What's your framework to prioritizing needs/deliverables when you're the first demand generation manager at a company establishing the function?

The prioritization should align with your business objectives. Those overarching goals decided by your sales and marketing leadership team should formulate a foundational layer for you to build from.   From there you can prioritize the programs based on the largest gaps that need to be filled. Are you needing Leads? Content? Events? Sales Materials? Digital or ABM programs? You don't have to focus on one thing at a time, so make sure to be able to multitask.  Sorting priorities from most critica ...Read More

Known impact above all else.  Find the most impactful thing to work on as quickly as possible. To get there, I use the following. 1. Create a short list of items to focus on by using: Critical thinking (i.e. who's my desired customer, what matters to them, where do they hang out, etc.) Pattern matching (i.e. other businesses/business models do it this way Historical data (i.e. what's working in the past) 2. Use the above and start small and scrappy Forms before databases One-offs before template ...Read More

In order to prioritize needs/deliverables you first have to understand the associated goal(s). Based on this, you can work backwards to better understand what will drive the desired outcome. It’s easy to quickly become overwhelmed as the one demand generation manager. Prioritization is key. Ask questions about deadlines. Be sure to have a solid understanding of scope while also managing scope creep. Lastly, it’s important to clearly articulate blockers, dependencies, and set realistic expectatio ...Read More

Align with the business objectives! That’s the framework. Understand and fix the gaps. You deliver whatever the business needs.   Sometimes, they may already have it, and just not know it, so as a demand gen manager, your job becomes to sift through the existing resources and deliver to the business. If it doesn’t exist, then identify the most effective way to deliver it. Are they asking for more leads? Plan to deliver more leads (because you are new and need to establish credibility), but meanw ...Read More

I really try to keep this simple. I know this isn't always possible but if you can prioritized based on two facets: Does the thing not exist and NEEDS to exist. For example you might be selling a consumer good and you don't have an email letting customers know to review your product and where they can get support. Or you have a SaaS app and you don't have a welcome email for new customers. There's some tactics/deliverables that just have to be done. What is the potential impact. You have to do y ...Read More

Establishing the function is a different beast than coming into an organization and reviewing data to find the red and focus on improvements there. There might not be data if the function is new. If that's the case, the most important thing to do is to get data. Work with an Operations partner - or learn some technical skills - or hire a consultant to help - to make sure you have a funnel. It can be the original SiriusDecisions waterfall - there's no reason to go crazy at this point. All you're ...Read More

When you're the first demand gen hire, your job isn't to "do demand gen." It's to build the engine while proving it works. My framework has three lenses: revenue proximity (what's closest to pipeline?), reversibility (do cheap, undo-able things before expensive, slow ones), and leverage (pick work that compounds, like one ICP definition unlocking five campaigns). In your first 90 days: (1) define ICP and funnel stages with Sales, (2) instrument the funnel so you can see where leads die, (3) fix ...Read More