?
Because one of the most important thingsthat any executive can do is actually
drive change in an organization.
So that's why I like toask that kind of thing.
And if someone can explain that,how you've driven change in an
organization, you allay a lot ofthose fears because it's a shortcut
(25:54):
to tell whether someone is effective.
I think that's fundamentally whatpeople are looking at when they
are unsure about hiring someone.
It's effectiveness.
That idea of being able to reliably andpredictably deliver the results they said
they were going to be able to deliverversus waving their arms and saying,
yeah, we should do something better.
(26:14):
We should grow more.
Effectiveness is reallyimportant to understand.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
So I feel like there's three T's right.
Being transparent, being truthful, andmeaningful, that's not a T, and then
the third one is transformation IQ,maybe that's a way to think about it.
Just practically in an interview, it feelslike you could spend half an hour on just
(26:37):
that kind of approach to change-making.
Is that what you do?
Or is it like, a five-minute
-If it's a short conversation, then I find out a lot.
[Erica laughs] Seriously.
You should be able to spendan hour talking about that.
So you often do have to cutpeople off, that's enough, right?
Can we summarize?
The point is, you will understand veryquickly how people really had an impact
(27:00):
on driving change in an organization whenthey describe to you how they did it.
And if they can't do that,then you'll learn a lot.
The way they communicate, the waythey get excited about it or not.
So that tells me a lot.
Is it, "Oh, my god, that was terrible.
Yeah, I can tell you."
Or do they have a spring in theirstep when they're communicating?
You just learn a ton about people whenyou ask them that kind of question.
(27:23):
I like that.
Thank you for sharing.
That's a question I always ask everybodyon the podcast is, you know, what
is your favorite interview question?
So that's great.
Final question for you, becauseI know we're running out of time
. Given the current climate, what's the advice that you would give your pre-CMO
self, if you look back, as relates toreducing risk in hiring and getting hired?
(27:44):
Or advice in generalfor the pre-CMO Peter?
I'd say there are a few thingsthat were helpful for me.
Let me put it that way, if that's useful.
One is I think it's really helpful thatyou have some diversity in experience.
What I mean by that is thatit's useful that you spend
some time outside of marketing.
Sometimes that's hard for peoplewho are in a role where they feel
(28:09):
like, I just want to keep going up.
Sometimes you need togo sideways to go up.
Sometimes you need to go back to go up.
So, I took a role, as an example,I was the head of corporate
marketing, for some reason.
I'm not a corporate marketingguy, but they gave me the job.
I was the head of corporatemarketing for a public company.
And I decided, because I was a loverof product, I actually have degrees
(28:30):
in physics and computer science,but I've never been paid to write a
line of code, which is pretty sad.
I really wanted to get closer toproduct, and what I decided to do is
I had a big group of people runningthis corporate marketing function,
and I took a job as an individualcontributor as a product manager.
It was a really important time inmy career because it teed me up
(28:52):
to understand the way the productdevelopment process worked.
It made me build business plans thatwere implemented, and it gave me a ton
of experience that was really usefulwhen I wanted to do things like be a GM
and that GM experience was important.
It highlights the second area.
It's critically important to understandthe financials of the business.
(29:14):
By the way, if you can understandeighth grade math, you can
understand the financials.
This is not high math.
Literally, it's addition and subtraction.
But it's really important to understandwhat the financial workings are of
the organization that you work in.
And I guarantee you, if you callup any head of FP&A and say, hey,
(29:36):
can you spend half an hour with meand just walk me through the P&L?
They will be delightedto walk you through that.
That understanding of the financesof a company and this willingness to
take not exactly the straight path.
Those are probably the two things thatwere most important to me as I looked
at growth opportunities in my career.
(29:59):
Wonderful.
I love that.
Thank you for sharing.
Quick question on themove to PM, effectively.
Did you feel like you hadto explain away at the time?
Whether it was when you're moving intothat role or for the next role you got?
Because I think that'ssometimes people's concern.
Oh, I like the jungle gym idea of careerdevelopment, but if I go backwards now,
(30:19):
is that going to preclude future growth?
Yeah, it's a great question, Erica.
I have to say there, I'm sure there's alittle bit of risk in doing that, because
people think that, oh, wait a minute,they're going backwards in their career.
In my case, it wasn't really.
It was a senior-level andindividual contributor, was
(30:39):
one thing that was useful.
I think I probably went into it with afair amount of bravado, whether it was
advised or not, that, hey, I'll be able tojust move on here and do the next thing.
And I happened to.
But the third thing that I'd recommendto people all the time in their careers,
especially in the meat of their careers,and that you're in year like five to
(31:00):
fifteen in your career, as an example,spend some time with the same company.
