#202: Marketing Leadership | How To Build A High Performing B2B Marketing Org with Peter Mahoney, CCO at GoTo
Dec 16, 2024
auto_awesome
Peter Mahoney, Chief Commercial Officer at GoTo and author of The Next CMO, shares his insights on creating high-performing marketing organizations. He outlines 10 essential guidelines, emphasizing alignment with strategy, financial models, and accountability. Mahoney discusses the significance of clear roles and lean teams for effective leadership. He also touches on strategic hiring decisions, likening them to layoffs, and the importance of building a robust CMO operating system to adapt to market changes.
Building a high-performing marketing organization requires aligning with the overall strategy, ensuring clarity, and maintaining accountability among team members.
The unconventional path to becoming a CMO highlights that diverse experiences can lead to effective marketing leadership, challenging traditional hiring criteria.
Deep dives
Lead Response Times in B2B Sales
A recent study focused on lead response times within B2B sales teams revealed alarmingly slow follow-up durations. On average, it took companies over a day and five hours to respond to leads from their website. This delay is concerning, especially when buyers may have already shifted interest to competitors within minutes of submitting an inquiry. The need for faster response times highlights the importance of implementing automated scheduling tools, which can connect leads with sales teams more efficiently.
Importance of In-Person Events
The episode features discussions surrounding the value of in-person events for marketers, emphasizing their role in fostering community and engagement. A recent live event known as Drive attracted 200 attendees and received positive feedback, demonstrated by a high Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 88. Such gatherings not only provide opportunities for networking but also serve as a platform for sharing insights and experiences among marketing professionals. The host announces plans for future events, aiming to accommodate those who missed out this time around.
Navigating the Role of a CMO
The episode delves into the complexities of being a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), as highlighted by the speaker's unconventional journey to the role. Despite lacking traditional qualifications such as a degree in marketing or prior marketing-specific roles, the speaker has successfully held CMO positions in significant organizations. This narrative underscores that varied experiences can contribute to effective leadership in marketing, challenging the conventional criteria often seen in hiring practices. The speaker encourages aspiring CMOs to leverage their unique backgrounds rather than conforming to standard expectations.
Building a Marketing Organization
Effective marketing leadership requires strategic planning, execution, and team alignment with organizational goals. The speaker shares essential criteria for building a successful marketing organization, starting with aligning the marketing structure to the company's overall strategy. Additionally, it is crucial to ensure that the organization's framework is simple and clear, facilitating accountability and transparency among team members. Avoiding unnecessary layers within the organization and fostering a collaborative environment is also emphasized as key to maintaining operational efficiency and achieving desired outcomes.
This episode is from Drive 2024, our first-ever in-person event for B2B marketers in Burlington, Vermont. Peter Mahoney, Chief Commercial Officer at GoTo, and author of The Next CMO, shared strategies for building and leading high-performing marketing organizations.
Peter covers:
10 Guidelines for building (or re-building) a marketing organization
Running marketing: how to build your CMO operating system
5 strategies for effectively leading an organization
Timestamps
(00:00) - - Intro to Peter
(05:24) - - Are there requirements for being a CMO?
(10:22) - - Do you really want to be a CMO?
(10:51) - - How CMOs spend their time
(11:34) - - 10 Guidelines for building (or re-building) a marketing organization
(13:21) - - 1. Align to your marketing strategy
(14:21) - - 2. Ensure the financial model supports your organization
(16:16) - - 3. Make it simple
(16:51) - - 4. Build in clear accountability
(18:07) - - 5. Resist layers
(19:47) - - 6. Do not design around the individual
(22:31) - - 7. Clearly define what is a service center and what is an outcome center
(23:09) - - 8. Build the smallest organization necessary
(24:20) - - 9. Make a hiring decision as difficult as laying someone off
(25:20) - - 10. Define your full-time vs. part-time vs. outsource strategy
(28:08) - - Running marketing: Building your CMO Operating System
*** This episode of the Exit Five podcast is brought to you by our friends at Paramark. You’ve heard it before – every B2B marketer’s top pain point is marketing attribution. It’s complicated, messy, and too often leads to fights with your CRO over whose lead deserves credit.
That’s where Paramark steps in. Their platform makes it simple to understand what’s driving results (and what isn’t) with tools like marketing mix modeling and incremental testing. No more relying on outdated click attribution or chasing UTM links. Instead, Paramark gives you actionable insights across channels, campaigns, and geographies to help you grow.
Paramark's founder & CEO Pranav has been in your shoes as a B2B marketer. He’s so passionate about solving this problem, he’s offering listeners a free brand assessment. Pranav will personally analyze your brand’s performance and share his insights—an opportunity you don’t want to miss.
Slots are limited, so act fast. Head to paramark.com/brand-consult to claim your spot. Trust us, this is worth your time.
***
Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.