The CMO Job Search Is a Two-Way Street

[00:00:00] Hello, Renegade marketers. If this is your first time listening, welcome. If you're a regular listener, welcome back.

[00:00:07] In this episode, executive recruiter, Hugh Marshall of Heidrick and Struggles joins one of our monthly huddles for CMOs in transition, known as the Transition Team to offer a clear read on today's CMO market. He explores why some CMO roles in PE backed in growth stage companies are far riskier than they first appear, where alignment tends to break down and why the smartest candidates do as much diligence on the company as the company does on them.

[00:00:42] If you like what you hear. Please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. You'll be supporting our quest to be the number one B2B marketing podcast. Alright, let's dive in. I.

[00:00:54] Welcome to Renegade Marketers Unite, possibly the best weekly podcast for CMOs and everyone else looking for innovative ways to transform their brand drive, demand, and just plain cut through proving that B2B does not mean boring to business. Here's your host and chief marketing Renegade Drew Nier.

[00:01:23] Hello, transition team and other hustlers. I'm excited to, uh, introduce you to Hugh Marshall, a senior executive at Heidrich and struggles also in charge of the marketing practice at Heidrich. someone who focuses on placing CMOs at. Particularly tech companies. And, and Hugh, I probably butchered your introduction, cause I'm not working from notes, which is unlike me.

[00:01:49] But, uh, welcome, uh, Hugh. And feel free to add anything, uh, of interest to my introduction.

[00:01:57] No. Well, drew, thanks for having me again. It's, uh, great to see all of you. Some names and faces I definitely recognize as well and, and others that I don't. as Drew mentioned, I. Exclusively focus on placing senior marketing leaders.

[00:02:11] half of what I do is full stack CMO, but then the other half is direct reports to A CMO across all of the, the verticals that you would anticipate. Growth, demand generation, product marketing. Uh, corporate marketing, Broad from a client perspective, we don't, we actually do more work within venture and private equity than we do with public companies.

[00:02:30] and the majority of what we actually do is at that one to $500 million PE range. as that's where this seems to be the largest amount of turnover that happens within this function, unfortunately. you know, I'm here to answer questions. What's unique about what, what I do is I get to see.

[00:02:45] The world of marketing through the lens of our clients. And, and a lot of those people aren't marketeers by background. I could tell you the searches on one hand where the CEO or the president was a former CMO, so it's an uphill battle in this function. Um, but looking forward to the discussion.

[00:02:59] So, um, I realized, uh, one was I wasn't your interviewer, at the super huddle, so No.

[00:03:06] The last No, I wasn't. And the last time you and I were together, we were on a panel, both of us. Yeah. Uh, talking about the rule, you said something really important. A hundred million to 500 million PE backed. I read somewhere that that is the combination of the lowest possible CMO tenure, something like 17 months at PE back firms.

[00:03:26] Does that sort of line with line up with what you're saying?

[00:03:29] It doesn't surprise me at all. that data's hard to track because it, it changes so frequently and depending on the year, there's so much turnover there because that's the size and stage where. There, there's growth at every size and stage.

[00:03:41] Of course there is, but you know, going from 100 to 200 is a completely different animal than going from two 50 to 500. And where we do this, the least amount of work is actually. At that 500 to a billion range. 'cause at that point something's working and it's clearly working for a good amount of time.

[00:03:57] But then once we get to the billion dollar size and stage, that's when we do a lot of work again. it's just interesting to spot some of these cycles. However, I will say that even in the last six months, we've done far more 500 to a billion dollar work than we have in the last couple of years. So we're seeing a slight trend and shift in that regard.

[00:04:14] But Drew. There's a lot of turnover that happens from a PE standpoint. that could be a number of factors. the, the ti time in which private equity companies are holding onto their assets, new CEOs coming in, new investment that happens. And you know, this isn't three, four years. This is 5, 6, 7, 8 years plus.

[00:04:32] And there's gonna be changes from an ELT standpoint. Marketing's never the first change, but it always is a change eventually. But there's still a huge amount of growth opportunity at the same time.

[00:04:41] So I wanna make sure that, it, it feels like there are more CMOs landing. In the last six months than there were 18 months ago.

[00:04:50] Fair?

[00:04:51] Correct.

[00:04:51] Yeah. Okay. And why do you think that is? Why, I mean, it's are because these aren't startups. These are, in fact, I'm seeing more mergers of companies. I mean, Clary and SalesLoft merged. That's two CMOs that became one. So where are these opportunities? How, how is it that the market seems to be warm, uh, if not hot right now?

[00:05:12] Yeah, the market seems to be warm and hot, a lot warmer and hotter drew than this time last year. I would say personally and professionally. I'm seeing a lot of people landing at some venture backed businesses. Venture seems to be in a good spot at the minute, especially from an AI native standpoint.

[00:05:26] There's a lot of money being put into businesses, and these are quote unquote startups that I'm seeing, but they're startups that are already gaining strong traction from a revenue standpoint. It's not a $5 million startup. It's a $50 million startup, $20 million startup. So there's some people that.

