When addressing alignment with executive stakeholders it is important to drive clear goals, KPIs, RACIs, and a strategy that outlines the pros and cons. This can include the following: 1. Goal alignment: You need to align with both stakeholders up front on the core problem we are trying to solve. By driving this alignment you ensure that everyone is on the same page around the goals we are trying to achieve. Without this, your strategy won’t align. 2. Organized swimlanes: It is important to build a RACI with an ultimate decision maker, including who can make the final decision and escalation paths as needed if these two stakeholders disagree. 3. Influencer mindset alignment: It is your job to understand their core KPIs and business needs, which you can highlight in the options you share. This includes their personal and professional drivers, which may influence their decision-making later in the process. 4. A company-first strategy: The proposed strategy should include the pros, cons, and risks. Different leaders may assign different values to each of these areas. Ideally, you align these to your company or organization's priorities to make it easier to see from a company-first perspective. Ultimately, when you provide a suggested strategy, it should be the one that provides the overall company with the least amount of risk meeting the core objectives you agreed to solve for. If needed, you can use the escalation paths in your RACI, but ideally, doing the upfront alignment will be needed less often.

I look for three traits when I hire - 1) does this person have a strong sense of ownership especially around accountability and delivering results, 2) openness for feedback and a growth mindset - do they enjoy learning and want to improve on their approach and outcomes, and 3) will this person be a good culture fit. At a former company I've worked at, we used to call this the "eye of the tiger".

First, congratulations on your new role! I love this question because it suggests you have already come to the realization that there are significantly more things that you could establish as KPIs than things you should establish as KPIs. A good manager earlier in my career told me once that good goals are those you can a) directly influence and b) easily translate into detailed plans to achieve them. In other words, try to avoid “goals by wishful thinking,” which is often how early-stage companies approach setting Marketing objectives. If I was in your shoes, here’s where I’d start: 1. Understand the Sales Process: If you haven’t already, define the lead stages & what will happen at each. Is Marketing qualifying leads or is Sales? This will help you understand what your team is accountable for vs what you can/should hold Sales accountable for. (Typical KPIs: MQLs, SALs, SQLs) 2. Know How Much Pipe You Need: This is harder in early-stage companies where GTM processes are less mature and changing rapidly; however, you should be able to establish baselines for stage-to-stage CVR% and C/W%, which are critical to understanding how much pipeline you need to generate. (Typical KPIs: Marketing Contributed Pipeline (MCP), Marketing Originated Bookings (MOB). 3. Establish a North Star: Finally, start by asking what the business is trying to achieve and on what timeline. What % of growth is Marketing expected to drive? If this is a brand new company or nascent category, awareness might also be a challenge that you need to invest in solving. Regardless, starting with the big picture will help you understand where to allocate resources and whether your budgets are sufficient to generate what the business is expecting of you.

When transitioning from a company with established demand generation to one where you're building it from the ground up, you should expect several significant differences: Resourcing You should expect to find yourself evaluating the true state of available resources. This is precisely why you've been hired - to build and optimize: * Data visibility limitations - Basic information like conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, or even clean prospect lists may need development * Tech stack opportunities - Tools you previously utilized (marketing automation, analytics, etc.) might need implementation or refinement * Content development needs - You'll likely need to create foundational content that speaks directly to buyer pain points Relationships In established demand gen environments, sales and marketing usually have defined workflows. When starting fresh: * Building trust is essential - Sales teams will be looking to see if marketing can deliver tangible value * Alignment opportunities - You can establish shared definitions of what constitutes a "qualified lead" from the beginning * Process creation - Implementing new lead routing, scoring, or follow-up processes is an opportunity to optimize from day one Working with Founders and Leadership * Learn and borrow from the founder's vision - If you're working directly with a founder, absorb their perspective on the category, company values, and how teams work * Identify their strengths - Depending on their functional background, determine specific areas where should leverage their expertise * Setting expectations together - Help leadership understand what will yield results when, potential failure points, and realistic timelines Operational Foundations * Operations & Analytics - These are the foundation to your planning and decision-making. Determine what is "good enough" to start with and prioritize hiring in this area as soon as possible * Balancing gut and data - Respect past work but evaluate programs based on their actual impact. Build conviction around what will work and structure these as experiments * Timeline realities - You'll need to manage the balance between pressure for quick wins and building sustainable programs The Cultural Opportunity Building demand generation often allows you to shape organizational mindset: * Education as leadership - You have the opportunity to establish marketing concepts that will become standard practice * Measurement maturity - You can introduce the data-driven approach that modern demand gen requires * Patience with purpose - Help leadership understand the investment timeline while delivering incremental wins In short, the journey from established to ground-zero demand generation is about strategic vision, stakeholder alignment, and balancing short-term wins with long-term building.

