AMA: Pipeline360 Vice President of Marketing, Matt Hummel on Influencing the C-Suite

In smaller companies, it's often easier to have broader visibility. Often times marketing will be featured on company town halls, or there may be a more cohesive relationship with the entire sales organization. As companies grow, it becomes harder to stay connected with folks across the org. You have to rethink your meeting cadence, etc. The best recommendation I have and have used at multiple companies is to regularly (i.e., every 6 months) work with your team to determine who your key stakehol ...Read More

It's important to know that it's not your job to convince everyone of your strategy. Ultimately, you are both responsible and accountable for the strategy, execution, and results. Your job is to collect input, perspective, and ensure alignment with business objectives. It's pretty normal for people to disagree - but remember, it's your neck on the line! One of the best lessons I learned as a marketer was that you will never make everyone happy, and not everyone will believe in your plan. And whi ...Read More

Strong understanding of the business goals/objectives, and ultimately how your work aligns and is impacting those goals The ability to tell a good story - demand gen is a lot about science, but the art of it is as equally important, and often a lot more interesting to c-suite members. Be able to tell a compelling story about your campaign - why you created it, who it was targeting, how it aligned to goals, and ultimately how it delivered. Bring both quantitative and qualitative data A really str ...Read More

I aligned myself with several people across the org to help with this. I actually worked with my leader to develop a plan. But it was more than just who I should meet with - it was also why. For me, this had me meeting regularly, and with clear purpose, with folks from product, sales, other areas of marketing, and also with a senior leader in another function who served as a mentor for me. I also would ask to present regularly on sales meetings, and ultimately that helped me establish my reputat ...Read More

Before you ask, make sure you truly need additional resources. We're operating in a 'profit at all costs' model for the most part today, and asking for more resources is not always the right answer. Start by ensuring you have solid processes in place and that your team is operating very efficiently. Look also at what you're team is working on - i.e., is there anything that could come off your plate that isn't truly adding value? If you still end up realizing you need more resources, it's time we ...Read More

It starts with aligning on outcomes. Oftentimes demand gen teams get pressured to "do more" - more campaigns, more leads, more activities - that's where I have seen many teams struggle. Or when the overall go-to-market strategy isn't scalable - for example, if the demand gen team is expected to create campaigns for every single product - vs. from a solution / theme perspective. The key here is aligning on outcomes. What is the expected impact from the team - sourced/influenced pipeline? MQL volu ...Read More

They focus on metrics that don't matter to them. All of a demand gen's KPIs - or leading indicators - are important. But not to the c-suite. And to take it one step further, even more important (to them) metrics such as pipeline and revenue are lagging indicators. While it's important to showcase what you've done, focus more on what you've learned, and then also on the future predictions / outcomes of your upcoming or in-flight campaigns. Build confidence with the c-suite that you're building an ...Read More