If you can find a company that youcan grow with, by far, the times in
my career where I grew the most werethese times where I was committed
to a company for a number of years.
What happens is, peoplewill give you a chance.
(31:22):
If you get in there, you work hard, youprove yourself, they're much more likely
to give you a chance to take that stretchassignment than they are to give someone
from the outside a stretch assignment.
And those are the areaswhere you really grow.
Sometimes you take a little risk if you dosomething that's a little bit non-linear
in your choices, but if you're therefor the long term, think four or five,
(31:49):
six, seven years with a company, as anexample, don't hop around for a year at
a time, then they're much more likelyto want to protect you and do the right
thing by you over a long period of time.
So I think for me, that really workedout because I've had a number of
opportunities where I've been with acompany for many years that's actually
given me lots of opportunity to try newthings and have that opportunity to grow.
(32:11):
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah, I love that.
Just own it.
Don't present it as a weakness.
It's, oh, this is a strategicchoice for me to do this and own it.
I bet the bravado tookyou far in that situation.
Wonderful.
Thank you so much forjoining the show, Peter.
This has been great.
Do you want to flash yourbook up for our video folks?
Peter wrote the nextCMO So that's one thing.
(32:33):
We'll put that intothe show notes as well.
Along with Scott and Dan,they wrote it with me.
So I can't
This trio of guys.
Yeah.
I don't
I'll have to tell you that whenI sold my company, Plannuh, I
actually sold the right to my book.
So, I don't make any money onthis, so don't worry about having
to buy this to make me happy.
I do think it was a useful tool forlots of CMOs out there along the way,
(32:54):
but that's, I have nothing else topromote, so, I guess I'll try and
promote the book because I think I'mdoing a good thing for CMOs in general.
Awesome.
Well, thank you again forjoining the show, Peter.
This has been great hearing from you.
Great.
Thanks for having me.
That was Peter Mahoney, ChiefCommercial Officer of GoTo
and author of The Next CMO.
(33:15):
Stay tuned for the next episode ofThe Get, coming in a couple of weeks.
Thanks for listening to The Get.
I'm your host, Erica Seidel.
The Get is here to drive 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.
(33:35):
If you liked thisepisode, please share it.
For more about The Get,visit TheGetPodcast.com.
To learn more about my executive searchpractice, which focuses on recruiting the
make-money marketing leaders rather thanthe make-it-pretty ones, follow me on
LinkedIn or visit TheConnectiveGood.com.
The Get is produced by Evo Terra andthe team at Simpler Media Productions.
What is the hardest roleto hire for at the C-level?
(00:03):
Many CEOs will say the hardest roleby far to fill is the CMO role.
You probably have seen thisthrough experience yourself.
Knowledge of marketing can bequite scant at the C-level.
And, of course, everyone has anopinion on marketing, which means
that there are often a lot of cooksin the kitchen for a CMO search.
The CMO role is also very highstakes because companies are
(00:24):
often looking to marketing as thefoundation for their growth story.
So it's hard for non-marketersto know what good looks
like in a marketing leader.
And all of this can create this stewof uncertainty, which can make searches
for CMOs much more fraught than others.
Hello, and welcome to The Get.
I'm your host, Erica Seidel.
(00:44):
This season, we focus on the raceto reduce risk when it comes to a
match between a company and a CMO.
How can you find out what you needto find out before saying yes, so
that you make a match that sticks?
Today, we'll look at the risks thatCEOs and investors feel they are
taking when they recruit a CMO.
What are they afraid of?
Are those fears warranted?
(01:05):
And on the flip side, how can CMOcandidates anticipate those fears
and maybe even quiet them to helpboth sides get to a good match?
Today, we'll talk about allof this with Peter Mahoney.
Peter is currently the Chief CommercialOfficer for GoTo, the Unified
Business Communications Company.
Previously, Peter rose up to the ranks ofCMO and GM at Nuance Communications, and
(01:29):
then became a startup CEO for a marketingoptimization platform called Plannuh.
I love that name.
He sold that business, then wanted anotherCMO gig, which is very interesting, so
got back into the CMO fray with GoTo.
He then got promoted recentlyto Chief Commercial Officer.
So he has this great range ofperspectives to bring to bear and
(01:50):
you're going to learn a ton from him.
Let's go.
Peter, welcome to the show.
Hey, thanks very muchfor having me, Erica.
It's a thrill to be here.
Great.
So now you are Chief Commercial Officer.
Two sub questions for that.
Wondering what the distinctionis between Chief Commercial
Officer and Chief Revenue Officer?
Maybe it's the same thing.
Secondly, I know you havemarketing reporting to you.