Here are three key approaches I use to build successful partnerships: 1. Stay Open-Minded and Humble: You can take your work seriously without always taking yourself too seriously. At Own, this is one of our core values. We spend over 40 hours a week at our desks, grinding, performing, and striving for outcomes – and it's hard work. Acknowledging that "work is hard!" is okay. Bringing humility and laughter to your work and your partnerships can foster successful relationships. While dedication and commitment to your professional responsibilities are crucial, maintaining a sense of humor and not being overly serious helps you stay grounded, approachable, and resilient. It promotes a positive work environment, encourages creativity, and prevents burnout by reminding you to enjoy the journey and not be overly critical of yourself or your teammates. 2. Adopt a One-Team Mentality: To drive successful and lucrative partnerships and advance your career, you need people in your court. Align your efforts with the broader mission and vision of your organization, maintain open and transparent communication, and share accountability for outcomes. This creates a sense of ownership and responsibility. Mutual respect and support enable leveraging diverse skills to innovate and solve problems together. Flexibility and adaptability ensure that the team can meet objectives in changing circumstances. Fostering a positive work environment built on trust, encouragement, and recognition keeps everyone motivated to contribute their best. 3. Embrace the Golden Thread Principle: Adopting and living by the golden thread principle (my personal philosophy!) means embracing a unified approach to work. It starts with a shared vision and goals, where everyone understands the "why" behind their tasks and how they contribute to overall success. Open communication ensures that regular updates, challenges, and decisions are shared, keeping everyone connected. As we scale and develop new programs, we document our processes to maintain operational rigor. A customer-first focus drives everyone to deliver maximum value. Departmental alignment ensures that cross-functional teams work towards common goals with no surprises. Lastly, accountability and ROI are crucial—if we can’t measure an initiative and determine its impact, we won’t pursue it. By incorporating these approaches, you can build stronger partnerships, drive success, and create a positive and productive work environment.

Growth marketing is a field which requires one to be constantly on their feet. So the biggest quality in someone should be adaptability to change and ability to react quickly to the market. A lot of the work involves analytics, SEO, so having those skills will give you an edge. But what makes you truly successful is to understand the requirements of the company and then using those skills to achieve your goals.