[00:05:41] Want to be in AI native businesses. And so the risk that they're taking is going to a vertically aligned AI company to, to do that and hope that it pays off for whichever exit acquisition, et cetera. but there's more of those companies now than we've ever had before, and that means that the supply and demand issue, kind of works itself out in that regard, which is a good thing.

[00:06:01] I, the nervousness that I have is. Which of those companies just gets acquired? Right. how does that stand out differently from what other company is doing? You know, there's, there's very vertically aligned businesses, which is, is always kind of interesting to see.

[00:06:15] Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt some of these businesses will fail.

[00:06:18] Some will be merged and yeah, who know, who knows? And some will limp along. but it's good because that makes up for the, the merged, brands. So let's just focus on that for a second. Ai, AI native companies. for, for those present or those listening, what does it take to get one of those roles? And because.

[00:06:39] Look, we're dealing with a short period of time. It's hard for any CMO to say, I'm an AI native CMO, right? I mean, unless they were, you know, a founder at philanthropic, in which case they probably aren't looking for another CMO role. What, how are CMOs presenting themselves as AI savvy, if that's even the right term, and what's the best case that they can make?

[00:07:05] Look Drew, it's a very good and very hard question to answer candidly, because the first part of it, how do you get one of those AI native roles? I think the self-awareness piece is important here. If you think about who Anthropic have brought in, who OpenAI have brought in, they're bringing in scale, like they're bringing in leaders from meta, from Salesforce, from ServiceNow.

[00:07:26] So they're clearly not doubling down from an AI standpoint, but they are doubling down from a how do we get to double digit billion? From 10 to 50, from 50 to a hundred, et cetera. So you're gonna see more of that happening candidly. But some of the earlier AI native businesses, that's where you could have the opportunities more, I would assume.

[00:07:45] a lot of my clients. Even those, when we have worked with the big native AI players, their first question to us is never, what's this person done from an AI perspective? It's like, how have they scaled and gone through growth and complexity, and what's their hyperscale experience more so than what's their AI credibility?

[00:08:01] Candidly, I think where marketeers have the opportunity with ai, I mean it's, it's limitless at the end of the day, but. Most companies are thinking about, look, what does adding AI tools to legacy workflows, that's just going to yield fairly marginal gains. But if you're redesigning processes, that's going to yield exceptional gains.

[00:08:21] And how are you doing that through ai? There's no right or wrong way with ai, yet everybody will have a different opinion of a, a tool or an agent that they created that does something very well versus somebody else, and it's about just being as exploratory and as hands-on with this as you can be. We've got a fairly short shelf life before this becomes absolutely beyond paramount to any client that will be putting it as part of a case study interview process, or however that may be.

[00:08:48] But right now, there's not a critical mass of, okay, well everybody did this one thing in AI and that worked, so we're all gonna kind of move to that model. I think we're seeing it a lot from a content creation standpoint with blog posting with, a conversations in A CMO for a public company and hey, how have you utilized AI the most?

[00:09:06] And, and her mention was definitely on the content side of the house, and it's not reduced workforce as much as she'd anticipated, but it definitely 20 people out of a hundred could be done through AI at least initially. you. Doing as much as you can from an AI perspective will just go an incredibly long way to be as best informed and actually have tangible results.

[00:09:28] And not just, here's a good process, but here's what it yielded.

[00:09:31] Has anyone suggested yet as part of their interview process and their candidacy, that I am prepared to completely redesign marketing from the ground up with AI at it, at at the core.

[00:09:46] I've not heard it from any of my clients. Drew. That is a very heavy lift and it's, That's paid work candidly.

[00:09:52] Yeah, no, I, it's right around the corner. And I do think that, because the, the, this content story that, that CMO told is that's a low yield story. That's just looking at existing things, doing things the way we always did it.

[00:10:05] Can we do it faster? As you said, it's a low yield, but if we could rethink, go to market and rethink marketing and walk in with it, then in fact by. New ways of going to market, we might actually be able to you know, 10 x employee productivity, 10 x impact. and that's the thing. I was just wondering if anybody is there yet promising that

[00:10:26] I've not heard it.

[00:10:26] I've not seen it. Okay. I don't, I think it'll still be a while. But we, we are anticipating it to become more and more of it's always been important for the last couple of years, but it, it's just under such a big spotlight right now. The, the candidly the problem is even if you're talking about look, what's a good demand generation campaign or how do you think about messaging, positioning our product products at vis-a-vis our competitors?

[00:10:46] A lot of CEOs don't know what that answer is candidly, or how you go about doing that. At what point are they also gonna be in a position where they know what good AI marketing looks like and they're gonna respond positively to whatever you may end up sharing with them. That's the harder part of all of this is marketing is still widely misunderstood.

[00:11:05] and everybody has a very different perspective on what they think good looks like. So that's, that's the hard part here.

[00:11:10] Are you seeing successful candidates? Does it feel like they are preparing. Well, this is two part question. Mm-hmm. Are they preparing differently? That's part one and part two. Are they being, is the process of hiring evolving as a result of just, you know, any number of market forces including ai?