(02:12):
So obviously very hot topic these days.
Curious about pros and cons ofthat structure versus marketing
reporting to the CEO directly?
Let me try to take thefirst one first, Erica.
The title is one that I had about an hourto come up with a thing because we were
making some changes at the company and wedecided it was the right thing to combine
(02:34):
the sales and marketing organization.
And I thought, do I want tobe a Chief Revenue Officer?
I don't know.
I don't know what that means.
It felt like it was alittle bit of a loaded term.
I felt like it was a funny messageto give marketers because it's
not only about revenue, althoughrevenue is pretty important.
(02:54):
So I looked around, I did acouple of Google searches, and
I came up with something that Ithought was maybe a compromise.
I have no idea if it's a good idea ornot, but that's what I call it now.
It really is the combinationof sales and marketing.
In some cases, it's a good idea - to getinto the second part of your question.
I think in some cases, it's a good idea.
(03:14):
Some cases it's not a good idea, andit's driven by a couple of things.
Some is the background and thecomplexion of the overall management
team and of that leader in particular.
But I think even more importantly isthe kind of business that you're in.
The business that I'm supportingright now, GoTo, is a business
that is largely transactional.
(03:36):
We sell from everyone from prosumersall the way up to large businesses.
But the vast weight of our business isactually pretty transactional, which
means that it's this really tightcollaboration between sales and marketing.
And therefore it makes a lot ofsense to be able to optimize across
those functions pretty clearly.
Mm hmm.
(03:56):
Any concern with hiring people onthe marketing team, knowing that they
are reporting into a Chief CommercialOfficer, or is it too soon for data?
No, so in fact, I just hired a VP ofCorporate Marketing - who's amazing,
by the way - and in the middle of therecruiting process, I had to tell her
what was going on that, oh, by the way I'mgoing to be taking on this broader role.
(04:18):
She was totally fine with it.
And it probably was okay for herbecause we started the conversation
when I was the Chief Marketing Officer.
It felt like a naturalprogression along the way.
And yeah, I think we'll see.
There probably are some people whomight give it pause a little bit,
especially if they don't know me.
I think a lot of people who know me,know me as someone who I literally
(04:42):
call myself a marketing nerd.
I'm pretty into themarketing side of the world.
I wrote a book about it, as youmay know, called The Next CMO.
Hold on, I have props.
For those of you who are watching this on
Yay!
you see a handy picture of The Next CMO.
So for that, I think that might makepeople a little bit more comfortable,
but I think some people have theperspective of, hey, I'm working for a
(05:03):
sales guy, and they're not really goingto respect or understand marketing.
But I think people who know meunderstand that I certainly respect
and understand the marketing function.
Yeah.
That does seem to be a bit of atrend of marketing leaders becoming
Chief Commercial or Chief RevenueOfficers or Chief Growth Officers.
Those are the three ones that youmight find in a Google search.
(05:24):
I think you're right.
Other than maybe the salespeople canget concerned, not with somebody like
you, but with somebody who's onlybeen in a marketing function, that
could be their concern in a structurewhere a CMO becomes a CRO or a CCO.
You can almost say thatabout any function.
The reality is people want toknow that their boss appreciates
(05:45):
what they're doing at some level.
Although, it's interesting becauseI've heard two different points of view
about the CEO understanding marketingor not understanding marketing.
Sometimes it's a good thing if theyunderstand marketing, but sometimes I've
heard people say, eh, it can actuallybe a bad thing if they're too much
because they get too invested in it.
(06:05):
They don't just let me do my thing.
It can be a little bitof a double-edged sword.
But in general, you want people to havean appreciation, some level of respect,
some level of understanding for therole that you have in your organization.
Let's talk about the fears that CEOs andinvestors have, based on your experience,
(06:26):
like when they're hiring a CMO.
So what are those big fears, first of all?
Fundamentally, it's aboutrisk and the unknown.
It's funny, you and I were talkingabout this a little bit, Erica.
It's a funny thing where everyone thinksthey understand marketing, and everyone
fears that they don't understand it.
It's one of those things that iscomplicated, it's hard to really,
(06:47):
truly understand what's going on.
And you're often hiring a marketingleader because you've got a problem.
So that's often the issue.
It's not always.
There are lots of cases where, hey,someone just moves on because they got
another role, and there's an opening.
But a lot of senior roleshappen because there's an issue.
Because you're not growing enough.
(07:07):
You don't have enough visibility.
Whatever the issue is that you have.
That issue tends to be one that's, forthis kind of a role, pretty profound.
Which means that it's a veryhigh stake kind of thing.
I think that's where the fear comes from.