Demand generation often serves as a bridge between sales and product, but the way I collaborate with each team can vary significantly. Here’s my high-level approach: * Understand business goals and metrics: Focus on understanding the goals and metrics each team owns. Sales typically tracks revenue-related KPIs like pipeline and bookings, while the product team focuses on adoption metrics - such as activation and retention - and usage, including breadth and depth. In self-serve model, product might also prioritize the growth of paying customers and self-serve revenue. To align demand generation efforts, work to establish shared goals or, at minimum, clarify how marketing supports these objectives. * Use BI reporting for alignment: I eliminate silos with joint dashboards built in Tableau and Looker, tailored to each team’s needs - real-time pipeline for sales, usage trends for product. Understanding how data is captured ensures reporting aligns with their priorities, keeping everyone on the same page. * Create consistent rituals: We review these dashboards in weekly or bi-weekly cadence with respective teams, spotting business trends and adjusting demand gen/ sales/ product strategies. Note: You can also create separate reporting for operational purposes, tailored for the marketing team to use alongside joint dashboards Example of marketing/ sales alignment: * Marketing contributes % into the overall pipeline. * Marketing/ sales meet weekly using Tableau, pulling data from Salesforce and other sources and analyze top-funnel (eg. leads, MQLs, SQLs) and down-funnel metrics (eg. meetings, Stage 1 opps), tracking conversion rates between stages. This reveals issues - like slow MQL-to-SQL progression - prompting discussions and joint solutions. Example of marketing and product alignment: * Marketing plays a crucial role in driving customer acquisition and activation. * Collaborate with the product team to use Tableau or another tool to track and visualize performance metrics end-to-end, from acquisition through to retention and paid conversion.

Effective OKRs for demand gen are measurable objectives that drive impact or growth in key areas such as acquisition, pipeline, awareness, and engagement. Before creating OKRs, it's crucial to have a firm grasp of not only your team's specific goals but also the broader company objectives. This ensures that your marketing efforts and the OKRs you develop will ladder up to these higher-level objectives. This approach elevates your OKRs from good to great and enables you to tailor them more effectively, making them more specific and relevant. For instance, if launching a new product is a top company-wide priority, then your OKRs should be refined accordingly. Here are a couple of examples: * Decent OKR: Source X% of site traffic * Better OKR: Source X% of traffic to the new product site page * Decent OKR: Source $X in sourced opportunities * Better OKR: Source $X in sourced opportunities, with Y% being new product opportunities

If you find that volume is sparse in digital channels like organic and paid, here are a couple suggestions: 1. Conferences Your prospects will always try to be leveling up. If they aren't using the world wide web for this, then they are attending their industry specific conferences. Experiment with trying a few different conferences in a calendar year just to determine if it's worthwhile to fish there. 2. Referrals Spin up a referral program and use the network of your existing customer base to spread the word on your behalf. Make sure you incentivize both the referrer and the referee. 3. Co-marketing webinars This is a very economical way to grow your audience. Find non-competitor companies that are also serving your prospects and ask them to do a co-marketing webinar with you. Set the precedent that you and they will promote the webinar to your own audiences and then share the registration and attendee lists afterwards. 4. Invest in building out your TAM (total addressable market) If they aren't using digital channels, chances are you are going to need to invest in ABM and sales outbound. Prior to doing this, put a lot of effort into identifying your TAM. Not only identifying the companies, but then enriching the accounts with useful information. Your going to need tools and resources like Zoominfo, Clearbit, Clay, and Virtual Assistants to get this done.

This can be a challenge, but generally once you have one or two, the rest become easier over time. A few approaches to consider: 1. Run analysis to understand who is relevant to the audience you're targeting and would be a hook for them to see. I've worked with social media agencies to look at specific handles for the key contacts I'd like to target to then analyze in aggregate who were the top commonly followed influencers and then worked to book those luminaries/thought leaders/authors to speak at my event. 2. Check with your C-Suite and who they know that could be a friendly to recruit as a subject matter expert/firestarter. Often times, the approach is to lean into the business solution that your product solves as part of the invite. However, staying more in the thought leadership realm and having your C-Suite lead a conversation on the current top of mind challenges and priorities in the space and positioning the invite to be about learning and networking w/ likeminded peers may help. 3. Depending on the title you're targeting, it can be relatively easy to hook Directors at large organizations via hospitality, email campaigns, etc. With the executive audience, you could also consider building research and using it as the hook to join and hear the latest to keep pace with the advancements in your space. 4. Depending on your budget, you may want to start with a balance of third party sponsorships where they will generate the audience for you to ensure you're hooking relevant top companies to start and capturing their contact info to engage later for your proprietary events. This largely depends on your event strategy and if it's a mix of audience members across the buyer journey.