Laura Lewis

Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer for this one. I have never actually had success with a 3rd-party demand generation agency! I truly believe this is a role that requires a level of project management and organizational understanding that you cannot outsource without heavy involvement from someone internal to the organization. And now with generative AI entering marketing workstreams, nurture emails can quickly written up by AI and then edited by an internal human in much less time than i ...Read More

Every organization is different, and I always start with looking at both historical data and benchmarks. Generally, the lower the average deal size, the higher the percentage of inbound leads should be. For example, if your ADS is low (let's say $5000 or under), it's not very efficient to have both SDRs and AEs spending time researching contacts and cold prospecting, especially since cold prospecting converts at low rates. In terms of time spent to get a deal, a large % of the deal size will be ...Read More

I find interviews to be the most successful as a hiring manager when I prep the questions I want to ask in advance. For a 30-minute interview, I'll have 6 or 7 questions ready to go. These questions are a mix of situational questions "Tell me about a time when..." and more general questions around the person's goals, strengths and weaknesses, and achievements. I'll also ensure that any cross-functional partners in the process have a good understanding of the seniority of the ideal candidate we a ...Read More

I have some standard 30-60-90 bullets that I apply to any new role. Roughly, those look like this: 30 days - "Listen and Learn" Complete formal onboarding Get to know my team/boss/peers Schedule introduction meetings with cross-functional peers Understand my job description and key responsibilities Review current performance data, budgets, and plans Understand company long-term goals and strategy and how I fit in there 60 days - "Find the Red" Continue with 30 day items Dig deeper into metrics, ...Read More

When I'm looking for a new role, I have a couple of steps in my process. First, I narrow down the job titles and types of companies I'm looking for. This might mean I only apply to Director of Demand Generation jobs at SaaS companies over 500 employees. At the manager level, decide if you're looking for Manager, Senior Manager, what type of company your experience best aligns with or you are most interested in, and if there is any other criteria that is important to you. Before beginning intervi ...Read More

There are so many ways to answer this question, depending on your GTM strategy and organization! The key, no matter the differences, it to be selective and targeted. There are likely many people you WANT to sell to, but who is most likely to actually become a Closed Won deal? That is where you need to focus. Focus is the key to success in ABM. The best place to start is to have a clear understanding of your target market and its size. Are you a horizontal SaaS company that can sell to any IT Dir ...Read More

One of the mistakes I see most often (and this applies to any interview) is not doing your prep work. Take 15 minutes to read about the company and understand what they do. The goal of this isn't to answer the question "What do you know about us?" but to inform the questions you ask your interviewer. For example, if I know the company I'm interviewing with sells AI technology, I can ask about how they are dealing with the popularity of ChatGPT. Or, if the company sells into real estate, I can as ...Read More

Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and Operations. Marketing - you're leading the charge here. You own the GTM strategy and persona and messaging research (Product Marketing), the content and asset creation (Content/Design), and the targeting and campaign launches to move the accounts down the funnel (Demand Generation). Operations - you're ensuring the account scoring is working, handling all technical implementation of tools, and making sure everything syncs to the CRM and is visible to sales ...Read More

Funnel stage, persona, and topic. Funnel stage - is this content for someone who has never heard of your company and what you do before, or is it for someone who has been all over your website? The former will need to be introduced to what you do in a way that is interesting and engaging (think "thought leadership") where the latter will be more interested in your company (think case studies). Persona - who is this content more relevant for? If you're selling to Analytics/Operations folks, is th ...Read More