How do Demand Generation key stakeholders from other departments change as your company grows?

I love this question. When you’re a small company, the stakeholders are a pretty small group: You’ll work with a small number of sales reps who generally serve similar customer groups and operate using the same sales strategy. As a result, the type of demand gen work you have to do is generally pretty consistent and straightforward (not that it’s easy!). As companies grow, customer bases expand and evolve, making Demand Generation work increasingly complex. For example, companies will begin serv ...Read More

There are more of them! Identified stakeholders, approvers, owners need to be clear, and having a consistent framework to work allows for better documentation, tracking, alignment which in turn would ideally ensure projects are aligned to greater company goals and priorities. Identifying who should be involved right at the ideation stage makes this a lot easier. I.e. if it’s a product launch, product teams should be identified and brought in early to the project. Sometimes you learn this by maki ...Read More

As a startup grows, the dynamics of demand generation and key stakeholders involved in the process will indeed change significantly. It's a great question and something to be prepared for. Some thoughts: Early stage (seed/startup) key stakeholders: Founders/CEOs: Expect Founders to take a very active role in demand generation at this stage. Brace yourself - they will have many opinions and very strong opinions. Sales leadership: Collaboration with sales is crucial to align messaging with custome ...Read More

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

Stakeholders at smaller companies like start ups, tend to be higher level executive team members like founders and a smaller marketing team. As the company grows, Product Marketing, Sales, Finance (for monitoring RIO/CAC) and Operations (tech stack & lead routing) become more important.  Mid-market companies: generally, as a company becomes mid-market size, Regional teams start to emerge, Customer Success (to support retention/expansion) and Legal all become stakeholders.  Enterprise: this i ...Read More

The key stakeholders from other departments change due to the needs of the business changing. The swimlanes for demand generation typically become more defined. There are more processes and procedures in place based on what you manage. You’ll probably find that you go from wearing many hats with less clarity on your stakeholders to a more narrow focus with clearly defined stakeholders. Fast forward from a startup environment to an SMB or enterprise and the only constant is change. You may go fro ...Read More

The key stakeholders from other departments change due to the needs of the business changing. The swimlanes for demand generation typically become more defined. There are more processes and procedures in place based on what you manage. You’ll probably find that you go from wearing many hats with less clarity on your stakeholders to a more narrow focus with clearly defined stakeholders. Fast forward from a startup environment to an SMB or enterprise and the only constant is change. You may go fro ...Read More

In a small start-up, DG will likely be working very closely with leaders of Sales and Customer Success, as well as within Marketing to ensure that leads pass to the sales team, the website is updated, and campaigns have well thought out messaging and engaging designs. These marketing roles may not fall into dedicated functions at this point in time. As the company grows and functions get built out more, the size of all of these teams will change. Depending on your level, you will still be workin ...Read More

This question is very difficult to answer as it depends on the context and make up of each company and where they've chosen to invest resources depending on business needs. My high level answer is that key stakeholders from other departments will change as the company grows by typically being removed of their stakeholder duties. As companies scale, the hardest thing for people to do is "give away their Legos." But this is absolutely necessary as companies grow and teams and roles become more spe ...Read More