Chris Koehler

Be BOLD and be willing to ask people for help. Reach out, do your homework, and network. Find resources, attend events, etc. When reaching out, be very specific on what you are trying to learn and offer to give back in any way. CMOs are some of the most giving leaders as it is in our DNA.

So, the simple truth is no one can be an expert across all disciplines of Marketing. Is it necessary to have direct experience across disciplines, say Demand Gen? No. Is it helpful? Yes. I believe there are two ways to gain valuable experience, direct and indirect involvement. Say your core competency is Product Marketing, but you want to get experience in Demand Generation or Comms. You can either get way outside of your comfort zone and ask to take on a new role in that specific discipline. Not all companies or leaders will go for this, but it is an incredible learning opportunity if you get the chance. Just admit what you don’t know, ask tons of questions from your internal and external peers. Realize you will make mistakes, but learn. I just had a campaign Marketer move into a PMM role. She is doing fantastic work. The benefit was she understood our product, culture, and audience. We have a strong leader who was willing to mentor her and give her a shot. The second way is more indirect. Build a strong relationship with your peer and be honest around what you are trying to learn. Be an observer in meetings that you would not normally attend. Absorb content and best practices as so much is free. Be honest with your leadership that this is an area of growth for you and ask for help and visibility in this area. Even raise your hand for a stretch assignment to gain experience in a low risk way. And once you become CMO, hire incredible people and get out of their way. Be transparent with them and learn from them. If you pretend to be an expert at everything, your team will know and see pretty quickly that you are outside of your depth, and you lose credibility on that front. When I took on the CMO role, I didn't know anything about PR or Comms. But I had strong leaders that I trusted. And I hired a great demand gen leader that I worked with before. I was transparent and let them lead.

While networking is important, building your reputation as someone who is both strategic and execution oriented is critical. The industry is very well connected so focus on being world class at what you do. Be a person that people can count on to deliver just a bit more than what is being asked. Be willing to help others for no other reason than it is the right thing to do. Be a continuous learner and ask lots of questions. If you do this, the opportunities will come. Also, don’t be afraid to reach out to senior leaders to ask questions or build connections. You will be surprised how many people will respond and connect. I have lots of conversations with people across the industry to network and learn. While it may not be obvious now, these type of encounters may yield interesting opportunities several years down the road. Being very deliberate and carving out time to learn and network is very important. ---- You can spend all of your time networking, but if you don’t build your reputation as someone who is trustworthy and has a reputation of execution, then that is a huge problem. Build it internally and externally as someone who leaders look to first to solve hard problems. Also be willing to say - I have a question, would you be willing to spend 2 minutes with me? Build the reputation first. In this industry, your reputation speaks volumes, and everyone is connected. Someone will backchannel you. If you don’t deliver on what you say you will do, it might come back to haunt you later.

Well, hopefully your first CMO job is working for a Founder/CEO who understands the value of marketing and the best way to learn this is to ask the CEO how they think about marketing in the interview process. You’ll know pretty quickly if they just care about certain aspects such as pipeline, PR, or storytelling. If they understand it, great! But if not, you’ll have to earn your place. A couple ways to do that: 1. Think like a GM, not a Marketer. CEOs and Founders don’t think in Marketing terms and jargon. Relate to them in their language. How are you going to grow the business? What efforts will Marketing do to grow revenue and reduce attrition? In this environment, how can we drive more efficiency in our spending and create healthier bottom lines? 2. Be accountable and data driven with metrics the leadership understands. Build a testing framework to show the impact of the team's work. Schedule regular reviews and brainstorming sessions to bring the Founder/CEO into fold so they also feel ownership. 3. Have a point of view on the business and the strategy. Don’t just stay in your lane, but have it on the overall business and they will see you in a different light. 

I’ve gotten asked this question a lot, and honestly there is no right answer or easy path. Every company has a different need, and as I’ve talked with aspiring VPs - it comes down to what the founder values and the biggest pain point that needs attention. As an example, here at Box, our founder cares a lot about our messaging, positioning, and the story that we tell the world. In this case, he looked for someone who could partner with that had strong Product Marketing experience. Another example is that the company has nailed the messaging but there’s no demand or maybe they have a demand gen engine built, but no brand. The question is: what does the company need, and do you have the right skillset to fulfill that? I believe Marketing is the most multi-disciplined C-suite role, and CMOs often talk about being a T-shaped marketer (deep in one discipline but broad across all). We know what success looks like for Sales (revenue) or Customer Success (retention or customer satisfaction), but for marketers it is not always so clear and you have to figure out how to measure and explain success. 

My role at a public unicorn company is radically different than when I was a marketer of 1 at a $10M company. When you’re at a small start-up you don’t have scalable systems or others to get the work done. You are in the thick of it, and it’s all hands-on. When you get to pre-IPO - you have a larger team and it’s more about how do you enable your team to do their best work? I’m less hands on day to day, and now my role is to provide guidance to pave the way, remove roadblocks, hire great people, and get out of the way. There are very few days where I'm creating content. The biggest question I think about now is how do I create a sustainable org that will get us to $2B+ in revenue? We want to be nimble, but we also need processes that stand the test of time. I think it’s a super contributor vs how well you enable and hire your team. At our scale, my time tends to gravitate to where I can make the biggest impact. And from there, I trust my leaders to go execute on those things that I don’t have the bandwidth to be a part of. Because the teams are big, I work to be aligned with the CEO, COO, CRO and CCO and it’s a lot more stakeholder management, building cross functional relationships, and being aligned on what we are working towards. 

This is very dependent on the role you are stepping into, but I am a big fan of the book, First 90 days. Be mindful to spend time in the first 30+ days listening to customers, prospects, employees, and investors/board on what is working, not working, opportunities, and challenges. Be careful not to alienate the team you are leading by criticizing what has been done before you. There is always a story behind it. In your first 60 days, work with your leadership and cross-functional partners to develop a strategy and plan of action. Where will the focus be? Make sure you have several quick wins along the way in the first 90 days. Establish an analytics framework on how you measure success and don’t strive for perfection. Encourage a test and learn mindset across the team allowing people to fail, but fail fast. Finally, quickly evaluate the team including your leaders to determine if you have the right mix of skills to accomplish your strategy and goals.