[00:11:31] I think yes to both parts, drew, I personally feel that this was driven more because of what happened during the COVID era where. Individuals just made moves so quickly and hiring was so competitive at that point because every company had funding, every company was gonna, IPO, every company had unicorn status.

[00:11:49] and every company had a lot of money to go and do it. So a lot of people took jobs that maybe they shouldn't have taken. A lot of people hired people that maybe they shouldn't have hired, and it's not because they weren't. You know, they didn't have the right skillset. It could just be that it wasn't the right alignment.

[00:12:02] their marketing background was more product centric and at that period everybody wanted demand generation leaders or they doubled down on PLG and now it's stuck because they need to move to SLG. so the process is different because. We kind of are at this hybrid of in-office and not in office.

[00:12:18] And so that's come back into the equation very aggressively. And then it's also the, the,

[00:12:22] oh, let's talk about that before we go off it. Okay. When you say it's come back, it, and just to clarify, employers are insisting that CMOs. live and work and be in the market of the headquarters.

[00:12:38] It depends drew on the client candidly.

[00:12:40] And again, there's gonna be more flexibility from a VC client than there will be from a x billion dollar public company. But as a standard rule, if we were to put numbers behind it, 70% of our clients are, are wanting their leaders as a CMO to be locationally close to hq.

[00:12:56] Right.

[00:12:56] I, I still haven't done a five day a week CMO search.

[00:12:59] I've heard a few that are out there, and ironically, they're the ones that have been on the market for the longest, um, right. But, you know, some form of hybrid two, three days a week. Even with the, the largest technology companies, most of them are only hiring in certain hubs. Not necessarily hq, but okay.

[00:13:16] You can either be Seattle, New York, Austin, San Francisco, San Jose, et cetera. But we, we are seeing a lot of that. Again, from a venture perspective, there's probably gonna be more openness there than there would be for public companies. And private equity is somewhere in the middle. Right.

[00:13:34] And what about relocation are, in some cases, I mean, look, if you're, you talked about some of these people recruiting from ServiceNow and Meta and, and so those are.

[00:13:43] And they're looking for that kind of scale and this person has to suddenly move from New York to Silicon Valley. Are, is relocation part of the comp package again?

[00:13:54] Yes, it is. But I do think that for the companies that you just referenced there, drew those larger public companies. That's less about being in HQ and it's more about being in a central hub of which, you know, do, does somebody need to move from New York to San Francisco?

[00:14:08] Probably not, but because they've got two huge offices in each of those locations. Right. Um, but will they spend a lot of time traveling? You bet. Right. But, um, but yeah, for, for, you know, uh, a non. Insert big city HQ company that is looking for somebody. Yeah. Relocation becomes a massive part of this. And, and Jacob and I actually Drew, were talking about this the other day 'cause Yeah,

[00:14:30] yeah.

[00:14:30] That's

[00:14:30] some of the comp packages he's putting together. I was like, I need to work with you for this.

[00:14:34] Yeah. Well, and by the way, I just read his latest Substack post on it, which is why it's so top of mind. Uh,

[00:14:40] yeah.

[00:14:40] If you're not following Jacob Warwick on Substack 'cause he's off LinkedIn. Uh, I highly encourage you to find him and follow him.

[00:14:46] Uh, very interesting post on, comp and relocation and what he called it. Relocation lifestyle. Mm-hmm. Some, a real, yeah. Uh, anyway, was very interesting approach to getting your, uh, a severance package higher because of. Not only changing market, but you're changing your life and you're walking away from a lot of stuff.

[00:15:04] So in interesting, fascinating stuff. I interrupted you.

[00:15:07] Yeah, because on the, on the, on the process perspective,

[00:15:10] yes,

[00:15:11] we've all got, like, clients have gotten smarter. We've all figured out what did and didn't work over the last few years as we've blended that in person and zoom, et cetera. And people have, enough, companies have gone through enough hiring cycles to, to iron out the kinks, shall we say.

[00:15:24] I'm seeing far more streamlined processes, which is really encouraging and people not having to take. Unnecessarily long amounts of time to make a decision, which is, which is great. You've got, within private equity firms, you've got very sophisticated internal teams that help as part of it, that work with search firms like, mine and, and others.

[00:15:40] And then even in vc, they've, you know, been building networks and networks and networks of CMO talent, CRO talent, HR talent, et cetera, that they can leverage, in tandem with working with, with search firms or, or other recruiting firms as well. It's still really important that you as, as people in the market when you're having conversations and all of this is so painfully obvious, but you'd be amazed how how often people miss it is, you know, you are, should be doing as much diligence on them as they are doing on you.

[00:16:06] Like they will be back channeling you, from the get go and you should be doing the same thing because. Whether you are guilty of it or not, CMOs have this reputation of being jumpy. And even if you've not been jumpy, or even if you have been at companies that have been acquired or or however it may be, it's on you to make sure that where you land, you're gonna think of it as a three to five year period, not as a one to two year run.

