#149: Marketing Leadership | 16 Lessons I Wish I Knew As First Time B2B Marketing Leader

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Jun 13, 2024

Experienced marketing leader Dave shares 16 lessons for new marketing leaders, from forgetting acronyms to spending the budget wisely. He emphasizes strategic storytelling, mastering internal communication, and partnering with finance and ops. Dave advises making hiring a priority, creating momentum through individual initiatives, and getting comfortable making bold bets. He stresses the importance of alignment with sales, understanding the CEO's priorities, and prioritizing data-driven decisions.

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ADVICE

CEO Focus

Focus on revenue and story when updating the CEO.
These are the two things CEOs care about most.

ADVICE

Show Your Work

Assume nobody knows what marketing does or how it impacts company goals.
Relate marketing work back to company goals every chance you get.

ADVICE

Communication Rhythms

Use Slack to share work-in-progress updates, even if imperfect.
Proactively share weekly, monthly, and quarterly marketing recaps.

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Dave shares the 16 lessons he wishes he knew as a first-time marketing leader, going from marketing manager to CMO in four years. This is a recording from Metadata's DEMAND 2022 virtual event in October 2022. The lessons include:

1. Forget acronyms
2. The story is the strategy
3. Think hard about “offers”
4. Push your team past incremental thinking
5. Get on the same page as sales
6. Don’t “be” finance and ops...partner with them
7. Master internal communication
8. Articulate the strategy
9. Think short-and-long-term
10. Understand what the CEO cares about
11. Make hiring your job, not a side project
12. Create your own momentum
13. Your job is to get the job done
14. But do the job first, before hiring externally
15. Get comfortable making bets without perfect data
16. Spend the budget (all of it)

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