People say that, wow, thisis a really big, important
decision for this kind of role.
I don't really understandwhat it's going to take.
(07:29):
So in the sales role, as an example, forsome reason, I think people assume, hey,
this person was a great sales executiveand they drove growth in the business.
They must be able to doit at this other place.
And the reality is that, as youknow, every company is different,
every situation is different,every industry is different.
(07:49):
Just because an executive was successfulin one area, it doesn't mean they're
going to be successful in another.
Just because an executive hadan unsuccessful outing, it
doesn't mean they're not goingto be successful somewhere else.
But people tend to ascribe a littlebit more predictability to the sales
function because they don't fullyunderstand marketing and the way that
it works and what goes behind it.
(08:10):
So I think that's fundamentallythe fear that's underneath it.
Yeah.
So they're kind of afraid, like theyhave opinions on it, but they know they
don't understand it so fully and theymight not trust the kind of applicability
of one experience to another.
Is there any, like, afraid that amarketing person is slick and snazzy and
is gonna, I don't know, pull the woolover the eyes of others on the team?
(08:35):
Yeah, maybe that's why I've doneso well in this environment.
No one has ever accused meof being slick and snazzy.
I think that is some of it.
I think there's a fear that,hey, this is a smooth talker.
They're going to be able to tell mewhat they think they want me to hear.
Do I really trust what's going on?
I think that may be some of it.
You could say the same for salesprofessionals, as an example.
(08:56):
That may be where some of it comes in.
I think the big fear thatpeople have, fundamentally,
is that it's a big investment.
They don't want to makethe wrong decision.
In a lot of cases, they're worriedthat, hey, this person is going to
need like massive sums of money todo things, especially if they're
talking about moving the needle.
They come in and say they can do it witha modest approach, but there's often this
(09:18):
fear that, hey, they're going to come in,they're going to peel back the onion a
little bit and realize that, oh my god,there's more work to be done here, and
it's going to cost me, eight, nine figuresto get out of this thing in one piece.
So that's probably the big issue youget when you're, if you're a board
member or a CEO interviewing a CMOsaying, is it really, am I really
going to be able to get the resultswithout spending ridiculous sums of
(09:40):
Got it.
Any other fears that you'veseen, just to lay them all out?
Those are, I think, key ones.
Yeah.
I think the biggest ones, as I said, it'swhether they understand what's going on.
Is this person really credible?
Can they understand whatit is that the issue is?
And is it going to costme more than I expect?
I think those are the primarythings that people worry about.
(10:01):
I'm wondering, as a company ishiring a CMO, to what extent does the
complexion of the rest of the executiveleadership team govern what type of
marketing leader the company needs?
You started alluding to thisearlier with the whole marketing
and sales under one function.
'Cause in my search work, it's oftenokay, do you want the person who's gonna
stretch into the role, or who mightbe stepping up into the role, or the
(10:22):
person who's gonna stoop into the role.
They could have a much biggerrole, but they're gonna start it
in an earlier phase in the journey.
Sometimes in a search, yougo back and forth, okay, what
type is the right profile?
And so thinking about the rest ofthe ELT and how the right CMO can
fit into that how to think about howto fit a CMO into that structure.
It's funny, it reminds me,Erica, that first of all,
(10:43):
everyone wants the perfect fit.
Everyone wants Goldilocks and you probablyhear all the time, people coming to
you and say, Erica just find me someonewho's got twenty years of experience in
generative AI, or something like that.
They ask for the impossible, andthen what happens is, if you come
in too experienced, they say,well, what's wrong with them?
Because why do they want this job?
(11:05):
Or if you're not experienced enough,they say, oh, this is a big stretch.
They're not really proven.
I know I've done a lot of hiringlike this too, and it's hard, right?
Because you alwaysstruggle with those things.
To the point you made before thatwe were talking about, in the setup
of the rest of the ELT, I think it'simportant to understand what the
strengths and weaknesses are of the ELT.
(11:25):
What's the culture of the ELT?
How do they work together?
Then, fundamentally, it can be okayto give someone a stretch opportunity,
but you don't want everyone in theELT to be stretching for their role.
Because in some cases it's great tohave people in your organization
at all levels who are in thebiggest job of their career.
(11:47):
But not everybody can be in the biggestjob of their career because then there's
just too much risk in doing that.
You have to find a blend of experienceand upward mobility and new ideas.
You need diversity in yourorganization in every way that
the word diversity can be applied.
And you really need a broad mixof experience and capabilities
(12:10):
to make sure that it works.
Then culturally, you have to getwhat is, for a CMO, as an example,
what do you expect marketingto be and do in your company?
What's the role of the marketing function?