[00:16:29] Interesting. I think that's so fascinating and that yet somehow, They're worried about jumpy yet the likelihood is they're the ones who are gonna pull the cord at 17 months.

[00:16:39] I agree, drew, but again, for them it's like, okay, well it, it didn't work. Or maybe we actually wanted a bias towards product marketing and we had someone who was really strong in demand generation.

[00:16:48] You know, to them it doesn't make a difference 'cause they can then just bring somebody else in. and unfortunately, marketeers then become the victims of that, right? Whether it's fair or not, it's a completely different topic of conversation, but the processes has evolved and making sure that you as a candidate are doing your diligence, not just on the people, but the investors, the company, the they.

[00:17:08] Again, there's probably been enough marketeers that would've come and gone from that business, understand why, and take it with the right context as well.

[00:17:14] Yeah, I, on the due diligence, there's no doubt this back channel is happening. And just a reminder, if anybody, uh, any of you are new to the transition team at Smil Huddles, we have something called the Huddle Buddies Playbook.

[00:17:25] And step one is to go, uh. Pretty broad on your network for, direct reports, uh, level and bosses and so forth. Anybody that might be connected with you and might be contacted by someone else, you might as well beat 'em first and find out what the heck they're gonna say about you. Uh, and, uh, hopefully it will be positive and, and, and reconnect with those folks for a number of reasons.

[00:17:48] But yeah. It is, uh, that's just fundamental because you, you are gonna do it. What are the candidates doing? And you're, you're seeing on their side to increase their odds of landing. The job. I mean, I know that there's still this, and you and I have talked about this before, this sort of perfect match, unicorn fit, six by six, whatever.

[00:18:11] Right? And that's key. And you can't, if you don't have the experience that they're looking for, the size of growth of the experience, you're not gonna be able to do it. But let's say you have those and there are three other candidates who do, what are the candidates that are landing doing that somehow is different than, than the others?

[00:18:28] The thing that always stands out to, to myself and to my colleagues is the interest level from candidates. And I know that might sound silly, but follow up notes doing things that are slightly unprompted to Drew. It's, it's not about, you mentioned, you know, do you offer to redesign their go to market motions or the marketing organization, but.

[00:18:45] Even just sharing with the CEO, what you've learned throughout the process at various points there, there's a balancing act here because if you do that too much, it can come across in the wrong way. but when you can demonstrate excitement appropriately and lean in with data, with suggestions, with ideas, even if they might be.

[00:19:04] Ones that, that are risky. I, I think that can give you a very, very competitive edge because it just demonstrates to not just the CEO, but to the entire organization or the board or the investors. Look, this person is clearly very interested and excited and it's coming across authentically and not, like, it's not too much, it's not over the top.

[00:19:22] they're really leaning in and that's what we want to hear, because. They, they want that in the market. that has been something that some people do incredibly well, some people don't do and just don't think about doing. but it goes a very, very long way, especially from a VC and a PE standpoint.

[00:19:38] Yeah, I've, I've been, I wasn't in a fraternity or a sorority, but it's sorority rush if they don't believe you wanna be in that with them, of them all the time. so you really do have to commit. I wonder so. We talk about with this framing of hypotheses, 'cause that's a very scientific thing.

[00:19:56] Does that language resonate where you, you, you know, you're going back to the CEO and say, I have three hypotheses that if they are accurate or that I would wanna work with you to prove Yeah. that framing helps.

[00:20:08] That framing helps, or based on the conversation that I had with Jane Smith, Jane Smith on the finance side and John Smith on the product side, like, I can already spot a mismatch here.

[00:20:18] Or, and, and you don't just have to be a yes person in this regard to say that everything's great, you know, call something out when it's not working. Because at the end of the day, if, if you're calling out something very blatantly obvious that's not working, or that seems highly dysfunctional, and you then get pushback on that and it terminates you as a candidate, then it's probably a blessing, not a problem, because you were the one that was gonna be headed in that direction.

[00:20:38] and taking that on that responsibility and clearly not being able to fix it yet your head would be on the chopping block. the hypothesis scenario, drew is a really good one because it doesn't then just mean that you are. Thinking through one tunnel way of, Hey, here's what I've heard, and this is the only thing that I'm gonna drive home.

[00:20:53] It's potentially these various, several issues or areas or opportunities. I shouldn't just use the negative connotations here, um, for growth inside the organization, or what I'm hearing is that there's better alignment with sales than their own is with product. But insert x.

[00:21:11] Okay. Um, we did have a question about East Coast, west Coast, and I know you're focused on tech, so I'm imagining that the opportunities you're seeing are more West Coast, but I don't wanna presume.

[00:21:23] No, I mean, it, it's broad. We've got, lots of East coast work right now, but I'm always gonna see more of a critical mass here because that's where I am. But I will work on West, I work on east coast searches, I'll work on international searches. New York is definitely picking up more and more and more as a hub, and we're, even from our European colleagues, hearing a lot more about we need a US based executive for this business.

[00:21:46] And from a time zone standpoint, the West coast is not going to work. So who do you know from a growth marketing standpoint in New York? So it, it's, it is an exciting time in that regard. but historically it's been. That a lot of the talent is here, but there's, there's been a massive boom from a New York and a Boston and a DC standpoint over the last five to 10 years, which is really exciting.

