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- The CMO's Guide to CEOs
Maybe my last post was a bit too gloomy. I think my conclusion was sound: you need a CMO at a certain point to be the strategic guide through company decisions and itâs the kind of thing you canât leave to the executive team to do themselves. But it did touch on the issue of the CMO role being constantly under scrutiny in a way that you really donât see with, say, a CTO or something. The perception gap we all face. So what do you do about it?
Unfortunately, this one may not be your fault. Itâs just not in your control most of the time because the biggest factor that will determine your success or failure in your role is whether or not you have a CEO that âgets it.â Allow me to explain by breaking down the different types of CEOs Iâve encountered and how theyâre impacted my ability to succeed:
Type of CEO | Pros | Cons | How to work with them |
Engineer CEO (also sometimes Product CEO) | Absolutely floored by what marketing can do in cases where youâve made an obvious impact | Thinks marketing is/should be a math problem Thinks the longer a company can go without doing any marketing = đ | Help educate them. Engage them in discussions about what marketing they like. What other companies they think are doing a good job.
|
Finance/Accounting CEO | ÂŻ\_(ă)_/ÂŻ | âOMG WHO ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE AND WHY ARE WE PAYING THEM??â | Run! |
Outside âhired gunâ CEO | No emotional attachment to the company, just wants to win Usually âgetsâ marketing because theyâre professional CEOs and not founders who ended up being CEO Can often âunlockâ talent you didnât know you had by driving you harder - they know what Marketing can accomplish having driven success before themselves | Often bring their own stable, meaning you might be fired or layered Some come from finance/ private equity and bring with them the Cons above | You have like 60 days to prove to them youâre the shit. Work harder than youâve ever worked and make sure you understand what they see as your role. |
Sales CEO | They need you and completely understand what Marketing can do for them The last person who would say âwe donât need to do marketingâ | Theyâre needy and completely understand what marketing can do for them | Go to every pipeline meeting, help sales with anything they need, make sure sales is successful. Do things like golf outings, dinners, targeted events. Have a real conversation about leads and how the CEO thinks the company should get them, and what they see as Marketingâs role in lead flow and sales cycles |
âMarketingâ CEOs | They are influencers in their space, understand customers well, tastemakers. Your job just got way easier. Fun to work with, usually appreciates your work. Willing to take huge risks you canât take yourself Much easier to mold the whole company in the image marketing wants to project when the CEO is the one driving it | Loose cannon âSo what do I need you for?â (can happen, but rare in my experience) | Put a megaphone in front of them. Find ways to force-multiply what theyâre doing. Ensure nobody else is a spokesperson for the company but them (maximize impact by limiting to one personality when the personality is that good) Figure out where you overlap and how to manage those scenarios (e.g. reporters are going to call the CEO directly and bypass you â how should you handle that together?) |
Thereâs some overlap here (i.e. a Hired Gun CEO can be any of the other categories too, but rarely are they Engineer CEOs).
But the best kind of CEO can be any of these as long as they have the one thing that matters: âGet it.â They have to âget it.â They have to innately âgetâ that influencing people en masse is an effective way of driving business growth even while it is inherently difficult to measure. If you have someone who knows it when they see it, your life will be a lot better than if youâre with someone who doesnât know what âgoodâ looks like.
A helpful exercise to ferret out which one you have is to ask them: âwhat companyâs marketing do you admire?â Great interview question, actually. If they canât come up with one, or they say âNikeâ or some consumer brand, you probably are going to have a problem. If they give you a real answer of a company thatâs in your category or adjacent to it, dig deeper. What about their marketing do they admire? The answer will tell you a lot about what your job will look like.
Back in my career as a full-time CMO, I had the privilege to work for some of the best CEOs. Ones that have mentored me (James Beriker, CEO of Dapper), believed in me (Joe Zawadzki, CEO of MediaMath, Eran Shir, CEO of Dapper, Jonathan Aizen, CEO of Amitree), and enabled me to do some of my best work (Ari Paparo, CEO of Beeswax). If your CEO is one of those people (and youâre good), youâre going to be able to make a huge impact.