In some organizations,it's less important.
You need to understand that andcommunicate that to the marketing
executive you're trying to hear,that you're trying to hire.
(12:30):
In other cases, it's the mostimportant thing in the world.
So you have to understand the relativerole of marketing, what the role of
that executive is, what the experiencebase of that executive is, et cetera,
to make sure you have the right fit.
Yeah, and it's funny youtalk about that unicorn.
Oh, the person has to be just,not too much experience, not
too little, not too much.
It's very Goldilocks-y, and I always tellpeople, go for the eighty percent fit
(12:53):
because if you're going for the hundredpercent fit, A, it's going to take a while
to get there, and B, once that personis in place, you're going to realize
that they're an eighty percent fit.
Because you're going to get toknow them and realize everybody has
their kind of soft spots and things.
It's very much likegetting married, right?
There are some things you're going tofight about over the course of your
marriage that can just make it likewhere an eighty percent fit is - I
(13:13):
don't want to say good enough, butlike as good as it gets in many cases.
And it's the same with jobs, I think.
Anyway, let's talk about stage experience.
So you've done different kindsof smaller companies, bigger
companies, this nice range.
One thing that I see, and I'm sure you'veseen this too, that stage experience
that's relevant to a company's journey,like, is a really important thing.
You know, oh, we're twenty million, wewant to scale-up to a hundred million.
(13:36):
We're five hundred million, we wantto get to a billion or what have you.
But of course, not every fivehundred million company is the same.
Just because somebody's done it in onecontext, like you said before, they might
not be able to do that in another context.
Are we thinking too literally?
About stage experience andspecific scale-up experience
when we hire, in your view?
(13:57):
I think there's a lot to besaid for different stages
because the job's fundamentallydifferent in different stages.
You made a really good point, Erica, thatsometimes it's not exactly the number,
but it's where the company is in itsdegree of complexity, as an example.
So I tend to like to work at companiesthat are of reasonable scale for
(14:20):
a bunch of different reasons.
The biggest one that I like about beingat the billion dollar plus scale, where
GoTo is, where I spent a long time asthe CMO of Nuance, as an example, is that
frankly, I don't have to be very smart.
The good news is that because literallyyou can hire really world leading experts
in their functional domain of marketing.
(14:42):
Because you can afford to bringthem in because you've got
a fairly large organization.
They have a meaty role that getsvery specific, and each functional
area within marketing can be reallydetailed and specific and you
can bring in all these experts.
So it's a very different kind ofrole in a lot of cases because
(15:02):
it makes sense when you reach acertain scale to be able to do that.
Now, in other cases, you maydecide that, hey, I don't want
to buy that kind of expertise.
I want to rent it.
So if you're an early stage, you bringin a consultant to do certain things.
In fact, I use consultants today,even at a billion dollar company.
Because there's some areas where Idon't want to own that particular
(15:23):
kind of expertise, but I needto rent it every once in a while
because it's important to have.
So at that scale, that's where alarge scale experience is useful.
One, I like it, but why is it different?
Why is it hard?
Actually, don't tell anyone, butI think anyone can do this job.
If you're a smart and organizedperson who's good at the numbers,
then anyone can do my job, frankly.
(15:45):
You're given a chance to do this jobif you've proven to be able to operate
in the level of complexity and dealwith a lot of big hairy issues that
are happening all at the same time.
Because that happens inany kind of environment.
You don't get flustered.
That's the most important thing, right?
You can keep your heading.
Keep on going.
Keep on delivering while you'redealing with any number of major
(16:09):
crises going on at any given time.
Because in a big enough company,you're constantly going to have issues.
Now, in a smaller company, if you'reon the complete other side, if you're
in a five, ten million dollar company,as an example, you need to be an
expert at rapidly testing and trying tounderstand and find that magic for the
(16:30):
way that growth happens in your company.
So it means you need to be really goodat spinning up and trying new things.
You can do it really light andsimply, and then you need to quickly
assess whether it's working or not,and then lock in on the particular
areas that make a lot of sense.
You also need to be deep enough ineach of the domains so you can kind
(16:50):
of roll up your sleeves and figure outeach individual domain to understand
whether it's hiring a specific personwho's a digital marketing expert or
a messaging expert, or diagnosing andhelping someone who's more junior, who's
going to need more hands on experience.
That's the way that I think about it.
They're both fun jobs.
(17:10):
I've operated at everywherefrom zero revenue up to
billions of dollars of revenue.
They're different jobs.
I think they're all fun, but theyare very different experiences you
go throughout those different stages.
The biggest factors are notspecifically the number of
revenue that you're dealing with.