[00:22:08] So it's fairly balanced, candidly.

[00:22:09] We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back.

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[00:23:04] Hope to see you in a huddle soon.

[00:23:06] so we've talked about the enthusiasm, the interest, the genuine interest or the perception of genuine interest. And, and I think, Know, a lot of candidates are on the fence about a job. At a certain point in time, they might have seen a red flag and so forth. And, I have sort of always believed that you gotta get yourself to the mindset where you can get to an offer.

[00:23:27] some feel that's not true because gee, if you know early on you don't wanna, don't get an offer. I'm just curious, this balance of. I don't find it hard to generate interest or, I know a lot of folks can, I'm not gonna say feign, but they can get excited about a market, a challenge because it's a market, it's a challenge.

[00:23:45] but they may or may not be truly interested. How important is faking getting the offer versus legitimately uh You know what I'm saying?

[00:23:55] The conflict that, that somebody like myself would have here is that. Success to me doesn't just look like how quickly someone can be and see, and they've got their offer and they've started at the company.

[00:24:05] It's actually how are they doing in one to two, to three to four years time at that business. That's what's more important. It's, quality over quantity scenario. The biggest hiccup I see with, getting to the offer part is once you get to an offer stage. You see real numbers in front of you. I think as human beings we can naturally be very enthusiastic and, and that can actually cloud potential judgment on, okay, am I just excited because of the offer or am I actually excited because of the people I've met through the process, the company, the opportunity, the growth potential.

[00:24:39] I would rather have an issue with a client and not be at an offer than get to an offer where somebody accepts and then in six months that they're out the door. candidly, but that's, my way of thinking about it. 'cause we have to balance, obviously the candidate side versus the client side. What's really important as a marketeer, you know, you're getting outta bed every morning. You should be passionate about what you're marketing and what you're taking to market and, and how you're talking about the products, the business, the services, the people you work with, et cetera. the offer is critical.

[00:25:05] Like anybody that says it's not is that's not true. Like of course it is. but. I, I'm less on your side, drew on that one, just because, you know, I saw this firsthand all the way through COVID where people just saw these dollars and cents, symbols, and a lot of those people, two years later, three years later, four years later, are not of those businesses anymore.

[00:25:26] Right. and just so I, I think. One thing is clear is that if you can't express passion through your actions for the opportunity, you're not gonna get the job right. Correct. That is, that is a deal breaker. So, but I'm also, I'm not advocating in any way that you take a job because you gotta, oh, of course not.

[00:25:45] Right. but you can't get the offer unless. You go after it, as if this was the best job in the world for you. Yeah. That's different. That's different than accepting the offer,

[00:25:57] correct? Right.

[00:25:59] But it's a balance because if you come across. Too excited or too eager in, in the uk I'd you'd say too keen

[00:26:06] right?

[00:26:07] That that won't land either and that will Look, the parallels to dating in what we do is massive, right? In what I do rather in terms of, you know, you need to show interest. If you show too much interest, does that put the person off? Um, if you show no interest, even if you like them, like how do you read those mixed signals?

[00:26:21] it really is a bit of a, a dating dance that we're doing here and

[00:26:25] right.

[00:26:25] Within any job. It's also like buying a house. There are trade offs. There's no perfect job, there's no perfect company. There's always something that, oh, it's, you know, it's got a smaller kitchen or it's not southern facing. You know, being realistic is, is important too.

[00:26:39] that's probably better articulated towards a client candidly than sometimes a candidate. but yeah, it's, it's a real balancing act.

[00:26:47] So other than being too keen or not keen at all, are there other characteristics that sort of quietly kill candidates, opport chance of getting a job in the process?

[00:27:02] I can't put a finger on something specific Drew, because Investing the time to go to where the client is. Ideally it's somewhere local, you know, doing those things in person, having those conversations. getting ahead of some of the referencing that you mentioned, drew, it may be, look, this is not formal referencing, but I'm very excited about this company.

[00:27:19] Um, if you want a, a good perspective on how I work with sales, please talk to this sales leader or sometimes offering up that impromptu information will go a really long way. You don't have to even do that with the. The company specifically, but to the. Recruiting partner that you're marketing, whoever that may be.

[00:27:38] Like, it's things like that that can just help because we're doing that anyway, so why not get ahead of it.

[00:27:43] Right. It's funny, I, I immediately channeling Brent Adamson make buying easier. So yeah. If you can serve up references for them, in a broad level of them,

[00:27:54] yeah.

[00:27:56] Being as, being as transparent with whoever again you're working with from a comp standpoint and having those conversations early as well.

[00:28:03] Because the worst thing that can happen is, you know, you fall in love with the company, the company falls in love with you, but you've never had the comp discussion and you're just, thinking completely differently in that regard. And that's never an ideal situation as well.

[00:28:15] Let's talk comp, uh, trends, at least.

