What do you think about your first 30/60/90 day goals when coming in as the Head of demand generation in a startup that didn't have demand gen managers before?

When coming in as the Head of Demand Generation in a startup, your 30/60/90 day plan will most likely include a few additional elements such as:

• Tracking and reporting infrastructure. You may need to do some infrastructure work such as setting up additional tracking and reporting. This is something I would absolutely start to tackle in your first quarter as it most likely will extend past the first 90 days.
• Education and addressing questions. You may have to have more educational conversations with your colleagues if there haven’t been previous demand gen managers. Be prepared for this and approach it from a thoughtful frame of mind.
• Documentation. You may find you have to document processes more in the absence of already established documentation. It’s helpful to start as you are going through the motions yourself.

This is an exciting position to be in because you can be a part of the foundational work that needs to happen. Building a function is very rewarding and will make a huge impact on the business.

If you are the first demand generation hire at a company, chances are you are going to need to advocate for some immediate changes to your funnel. They probably hired a demand generator because something needs to be addressed. However, question everything and confirm what needs to be addressed yourself.

Start by mapping out the funnel in detail. Figure out every entrance into your website and then map out each following step. In addition to the mapping, record the conversion rates for each one of those steps. 

Then schedule a meeting with senior leadership across the company and walk them through the funnel. Highlight all the areas where the conversion drops the most and then recommend process changes, fixes, and tests to address them. 

This exercise not only helps you work out your 30/60/90-day plan but also generates unanimous buy-in from the team. 

A start up without a demand gen manager has been relying either on organic leads or has been trying ad hoc tactics to boost the funnel.

• Know the current environment: It is important to understand the full extent of the existing campaigns, processes and their effectiveness. Engage with the sales teams to understand their priorities and areas where they need help.

• Understand the business objectives: The next step would be to understand the business objectives from the leadership and align accordingly. For example, if the need of the business is to boost top of the funnel, then the first 30 days would focus on setting up those campaigns. However, if the challenge is conversions, then the first 30 days should focus on the middle of the funnel with SDR/AE.

• Execute: The 60 day plan should be about setting up processes and frameworks and the next 30 days should see launch of new campaigns in order to get those quick wins and monitoring their effectiveness with the help of the processes set in place.