It's often the kind of complexitythat you're dealing with, the kind
(17:34):
of expertise that you need to haveto engage with the people you're
working with on a day-to-day basis.
Do you have senior managers who canactually understand all the detail?
Or do you need to go into thatpractitioner level and be able to
really understand what each person isdoing on a detailed day-to-day basis?
That's most of the difference for me.
(17:55):
Yeah, that's well articulated.
Thank you.
It's funny because something I talk aboutin my searches is, okay, so you're five
hundred million, but maybe your marketingfunction is a little more similar
to a hundred-million-dollar company.
And maybe it's a little moresimilar to a billion-dollar company.
But you have to understand the relativematurity of marketing in comparison
to the rest of the organization.
(18:16):
And if it is a little lessmature, you're right, you have
to lean in and maybe coach more.
I'm curious to hear your take on this,but today I've been talking to more CMOs
who say, Oh, I have to get into the weedsa little bit more with my team because my
budget has to be stretched more thinly,and ergo, I'm hiring more junior people,
and so I have to teach them a littlebit more than I would have if I had the
(18:39):
budget to hire somebody a click or two up.
Have you seen that?
Well, I've seen elements of that.
First of all, I've been doing thisfor, I don't know, thirty-seven
years now or something like that.
So everyone always says it'slike an unprecedented time with
budget restrictions and - come on.
(19:00):
It's always going to be a challenge.
Budget is always going to be an issue.
So there's nothing that new about this.
There are, you've been around for amoment or two, Erica, you know that
there are cycles that we go through inevery environment, in every economy.
You just have to be flexible like that.
The thing that is different aboutmarketing that may be driving some of
this is that it's becoming very, verytechnical and very, very detailed in the
(19:26):
way things have to happen in marketing.
So if you think back fifty years ago,marketing was a lot of advertising
and it was PR, and maybe it wassome events and things like that.
But it's a very technical and analyticalrole in a lot of ways these days.
That may be what some of thepeople are talking about.
(19:47):
You definitely need to understand,and as I was saying before, with
somewhat tongue in cheek, the ideathat you don't really have to know
anything with a more senior team.
The reality is that you have to beable to dive down to the appropriate
level of detail for understanding.
When I just took over this go-to-marketorganization, there was a lot of questions
(20:08):
about, well, what's he going to be like?
How is he going to be as a leader?
And I spent a lot of time tellingpeople that I like as a leader myself,
I like to start by understanding.
I like to dive into a lot of detailto understand what's going on.
So I'm going to ask a lot of questions.
I'm going to really try to understand,maybe peel back the onion, push on you
(20:29):
a little bit to really understand what'sgoing on within your particular domain.
And then I'm going to back off.
Ideally, I want to get to the pointwhere I give you a set of guardrails,
give you a goal, say this is what I wantyou to achieve for your particular area,
give you some guardrails, and thoseguardrails are things like these are the
(20:50):
behaviors that we accept, and this isthe way that we operate as a company,
this is how you need to communicate, etc.
But it's really important to be ableto have that beginning part, be able
to really dive down and understandthe specific domain, and that's one
of the things that I find some ofthe most effective executives can do.
Even if they're not an engineering leader,as an example, you should absolutely
(21:13):
be able to ask provocative questionsthat are at least logical questions.
It doesn't have to be abouta specific line of code.
You should be able to understandand question people to the level
that you understand what their levelof understanding is, how confident
they are, and whether they reallyhave a plan to achieve what they're
saying they're trying to achieve.
(21:34):
I don't think that's particularly neweither, but the complexity of marketing
these days, I think that is gettingmore and more complex over the years.
So I can see where people would feelthe difference over time as it's
getting a little bit more technical and
That's great.
I like that framing of how you'recoaching people, and it sounds like
(21:57):
almost half is more behavioral?
And you can get to the right result bysetting up the right cultural, behavioral
mores for the people on the team.
That's interesting.
Well, it's funny, the other way to thinkabout that - by the way, I tell people
all the time, it's the difference betweena goal and a strategy . A goal may be, I
want to get to the top of the mountain.
(22:19):
You can employ different strategiesto get to the top of the mountain.
A strategy, basically, it's yourgeneral approach on how you're
going to achieve the goal.
One strategy to get to thetop of the mountain may be
to climb up the steep face.
Another strategy might be goingaround the long path around the back.
And why is this strategy important?
(22:39):
Why is it important to getaligned around this strategy?
Because you need differenttools to get there.
If you're climbing up the steepface of the mountain, you need
those clippy things and you needropes and a good insurance policy.
If you're going around the long patharound the back, you need comfy shoes
and plenty of water, [Erica laughs]and maybe some sunscreen, right?