[00:28:18] up, down, sideways, you know, a year ago, I asked this question of a recruiter and they said it's not ageism, it's wages, and that that was a lot of. Push to drive CMO, uh, down. And then of course you read Jacob's thing and he is, you know, placing seven figure or negotiating seven figure packages for CMOs.

[00:28:40] So what's going on in comp right now?

[00:28:43] I mean, comp seems to be fairly similar to, to last year. Drew, I would say I've not seen like a, a fundamental shift as of yet, to be honest. Again, it depends on who you're working with. Private equity are always gonna want to, you know, in any function if they can do it a bit more efficiently than they would try to do that.

[00:29:00] being as upfront, like I mentioned, with whomever you're working with about your quote unquote expectations. 'cause that's legally what we have to ask for. not just about where you've been most recently, but where you were prior to that and where you want to be. the issue that I hear about a lot within the marketing world is that.

[00:29:14] And I've had this recently with a lot of candidates just say, oh, well, I put it into chat, GPT, like how much, how much money should I be making at a $200 million venture by I don't trust that as much, candidly. there are so many factors that will determine the difference between, you know, that three 50 versus that $400,000 base, for example.

[00:29:30] and so having conversations. Within your community is really important, but I think also take it with a grain of salt. at the same time, you know, I'm happy to talk about comp with anybody offline when appropriate as well. Of And just be conscious that when you're going into private equity, when you're going into venture, even if you're going into technology, public companies right now, like stocks are down, that's probably a good thing, candidly, versus people that went during the, the boom years at the top of the market.

[00:29:56] Right? how long has the. PE firm been involved. when was the last round of, of venture funding? What does the cap table look like? You know, these are questions that might be daunting to a lot of folks because you don't know what they mean, but you should. You have every right to ask all of them candidly, and it's your opportunity to play the ignorant card in the right way.

[00:30:14] Every job spec has to have a range, but they're so broad that right. It's not that helpful. And the problem is whenever anybody puts a range, or even if you were to share with me, here's my range of comp. No one looks at the lower end of it.

[00:30:25] You automatically always go to the high end, of what you, you see in that jd. so it is. I understand why it's done and it's important to build transparency, but it's vague transparency, which is the, the annoying part there.

[00:30:37] From an equity standpoint, uh, this is an area that I have no experience in.

[00:30:42] Are you seeing equity packages, particularly with PE firms? 'cause you know, the expectations of, uh, 9, 9 6, or some kind of extraordinary commitment, in terms of time and and energy to help them get to their next level? I would think that. Some kind of equity is an important part of the comp these days.

[00:31:03] Oh, equity is where, you know, that's where the real money is. Absolutely. it's impossible to say, Hey, here's what your equity should be. It will depend on the size, the stage of the business. but if equity's not a part of it, do not enter the conversation.

[00:31:16] Are there some other things that they, uh, the folks listening could sort of take aways in terms of helping them evaluate and, uh, approach the equity conversation?

[00:31:28] it's so hard because even every PE firm will analyze equity differently the way that they do it. I, I mean, for context, in 2021 to 2023, I remember when we were giving offers, some PE firms would even demonstrate through spreadsheet, through PowerPoints, here's what this equity looks like at, and they would start at 15 x.

[00:31:49] And go to 20. the good news is, is, you know, we've all corrected and it's now, look, this is what the equity would be worth at 1.52, 2.53. this is that point where you have every, every right to ask the dumb questions, candidly, especially if you're not coming from a private equity environment. But that's why getting as much financial information upfront as possible, look.

[00:32:12] Where is the company from a profitability standpoint? What is their EBITDA margins? What are they thinking about from a rule of X? Like how are they operating? They are all very, very healthy financial indicators as to business performance, which will fundamentally drive how they think about what the equity.

[00:32:30] Will be worth at either acquisition or event, et cetera. And then it's also important from a venture perspective to think about what's happening from a public company market standpoint. We are far past the days of your $150 million VC backed public company, IPO, those companies won't happen anymore.

[00:32:47] When you look at what happened last year with the likes of SalePoint and ServiceTitan and et cetera, these are all net scope. These are all six, seven, $800 million revenue businesses, and that seems to be more of the golden standard from a number perspective for IPO. But you've also got a lot of bigger businesses like a.

[00:33:02] Zendesk, that's, you know, X billion and they're private, what's their next play? So just being aware of that and you will always be sold on, look, this is the growth opportunity and we're gonna IPO, but we're a hundred million dollars. Just try and unpack that and, and that's important to, to drill into.

[00:33:19] As a champion of ce uh, CMOs.

[00:33:22] That's all I do. Help hustlers win. Yeah. it's PE firms have made it very hard to love them. I have a long list of, of issues. Um, one is the tenure, two is. The constant fact that, oh, we just spent a hundred million dollars buying this company at 12 x earnings and we're gonna squeeze the CMO by 30% on their comp package.

[00:33:46] and, That the notion that CMOs are just like, like Lego blocks, take one out, put another one in, and that the time spent and invested doesn't have value to the company. so help me see beyond that to some positive stories of CMOs that you've placed at PE firms that are having good experiences.

[00:34:08] 'cause I know these are your clients and so. Clearly you must have something good to say about them.

[00:34:12] Oh, no, I've got lots of good things to say about them. when I started working, when I moved out here, what, 10 years ago, and trying to engage with individuals 10 years ago about private equity. It's very different from today, I think.

[00:34:24] Look, the beauty of private equity in this day and age is. You can have meaningful impact incredibly quickly because you could argue that you live and die by the numbers in the same way that a sales team does. so you can really quickly demonstrate, Hey, here's what's working. Here's not what's working, and drive fast, quick, meaningful, and actionable impact in a way that maybe that was harder to demonstrate 10 years ago.

[00:34:47] And if you think about. Acquisition is a big event. That's a great win for anybody. And there's lots of acquisitions that are gonna happen this, in this AI world that we're in today as well. There's gonna be more and more and more of it. just look at cybersecurity and what that means. That's huge. You can also make significant amounts of money in private equity too, and I think that's one of the reasons why people like doing that.

[00:35:05] What we're seeing a lot at the moment is the big PE firms have also. You know, let's say something does happen to A CMO or a CRO within their, portco, they're not looking to just shift that person out. It's like, well, where does this person best fit inside our broader portfolio? And so we're, we're seeing this being done across a lot of the big PE firms.

[00:35:25] So if sometimes if you're going into one PE firm for a portco, you end up. In 3, 4, 5 years time, you know, in a, in an operating partner standpoint or, working across various different portfolios that they might have too. And, and that's been really encouraging to see candidly, because it keeps you like centralized and it keeps you in a home base in a way that it never used to before.

[00:35:44] so I, I, I do get excited by it. Drew, I mean. I don't think it's necessarily them looking just at this one function. I'm sure they do it with other functions too. I just can't articulate that because I'm not spending my time with anything else other than with marketeers. and again, it just all comes back to the back channeling that you're doing 'cause they're doing on you.

[00:36:02] Like, what research are you doing on them and, and finding out about.

[00:36:06] And I certainly do know a number of CMOs who've worked for six. They've figured out how to manage a particular PE, system, if you will, and made it work and gone from portfolio company to portfolio company and done very well and had, yeah, exits as you say, I feel like.

[00:36:22] For every one of those, there are 10 that didn't have that experience. But you're telling me it's not that bad?

[00:36:29] I, I don't think, yeah, I don't think it's as high as that. You, I think it could be that that situation of, you know, you hear about all the divorces, but you never hear about your, like, as happily married couples, if that makes sense.

[00:36:38] it's not as, the news isn't as interesting in, in a horrible way. Right. Um, but there are a lot of people that are just doing very well and, and have really figured it out. How to operate within. And by the way, just 'cause it works at Vista doesn't mean that it might work at Toma Bravo, that it might work at KKR because again, every and even the way that a, PE firm might analyze a marketeer could be completely different to the way the CEO analyzes a marketeer.

[00:37:02] And so that's your first boss, that person there. So remember that, that that comes onto reporting structure and that's a different topic of conversation 'cause that then puts you in wherever you are from a pecking order standpoint. But, I, I still love working within private equity and in this day and age where you as marketeers can have such quick, meaningful impact.

[00:37:19] And then none of these PE firms have got a AI playbook ready to deploy from a marketing standpoint. So anything that you have that you've seen, that you've demonstrated that's worked, that's gonna be incredibly exciting. And imagine if you are in portfolio company X and you do. What you can do with ai and that works.

[00:37:38] Like why would they not want to then roll that out more broadly? And that's just, it's huge opportunity for, for the marketeers, in this day and age.

[00:37:45] This is an open call to all you CMOs who have, had three positive experiences working for a p back firms.

[00:37:54] Give me a, you know, shoot me an email, drew@cmodels.com. I wanna hear from you. Uh, that's part one. You use the term quick, meaningful impact. I'm really curious what you're seeing and what that looks like because most of the time. When a new CMO goes in, something is seriously broken with the entire go to market, there is not a quick fix that marketing can suddenly do a demand gen campaign and change that.

[00:38:22] There's an issue with customer, you know, it's rare that this is just the last marketer didn't know how to market and a new one comes on and it's changes some dials and boom gets that quick impact. Yeah. So what are you, what, what do you mean when you say quick impact? what are, what are you seeing?

[00:38:38] Well look, if you unpack that, it's what is the context of why this hire is being made and let's say for argument's sake, drew per you. It's because, you know, the previous marketeer wasn't able to get traction. They were let go. I think one of the ones that we hear the most is, look, you know, we're where we can account based marketing.

[00:38:55] How do we think about our messaging and our positioning? what I mean by quick meaningful is in this day and age, you can have more, faster impact than you've been able to have previously in this function. quick, meaningful impact could be something in terms of just getting better alignment across an organization for marketing, with product, with sales like you as the marketeer, you are that bridge between those two functions.

[00:39:16] it could be better traction and engagement with your customer base. Feeding that back into the product roadmap. There's, there's so many things. It doesn't have to be business tangible results, but there is that opportunity too. but understanding the context of, of why the change is happening and usually with marketing.