So understanding the strategy andgetting aligned around the strategy
(23:03):
and how you're going to achievethose goals is incredibly important.
That's one thing thata lot of leaders miss.
They say, those are the goals, go do it.
But you really need to align behindthose strategies at the same time.
Mm mm.
I would love to pivot.
We talked a little bit about the risksthat companies take when hiring CMOs.
Would love to pivot more specificallyto the CMO candidate side of things.
(23:26):
If you think about these risksthat we've talked about, oh, you're
going to spend a lot of money.
Oh, you're going tomaybe be the wrong fit.
Oh, all of these things.
How can CMO candidates quiet the concernsor address, that might be a better way
to put it, address and allay the concernsthat CEOs and investors have when CMO
candidate finds himself in the middleof a search where people are like, oh my
(23:46):
god, we're afraid you're going to be X.
One is you want to be as transparent andclear with the people you're communicating
to about, not only the results that youmight have achieved, but how specifically
you've achieved those results.
An important factor here, bythe way, is that it actually has
(24:06):
to be truthful and meaningful.
You'd be surprised how many people - youwouldn't be surprised, you've been
around this world a lot - how many peoplejust really exaggerate a lot of things.
The reality is people can tell whenyou exaggerate your impact because
you can't really describe what youpersonally did to drive that outcome.
(24:27):
So I think communicating at the rightlevel of specificity is incredibly
important to help people understand,walk them through the logic path that
you went through to achieve what you did.
I'll tell you one of my favorite interviewquestions that I ask almost everybody.
I hope nobody's listening who's goingto interview with me sometime because
(24:49):
it's supposed to be a surprise.
I always ask them, I say, tell meabout a time when you convinced
a company to make a major change.
I find that really helpful to havepeople walk through how they got a
company to do something differentthat they weren't doing before.
It does a couple of things.
(25:09):
One, it shows how people research andthink about a problem and identify
a problem in an organization.
Two, it helps you figure out howthey actually built up their case.
What was the logic chain that they usedto actually build that logical case, or
a financial case if that's necessary too?
(25:31):
How do they communicate that?
Then how do they actually deliverthe change across an organization?
Because one of the most important thingsthat any executive can do is actually
drive change in an organization.
So that's why I like toask that kind of thing.
And if someone can explain that,how you've driven change in an
organization, you allay a lot ofthose fears because it's a shortcut
(25:54):
to tell whether someone is effective.
I think that's fundamentally whatpeople are looking at when they
are unsure about hiring someone.
It's effectiveness.
That idea of being able to reliably andpredictably deliver the results they said
they were going to be able to deliverversus waving their arms and saying,
yeah, we should do something better.
(26:14):
We should grow more.
Effectiveness is reallyimportant to understand.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
So I feel like there's three T's right.
Being transparent, being truthful, andmeaningful, that's not a T, and then
the third one is transformation IQ,maybe that's a way to think about it.
Just practically in an interview, it feelslike you could spend half an hour on just
(26:37):
that kind of approach to change-making.
Is that what you do?
Or is it like, a five-minute
-If it's a short conversation, then I find out a lot.
[Erica laughs] Seriously.
You should be able to spendan hour talking about that.
So you often do have to cutpeople off, that's enough, right?
Can we summarize?
The point is, you will understand veryquickly how people really had an impact
(27:00):
on driving change in an organization whenthey describe to you how they did it.
And if they can't do that,then you'll learn a lot.
The way they communicate, the waythey get excited about it or not.
So that tells me a lot.
Is it, "Oh, my god, that was terrible.
Yeah, I can tell you."
Or do they have a spring in theirstep when they're communicating?
You just learn a ton about people whenyou ask them that kind of question.
(27:23):
I like that.
Thank you for sharing.
That's a question I always ask everybodyon the podcast is, you know, what
is your favorite interview question?
So that's great.
Final question for you, becauseI know we're running out of time
. Given the current climate, what's the advice that you would give your pre-CMO
self, if you look back, as relates toreducing risk in hiring and getting hired?
(27:44):
Or advice in generalfor the pre-CMO Peter?
I'd say there are a few thingsthat were helpful for me.
Let me put it that way, if that's useful.
One is I think it's really helpful thatyou have some diversity in experience.
What I mean by that is thatit's useful that you spend
some time outside of marketing.
Sometimes that's hard for peoplewho are in a role where they feel
(28:09):
like, I just want to keep going up.
Sometimes you need togo sideways to go up.
Sometimes you need to go back to go up.
So, I took a role, as an example,I was the head of corporate
marketing, for some reason.
I'm not a corporate marketingguy, but they gave me the job.
I was the head of corporatemarketing for a public company.
And I decided, because I was a loverof product, I actually have degrees
(28:30):
in physics and computer science,but I've never been paid to write a
line of code, which is pretty sad.
I really wanted to get closer toproduct, and what I decided to do is
I had a big group of people runningthis corporate marketing function,
and I took a job as an individualcontributor as a product manager.
It was a really important time inmy career because it teed me up
(28:52):
to understand the way the productdevelopment process worked.
It made me build business plans thatwere implemented, and it gave me a ton
of experience that was really usefulwhen I wanted to do things like be a GM
and that GM experience was important.
It highlights the second area.
It's critically important to understandthe financials of the business.
(29:14):
By the way, if you can understandeighth grade math, you can
understand the financials.
This is not high math.
Literally, it's addition and subtraction.
But it's really important to understandwhat the financial workings are of
the organization that you work in.
And I guarantee you, if you callup any head of FP&A and say, hey,
(29:36):
can you spend half an hour with meand just walk me through the P&L?
They will be delightedto walk you through that.
That understanding of the financesof a company and this willingness to
take not exactly the straight path.
Those are probably the two things thatwere most important to me as I looked
at growth opportunities in my career.
(29:59):
Wonderful.
I love that.
Thank you for sharing.
Quick question on themove to PM, effectively.
Did you feel like you hadto explain away at the time?
Whether it was when you're moving intothat role or for the next role you got?
Because I think that'ssometimes people's concern.
Oh, I like the jungle gym idea of careerdevelopment, but if I go backwards now,
(30:19):
is that going to preclude future growth?
Yeah, it's a great question, Erica.
I have to say there, I'm sure there's alittle bit of risk in doing that, because
people think that, oh, wait a minute,they're going backwards in their career.
In my case, it wasn't really.
It was a senior-level andindividual contributor, was
(30:39):
one thing that was useful.
I think I probably went into it with afair amount of bravado, whether it was
advised or not, that, hey, I'll be able tojust move on here and do the next thing.
And I happened to.
But the third thing that I'd recommendto people all the time in their careers,
especially in the meat of their careers,and that you're in year like five to
(31:00):
fifteen in your career, as an example,spend some time with the same company.
If you can find a company that youcan grow with, by far, the times in
my career where I grew the most werethese times where I was committed
to a company for a number of years.
What happens is, peoplewill give you a chance.
(31:22):
If you get in there, you work hard, youprove yourself, they're much more likely
to give you a chance to take that stretchassignment than they are to give someone
from the outside a stretch assignment.
And those are the areaswhere you really grow.
Sometimes you take a little risk if you dosomething that's a little bit non-linear
in your choices, but if you're therefor the long term, think four or five,
(31:49):
six, seven years with a company, as anexample, don't hop around for a year at
a time, then they're much more likelyto want to protect you and do the right
thing by you over a long period of time.
So I think for me, that really workedout because I've had a number of
opportunities where I've been with acompany for many years that's actually
given me lots of opportunity to try newthings and have that opportunity to grow.
(32:11):
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah, I love that.
Just own it.
Don't present it as a weakness.
It's, oh, this is a strategicchoice for me to do this and own it.
I bet the bravado tookyou far in that situation.
Wonderful.
Thank you so much forjoining the show, Peter.
This has been great.
Do you want to flash yourbook up for our video folks?
Peter wrote the nextCMO So that's one thing.
(32:33):
We'll put that intothe show notes as well.
Along with Scott and Dan,they wrote it with me.
So I can't
This trio of guys.
Yeah.
I don't
I'll have to tell you that whenI sold my company, Plannuh, I
actually sold the right to my book.
So, I don't make any money onthis, so don't worry about having
to buy this to make me happy.
I do think it was a useful tool forlots of CMOs out there along the way,
(32:54):
but that's, I have nothing else topromote, so, I guess I'll try and
promote the book because I think I'mdoing a good thing for CMOs in general.
Awesome.
Well, thank you again forjoining the show, Peter.
This has been great hearing from you.
Great.
Thanks for having me.
That was Peter Mahoney, ChiefCommercial Officer of GoTo
and author of The Next CMO.
(33:15):
Stay tuned for the next episode ofThe Get, coming in a couple of weeks.
Thanks for listening to The Get.
I'm your host, Erica Seidel.
The Get is here to drive 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.
(33:35):
If you liked thisepisode, please share it.
For more about The Get,visit TheGetPodcast.com.
To learn more about my executive searchpractice, which focuses on recruiting the
make-money marketing leaders rather thanthe make-it-pretty ones, follow me on
LinkedIn or visit TheConnectiveGood.com.
The Get is produced by Evo Terra andthe team at Simpler Media Productions.
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