[00:39:32] Because of how all of you have grown up, you've typically probably got a bias in one marketing area over the other. And so it's natural for whenever you replace somebody in that seat, they skewed more heavily towards product marketing. But as a result, like the, the pipeline was not as well defined or.

[00:39:48] Things were being lost at this part of the process. Right. You know, it, it's, it's playing to your strengths and, that's where just even because it's such a broad function, you can have meaningful impact quite quickly because of where your strengths are. Vis-a-vis where the previous CMOs, uh, weaknesses were.

[00:40:05] Yes. And most of the things that you described did not look at do, do may or may not have three six month impact on, say, pipeline revenue. Close rate, time that you got to participate in RFPs. And so that's the part that I see is the disconnect is yeah. Right? And what I see and hear is that this conversation, and as you should not be in the position of having to defend it, always comes down to pipeline and close rates and cost per acquisition.

[00:40:38] That's the conversations not 'cause. Look, if we're misaligned and we create better alignment, then suddenly our, our whole motions are gonna change and be better and more effective. That won't show up in an enterprise. That won't have an impact for nine months.

[00:40:52] It'll, it'll take, yeah, it'll take time, but it.

[00:40:54] That can still, I mean, nine months, if you're there for four or five years, you know that that's still quicker than it would've been 5, 6, 7, 8 years ago. Right. I think that that's where I am kind of messaging.

[00:41:05] Got it. And, and by the way. All of this, my rant has nothing to do with what the reality of this marketplace is, and I think it's really important that the CMOs are listening to this, listen to you more than they're listening to me.

[00:41:19] In the sense that you put people into jobs, you have seen them get jobs, and it feels like the mindset that you're describing is I as a candidate, need to be able to demonstrate that I can have a very quick impact. Much faster than I could before, and I have a hypothesis about where this impact will happen and here are the things that we might be able to do together to make that happen.

[00:41:42] I, I feel like that's pretty clear.

[00:41:45] Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:41:47] Okay. excellent. I want to. Ask you to try to do something on the fly here, which is if you could sort of provide three key takeaways that you would want every candidate who's in. Transition to think about, uh, or would've taken away from this conversation.

[00:42:06] you can take a second if you wanna think about those three key takeaways for CMOs right now who are looking for their next opportunity.

[00:42:15] First thing is, is the diligence component. Drew. Um, it sounds so obvious, but again, like doing your diligence. Not just saying yes to the first thing that comes your way.

[00:42:24] If it's the right thing, then that's okay, but why are you saying yes to this? it's really important. Showing up in the right way throughout an interview process goes an incredibly long way. That would be the second, Being authentic and not over enthusiastic. Again, I'm British, so like anybody that's overly enthusiastic, we're just naturally skeptical of.

[00:42:41] so there's that balance. So the diligence, the process perspective, would be the first two things. And then I think the third what are you doing outside of, you know, your day to day, to get smart in. the AI technology that exists in this function, and how are you deploying it? How are you using it?

[00:42:57] How are you utilizing it? I think that will make meaningful, impact in your process, in your candidacy. And the fourth thing is how are you showing up? Like, think about how you look online on your LinkedIn. How, how does it look? What fractional work are you doing or not doing, and how are you demonstrating that or not demonstrating that?

[00:43:14] I think one of the biggest things to, that people overlook is how their profile may appear to be online. And, the last part is how are you utilizing your own network as part of the conversations that you're having?

[00:43:25] I love it. Alright, those are amazing takeaways. Boom. Do your homework. Two show up authentically.

[00:43:31] Three. what are you doing that's really making that you could walk in and say, and I've seen some CMOs who got jobs, did a incredible AI analysis, uh, in, showed it in in real time. That was. Potentially transformative for that organization. make sure your online presence is looking good and use the heck outta your network.

[00:43:51] Hugh Marshall, he and struggles. Hugh, where can people find you?

[00:43:55] ahead. LinkedIn's probably easiest, or Thehy website, of course, but I'm in San Francisco. I love the in-person conversations as well. and when I'm fortunate enough to attend any of Drew's events, I, I will always be there, but otherwise I'm in the city and then on the peninsula very regularly.

[00:44:12] I love it. Okay. Make sure that, uh, the, uh, CMO super huddle, October 22nd, 23rd is on your calendar. Hugh, um, thank you again for joining us here.

 

Drew: If you're a B2B CMO and you want to hear more conversations like this one, find out if you qualify to join our community of sharing, caring, and daring CMOs at cmohuddles.com.

Show Credits

Renegade Marketers Unite is written and directed by Drew Neisser. Hey, that's me! This show is produced by Melissa Caffrey, Laura Parkyn, and Ishar Cuevas. The music is by the amazing Burns Twins and the intro Voice Over is Linda Cornelius. To find the transcripts of all episodes, suggest future guests, or learn more about B2B branding, CMO Huddles, or my CMO coaching service, check out renegade.com. I'm your host, Drew Neisser. And until next time, keep those Renegade thinking caps on and strong!